Against Empathy(bostonreview.net)
bostonreview.net
Against Empathy
http://bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy
30 comments
I wish I didn't spend so much time reading this article. The rational is pretty basic and narrows the definition of empathy to make the argument more plausible.Despite the author's claim empathy can be defined as the general understanding of other people rather than a biased attitude towards good looking people. Also, empathy doesn't only apply to kindness. It can be argued that both Lincoln and Hitler had empathy, given their ability to understand and deal with other people. Decisions are rarely made based solely on empathy. The point of excluding it completely from the decision making process hasn't been explained very well by the author.
This is an opinion a piece, and I disagree with the opinion.
This is an opinion a piece, and I disagree with the opinion.
AGAINST AGAINST EMPATHY
This article is linkbait without real substance. It's smooth legerdemain to make a false statement become seemingly true, not by insight, but by guile. Yes empathy can be maladaptive in as much as emotion without reason can mislead and anything in excess can be harmful, but empathy is usually understood to mean nothing more than recognizing other people as individuals both separate from ourselves and joined with us in our shared humanity. Inasmuch as they are separate from us, they have a unique perspective, and inasmuch as they share our humanity, we can imagine what their subjective experience might be. When Obama exhorts us to practice empathy, he is asking us to humanize the human elements we too often objectify. He asks us to go beyond the boxes of politics, race, culture, class, and nationality we divide the world into, and to see the human experiences of others. And we all know that's what he's saying, and that's what others advocate when they extol empathy. Yes, empathy can go wrong, especially when you consider all of the different concepts that are tagged with that word. But if anything, the article reinforces the importance of empathy as commonly meant and understood by outlining the exceptions that prove the rule.
This article is linkbait without real substance. It's smooth legerdemain to make a false statement become seemingly true, not by insight, but by guile. Yes empathy can be maladaptive in as much as emotion without reason can mislead and anything in excess can be harmful, but empathy is usually understood to mean nothing more than recognizing other people as individuals both separate from ourselves and joined with us in our shared humanity. Inasmuch as they are separate from us, they have a unique perspective, and inasmuch as they share our humanity, we can imagine what their subjective experience might be. When Obama exhorts us to practice empathy, he is asking us to humanize the human elements we too often objectify. He asks us to go beyond the boxes of politics, race, culture, class, and nationality we divide the world into, and to see the human experiences of others. And we all know that's what he's saying, and that's what others advocate when they extol empathy. Yes, empathy can go wrong, especially when you consider all of the different concepts that are tagged with that word. But if anything, the article reinforces the importance of empathy as commonly meant and understood by outlining the exceptions that prove the rule.
> In light of these features, our public decisions will be fairer and more moral once we put empathy aside.
I think the problem is less that we relate more to the few than the many, and more that we don't really relate to the many at all. Junking caring as much about individuals will likely just result in us not caring enough about anyone.
I think the problem is less that we relate more to the few than the many, and more that we don't really relate to the many at all. Junking caring as much about individuals will likely just result in us not caring enough about anyone.
I found it odd that the author seems to think that empathy for the individual is somehow at odds with caring for the many, instead of being closely correlated. As if removing empathy would somehow get people to care more about each other, rather than less.
The author offers a fair amount of utilitarian arguments, which can be debated ad infinitum. No matter your stance on this issue, I don't believe
> Our policies are improved when we appreciate that a hundred deaths are worse than one
is valid. Who are we to make such decisions? I myself believe utilitarianism is a real good tool for assisting in these moral dilemmas, but not particularly useful here.
On a personal note, I don't believe in this "removal of empathy" idea that's been tossed around by a few psychologists. If psychopaths are effectively those people who lack empathy, then who shall we become if we throw it to the wayside?
> Our policies are improved when we appreciate that a hundred deaths are worse than one
is valid. Who are we to make such decisions? I myself believe utilitarianism is a real good tool for assisting in these moral dilemmas, but not particularly useful here.
On a personal note, I don't believe in this "removal of empathy" idea that's been tossed around by a few psychologists. If psychopaths are effectively those people who lack empathy, then who shall we become if we throw it to the wayside?
