Someone on another thread stated that they had ‘reasoned empathy away’.
It seems to me that we use empathy, to varying degrees, whenever we interact with others, in that we guage our behaviour and responses in line with what we think might be the other persons thoughts, feelings and expectations.
It also seems to me that all our lives would be better if we consciously worked on such a skill, rather than reasoning it away.
your comments would be most welcome.
Al,
I, personally, like to believe that things like empathy we have evolved to use to our benefit to make our interactions between our fellow kind easier. As we become smarter, we learn how to become more efficient at everything we do including interaction. With less love in the world, everyone hates eachother and causes illogical negativity and nonsense. We just come out looking like a bunch of fools, or in this case, cavemen. As we become smarter, we learn how to get rid of things we don’t need, for example, hate and negativity which then creates morals such as empathy. We, as human beings, desire pleasure and negativity is not something we can get pleasure from so we learn to be positive to everyone and everything. Radiating love. Obviously, without the human species things like love and empathy don’t matter at all, but we are here and we need them to become more efficient at interacting with our fellow kind.
I agree 100%
That someone was me, and I think it was a bad choice of words. I completely agree with you, empathy can be a very useful thing (as I think I actually stated in the original post). However, if my father is sick, and there is nothing I can do, my empathy has no use – it brings me only pain. It is in such cases I have “reasoned away” empathy as no longer useful. I don’t think that I should feel empathy in such a situation, as many people seem to think they should. Whether I’m able to shed myself of the feeling or not is an entirely different matter…
Hi celox,
That is true especially when we are talking about relatives. However, as a professional care nurse, I use the action of understanding inpatients in their situation in a care home, which is very useful.
The capacity of being aware of or being sensitive to our family, neighbours and friends could be very useful but if it means vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another, we get too close to help. We need a professional distance to cope with empathy, which is where most people have their biggest problems.
Bob
Hello Bob,
I concur. To the degree it is possible, understanding without the pain would be best. If that is not possible, it may sometimes be worth the pain, at other times not.
Our empathy can far exceed our influence over the world. We can feel the pain of the other as if it were our own. This transcends the ordinary limitations of our sense of identity. Nonetheless the limit of our influence remains stubbornly intact. While we feel the pain of others we must also remember that we are not responsible for its termination. When we feel the pain of another we can terminate or decrease our experience of that pain by growing indifferent. This alleviates our suffering while it isolates us from others.
Ah, Hi celox.
I don’t think that there is ever a time when empathy ‘has no use’ (although I am not in your position, of course). If a relative, or anyone else is sick, then a degree of empathy can help us remain patient towards adverse behaviours and give us strength to continue in our support.
A level of detachment is needed, especially in the professional sense. It is not necessary to completely feel the pain as the sufferer does (how could we anyway?), just to try and understand what the other person is feeling, to a degree that we can begin to recognise their needs.
This may be off subject, but after reading what you have written here something came to mind that I had thought of fairly recently. Is it possible to confuse the feeling of empathy with the feeling of love? Sometimes I wonder if everything I have “loved†or been in love with was really caused, wholly or in part, by a strong feeling of empathy.
Defining love is hard enough, and that is definitely way off topic, but I guess if this is the case I want to know if it’s right or wrong for me to do this, or if anyone else has felt the same?
Oh v, forget about right or wrong for a change, instead, concentrate on pleasurable or painful, challenging or boring… you know?
Hello Al,
You are right, there are probably few, if any, situations where a degree of empathy is not useful. If understanding requires a sensation of pain, I would look at the degree of pain it is worth in relation to the degree of pleasure it will ultimately provide. I would then adjust my empathy, to the degree it’s possible, to give the largest amount of pleasure sub-total. This is a very mechanical way to look at empathy and emotions in general. But to me they all have one single purpose, to provide me with pleasure. If I gain pleasure from seeing others having pleasure, then that is valid as well. I would then take advantage of empathy to join in on the happyness of that other person.
I agree.
Yes, I am sure that empathy and love can be confused, or are even the same thing in many circumstances, as far as (like you said) definition is possible, and I am certainly not going to judge whether it is right or wrong to reflect on this.
I have found it possible in the past however (in my capacity as a volunteer listener on a ‘suicide line’ for one) to employ empathy with people that I have felt adverse feelings towards, in terms of their views and reported behaviour. I think that I would be hard pressed to describe my empathy as love in such circumstances, although an absence of hate is definitely necessary.
Hi vortical,
I believe you are quite right on this, people who care for the sick are often overcome by affection, especially after years of caring for them. This is of course a problem in a purely professional relationship, in particular if the condition of the patient is terminal.
Shalom
Bob
Al- in committing the act of forced empathy, as described, you are seeking understand them, and not just to fulfill the requirements of your job (this is my feeling). I have done this with people I have known in my personal life. People that I was completely annoyed with and they became my best friends because I not only understood them, I accepted them. Meaningful friendships are often cultivated thru adversity, as most important aspects of one’s life.
Bob, “overcome by affection†is a perfect way to put it. Sometimes it hurts that there is no way to resolve it- especially when you empathize so deeply that you see parts of yourself in the other person and you love and hate them because of it. Ultimately, though, your love for them is as pure and real as any love could ever be because it’s not based on something like sex or romance- it’s based on genuine caring and an overpowering devotion to help and nurture.
Bob- can I ask if that’s really your picture, you look so kind… (sorry to throw that in…sigh…)
Hi vortical,
Yes it’s me, a little tired I think, which may give a wrong impression… 
Shalom
Bob
Yes, I am seeking to understand the feelings and reasoning of the other person, if I felt I was just going through the motions then I would quit.
And you are right about the development of friendships and mutual respect with people we had not previously felt comfortable with, even in extreme situations, such as war… this is why I feel that empathy is one of the most important tools available to us as a species.
If I find I am having adverse feelings towards someone then I often find that a Buddhist metta (loving-kindness) meditation helps.
Very briefly, you visualise someone who you are close too and reflect on the associated feelings you have towards them, and the fact that they have their own problems and concerns, before finally wishing them health and happiness. You repeat this with someone you feel ‘neutral’ towards, and then finally the person who is causing you problems (through their actions or your own reactions), trying to empathise with them as fellow, fallable human beings. Finally try to feel the same positive feelings towards all three people in equal measure.
It doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to find their actions acceptable, but it helps to put things into perspective and cool your own negative emotions.
Regarding the Buddhist metta meditation, sounds like a very good idea. You know I find that almost everyone I’ve known long enough, within reason (being that they are not a total asshole), grows on me. I do think of people naturally in the way you’ve described.
Even here on ILP for example, although these are not people I know very personally, even the people here who annoy me I end up liking after a while. The only exception being iloveu because I just don’t have any patience for that…
I am relatively new here so I don’t know if you are talking about a person or if iloveu is some kind of shorthand. if a person, then I don’t think I have come across them yet
I also believe that empathy is very useful. However, I believe that emotions, feelings in general are proxies for ‘possible’ reasons. They may coincide with and track an actual reason but this does not alway occur.
For instance, if someone must go in for an important operation and has been given doctor’s orders not to eat anything for 12 hours prior to the operation, her feelings or pangs of hunger are not, in this instance, a reason to eat. In this instance, the impulse does not track a reason.
My own belief is that emotions, impulses etc. evolved as stand-ins or proxies for possible reasons for action. Impulses, feelings such as empathy move us to act however I believe that reasons must be logically prior to emotions. That being said, I do believe that empathy is a highly useful emotion and any attempt to reason it away is itself irrational.
Cheers, MRJ 