In several previous blogs, I analyzed how morality easily gets derailed because we frequently act as though it only pertains to behavior toward those who are in our particular community or group, or more generally those who think, act, or look like us. This tribal outlook has sadly been a continuing force throughout history virtually everywhere; but it is not a legitimate view of morality, which in its essence is universal and pertains to all human beings as such. (See, for example, https://michaelnill.com/when-religion-and-morality-collide/ https://michaelnill.com/morality-religion-politics-americas-toxic-brew-part-i/, https://michaelnill.com/morality-religion-politics-americas-toxic-brew-part-ii/.
The problem of tribalism is compounded when religious groups are aligned with political parties that demonize and dehumanize others. In the process church teachings and biblical texts are made to condone such action, and aligned politicians then falsely claim the moral high ground. Hypocrisy reigns supreme; it allows people to abuse select others or groups and not bear the shame of perverting religion or morality. This is the process by which the consciences of many were not bothered, for example, by slavery and in more recent times by attacks on immigrants, refugees, and the culturally, religiously, and politically divergent.
Enter the attack on empathy
One of the latest ploys in this betrayal of morality and religion is the right-wing attack on the notion of empathy. MAGA stars like Allie Beth Stuckey, J.D. Vance, the late Charlie Kirk, and Elon Musk have undermined its value. Musk has even gone so far to say, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.”
It will be the purpose of this post to clarify the notion of empathy and its relationship to morality, and to show that attacks on the concept are based on misunderstandings and political obfuscation, motivated at bottom by the attempt to approve treating selected others with less respect than is due human beings and in the process undermine morality. MAGA attacks do not always make clear whether the problem is empathy itself (any exercise of empathy) or merely the erroneous, misinformed use of it that leftists promulgate. Sometimes MAGA wants you to believe the latter, but the reality is they lack any coherent understanding of empathy in itself.
Prominent American Christian conservative commentator and podcaster Beth Stuckey pretty much laid out the entire attack case in her 2024 book, Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion). Defining empathy in very narrow terms as being in the feelings of another, she argues that it becomes toxic by leading the empathizer to affirm lies, sin, or destructive public policies. The idea here is that experiencing through empathy the sadness of another will automatically and directly lead to approving them without any intervening use of reason.
Specifically, she is concerned that empathy can lead to approval of abortion, single-sex relations, transgenderism, and (undocumented) immigration. Here we have a primary MAGA target list of evils, which makes it clear the attack on empathy is politically motivated. The fact that she feels exercising empathy for those whose actions fit into one of the above categories exploits Christian compassion indicates that at least Christians on her view are wrong to show any compassion for such people. But given that much of the MAGA right seems to think we were founded to be a specifically Christian nation, we can assume Stuckey means no one in this country should show such compassion.
The nature of empathy
It is not, as its detractors sometimes allege, a new-age term. The use of the word goes back over a century, but before that the idea of it was contained in a broader understanding of sympathy. It was and is understood as the ability to put oneself in the place of the other, to be in their shoes, to have a sense of what they are experiencing. At bottom and importantly, the process of empathy can only exist because we are connected to others by our basic common humanity. Like us, all others think and feel, making it possible to inhabit their shoes so to speak. Empathy assumes and facilitates that basic human connection with others.
There are three points about empathy that are helpful to keep in mind:
First, although our actual capacity for empathy may be innate as some have argued, it is essentially a learned response to others. Typically, our first experience of it occurs when our parents see our distress (or some other emotion) and use their imaginations to try to figure out why we are experiencing that emotion. As the child ages, parents are better able to put themselves in the child’s shoes by asking questions that will lead to a clearer understanding of what their child is experiencing. Through parental role-modeling, then, the child first experiences and learns of empathetic responses. Once children enter school, they will also see that their teachers, in their role as caregivers, make an effort to empathize with them in order to help them succeed.
It is often also said that the study of literature leads students to expand their ability to empathize as they try to understand fictional characters different from the people they typically have encountered in their daily lives. The expansion of the ability to empathize is key, but that becomes more challenging to the extent that people in a society lead lives separated, for example, by class, politics, and race. In any case, empathizing ideally becomes a habit, but it ultimately remains our choice as to when and if to exercise it.
