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Here's empathy in action. A young boy is riding his bike when ahead of him he sees an elderly woman in difficulty. Without thinking he jumps off his bike and runs to help. Seeing she has lost her purse he picks it up then slowly, patiently he helps her up the stairs. He refuses money when she offers to pay him for his trouble. The boy doesn't show empathy towards the woman because someone is observing him and, perhaps, judging him (Foucault discusses the effect of observation on behaviour). The empathy the boy displays comes from within him and is not motivated by gain.
Empathy is often described as putting yourself in someone else's shoes. But did this young boy do this? He didn't have time to see and assess the situation. He acted instinctively. In other words, empathy was part of him. Part of who he was. Part of his upbringing. After all, it's difficult for a lad to truly put himself into a much older person's shoes. He doesn't know what it's like to walk with a zimmer frame, walk with enormous difficulty and walk painfully, slowly. It's hard for him to appreciate the everyday challenges this woman has to face. So putting yourself into someone else's shoes can, at times, be almost impossible which is one of the reasons why many feminists disagree that empathy is a good basis for morality and prefer an ethics of care. However, I'm one of those who argues for empathy as the foundation for ethics and this video of a lad assisting an elderly woman in need illustrates my point very well: he's not losing his own sense of self by merging with her through over-identifying with her, or dispassionately doing his duty. And he's doing more than simply going through the routine motions of caring for her as a care worker might as part of their job.
Although empathy has a cognitive aspect to it that helps us to understand others (which I expand on in my dissertation 2013), this lad shows another aspect to empathy which I didn't get to explore enough in my dissertation, namely the positive, emotional side of empathy. I say positive because some feminists discuss empathy as an emotion but focus on the seemingly negative consequences of it more than the benefits of engaging emotion. Whereas I think this apparently negative emotional aspect of empathy only occurs when empathy is conflated with something else e.g. emotional contagion/hysteria, pity etc. For my dissertation, see:
The boy doesn't stand there spending time cognitively wondering whether and how he should help her nor does he completely understand the situation at first e.g. that she has lost her purse and can't reach it. He is not reacting according to knowing what it feels like to be her at this moment in time. He just runs to her instinctively knowing she's in trouble and needs a kind, gentle hand to aid her up the stairs. He even shows empathy to the extent that he doesn't ride his bike right up to her so potentially startling her or even accidentally stopping his bike too close to her and causing a mishap. He's there for her to help in whichever way she needs. He doesn't decide for her what he thinks is best, an attitude called Paternalism. For instance, telling her that going up those stairs with her zimmer frame is a bad idea and trying to persuade her it's best for her to take a flatter, longer route which she hadn't chosen for herself. The boy isn't aware of exactly what the problem is, he just knows she needs help and he's the only person around but he still lets her indicate her wishes and he acts accordingly. Her zimmer frame is more of a hindrance than a help at this stage because not only is it hard to manoeuvre it up the steps but it's also in the way of the purse she's dropped but he lets her use it nonetheless. His empathy involves emotional sensitivity to her and it shows he has emotional intelligence, which are positive ways to engage emotion while responding empathetically.
You could argue he's showing care. But the care springs from empathy. After all, people can care in various ways. A can care for B by providing food and shelter in a way that A thinks is best (again, this could be carried out paternalistically). On the other hand, C can care for D by responding to D's needs (practical and emotional) not just by doing the minimum of food and shelter. Emotional needs are just as important so, for instance, C puts her arm around D to make her feel loved and wanted even though D hasn't asked her to. Nevertheless, C makes herself available emotionally then it's up to D to respond or ask for a hug. Whereas A doesn't put her arm around B because she sees no need to do so and B hasn't expressly asked her to so A assumes she's doing all that's expected. However, this can make B feel shy/awkward in asking for a hug. This simple (thought experiment) example attempts to show one of the ways empathy differs from care.
I am aware that most feminists argue that this approach won't work with evil people. Hitler being the obvious example but there are many more examples, such as The Yorkshire Ripper. How does one empathise with them? Does it mean you must like the person you are empathizing with? No. Empathy doesn't mean you necessarily like them. Indeed, empathy means you understand what and who is evil, are quicker at identifying people who are 'evil' and are disinclined (emotionally, cognitively and on principle) to help them, unless you have to because it's part of your job e.g. as a prison worker. In this way, evil people lose support of others and are less likely to become tyrannical because tyranny relies on compliance of the many (something Arendt attempted to explain). Such compliance can arise from various factors not related to empathy e.g. hysteria; letting others skew your perception of other people and the truth; dehumanization; following the orders/instructions of others, perhaps unthinkingly.
