The Empathy Chip

Rob J Kennedy

Hi All,

I have not put this article I wrote (with AI help) up anywhere as I wanted to get your views on the impact the idea would have.

Of course, this could never happen. Humans could never come to grips with such an idea, let alone apply it. But I'd like to hear your ethical, moral, political and social arguments.

Over to you.

The Empathy Chip: How a Tiny Implant Could Save Humanity
In a world becoming unliveable because of conflict, inequality, social unrest and environmental degradation, technology may hold the key to a profound solution: an empathy chip. Imagine a small neural implant that enhances human empathy, allowing people to understand deeply and care about the feelings of others. Such a breakthrough could revolutionise human interaction, reshape societies, fix inequality and potentially save the planet from its greatest threat, which is us human beings.

The Science Behind the Empathy Chip
Neuroscientists, since the 1990s have known that empathy is governed by specific regions of the brain, including the anterior insular, anterior cingulate cortex, and the mirror neuron system, which “mirrors” the actions and behaviours of others. These areas allow us to recognise and feel emotions in others, which form the foundation of compassion and our moral decision-making.

This study reviews methods for emotion identification using multi-channel Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals in brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00521-022-07292-4?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Advances in neurotechnology, particularly through BCIs, suggest that it may be possible to stimulate and enhance these neural pathways. The development of neural implants, like those being explored for treating conditions such as depression, paralysis, and memory loss, indicates that a targeted device designed to boost empathy could be within reach very soon.

This paper explores the progress in Advances in Multimodal Emotion Recognition. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7600724/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

An empathy chip would function by detecting emotional signals in others through facial expressions, tone of voice, and physiological responses. The chip would then translate these signals into neural stimulation, allowing the user to experience a heightened sense of emotional awareness, understanding and connection. The result? A world where understanding and compassion become not just an aspirational ideal, but a biological trait.

Transforming Society Through Enhanced Empathy
The potential applications for empathy chips are vast and transformative. From reducing crime to fostering global peace, here’s how this technology could reshape the world:

1. Reducing Violence and Crime
Many violent crimes stem from a lack of empathy, which is an inability to understand or care about the pain inflicted on others. Research on psychopathy, for instance, shows that individuals with reduced empathy are more likely to engage in harmful behaviours. An empathy-enhancing implant could be used in rehabilitation programs for criminals, helping them develop a genuine sense of remorse and moral responsibility.

2. Improving Political and Social Harmony
Polarisation and division have become embedded in modern politics. Individuals, groups, and political parties often struggle to or don’t want to see beyond their ideological perspectives. If politicians, leaders, and citizens were equipped with an empathy chip, decision-making could shift from self-interest and tribalism to policies agreed on through mutual understanding and collaboration. Complex issues such as climate change, economic inequality, and human rights could be talked through with a collective concern to reach results that work for all sides.

3. Enhancing Mental Health and Relationships
Empathy plays a crucial role in human relationships, from friendships to marriages. A deficit in emotional understanding is often a contributing factor in interpersonal conflicts, loneliness, and mental health issues. By amplifying one’s ability to connect with and understand others, an empathy chip could improve emotional intelligence, reduce misunderstandings and help build stronger, healthier relationships.

4. Preventing War and Promoting Global Peace
One of the most profound applications of an empathy chip would be in conflict resolution. Wars are often caused by a combination of factors: regional instability, lack of the rule of law, ineffective or compromised governments, illicit economies, and resource shortages.

Also, wars are fuelled by dehumanisation, the psychological process of seeing others as less than human. If soldiers, diplomats, and world leaders were equipped with an enhanced ability to feel the suffering of others, it could shift the course of history. Negotiations could be driven by genuine concern rather than power struggles, and the impulse to engage in violence could be curbed by an emotional response brought on through an empathetic point of view.

Ethical and Practical Considerations
While the benefits of an empathy chip are compelling, its implementation would come with significant ethical and logistical challenges. Would such a device infringe upon free will, forcing people to feel emotions they might otherwise suppress? Could it be misused by authoritarian regimes to manipulate populations? Would there be consent issues, particularly in the criminal justice system or military applications?

Moreover, the question of accessibility raises concerns about inequality. If only the wealthy or certain groups had access to this technology, it could create a rift between populaces, exacerbating existing social divides rather than healing them. Ensuring that this technology is used responsibly and equitably would be critical. However, ethical concerns must not override a potential solution that could save humanity and the planet. We are at a point where our ethical concerns must come second to the survival of our race.

A Future Built on Empathy
Despite these challenges, the development of an empathy chip represents one of the most radical yet promising technological interventions to improve the human condition. Unlike artificial intelligence, which risks reducing human connection and understanding by automating interactions, an empathy chip could make us better people and more attuned to the emotions and experiences of our fellow human beings.

If harnessed correctly, this tiny implant could be the key to solving some of the world’s greatest problems, fostering a future in which understanding, cooperation, and compassion define the human experience. In a time, our time now, which is marked by division and uncertainty, a breakthrough like this that amplifies our capacity to care is exactly what we need to save the world.

