Empathy is bad

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Unknownfromheaven
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Re: Empathy is bad

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miniboes wrote:Yes, there are indeed many atheists who use the empathy and love explanation. I do not deny that; what I deny is that they are right in doing so. The answer I would give - that my morality is based on the well-being of sentient creatures, and that I can be moral through a rational understanding of morality - is, in my opinion, a lot better.
But in the same time you won t lack empathy because if something harmfull would happen to a fellow peer you would understand its pain or suffering...is it not ?

Empathy is not bad, its EQ and its important in the development of the human kind.
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force..We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.” ~ Max Planck - Quantum Theory and Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
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Re: Empathy is bad

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miniboes wrote:Empathy is not purely detrimental, but detrimental compared to reason and science. In general, empathy will lead to an urge to reduce the suffering of others, and to make others happy. For many it appears to be pretty much the only drive to do so. Someone not eating meat out of empathy for animals may not have the best motivation, but it's better than not caring at all. I think it's a hard case to make that the world as it is right now would be better off without empathy.

I agree with the argument Paul Bloom makes. I think you take his argument further and do so incorrectly. If I recall correctly, he argued not that empathy is bad but that it is inferior to reason (and science). He pointed out the flaws of empathy, such as a person caring more about one kid than a million. These are valid criticisms of empathy as a moral guide, and I would say indirectly of democracy. I would still deem empathy as a moral guide superior to religious dogma.
I can't really remember the podcast. I just thought about empathy because I watched Blade Runner : )))

On one hand empathy seems very maladaptive to present day life in many ways, because it's designed to function within small tribal communities, so the correlation to morality is very iffy nowadays.... but on the other hand, things slavery probably would never have been banned on purely intellectual grounds.
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miniboes
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Re: Empathy is bad

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Unknownfromheaven wrote:
miniboes wrote:Yes, there are indeed many atheists who use the empathy and love explanation. I do not deny that; what I deny is that they are right in doing so. The answer I would give - that my morality is based on the well-being of sentient creatures, and that I can be moral through a rational understanding of morality - is, in my opinion, a lot better.
But in the same time you won t lack empathy because if something harmfull would happen to a fellow peer you would understand its pain or suffering...is it not ?

Empathy is not bad, its EQ and its important in the development of the human kind.
Yes, I still have empathy, of course I do. However, it is not the basis of my morality and it should not be. That does not mean it is not important. It is important for other purposes than what we base morality on. Note that I do not agree with the title of this thread. The only thing I claim is that, compared to other options, empathy is a bad basis for morality.

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knot wrote:I can't really remember the podcast. I just thought about empathy because I watched Blade Runner : )))
Ah, I assumed it because we argued over one of Sam's podcasts before. Maybe you should give it a re-listen, I think it's one of the best waking up episodes so far.
knot wrote:On one hand empathy seems very maladaptive to present day life in many ways, because it's designed to function within small tribal communities, so the correlation to morality is very iffy nowadays.... but on the other hand, things slavery probably would never have been banned on purely intellectual grounds.
Yes, that's pretty much it. It's useful mainly because it makes people that are wrong about or apathetic of morality care about the suffering of sentient beings anyway. It's not useful as a moral guideline.
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Unknownfromheaven
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Re: Empathy is bad

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miniboes wrote: Yes, I still have empathy, of course I do. However, it is not the basis of my morality and it should not be. That does not mean it is not important. It is important for other purposes than what we base morality on. Note that I do not agree with the title of this thread. The only thing I claim is that, compared to other options, empathy is a bad basis for morality.
1. Why not ?

2, There is a very big difference saying empathy is bad and saying that it should not be based on morality, for i suppose that they come together somehow because morality itself within a man is to be able to distinguish good from bad (at least) when we talk about the same species.
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force..We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.” ~ Max Planck - Quantum Theory and Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
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Re: Empathy is bad

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Unknownfromheaven wrote:1. Why not ?
Because it is completely irrational. You do not control your empathy with reason, it's just a feeling. It leads to wrong conclusions. For instance, studies consistently find that people care a lot about an example of one person in need. If there's two, they care less. If there's a million, they care very little.

"One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."

That quote of Joseph Stalin sums it up. There is a negative correlation between how many beings suffer and how much empathy people feel. More suffering, less empathy. That should be enough to convince you it is not a good base of morality, but:

Let's say we were to base morality on empathy. We come across a meat-eater, and we tell him it's wrong to eat beef. He asks us why. We tell him that we should not eat the beef because we feel empathy for the cows. He tells us he does not; that he couldn't care less about the cows. We have no more argument than to claim our emotions are somehow superior to his. That's a terrible basis of morality.
Unknownfromheaven wrote:2, There is a very big difference saying empathy is bad and saying that it should not be based on morality.
You misunderstand me. I claim:
a) empathy is not purely bad
b) empathy is a bad basis of morality.
I do not claim:
a) empathy is bad altogether
b) empathy should be based on morality
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Re: Empathy is bad

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miniboes wrote: Because it is completely irrational. You do not control your empathy with reason, it's just a feeling.
Its a feeling but you are wrong to say it has no reason. When i feel something about things or humans i think a lot of what i feel and why i feel.
miniboes wrote:If there's two, they care less. If there's a million, they care very little.