I am only talking about extreme cases here. So suppose, if you will, as a thought experiment, that German society, (or any society in the world that voted in a dictatorship) had actively encouraged, taught in schools and promoted in society the development of empathic sentiments. It could have enabled them to identify Hitler, (or any other dictator/ship) and his policies as politically dangerous, understanding and feeling (perhaps instinctively and on reflection) that he could kill people in droves without feeling anything and so, as a result, didn't vote for him in the elections I argue that empathy can lead to action and the lad in this video is a great example of this. Then, perhaps WW2, or any dictatorship around the world, would not have happened.
Adorno argues that education, more specifically Holocaust education, is key to preventing a recurrence of Auschwitz. I think this education needs to be accompanied by empathy to be effective. Why? Because the ability to feel an empathic bond with others will bring about what Adorno termed the 'new categorical imperative' a determination to 'never again' repeat an historical period in time when so much harm was caused to so many people. Without the emotions being engaged, children and teenagers (and adults) will fail to truly understand the horrors that have occurred around the world down the centuries e.g. The Crusades. To them, learning about the Holocaust will be a dispassionate exercise no more real than learning about the 1066 Battle of Hastings or the sum of the angles of a triangle.
A lack of empathy leaves room for what Adorno calls "coldness" and people becoming "indifferent toward whatever happens to everyone else except for a few to whom they are closely and, possibly by tangible interests bound, then Auschwitz would not have been possible, people would not have accepted it." * Empathy, therefore, I argue, is not something we should leave to chance, thinking people either are or are not empathic. But rather it's something that needs to be actively promoted and cultivated.
Consider the following counterexample to an ethics of care. Suppose that you follow the ethics of care route - can you fulfil Adorno's new categorical imperative? You could, for instance, misconstrue Hitler's rhetoric for care. He cared about the German people which is why he believed they were the most important, the best people in the world. He cared about the Aryan race which is why he murdered Jews, Slavs, and Roma people. All in the name of care! He cared about German family life which is why he murdered gay people. All in the name of care! Hitler, you could argue, cared. But by care for one group of people (and paternalistically doing what he thought was in their best interests) he showed contempt and hatred for those he didn't 'care' about. I think this shows how care in the absence of empathy can become unethical, discriminatory, politically dangerous and even tyrannical. So care by itself does not fulfil Adorno's new categorical imperative Or prevent coldness or indifference.
Care can also be a selfish act. As Adorno argued (see quote above) it's a common perception that you only care about those closest to you, be they family and/or friends. This boy shows that such tunnel vision doesn't make people's lives around you better. It only makes your and your family/friends lives better. In which case, the elderly lady who can't pick up her purse or move her zimmer frame away from the first step will be completely unable to move unless her family or friends happen to come across her by chance and help her. Or she would have to manage to raise the alarm with someone she knows within that small group of people close to her - but what if she can't raise the alarm e.g. she can't reach her mobile, or doesn't own one, or they can't immediately come to help her? Or suppose she doesn't have a loving family? Or she has no family that can help? She would then be stuck there until someone comes along and responds empathically towards her.
Unless people can respond with empathy towards others outside of their little bubble of family and friends, then society cannot function ethically or be cohesive and cooperative. Everyone in society can be empathetic because it's a capacity that everyone can have, develop or regain if lost.
Empathy is also a deep emotional feeling that bonds you to other people. It's that bond that means you are always ready to be there for others whoever they are, as long as, they are not evil and so a danger to others, society, and the world. After all, would you help a person who is being robbed or assist the robber to steal as much as they can and get away with it? I think, 99% of us would run to help the person being robbed. That's empathy in action. Again there's no time to think it through, it's instinctive.
Empathy is an emotion that springs from wanting to make the world a better place. It cannot, by definition, side with evil. Just as the boy in the video runs to help the lady, so empathic people are hard - wired to promote a just, happy, kind society and world.
*Adorno, T.W. 'Education after Auschwitz' in 'Can One Live after Auschwitz?' A Philosophical Reader, edited by Rolf Tiedemann (2003) transl. by Rodney Livingstone and others
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