Eliezer: I was not saying anything cannot be understood, but rather that using our specialized “empathic” capabilities for understanding human behavior in terms of our own hypothetical behavior is counterproductive to understanding many instances of human behavior when the humans in question are from different cultures or otherwise very different from one’s self. It’s easy to model it, possibly even to model it well (Chronicles of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez tries to), but next to useless to model it by reference to your own feelings. If we couldn’t model it at least somewhat we couldn’t even form the concept and talk about it, but we don’t have the special advantages here that we have when modeling a hungry person eating or the like.
For a less politically charged example, fairly young (7 or 8, maybe 9?) could learn to model sexual desire, but they can’t empathize. Adults cannot empathize with a child’s enjoyment of TV shows targeting young children even though they have been children and may remember watching the same shows and enjoying them. Actually, since enjoyment is virtuous, that example answers your question, though across ages rather than across cultures. For ‘virtuous’, cross cultural, and impossible to empathically model (ignoring that to some degree there is a contradiction here, as without the ability to model the state it is hard to be confident of its intrinsic virtuousness, only of the virtuousness of the actions it brings about, which could also have been pursued for utilitarian or other deeply generally human reasons such as caring. The symmetry with abhorrent actions is broken in this respect) there are surely many different types of meditation or other altered mental states, enjoyment of a vast number of foods (I can understand liking kumiss via a “comfort food” schema, but not *kumiss AS kumiss), entertainments, and art forms, and probably more subtle and general feelings having to do with attachment to the land, etc, though I can model these empathically to some degree.
Most generally of all, I already had given examples, in citing Haidt’s 5 moral domains.
Hmm. Criticism of Haidt’s theory. Haidt, and most other people, probably see conservatives and liberals as having equal lack of understanding of one another. (the point of his theory is that he lacks such empathic understanding, hence the need of an empirically derived theory). However, his theory suggests that conservatives should easily understand liberals. The magnitude of one’s disagreement shouldn’t be the cause of empathy failure. Rather, empathy failure should follow from the apparent pointlessness of the action being criticized. For instance, it’s probably easy for us to empathize with Joseph Mengele’s actions while still strongly disapproving, as scientific curiosity is a shared motivation and the difference between his actions and actions we would approve of is because of his not applying enough weight to caring/sympathy considerations that we consider important. The opposite is true of one’s experience reading about Isaac Bashevais Singer’s father in “My Father’s Court” or other good works of anthropology dealing with rich cultures. We are bemused by the apparent pointlessness of all of the ritual details that this silly man takes so very seriously, but he is harmless and we are not indignant at all.
Bob: Great post.
Eliezer: I was not saying anything cannot be understood, but rather that using our specialized “empathic” capabilities for understanding human behavior in terms of our own hypothetical behavior is counterproductive to understanding many instances of human behavior when the humans in question are from different cultures or otherwise very different from one’s self. It’s easy to model it, possibly even to model it well (Chronicles of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez tries to), but next to useless to model it by reference to your own feelings. If we couldn’t model it at least somewhat we couldn’t even form the concept and talk about it, but we don’t have the special advantages here that we have when modeling a hungry person eating or the like.
For a less politically charged example, fairly young (7 or 8, maybe 9?) could learn to model sexual desire, but they can’t empathize. Adults cannot empathize with a child’s enjoyment of TV shows targeting young children even though they have been children and may remember watching the same shows and enjoying them. Actually, since enjoyment is virtuous, that example answers your question, though across ages rather than across cultures. For ‘virtuous’, cross cultural, and impossible to empathically model (ignoring that to some degree there is a contradiction here, as without the ability to model the state it is hard to be confident of its intrinsic virtuousness, only of the virtuousness of the actions it brings about, which could also have been pursued for utilitarian or other deeply generally human reasons such as caring. The symmetry with abhorrent actions is broken in this respect) there are surely many different types of meditation or other altered mental states, enjoyment of a vast number of foods (I can understand liking kumiss via a “comfort food” schema, but not *kumiss AS kumiss), entertainments, and art forms, and probably more subtle and general feelings having to do with attachment to the land, etc, though I can model these empathically to some degree.
Most generally of all, I already had given examples, in citing Haidt’s 5 moral domains.
Hmm. Criticism of Haidt’s theory. Haidt, and most other people, probably see conservatives and liberals as having equal lack of understanding of one another. (the point of his theory is that he lacks such empathic understanding, hence the need of an empirically derived theory). However, his theory suggests that conservatives should easily understand liberals. The magnitude of one’s disagreement shouldn’t be the cause of empathy failure. Rather, empathy failure should follow from the apparent pointlessness of the action being criticized. For instance, it’s probably easy for us to empathize with Joseph Mengele’s actions while still strongly disapproving, as scientific curiosity is a shared motivation and the difference between his actions and actions we would approve of is because of his not applying enough weight to caring/sympathy considerations that we consider important. The opposite is true of one’s experience reading about Isaac Bashevais Singer’s father in “My Father’s Court” or other good works of anthropology dealing with rich cultures. We are bemused by the apparent pointlessness of all of the ritual details that this silly man takes so very seriously, but he is harmless and we are not indignant at all.