We are social beings. We need other people to help us navigate in this world. We need their toleration of us and we need their cooperation.
In order to secure other people’s willingness to cooperate with us to achieve whatever dreams and goals we may have, it is logically incumbent upon us in the first instance to “empathise”.
Only once we have been able to understand the feelings of the Other are we then in a position to act in a manner congruent with winning their cooperation. Then we can be on our way to achieving what we think will make us happy.
Even dictators need the cooperation of others, maybe more so than the average citizen.
The empathy diminishes totally if other people
in countries remain anonymous and worse
get demonized. We notice this phenomenon
before going to war. Their worst attributes
are publicized. People in the invading country
lose any empathy for the suffering of those
people. Anonymity and being different are
two reason for having no empathy.
3
As so many documentaries have shown us, all kinds of animals feel what could be called empathy - a chimp feels empathy with other members of its group. What differentiates humans is that we are conscious of the feeling of empathy and we can work against our instincts to resist it - because we are conscious.
The wider consciousness of the human state doesn't necessarily work against the instincts we still feel. As Jordan Peterson will tell you, the great majority of any group of people always exist at the bottom of any kind of dominance hierarchy, and as we now exist in democratic societies, the people at the top have a vested interest in paying attention to all the people at the bottom.
So in making a decision to care about those less fortunate than us in any situation, it is as much a conscious decision to take the benefits of the bonds that exist between us as it is a surrender to an innate sense of obligation to a fellow human. (And let's note, humans also feel real empathy with all kinds of other animals - an effect almost completely absent amongst other animals - specifically because we are conscious and they are not.)
Turning away from a beggar in the street is not necessarily a wilful rejection of empathy. In Australia, if you apply your energy honestly, you can get everything you need from an extensive social safety net without pestering people on the street. That's a judgment, and judgment is what makes being conscious useful to us humans out in the real world.
2
"We focus intently on the buildings on the other side of the street or the array of cars down the road, hoping to keep our humanity, the part of us that cares, dormant."
This is indeed what people commonly think about when they hear the notion "humanity": it's supposed to refer to the very best in us. For centuries already now, the West prefers to call ll kinds of human behavior that aren't very productive or adapted to prevailing social norms "animal".
But then Dan Ariely ends his piece with a different take on "humanity":
" Which version of humanity will we, individually and collectively, choose? Will we open our eyes to the pain of others, and with it feel the need to do something to help? Or will we just get better at looking away?"
Here, all of a sudden both behaving in a compassionate way AND protecting oneself from feeling suffering and as a consequence looking away, are called "humanity", it's just that they are different "versions" of it.
It's a bit amazing that such an incoherent use of the very notion at the heart of this piece in the NYT "philosophy" section" has nevertheless been accepted - but then its author seems to be first of all an economist, so let's forget about philosophy for a moment.
Neurological studies about compassion show that the last version is correct: not only do animals also feel compassion, protecting yourself from suffering IS human too. And it's the best thing to do as long as you weren't taught HOW to embrace negative emotions.
2
Empathy may be innate in humans. But it seems empathy is easily suppressed, or many individuals don't bother to work at its cultivation. Learning empathy by observation (of parents, etc.) still may not uncover the total picture. Two siblings with the same biological parents, growing up under the same conditions and circumstances often results in one child being as empathetic as the parents, while the other is not, at all. Empathy is much more complex than compassion, sadness, sympathy, mercy and charity.
1
We place degrees on our empathy, and use mental as well as physical habits to control it as described in this article. As an animal rights activist I see it all the time. The most liberal and caring people shutting down and turning off their empathy when you suggest they try to care about animal suffering.
Empathy is just complete awakeness and a free mind. No need to block the truth, your understanding, when you can see everything without the guilt, fear or shame that creates lack of empathy. Empathy takes courage and strength,and the payback is an ability to live in a world of truth and fact.
3
Studies show that it takes more than that: you have to be able to comfort and sooth yourself, systematically, and without depending on anyone, if not our innate empathy quickly becomes unbearable and we have to shut down in order to survive (= to start to systematically ignore all the suffering out there, and our own suffering).
But here's the good news: everybody can learn how to do so. All that is needed is the proper tools and the proper training.
It's called self-compassion training.
That's why "moralizing" isn't the adequate approach here: you can blame people for shutting down rather than cultivating empathy, but that won't allow them to cultivate it again, quite on the contrary (as blaming hurts them, they will only shut down even more ...).
What is needed is to approach them with compassion (after all, you suffer more without than with regularly felt empathy) and love, and to show them HOW to love themselves.
As you say yourself, even the most liberal people shut down. So this isn't about being a good person or not. It's about surviving without self-compassion and as a consequence without compassion for others, or living in a self-compassionate way and as a consequence having learned how to keep our hearts and minds open, both for ourselves and others.
The payback here is not only the ability to "live in a world of truth and fact", but also the ability to increase compassion and alleviate suffering in the world.
And what's not to like about that ... ? ;-)
4
It seems to me that the sociopaths rise to the top.
5
Nicholas Kristoff wrote a column entitled “Where is the Empathy?” about the recent death of a high school friend of his named Kevin Green. Green ended up on disability. So far so good. But he met a woman and had two kids out of wedlock with her (they’ve since been in trouble with the law) he ballooned up to 350 lbs, the woman left him and wanted child support which left him with little.
But during his angry rant (also in a follow up column) Nick blamed all of society for his friend’s fate, and skirted the issue as to why he made no attempt to help himself. One commenter kept asking Nick, “Where were his friends?” Evidently Nick was too busy at the NYT offices or globetrotting to worry about Kevin.
Oh, but he made it to the guy’s funeral.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-where...
2
We are 100% selfish. Empathy is a learned behavior we express in order to not get killed by other 100% selfish primates. Real dictators are famous counter examples to game-time dictators.
@RoadKilr
Science has proven the opposite. Empathy is innate, not only in human beings but in all mammals, because of "mirror neurons".
Show an individual somebody else whose happy, and the "happiness" molecules in his own brain increase. Show him someone who's crying, and mirror neurons immediately put your brain and body in a sad state of mind.
Now what can happen is that IF we met too much suffering in our lives (as nurse, for instance), AND if we didn't have the chance to learn how to cultivate self-love and self-compassion (= the ability to kindly embrace and accept, rather than judge and criticize, any kind of inner experience and state - ability that has also been proven to be innate), then at a certain moment it becomes too much to bear, and our empathy system shuts down.
But that means living with a VERY harsh inner critic, as the price to pay for shutting down. So now you can meet people who suffering 24/7 without feeling their suffering anymore ... but you can't "be with" yourself either, so you're powerless against your own negative emotions, tend to project them unto others etc.
Conclusion: being able to keep your heart open through the cultivation of basic, innate skills such as empathy and compassion is exactly what we need to be happy (= "selfish") AND to be able to care for others and be of real help. The idea that there was an opposition between egoism and altruism has been proven wrong...
5
@Ana Luisa ... Hi, Ana. You can find Steven Pinker's rejection of the mirror neuron view in his book about the reduction of violence over time in Western civ, but there's no need to appeal to authorities here. Just think about it. Feeling sad because you see a sad person does not mean you care a fig about that person. It might mean you have a greater survival chance if you match emotions, at least initially, with the animals around you. That's still a far cry from the idea you care about them for their own sake, and not merely for how they are affecting you.
@RoadKilr
I'm not really convinced by Pinker's arguments, but indeed, that's not what matters here.