If we do not change our mindset and move beyond national rivalry, ideas of racial superiority, and greed—humanity will be doomed.

Wayfarer

magine a small neural implant that enhances human empathy, allowing people to understand deeply and care about the feelings of others. — Rob J Kennedy

Isn't that extremely reductionistic? Humans are clearly capable of great empathy, but also of terrible cruelty. But attempting to engineer compassion undercuts the ability to choose to be compassionate - or not - which is, I think, essential to the human condition. So, I'm sorry, but I would regard this as a materialist approach to an ethical issue, and basically de-humanising. It's reminiscent of Huxley's Brave New World, where embroyos destined for the higher classes are treated chemically to improve them.

Metaphysician Undercover

allowing people to understand deeply and care about the feelings of others — Rob J Kennedy

Is that what empathy is? I don't know about that.

Vera Mont

Empathy is, essentially, sharing: the ability to recognize oneself in another and thus to understand and sympathize with their feelings, their attitudes, their condition.
It goes a long way toward promoting compassionate and benevolent behaviour. But the single trait - let alone a computer chip that is unconnected to the personality - would not be enough to prevent destructive action toward entities that one does not encounter directly.

kazan

@Vera Mont,
Sorry to appear to join the negative pile-on, but the first reaction/thought was of everyone being the servant of those that surround them..progress and change brought to a halt.
The second thought was how dangerous this would be to individual safety, short circuiting self preservation even just slightly.
Just initial reaction.

smile

unenlightened

If we do not change our mindset and move beyond national rivalry, ideas of racial superiority, and greed—humanity will be doomed. — Rob J Kennedy

This is true, but they are not the product of a lack of empathy, but of a mindset or ideology that is socially induced, that actually relies on empathy for its propagation.

Metaphysician Undercover

↪unenlightened

This demonstrates that it is a very complex issue. Essentially we choose, and are genetically inclined, to empathize with some and not with others. The tendencies may be somewhat unique to the individual, but they are readily shaped and modified by ideology. The limits to the "goodness" of empathy is a complex issue.

Hanover

Essentially we choose, and are genetically inclined, to empathize with some and not with others. — Metaphysician Undercover

Our empathy typically occurs more naturally towards those most like us. We are kind to our kind. Who our kind are is easily identifiable. They have our skin type, our facial features, and they speak in our accent, to name a few. It's not hard to figure out who the strange stranger is.

If evolution has implanted within us all these cues to identify the foreigner, the question is why and the further question is what happens if they are suddenly removed with this empathy chip. Has our ability to identify those different from us become a maladaptation from a more dangerous past or does it still offer us some degree of safety from far away travelers?

I'm fully aligned with the OP's suggestion that greater empathy will yield far greater harmony, but I still have the Chesterson's Fence question. Why was the evolutionary fence of tribalism erected and what truly happens when it is removed?

↪Rob J Kennedy

I wonder if you've ever read the novel "A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess, or perhaps seen the film. The story explores exactly what's wrong with the idea of conditioning people to be good (or empathetic).

Christoffer

↪Rob J Kennedy

First off, how much of this is argued by the AI? It reads like the AI wrote it all. What is your own argument in this? Because it's not allowed to just use AI on this forum, you have to formulate your own argument. AI is allowed to proofread or to test your hypothesis, but you need to write your own argument.

Second, empathy is only part of how to solve many of society's issues. While higher empathy may improve certain aspects, it's also part of forming bias. Look at how empathy is "hacked" by marketing, pushing narratives which simplifies a conflict in the world down to a tool of manipulation. It can be used and abused like any other psychological function.

Empathy can be sharpened to be a weapon and enhancing it could make that weapon more efficient.

What's needed is a more broad empathic framework; a set of balanced emotion and introspection of those emotions. While high empathy is good, you also need to be able to think about your own empathy. This awareness of your own emotional life and how it affects your thinking is more important than just increasing empathy.

And there's also the case for certain people benefiting society by not having too much empathy. Sometimes we need someone who see past the biases that empathy forms and rationalize clearly about an issue that may need more tough decisions. Empathy can paralyze some people when they need to make hard decisions.

I'd say that the more proper way to handle this is to classify "low empathy" as a psychological disorder. That those with extremely low empathy may be needed to medicate their empathy up to a certain societal norm-value. That way we would still enable the range of necessary variety in thinking required for actual survival, but reduce the problems of low empathy in many individuals in the same way we medicate and treat other psychological disorders which are dangers to others in society.

Empathy is, essentially, sharing: the ability to recognize oneself in another and thus to understand and sympathize with their feelings, their attitudes, their condition. — Vera Mont

I'd say end it at "understand". While people debate the difference between sympathizing and empathy, the ideal understanding is that empathy does not require sympathy.

That sympathy is emotionally and intellectually agreeing with something, while empathy is emotional understanding of someone or some people.

