From 'Empathic Design' to 'Empathic Engineering': Toward a Genealogy of Empathy in Engineering Education

In philosophy and psychology literature, empathy in general refers to 1) the ability to understand another person’s ideas and feelings; and 2) the inclination to feel emotionally responsive to, and act to alleviate, another person’s distressful experience. Until recently, however, discourses on “empathy” in engineering education are inspired primarily by “empathic design,” a concept that originated from market research and first gained popularity in the business world. This paper argues that the discourse of “empathic design” inadvertently advances an instrumentalist interpretation of empathy, one that ignores the depth and breadth of philosophical and psychological insights into empathy. The adoption of this instrumentalist, product-oriented conception of empathy exacerbates some persistent problems confronting engineering education, including a tendency to objectify the users of engineering products. Seeking to reconstruct empathy on the ground of philosophy and psychology literature, in this paper I begin to develop a genealogy of empathy in engineering education. The paper does this by tracing the discursive history of empathy in engineering education and in its discipline-based sub-communities (e.g., design and entrepreneurship). This genealogical survey also examines recent scholars’ efforts toward redefining empathy as an engineering competency, which lays the groundwork for envisioning “empathic engineering.” Champions of empathic engineering, taking advantage of knowledge developed in psychology and social work, link empathy to engineering students’ moral development and communication skills. Ultimately, empathic engineering aims at advancing objectives related to community needs, sustainability, and social justice. I assess the implications of the discursive migration from “empathic design” to “empathic engineering” for the identity formation of the engineering profession. Furthermore, I argue that the movement toward “empathic engineering” suggests the potential for overcoming a narrowly-defined, instrumentalist, and product-oriented conception of empathy. As an example, I suggest two alternative conceptions of empathy in engineering: 1) empathy as a commitment to communicating and understanding across different cultural and epistemic communities; and 2) empathy as a professional excellence for engineers.