And you're right, contrary to what the author of this op-ed does, neurologists today clearly distinguish between empathy and compassion.
Empathy means mirror neurons are firing. Compassion means that once they are, you see if you can be of any help, if the other person is suffering. So that's the difference between "caring" (although I don't see any neurologists using this notion, precisely because it's too vague) and empathy.
As to the idea that it would be possible to feel compassion for somebody else without somehow also wanting to take care of the sadness that that person causes you to feel: I don't see why "true" compassion should require something like that.
Yes, we in the West have tended to see thing this way. But as studies show that it's precisely the extent to which you developed self-compassion (the ability to sooth your own feelings, independently from what other people do or what you do for other people) that determines the extent to which you can behave in a compassionate way towards others, it's now obvious that this conceptual opposition between true compassion/altruism and real self-love is factually wrong. The less you have learned how to love yourself, the less you'll be able to love others. And that is a real philosophical revolution ...
The results of the dictator game clearly are skewed by the awareness of participants of the obvious intent, and their education in what an expected answer should be. I wouldn’t put any weight on it unless it were possible to uncouple it from culture. Which it may not, even with small children. Or apes.
2
There are no scientific experiments proving that our "humanity" would be linked to "empathy".
The premise underlying this "experiment" is actually merely an idea that today in the West many people believe in, but commonly shared opinions and philosophy are two completely different things, as we know for more than 2,000 years now (but not the NYT "philosophy" section, apparently ...).
The author of this op-ed could have consulted the latest studies in ethology (the behavior of animals) and anthropology or neurology, if he were truly interested in what makes us human (in the sense of what differentiates us from other animals) or in "empathy". Unfortunately, Dan Ariely decided to do a short, totally arbitrary economics "game" instead.
He could also simply read the NYT science section, by the way, where today you can find this scientific study about empathy in dogs:
https://www.nytimes.com/video/science/100000006018081/how-empathetic-is-...
Conclusion: yes, dogs clearly have empathy.
What's even more, these dogs tried to actively help, in other words, showed compassion. Scientific experiments have shown that even RATS have this innate ability, sharing meals with others when imprisoned in difficult circumstances, for instance. And that chimpansees have this ability too is known for quite a while already (see Frans de Waal's wonderful latest book on this issue, for instance).
Time to update your info Dan ...
1
“This game is designed to help us figure out if we are completely selfish (we keep all the money) or if we care about other people”
I won’t bore you with all the reasons I dislike this phrasing, but here’s one reason. It implies that if you keep all the money you are “completely selfish” and you don’t “care about other people.” But one could be inclined to keep all the experimental money and still care about other people and be generous in sharing in all other situations.
Here’s an analogy one might use to frame the dictator game in such a way that keeping all the money isn’t selfish (selfish in sense that carries negative connotations).
Imagine you’re alone and pocket a $100 bill that you find blowing in the wind on the street. A few blocks later you encounter a fellow pedestrian. Should you share any of your $100 windfall? Would the fact that you have an opportunity to share with the pedestrian even occur to you? (I'm guessing most people would answer "no" to both questions.) If you would not share with a stranger in this “natural” situation, but would in the lab, would your motivation to share be one of “caring for other people” or just worrying (selfishly) about your reputation because the experimenter put you on the spot by asking you if you’d like to share?
2
A better question is:
"Will we do what needs to be done to remove sociopaths from all positions of power and responsibility?"
'Cause they promote apathy and hopelessness. 'Cause they engender indifference and aversion.
4
"In my mind one of the defining elements of being human is the ability to care about others...to truly experience that caring, to have empathy."
In your mind then, psychopaths--no empathy, no intrinsic care for others--are not human. Do they somehow lose human DNA--become another species?
Absurd; isn't it. So you are not defining 'human' at all. You are "defining" virtuous human, perhaps normal--well ordered human.
The difference between the ethical categories virtue/vice and the medical categories mentally ordered/disordered needs much spelling out. It's the issue of Samuel Butler's "Erewhon"--where people are punished for illness and treated for vice.
But these are not matters of definition--rules for correct lexical behavior. They are standards--somewhat like definitions, but unlike them too. Idiosyncratic standards of value differ do not abuse the linguistic community. One linguistic community can harbor pluralism of values--often subcultures.
'Human' is a classification word; they may care or not. 'Humane' is a value word; they cannot not care. 'Humanity' goes both ways--it can mean the essence of human or the humane.
Selfishness is a vice--excessive self regard; deficient other regard. Your "dictators" are hardly selfish for not sharing. Surely one would want to size up the other--to know what s/he'd do with the money. Deficient self regard is foolish--also a vice.
@Michael Kubara
A ‘vice’ is a tool used to apply pressure. ‘Escapism’ is a human behavior which serves as a method of psychological self-preservation.
There is both a distinction, and a difference. To be absent of selfishness is to be existentially vacuous. The old “take care of number one” cliche is a cliche for good reason.
1
For starters, those lucky enough to receive a college education and land a job, could tip delivery people risking their lives to bring them lunch. Many if the super elites have college paid for without having to wait tables. They need to get a clue.
//www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/nyregion/the-dangerous-lives-of-the-citys-delivereros.html
3
Much suffering is caused by ignorance about reality. Most people truly believe in magical things. They belong to groups that have group magical beliefs. If their magical beliefs really worked we wouldn't have the cruel masters that we do.
These magical beliefs are an escape from our humanity, at least our very human mortality. I personally don't see how it is possible to believe these things. It seems like a mass delusion. In fact, I know it is. To me it seems of perversion of our humanity.
2
Jesus Christ tells us in the gospel of Matthew that, on the day of judgement, rewards in the kingdom of heaven will be given to those who loved God's people. Did they feed the hungry? Did they invite the stranger in?Did they clothe the naked, etc.? The way we treat others in this life may have eternal consequences.
2
What we are seeing in America is a negative empathy. People showing compassion for reprehensible Political figures. Republicans express Empathy for truly Evil individuals who are Racists. This is Trumpism. The Abusers are seen as Noble Victims. Trump and his cult seek sympathy for their evil deeds. Like the song by the Rolling Stones,'Sympathy for the Devil'.
1
If capacity for empathy is innate, then it’s not empathy that is causing lack of empathy! That is, it’s not empathy that “drives us to escape, in order to avoid those feelings and impede our humanity.” It would be escape from ourselves, indeed “escape [from] our humanity.”
So, the choice is NOT “Which version of humanity will we, individually and collectively, choose?” The choice is which version of ourselves—humane or inhumane—will be choose.
Will we stay true to our being essentially empathic beings? Or will be deny our heartfulness?
A great challenge for humanitarian care is compassion fatigue. The resolution, to my mind, is quite congruent with our humanity. Vote for care. BE EXEMPLARY OF CARE. (Philosophers: Make virtue ethics prevail over deontological overbearingness.) Vote for national political candidates who are inspired by possibilities of the U.N., the IMF, etc.
The panhandler on the street may not know where to locate social services that can help him. Give directions. Hey, social services: Have cards in stores that give the address of social services which citizens can hand out.
Live a nobility of spirit in public service. Be a teacher in parenting and in business leadership—be child-centered, student-centered, worker-centered.
Live a beautiful resonance in being human: culturally humanistic, lover of humanities, humane in politics, humanitarian in global ethics.
To the question, “Where’s your HUMANITY?!,” let the answer he “Here.”
3
What an inspiring comment!
