Maybe it would be better phrased as "art has the capacity for exploring and engaging with empathy"? Just because someone said a urinal is art doesn't mean that The Brothers Karamazov is less impactful to me.
I feel like the writer wants to explore how effective this could be as a tool for social change since there is a huge discourse going on about it in the context of pop culture (representation in popular media, glorification of certain subjects (war, violence), objectification, etc) but ventures into weird and a little bit difficult to comprehend (at least for me) philosophical space.