Quote:
Originally Posted by grant hutchison
I just wrote "Nonsense" again, but it was rude the first time, so I delete and apologize.
|
In this forum, and especially this thread, "nonsense" is a perfect response. I love to see people living passionately. With a single word, you put me in physical contact with your passion. It's a wonderful aspect of human (and animal, I suppose) interaction. (And note to others: the word itself is not passion incarnate. It's a mistake to think there is any one thing you can point to that is "passion"--including a feeling--yet passion is very real and very relevant in our lives.)
Quote:
|
But really: you can't be serious.
|
Well, I just introspected, and I perceived the feeling of seriousness. So, by your account, then, I am serious and no further discussion is required. Seriously, I knew that the exact nature of my internal state was not your primary concern. You were more concerned about my ideas, how well they would hold up in practice, and why someone seemingly reasonable like me should hold them.
Here is my point from another angle: You suggest that actions are merely symptoms and that introspecting an inner state shows you what empathy really is. I am not denying the feeling. The problem is that there is no way for you to know what others are introspecting when they say they feel empathy. But limiting yourself to introspection, you have no way of knowing that that particular specific feeling you are having right now is empathy. There are no criteria that would let you identify it as such.
You may respond that you know it is empathy because it is the feeling you have when you are showing empathy to others, but that would only demonstrate my point that the term "empathy" functions in the broader social context. Since the feelings others have when they show empathy may be different--we just can't know--it shows that the feeling itself can't be the distinguishing characteristic of empathy.
A related problem is that your introspection is a single case. There is no way to generalize from your single case of what you think is empathy to the rest of us.
Quote:
|
As a society we have nothing but contempt for those who simulate empathy in order to fulfil their own ends (gold-digging spouses come to mind). A variety of inner states may lead to the "come over to cheer you up" behaviour, and that's why we value the real deal and deprecate the fake.
|
But in your view, you can't know what someone else's inner states are. Only he can introspect those. They can't be the relevant element. We have contempt for deception because of what happens in the longer term. The car salesman appears to show you empathy and you later see him doing the same act on another prospect at which time you realize it was just an act to get the sale. It is human action and its consequences that are relevant to us.
Quote:
|
And what if it were revealed to me that my so-called friend was a "philosopher's zombie", a simulation of a human, perfect in every detail except for its utter lack of consciousness. Would I still cheer up as a result of his visit?
|
For these types of thought experiments to work, you have to follow them through in detail, which can be difficult to do well. A true zombie would be indistinguishable from a human, so it is hard for me to see why you would not be cheered up if he came over and took you out to a ballgame and paid for everything.
What if you were feeling down and your dog jumped on your lap, wagging its tail, jumping excitedly, and licked your face? Might you feel a little bit cheered up by that? If so, the dog's actions are what cheered you up. The exact nature of his inner states didn't matter as long as the dog interacted with you in the way it did.