> Who are we to make such decisions?
We have to make these decisions all the time whenever we vote or suggest perspectives to influence friends and acquaintances about one public policy or another. If we don't make the decisions, someone else will, and it matters for things like how we respond to acts of terrorism, road safety laws, funding for the treatment of diseases, and so on. And ignoring the moral weightiness of the decisions doesn't remove the consequences or our responsibility for ourselves as a society.
> On a personal note, I don't believe in this "removal of empathy" idea that's been tossed around by a few psychologists. If psychopaths are effectively those people who lack empathy, then who shall we become if we throw it to the wayside?
The author suggested that cultivating compassion for others without choosing to imagine the experience of suffering their pain may be a better way to help other people. He uses some examples of Buddhists who choose to devote their lives to helping other people--they avoid experiencing empathic attachment because it burns them out, which would defeat their entire purpose. So if we throw empathy to the wayside, we might become more like Buddhist monks, if you want to read into it that way. The author proposes moderation more than extremes one way or the other, though; he recognizes that some degree of empathy is health in relating to other people.
Anecdotally, I agree with the author's perspectives because of my own experiences. For the past year I had a close family member who was hospitalized and continuously in pain. It was really impossible to allow myself to empathize strongly with her every time I saw her, because it would have been too psychologically exhausting to continue visiting on a regular basis.
We have to make these decisions all the time whenever we vote or suggest perspectives to influence friends and acquaintances about one public policy or another. If we don't make the decisions, someone else will, and it matters for things like how we respond to acts of terrorism, road safety laws, funding for the treatment of diseases, and so on. And ignoring the moral weightiness of the decisions doesn't remove the consequences or our responsibility for ourselves as a society.
> On a personal note, I don't believe in this "removal of empathy" idea that's been tossed around by a few psychologists. If psychopaths are effectively those people who lack empathy, then who shall we become if we throw it to the wayside?
The author suggested that cultivating compassion for others without choosing to imagine the experience of suffering their pain may be a better way to help other people. He uses some examples of Buddhists who choose to devote their lives to helping other people--they avoid experiencing empathic attachment because it burns them out, which would defeat their entire purpose. So if we throw empathy to the wayside, we might become more like Buddhist monks, if you want to read into it that way. The author proposes moderation more than extremes one way or the other, though; he recognizes that some degree of empathy is health in relating to other people.
Anecdotally, I agree with the author's perspectives because of my own experiences. For the past year I had a close family member who was hospitalized and continuously in pain. It was really impossible to allow myself to empathize strongly with her every time I saw her, because it would have been too psychologically exhausting to continue visiting on a regular basis.
> We have to make these decisions all the time whenever we vote or suggest perspectives to influence friends and acquaintances about one public policy or another. If we don't make the decisions, someone else will, and it matters for things like how we respond to acts of terrorism, road safety laws, funding for the treatment of diseases, and so on. And ignoring the moral weightiness of the decisions doesn't remove the consequences or our responsibility for ourselves as a society.
You make a good point. It is (more often than not) better to make the tough decisions as opposed to passively going with someone else's choice or not taking a position at all.
> He uses some examples of Buddhists who choose to devote their lives to helping other people--they avoid experiencing empathic attachment because it burns them out, which would defeat their entire purpose.
I see where the author comes from with this statement, and I think I better understand his stance. I reacted more emotionally than I should have to this text and threw out his ideas altogether. However, I still remain wary of its benefits to larger society as opposed to certain circumstances.
You make a good point. It is (more often than not) better to make the tough decisions as opposed to passively going with someone else's choice or not taking a position at all.
> He uses some examples of Buddhists who choose to devote their lives to helping other people--they avoid experiencing empathic attachment because it burns them out, which would defeat their entire purpose.
I see where the author comes from with this statement, and I think I better understand his stance. I reacted more emotionally than I should have to this text and threw out his ideas altogether. However, I still remain wary of its benefits to larger society as opposed to certain circumstances.