1. Studies have shown concrete tools to prevent/treat compassion fatigue: learning to notice when you start to become depleted by the constant confrontation with other people's suffering and your natural empathy for them, and then once you see the signals arise, stopping and nurturing/resourcing yourself, before you go on.
Signs of depletion/exhaustion are irritability, increased feeling of negative stress, insomnia, a more active inner critic (= a voice/feeling telling you that you're no good, not enough, not lovable etc. because you didn't achieve this or that result), and ... shutting down your empathy and treating your patients/clients/... in a more distant, colder way, without taking their own inner experience into account, in order to protect yourself.
Replenishing yourself means investing time and energy in focusing on positive emotions (noticing them when you have them, and actively bringing them up), especially loving-kindness for yourself (= remembering regularly, during the day and at night, that you are NOT your thoughts/emotions, that you are lovable simply because you exist, that you're not alone going through this, as all caregivers experience it sooner or later, etc.).
2. Self-compassion includes accepting your negative emotions as being equally part of our common humanity, not only the positive ones, AND accepting that sometimes you HAVE to shut down for a while.
3. What do you mean by "deontological overbearingness"?
1
“And brotherhood, justice, eternal life? Good God man... Show me a religion that prepares one for nothingness, for death. That's a church I might enter. Yours prepares one only for more life, for dreams and illusions and lies. Banish the fear of death from men's hearts and they wouldn't live a day. Who would want this nightmare but for fear of the next. The shadow of the axe hangs over every joy. Every road ends in death, every friendship, every love. Torment, lost, betrayal, pain, suffering, age, indignity, hideous lingering illness... and all of it with a single conclusion. For you and everyone and everything you have ever chosen to care for.” -Cormack McCarthy, ‘The Sunset Limited’
2
Ignores the powerful idea of sociobilogical morality.
We owe our greatest allegiance to kin then to near-kin and then to others - developed over millions of years of survival and perfectly explains how we actually act under duress.
And - just in passing - your dictator game is silly - it needs to be iterative to extract any meaningful insight - not unlike an Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (IPD).
Which - just in passing part deux - reinforces the notions of sociobilogical morality even when played by AI bots.
This is what it is to be human - for better or for worse.
1
@SteveRR It ignores it because it's pseudoscience and generally used as a convenient excuse for antisocial behavior.
1
Not trying to be cynical, but there is another dimension to this treatise: the sheer number of human beings on the planet - a constantly growing statistic that has a corrosive effect on our sensibilities.
Anyone walking for a long while around a crowded public venue, or any place out there in one our innumerable, and quite commonly huge, cities will experience a deterioration in "people skills". Humanity seems to be crushing itself by sheer weight in numbers, and humaneness with true empathy is an unfortunate victim.
Protecting the human race has always come first, but population management has become another conspiracy theory, a reactive issue for religious people (i.e., all religions) and short-sighted politicians controlling resources.
There is a lack of courage when talking about, much less dealing with, excessive population and the consequent competition for resources. Thomas Malthus wrote in 1798, with apparently little practical effect 220 years later.
3
@JLC-AZ South, population is the most important variable in climate change projections. It multiplies all the other variables.
2
@Steve Bolger
It isn't. If you think it is, could you please send a link to such a study?
And here's why it isn't: the cause of climate change today is carbon production.
It turns out that the US has the biggest carbon footprint per capita in the world.
With only 6% of the world's population, we produce a whopping 25% of the world's carbon emissions.
At the same time, in Africa, where population growth is fastest for the moment, carbon emissions per capita are very low.
The only way to stop climate change from becoming even worse, is to stop using fossil fuels. And as it's WE who are using them, it's we who have to stop and replace them with renewable energy sources, you see ... ?
You don't need any "empathy" for that, you just have to look at the science ... ;-)
1
Philosophy was invented in contrast with "doxa", opinion. A philosopher/scientist, Plato said, was someone with a "terrible love of the truth", who doesn't think in terms of mere opinions, but who (1) tries to define basic notions, and (2) tries to see whether the statements that we believe about them are actually true or not proven at all.
Ariely writes: "This game is designed to help us figure out if we are completely selfish (we keep all the money) or if we care about other people, and to measure to what degree we care based on how much money the dictator shares with the recipient."
What's wrong with this "game", from a philosophical point of view?
1. no definition of empathy or social utility
2. an experiment whose basic presuppositions aren't questioned either. Those presuppositions are:
- truly caring about someone and playing a short financial game with a stranger are perfectly compatible/identical notions
- human beings cannot care both for themselves and someone else at the same time, as the amount of money one keeps will be interpreted as "being selfish".
These presumptions have been refuted by neurological research of the last 2 decades already.
It turns out that we're not EITHER selfish OR altruistic, contrary to Western "common sense", and that it's precisely the extent to which we cultivated self-compassion that determines our compassion towards others. But you need experiments about difficult emotions to be able to discover this, not "money games"...
Or to summarize these scientific findings in a way even children can understand: when you're in an airplane, safety measures include informing passengers that in case of cabin pressure disappearing, oxygen masks will fall down from the ceiling above your chair. You are then told that you have to FIRST put your own oxygen mask on before you try to help others. Why? If not, you risk having no oxygen anymore, and without oxygen you die, rather than being able to help others ...
The same goes for helping other people in daily life: our innate empathy is such that, through "mirror neurons" (present in most animal brains!), our brain/body literally copy-pastes those emotions so that all of a sudden we too feel the difficult emotions someone else in front of us is feeling (even strangers).
WHEN will we be able to turn towards rather than away from those emotions, knowing that turning towards our own difficult emotions is the necessary condition for being able to turn to the other person and see if we can help?
When we've learned how to do so through self-compassion training, which develops our innate compassion skill so that we can fully and kindly embrace and accept our inner experience, rather than having to shut down.
So contrary to Western common sense, "self-love" is now proven to NOT be the opposite of altruism, but the conditio sine qua non.
And THAT's a philosophical revolution to report on in MSM philosophy sections, rather than poorly led experiments in economics..
1
@Ana Luisa, "Happiness" is the biggest intangible in philosophy. Many are motivated to study philosophy to achieve it, but not many find it there.
1
@Ana Luisa
Your objections to an admittedly half baked experiment are sensible, however overlook the Trump presidency (as elephant in the room) context of the piece without which no one would be concerning themselves overmuch with dictator type qualities right now. And while it could be true that the world would be a safer place for the average peon if only leaders like Trump and Kim Jong Un who are just coming down the pike loved themselves a little more, the therapy demanded sounds a lot like to this reader like sending coals to Newcastle.
I have another experiment to propose: Do a search on how many people have died trying to save someone who was in danger. I'm willing to bet you will be astounded at the result. These are, in many cases, total strangers who gave their life trying to help another.
Basic human nature is not cold self interest, it is love and empathy. It may be uncool to admit it, especially in today's world, but our actions give us away. Therefore do not lose hope, people are basically good and that will win out in the end.
11
It's just as wonderful when people risk their lives to save animals - and animals risk their lives to save humans and each other.
1
The other factor to incorporate is how many times a day we are asked for money. I found in San Francisco, for instance I was asked at least five times a day. My husband and I found we had similar experiences. We both found we gave money to one or two persons whose stories we had no interest in hearing. Their thanks however offhand was enough. I gave money to someone with a dog. I hoped he had not adopted the dog because people are known to be more generous to pan handlers with animals. I found myself noting, with relief, that he had the same dog the next year and the dog appeared to be in good health. This reminded me of comments like “he or she will only spend it on drugs.” This always seemed to be a ridiculously judgmental reason for not parting with a dollar. Was I doing the same thing? Or alternatively did I just like animals more than People? Compassion seems to be a very tricky individual response. However, with this much suspicion and self-examination for the occasional gifts, I realized that I was lucky not to live in a very poor country.
