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This is an ongoing discussion I have with many people. There is a weird idea that empathy is something that makes you good. In reality what it is is neither goo

This is an ongoing discussion I have with many people. There is a weird idea that empathy is something that makes you good. In reality what it is is neither good nor bad. It's the ability to put yourself in the emotional state of someone else to understand things not only from their rational point of view but from the point of view of them as humans with both irrational (emotional) and rational perspectives. It can be used for good or bad not just good and it's doesn't mean that just because I can put myself in their position I agree with their pov (which many people will claim i.e. "you have no empathy")

awat 9y ago
This is a really good point. Empathy can be applied to judging moral crimes such as stealing food becuase you are starving. Although anctedotally I find that people who come from the exact background/situation tend to have less empathy even though they understand the context more.
- slavik81 9y ago
  Your experience seems to match the research. People who faced a challenge and succeeded in overcoming it tended to judge people who failed more harshly, but tended to judge people who succeeded more favourably. https://hbr.org/2015/10/its-harder-to-empathize-with-people-if-youve-been-in-their-shoes https://hbr.org/2015/10/its-harder-to-empathize-with-people-...
  - amag 9y ago
    That makes sense because of the "if I did it, you should be able to"-fallacy that fails to take into account that people are different, even coming from identical backgrounds.
slx26 9y ago
I think in general we take the "understanding" part in empathy too lightly. I would say we use "empathy" a lot when we are actually talking about compassion. Since the inner experience is never completely shareable, it's hard to talk about real understanding. Not trying to get philosophical here, we will probably agree that a reasonable level of understanding is both possible and sufficient. But I feel like too often there's way more "rationalization" than actual understanding, and we make the (in my opinion) mistake of calling that "empathy". With this in mind, I would say empathy is always socially positive. If we were talking about compassion, I would share more your opinion, but I'd still say it's positive as long as we do not completely swap it for empathy.
whytaka 9y ago
The difference is between empathy and compassion. Just because I understand doesn't mean I care.
- sjclemmy 9y ago
  And the opposite is true; I can care without understanding.
projektir 9y ago
> There is a weird idea that empathy is something that makes you good. It's a pretty heavy prerequisite. A lot of bad things can be traced to people not understanding other people, or refusing to understand them (dehumanization). It's sufficiently fundamental and a common problem that I'm not sure how big the cohort of emphatic-but-manipulative people is. It certainly exists, but there are other issues mixed in there, such as moral detachment (i.e., people who decided they're not interested in being good). I believe pretty much all of your typical -isms (sexism, racism, homophobia) are rooted in lack of empathy towards groups that one is physically unable to be part of. Most people don't have active empathy ability (i.e., modeling people not like them), they just empathize with their own experience only. That's why your otherwise normal people can end up with very problematic beliefs. Empathy also requires you to understand the world in a more complete way, which also tends to break down quite a range of rationalizations, and rationalizations can lead to a lot of evil, as well. So while you're technically right that empathy is merely a tool, it's a very major tool, and I've found people with relationship problems who are telling me they have no empathy, don't know how to do it, don't want to do it, are pretty much a dead end. If I had a button that could suddenly make lots of people more empathetic, I would absolutely press it and be convinced that it'd make the world a much, much better place.
- ThomPete 9y ago
  The problem with your belief is that you are assuming that it's easy to define sexism, racism, homophobia. The reality is that what a lot of people think are ex one of those three just aren't. Very few people are any of those things in any meaningful way. In fact I would claim that your belief is exactly part of the problem in that you confuse empathy with some ethical/moral idea and end up thinking that you have the right interpretation and can judge whether someone is racist, sexist etc.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    It’s very easy to define sexism, racism, homophobia. I think the thing which makes it hard to spot is that we normally treat questions as boolean yes-or-no things. For example, a police department which is 10% more likely to let one race off with warnings than another race is racist (and that’s not a moral judgement: if warnings are effective everyone should get them), but it’s also an example deliberately chosen to be as far as possible from racially motivated genocide as I could manage without the risk of people denying it was racism. It’s a spectrum. How much do you empathise with $person, not do you.
baddox 9y ago
I think when most people talk about empathy as a good attribute, what they really mean is the capacity for empathy.
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  I think what they real mean is to have empathy, and uae it for good. I can put myself in your shoes...and then use that against you. Empathy doesn't promote nor prevent that.
  - jm__87 9y ago
    I think in most people it would, though? Imagine if you were harming someone and you're imagining what they would feel like as you're doing the harming, you're going to feel badly. Not harming someone will help you avoid these negative feelings.
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awat 9y ago

