10k Philosophy challenge

[Dubious]

For me, empathy is a kind of equalization or harmonization between greater and lesser.

Well, empathy is just a feeling. It doesn't "do" anything. It doesn't actually even involve the perceived object of the empathy, who may remain utterly unaware of the feeling the empathetic person is having.

It takes a decision, and an intelligent person acting on that decision, to analyze the empathy to see if it's warranted, and then to determine a course of action appropriate to the case.

It's the motive to do something if anything can be done. Ironically, yours is a more Nietzschean view than mine regarding the function of empathy. It goes without saying that such an extension of oneself should not apply to all. Those who can't give it shouldn't be the recipient of it; it would be wasted on them. Empathy operates as a highly palpable feeling of awareness which doesn't require acknowledgement as payment for having received it.

Also, there is hardly anything in human nature that doesn't begin with a feeling which is what precedes an action or even a thought, including your unconditional dedication to the bible.

Empathy can be directed toward a specific object or encompass the whole of creation as, for example, seemed to be the case with St. Francis; one may even include Spinoza in that kind of emergence of oneself within the domain of the wholly impersonal.

A sixth sense is also sometimes mentioned. What is that based on if not a heightened sense of empathy or nearness with something external to oneself creating, in effect, a relationship with it.

In short, empathy is unique in its ability to advance from the personal toward the abstract.

[henry quirk]

Think about this: all these people who deny a moral reality, who insist man is just meat, think the two of us are stunted becuz we're not, as they see it, empathetic (enough or at all), becuz -- and by their own reckoning this is all it can be -- our mirror neurons are off kilter or becuz we don't have enough serotonin or becuz [insert bio-chemical cause].

They reject God (as Creator, as moral undergirding), reject personhood (as anything other than man-bestowed status), reject morality (as anything but personal or collective opinion), reduce man, and themselves, to animal, and we're the retarded ones.

What a world...

[Harbal]

They reject God (as Creator, as moral undergirding)

I don't reject God as creator, and moral undergirding; to reject is a positive action, and the concept of God doesn't deserve the effort of positive rejection. It is much easier, and more appropriate, to simply not accept it.

[accelafine]

Think about this: all these people who deny a moral reality, who insist man is just meat, think the two of us are stunted becuz we're not, as they see it, empathetic (enough or at all), becuz -- and by their own reckoning this is all it can be -- our mirror neurons are off kilter or becuz we don't have enough serotonin or becuz [insert bio-chemical cause].

They reject God (as Creator, as moral undergirding), reject personhood (as anything other than man-bestowed status), reject morality (as anything but personal or collective opinion), reduce man, and themselves, to animal, and we're the retarded ones.

What a world...

'Morality' is a religious concept. The only people who use the word are religious nuts like you and IC. Morality has never been about empathy or compassion.
According to 'morality', homosexuals like you and IC should be thrown off roofs or at the very least persecuted and imprisoned for being 'immoral'. What's 'compassionate' about that? According to 'morality' only married people should be permitted to have sex (but not if they are the same sex).
Notice a pattern? Why does 'morality' always seems to involve sex? How very 'male' of it. And of course no mention in the 'ten CONmandments'
of child rape-- or rape at all for that matter. 'God' was far more concerned about his own vanity to bother with such 'trivialities'. How very male of him.
The US felt that it had a 'moral right' to attack Iraq and slaughter millions in the process. Of course the irony of using 'morality' as an excuse and justification to kill and torture people goes way over the heads of the 'great brainwashed religious unwashed'.
This is what 'morality' does for us. It's far more of a hindrance than a help, with the result being that it has the exact OPPOSITE effect of what self-righteous religious zealots say it does with their moral high-horsing--and they aren't the only ones. On the other side of the same coin the cult of woke is just as bad with its claiming of the 'moral' high ground.

[accelafine]

So this Daniel Mckay is chasing rainbows. Good luck with that.

[Immanuel Can]

I really can't see any way round the combination of empathy and sympathy being at the core of any genuinely moral system, because morality would just be a set of rules that we have no way to evaluate, otherwise.

