In the case of empathy or sympathy, can there be too-much-of-a-good-thing?
If psychopaths, by the common definition lack empathy for
other people can there be people who have too much empathy or sympathy for
others?If psychopaths exploit others ruthlessly, super-empaths would make
self-sacrifice a fetish.
Researchers call these people with the ill-chosen term: “anti-psychopaths.” But, if a psychopath is all take and no give, these people might well
become the perfect enablers for psychopaths… being all give and no take.
They might allow themselves to be used and abused, at times to a
frightening extent, because they want to be more giving than anyone else.
Melissa Dahl reports on some new research in New York
Magazine:
New
research she just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences suggests
an answer: If the dark, scary end of the caring continuum is inhabited by
psychopaths, way down at the other end is a group of what she calls
“anti-psychopaths” — ultra-do-gooders who are extraordinarily compassionate,
prosocial, and empathetic.
[Georgetown psychologist Abigail] Marsh wanted to study the characteristics of these sorts of people, so she sought
so-called “altruistic kidney donors” who offer up a kidney to anyone who needs
it (as opposed to those who donate a kidney to a friend or loved one), figuring
they would fit the bill.
Altruistic
kidney donors fit into a debate that has long been raging among psychologists
and others who study human nature: Does true altruism — good deeds for the sake
of good deeds — really exist? And if so, how did it evolve? “In theory, you’d
have a species where nobody wants to help anybody else,” said Marsh. “And the fact that humans do is, I think, really
amazing and not well understood ... So these kidney donors, they’ve done
something I call extraordinary altruism, because it’s extremely unusual — it’s
something most people would not do. It’s a pretty major decision to undertake,
especially for a stranger.”
Altruistic
kidney donors voluntarily sign up for an invasive surgery, which results in the
removal of a perfectly healthy organ, all because a complete stranger (whom
they’ll never meet) needs it. And, as you might guess, these donors are very
rare — there are fewer than 1,400 in the U.S., Marsh said — but they help meet
a huge need for donor kidneys in the U.S. (Kidney disease is among the top ten
causes of death for both men and women in the U.S.,
according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.)
How do we explain super-empaths? Perhaps they want
to be role models who will lead the world toward a more moral future. They might
believe that they are sacrificing something of value in order to be the antidote to
selfishness and psychopathy.
Researchers believe that super-empaths are genuine altruists.
They give more than most; they are kinder and nicer than most… surely this
cannot be seen as pathological behavior.
Unless, of course, they are more prone to sacrifice
themselves for strangers than they are for their friends and family.
Obviously, no one is going to fault anyone for giving up a
kidney to a stranger. A sacrifice that saves a life must certainly count as the
ultimate in benevolence.
But is it really true to say that these extreme altruists
gain no benefit from their sacrifice? Don’t they get to revel in their moral
superiority? Even if the recipient of the kidney does not know who gave it to
him, the friends and family of the super empath certainly do.
The psychologists note, however, that extreme altruists are very
humble about their capacity for empathy.
Dahl describes them:
The
world’s nicest people, in other words, don’t even grasp how nice they really
are. Which, if you think about it, makes them even nicer.
It might be the case that they are competing to see who is
the nicest. If so, researchers have crowned them the kings of our moral
universe. Unless, of course, they are being exploited for the benefit of others.
But then, questions arise.
How do we know whether the person who offers the
kidney to a stranger likes to feel that other people are in his debt, that they
owe him something… like their lives? Does he believe that if he himself is in
dire need, a stranger will rescue him? Perhaps
he believes that his goodness will reduce his time in Purgatory.
And yet, can you ever really eliminate the element of
reciprocal exchange? Even if your true reward will be delivered in the
afterlife, you are still making an exchange.
Moral beings reciprocate favors. If you have received a gift
from a stranger you will be more likely to return the favor… not necessarily to
the stranger… but to someone else.
Perhaps self-sacrificing altruists want to provoke a cycle of
virtue, thus to make the world a kinder, gentler place.
But, Steven Pinker explained, people often do good deeds
without any expectation of their being reciprocated:
Nor
does reciprocal altruism — the evolutionary rationale behind fairness — imply
that people do good deeds in the cynical expectation of repayment down the
line. We all know of unrequited good deeds, like tipping a waitress in a city
you will never visit again and falling on a grenade to save platoon mates.
These bursts of goodness are not as anomalous to a biologist as they might
appear.
One might suggest here that tipping the waitress is a
payment for services rendered. Being part of an exchange, it involves reciprocity. The tipper has been rewarded before the fact. As for falling on a grenade to save your platoon mates, one might believe that
the return on investment will be enjoyed by others, by friends, family and even
country.
