A new book by the renowned psychologist overturns received wisdom; here,
he explains the flaws in feeling others’ pain.
It is often said that people lack empathy. For example, if the rich
really appreciated what it is like to be poor we would have more equality and
social justice. If whites had more empathy for blacks and men more empathy for
women things would be different. “Empathy
has its merits. It can be a great source of pleasure, involved in art, fiction
and sports. And it can be a valuable aspect of intimate relationships. But it’s
a poor moral guide. It grounds foolish judgments and often motivates
indifference and cruelty. It can lead to irrational and unfair political
decisions. It makes the world worse.”
Empathy spotlights certain people here and now, which can be a good
thing. Laboratory research, everyday experience and common sense show that it
really does make you kinder to the person you are empathising with. “So if the world were a simple place, where
the only difficulties one had to deal with involved a single person in some
sort of immediate distress, and where helping that person had positive effects,
the case for empathy would be solid.”
Empathy favours the one over the many. One series of studies found that
people would give roughly the same amount of money to help develop a drug
whether they were told it would save the life of one child or eight children. But
if people are told the name of the child and her shown her picture, the
donations shot up – “the identifiable victim effect”.
These spotlights focus on specifics and are vulnerable to
bias. Empathy picks favourites (friend or foe, part of your group or an opposing group); it is sensitive to whether the
person is pleasing to look at or not - but not much else.
These facts explain why people’s desire to help abused dogs or
oil-drenched penguins often exceeds their interest in suffering millions in
other countries or ethnic minorities in their own. Many people give small
amounts to multiple charities (getting a warm glow each time), with their choices
driven by the lure of stories and pictures of adorable animals and children,
and not by a rational assessment of what can do the most good.
Western aid to developing nations can have a negative effect by decreasing
the incentives for long-term economic development in the areas that would most
benefit from this. Food aid can put local farmers and markets out of business, food
aid and medical care for combatants can actually end up killing more people
than it saves. [As with corporate bailouts — the money might make things better
at the moment, helping people keep their jobs, but it can have negative
downstream consequences.]
There are also unscrupulous people who strategically exploit our
empathy for bad ends. The sight of an emaciated child beggar means it is hard to
resist, but may end up supporting criminal organisations that enslave and often
maim tens of thousands of children and put them out on the streets.
Many charities do wonderful work, but doing actual good, instead of
doing what feels good, requires coping with the problems of unintended
consequences and being mindful of exploitation from competing, sometimes
malicious and greedy interests. You need to be careful to avoid empathy traps.
Empathy can also spark violence; our feelings for the sufferer can
motivate anger towards whoever caused the suffering. Studies now show that people
who are highly empathetic tend to be more violent and punitive when they see
someone who is suffering. The media often present lurid tales of abuse. PB is not
a pacifist and does believe that the suffering of innocents can sometimes
warrant military intervention, but that empathy is too much in favour of
violent action with unforeseen costs.
So empathy leads us astray but there are all sorts of motivations for
good action, the best of which is compassion, or “loving kindness”, in which
you care for others, but don’t feel their pain; don’t put yourself in their
shoes but use careful reasoning.
If you want the pleasure of personal contact, go ahead and give
something to the child, perhaps feeling a little buzz when your hands touch, a
warmness that sits with you as you walk back to your hotel. If you actually
want to make people’s lives better, do something different.
Paul Bloom is the Brooks and Suzanne Regan professor of psychology at
Yale. His new book is Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion
Source: Think empathy makes the world a better place? Think again …PaulBloom in The Guardian, 19 February 2017
