As someone diagnosed with ASPD and somewhat interested in the disorder, I sometimes wonder how empathy is advantageous to a human being, mainly because of the fact that empathy can bog you down with such things as the suffering of others, which does not affect you.
All humans have weaknesses, empathy endeavours support from others.
Sleep on an inner city bus stop bench for one night and you’ll understand.
Sure, it benefits me that others are empathetic, but say I’m the thief, rapist or murderer in your scenario. In that case, I’m helped by my lack of empathy.
Empathy is needed for society to work. Criminals actively work against the interests of society.
Empathy is a glue for a strong and healthy social network/community. Because each one of us can get appendicitis, suffer a broken bone, lose a job, get cancer, have a family member die, etc., just as much as any other person. And also if you have been known to be empathetic, then others will be more likely to be empathetic to you too when you are the sufferer yourself.
My empathy primarily kicks in for other people who have empathy, and so we help each other out – and if somebody ever makes obvious that he’s not really up for the whole help-each-other-out thing, then folks like us (a) react accordingly to him, even while we (b) keep going in for cooperative teamwork with one another – pulling together as a community, meaning it when we say stuff like thanks, I owe you one, and so on.
And as soon as we find a thief or a killer in our midst, we, like, form a posse.
That’s the thing though. What do I care about society if I’m able to get richer or gain personal enjoyment from breaking its laws?
Human society requires empathy to exist - bonding with others is intrinsic to being social animals and empathy is intrinsic to bonding. Conversely human society does not require every individual be empathetic - just a critical mass of them. A certain titer of sociopathic criminals can exist in a society without it disintegrating.
So, no - you don’t have to be empathetic ( though it will surely make your life harder if you aren’t ). But a substantial number of your neighbors need to be or everything falls apart.
You get to feel all warm and fuzzy about yourself. I’m told it’s quite a buzz.
Individually, it doesn’t matter. However, if enough people had this mindset, society would cease to function properly. And even if you get rich from breaking society’s laws, you still reap all the benefits of a properly functioning society. If you got hurt, you’d still expect an ambulance to come and take you to the hospital. You’d still expect to be treated by doctors and other health care professionals. So even though you take no personal responsibility for doing your part, you still take advantage of everyone else who is. If society ceased to function, so would your current ability to pilfer it.
That’s the thing, though: my empathy for a criminal’s victims is why I’d testify against him at his trial – and it’s why I’d call the police with information so he can be brought to trial in the first place, and why I’d directly come to the aid of an innocent who was under attack if there’s no time for that; it’s why I casually speak of “acting in self-defense” in the same breath as “or in defense of others”.
If I find somebody who’s a threat to me, or to innocents other than me, I bring him to the attention of people who think the way I do; there’s a pretty big number of us, and we make a pretty good team, and we call ourselves “society”.
Most of the answers in this thread point to society needing empathetic majorities, but why are the majorities empathetic? How does one innocent’s suffering affect you?
Well, some people do have that mentality. They’re psychopaths or sociopaths. And they are fortunately in the minority, because if there were to be too many of them, society would break down.
Evolution. It is not necessarily an entirely conscious/rational decision. Just a tendency, reinforced by society/upbringing.
This column distinguishes between two kinds of empathy, which the columnist calls “shallow empathy” and “deep empathy.”
“Shallow empathy” is the ability to see things from another person’s perspective and understand what they’re feeling. This cognitive ability to understand other people can confer significant advantages in various professional and social settings.
“Deep empathy” involves actively feeling what another person is feeling. This one’s sort of a mixed blessing. It can get in the way and, as the OP says, “bog you down with such things as the suffering of others.” But it can also make your emotional life far richer, as you share in the positive and negative emotions of the people you care about.
What about ASPD?
Empathy is the understanding of another person’s frame of reference and feelings. In addition to the societal benefits pointed out elsewhere in this thread, having a sense of empathy benefits you because someone’s feelings, mental state, and frame of reference affects their actions, and better understanding that helps you predict the other person’s actions and fit them into context.
Doesn’t the first part answer the second?
If a society emerged where most people couldn’t be counted on to fulfill their end of a bargain, and were eager to murder one another at the drop of a hat, then how long would that society endure? If another society consisted of people who value teamwork and don’t go in for killing innocents, then how long would that society endure?
Um. Less than my own, but significantly similar? I guess you could say I reflexively imagine myself in that same condition – and while that experience is never as strong as actually being in that condition, I still react accordingly upon sympathizing with their plight? Something like that.
ASPD is an aberration. Whether it loosely adaptive in some way or not for some small percentage of the population, it certainly would not be for a large percentage of the population.
But is society really necessary? There are obvious advantages, but what if we lived in an entirely free world, wherein survival of the fittest was the law?
This to me is odd, because I can’t recall an occasion where I empathised with someone or ‘felt their pain,’ so to speak.