Summary: Is Empathy Overrated?

Is Empathy Overrated?

Empathy, like many other low-spirited emotions, tends to be the legal guide in aiding the poor in the United States and even third world countries. Philosophers Peter Singer and Paul Bloom both believe that empathy plays a limited role in recognizing the moral or better thing to do. In numerous circumstances, it becomes imperative to supersede emotional empathy with simple reason.

While reason is supposed to be the cornerstone of dealing with moral issues, empathy, unintentionally, tends to play a larger role in decision-making. Empathy oftentimes delivers a quick verdict on what should occur to a particular event. In a typical situation where poverty is an immediate issue at hand, a person would not only listen

to their quick empathetic emotions but also act on it while ignoring the greater value of the opportunity cost. As a result of this, philosophers Peter Singer and Paul Bloom believe that humans are not rational people. Rational beings, however, would reason with themselves and discover the appropriate thing to do, while of course, disregarding their empathetic emotions.
Empathy has to be ignored because it is completely oblivious to the fact that numbers are highly significant when an issue is at hand. According to many philosophers, empathy cannot numerically comprehend a situation. Bloom believes that our concern for an individual usually leads to neglecting events that will harm countless people. For example, in Singer’s book, “The Most Good You Can Do,” Singer describes a study where in one case; people were shown a photo and given a description about a child who needed medication produced to save her life. In another case, people were shown photos of eight children with the same description. The people gave more to the single child than to the eight children, simply because empathy paid no attention to numbers and instead sympathized with the the individual. Singer and Bloom both take note that this happens countless times when faced with a decision to help the destitute. For this reason, empathy is misconstrued. It is masked with the fact that it helps the general poor, but in reality, it hinders prosperity from occurring to the them.