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How Does Empathy Make Us Uniquely Human?

What is this ability to step into someone else’s shoes? To imagine how they feel - and to hurt for them or be happy for them?  Host Frank Stasio is joined by a panel of experts to discuss empathy, the trait that makes us uniquely human.

Lasana Harris is an assistant professor in psychology and neuroscience at Duke University; Jesse Prinz is a Distinguished Professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York; Pate Skene is an associate professor of neurobiology at Duke University and a second year law student; and Ralph Savarese is an associate professor of English at Grinnell College, a Duke Humanities Writ Large Fellow, and the author of “Reasonable People: A Memoir of Autism and Adoption” (Other Press/2007).

Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Shawn Wen joined the staff of The State of Things in March 2012 and served as associate producer until February 2014.