Second, the process of empathy itself occurs without making any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of the other person’s experiences or perspectives . It merely involves one in trying to live in the skin of others, feeling and understanding their experiences and, when appropriate, their perspectives. Once judgment enters, one is no longer empathizing but inserting oneself into the process and turning it into something else.
Third, an act of empathy in itself does not dictate any particular follow up or even any follow up at all. Individuals empathize for various reasons. A journalist would primarily be interested in knowing another at an intimate level to write a good article about him or her. Someone may empathize with someone to learn their weaknesses in order to take advantage of them. Frequently, of course, one empathizes to understand others in order to help them. Empathy also does not lead necessarily to agreement. Say, for example, one does not understand or agree with the political viewpoint of another person, but through an exercise of empathy can come to understand what drives this person to a belief in this perspective. This new understanding will certainly not necessarily lead to agreement with the other, but has the potential to open the way for civility and further explorations of ideas. And, of course, in some situations an empathizer may just decide not to follow up in any way whatsoever.
Its relation to the moral dimension
The above makes clear that empathy is not in itself a virtue; it not a disposition to act morally. (For an outlier contrary view, see Chapter 6 of Manuel Camassa’s On the Power and Limits of Empathy.) However, based as it is in human connectedness, it can lay the groundwork for moral action and in certain situations stimulate compassion, civility, compromise, the motivation to help the other, or a desire to alleviate conditions which are experienced by the other as abusive. Whether moral action emerges after the process of empathizing would be entirely up to the empathizer’s moral compass and reasoning.
I would further suggest that empathy is intimately related to a basic moral principle that is thousands of years old and spans religions and cultures: the golden rule. In positive terms, it enjoins you to treat others as you would want to be treated; or in its negative formulation, do not treat others as you wouldn’t want them to treat you. The thrust of this rule is to do good to others.
How is this connected to empathy? In following the golden rule to do good to others, the agent best positioned to do this is the one who first puts himself in the shoes of the other. From that experience the empathizer will know specifically what action(s) will best constitute treating the other well. This does not mean indulging the other’s immediate self-interest. In deciding on appropriate action after the process of empathy, the one who has empathized needs to exercise judgment to determine what constitutes treating the other well in these circumstances. Certainly we can imagine any number of situations where an empathic parent or teacher would exercise tough love or set consequences meant to help the child become more responsible in the future. In deciding upon appropriate action, the moral agent should always adopt the view of a disinterested observer.
Assessing MAGA’s attack on empathy
Given the above analysis, we can see why agents of MAGA are worried about empathy and judge it as dangerous. Although they are absolutely wrong in thinking the act of empathy itself leads to actions in favor of a particular cause or group of people, they do have cause to worry about the process of empathy because it implies that all of us are fully human, connected by our common humanity. That also is the very basis of morality. It also has the same force as the belief that we are all children of God in religious traditions. Such thinking puts limits on how we can treat others, no matter who they are.
MAGA will be afraid of empathy because it provides us with the knowledge of how these MAGA-excluded groups might be suffering. What makes the recent attack on empathy so dangerous is that disallowing empathy denies us all the very tool we need to ascertain how others are being treated and to determine what an appropriate individual and collective moral response would be. Without empathy, MAGA is freer to dismiss, for example, undocumented immigrants, no matter their story or treatment, by simply saying they are here illegally and hence deserve anything we want to dish out to them. No need to consider the golden rule.
In sum, the MAGA position on these matters is not morally justified; and it is not worthy of religion either. What we need is to figure out what is the decent way to handle the immigration issue, one that recognizes that many immigrants have families, lived in the United States for more than 20 years, and most of whom were motivated to be immigrants by the very thing many American citizens are motivated by: how to do well by our families. Obviously and sadly, Congress has terribly failed us in its inability to pass meaningful immigration reform such as the bipartisan bill of 2013. In the larger picture, what we need to do to make America great is not to figure out how to bypass morality and empathy, but to figure out how to create a society that reflects our better selves.