The most troublesome aspect of "empathy" for me

 Sometimes I meet "foodies" for whom the experience of eating good food is really narcissism. They talk, endlessly, about themselves and their experiences. The point is not the food but to demonstrate how devoted they are to this pursuit and how good they are at discerning minor differences in taste between, for example, one wine and another.

Supertasters are real. I have no doubt that, for example, James Hoffman really can taste the difference between coffee made in the sometimes incredibly labour-intensive ways he advocates and less serious cups. I have even learned some lessons from him that have enabled me to make the coffee I make at home better. But here is what I really like about Hoffman: he readily acknowledges that not everyone is going to want to go all the way with him. I'm not a supertaster like Hoffman so there is a point where I get off the trolley and say, "This good enough for me," and that is just fine with him. And he doesn't act like he is a morally superior being because he's a supertaster.

Shifting metaphors a bit, I did once have to sit through a public discussion that was dominated by a woman who is a mediocre musician who insisted on telling a famous conductor that she could hear tuning inaccuracies in the chamber orchestra he had just conducted. She didn't think this was a problem for others and said she was glad others were able to enjoy but she wanted everyone to know that she had philosophically endured the concert that her superior sensibility had made it impossible for her to enjoy. The famous conductor smiled and nodded along and then said sympathetic things because the woman was the head of a foundation, endowed with money her father had made, that funded the music festival where all this took place. She was being abusive.

I think a lot of "empathy" talk works like that. I think some people who are just emotionally unstable and some others who just seek power abuse the notion to make themselves the centre of attention. People are allowed to obsess over bullshit. Fantasy fiction is just fine. But if someone comes into the room and insists that the rest of us have to fund fantasy fiction or that her deep love and knowledge of fantasy fiction entitles her to lecture the rest of us on politics and morality there is a point where the appropriate response is to say STFU. A lot of "empathy", frankly, deserves the same response. They're just being abusive.

Empathy, feeling good about yourself and virtue ethics

 The church I go to has a serious problem with crime and vandalism. The source of this crime is people who beg for money outside the church. For forty years now, successive rectors have pleaded with parishioners to not give money to the panhandlers outside the church. For forty years now, parishioners have not only ignored these pleas, they've rained criticism on the clergy for making them.

 The panhandlers fall into two classes. There are people on social assistance, mostly the Ontario Disability Support Program. They use the money they collect to pay for vacations and other things that there disability payments do not cover. These people are largely harmless. They are often victims of violence at the hands of the second class of panhandlers: people who have substance abuse issues who use the money to pay for drugs. These people are sometimes harmless and sometimes violent. They are sometimes violent for practical reasons, that is to scare off other panhandlers. Other times they are violent for no obvious reason at all. Even if harmless to others, they are harming themselves. More importantly, giving them money supports crime.

Why do people continue to give money? It's not hard to figure out that none of the money collected by panhandlers is used to pay for food. The people who continue to give largely know this but manage to ignore this. They give because it gives them a good feeling to talk to these people and then to give them money.

 I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Meaning, I don't think there is anything wrong with doing good things in order to feel better about yourself. For me the issue is that I don't think people should feel  good about themselves for giving money to panhandlers. In doing so, they are actively making life worse for others. It's not a good thing to do.

I connect this to virtue ethics because too much of modern ethics is driven by duty. The technical term for this is deontology. It is the belief that you should do things based on duty and rules rather than consequences. Fans of this approach will sometimes say that a moral act is one that is done for moral reasons, meaning not for practical reasons. More bluntly, they will sometimes say that we should do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.

Giving money to people on the street is a quiet rebellion against this. You can pretend you're following some moral teaching, which is why people beg outside churches. It's relatively easy to make Jesus's teaching sound like it validates this choice. The truth is, though, that there are many charities that it would make much more sense to give money to if you actually wanted to help. And I know for a fact that very few parishioners avail themselves of those opportunities. What giving to an actual human being does that giving to a charity does not do, is to give you instant feedback. And that's what people want. The only feedback doing something out of duty gives, is the relief of not being thought a bad person. It's like remembering to floss. Giving money on the street, gives a person positive feedback and nothing else in the current moral sphere does that.

 Problem is, that's not empathy. We call it empathy but anyone who thought the issue through would realize they aren't actually helping anyone.  

The solution, I think, is to adopt a virtue ethics viewpoint. Why do good things? Answer: because it will make me a better person. The problem with people who give money to street people isn't that they're selfish; it's that they're not nearly selfish enough. If they thought more of themselves, they'd be more helpful to others.