Well, empathy clearly isn't reliable, either. It can go wrong very easily. So you'd have to conclude, then, that there really is no such "way to evaluate."

When you argue against abortion, you don't just say, "God says it's wrong", and leave it at that. You use terms like "murder",

Sure. But I can. Because I believe we can evaluate that by "Thou shalt not murder."

and talk about a human being beings ripped apart.

That's exactly what happens. That's just description.

But how could you even begin to conceptualise justice and fairness in relation to others without empathy?

Easily. Those who are suffering do not need your tears and moans...they need relief from tyranny or pain.

But if their plight didn't first cause me to weep and moan, what would move me to try to bring about their relief?

I can't speak for you. What would move some people, though, is a belief in justice and fairness. But behind that would have to be more, of course.

So we stop being all "feely," and just do the right thing: make things fair for them; think it out and judge rightly.

But we can only base that judgement on our own feelings about what it must be like to be in their position.

That doesn't seem obvious to me. If I'm getting paid well for a particular job, and somebody else is getting paid less for doing exactly the same work, it's really irrelevant whether or not I have tummy pains over it. What's relevant is my realization that unfairness is taking place, and my desire to right a wrong.

That's work the brain can do. Empathy just wallows in itself, and leads nowhere unless the brain takes over at some point.

Be rational and logical, you mean? So what would be my rational reason for caring what happens to people I don't even know?

Again, it's not fair for me to speak for you. So I assume you mean other people too, not just yourself.

I think some people have no sense of justice. It could be that they never did, or it could be that they've seared it by a pattern of habitual callousness. But somebody who does have that sense might well be motivated by something as calm and reasonable as a recognition of inequality, or exploitation. Guilt, too, motivates some: I wouldn't be surprised if, for example, many people who owned slaves had a bad conscience about the fact that they were exploiting other human beings. But one can also be motivated by something like a belief that God is just, so to be harmonious with God, one should be just with one's neighbour. So I think many different motives are possible: I can't think that empathy is anywhere near the most reliable among them, though. It too easily drifts into self-pity, or false fellow-feeling, where we think we are understanding how the other feels, but are not, or sympathy with the wrong things. It's not a very pure or unequivocal emotion.

[Immanuel Can]

It goes without saying that such an extension of oneself should not apply to all.

Apparently not, given how often that emotion goes wrong.

Empathy can be directed toward a specific object or encompass the whole of creation as, for example, seemed to be the case with St. Francis;

Let's stay away from the purely mythical, if we can. The truth is that we have no way of knowing anything about old Francis's internal workings. We only know what the later eulogizers of him wanted us to think.

[Immanuel Can]

Think about this: all these people who deny a moral reality, who insist man is just meat, think the two of us are stunted becuz we're not, as they see it, empathetic (enough or at all), becuz -- and by their own reckoning this is all it can be -- our mirror neurons are off kilter or becuz we don't have enough serotonin or becuz [insert bio-chemical cause].

They reject God (as Creator, as moral undergirding), reject personhood (as anything other than man-bestowed status), reject morality (as anything but personal or collective opinion), reduce man, and themselves, to animal, and we're the retarded ones.

What a world...

And yet, if I needed help, the first guy I'd go to is somebody who thinks like you...not an emotional hand-wringer, but a hard-headed realist who could actually do something and wouldn't just cluck and fluff and squirt sympathy in all directions.

[Dubious]

It goes without saying that such an extension of oneself should not apply to all.

Apparently not, given how often that emotion goes wrong.

Empathy can be directed toward a specific object or encompass the whole of creation as, for example, seemed to be the case with St. Francis;

Let's stay away from the purely mythical, if we can. The truth is that we have no way of knowing anything about old Francis's internal workings. We only know what the later eulogizers of him wanted us to think.

...and how is that different from the bible, especially the NT which you so unquestionably believe as literally true?

