December 6, 2004

Sympathetic imagination

Just reading Bruce Prescott's blog this morning and ran across this. I have often wondered if the key thing that kids have to learn is the ability to have compassion for another person's experience. Bruce puts it pretty plainly as his definition for a conscience. I think that is very interesting. If more people had this, they might not park in handicapped spaces!

Mainstream Baptist: "A few years ago I wrote an essay with that title in which I defined conscience as the ability to put yourself in the place of others (in technical terms, sympathetic imagination) and look at yourself through the eyes of an Other (in technical terms, reflexive self-consciousness). I derived this definition from my exegesis for a sermon I gave on what some think is the central biblical text for an understanding of conscience -- 2 Corinthians 5:10-11 (I'll post that sermon and link to it Monday morning)."

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