Note: no examples are given of philosophers who hold the (bizarre) thesis that empathy, or any other single emotion, is on its own necessary or sufficient for morality/ethics. No-one that I know of, not even Smith or Hume, holds this thesis. But, y’know, it’s Prinz, so it gets published. [Prinz would disagree; see my reply]
Prinz should know better than to artificially isolate a single type of motivation in this way… it’s doubtful that such an isolation is even conceptually coherent, let alone that anyone ever acts from “empathy alone”, so the whole idea of it being necessary or sufficient for morality is kind of confused to begin with.
Right. Every time I read lesswrong I’m struck by the total lack of empathy and desire to diminish it’s role in the world. As far as I can tell this is part of their overall program to promote diversity in all things except values.
Personally I’m sympathetic to large parts of their philosophical program. But their insistence that everyone must follow the party line or be deemed “wrong” would make a Stalinist blush.
I found the second helpful in a backhanded way—for me, one of the more interesting parts of the Prinz paper was section 5, on the downsides of empathy. He’s right, I’m no longer so keen on empathy and more interested in diminishing its role in the world.
This seems like a bad idea. If the overall level of empathy is reduced, the result won’t be more efficient charity, the result will less charity. Having money go to support the cute abused puppies is orders of magnitude less useful than having it go to say Village Reach, but it is still probably better than the money going to a lot of status symbols like gold necklaces, fancy cars, and the like.
If the overall level of empathy is reduced, the result won’t be more efficient charity, the result will less charity.
-_- It’s too bad that I didn’t just post most of a paper arguing the contrary, and carefully copied out every single citation to make it that much easier for LWers to follow the references.
The studies in question showed that charity could be increased by means other than empathy. They don’t as far as I can tell go in the direction of showing that people will give the same amount of charity when there’s no empathy.
That’s not the argument. I agree that there are other mechanisms that can influence giving rates and that there are quite a few of them, some of which seem to swamp empathy in controlled conditions. The issue is whether empathy is a mechanism which impacts giving rates. These studies don’t seem to answer that effectively.
If the overall level of empathy is reduced, the result won’t be more efficient charity, the result will less charity.
Even if I grant you that empathy matters at all for giving, because of those other mechanisms influencing the level of charity, the net effect is still indeterminate.
Sections 4 & 5 are the relevant ones here; the net effect of empathy is unclear—if it were removed, it’s not clear that the removal of the related biases etc would not compensate.
The net is indeterminate for reducing empathy and using these other techniques to trigger more giving. Actually, in that sort of context, I suspect given this literature that the total giving will likely go up. But that didn’t seem to be what you were advocating. If it is what you are advocating then I misread your remark.
I was unaware of any downsides before; how do you suggest I update but to be no longer so keen on empathy? Should I be even keener? (Well, that doesn’t sound right...)
Hum, no I think he was referring more to “more interested in diminishing its role in the world”. That sounds like you’ll actively try to lower the amount of empathy of the world—not just stop being as eager as before to try to increase it. Maybe we (or at least I) misunderstood you on that part.
But (some of) the drawbacks of empathy listed on the article are real, and indeed should lower the energy invested in trying to increase empathy—but they are far from enough to make empathy a “globally bad” thing, or to make me actually try to decrease empathy. I still think the world would be much better off if we had more empathy. Not as much as before, but empathy is still something to promote, not to diminish.
That sounds like you’ll actively try to lower the amount of empathy of the world—not just stop being as eager as before to try to increase it. Maybe we (or at least I) misunderstood you on that part.
I am more interested in lowering it—before, I had zero interest in lowering it, and now I have some interest, which is more than I had before. (Not nearly enough to make me do anything, but then, it’s not like I was actively trying to increase empathy before.)
Comments on Reddit:
itsmorecomplicated:
dominosci:
First comment seems useful. Second seems to be a generic attack with no actual content.
I found the second helpful in a backhanded way—for me, one of the more interesting parts of the Prinz paper was section 5, on the downsides of empathy. He’s right, I’m no longer so keen on empathy and more interested in diminishing its role in the world.
This seems like a bad idea. If the overall level of empathy is reduced, the result won’t be more efficient charity, the result will less charity. Having money go to support the cute abused puppies is orders of magnitude less useful than having it go to say Village Reach, but it is still probably better than the money going to a lot of status symbols like gold necklaces, fancy cars, and the like.
-_- It’s too bad that I didn’t just post most of a paper arguing the contrary, and carefully copied out every single citation to make it that much easier for LWers to follow the references.
(I don’t know why I bother sometimes.)
The studies in question showed that charity could be increased by means other than empathy. They don’t as far as I can tell go in the direction of showing that people will give the same amount of charity when there’s no empathy.
‘Reduce X and you reduce Y’.
‘But Y is increased by other mechanisms like Z, and sometimes quite substantially!’
‘That doesn’t matter “as far as I can tell”.’
That’s not the argument. I agree that there are other mechanisms that can influence giving rates and that there are quite a few of them, some of which seem to swamp empathy in controlled conditions. The issue is whether empathy is a mechanism which impacts giving rates. These studies don’t seem to answer that effectively.
Read what you wrote:
Even if I grant you that empathy matters at all for giving, because of those other mechanisms influencing the level of charity, the net effect is still indeterminate.
Sections 4 & 5 are the relevant ones here; the net effect of empathy is unclear—if it were removed, it’s not clear that the removal of the related biases etc would not compensate.
The net is indeterminate for reducing empathy and using these other techniques to trigger more giving. Actually, in that sort of context, I suspect given this literature that the total giving will likely go up. But that didn’t seem to be what you were advocating. If it is what you are advocating then I misread your remark.
Charity is a status symbol. Especially inefficient and extravagant charity.
A few downsides is enough to convince you that it’s bad on net?
I was unaware of any downsides before; how do you suggest I update but to be no longer so keen on empathy? Should I be even keener? (Well, that doesn’t sound right...)
Hum, no I think he was referring more to “more interested in diminishing its role in the world”. That sounds like you’ll actively try to lower the amount of empathy of the world—not just stop being as eager as before to try to increase it. Maybe we (or at least I) misunderstood you on that part.
But (some of) the drawbacks of empathy listed on the article are real, and indeed should lower the energy invested in trying to increase empathy—but they are far from enough to make empathy a “globally bad” thing, or to make me actually try to decrease empathy. I still think the world would be much better off if we had more empathy. Not as much as before, but empathy is still something to promote, not to diminish.
I am more interested in lowering it—before, I had zero interest in lowering it, and now I have some interest, which is more than I had before. (Not nearly enough to make me do anything, but then, it’s not like I was actively trying to increase empathy before.)
So you still have some interest in trying to increase it? I think the way you’re phrasing your position above is throwing people off.
So, if you could increase world empathy by 1% by pushing one button, decrease it by 1% by pushing a second button, or do nothing, what would you do?
I don’t know. Probably nothing in lieu of additional evidence.