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.