YEAH, BUT IT'S ALL HIS FAULT:

I call this particular form of perspective taking--seeing things as they're seen from the perspective of someone in circumstances very different from your own, particularly someone on the other side of some cultural, national, or ethnic divide--"moral imagination." (That term has been defined various other ways by various other people, though no definition seems to have stuck).

There are several reasons I think the word "moral" is appropriate here, but for now I'll just mention one. I'm a utilitarian, more or less, which means I believe that, all other things being equal, that which increases overall human welfare is morally good. And what I'm calling moral imagination tends to increase human welfare.

That's because when two parties see things from each other's perspective, it's easier for them to successfully play non-zero-sum games--that is, games that don't necessarily have a win-lose outcome, but can have win-win or lose-lose outcomes, depending on how they're played. And the more successfully non-zero-sum games are played--the more win-win outcomes there are--the more human welfare will increase.

The Eurozone crisis is a good example of a non-zero-sum game. The various members of the union are to a large extent in the same boat: their future fortunes are to some degree positively correlated, and you can imagine scenarios where they all win and scenarios where they all lose.

Of course, the Eurozone crisis is far from the only non-zero-sum game in the headlines. There's Israel-Palestine, Iran-and-the-West, etc. In all such cases you can imagine outcomes that would be bad for both sides, and you can imagine alternatives that would be much better for both sides. And the latter, the win-win outcomes, are, I contend, easier to reach if moral imagination is exercised robustly.

But again--and this is the good news--that doesn't mean we need to see a lot of deep interethnic or international bonding. It isn't necessary for Israelis and Palestinians to get misty-eyed when they imagine each other's suffering (though that might help). What's necessary is that they understand the naturalness and reasonableness of, say, the Palestinian quest for dignity on the one hand, or Israeli fears about security on the other. They just need to understand, intellectually, that if they were in the shoes of that person on the other side of the fence, they would see the world much as the person does, and would behave accordingly, however jarring some of this behavior might seem to an outsider. I'm not saying this is easy, or that it involves no emotional work. But it's easier than loving someone you've thought of as an enemy for decades.

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