霍夫曼认为道德移情是在情感性唤起和对他人的社会认知能力的提高基础上产生和发展的,他提出移情式悲伤的四阶段水平,概括了儿童移情发展水平。指出道德移情对个体的道德发展具有重要功能:移情倾向可以加强个体具有的公正道德价值取向或者关爱道德价值取向;在面对道德冲突时,唤起的移情可激活道德原则,而影响道德判断和推理;移情水平的高低影响着道德动机,进而决定了个体能否作出正确的道德抉择并完成道德行动。 Hoffman thinks that moral empathy arises and develops on the basis of emotional arousal and improvement of social cognition to others. He puts forward the four-stage level of empathetic sadness and summarizes the level of child empathy development. It points out that moral empathy has an important function to an individual’s moral development: empathetic tendency can enhance individual’s orientation of fair moral values ​​or caring for moral values; in the face of moral conflicts, arousing empathy can activate moral principles and influence morality Judgment and reasoning; the level of empathy affects the moral motivation, which in turn determines whether an individual can make the right moral choice and complete the moral action.