Basically, I can empathize with the emotions that drove a murderer to commit murder, but I don't sympathize with any of it. I sympathize and emphasize with someone standing up for themselves against an abuser.

Sympathy is a choice. Empathy is a trait. Sympathy evolves out of moral understanding, knowledge and wisdom. Empathy evolves out of social understanding and mirror neurons.

If evolution has implanted within us all these cues to identify the foreigner, the question is why and the further question is what happens if they are suddenly removed with this empathy chip. Has our ability to identify those different from us become a maladaptation from a more dangerous past or does it still offer us some degree of safety from far away travelers? — Hanover

Yes, viewing empathy as something singular, different and separate from all else that makes up our psychology is a mistake. I mean, we already have lots of drugs which enhance our sense of happiness, but the downsides of that shows up quite dramatically when in between those drugs and the brain composition of people regularly taking them.

That it's not so easy just to adjust something. And especially, as you touch upon, if we all increase our empathy, our brain will change its composition to adapt to these new conditions and we will face a new set of problems.

For instance, as I mentioned above, we could decide that extremely low empathy is harmful to the individual and society and have some treatment for that. But there's also the other side of the spectrum, those with extreme empathy and who become unable to act and decide anything because they become paralyzed by the consequences to others.

This opposite condition does not have a classification yet, mainly due to it being mostly just affecting the individual, compared to psychopathy which is mostly harmful against others. But if you've ever met someone who's extremely high sensitive, the experience is of a person who's completely neurotic around any decisions involving others, showing signs of borderline disorder between depression and euphoria.

In the end, as with any problems revolving around psychological issues in society, it's about cutting off the extreme ends at which it becomes damaging to the individual and people around that individual.

Vera Mont

That sympathy is emotionally and intellectually agreeing with something, while empathy is emotional understanding of someone or some people. — Christoffer

I'm not sure about that distinction. One can understand things from a purely academic or clinical position, that requires no empathy. Once you recognize yourself in the other, you share their emotional state, 'feel' their pain, fear, hunger, anger; they are reacting as you would react in a similar situation.

Basically, I can empathize with the emotions that drove a murderer to commit murder, but I don't sympathize with any of it. — Christoffer

I doubt you can empathize with all murderers. The one who does it for sexual pleasure? A psychologist or criminologist may be able to understand that intellectually, and I may believe them, intellectually, but I sure can't feel it emotionally. Or one who kills for financial gain. I can understand the motivation, but neither share nor condone the mind-set. One who is driven in desperation to kill an attacker or abuser, I can understand, feel their emotions and share their state of mind to some extent, and also sympathize.

Empathy actually goes beyond sympathy. Sympathy is merely compassion for another, however alien they and they and situation are; empathy is putting oneself in their situation.
If you have it, it extends far beyond people just like yourself; it includes all living things.
However, in real life, this trait is associated with a certain kind of intelligence, the ability to observe closely and interpret, retention of memory from one's own experience, sensitivity and benevolence. It's all integrated withing the personality; cannot be inserted by an artificial device.

What we can do is nurture and reward those impulses in our children; support their empathetic side, at the same time discouraging selfish and aggressive behaviours. Unfortunately, if a society is dominated by the negative side of the human psyche, neither parents nor robotics can do very much to change it.

Vera Mont

Our empathy typically occurs more naturally towards those most like us. We are kind to our kind. Who our kind are is easily identifiable. They have our skin type, our facial features, and they speak in our accent, to name a few. It's not hard to figure out who the strange stranger is. — Hanover

That goes no way toward explaining the white civil rights activists or any of the outreach programs and social volunteering, or animal rescue and protection programs.

We are kind to our kind. — Hanover

Not so far as I can see. At least, civil war, drug trafficking, price-gauging and domestic violence don't indicate that. Some people are kind selectively; some are kind generally, some are kind universally. Some are unkind in the same way.

There was plenty of contention and some violent clashes between tribes of very similar people; primitives didn't usually travel far enough to encounter other races - that came much later, with nation-states that had entrenched religions and social orders. Many of these nations went to war against very similar neighbours, for the same reason prehistoric humans did - for territory, water and other resources - and sometimes for the self-aggrandizement of an aggressive leader. Even so, both in prehistoric times, and ever since, tribes and nations have also made treaties and trade agreements with others near, far, similar and different. Marco Polo did very well in China; Europeans were, at first, welcome in the New World.

Why was the evolutionary fence of tribalism erected and what truly happens when it is removed? — Hanover

It wasn't erected by evolution or some god. People lived in more or less isolated communities in small blood-related numbers. They did trade, negotiate for water rights and safe passage, meet at trade fairs that became festivals and intermarry with other tribes. Nor is that fence removed by some kind of decree. Strangers become acquaintances, neighbours, business associates, classmates, lovers - in the normal course of human interaction, gradual assimilation is inevitable. That's what happened to the lost tribes of Biblical Israel.
Some elites and privileged factions (political and religious) attempt to prevent this by keeping their community from the mainstream - separate schools, anti-miscegenation laws, housing and employment discrimination, enforced segregation, selective law-enforcement, etc. Yet some part of that population always find a way around or under that societal fence to associate with one another.