Especially because, in practice,
"> Our policies are improved when we appreciate that a hundred deaths are worse than one"
usually means
"a hundred deaths [of our in-group] are worse than one [of our team, plus a thousand of an out-group]"
"> Our policies are improved when we appreciate that a hundred deaths are worse than one"
usually means
"a hundred deaths [of our in-group] are worse than one [of our team, plus a thousand of an out-group]"
>Who are we to make such decisions?
Answer: decent, thinking people who can spot that we want our government to consider us to have moral weight, and therefore vote in favor of considering all citizens to hold equal moral weight before the State. Or, as certain textbooks on insurance or law teach: when we "refuse for moral reasons" to put a finite price on a human life, what we are actually de facto doing is setting a surprisingly low price on human life. The trade-offs don't go away just because we feel uncomfortable making them!
Answer: decent, thinking people who can spot that we want our government to consider us to have moral weight, and therefore vote in favor of considering all citizens to hold equal moral weight before the State. Or, as certain textbooks on insurance or law teach: when we "refuse for moral reasons" to put a finite price on a human life, what we are actually de facto doing is setting a surprisingly low price on human life. The trade-offs don't go away just because we feel uncomfortable making them!
If naught else, psychopaths of the sort you mention are surely then those with all the more comprehensive control of themselves, through their ability to better regulate their emotion? That sounds like a useful quality in stable figures of authority or indeed anyone who would prefer to limit their irrational judgement.
> If naught else, psychopaths of the sort you mention are surely then those with all the more comprehensive control of themselves, through their ability to better regulate their emotion?
Regular psychopaths are a poor example here because one of the features of the disorder is a lack of control; they are impulsive and unable to balance risk with reward in gambling tests, and can have difficulty classifying others' emotions. (See the _Handbook of Psychopathy_.) They are more 'broken' than 'empathy selectively turned off', so it's not clear what, if anything, you could learn from them.
Regular psychopaths are a poor example here because one of the features of the disorder is a lack of control; they are impulsive and unable to balance risk with reward in gambling tests, and can have difficulty classifying others' emotions. (See the _Handbook of Psychopathy_.) They are more 'broken' than 'empathy selectively turned off', so it's not clear what, if anything, you could learn from them.
Mm absolutely - hence why 'removal of empathy' to result in the kind of aforementioned controlled psychopath sounds like it might result in the controlled individual, might it not?
You're absolutely on-point about regular psychopaths of course (as you know better than I).
You're absolutely on-point about regular psychopaths of course (as you know better than I).
>> Our policies are improved when we appreciate that a hundred deaths are worse than one
> Who are we to make such decisions?
We are human beings who have free will. Do you suggest we allow both the hundred and the one to die, given that we lack the resources to save both?
> Who are we to make such decisions?
We are human beings who have free will. Do you suggest we allow both the hundred and the one to die, given that we lack the resources to save both?
Oh not at all. I'm not well-read enough to make such decisions. Though not it good to pose such a question for the sake of discussion.
A longer treatment is available in “Is Empathy Necessary For Morality?” http://subcortex.com/IsEmpathyNecessaryForMoralityPrinz.pdf (excerpts: http://lesswrong.com/lw/7xr/not_by_empathy_alone/ )
On the public policy side, I have begun to wonder if empathy-based theories of social change get in the way of the goals of social justice movements. That is, social justice movements are pining after something they cannot achieve through empathy, and are distracted from their goals as a result.
A rather pedestrian example, I was having a discussion about transit planning with a group of people. Despite the less than enthusiastic reception transit gets from typical middle class white people, there's still a sense that the system is biased towards them, and doesn't serve communities of color/etc as well. The modern urbanist sensibility here is to have community engagement, neighborhood meetings, etc. All very grassroots. But who shows up to these things? Older white educated people mostly, usually with negative opinions to share. In this discussion people were very concerned about how we could get more representation from other communities, how we could hold more of these meetings in relevant neighborhoods, at times when working people could attend, etc.