It's quite paradoxical that you assert the St.Francis story as purely mythical, which as related, there is nothing inherently miraculous about his famed empathy to make it mythical, while simultaneously, upholding your steadfast belief in a Jew existing in old Palestine who performed all kinds of miracles, died for our sins, rose from the dead and supposedly asserted in consequence, that if we don't believe in him, we'd all go to hell!

What kind of intelligence would it take to make this story intelligent?

You are dualistic to the core based solely on your prejudices of what you want to believe and what to negate, the effect of which is to conclusively negate the possible, the probable to uphold not merely the improbable but also the impossible.

Under such circumstances, any discussions you have relating to what's real or not consists of nothing more than chimera. In this unresolved dichotomy, you have truly perfected the art of the double standard in your exegesis of what's real.

Which scenario would you think most people would find most improbable...rhetorical question only, since the only way to explain it is in the nethermost regions of the illogical based on the supremely idealistic and idiotic hope of gaining eternal life in heaven in a universe where even a star will have its allotment of brief moments to shine.

[accelafine]

Think about this: all these people who deny a moral reality, who insist man is just meat, think the two of us are stunted becuz we're not, as they see it, empathetic (enough or at all), becuz -- and by their own reckoning this is all it can be -- our mirror neurons are off kilter or becuz we don't have enough serotonin or becuz [insert bio-chemical cause].

They reject God (as Creator, as moral undergirding), reject personhood (as anything other than man-bestowed status), reject morality (as anything but personal or collective opinion), reduce man, and themselves, to animal, and we're the retarded ones.

What a world...

And yet, if I needed help, the first guy I'd go to is somebody who thinks like you...not an emotional hand-wringer, but a hard-headed realist who could actually do something and wouldn't just cluck and fluff and squirt sympathy in all directions.

Don't worry. You can fornicate with Henry now without 'repercussions'. You can even marry him.

[Dubious]

And yet, if I needed help, the first guy I'd go to is somebody who thinks like you...not an emotional hand-wringer, but a hard-headed realist who could actually do something and wouldn't just cluck and fluff and squirt sympathy in all directions.

Hello, Mr. Trump of a hundred words!

Read in a dictionary the difference between the two. Psychologically, the mental states they denote are, in fact, worlds apart.

Sympathy is a very limited emotion more akin to pity, while empathy can stretch itself into a near clairvoyant state where mere sympathy no-longer applies.

[Dubious]

Think about this: all these people who deny a moral reality, who insist man is just meat, think the two of us are stunted becuz we're not, as they see it, empathetic (enough or at all), becuz -- and by their own reckoning this is all it can be -- our mirror neurons are off kilter or becuz we don't have enough serotonin or becuz [insert bio-chemical cause].

They reject God (as Creator, as moral undergirding), reject personhood (as anything other than man-bestowed status), reject morality (as anything but personal or collective opinion), reduce man, and themselves, to animal, and we're the retarded ones.

...finally the moment of self-revelation has arrived!

Hooray!

[Atla]

As if the sociopathics could build a world that is any better than the Hunger games.

[Veritas Aequitas]

.. morality is objective.

I agree morality is objective.

Something is objective if it can be confirmed independently of a mind. If a claim is true even when considering it outside the viewpoint of a sentient being, then it is labelled objectively true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectiv ... hilosophy)

I refer you to the link revealing other moral realists and objectivists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_realism
However, you stated your morality is not related to theirs, rather you are on your own with "Freedom Consequentialism"

Yours is apparently the view of 'a' mind and that does not fit with the definition of what is objectivity.

What is your definition of what is objective and the justification that your version of morality is objective [as defined]?

I defined objectivity as that which is contingent upon a collective-of-subjects rather than a subject [or a loose bunch/mob of few subjects.]
As such, objectivity is always contingent upon the human conditions and never be absolutely independent from the subjects. This is the antirealists' perspective of objectivity.
From another perspective, objectivity is intersubjectivity.

[Dubious]

Hey Henry!

Let's celebrate! What does the Ozark version of the Hallelujah Chorus sound like?