Hanover

This opposite condition does not have a classification yet, mainly due to it being mostly just affecting the individual, compared to psychopathy which is mostly harmful against others. — Christoffer

I knew a woman who claimed to be an empath, highly sensitive to the emotions of others. She was actually borderline, but that's a whole other story. To the extent there are those whose empathy levels are off the charts, I agree that it can be limiting. There are instances where hard decisions have to be made. People have to get fired, be imprisoned, and sometimes wars must be waged. It's not that these tasks must be reserved for the psychopaths and the cold hearted, but they should be reserved to those who have taken the responsibility to protect an even higher good.

Pacifism doesn't work in a world where there are hawks. To the extent the OP suggests everyone will be a dove, I don't know the world would work with all doves. It seems like evolution didn't send us in that direction at least. So maybe that's the question: Should there be no hawks? What would they eat?

Joshs

Pacifism doesn't work in a world where there are hawks. To the extent the OP suggests everyone will be a dove, I don't know the world would work with all doves. It seems like evolution didn't send us in that direction at least. So maybe that's the question: Should there be no hawks? What would they eat? — Hanover

There is a big difference between acting to retain someone else in order to protect oneself and doing so because one considers their actions to be morally evil or pathological. The term ‘hawk’ , at least in my mind, implies the latter rather than the former. Using evolution to explain empathy is one way to blame the other for what we see as inadequate empathy (biological pathology).

Hanover

Using evolution to explain empathy is one way to blame the other for what we see as inadequate empathy (biological pathology). — Joshs

I'm not suggesting there is no free will, but the ability to empathize has to have come from somewhere to begin with. Argue evolution or the Garden of Eden, but it's a reasonable inquiry to ask why humans have it. That is, I'm not suggesting it's ok to murder because murdering is something humans are programmed to be able to do, but it is a legitimate question to ask why humans evolved to have this capacity.

Christoffer

I'm not sure about that distinction. One can understand things from a purely academic or clinical position, that requires no empathy. Once you recognize yourself in the other, you share their emotional state, 'feel' their pain, fear, hunger, anger; they are reacting as you would react in a similar situation. — Vera Mont

That doesn't really change my take on it. The ability to feel as another does not mean to agree with their actions out of those emotions. That's the difference. And we can understand academically and clinically, but I'd argue we do wo better with a high empathic ability. How do you academically evaluate a murderers psychological state of mind without the empathic ability to recognize that psychological state of mind?

I doubt you can empathize with all murderers. The one who does it for sexual pleasure? — Vera Mont

Can you not emphasize with sexual attraction, pleasure etc.? The emotions involved has nothing to do with the context. You either sympathize with the actions and decisions out of those emotions or you don't. Empathically understand a sexual predator is absolutely possible, but sympathizing with them is immoral.

Without the ability to empathically understand, we are unable to discern and investigate motive of an immoral act. And I'd say this is a key area to which society often fails when trying to fight crime, the inability, or the rejection of empathic thinking around a crime leads to societal actions that goes against what researchers tell society is the effective path towards reducing said crimes. Most of how society operates on, is on reactions of sympathy values; "do I sympathize with these actions or not", which in turn leads to blanket solutions like stronger punishments rather than looking at the mechanics that formed an individual into a composition of emotions leading to the crimes in the first place.

It's this mix up between sympathy and empathy which makes people blame those who empathically understands some monster in society. Like when Lars von Trier said that he "understands Hitler" at the Cannes film festival and then became a person non grata because of it. That's a display of people not understanding the difference between empathically understanding Hitler and sympathetically agreeing with him.

knew a woman who claimed to be an empath, highly sensitive to the emotions of others. She was actually borderline, but that's a whole other story. To the extent there are those whose empathy levels are off the charts, I agree that it can be limiting. There are instances where hard decisions have to be made. People have to get fired, be imprisoned, and sometimes wars must be waged. It's not that these tasks must be reserved for the psychopaths and the cold hearted, but they should be reserved to those who have taken the responsibility to protect an even higher good.

Pacifism doesn't work in a world where there are hawks. To the extent the OP suggests everyone will be a dove, I don't know the world would work with all doves. It seems like evolution didn't send us in that direction at least. So maybe that's the question: Should there be no hawks? What would they eat? — Hanover

Which is why I constantly, in my intellectual pondering, ends up in a place where "harmony" and "balance" has more importance than anything else. To find a balance that still incorporates complexity. We can't exist with too much empathy and too low empathy, both leads to inabilities to function in both emotion and reasoning.

Without some diversity of emotion we also lose much of what constitutes an emotionally rich experience of life. We cannot have joy without sorrow. We need both to feel emotionally rich. Just look at those so heavily medicated that they don't have a large spectrum of emotion, is that experience a truly rich life?