The underlying logic of this participatory model is basically empathetic. People individually express themselves so that they can influence each other and the decision makers. They do this through empathy. The decision makers are generally more white, more privileged, more educated (and we can't expect to recruit more uneducated urban planners!) These people will be more receptive to perspectives coming from people like them. The response is often to increase the participation, be more inclusive, broaden the perspective. But minorities will always lose out, increasing participation doesn't disrupt that empathy bias. You can have more meetings in neighborhoods with minorities, and the white people even in those neighborhoods will still out-influence the minorities.
Can we fix the empathy problem in policing by getting more minorities on the force? That has not seemed very effective. Can we create better services for minorities by listening to their needs and responding? Eh, the best I've seen is people feel listened to, which is too often the substitute for real change. So I wonder if instead we stop relying on empathy in these circumstances, as emotionally attached as we are on the idea of empathy.
Going back to the original example, if we want to design a decent transit system we need to ditch the community feedback and go to data. In that model everyone is counted the same. Hidden bias isn't enough to create a model where a black person as 3/5 of a white person. And of course people still select models based on feedback, and that feedback will be biased, but it's way better than what we have now. Instead of trying to fix bias in order to fix social injustice, I think we'd do better constructing systems that remove the effect of bias in those places – which is the opposite of what most social justice advocates intend when they suggest we address the "root" of the problem.
A rather pedestrian example, I was having a discussion about transit planning with a group of people. Despite the less than enthusiastic reception transit gets from typical middle class white people, there's still a sense that the system is biased towards them, and doesn't serve communities of color/etc as well. The modern urbanist sensibility here is to have community engagement, neighborhood meetings, etc. All very grassroots. But who shows up to these things? Older white educated people mostly, usually with negative opinions to share. In this discussion people were very concerned about how we could get more representation from other communities, how we could hold more of these meetings in relevant neighborhoods, at times when working people could attend, etc.
The underlying logic of this participatory model is basically empathetic. People individually express themselves so that they can influence each other and the decision makers. They do this through empathy. The decision makers are generally more white, more privileged, more educated (and we can't expect to recruit more uneducated urban planners!) These people will be more receptive to perspectives coming from people like them. The response is often to increase the participation, be more inclusive, broaden the perspective. But minorities will always lose out, increasing participation doesn't disrupt that empathy bias. You can have more meetings in neighborhoods with minorities, and the white people even in those neighborhoods will still out-influence the minorities.
Can we fix the empathy problem in policing by getting more minorities on the force? That has not seemed very effective. Can we create better services for minorities by listening to their needs and responding? Eh, the best I've seen is people feel listened to, which is too often the substitute for real change. So I wonder if instead we stop relying on empathy in these circumstances, as emotionally attached as we are on the idea of empathy.
Going back to the original example, if we want to design a decent transit system we need to ditch the community feedback and go to data. In that model everyone is counted the same. Hidden bias isn't enough to create a model where a black person as 3/5 of a white person. And of course people still select models based on feedback, and that feedback will be biased, but it's way better than what we have now. Instead of trying to fix bias in order to fix social injustice, I think we'd do better constructing systems that remove the effect of bias in those places – which is the opposite of what most social justice advocates intend when they suggest we address the "root" of the problem.
What data do you propose? There is data -- data from surveys that the "older, middle-class white people" fill in.
Empathy means understanding other people's experience, not using oneself as the only use case.
Empathy means understanding other people's experience, not using oneself as the only use case.
If your data is "who talks at the meeting" then yes, it would be the same. But we have statistical methods to get data much better than that, including correcting for different response rates to surveys.
My argument is that we are predisposed, perhaps inevitably, to have more empathy with people like ourselves, and so removing empathy (rather than trying to fix it) may in some cases be the best way to get a fair result.
My argument is that we are predisposed, perhaps inevitably, to have more empathy with people like ourselves, and so removing empathy (rather than trying to fix it) may in some cases be the best way to get a fair result.
How do you suggest “removing empathy” from the decisionmaking process?
Basically, as far as I can tell, you’re advocating pulling the “politics” out of “policy”, but that’s really damn difficult, perhaps impossible. Just stating it as a goal is not useful, without some kind of concrete proposal.
