Reconceptualising empathy for an ethical approach to environmental decision-making

This theoretical paper reconceptualises empathy as an affective, embodied and relational process emerging through intra-actions between human and more-than-human worlds. In the context of the Anthropocene and escalating climate crisis, the paper argues that dominant understandings of empathy as an individualised, cognitive and human-centred capacity are insufficient for addressing the relational complexities of environmental decision-making. Drawing on posthuman and new materialist scholarship, the paper positions empathy not as a fixed property located within the human subject, but as an emergent process arising through embodied and affective encounters across ecological relations. The paper first critiques traditional psychological framings of empathy before developing a relational account grounded in entanglement, distributed agency and more-than-human ethics. It distinguishes empathy from relationality itself, arguing that relationality provides the ontological condition for connection, while empathy names the affective attunement that may emerge within these relations. From this perspective, empathy may shape how humans perceive and respond ethically within relations in which they are already entangled. The paper then explores the implications of this reconceptualisation for environmental ethics, education, governance and policy. Rather than claiming a direct causal pathway between empathy and environmental action, it argues that affective and embodied forms of empathy can reshape perception, attention and ethical responsiveness towards more-than-human worlds. Ultimately, the paper proposes that cultivating opportunities for relational empathy to emerge may support more ethically responsive approaches to climate decision-making and environmental futures.