Balance and harmony is to find the middle path between the extremes. To dip toes on each side, sample the reasoning of both and have both conflicting sides exist simultaneously in order to form a complex rich experience of life. If either side becomes to strong, you will become a slave to that bias.

Philosophim

Well this is horrifically dystopian! Who gets to decide what empathy is? We have massive debates on moral grounds as it is, who is going to say, "Yeah, don't have empathy since you believe X ideology, lets fix that". Does empathy mean you believe in a God? That a transwoman is an actual woman? That all of your money should be donated to an organization for the poor? Or how about having immense empathy with starving kids in Africa, so its ok to accept that you have food rations from the government?

The problem is we're altering one human being for a perceived social benefit. Who gets to determine that social benefit? Why should society benefit from my personal alteration instead of absorbing the costs of a different outlook on things? Or is having a difference of opinion "Dooming humanity" now?

You don't need brain alterations to fix humanity and create a harmonious society. You create a society that serves the needs and wants of individuals and in return they'll support it.

Joshs

That is, I'm not suggesting it's ok to murder because murdering is something humans are programmed to be able to do, but it is a legitimate question to ask why humans evolved to have this capacity. — Hanover

We didnt evolve to have this capacity, as though empathy were a physiological gimmick. Empathy is just a sophisticated example of anticipatory sense-making, which is present even in the simplest organisms. To be a living creature is to function on the basis of norm-directed purposes, which requires anticipating events relative to those goals. We care about others to the extent that they are implicated in and enhance our purposes and goals.

Vera Mont

The ability to feel as another does not mean to agree with their actions out of those emotions. — Christoffer

No, it doesn't. You might have an idea how they could achieve their need by more effective or socially approved methods. Agreement is intellectual; it can be granted or withheld; fellow feeling is unconditional and automatic. Understanding in a clinical sense leaves you aloof; feeling does not.

How do you academically evaluate a murderers psychological state of mind without the empathic ability to recognize that psychological state of mind? — Christoffer

By having studied similar cases and followed similar behaviours back through their history. Like understanding the malfunction of a car engine without feeling like a car engine.

Can you not emphasize with sexual attraction, pleasure etc.? — Christoffer

The normal kind, yes. I can empathize with a woman who has been jilted, a man whose partner has been unfaithful, a young person with a hopeless crush or two star-crossed lovers who are kept apart by forces beyond their control. I cannot empathize with, feel for or comprehend the drive to hurt and kill the object of desire.

Empathically understand a sexual predator is absolutely possible, but sympathizing with them is immoral. — Christoffer

Understanding is possible - beyond me, but professionals seem to manage it - some degree of compassion is possible - beyond me, but some religious seem to manage it - sharing the feelings is possible only for those with similar desires or experience (hence copycat killers and sadistic entertainments). Morality is irrelevant; emotions are not ruled by moral precepts.

Without the ability to empathically understand, we are unable to discern and investigate motive of an immoral act. — Christoffer

I disagree. People study and understand all kinds of things from virology to cosmology without any sort of identification with the objects they are observing.

And I'd say this is a key area to which society often fails when trying to fight crime, the inability, or the rejection of empathic thinking around a crime leads to societal actions that goes against what researchers tell society is the effective path towards reducing said crimes. — Christoffer

This is far to vast a blanket! There are crimes of so many different kinds, committed by so many different people for so many different reasons, nobody on earth can empathize with all of the perpetrators. But even without empathy, we can look objectively at the statistics, case histories, demographics, social environments, circumstances and make reasoned assumptions regarding their motivation and how to reduce the motivating factors.

Joshs

↪Philosophim

:up:

Hanover

We didnt evolve to have this capacity, as though empathy were a physiological gimmick. Empathy is just a sophisticated example of anticipatory sense-making, which is present even in the simplest organisms. To be a living creature is to function on the basis of norm-directed purposes, which requires anticipating events relative to those goals. We care about others to the extent that they are implicated in and enhance our purposes and goals. — Joshs

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. If you want to say an amoeba can "understand" and "share," and that they have any "feelings" in the sense we're using that term, then I don't think we're talking about the same thing.

I take empathy to mean that I don't burn down your house because I know what it would feel like to have my own house burned down. It's a cognitive function that places me in your shoes so that I don't treat the other as the other, but I treat him as my own. Whether a dog actually empathizes is doubtful. It is more likely she cares for her puppy out of an innate desire to protect, not out of thinking what pain her poor puppy must be in and that she wouldn't such pain on herself. But I could be wrong, not being a dog and all.

The ability to empathize is heightened and lessened in different people, and some actually lack the ability entirely (sociopaths). It is not entirely a product of nature, as you can choose to empathize or not. It is entirely possible, however, that a society of sociopaths could exist, and, if that were something that would increase their survivability, then we'd have such societies, but we don't. Sociopaths exist in low enough numbers that I think it's something that isn't advantaged, although arguments have been made that it CEOs and the like are better if they have less empathy.

