Paul Bloom is a philosopher who has written empathy and whether or not it is a good guide in life. According to Bloom, empathy makes a poor guide. Rather than relying on empathy to be a guide, Bloom insists that there is a set of characteristics that allows one to do good and become a “good person.” These characteristics are compassion and kindness, intelligence, self-control, a sense of justice, and a healthy amount of anger. While most of his argument is agreeable, Bloom believes that there needs to be a distance between the caregiver and the receiver, which will be produced by compassion, kindness, and intelligence. This, however, is shown to be flawed in the text Benito Cereno, written by Herman Melville. Melville demonstrates that a character who embodies this characteristic of being distanced through his compassion, kindness, and intelligence is prone to misjudging situations and responding poorly to them, thereby disproving Bloom’s claim. Bloom insists that in order to be a good person, then they should adopt the characteristics of being compassionate and kind as well as intelligent. Captain Delano has all of these attributes in the way Bloom has defined them. These terms have many meanings and Bloom defined each of them uniquely to fit his argument. Bloom claims that in order to be compassionate and kind, a person must …show more content…
On the other hand, Bloom states that preservation of the distance between the caregiver and the receiver is how a person remains capable of doing good. This distance, however, has been shown to be more detrimental than beneficial to a person who wishes to do “good.” Benito Cereno, written by Herman Melville, demonstrates that a character who embodies this characteristic of being distanced through his compassion, kindness, and intelligence is quite prone to misjudging situations, thereby making such a character incapable of doing any good to help the