"One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
Thats not true.. your example coming from one single person in this case Stalin, cannot make it true.
miniboes wrote: how much empathy people feel. More suffering, less empathy.
Again this is not true...veganism is growing and its not only on the basis of reason but much on empathy as well, because we as well are sentient and if we would receive the same treatment that makes us understand.
miniboes wrote: We come across a meat-eater, and we tell him it's wrong to eat beef. He asks us why. We tell him that we should not eat the beef because we feel empathy for the cows. He tells us he does not; that he couldn't care less about the cows.
Thats a wrong approach. Instead of saying we have empathy we could describe what a little pigglet endures for the greedy mouth and if still is not accepting or is laughing (because i met such cases) those are at best ignorant and does not worth your waste of time.
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Re: Empathy is bad

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Unknownfromheaven wrote:Its a feeling but you are wrong to say it has no reason. When i feel something about things or humans i think a lot of what i feel and why i feel.
You're confusing the definitions of the word reason.
a) the power of the mind to think and understand in a logical way
b) a statement or fact that explains why something is the way it is, why someone does, thinks, or says something, or why someone behaves a certain way

There is a reason (b) for your feeling, but your feeling is not based on reason (a). You do not think carefully about the merits and demerits of the feeling you are about to have before feeling it; it just pops up.
Unknownfromheaven wrote:Thats not true.. your example coming from one single person in this case Stalin, cannot make it true.
I am not saying it is true because of the Stalin quote, he just illustrates the scientifically demonstrated effect eloquently. I'll get back to you with the studies when I find them.
Thats a wrong approach. Instead of saying we have empathy we could describe what a little pigglet endures for the greedy mouth and if still is not accepting or is laughing (because i met such cases) those are at best ignorant and does not worth your waste of time.
You'd have no justification to say he's wrong in not accepting your argument. If he doesn't feel empathy for the pig, and morality is based on empathy, then why would it be wrong for him to eat pork?

----------------

By the way, this lecture by Paul bloom is very interesting and lays out the arguments better than I can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWWNUa6kmqE

Some of the examples of empathy working badly he presents:

- Empathy is particularly vulnerable to racial biases because people empathize more with people that look like them (for example, journalists gave disproportionally high amounts of attention to white ebola victims, whilst there are far more black victims).
- Statistical improvements (like less people dying of vaccines) may be ignored in favor of anecdotal downsides (such as a child reacting badly and dying from a vaccine).
- Empathy is absolutely useless when it comes to futuristic abstract problems. Empathy will not help with global warming, because there is nobody to empathize with; it's a huge amount of people that are undefined or not even born yet.
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Re: Empathy is bad

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miniboes wrote:Some of the examples of empathy working badly he presents:

- Empathy is particularly vulnerable to racial biases because people empathize more with people that look like them (for example, journalists gave disproportionally high amounts of attention to white ebola victims, whilst there are far more black victims).
- Statistical improvements (like less people dying of vaccines) may be ignored in favor of anecdotal downsides (such as a child reacting badly and dying from a vaccine).


This really does not apply to me..maybe thats why it doesn t make sense to me, i think i am not from this world than.

You might be right with my confusion with words since english is not my native tongue. But always i am thinking of things combined with how and what i feel...they mix together since these are a part of who i am and what i become.

I did not post on my facebook profile picture JeSuis”bs” because i am not a hypocrite...when other countries and people were attacked, nobody discussed or felt grief for them....i did, and i believe that hashtags and fb messages and prayer are not the solution we seek.

It takes action, much more than a simple hashtag.
All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force..We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.” ~ Max Planck - Quantum Theory and Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
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Re: Empathy is bad

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Yep in and of itself, empathy wouldnt be a rational basis given our many biases and without thinking things through.

Summarised rather well in this animated Ted talk by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein and Steven Pinker

https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker ... anguage=en
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Re: Empathy is bad

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Cirion Spellbinder wrote:It compels us to care, but it often focuses on individuals, as opposed to groups. Consider this excerpt from an article by psychologist Paul Bloom on the New Yorker.
That's true, so it can be very harmful in some cases if it's restricted to groups (which like you say, it often is).
This is still a problem with not enough empathy, though.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:As demonstrated by this study, empathy compels us to help individuals that we can identify. Without the guidance of well thought out and tested methods, empathy leads us to help the few we can relate to as opposed to the many who are vague and hard to relate to.
It merely demonstrates that people are more likely to feel empathy for people they can relate to. That's bad, but it doesn't make empathy bad.

Though, usually the situation isn't like that anyway; excluding politics, it's little things, like giving food to people who are homeless.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote: Can you empathize with vague bodies of victims? I certainly can't, I can only understand and feel the feelings of an individual. More empathy results in more compassion being directed towards individuals, not towards bodies.
I care about them, but it is more difficult for me to empathize in situations like that (like hearing numbers of casualties).

Again, this is an issue with there not being enough empathy.
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:Are you trying to say that compassion (which I am defining as avoiding the violation of interests and promoting the completion of interests) is a necessary axiom in for a consistent and coherent moral system? Otherwise I have no idea what you mean.
I'm saying that morality is not based on science; it's based on compassion (I agree with your definition).
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:That example was bad. What if Mercy for Animals was a soup kitchen?
First of all, I don't think that most people aren't deciding between giving to a soup kitchen and a homeless person.
I think they don't really think about these things much, but because of empathy, will give to homeless people. If they didn't have empathy, they might not care at all.
But again, this is an issue with application.
miniboes wrote:You reject consequentialism, then?
I'm not sure where you got that from.

I shouldn't have said that morality is based on empathy; it's based on compassion, and empathy leads to compassion in many situations.
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