The point being that I don't think we can talk about why humans are as they are without reference to evolution (or creation, if that floats your boat). It's not like we can say we do things just because. We either do it because millions of years of struggle have forged us this way or because the good lord fashioned us this way.

Christoffer

By having studied similar cases and followed similar behaviours back through their history. Like understanding the malfunction of a car engine without feeling like a car engine. — Vera Mont

That comparison is not valid as not having an insight into the experience of emotion means you cannot evaluate the emotions that led to a certain behavior.

It's Mary in the black and white room, or the chinese room; you cannot fully rationalize human morality without understanding the experience. And how do you know that all the definitions in academic psychology doesn't derive from also having an empathic component?

You're basically asking humans that do scientific research on humans to evaluate emotional driving forces behind behavior, without an understanding of what those emotions really are.

It is impossible to study human behavior, without our mirror-neurons firing off empathic reactions. We can study an animal and conclude their pain-centra to fire when we do something to it, but to study complex moral actions by examining the reasoning and emotional complexity that caused it is not quantifiable in the same way.

The normal kind, yes. — Vera Mont

That's just arbitrary. What is "normal"? In relation to what? You're not talking about empathic reactions and mirror-neurons, you're talking about values in morality. You are moralizing the action in order to argue for there not to be an empathic reaction.

This is the kind of fear I'm talking about. A fear people feel of in some way get "infected" by what they argue is immoral if they were to empathize with someone acting immorally and why people mix up sympathy with empathy.

It's so mixed up that when trying to research the clear definitions of the two even the sources of information are unclear and rather treat them as blurring the definitions between them. And I think that's a mistake. Primarily by society being influenced by people fearing to investigate immoral behavior. It's why the FBI agents who inspired the series "Mindhunter" got so much criticism and lack of understanding when they formed the research material for how to profile serial killers. They did their research in large part through empathic understanding of these serial killers they researched. The research they had before that simply concluded "crazy", which had zero substance to qualify as enough explanation to act as profiling material.

some degree of compassion is possible — Vera Mont

Compassion is not needed for empathy.

Morality is irrelevant; emotions are not ruled by moral precepts. — Vera Mont

Exactly. Empathy is not about morality, it's about mirror-neurons, about the ability to understand feelings in others. To understand feelings, to understand an emotion of sexual desire in another person, is not the same as morally agreeing with why they feel that sexual desire.

I disagree. People study and understand all kinds of things from virology to cosmology without any sort of identification with the objects they are observing. — Vera Mont

How do you discern an immoral act without examining the emotions that informed that act? And how do you examine emotions without understanding what those emotions are? Researching cosmology is not the same as researching our psychology.

And even if you attempt to, through neuroscientific studies, most can just conclude that a sexual predator has the same neurological pattern as someone in a normal sexual encounter. Are we to conclude then that the moral act of the sexual predator is as moral as a normal sexual act because the neurological data is showing similar results? Or is our research into the morality of this person's act in need of a more subjective realm utilizing the experience of what it means to be human, i.e using the mirror-neurons to fully grasp the causal effect of the predators act?

While empathy isn't about morality, it's both needed to fully examine moral acts, and impossible to rid yourself of when examining any humans. You cannot exclude your mirror-neurons from your experience, and if you examine morality and other humans, you will always be a slave to those mirror-neurons.

And I think that's key to understand why people become so emotionally panicked when being asked to examine some immoral person. Because their mirror-neurons functions automatically and when they become conscious of their empathic reactions towards a criminal they morally despise, it creates a heavy cognitive dissonance that they, without training, doesn't know how to handle.

Researchers, like those FBI agents who researched serial killers in the 70s, essentially train themselves to use their empathy to examine immoral people. They train away the dissonance, understand how to handle their emotions during research to understand what they are researching.

This is far to vast a blanket! There are crimes of so many different kinds, committed by so many different people for so many different reasons, nobody on earth can empathize with all of the perpetrators. — Vera Mont

Yes they can. The emotions behind crimes are based on the same emotions anyone feels. You're still talking about sympathizing. You are thinking about evaluating each crime under their moral dimension, evaluating if they are moral or not. As I've said, evaluating the morality of these crimes is not empathy; empathy is used to evaluate the moral dimension.

You can have two crimes of people killing someone and robbing them, but one has been working in slave-like conditions under the person they rob, fearing that this person will strike back at them so they kill him and take his money to be free and be able to afford living - while the other is excited around killing and did so regardless of getting the money without killing. How do you evaluate the differences in morality between these two if you aren't able to empathically understand the differences between the two people's emotions that informed their actions? The fear and desperation in the first, and the joy and excitement in violence of the second?

This is what I'm talking about. Empathy and sympathy should be regarded as two different things. Empathy is fundamentally our ability to feel the emotions of another, it's the mirror-neurons firing; it has nothing to do with the morality of that person, or our own feelings judging that person. I can absolutely despise a criminal, hate him and hope he rots, while still empathically understand the emotions he felt that drove him to his immoral act. Holding those two paths in my mind at the same time helps inform my moral judgement of the man, and it's the difference between me being part of a raging mob and being a supporter of a functioning justice system.

