Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:39 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:08 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 5:50 pmI would say empathy is not only necessary to morality, but the crucial factor in it.

Not so. For example: I have no empathy for you. For a variety of reasons, I actively dislike you. But, I'll still refrain from violating your life, liberty, or property.

If empathy were the sum if it, as Atla sez, or were truly important to it, as you say, then morality would be for crap. It would just be the personal opinion you both seem to think it is.

Morality is what is permissible between and among persons, not what is permissible between and among persons we like or feel for.

Empathy can grease the wheel, but it's not the wheel.

I'd even argue, as Paul Bloom has cogently argued in his book Against Empathy, that "empathy" can be highly toxic. We know that many mass-murderers serving life sentences have scores of "empathetic" women writing them love letters, believing they can turn the 'bad boy' with their wonderful love. "Empathetic"? No doubt. Sane? Possibly not.

I don't know what might draw women to mass murderers, but I don't see why you would think it was empathy. Unless the women also had similar tendencies, of course, in which case they would understand how difficult keeping those tendencies under control was. But, no, I wouldn't have thought the usual reason was empathy, but rather some psychological glitch of some kind.

And narcissists and confidence men routinely use empathy to manipulate their victims; t

Yes, but they don't feel empathy themselves, which is what enables them to exploit it in others without being impeded by conscience.

You've got to be empathetic with the right kind of person or thing, or it's just bad news. It's certainly not the hallmark of wisdom to empathize with soembody who's not deserving of empathy.

No, but morality comes from the combination of empathy and sympathy. We can empathise without sympathising.

At most, "empathy" is a description of how a person is privately feeling while he or she is doing something; but it's neither proof of her integrity nor of her intelligence...just of her susceptibility to her own feelings. These feelings have no automatic or causal relation to justice, fairness, truth, or any other virtuous outcome.

But how could you even begin to conceptualise justice and fairness in relation to others without empathy? Why would you even give a second thought to the suffering of others were it not for your ability to empathise with them?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:39 pm

Agreed. A morality founded on empathy, or that has empathy as a necessary component, is just pickin' favorites.

That works if your pickin' team mates for a pick up game but it can't be the measure of right and wrong, or who's been wronged.

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:44 pm
Many people who don't have fully functioning empathy can still experience some semblence of moral rightness and wrongness. But they often don't really associate them with others. These people are in a grey area. Henry might be in this group.

I really have no idea what the colour of the area henry inhabits might be.

Dubious wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:54 pm

So un-empathetic.

Flags...well, I favor... ...but this......works in a pinch.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:26 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:39 pm

Agreed. A morality founded on empathy, or that has empathy as a necessary component, is just pickin' favorites.

And, naturally, you must be worried about not being picked, but fear not, it doesn't work like that.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:29 pm

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:44 pm
Many people who don't have fully functioning empathy can still experience some semblence of moral rightness and wrongness. But they often don't really associate them with others. These people are in a grey area. Henry might be in this group.

I really have no idea what the colour of the area henry inhabits might be.

Now that I think about it, there could be this small pink area within the grey one

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:24 pm But how could you even begin to conceptualise justice and fairness in relation to others without empathy? Why would you even give a second thought to the suffering of others were it not for your ability to empathise with them?

You would need to derive a principle of reciprocity from some other source, which is less easy than most moral realists like to think it is. An empathetic moral world view gives you the whole you-wouldn't-like-it-if-I-did-that-to-you set of reasons for things to be good and bad. Get rid of that and you must either derive same do-unto-others thing via universal logic, or else you must directly value other people's autonomy and then only get your own as a side benefit of that. This latter thing is How Daniel's theory appears to work, and Kant's, and sort of most of these things tbh.

One reason why Henry's theory cannot work is that he has no such source, and his direction of travel is wrong ... he starts with his own autonomy and then tries to arrive at concern for yours as a result. The whole shtick about owning yourself is all very well, but without empathy, all that amounts to is a reason to feel bad if somebody steals from you, not a reason to feel bad if you steal from somebody else.

So Henry just assumes that there is some reason why you know you own yourself, and you know that everyone else owns themselves, and that you have this one particular duty not to interfere with that ownership thing. The last part of that doesn't naturally follow from the first bits.

But empathy only works to explain descriptively why we happen to like justice and fairness and stuff. It doesn't actually explain prescriptively why those are good things that ought to be sought out. The truth is that we have the preference for them, but if we had evolved differently, without empathy, we would probably be entirely blind to them. That's why Daniel M rejected empathy from his possible worlds thing a few pages back - because something that is universally right or wrong on an all possible worlds basis must be right or wrong even in a possible world where empathy doesn't factor.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:31 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:54 pm

I like this one best!

Atla wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:23 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:22 pm I wasn't talking about "conscience." I was pointing out that empathy isn't actually a good thing all the time. It's often empathy with the wrong thing, for the wrong reasons.

Well duh

It seems I can always count on you for a sage conversation. Carry on, then.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:24 pm I don't know what might draw women to mass murderers, but I don't see why you would think it was empathy. Unless the women also had similar tendencies, of course,

No they're mostly "rescuers," who have convinced themselves that "only they understand" the bad boy, and only their "love" could make him well. As such, they're darned empathetic...way too empathetic.

