Against empathy

This long article strikes me as being philosophical. I present it here as the root of a discussion on whether it belongs here.

http://www.bostonreview.net/forum/paul-bloom-against-empathy

Or if anybody is interested in its substance, I'd like to hear comments.

Robert

A very interesting article and a bold conclusion. But he persuaded me. He is saying that making basic public policy decisions on the basis of empathy and at the exclusion of rationality and compassion is a bad thing. I agree.

The word “empathy” is used in many ways, but here I am adopting its most common meaning, which corresponds to what eighteenth-century philosophers such as Adam Smith called “sympathy.” It refers to the process of experiencing the world as others do, or at least as you think they do.

I think a whole discussion could be centered around this ostensible definition. Whether or not it holds. How much of "empathy" is actually projection. Whether empathy automatically leads to compassion.

Do you think empathy is a de facto illusion, Jesse?

Not even remotely close. I do think that quite a bit of what is commonly discussed when discussing empathy is anything but... And one can just as easily empathise with someone else's suffering and choose to run the other way because of the discomfort that empathising causes (and I'd say it's a far more common reaction than most people suppose).

An old philosophical question also pondered over on Star Trek:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empath

I don't see the ultimate worth in quibbling over every definition a speaker or writer needs to rely on in order to get his basic message across. He's got a 'major' point to make, and can't very well start from scratch.

Addressing the thrust of his remarks, I would tend to agree him. National Policy is one thing which ought not exclude rationality; but over-rationality can err as well by being too rigid.

Although desirable, whether 'compassion' can be exercised at that high level in practice seems to me unlikely under any circumstances. National decisions often must be harsh.

I think it's far more important to incorporate compassion into the state/municipal and especially at the citizen level.

It is well to remember that despite not possessing aircraft carriers or bombers, the individual fifty states in this country are our most powerful unit of government we have.