Third reply: Rejecting the challenge

We have just seen that restrictivism is a reply to the unconscious matching challenge on a matching account of empathy that uses matching relation A. I turn now to a reply to this first challenge that is directed at matching accounts of empathy that use matching relation B, instead. When accurate empathy occurs on a matching account that employs matching relation B, an agent infers to (or represents) the content of a target’s emotional

challenge on such an account of empathy? Does such an account require that an agent also represent the content of a target’s unconscious emotional states for accurate empathy to occur? 34

The simple reply to the unconscious matching challenge in this case is “yes”. I have titled this reply to the unconscious matching challenge a “rejection” of the challenge because on a matching account that uses matching relation B, this challenge, in a sense, poses no challenge. A matching account that uses matching relation B can meet the unconscious matching challenge without amendment or qualification to the account. Accurate

empathy will simply occur when an agent represents the content of a target’s unconscious emotional states. For example, if a target has an unconscious emotional state of happiness (as in the new beverage drinking experiments), then an agent must represent that agent’s unconscious emotional state for accurate empathy to occur. On this reply, a researcher need not adopt eliminativism about unconscious emotions. Nor does the researcher need to restrict the set of explanatory entities to those consciously experienced. All an agent needs to be able to do for accurate empathy to occur is have a mental representation about the content of a target’s emotional experiences. However, a difficulty with this response is that it is unclear how an agent comes to represent the target’s unconscious emotional states.

I called this “rejection reply” simple. It is a simple reply because it rejects the

unconscious matching challenge by meeting it without change to the account. But its simplicity veils the complexities that arise from putting such an account of empathy into practice. The case of the beverage drinking experiment mentioned above was relatively straightforward. In that case, the agent was an experimenter, and the target was a participant in an experiment whose hypothesis was about the relationship between unconscious emotions and decisions to drink a beverage. In such a case, it is easy for the agent to hypothesize (and thus represent) the unconscious emotions that the target has because the agent has constructed the environment in which the agent and the target interact for the very purpose of proving this hypothesis. The agent (experimenter) has

34 _{See matching relation B} 2.

primed the unsuspecting target (participant) to have certain unconscious emotional states (e.g. unconscious happiness). Then the agent has inferred the relationship between these unconscious emotions and the behaviours of the target. Thus, the agent accurately empathizes with the target by forming an accurate representation of the target’s

unconscious emotional states. But an accurate match between an agent’s representations and the content of a target’s unconscious emotional states is not always so easily

achieved. Even in this experimental case, we might be skeptical of the claim that the experiment has successfully primed unconscious happiness.

Recall that the first reply—eliminativism—was considered on the grounds that (1) unconscious emotions are difficult to identify and trace, and (2) that they are not easily correlated with brain states. If a researcher maintains that unconscious emotions exist while espousing a matching-account of empathy (with matching relation B), then that researcher must also provide an account of how accurate empathy occurs in less artificial environments of agent / target interaction. An example of such an environment is one where the agent is a psychoanalyst and the target is a client. In this case, the agent may have the theoretical knowledge to identify a target’s unconscious emotional states and the skill to determine the connection between them and the target’s behaviour. However, in the best of cases, this requires that the agent and the target interact over an extended time. The agent must have a detailed familiarity with the particular target and how the

situations of their lives are affecting them. But this is not something that everyone is trained to do. As mentioned, specific education and skill are prerequisites for reliably and accurately representing the unconscious emotions of targets. And even then, there exists intense and ongoing theoretical disagreement between the various schools and sub- disciplines of psychoanalysis and psychiatry generally. How can an agent be sure that they are accurately representing the unconscious emotions of a target? Thus, the

unconscious matching challenge presents a serious epistemological problem for matching accounts of empathy.

Matching accounts have not sufficiently explored the problem of how an agent is able to reliably form representations of a target’s unconscious emotional states. Even

states generally have not required that participants have any special training in identifying the unconscious emotions of targets. For example, Icke’s “dyadic interaction paradigm” for measuring empathy is based on a matching account this type (Ickes & Tooke, 1988; Ickes et al. 1990; Stinson & Ickes, 1992).35

Briefly, it involves two participants

interacting for five minutes while unknowingly being videotaped. Then, the participants are asked to re-watch the video of their interaction several times noting at co-varying points what they (the agent) were thinking and feeling and what their interaction partner (the target) was thinking and feeling. When there is a match between what the agent takes the target to have been experiencing and what the target reports to have been

experiencing, a point is assigned to the agent for having accurately empathized with the target. Accordingly, such a matching account can meet the unconscious matching challenge as long as the agent is also able to accurately represent the content of the target’s unconscious emotional states.36 _{But without the relevant training, it is unlikely}

that this will occur frequently. Even in current dyadic interaction experiments where agents are limited by an experimenter’s instructions to inferring what targets are

consciously thinking a feeling, their empathic abilities vary widely (Ibid.). It follows that it will be even more difficult for an agent to accurately represent a target’s unconscious emotional states in environments (outside of a laboratory) where no such limits exist. For accurate empathy to occur on a matching-account (with matching relation B), agents must accurately represent both the conscious and the unconscious emotions of their interactions partners. Although such an account can reject the unconscious matching challenge outright, this reveals that its criteria for accurate empathy are stringent. They place a high demand on the abilities of agents to represent the content of a target’s unconscious states. And as we have seen, even in stable laboratory environments, such accurate representations are hard to come by.

35 _{In some studies, this paradigm has been used to measure therapist’s empathic ability (Ickes 1993).} 36 _{The target’s unconscious emotional states would have to be independently identified because the target} would not be conscious of them.