Joshs

↪Hanover

I take empathy to mean that I don't burn down your house because I know what it would feel like to have my own house burned down. It's a cognitive function that places me in your shoes so that I don't treat the other as the other, but I treat him as my own. Whether a dog actually empathizes is doubtful. It is more likely she cares for her puppy out of an innate desire to protect, not out of thinking what pain her poor puppy must be in and that she wouldn't such pain on herself. But I could be wrong, not being a dog and all.

The ability to empathize is heightened and lessened in different people, and some actually lack the ability entirely (sociopaths — Hanover

We can’t function in society without an ability to anticipate to at least a minimal extent the behavior of others. We also must anticipate our own behavior, and when our ability to ‘know our own mind ’ crumbles we find ourselves in crisis. Our ability to empathize with others is entirely a function of a basic , clinical skill at glimpsing their perspective , how it differs from ours and how to assess the nature of the gap. ‘Sociopaths ‘ don’t have a deficit in something called empathy seen as a a mechanism separable from the skill of modeling the other’s outlook. It’s not some adjustable thermostat of caring, independent of the raw ability to make sense of others. The weakness of the sociopath is in the anticipatory modeling , not in a mysterious deficit of ‘fellow feeling’.

We don’t want to treat the other as other. It doesn’t occur to us to do so unless a barrier rises preventing us from being able to assimilate their actions in a way that is recognizable to us and that doesn’t seem threatening and chaotic. We arent born as fortress selves who have to be taught to care about others, or rely on some instinctual
module in the brain to do so. The basic fact is that relating to the perspectives of others is extremely hard work, and each of us is trying the best we can to accomplish this. When we fail at this task , we end up calling for empathy chips in others’ brains , or calling for more religious education, or blaming irrational bias, medicalized pathology in the form of sociopathy, or evolutionary predispositions.

AmadeusD

Seems like this would simply lead to a circle of non-productivity and non-progress.

I also think it is not in our best interests to treat everyone with empathy. This is where, as a pretty clear lefty in terms of box-ticking, i get off the train. the "Be kind" crowd have fucked everything up in my view.

Hanover

We can’t function in society without an ability to anticipate to at least a minimal extent the behavior of others. — Joshs

Anticipating how our actions will be reacted to by others beings or even inanimate objects seems a necessary ability for any higher organism. That isn't what I mean by empathy though.

The weakness of the sociopath is in the anticipatory modeling , not in a mysterious deficit of ‘fellow feeling’. — Joshs

Sociopathy doesn't relate to someone's ability to calculate outcomes. It relates to whether they care how it impacts others. Sociopaths often are very calculating and devious, fully appreciating how their behavior will lead to a particular result. A tree, for example, is not a sociopath, despite it fully meeting your requirement that it have no anticipatory modeling.

We don’t want to treat the other as other. It doesn’t occur to us to do so unless a barrier rises preventing us from being able to assimilate their actions in a way that is recognizable to us and that doesn’t seem threatening and chaotic. — Joshs

A baby fully understands what "Mine!" means. She knows herself and you as the other. Anyway, if you're going down the road of describing childhood development and how all children are innately empathetic until they are taught otherwise, you're going to need some sources. Sharing is an important lesson we try to teach in childhood, meaning this idea of perfect citizens being born and only later corrupted is doubtful.

Joshs

↪AmadeusD

I also think it is not in our best interests to treat everyone with empathy. This is where, as a pretty clear lefty in terms of box-ticking, i get off the train. the "Be kind" crowd have fucked everything up in my view. — AmadeusD

How about “be insightful” or “be a good psychological investigator”? I think all of us always want to be kind, to the extent that others appear to be deserving of that kindness. So the problem is not in our ethical motive and intent, but in our ability to to keep going in our assessment of the thinking of others just at that point where it would appear that they are undeserving of our kindness.

Joshs

Sociopathy doesn't relate to someone's ability to calculate outcomes. It relates to whether they care how it impacts others — Hanover

Where do you think ‘caring’ comes from, a mysterious substance of ‘fellow feeling’? I like the enactivist definition of caring:

Sense-making is “the active adaptive engagement of an autonomous system with its environment in terms of the differential virtual implications for its ongoing form of life. [It is t]he basic, most general form of all cognitive and affective activity manifested experientially as a structure of caring”…Whether we act or we perceive, whether we emote or we cognize, a structure of caring is at play in all forms of sense-making.

How do we differentiate between ourselves and others in the first place such that we are a position to decide whether or not to care about them ? The ‘self’ is already a society of interacting bits of interests, which is why it’s not that hard to find ourselves in relations with persons ( our parents, our children, a loved one), where our societies of self and that of the other become so intertwined that I can no longer tell the difference between acting selfishly and selflessly. A baby may not initially believe there is any differences. how they feel and how other feel, because they haven’t learned to decenter their own perspective. The whole concept that other have their perspective must be learned.

