v13n2: Scharding and Warren on Empathetic Decisions
Posted: March 24, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment

“Empathetic Ethical Decision Making That Works” by Tobey K Scharding and Danielle E Warren
AN INVITED RESPONSE TO Bill Herman (2025), “Towards More Empathetic Ethical Reasoning,” Bus Ethics J Rev 12(1): 1–7, https://doi.org/10.12747/j1k04
Herman (2025) argues that decision makers should strive to empathize as fully as possible with parties affected by their decision making, considering parties’ actual beliefs and attitudes when possible. We discuss challenges to decision makers’ abilities to consider parties’ beliefs and attitudes in workplace decision making, specifically, research showing that workers are typically unwilling to share their beliefs and attitudes with managers. Applying our account of Intersubjective Reflection (Scharding and Warren 2023), we propose how a futuristic “Scanlon Machine” could leverage recent advances in artificial intelligence to address these challenges and promote empathetic decision making in organizations.
To download the full PDF, click here: Scharding and Warren on Herman on Empathy
Tobey K. Scharding is an Assistant Professor of Management & Global Business at Rutgers Business School–Newark & New Brunswick. Danielle E. Warren is Professor of Management & Global Business at Rutgers Business School–Newark & New Brunswick.


