But ultimately, the only way I find to cope is not caring.
It’s important to distinguish between emotions and decision theory. You can (try to) be perfectly altruistic in calculated decisions, while not caring on an emotional level. Better, you can care in more positive ways: feel good when you help, but don’t feel guilty for not helping, or feel painfully strong empathy for the suffering, except to the extent that doing so actually motivates you sustainably. You aren’t obligated to feel any emotion that doesn’t win.
You aren’t obligated to feel any emotion that doesn’t win.
But it’s really hard to tell which emotions one should or shouldn’t feel in order to win, and part of the problem is that feeling emotions can cause our consciously held values to change, in a way that we don’t fully understand and can’t accurately predict.
Perhaps this is why some people seek out clear moral principles, so that they can commit to them and thus stop their values from drifting uncontrollably.
It’s important to distinguish between emotions and decision theory. You can (try to) be perfectly altruistic in calculated decisions, while not caring on an emotional level. Better, you can care in more positive ways: feel good when you help, but don’t feel guilty for not helping, or feel painfully strong empathy for the suffering, except to the extent that doing so actually motivates you sustainably. You aren’t obligated to feel any emotion that doesn’t win.
There is a flipside to this that I would like to point out: you’re allowed to feel any emotion that does help you to win.
But it’s really hard to tell which emotions one should or shouldn’t feel in order to win, and part of the problem is that feeling emotions can cause our consciously held values to change, in a way that we don’t fully understand and can’t accurately predict.
Perhaps this is why some people seek out clear moral principles, so that they can commit to them and thus stop their values from drifting uncontrollably.