But research shows that from a very early age infants do distinguish their mother’s feelings from their own and respond to emotions like sadness with empathic responses. Animals that play know not to cause hurt to their playmates, else the play stop. Sociopaths care very much how others think and feel, and do their best to make sense of others. But the results of their assessments leads them to the conclusion that the thinking and feeling of others is unrelatable , without significant meaning. There are conditions where others appear to us as walking automations, alive but strangely inanimate. We want to empathize with them but we see nothing in their behavior which makes it possible to do so.

Vera Mont

That comparison is not valid as not having an insight into the experience of emotion means you cannot evaluate the emotions that led to a certain behavior. — Christoffer

Evaluation is intellectual - where it's applicable at all. What's the standard against which you evaluate another person's behaviour? Your own, or the norm accepted by society. Emotions may cause him to act a certain way, but he's not evaluated by society on his feelings, only on his actions. Behaviour, is judged on legal considerations of prevention, correction or punishment. No empathy required.

You're basically asking humans that do scientific research on humans to evaluate emotional driving forces behind behavior, without an understanding of what those emotions really are. — Christoffer

Not to evaluate. Only to understand and figure out how to deal with the destructive ones.

How do you discern an immoral act without examining the emotions that informed that act? — Christoffer

That judgment is made from the outside: What did the person do? Does our collective moral framework condone that act? (Morality is not a given; it varies by culture, circumstance and time.) Should we allow him to keep doing it? If not, how do we stop him? (More often by incarceration than fellow feeling.)

We can study an animal and conclude their pain-centra to fire when we do something to it, but to study complex moral actions by examining the reasoning and emotional complexity that caused it is not quantifiable in the same way. — Christoffer

Who says it needs to be quantifiable? Humans do torture one another as well as other animals and not necessarily for their own pleasure: sometimes it's just business.
I do not believe that every executioner feels the fear of his charges, that every pain researcher shares the distress of his lab specimens, that the members of a lynch-mob identify with their victims. Conversely, I don't believe that it is necessary for a surgeon to experience the suffering of his patients or a psychotherapist to identify with the glee of a serial killer.

We clearly have very different definitions of empathy.

Hanover

Where do you think ‘caring’ comes from, a mysterious substance of ‘fellow feeling’? I like the enactivist definition of caring: — Joshs

I suspect it comes from the brain, which like every other part of the person comes to be through the evolutionary process. By definition, if caring offered no survival advantage, we wouldn't care about others. There are organisms that lack the abiltity to care about others or that even have the ability to comprehend anything at all, including humans.

I don't suggest caring is a substance and I don't think you can sprinkle it on a piece of bread.

Your definition describes what caring is, not where it comes from.

I also think empathy is a certain type of caring, not caring generally. Sympathizing and empathizing are caring behaviors, but not the same thing.

Joshs

↪Vera Mont

Conversely, I don't believe that it is necessary for a surgeon to experience the suffering of his patients or a psychotherapist to identify with the glee of a serial killer — Vera Mont

It depends on what the surgeon’s goals are, doesn’t it? If knowing too much about the patient would distract from performing the surgery, then it could be a liability. On the other hand, if remembering that you’re not a car mechanic fixing a broken machine can help you to talk to the anesthetized patient, play their favorite music, reassure them before and after the surgery and generally convey to them that you know how terrifying and dehumanizing it can be to be on their side of the doctor-patient relationship, it could be a plus.

The psychotherapist may not ‘identity’ with the glee of a serial killer in the sense of being tempted to become a serial killer themselves, but if the therapist cannot see not only how the glee is morally justified from the serial killer’s perspective, but build a bridge between that perspective and that of the therapist, then they will not be of much help to the client.

Vera Mont

It depends on what the surgeon’s goals are, doesn’t it? — Joshs

Cut it open, take out the bad bits, stitch it up, bandage it and collect a fee. Many doctors are naturally empathic - which is a factor in their choice of career - and in modern times, most are trained to consider the patients' mental state. But if I had to choose between one who knows the technical aspects of the of the indicated treatment and doesn't care about me personally and one who is deeply caring but not so competent, I know which I'd prefer.

The psychotherapist may not ‘identity’ with the glee of a serial killer in the sense of being tempted to become a serial killer themselves, but if the therapist cannot see not only how the glee is morally justified from the serial killer’s perspective, but build a bridge between that perspective and that of the therapist, then they will not be of much help to the client. — Joshs

The one who actually treat that killer - assuming he's eligible for therapy rather than the needle - may have to identify (very likely at some risk to his own mental health). The ones who study the etiology of the illness - if indeed, it's considered an illness rather than evildoing or heroism in the particular society, who study, describe and classify the behaviour need no more emotional bridges with their subject than those who study, describe and classify the pathogens that cause epidemics.

The Empathy Chip

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