The Paradox of Negative Empathy

This article analyzes the paradox of negative empathy: empathy with what remains morally repugnant. It compares this paradox with the paradoxes of tragedy, horror, and painful art, while distinguishing it from the “sympathy for the devil” phenomenon. Drawing on a narrow version of Theodor Lipps’s notion of negative empathy, simulation theory, imaginative resistance, and examples ranging from Euripides and Shakespeare to Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier, it argues that empathy can coexist with moral revulsion without amounting to endorsement. This affective dissonance produces distinctive aesthetic knowledge and reflective pleasure by making the conflict between empathy and moral judgment intelligible.