Pinker added:
Sympathy
prompts a person to offer the first favor, particularly to someone in need for
whom it would go the furthest. Anger protects a person against cheaters who
accept a favor without reciprocating, by impelling him to punish the ingrate or
sever the relationship.
When someone asks you for a favor, you normally grant it. I
would quibble a bit over whether your actions are motivated by sympathy, rather
than, say, generosity, but if you refuse to do someone a favor you are saying that you are not a
friend.
Obviously, if someone does you a favor you are obliged to return it. If you fail to do so, Pinker suggests, you have accepted the first
favor on false premises and stand exposed as a cheat.
Participation in such exchanges defines your moral being. Failure
to uphold such responsibilities shows you to be suffering from a character
defect.
But, isn’t there a problem in the example chosen. Doesn’t the
choice of people who are willing to give a kidney to a stranger load the dice?
Would these extreme altruists be more or less altruistic if they had received
payment for the kidney? Are those who give up a kidney for a relative or a
friend be less altruistic, because somewhat more interested than those who donate
to a stranger? If someone gives a kidney to a stranger who belongs to his
community, isn’t there something of a social link between the donor and the
recipient?
From here the concept becomes even more complicated. We will
not be able to solve the complexities here, but we should be aware of the
difficulties in conceptualizing the issue, difficulties that the example of
kidney donors obscures.
For example, sociologist Emile Durkheim identified a class
of people who commit suicide for altruistic reasons. Some of them kill
themselves because they feel that they only cause trouble and want to do
one good thing for other people. Others, like military leaders, take their own lives as a way of taking responsibility for defeat. Presumably, they are
relieving their troops of the responsibility for failure.
And then there are cases where abused spouses who stay in
their marriages because they want to continue to provide a stable home life for
their children.
Are they making an altruistic
sacrifice for their children? Do they expect to be rewarded in kind or is the
well-being of their children a sufficient reward?
What about people who suffer abuse because they want to
please a partner who enjoys abusing people. Are they still being abused? Would
we say that they are being nice? Do they think of themselves as being nice or
being accommodating? Or are they so desperate that they will put up with
anything in order to sustain a semblance of a relationship?
And then there are those who make what appear to be altruistic
sacrifices when the sacrifices effectively cost them nothing.
A billionaire who gives a few million dollars to charity is
not really making a sacrifice. The money will not in any way cause him to change
his life style. Is he being altruistic if he is not sacrificing anything of
value to him? Or is he just showing off?
2 comments:
It seems like mostly mothers lean towards extreme altruism, especially after her kids are grown, some will try to mother wider and wider circles of needs.
My mom was a teacher and over the top in her putting others needs first, and probably would have done much more except she died of cancer.
Perhaps people raised by very altuistic mothers end up with a lot of guilt for how much they were given?
Donating blood might be the only regular altruistic thing I do, and there is an actual performance cost for me as a runner, although I can time my donations between big races and pretend its altitute training.
I first gave blood after college when I was unemployed and "useless", or at least it was part of my plan to be brave.
I've actually had to use some "self-punishment" to say I can't donate blood unless I do other responsible things I should do, and it is real. I mean sometimes doing things for yourself, even like cleaning the garage before winter does seem a drag, while doing for someone else feels a joy, even something impersonal like donating blood.
And I've seen giving money to strangers is actually easier than lending or giving money to family, since its easier to be an unhappy judge of people you're closer to and can see the uglier reasons why they need money.
The biggest flaw in altruism to me is when unexpected resentment appears. I mean as giving as mothers and grandmothers can be, they can also exact a hidden price, and when an implicit price is not returned, fantasies of ingratitude can arise, and so the giver then has to re-evaluate their own "selfless" motives and what part of them needs attention.
On a masculine side, I know one good christian man who married a divorced woman with 2 kids, and she's older, so he'll never have his own kids, and he's got good genes as best I can tell.
"The Selfish Gene" wouldn't understand raising someone else's children, especially irresponsible males who end up having kids with many women.
Its one thing for a society to give welfare to unwed mothers (with someone else's money), and a completely different thing to adopt children who are innocent, but sired by someone less responsible than him.
Dostoyevski's ideal of brotherhood is a worthy one, and taken straight from Jesus.
There's a strange dynamic that perhaps we only feel wealthy to the degree we have something to give away, and if security is your goal, and the future unknown, who dares help anyone else, without some evidence of return, so maybe only madmen and saints can lead the way?
psychobaths
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