Some would say that empathy is developed at an early age, that if a child is supported in particular ways that they learn empathy and that if they are not, that they end up not learning it or with a stunted ability.
I'm not sure how one would go about learning empathy once past that developmental stage. An adult could learn, I think, to mimic empathy; but if they did not have an innate capacity for empathy, that it would be just repeating learned responses. "Be quietly attentive in this situation," "Offer support in that case." Kind of like learning etiquette for funerals or pregnancy announcements.
So, can empathy be learned? I'm not sure. Should it be? Like I said, I think having empathy makes is much less likely for a person to do monstrous things and lacking it makes it may make a person more likely to become a bad person. So, yes, empathy is a valuable attribute in our civilization.
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Date: 2004-07-23 03:54 am (UTC)I'm not sure how one would go about learning empathy once past that developmental stage. An adult could learn, I think, to mimic empathy; but if they did not have an innate capacity for empathy, that it would be just repeating learned responses. "Be quietly attentive in this situation," "Offer support in that case." Kind of like learning etiquette for funerals or pregnancy announcements.
So, can empathy be learned? I'm not sure. Should it be? Like I said, I think having empathy makes is much less likely for a person to do monstrous things and lacking it makes it may make a person more likely to become a bad person. So, yes, empathy is a valuable attribute in our civilization.