Is Empathy a Bad Thing?

by Madeleine Kando

The title of Paul Bloom's new book 'Against Empathy:The Case for Rational Compassion' is misleading and if you are a cynic, you might think it is a PR ploy to get people to buy the author's book, which I did.

Bloom is making a case against 'emotional empathy', which he says, is not a good tool to make the world a better place, because of empathy‘s 'spotlight’ effect. It only illuminates what it is pointed at and is not good at addressing ‘large’ problems, like homelessness or inequality or public policy in general.

He also argues that it is easier to feel empathy for someone you know or someone who is more like you than a complete stranger (although as an animal activist, I sometimes feel more empathy for animals than people. They don't look like me but it doesn't prevent me from feeling their pain). In other words, Bloom says that emotional empathy is biased and is not very different from prejudice.

Feeling empathy for hundreds of people at a time is not easy. We are just not wired that way. That's where 'cognitive empathy' comes in: 'our more cold blooded ability to assess what other people are thinking, their motivations and their needs, without necessarily feeling what they are feeling'. This type of empathy is useful in negotiations and in dealing with 'groups'. But even here, isn't the empathy component still essential? It's not like a hungry child suddenly has morphed into a number, just because she is part of a group that needs food aid. You give to that charity because you 'feel' she is hungry, you don't just know it.

Bloom's beef with empathy gains momentum as the book progresses. He shows how empathy can actually be detrimental to others. Giving foreign aid to underdeveloped countries sometimes results in enriching a dictator rather than the people the aid is supposed to feed. But is that the fault of empathy or bad management? He even suggests that we go to war because of empathy, as in invading Iraq. Really? I thought we invaded Iraq because we wanted revenge and we were looking for WMD's.

To Bloom, empathy is often a sign of selfishness because helping someone else makes our own pain (the result of empathy) go away. In other words, empathy leads to kindness because it stops vicarious suffering. But in that case, walking away would be a lot easier and cheaper, wouldn't it?

The book is chock full of attacks on empathy. Empathy is bad because it can be exploited by unscrupulous people who will use our feelings for needy children to create orphanages. It supports criminal organizations that enslave child beggars and even maims them to appeal to our sense of empathy. Does that mean we should do away with empathy? Goodness can and will be abused. It is not our feelings of empathy that should be attacked but finding ways to apply those feelings intelligently.

Bloom's point (I think), is that emotional empathy is not a good compass for morality. He would rather see 'compassionate rationality' be our guide. Let's do away with touchy feely empathy and base our moral life on other 'forces' that would give us the benefits of empathy without its cost. Forces like 'concern for reputation, feelings of anger, pride and guilt and a commitment to religious and secular beliefs.'

But our sense of morality can not be separate from our emotions. Empathy is the essence of morality. Philosopher Martha Nussbaum says that emotions are at the center of our sense of justice and that emotions are what causes societies to change their attitude towards injustices and expand their 'moral circle'.

Empathy is not the boogeyman the book is trying to make it out to be. If you notice that your child is sensitive to someone else’s suffering, do you try to teach him not to feel that way because empathy is ‘morally corrosive’? (Bloom’s description of empathy).

Bloom tries to find support for his ideas in, amongst others, 'the veil of ignorance' that American philosopher John Rawls proposed. If you don't know what status you are going to get in a future society, you will try to make that society as just as possible, just in case you end up at the bottom. But the 'veil of ignorance' argument proves that empathy is essential in a just society where everybody is of equal importance (including animals, just in case you end up being a duck).

I think empathy is like a little seed. It is dormant in its little casing until you wake it up. Then, it is your job, or rather society’s job, including rationality, to nurture it, make it grow until it becomes a full fledged, viable part of our garden of life. A good example is the anti-slavery movement. It started as a populist movement, a small empathic seed that eventually grew into the law of the land.

In short, Bloom's book left me befuddled. But one thing I am sure of: if he is trying to make the world a better place by attacking empathy, he is barking up the wrong tree. leave comment here