This post doesn’t have much that addresses the “expanding circle” case for empathy, which goes something like this:
Empathy is a powerful tool for honing in on what matters in the world. By default, people tend to use it too narrowly. We can see that in many of the great moral failings of the past (like those mentioned here) which involved people failing to register some others as an appropriate target of empathy, or doing a lousy job of empathizing which involved making up stories more than really putting oneself in their shoes, or actively working to block empathy by dehumanizing them and evoking disgust, fear, or other emotions. But over time there has been moral progress as societies have expanded the circle of who people habitually feel empathy for, and developed norms and institutions to reflect their membership in that circle of concern. And it is possible to do better than your societal default if you cultivate your empathy, including the ability to notice the blind spots where you could be empathizing but are not (and the ability to then direct some empathy towards those spots). This could include people who are far away or across some boundary, people in an outgroup who you might feel antagonistic towards, people who have been accused of some misdeed, people and nonhumans that are very different from you, those who are not salient to you at the moment, those who don’t exist yet, those who are only indirectly affected by your actions, etc.
I am very much in favor of “expanding the circle of empathy”. My thesis is that this consists of supplanting your emotional empathy (who your heart beats in harmony with naturally) with cognitive empathy (who your brain tells you is worthy of empathy even if you don’t really feel their Tajik feelings).
I think that “supplant” is not the right move. I do agree that having a wide circle does not require going around feeling lots of emotional empathy for everyone, but I think that emotional empathy helps with getting the circle to expand. A one-time experience of emotional empathy (e.g., from watching a movie about an Iranian family) can lead to a permanent expansion in the circle of concern (e.g., thinking of the Tajiks as people who count, even if you don’t actively feel emotional empathy for them in the moment).
A hypothesis: counterfactual emotional empathy is important for where you place your circle of concern. If I know that I would feel emotional empathy for someone if I took the time to understand their story from their perspective, then I will treat them as being inside the circle even if I don’t actually go through the effort to get their point of view and don’t have the experience of feeling emotional empathy for them.
This post doesn’t have much that addresses the “expanding circle” case for empathy, which goes something like this:
Empathy is a powerful tool for honing in on what matters in the world. By default, people tend to use it too narrowly. We can see that in many of the great moral failings of the past (like those mentioned here) which involved people failing to register some others as an appropriate target of empathy, or doing a lousy job of empathizing which involved making up stories more than really putting oneself in their shoes, or actively working to block empathy by dehumanizing them and evoking disgust, fear, or other emotions. But over time there has been moral progress as societies have expanded the circle of who people habitually feel empathy for, and developed norms and institutions to reflect their membership in that circle of concern. And it is possible to do better than your societal default if you cultivate your empathy, including the ability to notice the blind spots where you could be empathizing but are not (and the ability to then direct some empathy towards those spots). This could include people who are far away or across some boundary, people in an outgroup who you might feel antagonistic towards, people who have been accused of some misdeed, people and nonhumans that are very different from you, those who are not salient to you at the moment, those who don’t exist yet, those who are only indirectly affected by your actions, etc.
I am very much in favor of “expanding the circle of empathy”. My thesis is that this consists of supplanting your emotional empathy (who your heart beats in harmony with naturally) with cognitive empathy (who your brain tells you is worthy of empathy even if you don’t really feel their Tajik feelings).
I think that “supplant” is not the right move. I do agree that having a wide circle does not require going around feeling lots of emotional empathy for everyone, but I think that emotional empathy helps with getting the circle to expand. A one-time experience of emotional empathy (e.g., from watching a movie about an Iranian family) can lead to a permanent expansion in the circle of concern (e.g., thinking of the Tajiks as people who count, even if you don’t actively feel emotional empathy for them in the moment).
A hypothesis: counterfactual emotional empathy is important for where you place your circle of concern. If I know that I would feel emotional empathy for someone if I took the time to understand their story from their perspective, then I will treat them as being inside the circle even if I don’t actually go through the effort to get their point of view and don’t have the experience of feeling emotional empathy for them.