8
Speak for yourself: when I see a panhandler, I always look them in the eye. I express regret if I have nothing to give them. As Pope Francis has expressed, it's surely better to give, even if you don't know exactly how your contribution will be used. But most importantly, I have come to believe that when I don't give I wish not to exonerate myself and want to acknowledge the presence of the panhandler.
4
I am seeing a lot more resentment nowadays and less empathy. Can the dictator game or something like it help one understand the capacity of humans to hold resentment?
1
I don't think so, because crucial scientific evidence is lacking here.
Neurologists have shown that our ability to help other people is the result of TWO skills: empathy and compassion.
Compassion means noticing one's suffering, and seeing if you can be of any help.
Compassion is based on empathy ("cognitive empathy", which means understanding what the other person is going through, and "emotional empathy", which refers to feeling what the other person is feeling, for instance having your brain flooded with sadness molecules when confronted with someone who's crying).
So you can't have any compassion without having empathy.
But empathy without compassion isn't sustainable, research has shown. It leads to what is called, in caregivers language, "compassion fatigue", which actually is "empathy fatigue": if you don't cultivate compassion for yourself, when you're feeling difficult emotions (so if you try to ignore them, or if you hate them, or criticize/judge/insult yourself for having them, rather than embracing them with kindness and understanding), after a while our innate empathy becomes to hard too bear (after all, you feel sad YOURSELF when seeing someone crying ...), and the brain shuts down (= no more empathy + projecting negative emotions outwards, on others).
So the extent to which you cultivated self-compassion is what determines the extent to which you can/will behave compassionately towards others. Fortunately, today we know how to train self-compassion.
1
Yes, I resent the rich for being greedy, and not paying their taxes and not giving their employees a living wage. They make billions, and their employees are on public assistance. I can barely scrape by because of my high taxes, and then I don't have enough to give to panhandlers. Then I really resent the rich even more, because all my money is subsidizing the rich, and I don't have enough left to help the poor.
Empathy is a human characteristic in the same way that bipedalism is: both are largely due to our genetic makeup. I am sure empathy evolved in us as a way to ensure the survival and propagation of the genes of the individual that is feeling empathy. Certainly there are degrees of empathy - stronger for family members, less so but still present for tribal members, and much less so for rival tribes. That makes sense since the more distant an individual is, the less genes we share, and the less interested I am (in the selfish-gene sense) in helping his genes out. This all gets expressed by various squirts of serotonin or other neural transmitters in strategic parts our brains, which we interpret as empathy.
This of course is related to the free-will discussion - to what extent do humans control their thoughts and emotions versus their thoughts and actions are a result of genetic programming? I tend to favor the latter viewpoint, which if true, puts empathy more in the camp of evolutionary biology rather than psychology or behavioral economics.
1
I find caring and empathy are such a matter of degrees between any one person from another that it depends on a few factors:
1- how they were brought up - their environment
2- how well they are doing in life overall
3- what they hold dear or valuable
4- how strong they are at that moment where empathy and caring are required
5- do they expect anything back or not
I am no psychologist (I just play one on the comment sections), but I use this analogy often (groan, I know, I know, I use it often) but it is so true.
If you were walking down the street and came across someone in dire need of help (so they do not perish even) then almost all would stop and do so. It takes a really selfish person to ignore or walk on by.
The thing is that there are people all around us that need that help but are ''perishing'' in slow motion, They are not overtly showing it, so we make up all sorts of excuses to let ourselves off the hook.
True empathy is to see those that are hiding the fact that they need help and to do something for them, without thinking once as to getting anything in return.
Imagine all the people ...
6
I once heard a Howard Stern riff on Ferdinand Marcos that I reflect on regularly in the context of our nouveau Gilded Age. He had said that he couldn’t understand why dictators (and as far as I’m concerned current oligarchs, sheiks and CEOs) had to keep all the millions and billions they rake in; rather if he were a dictator he would keep half and give people the other other.
He concluded, “I’d still be rich and the people would love me!”
8
Empathy, as old as humans are alive, is based on a sense of justice, morality and humanity. The ancient Egyptians, the Romans took steps to care for the needed. In a country as rich as is the US, the fact that children are going hungry, homeless and or without proper education is criminal. The Anglo-American tradition was never strictly about money and self advantage as is today. Witness Trump’s divisive rhetoric, presidential executive orders and more. Witness Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s humiliation and rough treatment of women he dated , Bill Cosby or even Harvey Weinstein. The powerful have to be held accountable for their actions
2
I wish it was just the GOP, but the liberal coastal cities thrive on greed, too - long before Trump came along, we were paying outrageously high taxes, which obviously aren't helping the poor people on the streets.
There are some on the political scene who not only have no capacity for empathy, they see it as a weakness. I would agree that this is a sign that they lack some fundamental aspect of what makes us human. And those who revel in their support for such people seem to find cruelty a source of entertainment. This is known as sadism. The capacity for this is also what makes us human since no other species takes pleasure in the suffering of another.
11
@Victor James. What you wrote made me think of Sen Paul Ryan. Every time he speaks he looks so friendly and I have really tried to understand him But he is so lacking in empathy that I recoil in horror as he speaks. That is really sad.
4
In my youth, I volunteered a lot. I met a lot of genuine people. Yet, I have also witnessed some volunteer junkies. They volunteered for kicks.
Doing good when we can afford it is easy - especially when we can get something in return, whether that something is tangible like tax deduction or intangible one like praise or lessen of guilt.
So yes, even if you score better in the "dictator game," that doesn't mean one possesses greater empathy. It is still an avoidance mechanism
Having said that, Prof. Ariely is asserting empathy is innate. But is it really? Science and philosophy have a long run debate, with each other and among various schools within itself
Some want to define it as uniquely human while others demonstrate other primates exhibit some of the characteristics of empathy
But have we considered empathy can also be trained? But psycho/sociopaths? Not only they lack the innate ability - some didn't have the history of abuses but end up to be abusive - could never be rehabilitated
But does it really matter? There are always exceptions, right. Innate or learned, nature v. nurture, moral (the right thing to do base on one's beliefs) or utility (humans survive better as a group, 1 for many rationale), one can be more empathic by learning attachment can be delusory. But even the idea of empathy or humanity is an attachment. Good attachment though. Ultimately, do good & do no evil is a guide and you practice, but you also need to know thyself. Nosce the ipsum!
3
That is to say, whether it is innate or learned, we can still try to practice compassion, to the point it transcends enlightened self-interest; but while we are practicing it, perhaps we should also know our limit
3
@Bos
These days, I'd be glad if people volunteered (especially in the health education and human services side of the house).
Volunteer for kicks at a homeless shelter, a food bank. a soup/meal kitchen, at an animal shelter. Just don't act obnoxious about it. I'm fine if you get the tax deduction, the praise or feel less guilty. At least you're doing something. And I believe that people change when they are exposed to others less fortunate than themselves.
2
If I were a dictator, I would start with the understanding that humans are not perfect, and do not have unlimited understanding of all specialized knowledge.
If I were a dictator, I would make the government work for humanity.
If the government managed the Social Security and Medicare trust funds like the wealthy, instead of putting all trust assets in low yielding Treasuries, the return would be increased sufficiently through diversified portfolio construction to meet actuarial obligations.
