A research announcement and conceptual orientation
Introduction
Empathy is routinely described as the ability to “put oneself in another’s shoes.” This metaphor, while intuitive, has quietly hardened into doctrine. Across psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind, empathy is treated as a function of imagination, simulation, and representational access.
A newly published research paper challenges this consensus.
Rather than asking how we imagine others, the paper asks a more fundamental question: how do we register another as morally real?
The Representational Bias in Empathy Research
The dominance of simulation theory has produced a representational bias in empathy science. Mental imagery, mirroring, and cognitive modeling are treated as prerequisites for moral engagement, while embodied and non-representational pathways are either ignored or misinterpreted.
This bias becomes visible when examining populations that do not rely on imagery or simulation, including individuals with panmodal aphantasia or structurally absent mirroring responses.
The paper argues that these cases are not anomalies, but existence proofs demonstrating that empathy does not require simulation.
From Simulation to Autopoietic Valuation
The paper introduces an alternative framework centered on direct somatic transduction and autopoietic valuation, in which moral recognition arises as a bodily, regulatory event rather than a representational one.
Key concepts include:
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Aneurothymia Spectrum: describing variations in affective generation independent of representational access
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Altrudynia: the experience of moral pain without imaginative mediation
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Amirroring: structural absence of mirroring without affective absence
Within this framework, empathy is not a cognitive performance but a physiological cost—a disturbance of internal equilibrium in response to another’s reality.
Implications for Sociopathy, Psychopathy, and Moral Classification
By disentangling simulation from valuation, the paper offers a structural explanation for why individuals with intact simulation capacities may exhibit moral indifference, while others with limited representational access experience profound moral burden.
This has implications for how sociopathy and psychopathy are interpreted—not as failures of imagination or theory of mind, but as failures of valuation architecture.
It also exposes why existing empathy measures systematically fail to distinguish between moral recognition and cognitive mimicry.
Access and Use
The paper is published as open-access research and may be cited, shared, and discussed freely.
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Zenodo (DOI, archival record): https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17943145
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Academia.edu (reader-accessible mirror): https://academia.edu/CristinaGherghelResearch
Keywords
Empathy · Moral Psychology · Aphantasia · Mental Imagery · Simulation Theory · Embodied Cognition · Neurophenomenology · Moral Valuation · Sociopathy · Psychopathy · Mirror Neurons · Theory of Mind · Altrudynia · Panmodal Aphantasia
Cristina Gherghel
Researcher | Theorist of Ontological Foreclosure, Specific Affective Absence, and Structural Consciousness
For complementary insights and further reading:
🔹 Panthropic Abuse and Ontological Nullness
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