Marcel Duchamp and the Ethics of Empathy

Marcel Duchamp, 1887-1968

In a way, I wonder if the Dada artist Marcel Duchamp had it right by empathy?  To use Duchamp as an example of moral action may be surreal in itself, but as far as I know human beings do have the capability of empathy.  I think some other animals have that as well, but perhaps we have it to a greater degree and have the consciousness to act upon it.  If this is so, then that would be an act that is unique to humanity.

This is where Duchamp comes into the discussion.  He stated a variation on the Golden Rule and revised it as “Do unto others as they wish, but with imagination.”  The creative employment of ethics is something rarely discussed, but to do it imaginatively may be uniquely human.