The people in charge are always going to advance their own interests, and there’s no way anyone has figured out to put a completely impartial and dispassionate authority in charge of a government.
The way the US does things (ideally; in theory) is to build a system of checks and balances in the government, and try to spread the power widely enough in the population (e.g. via elections of local representatives who meet together to make policy) that any particular group is unable to exert their will without some measure of consensus and cooperation from everyone else.
The problem in practice is that some groups have gained so much power and wealth, compared to everyone else, that they can game and coopt many or most of these institutions; meanwhile, other groups have so little power or visibility that they are effectively unrepresented.
I guarantee you, if you build an institution designed to be “empathy free” — for instance, some board of highly trained unelected technocrats — to make decisions, their process will be analyzed and gamed to the extent possible by the super-rich.
Basically, as far as I can tell, you’re advocating pulling the “politics” out of “policy”, but that’s really damn difficult, perhaps impossible. Just stating it as a goal is not useful, without some kind of concrete proposal.
The people in charge are always going to advance their own interests, and there’s no way anyone has figured out to put a completely impartial and dispassionate authority in charge of a government.
The way the US does things (ideally; in theory) is to build a system of checks and balances in the government, and try to spread the power widely enough in the population (e.g. via elections of local representatives who meet together to make policy) that any particular group is unable to exert their will without some measure of consensus and cooperation from everyone else.
The problem in practice is that some groups have gained so much power and wealth, compared to everyone else, that they can game and coopt many or most of these institutions; meanwhile, other groups have so little power or visibility that they are effectively unrepresented.
I guarantee you, if you build an institution designed to be “empathy free” — for instance, some board of highly trained unelected technocrats — to make decisions, their process will be analyzed and gamed to the extent possible by the super-rich.
I'd add that emotion cannot be uncoupled from some policy decisions. A wonderful example is gay marriage. There is no "data" one can fit to decide whether it is right or wrong to permit/recognize as valid. If all US states decided to legalize gay marriage or ban it, there is no way anyone could decide whether it was a "net benefit" to society, mostly because homosexuals are a minority of the population. The rights of any minority, granted they are small enough to be but a ringing ontop of your signal, it shouldn't matter if you are just thinking like a utilitarian.
So, from whence comes individual rights? The usual argument is, "imagine if that were you!"--that's empathy. More seriously, we guarantee individual rights for others because that means we have them for ourselves.
This leads to my second point: I think the reason empathy even is a thing is that we are inherently selfish, and for anything to be really done for the "greater good" individuals need to either have a stake in that greater good or they need to trick their selfish selves into thinking they are actually in that situation too, which, again is empathy.
Empathy works for the most part. It sounds like the author is trying to fix something that isn't broken. I'd say the current problems in Washington are in fact a lack of both listening to data _and_ a lack of empathy. I think more empathy would be beneficial, not detrimental.
So, from whence comes individual rights? The usual argument is, "imagine if that were you!"--that's empathy. More seriously, we guarantee individual rights for others because that means we have them for ourselves.
This leads to my second point: I think the reason empathy even is a thing is that we are inherently selfish, and for anything to be really done for the "greater good" individuals need to either have a stake in that greater good or they need to trick their selfish selves into thinking they are actually in that situation too, which, again is empathy.
Empathy works for the most part. It sounds like the author is trying to fix something that isn't broken. I'd say the current problems in Washington are in fact a lack of both listening to data _and_ a lack of empathy. I think more empathy would be beneficial, not detrimental.
>there is no way anyone could decide whether it was a "net benefit" to society,
That's a viewpoint problem in itself. Liberties and individual rights should never be added because they are a 'net benefit'. I see the converse as being true, liberties and individual rights should only be removed if they are a significant detriment to society. In your example of gay marriage there is no data that it is harmful, therefore no reason to prohibit such actions.
Of course proving something is harmful is not a carte blanche to prohibit most actions. For example our 'war on drugs' motivated as doing good against the evils of drugs as turned into a rather harmful system in itself. Other systems that treat drug users rather than punishing them have much better outcomes.
