Mirror neurons and empathy: a neuroscientific foundation for morality?

The object-matter of this essay is empathy, conceived of as a mechanism which allows us access to moral experience. Within this framework, two main aims are pursued. The first one is to examine what empathy looks like as a component of a psychological theory and to compare it with the neuroscientific approach to empathy which has been adopted in recent decades owing to the discovery of mirror neurons. As to the second aim, attention is paid to the question whether empathy should be viewed as a complete foundation of morality, that is to say as a necessary and sufficient condition of it.