With the cat, no empathy. It just needed to wee. You'll have to train it.
True words indeed. You could replace the second sentence with "It just needed to open the lid to the garbage can, take out all of the bones, strew them where the puppy could find and gag on them, then get up on the counter and knock a bunch of plates to the floor" and be just as correct.
On the original question, I wish I knew. I think about this more as we plan a family.
Also, we've been discussing empathy as if it were universal, when it's clear that humans have long extended "empathy" only to those they believe deserve it (i.e. are in the inner circle, right ethnicity, is some to whom I owe loyalty or who owes loyalty to me). If empathy has socially bounded limits, and ethics are based on empathy, then ethics also have socially bounded limits. In which case, in those situations where we have been taught it is ok that empathy is lacking, we need have no compunctions (like the terrorist/torture argument, but more broadly in violent interaction with anyone we disagree with strongly). Which means that the boundaries we draw around circles of humans are very very dangerous.
Great question. I would add one of my own. How responsible is the parent for such an "inethical" force, until he/she may know better? And when should they be held accountable for a lack of such teaching?
I don't know if ignorance is ever an out, as much as a mitigating factor. If the unethical act was performed in ignorance, than perhaps the response should be weighted more to the side of education than "punishment". Of course moving away from punishment and toward involving the perpetrator in atonement would probably go much further in humanizing the victim and establishing a real sense of empathy. Note that I'm talking about those that haven't had the opportunity to develop such empathy, and not those that completely lack the ability to be empathic.
Sorry about the kitten, by the way. I know exactly what that feels like. *hugs*
For the kitten, training is on-going. She got locked out of bedroom - again.
As for the other, I agree that ignorance is perhaps only a mitigating factor. And barring the pathological (non-empathetic), education is certainly the goal (although rarely tried), but the question is ... can you teach an old human new tricks, if it's something as important as "do not commit violence" once someone has been "trained" to do so all their life through poverty, prejudice, war, neglect, etc.? And at what point does their personal responsibility start and at what point do we as members of the society in which these people grow up(and their parents), recognize our own amount of culpability for their actions.
For me personally, I've been thinking more in terms of social mores. For example, at point is a foreigner to be expected to understand and follow social rules?
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True words indeed. You could replace the second sentence with "It just needed to open the lid to the garbage can, take out all of the bones, strew them where the puppy could find and gag on them, then get up on the counter and knock a bunch of plates to the floor" and be just as correct.
On the original question, I wish I knew. I think about this more as we plan a family.
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I don't know if ignorance is ever an out, as much as a mitigating factor. If the unethical act was performed in ignorance, than perhaps the response should be weighted more to the side of education than "punishment". Of course moving away from punishment and toward involving the perpetrator in atonement would probably go much further in humanizing the victim and establishing a real sense of empathy. Note that I'm talking about those that haven't had the opportunity to develop such empathy, and not those that completely lack the ability to be empathic.
Sorry about the kitten, by the way. I know exactly what that feels like. *hugs*
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As for the other, I agree that ignorance is perhaps only a mitigating factor. And barring the pathological (non-empathetic), education is certainly the goal (although rarely tried), but the question is ... can you teach an old human new tricks, if it's something as important as "do not commit violence" once someone has been "trained" to do so all their life through poverty, prejudice, war, neglect, etc.? And at what point does their personal responsibility start and at what point do we as members of the society in which these people grow up(and their parents), recognize our own amount of culpability for their actions.
For me personally, I've been thinking more in terms of social mores. For example, at point is a foreigner to be expected to understand and follow social rules?
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