That's a viewpoint problem in itself. Liberties and individual rights should never be added because they are a 'net benefit'. I see the converse as being true, liberties and individual rights should only be removed if they are a significant detriment to society. In your example of gay marriage there is no data that it is harmful, therefore no reason to prohibit such actions.
Of course proving something is harmful is not a carte blanche to prohibit most actions. For example our 'war on drugs' motivated as doing good against the evils of drugs as turned into a rather harmful system in itself. Other systems that treat drug users rather than punishing them have much better outcomes.
Practically it's obviously impossible, people are gullible and easily manipulated, and politicians are expert at tugging their emotional strings.
Theoretically, I think a good first step would be to stop evaluating policies deontologically and start looking at results. There are so many laws in the books with good intentions but terrible outcomes, and they're all justified based on empathy and related emotional responses.
Theoretically, I think a good first step would be to stop evaluating policies deontologically and start looking at results. There are so many laws in the books with good intentions but terrible outcomes, and they're all justified based on empathy and related emotional responses.
I agree that empathy is ineffective for the social justice movement. We wouldn't empathize equally with a slave-owner and a slave, or a Nazi and Jew. Justice isn't achieved by listening to both sides and trying to find a middle ground.
"Against Empathetic Distress" or "Against Excessive Empathy" would have been a more accurate titles. Based on the actual title, I was hoping for something more interesting/surprising :P
TLDR; Don't just mirror the feelings of those you love, understand their feelings and use that information in a truly helpful way.
TLDR; Don't just mirror the feelings of those you love, understand their feelings and use that information in a truly helpful way.
I have gone my whole life thinking that this was the definition of empathy, understanding other people's feelings and how they are connected to their behavior. I always thought the concept of feeling what someone else feels was a metaphor for understanding it, because how could anyone ever know what emotions are running through someone else's mind? Emotions are chaotic and very particular to millions of unique chemical and electrical reactions in in the brain, which are then interpreted by someone's unique experience.
I can't say I ever thought I felt what someone else was feeling, so maybe I just have no empathy. I also don't ever get angry, so maybe that's related. (I make one exception for misbehaving computers with no clear reason or solution, but I'd call that frustration.)
So generally, I agree with the author that understanding others and responding in supportive ways is much more useful than feeling what you think they are feeling. I am just skeptical that anyone would argue, and I would be surprised if that's what the quoted people had in mind.
I can't say I ever thought I felt what someone else was feeling, so maybe I just have no empathy. I also don't ever get angry, so maybe that's related. (I make one exception for misbehaving computers with no clear reason or solution, but I'd call that frustration.)
So generally, I agree with the author that understanding others and responding in supportive ways is much more useful than feeling what you think they are feeling. I am just skeptical that anyone would argue, and I would be surprised if that's what the quoted people had in mind.
Thanks for the TLDR - I was struggling with the low contrast, given the verbosity and the long time coming to the point.
I was getting the sense that the author had decided to use a twisted definition of empathy, and came to a series of faulty conclusions because of that. At the start, the author says "When I say empathy, I mean sympathy", in which case... the term "sympathy" should be used. In my experience, people don't use them interchangably; sympathy is feeling sorry or happy for someone, empathy is understanding where (and why) that person is coming from. Or at least, trying to.
I got through a third of the article and it really started shaping up as "I don't like sympathy" rather than empathy; starting from faulty premises, the author gets to have his 'shock value' statement, but it's not accurate.
I was getting the sense that the author had decided to use a twisted definition of empathy, and came to a series of faulty conclusions because of that. At the start, the author says "When I say empathy, I mean sympathy", in which case... the term "sympathy" should be used. In my experience, people don't use them interchangably; sympathy is feeling sorry or happy for someone, empathy is understanding where (and why) that person is coming from. Or at least, trying to.
I got through a third of the article and it really started shaping up as "I don't like sympathy" rather than empathy; starting from faulty premises, the author gets to have his 'shock value' statement, but it's not accurate.
Many people claim that without empathy there would be moral chaos. They are equivalent to people who claim that without religion there would be moral chaos. Empathy is not the basis of morality.