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I disagree, hear me out. The reason this app makes sense is because if you are an empathetic person, and know other empathetic people, there's actually no good
by gfodor 7y ago
I disagree, hear me out. The reason this app makes sense is because if you are an empathetic person, and know other empathetic people, there's actually no good way to solve this problem through direct communication.
Lets say you have plans with someone. But then, you decide fundamentally: if the other person would still like to do this, I am happy to. But if not, I'd prefer not to. This is the game theoretic situation this app attempts to solve.
Now lets figure out a way to solve this problem through direct communication. The problem with trying to do so, is often when someone expresses a change to preferences, if you assume that person is empathetic, they will likely be diluting the degree to their change insofar as that change could negatively affect the recipient of the news. Why?
It's because there's a catch-22 in this situation between empathy and honesty. Empathy dictates we try to maximize utility between the parties. When expressing this new preference, if one is empathetic, one expresses it in a way to try to maximize the likelihood that the other party interprets it in a way they can still act selfishly to the maximally acceptable degree. However, the recipient of the information, if empathetic, can anticipate this, and hence may interpret the person's statement as pre-diluted, so in order to maximize utility from their perspective (out of empathy) they in turn may yield due to the imperfect information and assume the preference expressed is stronger than implied by the statement directly. In other words, if I hear this from someone, I put even odds that the person is being completely honest (out of valuing honesty), or, that they actually would really want to skip this plan if it would not cause me emotional pain, and have chosen to continue to express it in a way that leaves the option open (out of valuing empathy.) I know people who would do one or the other, and I don't consider either approach a sign of a moral failure.
In reality, both sides of the communication wrangle with the conflict between empathy + utility maximization in framing their expression, and honesty, which (despite its virtue) runs the risk of being misinterpreted given the other party may assume it is being diluted to maximize utility out of their empathy. Diluting the statement or being direct about it are both rational, depending on how important maximizing utility is due to empathy vs expressing honest preferences.
This app neatly solves this problem. It's not about reducing social awkwardness, it's about preventing the need for mutually-empathetic individuals to have to make trade-offs between the competing desires for objective communication (out of the value of honesty) and trying to maximize utility (out of the value of empathy and selflessness.) If one could be certain another party is being honest, this kind of technique would not be necessary, but since dishonesty in this situation falls out of empathy, its potentially virtuous and comes down to a preference of one's values in how to deal with the situation.
- andrewzah 7y agoI’m sorry but this has nothing to do with empathy. As an adult, you should have the grace to understand that sometimes people, for whatever reason, don’t feel up to hanging out. You are seriously overthinking this. Empathetic people can still communicate.
- gfodor 7y agoMy claim is that empathetic people can be dishonest and still be virtuous, not that no empathetic people can be honest. Concretely, I know people who do not express preferences directly on such things where it may harm me, out of empathy for me. I don't consider these people morally corrupt despite not being completely truthful. An app like this (or any tool like this) which removes the conflict between these values seems productive since unhappiness stems from not being able to live according to our value preferences. I'm not sure who the "you" are addressing here, I'm talking about this problem from a game theoretic perspective which abstracts over all people. It some situations there will be no lack of clarity - for example, if two people prefer honesty over empathy (shorthand for "will people be more honest even if they are concerned it will not maximize utility between the parties, or they are aware such utility is not at risk"), there will be no source of moral confusion. It's when there's unrevealed information about value judgements this problem manifests.
- gizmo 7y agoThe dishonesty doesn't help anybody, and it makes navigating the relationship more difficult for all parties. Empathic dishonesty is a consequence of poor social skills, where people don't know how to be truthful and set boundaries without being hurtful.
- gfodor 7y agoSo says you. Like I said, I know people like this, and I am not willing to label them as people who have poor social skills or other disparaging things. I don't consider this category of dishonesty to be one that a person necessarily needs to correct, if there are approaches to the scenario where the conflict between honesty and empathy that conflict for them could allow the person to live more according to their values by preventing the need to make the trade-off altogether.