Comparison Essay: Empathy And Equal Emotions

Assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University, Jamil Zaki, declares “Those who choose empathy grow a broader, richer, emotional life” (“Moral Wisdom” 2-3). However, Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University begs to differ. Specifically, that empathy leads to “short-sighted and unfair moral actions” (“Empathy Can Lead” 1). Empathy hinders, rather than guides, moral action through empathetic distress, bias, and the common misconception that sympathy and empathy are the same emotion. Constantly feeling empathy towards an individual is exhausting. Empathetic distress is an emotional state described as being incompetent to deal with someone else’s sufferings. Researcher Sara Konrath writes, “It might overwhelm us and make us want to escape others’ pain rather than alleviate it” (Konrath 3). Clearly, empathy is an overwhelming emotion. By responding to one’s emotions using empathy, the yearning to escape their afflictions is high, due to

Sympathy is the feeling of compassion and pity towards someone else’s misfortune. On the other hand, empathy is the feeling shared when two individuals have gone through the same trial. One cannot empathize towards another until they them self have gone through the same mishap. Paul Bloom continues to say: “I believe there is a marked difference between empathy and compassion. And when you lump them together, you leave less room for richness of moral psychology” (“There is a Difference” 3). Of course, one can imagine them self in someone else’s circumstances, you cannot fully understand or empathize towards them until that person has gone through the same situation. This is as if to say two people who are cousins are the same person, because they are related. This statement is merely preposterous. Therefore, just because sympathy and empathy both are accordant with sorrow for one’s negative situation, does not mean they are the same