This is math and finance. It can and should be done. For a sovereign with unlimited liquidity, volatility is irrelevant and will achieve higher returns over long time periods. Obligations matter, no cheap excuses to renege.
Instead our leaders choose to deplete the trust funds by 2034 and will undoubtedly call to reduce benefits to retirees, the sick and the disabled, claiming ignorance and a crisis.
If I were a dictator:
I would pass a carbon tax to internalize the production costs bourn by society via climate change and pollution, witnessed in health care costs, droughts, intense weather and property destruction;
Eliminate payroll taxes for employees and employers, as they are regressive and no one should have a special tax for working;
At the same time I would end the preferential tax treatment of passive income versus income earned from labor - the logic” is specious, an excuse for tax breaks for the rich.
Once done, I would register every born child and outlaw dictators.
12
The author's right. Empathy can be painful and agonizing. When one is unable to turn away from being empathetic, it is heartbreaking. The recipient of an empathetic gesture may be caught off guard, and so overwhelmed with joy and appreciation that stinging tears will arise spontaneously and with unexpected intensity. This connection is usually ephemeral. Giver and receiver ultimately benefit - agony becomes joy for both. Yet, if this type of empathetic giver is rarely replenished, depression and illness occurs.
1
I could get a lot more done without pesky empathy. It seems more of a hindrance than an asset in the working world. Does someone like Elon Musk even have empathy? No one is paid for their ability to empathize.
1
@Steph, The tech world is notorious for unfeeling megalomaniacs. It matters not what kind of destruction it is, they will call it "creative".
1
@Steph
Studies have shown that actually, you are.
That's because the only way to cultivate empathy in a sustainable matter (=without becoming a victim of the pain of others felt for too long and too intensively in your own body and mind), is to also cultivate compassion, defined as seeing if you can help.
And it turns out that although people of course need food and water and a shelter, apart from that the most generous gift isn't financial/material, it's the gift of your attention.
It's really listening to someone - meaning on purpose, with all your attention, and without judging - that turns out to be the most beautiful gift of all, the gift that makes people "blossom like a flower".
And you know what? The more you cultivate this (towards yourself, your own inner experience, and then towards others and their feelings and thoughts), the more your own productivity and creativiy increases, AND the more the people you work with start to appreciate you, so the bigger the chance to get a promotion ... or to correctly understand who deserves one, if you happen to be the boss.
So yes, empathy PLUS compassion pays off. Empathy alone not, however. Soon our natural empathy (caused by "mirror neurons" in the brain) in that case make us suffer too much, and then our system shuts down and we don't feel any empathy anymore. And THAT is a serious handicap, when it comes to your job and your wallet ... ;-)
More info: see Google's engineer Chade Meng Tan's "Search Inside Yourself".
1
Giving to others is one dimension of caring. Someone once told me we should give "until it hurts", that is, until we notice things we are giving up. While my wife and I give, we are certainly not hurting at this point.
The author does not address the ultimate values to which one turns in the matter of caring for others. If you happen to follow one of the major world religions, there is a unequivocal divine charge to care for others. What the author does not address is the values to which one turns when thinking about caring from a secular perspective. If one adheres to ungrounded secular "values", why should one care for others if there is no ultimate ground for such caring?
2
@ken wightman, in a caring society, someone is usually there to pull a stranger out of a burning car, or even step forward to stop an angry pack of bikers from terrorizing a family that fled in panic after a collision with one of them. There still are such people in the US.
3
@ken wightman The common thread of Judeo-Chistian-Islamic religion could be longing for a lost utopia of harmonious coexistence of diversity, now fractured by the division of language into so many different variations.
I gave 'til it hurts, and now I'm trapped in a high tax house because I don't have enough to move out.
Our humanity is all we have. It is a simplistic but true idea that being rich or famous or otherwise entitled means nothing if you can't have empathy for your fellow human beings. Doing so is a complicated but necessary part of living a good life.
One aspect of humanity is "understanding", something that is not itself well understood. It is impossible to completely understand someone outside of ourselves, even those to whom we are the closest. Sometimes we can't even understand our own selves.
Ideally, we should become educated about human behaviors, the many ways people live and express their own life experiences, then practice as much compassion, tolerance, and respect as we can.
6
I believe most people have the capacity for empathy, yet have seen, in these pages, evidence that humans will show no empathy at all to someone they are not ideologically in tune with. Just witness the animus that many Republicans have against Democrats these days or vice versa. Each political party's loudest voices has us believing that their enemies are driving democracy into the ground.
Or racism; this particular evil actually has some white people believing that others with brown or black skin are less than human, and this affects demographics all over the country. For example, communities that have white families in them tend to self-segregate. Ethnic minorities remain disadvantaged socio-economically.
All human beings have two sides to their natures. And it usually isn't either/or, but a mix of altruistic and selfish qualities. Parents and good schools can help guide a child into being a moral adult. After that, it's the choices each of us make.
2
When a homeless person goes out of their way to help me, such as to point out that I just parked in a tow-away zone, I have to make a generous contribution.
3
"Will we open our eyes to the pain of others, and with it feel the need to do something to help? Or will we just get better at looking away?"
For more than a decade already, neuroscience has shown that there is a third way.
The author of this op-ed typically confounds empathy and compassion.
Empathy is caused by our mirror neurons: we see someone crying, which automatically actives mirror neurons making us feel sad too.
Compassion means noticing someone's suffering and seeing if we can be of any help.
Doctors, nurses, social workers etc. are confronted with horrible suffering day after day, which is known to create "empathy fatigue" ... IF they didn't seriously train their compassion skills.
In other words, it turns out that both empathy and compassion are innate skills, but in order to be able to keep our hearts open, we HAVE to invest actively in compassion training, if not we shut down.
And that includes and starts with self-compassion: studies have shown that the more you have cultivated self-compassion (= the ability to sooth and calm yourself, and embrace your difficult emotions with kindness and acceptance), the more you are able to behave in a compassionate way towards others.
So it's the absence of self-compassion training that leads to empathy fatigue.
Which means that the solution is simple: teach self-compassion in schools, and we will have a much more compassionate society.
References: see K. Neff, Ch. Germer, D. Goleman, R. Davidson, D. Keltner etc.
25
Although I adore the fact THAT the Times invest so much time/money in both a science and philosophy section, I deeply regret:
1. that the science section doesn't have its own Paul Krugman, or at least someone who can add basic definitions and graphs to very interesting science pieces which unfortunately without them can only be understood properly by experts. Especially in times like these, vulgarizing science is crucial to make people to understand why scientific activity is so important in order to thrive as a society.
2. that the philosophy section has the exact opposite problem: instead of allowing real, innovating philosophers to divulge their work and make it understandable for non philosophers, it asks non philosophers to give their own opinion about questions that are so broad and general that no philosopher would ever ask them (in philosophy, finding a truly philosophical question is part of the exercise ...).
Plato famously invented philosophy in contrast with what he called "doxa", "opinion". As this section explicitly states, however, the NYT's conception of philosophy is such that instead of philosophy, we merely get opinions. And often very ill-informed opinions, what's even more ... . In this case for instance, neurological and psychological research has shown that empathy without compassion leads to shutting down. And yet, the author of this op-ed, although a prof. in psychology, doesn't even seem to know the difference between empathy and compassion ...
