In the 1980s, one of the values advanced to distinguish the field of design from the sciences and the humanities was empathy. Since then it has become an important theme in design practice, research, and education. Insights from philosophy and cognitive science, however, suggest that empathy has become a design ideology rather than a principle suitable for judging the value of design solutions in some situations – for some end-users and some aspects of their experience. When it is applied in design, two important steps tend to be skipped: an ethical and a perspectival one. Assessing its suitability, we hypothesise, has much to gain theoretically and practically from accounting for the role of embodiment in the process of developing empathy.

在1980年代，将设计领域与科学和人文学科区分开来的一种价值观是同理心。从那时起，它已成为设计实践，研究和教育中的重要主题。然而，来自哲学和认知科学的见解表明，同情已成为一种设计意识形态，而不是适用于某些情况下（对于某些最终用户及其经验的某些方面）判断设计解决方案价值的原则。当将其应用到设计中时，往往会跳过两个重要步骤：道德和透视。我们假设，评估其适用性在解释同情心在发展同情过程中的作用方面，在理论上和实践上都有很大的收获。