both one’s own beliefs and the state of affairs in the world. This ability has
been traditionally thought to develop fully around the age of four, when
children can give correct answers about others’false beliefs (which was
interpreted as an indication of its dependence of conceptual development).
However, non-verbal tests showed recently thatfifteen-month-old infants are
already able to attribute false beliefs to others (Baillargeon et al., 2010). A fully
developed model of the simulation theory includes the following steps
(Goldman & Shanton, 2016): (1) creating a set of initial states that are thought
to correspond to the observed circumstances (such as imagining wearing a
blindfold); (2) feeding these initial conditions into the mind’s“operating
system”and letting it generate a further mental state (not seeing people and
objects around oneself); (3) reading these“outputs”and projecting them onto
the target (the observed person does not see objects and people). Arguably, a
further step (4) involves making inferences from these attributions, such as the
conclusion that the observed person’s turning his head toward an object does
not indicate an interest in it.
Empathy and Theory of Mind can be seen as related concepts, the notion of
empathy putting an emphasis on the element of“sharing”as well as the
emotional component of the shared mental state. Here we follow a recent
neuroscientific account of empathy put forward by Jean Decety. The model
outlined by Decety in several publications (e.g., Decety, 2007; Decety &
Hodges, 2011) includes of the following elements:^3
(1)Affective sharingmeans that emotions are imitated spontaneously (also
known as“emotion contagion”).
(2)Self-awarenessensures that distinction is made between one’s own
emotions and others’emotions.
(3)Emotion regulationprevents affective sharing from taking over the
empathizing person’s behavior.
(4)Empathic concernmeans motivation to care for another’s welfare.
(5)Perspective takingis needed to contextualize the emotion—that is, to
understand what a certain emotional state means in another person.Biblical law is replete with humanitarian concern toward the poor, the
immigrant, the orphan, and the widow. As Thomas Kazen (2012,
pp. 95–114, 2013) argued, these laws rely on empathy to a great degree. The
text often refers to Israelites’experience of slavery and oppression in Egypt as a
motivation:“For you were aliens in the land of Egypt”(Exod. 23:9);“Remem-
ber that you were a slave in the land of Egypt”(Deut. 24:18, 22). Without going
goal-directed action, infants pay more attention than to the repetition of some other action.
Infants also choose toys that they think someone reached toward with a goal.
(^3) In some versions of Decety’s model only 1, 4, and 5 are mentioned. However, it seems
important to make the role of self-awareness and emotion regulation explicit.
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