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TheOtherDave comments on Not By Empathy Alone - Less Wrong
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Agreed that that's a good distinguishing question. I predict that audiences of native English speakers who have not been artificially primed otherwise will say the sociopath lacks empathy.
As for not seeing where I'm getting what you quote... I'm confused. Those are two plausible techniques for arriving at accurate models of other people's preferences; would they not count as 'empathy' in your lexicon?
I'm confused too. I read your comments over again today and they made sense. I kept making the same consistent mistake (at least 3 times) that you were defining rather than giving examples.
Ah! Yes, OK, the conversation makes sense now. Thanks for saying that out loud.
... I applied some google-foo and not having empathy is one of the defining characteristics of sociopaths, and then the first definition given seems pretty straight-forward:
I'm happy with that definition, and it doesn't change much. On the one hand, to understand the feelings of another you've got to have a good model for their preferences. Then sharing their feelings is the human/connection aspect of it.
In relation to this thread, I would refine that (perfect) empathy would be more than enough to be moral since understanding another person's preferences is the first part of it. (I don't think the second part is necessary for morality, but it makes it more natural.)