Thank you for this series. I’ve thought for a while now that the insistence on pursuing “proximity” was a thin cousin to this form of empathy. The idea being that physical or relational closeness might help with growing empathy for their experience. But it has always concerned me how this excludes people who live in rural areas or who do not have the time or means to develop wide-ranging relationships. Not to mention that in ancient times most people would never have ventured very far outside of their geographic communities. Compassion cannot be dependent on empathy or proximity, but on the Spirit who unites believers in a more real way than we can yet understand.
Smith’s impartial spectator is impossible to reach now. He defined sympathy not as what I’m feeling or what you’re feeling but what an imagined third person (an impartial spectator) would feel/experience if in that position. A sort of healthy triangulation? A Trinity even? ;)
Thank you for this thought provoking series - What do you think of the conception of love as appreciation, good will and union? I first heard this conception articulated in One Body by Alexander Pruss and it stuck with me. I think it has roots in Aristotle (Pruss is Catholic so that tracks). As it applies to empathy - I would think of empathy as part apprreciation (I see rightly another's state) and part union (my emotional state shares in yours to some degree - weeping with those who weep). The shortcoming of empathy as conceived here is that it does not have a good answer to what kind of union is appropriate (good) to will onto the other. Empathy does not answer the question of how one ought align our behaviors to meet the need of the beloved. So I find it interesting that your examples as well as other commenters came from the context of parenthood, where the nature of the relationship defines the kind of union of feeling that's appropriate (I just had our first kid and figuring out what she is feeling I'm learning is indeed obscure at best). However as I am called to love her, I do respond to her emotions by trying to understand her needs and respond with what is good for her.
Thank you for this series. I’ve thought for a while now that the insistence on pursuing “proximity” was a thin cousin to this form of empathy. The idea being that physical or relational closeness might help with growing empathy for their experience. But it has always concerned me how this excludes people who live in rural areas or who do not have the time or means to develop wide-ranging relationships. Not to mention that in ancient times most people would never have ventured very far outside of their geographic communities. Compassion cannot be dependent on empathy or proximity, but on the Spirit who unites believers in a more real way than we can yet understand.
Smith’s impartial spectator is impossible to reach now. He defined sympathy not as what I’m feeling or what you’re feeling but what an imagined third person (an impartial spectator) would feel/experience if in that position. A sort of healthy triangulation? A Trinity even? ;)
But even that is a kind of tyranny: it’s not an actual person but an ideal that’s nowhere in particular.
Especially when we have less and less agreed-upon structures and ligaments of a common life.
Myles,
Thank you for this thought provoking series - What do you think of the conception of love as appreciation, good will and union? I first heard this conception articulated in One Body by Alexander Pruss and it stuck with me. I think it has roots in Aristotle (Pruss is Catholic so that tracks). As it applies to empathy - I would think of empathy as part apprreciation (I see rightly another's state) and part union (my emotional state shares in yours to some degree - weeping with those who weep). The shortcoming of empathy as conceived here is that it does not have a good answer to what kind of union is appropriate (good) to will onto the other. Empathy does not answer the question of how one ought align our behaviors to meet the need of the beloved. So I find it interesting that your examples as well as other commenters came from the context of parenthood, where the nature of the relationship defines the kind of union of feeling that's appropriate (I just had our first kid and figuring out what she is feeling I'm learning is indeed obscure at best). However as I am called to love her, I do respond to her emotions by trying to understand her needs and respond with what is good for her.