12
Right on! Especially in the Times’ reduction of science to near pablum. Wasn’t always this bad, but today, no courage to present quantitative information, or even use of international measurement or units. No references. The Stone, as you mention, is also a mashup of folks with recent books to promote, and flat out opinion. Of course, there may not be that many seminal events in contemporary philosophy to fill a frequent space.
2
@Ana Luisa, professional philosophy is as abstruse as cutting-edge mathematics. It can be relevant to nothing real.
@Steve Bolger
I'm a professional philosopher. Like all disciplines and activities that are thousands of years old, you need "initiation" before you can make sense of its documents/texts/... .
In other words: "there's a method to this madness" ... ;-)
More concretely, as Plato said, human beings are animals sensitive to "ideas". Reading the great philosophical texts properly means discovering what your own prejudices actually are (most of them come from our culture, but as we ignore that fact, we identify with them as our "own" opinions, which we believe to be true simply because they seem to be evidently true). It also allows you to start to see how many totally different conceptions, on both a very deep and very practical level, are actually entirely possible too, which opens up your conceptual horizon, and as such increases your freedom tremendously.
That isn't just useful for yourself as an individual. It's also absolutely necessary in any democracy, if not demagogues sooner or later will take over, destroying the country.
And no, once you have someone who can introduce you into the proper method of reading the big philosophical texts in a clear and logical way, they aren't "abstruse" at all. Even teenagers and bureaucrats can be taught to do this (I know because I did ... ;-)).
Finally, cutting-edge math drives many 20th century scientific discoveries in physics, computer science etc, remember? So it's actually VERY relevant to today's Western society.
Who does Trump empathize with? The people he still stokes up to chant "Lock her up!" at a woman who has lost her raison d'etre to him?
4
What is the song lyric? "If I had never learned to love, I never would have felt the pain."?
1
I do not give cash to the homeless. I do not carry cash. In my opinion giving one-time cash to the homeless is not resolving their situation. We all in this wealthy country should be appalled at the increase in homelessness during the past 30 years.
The only higher rate of homelessness I have observed than the U.S. currently was in Spain during Franco's leadership.
My financial charity is dedicated to impoverished children and aging overseas and to national and local animal rescue organizations. My volunteer energy is dedicated to political volunteering so that we can turn this country around with better and more humane leadership.
This year I hope to tutor homeless and at-risk children through a friend's wonderful organization that has been assisting homeless families in my community for 30 years. This friend is truly a paragon of Christian values in action.
There are easy housing solutions to homelessness with the public and political will. Utah has done exactly that.
https://is.gd/YBlSJc
Not perfect but a good start.
I am curious: Is this an article on human empathy or giving random cash to the homeless in order to feel less guilty about one's own privilege and about living complacently in a rich nation with glaringly un-empathetic social policies?
@EarthCitizen As someone who was homeless, please give cash to the homeless. Please. You are not helping homeless people by refusing to give them cash. A one time gift of cash may not save someone's life, but avoiding eye contact & denying them cash is like a spit in the face. And if you think you are helping a homeless addict by refusing them cash, you are WRONG. There are few or no detox centers for homeless people. Detoxing on the street is DEADLY. It is as dangerous as overdosing. I'm glad you support more empathetic social policies, but please do BOTH. When your neighbor reaches out to you for help, smile & give him or her a few dollars. Even if you don't save their lives, you will have eased their pain that day.
20
@EarthCitizen Yours is the voice of someone who has never been in immediate need of basic things. Imagine if you had antibiotics and someone in front of you had a bad infection, and there you are saying, you know, my handful of antibiotics is no good here, this person needs to wait until we've arranged single-payer healthcare for all.
Sometimes people just need cash, fella. Not in months or years, but today.
Give as you give, and carry cash.
10
I've given money to the poor and homeless, but now I'm broke. The problem is that once you've given, people start following you around, and even show up at your house. Some days I really don't have a dollar in my pocket. Other days I've invited people in to my life and home, and been attacked for it, or had to endure accusations - one person said I stole her bag, I said "search the house, take whatever you like." It wore me out. Instead, I devoted myself to helping homeless animals. Even that is a problem because now no one will buy my house unless I move out, and I can't afford to take a loan. No good deed goes unpunished.
Earlier this week, Beto O'Rourke gave a 4-minute reply to a voter's question about whether NFL players who take a knee are being "disrespectful." (The video has gone viral and is worth watching.) His answer was grounded in the need for empathy for others whose perspective is shaped by circumstances we ourselves haven't experienced.
Beto's words are also a timely rebuke to the followers and enablers of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, according to whom "empathy" is to be rationed strategically to the designated few whose plight advances a certain agenda.
It's not that empathy is lacking these days. Rather, too much of that inborn capacity has been manipulated into a learned reaction such that one feels mainly for the suffering of persons categorized as "us" but hardly ever for persons categorized as "them."
28
I believe most of us are empathetic, but it can be more often than not very likely conditioned. And Mr. Ariely honed in on this when he wrote: "...dictators share more after they meet the recipient in person, or when the recipient belongs to their social group..." Speaking for myself as a retired RN, mother, and wife, with a large extended family, it is easy for me to transcend my own flawed humanity when it comes to my loved ones - including friends - and what was my chosen career. But I live close to a large city where homelessness is becoming an issue that must be dealt with imminently. When I pass the impoverished on those many sidewalks, my reaction is visceral. I become conflicted both emotionally and rationally. And, yes, because this causes me more angst than I can handle, I look away as if to fool my mind that the extreme poverty of this individual does not exist. Yet my responsibility not only to others but also to myself is not to say to myself, Such is life. I can not help everyone. Rather it is to remind myself that at the end of my life's journey I can look in the mirror and say, "I cared for all people because everyone has worth and dignity."
17
We do not need to reconcile ourselves to our divine nature. that is never at issue. rather, we need to reconcile ourselves to our human nature. it is our humanity, its duality, the black and the white, that disturbs us. this is evidence of our inner Self struggling with out outer self, and is a pretty good "proof" that we are all the One, experiencing itself/ourself as the Many. Like the two Bills said: It's just a ride/All the world's a stage. Forgiveness: immediate, eternal, and real. It's the only way.
4
@Ingolf Stern, Apparently it is human nature to project ourselves onto the functioning of nature itself.
Try being an ethical vegan, where one’s compassion and empathy extend to all living things. It is very easy to feel negative emotions all the time and despair at the future of the world. (I’m not having children because of what I see as a bleak future)
That said, I have always tried to bring some light into the world and tried to lead by example.
I love people individually, but as a species, we’re a parasite. The other creatures of the Earth will breathe a collective sigh when humans are no more. But I digress. :-)
16
@Doug Mattingly ... Nope. Compassion and empathy do not lead to 'negative emotions ... and despair'. Those usually come from excessive moral condemnation.
3
@Doug Mattingly: At least once weekly from late spring to early fall (this morning too), I wake up to the sounds of dozens or even hundreds of chickens being butchered one at a time, by hand. Do my neighbors (who can neither spell nor define the word "vegan") rise before dawn in their empathy to spare me this barnyard ruckus (sensitive city person they assume that I am) or because they have to hose down and pack up to get to their other chores and day jobs on time? They are honest and hardworking and though they expect no empathy from anyone, do they deserve it any less?
There is a disjuncture between the act of loving people individually while characterizing the human species as parasites. It has the scent of "Some of my best friends are parasites." Empathy belongs to the spaces in between, whether we like it or not.
@Lowell Yeah, I'm no stranger to gray areas. If nothing else, all I have to look at is climate change and I've got my parasites. I'm not one to write novellas in comment sections.
