Is empathy genetic? — frank

I’m sure it plays a role. Not saying that one cannot become more or less empathetic, but I think our capacities differ due to our genes. I think males accounting for such a large percentage of psychopaths (of which lack of empathy is a defining feature) bears this out.

What is the role of empathy in ethics nowadays? — Shawn

I always thought empathy was the initial impulse behind ethics. — Tom Storm

The Golden Rule

Treat others as you would like others to treat you (positive or directive form)

Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated (negative or prohibitive form)

What you wish upon others, you wish upon yourself (empathetic or responsive form) — Wikipedia

Google definition of Empathy ( n ): The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

The Golden Rule is allegedly ubiquitous - found across all cultures in one form or another - and that's remarkable for the simple reason that it indicates, if nothing else, all people have strikingly similar intuitions on ethical matters.

Is the Golden Rule based on empathy? It doesn't seem to be based on the feelings of others per se but implicit in it is the view that one's own feelings are a good guide to that of others.

So far so good but empathy is a double-edged sword because if you understand how others feel, you know how to hurt them too. I've seen many people use that to devastating effect, on myself and others too. Sad but true.

There's a way of interpreting the Golden Rule as a kind of alturistic Egoism if you think about it. It's within your interests to be treated well and, therefore, within your interests to treat others well through a kind of a generalized reciprocity. It could be interpreted as being empathetic, but also from a standpoint of some form of Egoism.

There's a way of interpreting the Golden Rule as a kind of alturistic Egoism if you think about it. It's within your interests to be treated well and, therefore, within your interests to treat others well through a kind of a generalized reciprocity. It could be interpreted as being empathetic, but also from a standpoint of some form of Egoism. — thewonder

"Altruistuc egoism" sounds like an oxymoron à la "bitter sweet" but hey, there are times, many in my own life, when the latter is precisely what the doctor ordered (apt) and so the former too must be meaningful in its own way,

Also, it looks like the Golden Rule is a tacit admission that one can't really get to know how others feel i.e. empathy is an empty concept; after all isn't that why it enjoins us to behave towards others in ways that you would want others to behave towards you. If empathy were truly possible, if we could actually understand others' feelings, the Golden Rule would be, "do unto others as others would want done unto them." :chin:

"Altruistuc egoism" sounds like an oxymoron à la "bitter sweet" but hey, there are times, many in my own life, when the latter is precisely what the doctor ordered (apt) and so the former too must be meaningful in its own way, — TheMadFool

Ayn Rand created Objectivism in response to the Soviet habit of entertaining two entirely contradictory ideas simultaneously, which is something that I wonder about from time to time, as my reasoning is particularly designed to find my way out of any number of double-binds which Joseph Heller referred to as "catch-22s" in Catch-22. It effectively relies upon being open-minded enough to discover what of any apparent contradictions can't be simultaneously maintained, but can often result in both dramatic irony and logical absurdity.

It's just this thing that I think about from time to time, though. A is A, but "bittersweet" is a word that does make a certain degree of sense to me.

I could say that it's a rational form of alturism that follows from Egoism. That'd, perhaps, be more correct. Being all too specific can result in kind of a lot of absurdities as well, however. I had once conceptualize the theoretical political philosophy of "socialist pacifist pacifist socialist socialist pacifism" believing that the qualifier determined the praxis and that the ethos was the second-term so as to lay out a specific set of praxes and ethoses. Even though Pacifist Anarchism makes more technical sense than Anarchist Pacifism, there is no reason to call Anarcho-Pacifism anything other than Anarcho-Pacifism.

That's kind of an exposition on reasoning and not really to the point, though.

There's a way of interpreting the Golden Rule on relying upon empathy and a way of interpreting it as a kind of alturistic Egoism. It just depends upon who is invoking it and within what context. You can either think that you should treat others well because of that, were you to be in their shoes, you would want for them to do the same, or out of that you assume that social relations should be predicated upon generalized reciprocity.

