Philosophical Vegan Forum

EquALLity wrote: 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.

I think you need to make a distinction between breadth of empathy and depth of empathy.

Narrow empathy is bad. Broader empathy is good. Depth or degree of empathy could be bad or good, depending on how broad the empathy itself is.

EquALLity wrote: Though, usually the situation isn't like that anyway; excluding politics, it's little things, like giving food to people who are homeless.

The issue can also be one of effective altruism. Acting based on feelings rather than reason is a problem. We have to suppress emotional reflex sometimes.

EquALLity wrote: I'm saying that morality is not based on science; it's based on compassion (I agree with your definition).

Morality is a concept. It is effectively realized through science in terms of methodology for learning the right action to take. It may be adopted or acted upon because of compassion (or other reasons, such as existential self-identity).

brimstoneSalad wrote:I think you need to make a distinction between breadth of empathy and depth of empathy.

Narrow empathy is bad. Broader empathy is good. Depth or degree of empathy could be bad or good, depending on how broad the empathy itself is.

Good point, I agree.

brimstoneSalad wrote:The issue can also be one of effective altruism. Acting based on feelings rather than reason is a problem. We have to suppress emotional reflex sometimes.

Of course, but I can't think of many situations in practice in which that's an issue in regards to empathy.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Morality is a concept. It is effectively realized through science in terms of methodology for learning the right action to take. It may be adopted or acted upon because of compassion (or other reasons, such as existential self-identity).

That's what I was saying, except for the part about it being adopted for reasons besides compassion.
I think it's inherently about compassion (maximizing fulfilling interests and minimizing violating them).

What do you mean by 'existential self-identity'?

EquALLity wrote: What do you mean by 'existential self-identity'?

"I'm a good person, and that's part of my identity, so I'm going to behave in a way that is consistent with that"
Compassion isn't required to do good for the sake of identifying as a good person.

brimstoneSalad wrote:

EquALLity wrote: What do you mean by 'existential self-identity'?

"I'm a good person, and that's part of my identity, so I'm going to behave in a way that is consistent with that"
Compassion isn't required to do good for the sake of identifying as a good person.

Ah. That might be a reason for acting morally, but I think the concept of morality is based on compassion.

EquALLity wrote: Ah. That might be a reason for acting morally, but I think the concept of morality is based on compassion.

It isn't based on compassion, though. It's not "be compassionate and you'll be moral". Compassion can lead people to incorrect or sub optimal behavior. It can also lead to people wanting to destroy all life on Earth, because they see life as inherently about suffering so they want to end it forever.
Morality is about consideration for the interests of others, not just their suffering.

brimstoneSalad wrote:

EquALLity wrote: Ah. That might be a reason for acting morally, but I think the concept of morality is based on compassion.

It isn't based on compassion, though. It's not "be compassionate and you'll be moral". Compassion can lead people to incorrect or sub optimal behavior. It can also lead to people wanting to destroy all life on Earth, because they see life as inherently about suffering so they want to end it forever.
Morality is about consideration for the interests of others, not just their suffering.

I wasn't defining compassion as only being about suffering; I was agreeing with Cirion's definition:
"avoiding the violation of interests and promoting the completion of interests"

EquALLity wrote: I wasn't defining compassion as only being about suffering; I was agreeing with Cirion's definition:
"avoiding the violation of interests and promoting the completion of interests"

Well, if you change the definition to something it doesn't mean, then sure.

I'm also a potato, if you define potato as a human being.

EquALLity wrote:This is still a problem with not enough empathy, though.

The level of empathy needed for it to be useful, appears to be practically impossible to achieve.

EquALLity wrote:It merely demonstrates that people are more likely to feel empathy for people they can relate to.

In other words, individuals.

EquALLity wrote:That's bad, but it doesn't make empathy bad.

Right. No specific action or emotion is intrinsically bad. Empathy can be useful for compelling people to help a fellow individual, but it fails to compel them to help groups of individuals.

EquALLity wrote:Though, usually the situation isn't like that anyway; excluding politics, it's little things, like giving food to people who are homeless.

I'm not sure what this means.

EquALLity wrote:I care about them, but it is more difficult for me to empathize in situations like that (like hearing numbers of casualties).

Right.

EquALLity wrote:Again, this is an issue with there not being enough empathy.

Can we achieve this level of empathy for it to be useful?

EquALLity wrote:I'm saying that morality is not based on science; it's based on compassion (I agree with your definition).

If morality isn't based on science and reason, then it has no objective foundation.

EquALLity wrote:First of all, I don't think that most people aren't deciding between giving to a soup kitchen and a homeless person.

That's true, but its besides the point. I was trying to demonstrate how the empathetic person would give to the homeless man, but the reasonable man would give to the soup kitchen or animal charity. The former being less effective altruism than the latter.

EquALLity wrote: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.

Empathy is not a necessary component of morality. Why would it be necessary to feel the feelings of others in order to care about doing the right thing?

brimstoneSalad wrote:Narrow empathy is bad. Broader empathy is good. Depth or degree of empathy could be bad or good, depending on how broad the empathy itself is.

Do you think such a degree is even possible? I have no recollection of empathizing with any more than one entity at any given time.

Cirion Spellbinder wrote:

brimstoneSalad wrote:Narrow empathy is bad. Broader empathy is good. Depth or degree of empathy could be bad or good, depending on how broad the empathy itself is.

Do you think such a degree is even possible?

Probably not, except by empathizing with theoretical people one by one until you've imagined every last one, of a sort.
I don't know what that would look like.