On the Value of Empathy to Inter-Religious Relations: A Case Study Based on the Thought of Charles Hartshorne

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This essay succeeds in demonstrating that "a theological conception of empathy can go beyond the framework constructed in psychology and transform it into something that has unequivocally positive value for interreligious dialogue" (Abstract). 

Superb scholarship. 

Publish as is. 

 

Author Response

Here is the revised manuscript. Thank you very much!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review of “On the Value of Empathy to Interreligious Relations: A Case Study based on the Theology of Charles Hartshorne”

Religions

This is an interesting, original, and generally clear paper, based on a good grasp of the literature, and, once some minor revisions are made, Religions should publish it. The thesis is that there is an account of empathy in the work of the important but not widely cited theologian Charles Hartshorne, and this account of empathy could be useful for inter-religious relations, and I judge that the paper is convincing.  Below is a list of suggested revisions to the paper, but none of them is serious.

1.       Though it is fair to call Hartshorne a theologian, he was not a Christian theologian (or even a Christian, I don’t think), and the paper should probably make that clear.

2.       That authors are “willing to hypothesize that empathy may be a positive element in religious integration and dialogue” (like 140). That empathy may be a positive element in inter-religious relations seems obvious, and so I wonder whether the authors want to make the paper’s thesis sound more interesting. On a related note, the abstract opens with the claim that empathy “may increase prejudice and conflict,” and I thought that his sounded like a phony problem. Half way through the paper, the way that empathy can lead to partiality is explained, and then I understood the issue, but since the problem was not obvious to me (and was quickly solved), I wondered whether the authors might change the abstract to say something like: the paper will explain how conceptual problems might be avoided.

3.       I did not follow this sentence: “Schmidt-Leukel actually acknowledges a distinction between self-identity and others’ (line 135). I was not sure whether this sentence was referring to a distinction between self and others, or between identifying with one’s own interest as opposed to identifying with the interests of others, or something else. But, however it is meant, this seems like a very obvious and common distinction, and so I could not see why it was worthy of note that PSL actually acknowledges it.

4.       The paper says: “In process metaphysics, …” (239) but it should probably say “In Whiteheadian process metaphysics…” just to recognize that Heraclitus and Hegel and Bergson and Deleuze might also be counted as process philosophers.

5.       The paper says: “Hartshorne would not make such a clear division between altruism and egoism as Batson has done” (256). To avoid the sense that Hartshorne overlooks the obvious distinction between altruism and egoism, I would say instead something like: “Hartshorne would not make such a clear division between altruism and egoism – in fact, he seeks to undermine that common distinction.

6.       I could not tell wither the following sentence was an idea by Stephen Post or a critique of Post by the authors: “This idea derives from knowledge of God’s love, which is frequently described analogically as “parental love” even though God’s love transcends the boundaries of kinship and is directed rather to the Creation at large” (line 211).

The following suggestions are merely grammatical:

7.       This sentence: “They find that three main types of empathy- empathetic concern, perspective taking and fantasy abilities correlate positively with spirituality, but negatively with fundamentalism” should be written not with one hyphen, but with two M-dashes, like this: “They find that three main types of empathy – empathetic concern, perspective taking, and fantasy abilities – correlate positively with spirituality, but negatively with fundamentalism.”  The authors should also replace the hyphens in line 158 and 381 with an M-dash or a colon.

8.       To avoid the possible reading that Maibom was in an empathetic state, I would add the word “that” here: “Maibom suggests that, in an empathetic state, an agent…” (line 80).

9.       Citations are given in different forms. For example, footnote 3 includes both parenthetical citations and a full title: “Paul Fiddes advocated God’s sympathetic love from time to time in his discussion of God’s creative suffering. (Fiddes, 1992, pp. 17, 20-22, 45-46, 68-75, 136, etc.) Another example is Edward Farley’s Divine Empathy: A Theology of God.”

10.   “Buddhism-Christian” (line 365) should be two adjectives. “Universalism” (387) should also be an adjective.

Author Response

Attached is my response to reviewer 2 comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf