Empathy is also a social contract. In order to recieve empathy you have to be willing to show it towards others. You can’t expect to reap the benefits of a contract that you fail to uphold your side of.
People can’t really receive Empathy since that’s an inherent human ability in others. Also Empathy itself is an entirelly emotional thing - it’s feeling a reflection of what others are feeling - that involves no reasoning.
At most what can happen is that those who do have more empathy can turn it down a bit for some and leave it at a higher level for others, but those who have less empathy (or none, such as psychopaths) are literally unable to empathise more even if they wanted to.
So I don’t think it’s Empathy that’s the social contract, I think it’s more something like Respect For Others’ Feelings, as in “I’ll respect the fellings of those who themselves respect the feelings of other people”, which works even for people who have no empathy because beyond a certain level of feeling even psychopaths can see the external effects of an emotion in others and determine rationally - rather than via empathy - what those feelings are and take them into account, and thus they can refrain from doing things that cause certain feeling in others.
Empathy is weakness, remember you said that, old man. Quit your bitching, no one cares.
Empathy is also a social contract. In order to recieve empathy you have to be willing to show it towards others. You can’t expect to reap the benefits of a contract that you fail to uphold your side of.
People can’t really receive Empathy since that’s an inherent human ability in others. Also Empathy itself is an entirelly emotional thing - it’s feeling a reflection of what others are feeling - that involves no reasoning.
At most what can happen is that those who do have more empathy can turn it down a bit for some and leave it at a higher level for others, but those who have less empathy (or none, such as psychopaths) are literally unable to empathise more even if they wanted to.
So I don’t think it’s Empathy that’s the social contract, I think it’s more something like Respect For Others’ Feelings, as in “I’ll respect the fellings of those who themselves respect the feelings of other people”, which works even for people who have no empathy because beyond a certain level of feeling even psychopaths can see the external effects of an emotion in others and determine rationally - rather than via empathy - what those feelings are and take them into account, and thus they can refrain from doing things that cause certain feeling in others.