...Empathy does not work for determining ethical behavior because it is 1) selective and 2) it provides no direction for how to act.
A new study suggests that people with high levels of empathy also have high levels of schadenfreude. That is, the more...empathetic they are, the more they also enjoy seeing other people suffer:
Americans who scored high on an empathy scale showed higher levels of [partisan animosity]. ...[In one part of the study,] undergraduates were shown a news story about a controversial speaker from the opposing party visiting a college campus. Students who had scored higher on the empathy scale were more likely to applaud efforts to deny the speaker a platform.
It gets worse. These high-empathy students were also more likely to be amused by reports that students protesting the speech had injured a bystander sympathetic to the speaker. [Wired Magazine, citing the study: https://www.wired.com/story/empathy-is-tearing-us-apart]
...What we call empathy is, for the most part, group identification: we feel empathy for whomever we decide is a member of the in-group, and hate for whomever we decide is a member of the out-group. ... [This demonstrates] the logical problems of [using] selective and directionless feelings as a basis of morality.
Greater "empathy" leads to exacerbated partisan animosity. Maybe reason is a better basis for political belief than feelings or empathy...it tears apart the country less, and it leads to policies founded in logic, not emotion.
Perhaps Trump's success is that he harnesses feelings and empathy in campaigning (like Dems usually do, in both campaigning and in policy generation), but his policies are more based in reason not empathy (like GOP policies usually are...the invisible hand...doing what is best for someone is not always a handout, etc.).
Link: Truth & Tolerance Blog Entry: "You lack empathy, I hope you die a horrible death."
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People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder have big problems empathizing.
It’s not his fault...but he can’t do it.
....I also think that it matters not. Results matter. Policy matters. Tweets, empathy, blah, blah, blah......they don’t actually count for anything.
NPD people have strange habits...but empathy and/or thinking about something from someone else's point of view is something they have a lot of trouble with.
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leave your hypothesis?
Schadenfreude appears to be very much your predilection and the predilection of the party and man you so vehemently support. You and all your brethren here on the Open.
Your empathy extends about as far as your standing physical reach and your reasoning even less so.
We know this through your politics - You hate women's rights, you side with your parties choices without thought and you question only those whose politics
you've been conditioned to dislike.
Do I hope you die a horrible death - not for a minute - Do I wish you the extreme conditions you so joyously inculcate in those whom you disagree with (like women needing an abortion)? Absofuckin'lutely!
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What he has been able to do is identify a particularly stupid segment of society and play upon their lack of success, by telling them it is not their fault they have not been more successful. It's because of the Black's, the Muslims, the People on Wall Street, the Chinese, etc. He then tell these unfortunates that he alone has their backs and that he alone will help them gain their rightful place in society. Not a new tactic, Hitler used it quite well in 1930 Germany. Nothing new here, Trump not that bright but quite comfortable using guile and duplicitousness to achieve his goals.
Worst Prez at the worst possible time.