Victor said:
Empathy
The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this
Sympathy
1 a : an affinity, association, or relationship between persons or things wherein whatever affects one similarly affects the other b : mutual or parallel susceptibility or a condition brought about by it c : unity or harmony in action or effect
2 a : inclination to think or feel alike : emotional or intellectual accord b : feeling of loyalty : tendency to favor or support <republican sympathies>
3 a : the act or capacity of entering into or sharing the feelings or interests of another b : the feeling or mental state brought about by such sensitivity <have sympathy for the poor>
They sound rather similar to me. Empathy is a much stronger connection on both both levels. But's let's move on....
Do you mind if I don't move on from this just yet? I'll try and re-make the original point I was trying to make regarding empathy, but first I'll just define what I mean by empathy when I use it here.
I meant it in a slightly more psycological definition, rather than in the common definition. I'm actually surprised that the dictionary common definition of it is as different to the definition I was using as it is. My common useage of it is obviously slightly different from what most people tend to use it as.
The definition of empathy that I am using is that it is simply the ability to recognise the emotions of others, and that whether you actually tend to reciprocate those feelings in yourself is irrelevent. Under this definition, someone who understands someone's pain and feels sorry for them is using empathy, and so is someone who understand's someone's pain and is enjoying it.
Empathy under this definition is possibly psycology's closest relative to Christianity's knowledge of good and evil. With a high degree of empathy comes a high potential for acting compassionately or malevolently. A psycopath has no less empathy than an average person, perhaps even more. It is just that for them, understanding other people's feelings does not lead to sympathy as it does with most people. Sympathy is a common product of empathy, but not the only possibility.
The argument that I was trying to make was that the scientific evidence suggests that "knowledge of good and evil" is not an on/off thing. Everyone has different levels of empathy, and everyone therefore has a different potential to act with compassion or malevolance. An ideal justice system would therefore be a spectrum of punishment and reward, where your level of empathy dictates how far down either end of the spectrum it is possible to go. Someone severly lacking in empathy could not be punished much, because they do not understand the pain they cause someone else as well, and neither could they be rewarded as much, because acts of compassion are more likely to be learned that genuine.
(oh, incidentally, to anyone who thinks that that seems offensive to autists or other people who tend to have lower empathy, because I am saying that they cannot be rewarded as much, I myself do not personally believe that justice itself is something that is really necessary. I don't feel that if someone does something wrong they should be punished for any other reason than if it benefits society as a whole as a preventative force. I realise that's completly off-topic, but I just thought if I didn't say it then my personal beliefs could be rather severly misunderstood)
Victor said:
You mean by the Church? By God?
Not from the Church. By God, there could be. I suppose it would depend on the person and their situation. Perhaps punishment won't do anything for that person. So God tries all sorts of things to get them into Grace. The is the ultimate intention after all. We do have penance, after confession. It's basically doing a good deed to show that you are truly sorry. But I don't really see this as punishment. Hope that helps.
Yes I do. And in my opinion it is.
Here is where in my opinion, the divine system perfects such short comings.
Actually, coming to this bit, my off-topic comments above do actually seem rather relevent. Do you think that justice is something that should exist of itself Victor? Or are you saying that punishment or reward should only exist to get as many people into Grace as possible, and that punishment for the sake of justice itself is irrelevent? If that is the case then I have been rather wasting my time trying to build an argument on the basis that Christianty includes a sense of justice as a basic principle, which I always thought it did.
Victor said:
But the normative means is that X is wrong and X right.
Sorry, you've lost me on that one.
Victor said:
I'm quite enjoying this dialogue...
Glad to hear it. Me too.
