Empathy

[rambot]

I think there can be some common ground to be found here..

Empathy is not inherently bad, but it is also not something that isn't prone to corruption.

I think I would say "Empathy is inherently good but problems can arise with poor boundaries".


I AM happy to see that generally, people don't necessarily aline with Kirk on this point.

Honestly of all the "questionable" things he's said, this is the one that makes me the most sad (though that may be because I'm not a minority or a woman)

 

[Godcrazy]

A quote from Chuck Kirk.


Now I look at this quote and I get seriously confused. I cannot understand why a person would have a problem with empathy.

How would the Good Samaritan Help someone that thinks their terrible without it?

How can Jesus heal someone without it?

In my view, empathy connects us and allow people sympathy to flow more greatly. It creates stronger bonds between strangers.

So help me understand how and WHY empathy is bad.

If he really was a christian he must have meant something else.
Empathy is formed during early stages of childhood, we even have a centre for it in the brain, for some it does not develop due to different reasons as trauma or genetics or not learned or stages gone wrong in development, and those turn into dangerous individuals. So say that empathy does not exist, that is simply not true even from a biological view. A person with little or no empathy turn into a psychopath or a narcissist. They do not care one with about you and abuse you. So, empathy is crucial and never bad.

 

[Godcrazy]

Empathy is a passion, ie., a movement of the soul to act. Passions may be disordered, ie., not in conformance to God's will. Our reason, properly informed, regulates emotions allowing us to discern whether the feeling is ordered or disordered.

Empathy for one who is doing evil would move us to intervene. Empathy for one who is doing good would move us to affirm that action as good.

I think it is important to separate between the person and the actions.
they are still required to take responsibility. yes. But we forget it is SIN that is the core problem. we should try to reach them and help them, if possible. not condone actions obviously. For example yesterday I listened to a priest in Copenhagen Denmark, that worked with inmates. They are being converted a lot of them. When they understand and hear the gospel and that Jesus took their sin, they break down, and open up. They start to tell about abuse, about absent parents or taken away from them, hearing voices, being guided to do evil all of a sudden they are deep in it and being told by entities to kill. Now they are being set free all because they were shown compassion and care and witnessed to. set free by the Lord.

 

[MehGuy]

I think I would say "Empathy is inherently good but problems can arise with poor boundaries".

So, what you are saying is that when empathy results in good actions it's internal factors, but when empathy results in bad actions it's due to external factors and not empathy itself? If so, that doesn't sound fair.

Empathy is a process that uses theory of mind. It can inspire altruism or sadism or what I was talking about earlier in this thread a strange blend of altruism and sadism.

Like many things, empathy probably evolved because it has multiple survival benefits. Some benefits that do not necessarily align to what many modern people would consider as moral.

I AM happy to see that generally, people don't necessarily aline with Kirk on this point.

Honestly of all the "questionable" things he's said, this is the one that makes me the most sad (though that may be because I'm not a minority or a woman)

When people really think about it, I doubt most people think empathy is something inherently bad, even if they have problems with it. Probably even Charlie Kirk.

 

[Godcrazy]

So, what you are saying is that when empathy results in good actions it's internal factors, but when empathy results in bad actions it's due to external factors and not empathy itself? If so, that doesn't sound fair.

Empathy is a process that uses theory of mind. It can inspire altruism or sadism or what I was talking about earlier in this thread a strange blend of altruism and sadism.

Like many things, empathy probably evolved because it has multiple survival benefits. Some benefits that do not necessarily align to what many modern people would consider as moral.



When people really think about it, I doubt most people think empathy is something inherently bad, even if they have problems with it. Probably even Charlie Kirk.

empathy is being able to put yourself in another`s shoes and feel with them, understand them. It is not sympathy.

 

[MehGuy]

empathy is being able to put yourself in another`s shoes and feel with them, understand them. It is not sympathy.

I know that.

Like empathy, sympathy is also corruptible with sadomasochism.

I will say, empathy itself is probably unfairly given too much attention. Many emotionally cognitive theory of mind practices like sympathy have similar problems. Not sure if there is a term for it or one needs to be invented, but I think many uses of our theory of mind can cause problems.

 

[Godcrazy]

I know that.

Like empathy, sympathy is also corruptible with sadomasochism.

I will say, empathy itself is probably unfairly given too much attention. Many emotionally cognitive theory of mind practices like sympathy have similar problems. Not sure if there is a term for it or one needs to be invented, but I think many uses of our theory of mind can cause problems.

It should be straightforward, see someone suffer, try to help. done

 

[2PhiloVoid]

It seems presumptuous to assume it's "confusion".

Actually, my hypothetical involves a subject like Hugh Hefner, so there would have to be some amount of psychological "confusion" as there was with him.

How about this idea though: It can be more difficult to empathize with men because men are not as...."Great" at sharing and demontrating/emotiong their feelings.

Yes, the inaccessibility of interpersonal expression could also be a factor in our being able to feel empathy. But that is a problem of interpersonal communication. It's also a variable philosophical component within our relational thinking.

But if someone is having an emotional breakdown, a person can empathize with that...at least to some extent. I've had breakdowns before...not everyone has but if you've had one, you DEFINITELY know..

So, from all you've said in response to the hypothetically placed questions I've put forward, it sounds like you believer that empathy 1) should be allocated to victims, and 2) may be mediated in degree according to our interpersonal engagement and knowledge of another person's possible psychological difficulties. Am I close?

Would you agree, then, that the our capacity to offer empathy to other human beings, by whatever mental categories and terms we might use, is conditioned upon how we categorize the nature and significance of another person's actual psychological state?