This is a really good point. Empathy can be applied to judging moral crimes such as stealing food becuase you are starving. Although anctedotally I find that people who come from the exact background/situation tend to have less empathy even though they understand the context more.

slavik81 9y ago
Your experience seems to match the research. People who faced a challenge and succeeded in overcoming it tended to judge people who failed more harshly, but tended to judge people who succeeded more favourably. https://hbr.org/2015/10/its-harder-to-empathize-with-people-if-youve-been-in-their-shoes https://hbr.org/2015/10/its-harder-to-empathize-with-people-...
- amag 9y ago
  That makes sense because of the "if I did it, you should be able to"-fallacy that fails to take into account that people are different, even coming from identical backgrounds.

slx26 9y ago

I think in general we take the "understanding" part in empathy too lightly. I would say we use "empathy" a lot when we are actually talking about compassion. Since the inner experience is never completely shareable, it's hard to talk about real understanding. Not trying to get philosophical here, we will probably agree that a reasonable level of understanding is both possible and sufficient. But I feel like too often there's way more "rationalization" than actual understanding, and we make the (in my opinion) mistake of calling that "empathy". With this in mind, I would say empathy is always socially positive. If we were talking about compassion, I would share more your opinion, but I'd still say it's positive as long as we do not completely swap it for empathy.

whytaka 9y ago

The difference is between empathy and compassion. Just because I understand doesn't mean I care.

sjclemmy 9y ago
And the opposite is true; I can care without understanding.

projektir 9y ago

> There is a weird idea that empathy is something that makes you good. It's a pretty heavy prerequisite. A lot of bad things can be traced to people not understanding other people, or refusing to understand them (dehumanization). It's sufficiently fundamental and a common problem that I'm not sure how big the cohort of emphatic-but-manipulative people is. It certainly exists, but there are other issues mixed in there, such as moral detachment (i.e., people who decided they're not interested in being good). I believe pretty much all of your typical -isms (sexism, racism, homophobia) are rooted in lack of empathy towards groups that one is physically unable to be part of. Most people don't have active empathy ability (i.e., modeling people not like them), they just empathize with their own experience only. That's why your otherwise normal people can end up with very problematic beliefs. Empathy also requires you to understand the world in a more complete way, which also tends to break down quite a range of rationalizations, and rationalizations can lead to a lot of evil, as well. So while you're technically right that empathy is merely a tool, it's a very major tool, and I've found people with relationship problems who are telling me they have no empathy, don't know how to do it, don't want to do it, are pretty much a dead end. If I had a button that could suddenly make lots of people more empathetic, I would absolutely press it and be convinced that it'd make the world a much, much better place.

ThomPete 9y ago
The problem with your belief is that you are assuming that it's easy to define sexism, racism, homophobia. The reality is that what a lot of people think are ex one of those three just aren't. Very few people are any of those things in any meaningful way. In fact I would claim that your belief is exactly part of the problem in that you confuse empathy with some ethical/moral idea and end up thinking that you have the right interpretation and can judge whether someone is racist, sexist etc.
- ben_w 9y ago
  It’s very easy to define sexism, racism, homophobia. I think the thing which makes it hard to spot is that we normally treat questions as boolean yes-or-no things. For example, a police department which is 10% more likely to let one race off with warnings than another race is racist (and that’s not a moral judgement: if warnings are effective everyone should get them), but it’s also an example deliberately chosen to be as far as possible from racially motivated genocide as I could manage without the risk of people denying it was racism. It’s a spectrum. How much do you empathise with $person, not do you.

baddox 9y ago

I think when most people talk about empathy as a good attribute, what they really mean is the capacity for empathy.

chiefalchemist 9y ago
I think what they real mean is to have empathy, and uae it for good. I can put myself in your shoes...and then use that against you. Empathy doesn't promote nor prevent that.
- jm__87 9y ago
  I think in most people it would, though? Imagine if you were harming someone and you're imagining what they would feel like as you're doing the harming, you're going to feel badly. Not harming someone will help you avoid these negative feelings.

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