I think some commenters here are losing their minds a little because I used the word "vegan".
Reading Mr. Ariely's essay, I am reminded of a quote from Franz Kafka, "You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."
I recall these words when I am tempted to restrain my empathy for others or see my companions living only for themselves. Life brings many sufferings to everyone and caring only for oneself is the one suffering we are free to avoid.
6
@Ron, Kafka's father was distinctively non-empathetic.
That article said literally nothing that a ten-year-old doesn't know.
17
@Venya True wisdom is intuitive. But it sometimes submerged in "other matters".
2
Perhaps every ten-year-old knows...but many adults seem to have forgotten.
1
Try asking the 10 year old at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
2
I can't quite disconnect from the pain of a crying child separated for reasons it cannot comprehend from a parent who took them to a place that was supposed to be a promised land. We do not give informed consent to be born. Many fetuses might pass on it if they could foresee their own future.
29
"And the larger question is: Which version of humanity will we, individually and collectively, choose?"
In fact we have chosen inhumanity. Humans are not in charge. Big corporations are in charge. When they play the dictator game, as a matter of principle they take as much as they can get. In this case 100%.
I suppose you could quibble about how deliberately we chose it. The owners of the corporations weren't entirely open in the way they put them in charge. But by now the processes of legalized corruption by which the corporations run the government are well known and understood, so since we permit if to continue it must be that we like it.
15
I've been voting the right way since the 1980s, and it really hasn't helped very much. There is just as much poverty in liberal cities, perhaps more, than in the dystopian land of the GOP.
@Paul Easton I do not believe WE LIKE IT. I think one of the following (or all): we are afraid (we live in a culture of fear, after all)'; we feel powerless against the giant corporations; some of us are ignorant (yes, I know, ignorance is no excuse); we are weak. Since I can't fight the corporations or BIG PHARMA or #45, I just give $ (or blankets or care boxes) to the homeless---and I drink a lot of inexpensive wine (I try to numb myself.)
1
I avoid the eyes of panhandlers because I am ashamed to be a member of a society with such a miserable social welfare system, and their presence reminds me of it. I personally believe that charity will always be inadequate to societies needs, and that strong social welfare legislation is the only way to resolve the issues that create mendicancy.
51
@Greg Shenaut As a formerly homeless person, Thank You for your compassion. Unless we are severely damaged (and many are) we can feel the loving attitude of those who pass by us.
6
@Penny White
Thank you so much for this reply.
I often can't give homeless persons I meet on the street any money, but I indeed feel for them, and try at least to be kind, to say hello, etc. I never imagined that that in itself would already make a difference ... so it's good to know, I'll try to cultivate this in a more active way from now on.
Hoping that you're in better circumstances today.
Take care.
5
We are one of three closely related surving African primate apes. The matriarchal sex driven gentle bonobo, the patriarchal sex driven violent chimpanzee and the patriarchal sex driven violent human beings.
We are driven by our biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit multicolored multiethnic multifaith multi national origin one human race species that began 300,000 years ago in Africa to crave fat, salt, sugar, habitat, water, kin and sex by any means necessary including conflict and cooperation.
Economics is not a science. There are too many variables and unknowns to craft the double-blind controls that provide repeatable and predictable results. Biology is a science that studies living things. And humans are a kind of living thing aka animal. Economics is gender, color aka race, ethnicity, national origin, faith, law, politics and history plus arithmetic.
3
@Blackmamba, One must know what people value to make economic predictions. Obviously the US loves weapons over all other physical objects.
7
@Blackmamba I hope Bonobos will replace us. Or perhaps we can start adopting their ways.
1
The writer failed to mention a truism: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Remind you of anyone?
2
@J.C. I also think it's true that corrupt people are much more likely than compassionate people to pursue power. That's why we end up with such brutal leaders.
4
This is a ridiculous and simplistic argument. First of all, what the author is talking about is not “empathy” but Theory of Mind (TOM) - the ability to understand what another person is thinking or feeling. TOM is ethically neutral: it is what gives us the ability to deceive, for example. Second, the notion that lack of empathy somehow makes you less than human is in itself dehumanizing and can be used in politically dangerous ways. I have very little empathy and just shrug when I read tear-jerking descriptions of “babies in cages” or some such nonsense because I know it’s manipulative and dishonest storytelling. Nevertheless, I consider myself an ethical person and always try to do the right thing according to my views of what it is. So what should be done with me? Execution? There have been regimes in the past when people who were deemed less than human because they were too greedy, too smart and lacking in some proper emotions were removed form the community with a bullet in the head.
2
@Mor, Theory of mind allows us to detect deception as well. The enablement of Trump leaves me in no doubt that a vast segment of the US public has no theory of mind at all. The most ironic feature of the US to me is all the people who want to live forever boring themselves to death.
16
@Mor We really need to talk more about the effect on society of larger numbers of adults with ASD. You're missing Ariely's point entirely.
5
@Mor Wouldn't executing human beings for not having empathy be a bit ironic? Even for the USA?
I object to the headline. Anything that assumes that "we" are always trying to hard to do this or that is simple-minded and manipulative.
3
@SFR Daniel, We all share the same emotion set, though there is enormous variation in the strength and sensitivity of each emotion.
4
Dictators have no empathy. They can only project themselves. I cannot imagine Trump grieving through the last weeks of a 19 year old cat with a jaw sarcoma.
15
@Steve Bolger I can't imagine Trump feeling any empathy toward John McCain and family, let alone an "animal". (I confess I feel much more empathy toward my cat--who is not ill at the moment-- than I do toward Trump.)
3
I was struck by the images of the baby manatee poking at its mother, dead of red tide poisoning.
The coal boys Trump loves get their kicks blowing the tops off 500 million year old mountains.
6
We all know how our Fake President would score in the “Dictator Game”. Every penny for me, nothing for any poor smuck recipient, and a hefty entrance fee for him or her to even enter the game. Trump’s narcissistic life calculus has always been “Heads I win, tails you lose”. And now for the last eighteen months, he has been trying to similarly game the entire country. MAGA!
8
@John Grillo, To Trump, the peak of American greatness was probably when Patton and LeMay were chomping at the bit to over-run the USSR as WW II came to an untimely end.
2
I found it shocking that the tool used to assess caring was money. I can imagine keeping all the money for many reasons unrelated to level of empathy.
6
@GreaterMetropolitanArea, It troubles many to pass by other people in distress, but donations to them are actually prohibited on the subways, and, as with anything else, the more revenue that derives from panhandling, the more of it there will be. This is why compassionate people will pay taxes to support a guaranteed income that undercuts justification to panhandle.
6
@Steve Bolger
Yes--I can more easily imagine evaluating an individual's capacity to care by his or her willingness to give some or all of the money to a cause like that...but not necessarily to any individual stranger who isn't begging on the street, but just standing there. It also seemed odd to equate this activity with dictatorship. Maybe I should have taken sociology.
@GreaterMetropolitanArea - how so? In any case you will be depriving somebody else of their share of the money and you have no idea of the other person's circumstances.
1
What a strangely empty piece. There's a great deal to talk about here, starting with the explicit backlash against empathy that's had a lively time online in tech communities especially. But Ariely's just punting here -- says "do you know, this empathy, it's a thing we have, but sometimes it hurts to have, so sometimes people try not to have it, and that's a choice: is it a good choice, children?"
I think we usually saw richer content from Mr. Rogers, and I think Ariely can do better. I'm actually wondering if the editors told him to make something for a conversation tea and leave it at that -- nothing too rich, a little bit of idea to bat around.
