Having Sympathies in Special Education: An Argument for the Refusal of Empathy

The commonsense view that understanding other people involves the use of a special faculty, that of empathy, has been endorsed by philosophers such as A. J. Watt and David Aspin. When the notion of empathy is extended to special education, as Aspin urges that it should be, then a preoccupation with the supposed special nature of the problems posed in empathising leads to the celebration of individual needs and compassion. The doctrine of compassion and the emphasis on the meeting of special needs, key features in some of the work of Mary Warnock, locates possibilities for action at the individual level and in the hands of expert professionals. It directs attention away from conflict and struggle in the arena of special education, and towards a consensual view of ‘need’. Involvement in conflict, solidarity with the subjects of special education in their causes, is seen in this paper as arising out of shared sympathies. The individual power relationship of compassion is rejected in favour of having sympathies with others. It is argued that empathy has its foundation in a misleading account of the relationship between imagination and understanding.