Personally, as per my reading of Jean-Paul Sartre, I think that negation delimits Ontology. How we define what it means for us to exist is through our encounter with others. For me, empathy, particularly the experience which it can occasionally generate, ekstasis, plays part and parcel to the human capacity for abstract thought.

"Altruistuc egoism" sounds like an oxymoron à la "bitter sweet" but hey, there are times, many in my own life, when the latter is precisely what the doctor ordered (apt) and so the former too must be meaningful in its own way, — TheMadFool

I'm not familiar with this concept's technical usage or even the debates in which it has its place, but it somehow makes intuitive sense by avoiding sharp dichotomies (if an action brings any pleasure it's ipso facto selfish) and acknowledging that the types of actions and pleasures are important. If I receive pleasure as a byproduct of helping other people that's a far different sort of egoism than if I'm swindling them out of their money or possessions.

I may be way off here but it's not a bad way of framing the possibilities lol.

The term Psychopath is no longer used. The features of psychopathy are now just rolled into the Antisocial Personality Disorder title, which is much less informative that psychopath or sociopath, although both are anti-social types with similar clusters. Sociopathy is a more learned behaviour than Psychopathy, which arguably has a large genetic component. Not too sure about the chemical imbalance thing though, so far there are no medication regimes to treat Psychopathy without having chemical restraint as part of the effect. The disorder itself is not treated by the medication, rather the medication sedates the patient to the point where they are much less threatening as their behaviour is controlled. Medication application to make everyone else feel better about things, the patient...no one really asks them, although them seem non-too-happy with it.

I just can't imagine that psychopathy can arise from anything other than any number of other social plights. Perhaps, I just want to think that, though.

Sociopathy arises from multiple social plights as a learned response to increase chances of survival based upon perceived levels of threat and peril. Psychopathy is no so much acquired as inherent. Which is not to say that psychopaths or sociopaths cannot be contributing members of society, just that they are contributing members because doing so best serves their interests and needs at the time. They have less restraints than the main group of society. If they recognize "right" or "wrong" it is more as a recognition of a term, rather than something of value or something relevant. Kind of like the weather before you leave to go on a walk: you dress according to the weather, but it does not stop you from going on a walk.

That's kind of an exposition on reasoning and not really to the point, though. — thewonder

I found it interesting, the parts that made sense to me though. I didn't know Soviets had a thing for paradoxes (contradictions). I suppose living under a regime that depended on keeping people confused 24/7 for its existence played a part or, some would say, did its damage on the psyche of the Soviet peoples. It's really difficult you know, getting mixed signals from other folks is not my idea of a fun way to spend one's precious time. Perhaps, as Schopenhauer thought, "...the world as not organized in a rational way." Lao Tzu (Taoism) had more or less the same impression of reality - it simply can't be comprehended in its entirety, bits and pieces may be but never as a whole. Does that make sense?

There's a way of interpreting the Golden Rule on relying upon empathy and a way of interpreting it as a kind of alturistic Egoism. It just depends upon who is invoking it and within what context. You can either think that you should treat others well because of that, were you to be in their shoes, you would want for them to do the same, or out of that you assume that social relations should be predicated upon generalized reciprocity. — thewonder

I don't deny that the Golden Rule could be altruistic egoism but notice the egoism in it. It, in a sense, lets the cat out of the bag - empathy, though about other people's feelings, either makes more sense seen from a selfish perspective or is nonsense given that it's impossible to feel what other's feel (hence the Golden Rule's form as inherently self-centered).

If I receive pleasure as a byproduct of helping other people that's a far different sort of egoism than if I'm swindling them out of their money or possessions. — Erik

That resonates with me and is a far better formulation of altruism than my own. Indeed, we can frame altruism as cases where personal gain is a secondary goal and egoism/selfishness as that when self-benefit is a primary goal. You can even look at it from a point of view that makes the profit of others as primary/secondary, the former being altruism and the latter egoism.

I think so, yeah. I'll have to find where Schopenhauer talks about that.

It's difficult to say as to whether you even can feel genuine empathy. I assume to be able to, but there could be some sort of biological survival mechanism or something that just produces the semblance of doing so. When all that we have of experience is of things like semblances, though, it'd still seem that empathy can be meaningfully invoked.

