NAME- VISHWANATH KANALE

PRN- 17010125271

DIVISION- C

CLASS ASSIGNMENT (25/01/2020) (1 PM- 2 PM)

SUBJECT- PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

TOPIC- What is empathy? Is it always in congruence with rationality and objectivity?

Justify.

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within
their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position.

Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion is a 2016 book written by
psychologist Paul Bloom. The book draws on the distinctions between empathy, compassion, and
moral decision making. Bloom argues that empathy is not the solution to problems that divide
people and is a poor guide for decision making. However, he is not completely against empathy;
he believes that empathy can motivate kindness to make the world a better place.

Bloom finalizes the book by explaining how empathy is related to anger and evil. He explains how
violence and anger can be products of empathy and that these things lead to evil. Evil, according
to Bloom, is caused by dehumanization and objectification which are caused by empathy. In the
same vein, Bloom explains that sometimes people commit evil acts in support of their morality,
which can be blinded by empathy. The last chapter discusses concepts also touched in Daniel
Kahneman's book, Thinking, Fast and Slow that suggest people make a series of rational and
irrational decisions. He criticizes the argument that "regardless of reason's virtues, we just aren't
any good at it". His point is that people are not as "stupid as scholars think they are".
He explains that people are rational because they make thoughtful decisions in their everyday lives.
For example, when someone has to make a big life decision they critically assess the outcomes,
consequences, and alternative options. Ultimately, Bloom argues for a utilitarian approach to acts
of altruism instead of empathy.

Are empathy and rationality necessarily opposed? This question is at the core of many debates
about ethical action, including the recent Boston Review forum "Against Empathy." Some
participants, such as Barbara H. Fried, see empathy as a danger for policy-making, leading to a
“fixation on proximate and emotionally salient consequences” rather than a careful accounting of
positives and negatives. Others, particularly Simon Baron-Cohen, argue that rationality divorced
from empathy is a tremendous force for evil, responsible for some of the world’s greatest atrocities.
Still others suggest that forces other than empathy should supplement rationality and motivate us
to act; Jesse Prinz, for example, nominates righteous anger.

A similar debate about the role of rationality has characterized the recent controversy over the ALS
Ice Bucket Challenge. As many critics have noted, the Challenge’s participants—who either dump
a bucket of ice over their heads or donate $100 to the ALS Association, then challenge friends to
do the same—hardly seem motivated by a rational calculation of the benefits of ALS research; few
of those who do donate presumably spent much time considering whether their charitable dollar
might be put to more effective use elsewhere. The response has generally been to stress the
importance of doing thoughtful research before making a donation, as Vox’s Julia Belluz does, or
to urge individuals to undertake rationally motivated “structural changes to how you live your life”
rather than making a one-time donation on impulse, as non-profit founder William
MacAskill writes for Quartz.

The interesting thing about the Challenge is that most of the participants do not seem particularly
motivated by empathy, either. Few seem to imagine the suffering of an ALS patient or try to
experience it alongside them. For Vice’s Arielle Pardes, a particularly caustic critic, this reveals
that the Challenge-takers are motivated by “narcissism masked as altruism.” But it also means that
the Challenge is not subject to some of the downsides of empathy that Paul Bloom cites in his
essay, such as the potential for burnout or exhaustion.

Philosophical arguments that only address motivations for individual behavior, rather than the
bases of social movements and large-scale activism, leave out some of the most important ethical
questions in a democratic society. In fact, once we start to look at instances of collective action
like the Challenge rather than either individual behavior or disinterested policymaking, I would
argue that neither empathy nor rationality has much explanatory power on its own. Instead, people
tend to participate in activism of any kind out of habit, in response to social pressure, or because
it seems exciting—exactly the reasons (at least the last two) that people undertake the Challenge.

This is certainly the case for the archetypal form of collective action, voting. Even controlling for
factors like age and education that correlate with turnout, the simple act of having voted in the past
is a very strong predictor of future voting, and showing people that their turnout history is not
on par with their neighbors’ is a great way to get them to the polls—although, like the Challenge,
it also produces some backlash from people who dislike being pressured. Finally, there is a strong
case that Americans used to vote at much higher rates precisely because voting used to be
a celebratory, social activity rather than the dour act of personal responsibility that Pardes seems
to think activism is supposed to be.