Rage against the Empathy Machine Revisited: The Ethics of the Empathic
Affordances of Virtual Reality
Abstract
Virtual reality (VR) has been designated as the “ultimate empathy
machine” due to its alleged ability to powerfully immerse users in
another’s perspective. As VR has attracted growing attention, criticism
of its alleged ‘empathic superpowers’ has also gained strength. Critics
have recently argued that the empathic-VR vision is ethically flawed
since it is misleading and denies non-communicable aspects of the Other.
Moreover, several scholars argue that VR empathy rhetoric in fact
exploits the marginalized targets of empathy, turning them to objects
“identity tourism” for the privileged.
The paper revisits these claims, arguing that they rely on empathy
notions that are dominant in traditional art-media, while overlooking
VR’s unique experiential affordances. Drawing on psychophysiological
evidence, it argues that the ethical significance of VR lies in the
unique ways in which it manipulates the user’s body scheme via
multisensory stimulation. These manipulations result in unprecedented
empathy-related perceptual and conceptual transformations whose ethical
implications require new ethical framing.