Here is a paper I wrote that intertwines empathy with a similar structure to virtue ethics, but without virtues and more empathy

6-8 minute read, but I think its worth it!

On Morals

When one ponders what is means to live properly, they arrive at a series of questions that have been discussed for some time now. One question that has arisen for me that seems to bear the most important answer, is “What is the difference between good and bad?” In order to answer this question, I will start by addressing the relationship between intents versus the action and result, then I argue that morality is based on empathetic understanding and empathetic ignorance that is created by coerced ignorance. Next, I explain how empathetic understanding is applied to daily life, and how empathetic ignorance can be willful or coerced. Lastly, I will try to show where possible objections fall short.

When discussing any issue, both the writer and the observer must have the same understanding of the ideas being conveyed. To achieve this, I will start by clarifying how I think the issue of morality should be measured. Some past philosophers have argued that our actions and the result of those actions are what determines if an individual is good or not, in other words their true nature, and others have argued that the result doesn’t matter because the intentions reflect the individuals true nature. Some even have argued that it is a combination of both being weighed based on the context of a situation. I argue that actions are the medium that people convey their intended result, whether it was achieved or not. A person cannot be accountable for an action if it happened on accident, or in other words the result was not intended. This claim leaves a large grey area for a lot of things that are regarded as bad to still exist. For example, lets imagine a person who is walking with their friend and the person trips over an uneven sidewalk. As the person is falling they reach for something to grab, but, instead, they hit their friend in the face with the same force as a solid punch. This situation can be interpreted multiple ways. Most people would regard this incident as an accident because, while the person was reaching for support to stop from falling, they happened to hit their friend, yet they were most likely reaching for their friend’s shoulder or arm. The action of reaching out while falling reflected the person’s intention to reach for something to stop their fall. The result of them punching their friend, a seemingly harmful and bad action, should not warrant any retaliation from the friend because there was no malice behind the intentions. Let’s take another example into consideration, imagine the same two people on the same walk, but instead of the person tripping they just punch their friend in the face with the willful intent to punch their friend. The end result is the same as the previous example, but the difference lies within the intent, in other words their motive. The second situation seems to warrant a punishment or a retaliation from the friend because the person acted in a way that brought harm towards someone else while not having a good explanation for their actions. These examples show how intentions can alter a situation even if the end results are the same.

Now that the issue of morals has been centered around the intentions of a person rather than the result of the person acting on those intentions, the question of how to correct bad or immoral behavior arises. One possibility is to punish any immoral actions that have been done out of immoral intent. This option forcibly takes away a certain degree of comfortability, or happiness, from one’s life because of their willful actions causing a similar effect on another person. This is often referred to as justice, but it is the same as the old anecdote “Do as I say, not as I do.” There is no motivation to change your intentions if you witness other people or groups doing the same, but because they are inflicting reasonable revenge it is considered to be morally acceptable. Isn’t the end goal of punishment to correct the mistakes made in the past? If correcting the mistakes of others is the end goal, then there must be a point after the immoral event occurred where the individual understands what they have done, the effect their actions have on others, and how to renavigate the situation, including other situations that are similar, in a way that doesn’t cause others harm. A simpler way of saying this is, educating the person on thinking through situations from a more empathetic viewpoint.

This empathetic awareness is what I hold to be the main scale on how good, or moral, a person is determined to be. At one end of the scale there is empathetic ignorance and at the other there is empathetic understanding. Empathetic ignorance is what most people consider to be immoral because it is the lack of consideration of people other than one’s self, which is often interpreted to be egotistic behavior. Empathetic understanding is what most people consider to be altruism, which is acting in a way that focuses on bettering the lives of others and isn’t based on personal gain. I argue that it is possible to always have altruistic intentions, but the actions based on these intents always have a possibility of being misunderstood by those which it affects. Because of this, there must be a way to improve empathetic understanding in order to mitigate these misunderstandings.

