Empathy and Objectivity

The purpose of this post is to expose a potential problem with our standards of objectivity, in light of how this relates to our call to empathize with others. In short, empathy involves not merely caring for another (sympathy) nor "hearing them out", but relating to them as if you were living what they were living through (or you have done so, and this is how you empathize). The topic of objectivity may seem utterly unrelated, but, if the objective stance is authoritative universally, it should at the very least, not conflict with our stance of empathizing with others.

Being objective is the stance that, one sees things are they are in-themselves, viewing the object itself, free of subjective bias. Objective itself is an adjective denoting "object-like", so we need to ask, what is required of us to be objective in our stance; in order to even begin how this relates to empathy. The focus here is not the epistemological features of the objective stance, but its first-person features (phenomenological). This is proper to our inquiry here, as the goal is to expose "is there a conflict between objectivity and empathy?", as empathy is a personal, first-person experience and activity.

Objectivity requires us to take a stance of being a spectator, looking upon the world, as if we are in a theater (theoria). The world is presented-at-hand before us, and we employ the tools of our understanding according to logic to make what we observe intelligible. We run experiments, tests and such to explore if our ideas about the world are right, but always maintain this distance from the world.

Empathy requires us to enter the living-world of another person, enter their subjectivity and see it as like our own. Here we have both a sense of transcendence as we do in the theoretical attitude (the other person) but also immanence as well, in that, they are immanently present in their lives, and we seek to share this with them. Here logic and understanding as a distant observer actually will cause problems and alienation from the one we try to empathize with. Feeling is vital here, and more so, feeling cannot be discounted as not meaningful or valid.

This general overview of the two stances is enough for now, to introduce the topic, as was the goal here. If the theoretical attitude requires complete transcendence of the spectator, and empathy requires immanence and sharing with another living-world (subjectivity). This seems to suggest a conflict between the objective attitude that we believe is self-evidently an authority and our moral need to empathize with others. How can I empathize if I have lost my subjectivity? Empathy in this attitude is meaningless, as all we have to empathize is viz logic; the meaning one experiences through empathy (viz feeling) is completely obliterated in the theoretical attitude.

The issue here is not a mere conflict, but to show that the epistemological authority of the theoretical attitude conflicts with our moral duties, which suggests serious problems for the theoretical attitude. Morality concerns (ideally) our highest values and sense of human meaning, in a practical sense (whether it be in regards to our telos or duty). If the theoretical attitude conflicts with this, the theoretical attitude begins to loose its footing and enters dangers of being nihilistic (which modern materialism and naturalism is leading towards).

No, this argument in no way proves the theoretical attitude is epistemologically faulty (then this would be a mere ad hominem argument) , rather, it is that epistemology and morality seem at odds when practiced. To add to this, we seem morally obligated to be good even when we don't fully understand the Good; as we cannot sit in a theoretical lull of skepticism when important issues play by us, we are already engaged in the world, and thus are thrust into needing to take a stand, even when we are not fully informed.

The point here is not an endorsement of subjectivism at all, nor that the theoretical attitude is even wrong; merely that a problem exists. Reason is essentially unified to remain valid and coherent, and while we can encounter the world in many ways, these ways must cohere with each other.

We need to explain why the theoretical attitude seems ill-suited for moral issues, and what does this imply?