ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that empathy is crucial, for certain types of caring, for moral judgment, and for aspects of moral and legal motivation. People commonly distinguish between cognitive empathy and affective empathy. For instance, the very distinction between cognitive and affective empathy appears to break down in the phenomenological tradition, where 'empathy' designates our ability to directly apprehend the mindedness of another. Even more direct approaches to social cognition must allow that much of our access to what others are going through is by inference from previous experience or through the imagination. The book shows how both emotional contagion and affective empathy characterize music appreciation. The ways that an artwork can affect us ranges over the whole gamut of reactive emotions: emotional contagion, affective empathy, cognitive empathy, sympathy, and personal distress.