Everyone has different experiences which cause people to act differently from each other. The experiences one has are based off of interactions with their environment, interactions with other people, and interactions with themselves. Environmental experience can include any empirical observation that is made about a person’s surroundings whether it is in regard to a familiar building, to the natural environment, or even to the weather. Basically, it is based on all external influences that are not based on human interactions. Interactions with one’s self is based on internal thoughts and motives. This kind of interaction is the most intimate yet can still be the hardest to understand. Introspection, or the action of observing and analyzing one’s own thoughts, is how people can start to get to know their own thoughts in a way that can be articulated to others. This influence is what determines one’s intents, which then determines their actions. The last kind of interaction is social experience. Social experience is any observations made through people watching, light conversation, or deep conversation. People watching is something that allows someone to make connections between the actions of the person being observed and relate it to their own experiences. Light conversation deals with mindless banter that contains no new ideas for any person within the discussion. This kind of conversation relates to humor, gossip, and ridicule of others. Deep conversation, on the other hand, deals with people communicating experiences or ideas while also explaining the importance of the thing being discussed. This pertains mainly to explaining an experience, based on the three types of experiences, to another person, or vice versa. This is where empathetic understanding is built upon the most. Through deep conversation, people are able to gain second-hand experiences that, if interpreted correctly and accurately, can make a person more understanding of other people’s intentions. The more deep conversations a person partakes in, given it is usually with new people each time, the more empathetic understanding that person is building.

Empathetic understanding is something that can be improved only if the person has a desire to improve. If there is no motivation to become more empathetically aware of one’s own intentions, then this person will fall back towards empathetic ignorance. Empathetic ignorance is something that is seen within many adults. Any intent behind an action that prioritizes one’s self at the expense of another person’s well-being is the main behavior that warrants the title of immoral. But should the individual be held responsible for something that they think is morally right. I say the individual thinks of their own actions as right because all learning is based off of what society deems acceptable. This is because society is a competitive game, where the winners are often the people who can get away with harming others for personal gain, knowingly or unknowingly. It is obvious why willful intentions of this sort are considered immoral, but doing this unknowingly, or coerced, is an entirely different situation. Any sort of competition fosters the idea, within the competitors, that they should make the other team or person lose by being better than them. This creates a barrier between what someone considers to be best for themselves and what is best for others. When there is a dilemma between these two objectives, people are told to look out for themselves because the other person is going to do the same. Because of this, the coerced empathetic ignorance from others triumphs over the altruistic behavior of empathetic understanding. One possible solution to the coerced ignorance could be through open communication between one’s own motives and hearing how other people may interpret those motives. If others are going to be harmed by these motives, then they should express that to the person who wishes to act on these. If the person is dead set in their egotistic world-view, then it is up to the other people in their community to still act morally and to be cautious of the actions of the person who acts out of self-interest. At this point, when trying to further the person’s empathetic understanding fails, others must still “be the bigger person” and to act out of empathy towards them because stooping to their level only makes a person worse not better.

Some motivations that may cause willful empathetic ignorance can come from wanting anything more than what is necessary. Some of these wants can be power or greed, but both are a competitive pursuit. When trying to obtain power for the sole purpose of being powerful, shows a quality within a person that makes them feel superior to their fellow people. If one thinks they are superior to someone they do not know, then they are being unrealistic about their own self-worth. Material gain, or greed, comes from the idea of having an overabundance, or surplus, of necessary items. Money, food, and shelter are all necessary things in our society, but having too much of it creates a situation where some are left with not enough to sustain a healthy life. Because of this result, the intentions to gain more “stuff” than what is realistically needed is reliant on the idea that one is more superior than the others. Further, this form of limited consumption can help the Earth have a more sustainable future.

Currently in society, we focus way too much on the real consequences of actions rather than the reasoning behind the actions. By increasing our empathetic understanding, we can exist as a more cohesive community rather than one divided by selfish pursuits of individuals. We must also create changes in our punishment system in order to help people learn through example rather than by immoral force. Long story short, don’t be reluctant to think and act freely if the intentions are moral, a life that is limited in its freedoms is one that isn’t lived to the fullest.