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> My personal reason is that I am an empathic person. But is that a result of your cultural upbringing, or something innate. I would argue the former, in which
by ramblerman 8y ago
> My personal reason is that I am an empathic person.
But is that a result of your cultural upbringing, or something innate. I would argue the former, in which case culture and religion actually do matter more than we think.
Would you be an emphatic person if you grew up in a different time and place.
- trashtester 8y agoI think it has been shown to be a fact that both culture and genes affect this. Psychopathy has a large genetic component, and strips a person of most empathy. At intermediate levels, we call it sociopathy, etc. For the cultural aspect, there are two interpretations: 1) Humans (non psychopaths) are born to feel empathy, and you only take that away if you inflict harm on the person 2) Humans (non psychopaths) are born with some latent capacity to develop empathy, but it must be actively taught in order to develop From my experience as a father, it seems like empathy develops without much actual teaching. Maybe teaching it can boost it, but at least for my children that has not been needed so far. But empathy is very definitive limits. It is much easier to feel it towards smaller children, cute pets, etc, and not very easy for children to feel empathy towards authority figures, scary/ugly animals. Also, when hungry, sleepy, scared or angry empathy seems to vanish. I think this is typical. Nobody feels empathy for everyone all the time. And it is when dealing with people that you DON'T feel empathy for, that you are most likely to break ethical rules or convensions. And with (my) children, teaching them to behave morally when not feeling empathy, that requires dedicated effort from the parent.