No, but morality comes from the combination of empathy and sympathy.

Neither, actually. One can be "empathetic" or "sympathetic" with practically anything. And much of it may not be good. It's the mind that has to arbitrate the meaning of whatever the feelings feel. As the Stones so famously wrote, you can even be in "Sympathy For The Devil."

At most, "empathy" is a description of how a person is privately feeling while he or she is doing something; but it's neither proof of her integrity nor of her intelligence...just of her susceptibility to her own feelings. These feelings have no automatic or causal relation to justice, fairness, truth, or any other virtuous outcome.

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. So we stop being all "feely," and just do the right thing: make things fair for them; think it out and judge rightly. That's work the brain can do. Empathy just wallows in itself, and leads nowhere unless the brain takes over at some point.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:26 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:39 pm

Agreed. A morality founded on empathy, or that has empathy as a necessary component, is just pickin' favorites.

That works if your pickin' team mates for a pick up game but it can't be the measure of right and wrong, or who's been wronged.

Yep. It takes using the ol' noggin to get anything done. The feelings are just a waste of everybody's time, unless the brain comes on line and makes sense out of all the moaning and crying and "fellow-feeling," which, in reality, usually add up to nothing.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 6:39 pm
You've got to be empathetic with the right kind of person or thing, or it's just bad news. It's certainly not the hallmark of wisdom to empathize with soembody who's not deserving of empathy.

On that we can agree at least. For me, empathy is a kind of equalization or harmonization between greater and lesser. A human can have empathy for a suffering animal or another human, as much as we can and should expect god to have empathy with us for the same reason...or what's a god for?

Dubious wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 9:15 pm 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.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 8:31 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:24 pm I don't know what might draw women to mass murderers, but I don't see why you would think it was empathy. Unless the women also had similar tendencies, of course,

No they're mostly "rescuers," who have convinced themselves that "only they understand" the bad boy, and only their "love" could make him well. As such, they're darned empathetic...way too empathetic.

I don't think that has anything to do with empathy, but, rather, a psychological impulse to fulfil some need in the women. I feel sure the phenomenon must have a name among psychologists.

IC wrote:

Harbal wrote:No, but morality comes from the combination of empathy and sympathy.

Neither, actually. One can be "empathetic" or "sympathetic" with practically anything. And much of it may not be good. It's the mind that has to arbitrate the meaning of whatever the feelings feel. As the Stones so famously wrote, you can even be in "Sympathy For The Devil."

I don't know enough about the Devil to know if he deserves sympathy, but I'm not averse to the idea in principle. And you must admit, when anything really bad happens, he's always the first to get demonised.

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. 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", and talk about a human being beings ripped apart. What is that if not an appeal to emotion? Despite your assertions to the contrary, you obviously recognise that our emotions are at the heart of morality.

IC wrote:

Harbal wrote: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?

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. Without empathising, and then sympathising, why would we care about them, and what they are going through?

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?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 8:31 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jul 27, 2024 7:24 pm I don't know what might draw women to mass murderers, but I don't see why you would think it was empathy. Unless the women also had similar tendencies, of course,

No they're mostly "rescuers," who have convinced themselves that "only they understand" the bad boy, and only their "love" could make him well. As such, they're darned empathetic...way too empathetic.

I don't think that has anything to do with empathy, but, rather, a psychological impulse to fulfil some need in the women. I feel sure the phenomenon must have a name among psychologists.

IC wrote:

Harbal wrote:No, but morality comes from the combination of empathy and sympathy.

Neither, actually. One can be "empathetic" or "sympathetic" with practically anything. And much of it may not be good. It's the mind that has to arbitrate the meaning of whatever the feelings feel. As the Stones so famously wrote, you can even be in "Sympathy For The Devil."

I don't know enough about the Devil to know if he deserves sympathy, but I'm not averse to the idea in principle. And you must admit, when anything really bad happens, he's always the first to get demonised.

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. 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", and talk about a human being beings ripped apart. What is that if not an appeal to emotion? Despite your assertions to the contrary, you obviously recognise that our emotions are at the heart of morality.

IC wrote:

Harbal wrote: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?

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. Without empathising, and then sympathising, why would we care about them, and what they are going through?

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

Where do you get your crap from? You are just embarrassing. Who the fuck are you to speak for women? Women are PEOPLE. There are all kinds of PEOPLE. 'Some' women are weirdos who are sexually attracted to serial killers who don't happen to be physically hideous. You do realise that women are sexual beings don't you? 'Some' women are attracted to danger and/or have a death wish. It takes all sorts, as the saying goes.
And your corny, stereotypical 'women don't like 'nice' guys like me, they only like 'bad boys' ' garbage is just that. Garbage. Invariably said by hideous incel nerd types who are anything BUT 'nice'. I mean seriously. Women do have eyes and ears.
Where is this 'badboyness' scale and how is it measured?
You are a decidedly foul human being. Are women especially attracted to you? At a guess I would say 'NO'.