I'm sitting here next to a copy of John McGahern's collected stories, which I haven't touched in about twenty years. May I suggest that they're a fine starting point for a consideration of empathy, and that you can leave the tea conversation alone.
5
The anthropomorphism in your first sentence,
saying that empathy defines our species, forgets
that animals too show empathy, can bring themselves to care for the young, for example, of other species than their own. Let's not forget that Tarzan was raised by the apes to be a better ape.
5
@Poesy
Tarzan was a white supremacist mythical fancy.
Black Africans are the most ancient and diverse human beings on Earth.
The social insects particularly the ants show empathy. And they have been at it much longer and more successfully than human primate apes.
4
@Poesy We have bigger prefrontal lobes to support abstract ideas and elaborate means of expression, but the emotions function at the level of the reptilian brain.
4
The author writes as if only the human animal feels empathy.
Cetaceans (dolphins, whales and porpoises) and elephants also have empathy.
23
I would argue that animals feel more empathy than humans. Only humans rejoice in torture and cruelty.
1
I can empathize enough to see things from Trump's perspective. He loves nothing and nobody.
6
This is why (Conservative pundits notwithstanding) human governments build empathy into their functioning. And why Margaret Thatcher recognized the need to change human “souls” in order to make them less human and more fit for the dog-eat-dog world she was selling.
1
Is it still possible to be idealistic in old age? It seems so especially if one includes "others" routinely in their lives.
It may seem far fetched but it should be noted that those who have thoughts and actions toward helping "others" certainly seem to be more comfortable in the way their lives are working out. It seems there is this "uncommon" joy that comes from helping others and more important in doing so to not be concerned at all if you don't receive any credit for it. President Truman's famous quote "It is amazing what one can accomplish when they don't care who gets credit for" applies here.
Empathy also is an important everyday quality that we can and should aspire to. And I would add the quality of "understanding" to be a companion to empathy. A deep and daily awareness of "understanding" serves as a tremendous foundation for living in a complex and sometimes dangerous world.
6
In a book by Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence, he presents scientific results that show that our empathy actually has a neurological basis--when we watch a sad movie, parts of the brain "light up" in the same regions as for those who are actually having the sad experience.
That being said, I don't believe all people have that "innate reaction" -- such as Aspergers, etc. and we aren't even going to discuss the kingmakers behind politics or corporate greed.
Would that being born Homo Sapien means we all have the capacity for humanity.
5
@Amelia B. - people with Asperger's don't lack empathy, they just don't always understand how to read and respond appropriately to social cues.
Right from the first sentence, Ariely unfortunately gets it wrong. Plenty of nonhumans have been shown to care -- in many cases to a higher degree than most humans. Just recently there was the story of the mother orca whose calf died, and whose whole pod mourned for nearly two full weeks with her.
And rats have been shown to be willing to work to free another rat that is held in a constricting cage. (That a caring? human put him or her in.)
Two examples out of many. True, we'll never know exactly what the caring nonhuman experiences. But I'll take a being that truly acts caring over one that merely voices noble-sounding sentiments any day.
4
@Hillary Rettig
The statement "one of the defining elements of being human is that we have hair on our bodies" does not exclude other animals from being mammals.
Likewise, the statement "one of the defining elements of being human is the ability to care about others..."doesn't exclude other animals from the act of caring. It simply puts humans in the subgroup of things that can care.
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@Hillary Rettig, emotions are the root of animation.
As a market researcher, I once got to interview a homeless man in 2009 who lost everything during the recession. Among the many things he told me about life on the street was how painful it was not to have people look him in the eyes when he was panhandling or asking for help. It made him feel sub-human. Since then, I’ve tried to always make eye contact with homeless people that are asking for help, even if I don’t have any money to give, I can at least help keep them feeling human.
We coach empathy with our clients, how to build and maintain it. We always start by explaining the difference between sympathy, feeling for someone, and empathy, feeling with someone. And the first step to having empathy is to dismantle judgement. Often harder to do than we realize.
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Soon panhandlers will need cell phones to take donations, as in China.
Well done, Rob Volpe.
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Dan, "Empathy is at the core of who (most of us) are." --- but Emperor Trump, and all damaged 'Empire-thinkers' are so very different" --- that even the "Times" best minds are having trouble seeing his 'forest of Empire through the trees of issues'.
Within just this week Emperor Trump has exploded an IED of racist classist divisive hate cloaked in his Tweet about South Africa's 'Land Reform' to signal his real base (the 26,000 global UHNWI's) to the fear and fight against 'Wealth Reform' here. [He has also 'signaled' this deadly serious base about the need to force government and 'we the people' pay for the global oil industry's multi-trillion dollar 'negative externality cost' mess global warming, and has likewise 'signaled' the uber-wealthy that if they're not 'in with him' on this mega scam, "Every one of Them Would Be Very Poor’ If He Gets Ousted”.
Aside from this triplet of veiled threats, Emperor Trump is now trumping even what he successfully did against the big banks to avoid his certain bankruptcy, by doing "The Big Call" (not "The Big Put") --- Trump is now playing deadly serious Poker "raise-you", in cancelling any talks on denuclearization not only with North Korea, but with China --- which will be far riskier, for him, but also all 'global citizens', than his 'playing chicken' and WINNING with the Big Banks during his 'Empire-building' days in merely NY real estate.
This real estate he's betting to scam is our world. Wake-up this "Times".
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I don't agree that empathy enables one to know how another feels, rather one knows how oneself would feel in similar situations. Likewise, it seems like the dictator game is based more on the giver's feelings. What , if anything, does the giver have to do to avoid guilt and feel good about him/herself? It seems to me one needs to know and perhaps even love another to experience the feelings the writer attributes to empathy.
I heard someone once say, when you pass by that homeless person or the panhandler, and all you have on you are $20's, don't turn the other way, give them that $20, they need it more than you.
I used to carry $1's and $5's for the very reason not to give more to the homeless. Now I carry a couple of $20's. It occurred to me that I could afford to, but held back because I was not sure if they were honest in their needs. Wrong thinking on my part. If they're out there in the heat or cold, they need our empathy.
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@cherrylog754
$20. is more than many Americans receive for an hour of work. Do you compensate the order-taker at McDonalds for the disparity?
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@cherrylog754 Having worked many years with people who are homeless or who have severe symptoms of mental illness, the danger is not only in turning away but also in the reverse, seeing them as an indistinct mass of subjects who warrant unconditional empathy. Try finding out some of their stories, recognize their own individual agency, and then see if empathy is sustained. If not, those $20s may as well be bumper stickers.
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Isn’t the social emotion of empathy common to all animals? Sympathy, on the other hand, is the baffling ability to both hold our emotions at bay and be immersed in them, to feel them and submit them to critical scrutiny at the same time. It is an ability unique to human beings. Animals are omniscient and omnipresent, dispersed throughout time and space. Only human beings have the “amazing superpower” that both fixes us in a definite location and “allows us to transport ourselves into the mind of another person and view and feel life from their perspective.” It is the same ability that makes the hidden side of an object present to us even when we can’t see it. The dictator game is not a measure of a person’s capacity to feel empathy, which is a universal capacity we share with animals. It is an indicator of the calculations we make based on our perceptions of need and duty. Life involves hard choices. Animals make such calculations instinctively, blithely unaware, but we have to live with the knowledge of our decisions. Care, not empathy, is a burden that only human beings take upon themselves.
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