From this additionally: Could it be that in Charlie Kirk's conception of empathy, he allocates it by principles rather than by personal feelings to those whom he thinks are the most victimized human beings, and that due to this difference of allocation, we may have a difficult time understanding his working definition because it reorganizes and reprioritizes the categories and principles any of us tend to use to classify "who" is a victim and under what circumstance our felt empathy (and sympathy) is to be given to that victim? [See one of a number of textbooks on Ethics, such as Ethics: An Introduction to Theories and Problems by William S. Sahakian. ] And this is before we even bring in personal differences of neuroscience and psychology. Not everyone who sounds like a sociopath actually is. Sometimes, they just work from a different Ethic and a difference set of emotional attachments to certain moral categories.

You and I don't have to agree with Charlie Kirk, but we might want to realize fully that there are at least a dozen competing Ethical systems in existence that represent the different ways people allocate their Ethical categories and by which any of us funnel our understanding of empathy, such as it is or the degree to which we can give it. It's not simply an issue of "Left VS. Right."

 

[bèlla]

Honestly of all the "questionable" things he's said, this is the one that makes me the most sad (though that may be because I'm not a minority or a woman)

It’s only sad if you believed in him or put him on a pedestal. He’s a man and prone to mistakes and shortcomings like the rest. I pay little attention to popular figures and there’s usually more than meets the eye. No one gets famous without a reason. Influence has a purpose.

~bella

 

[MehGuy]

If he really was a christian he must have meant something else.
Empathy is formed during early stages of childhood, we even have a centre for it in the brain, for some it does not develop due to different reasons as trauma or genetics or not learned or stages gone wrong in development, and those turn into dangerous individuals. So say that empathy does not exist, that is simply not true even from a biological view. A person with little or no empathy turn into a psychopath or a narcissist. They do not care one with about you and abuse you. So, empathy is crucial and never bad.

Yeah. It turns on around the age of 3 or 4 when our theory of mind starts developing. Same time we start to feel things like spirituality, which in my opinion is a manipulation of cognitive processes like empathy.

 

[MehGuy]

It should be straightforward, see someone suffer, try to help. done

I still ponder this. But yeah, ideally it should be done with as little navel gazing as possible that still enables empathy to be productive.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I still ponder this. But yeah, ideally it should be done with as little navel gazing as possible that still enables empathy to be productive.

I tend to think that the purpose of empathy isn't merely to "feel" someone else's pain but by it be in a position through which to, hopefully, point him or her in a more constructive and healthier direction.

 

[Godcrazy]

I still ponder this. But yeah, ideally it should be done with as little navel gazing as possible that still enables empathy to be productive.

The most important is a person DO have empathy,ablitity otherwise a dangerous person.

 

[MehGuy]

I tend to think that the purpose of empathy isn't merely to "feel" someone else's pain but by it be in a position by which to, hopefully, point him or her into a more constructive and healthier direction.

Yeah. Best to use cognitive empathy for that.

Really.. I mostly have a problem with emotional empathy. Cognitive empathy is much safer, but less engaging and thrilling for most people. But responsible things often are.

 

[rambot]

It’s only sad if you believed in him or put him on a pedestal. He’s a man and prone to mistakes and shortcomings like the rest. I pay little attention to popular figures and there’s usually more than meets the eye. No one gets famous without a reason. Influence has a purpose.

~bella

What makes me sad is that people are going change their mind specifically because HE said it....and moreso in pretty strong and adament language.

Its' not ME putting him on a pedestal. You and I maybe on teh same page when thinking about popular figures, but not everyone is as detached.

 

[Godcrazy]

Yeah. Best to use cognitive empathy for that.

Really.. I mostly have a problem with emotional empathy. Cognitive empathy is much safer, but less engaging and thrilling for most people. But responsible things often are.

well psychopaths and narcissists that are dangeous people do use cognitive empathy, ability to calculate and understand what is needed and emulate it ,without feeling it so that is what they do, so I would say a person not able to feel it is dangerous because they do not really care and could slip any moment. relating to them,from my own experience, is a cold afair.

 

[MehGuy]

The most important is a person DO have empathy,ablitity otherwise a dangerous person.

Yeah. Good or bad, the way we evolved some empathy is crucial.

When genetic engineering becomes a thing we can possibly create a cleaner path to morality but for now we have to make the best usage with the psychological tools we have now.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Yeah. Best to use cognitive empathy for that.

Really.. I mostly have a problem with emotional empathy. Cognitive empathy is much safer, but less engaging and thrilling for most people. But responsible things often are.

I appreciate how you've qualified a discernible difference between concepts of empathy. If they're not the same thing, then perhaps we need better, more accurate words by which to identify these psycho-social categories of Ethics, especially in cases dealing with the complicated makeup of human brains (or minds). Otherwise, maybe we all just end up talking past one another on certain levels.

 

[Godcrazy]

Yeah. Best to use cognitive empathy for that.

Really.. I mostly have a problem with emotional empathy. Cognitive empathy is much safer, but less engaging and thrilling for most people. But responsible things often are.

a person that is able to feel empathy, not just cognitve does not usually go around all oh oh feeling but just act on it but able to put themselves in the other persons shoes. something cognitive do not go into

 

[Godcrazy]

I appreciate how you've qualified a discernible difference between concepts of empathy. If they're not the same thing, then perhaps we need better, more accurate words by which to identify these psycho-social categories of Ethics, especially in cases dealing with the complicated makeup and human brains (or minds). Otherwise, maybe we all just end up talking past one another on certain levels.

I have just shown it