Empathy with an Edge
Rethinking Compassion in a Polarized Age
Empathy is often hailed as a cure for what ails us: political division, social cruelty, and the erosion of public trust. In an age of outrage and tribalism, it’s seen as the missing ingredient—a way to bring us back to civility, mutual respect, and shared humanity.
This message saturates our culture. Children's shows tell kids to “walk in someone else’s shoes.” College mission statements promise to foster empathy across difference. In classrooms, training sessions, and political speeches, empathy is sold as a moral shortcut to a better world. The hope is clear: if we could just feel more for others, we’d fight less, listen more, and build a kinder society.
There’s something to that. Empathy can break down barriers. It can humanize strangers and soften the impulse to judge. At its best, it reminds us that behind every headline, protest, or policy debate is a person with fears, dreams, and pain.
But that’s only part of the story. Empathy, for all its moral appeal, is not a neutral good. It can be selective, sentimental, and even dangerous when wielded without judgment. It can distort our sense of fairness, excuse bad behavior, or paralyze decision-making. It can be manipulated—used to justify cruelty or to silence dissent.
Here, I will take a hard look at the concept of empathy. Not to dismiss it, but to understand it better. Why does empathy matter? When does it help? When does it hurt? And what happens when we elevate empathy above all other moral tools?
We should care about empathy because it connects us to others. But if we want to use it wisely, we must pair it with accountability, critical thinking, and a strong commitment to justice. Empathy may open the door—but it’s not the whole house.
Where Empathy Came From
The word empathy may sound ancient—its roots lie in Greek (en for “in” and pathos for “feeling”)—but as a moral concept, it’s surprisingly modern. Unlike enduring virtues like justice, courage, or temperance, empathy was absent from the moral vocabularies of the ancients. Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics wrote extensively about ethics, but never about stepping into another’s emotional world. The Bible speaks of compassion and mercy, but never names empathy.
It wasn’t until the 18th century that something resembling empathy entered Western thought. Enlightenment philosophers like David Hume and Adam Smith discussed sympathy, which they saw as a reflective process: the ability to imagine another person’s experience while still maintaining emotional distance. It was a mental exercise, not an emotional merger.
The term “empathy” itself didn’t appear in English until the early 20th century, adapted from the German Einfühlung, originally used to describe how people emotionally project themselves into art and music. Only later did it migrate into psychology and social ethics.
By the mid-20th century, empathy became a rallying cry for reformers, educators, and psychologists. Kenneth Clark, the Black psychologist whose research helped dismantle school segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, warned that most people reserve empathy for those who look and live like them. He called this “chauvinistic empathy” and argued for “empathic reason”—a disciplined, moral imagination capable of crossing racial, cultural, and class lines.
In just a few generations, empathy went from a niche psychological term to a celebrated civic virtue. But its rapid ascent has masked deeper problems. For all its popularity, empathy remains a fragile and easily misused moral tool—one that can just as easily divide as unite, excuse as uplift.
Empathy in Politics and Culture
Empathy isn’t just a private feeling anymore—it’s a political flashpoint, a battleground in America’s moral and ideological wars.
Twice in a single week, The New York Times ran major stories about empathy, revealing how fraught and contested the concept has become. One was an interview between conservative columnist Ross Douthat and Christian influencer Allie Beth Stuckey, who warns against the dangers of "toxic empathy" that, in her view, affirms sin and undermines biblical truth.
The other, by critic Jennifer Szalai, reviewed two new books on empathy and showed how the term has become culturally fraught—praised by some as the foundation of morality, dismissed by others as sentimental or manipulative.
On the political right, empathy is increasingly portrayed as wrongheaded. For Stuckey and others, empathy allegedly enables bad behavior, weakens moral clarity, and opens the door to moral relativism.
On the left, some argue that empathy has become a convenient illusion—a way for privileged people to feel morally good without actually changing anything. Read a novel, watch a poignant documentary, cry a little—and move on. Empathy becomes a moral placebo: soothing, but inert.
As Szalai observes, empathy now functions less as a moral guide and more as a symbolic battlefield. For some, it’s proof of humanity. For others, it’s a sign of weakness or ideological capture. It’s no longer just about care—it’s about what kind of person you are, and what kind of society you want.
Why does this matter? Because the way we frame empathy shapes how we treat real people—immigrants, victims, offenders, the sick, the poor. Whether we respond with help, indifference, or punishment often depends less on facts than on how we’ve been taught to feel. And when empathy becomes politicized, it becomes unreliable. It starts to follow party lines instead of human need.
Two Contrasting Viewpoints: Paul Bloom vs. Martha Nussbaum
Two influential thinkers offer sharply different views on what empathy can and can’t do.
Psychologist Paul Bloom argues that empathy can mislead us. In his book Against Empathy, he explains that feeling others' pain often causes us to make poor decisions. We may focus on one person’s suffering and ignore others. He suggests we replace empathy with "rational compassion": care rooted in evidence, fairness, and moral reasoning—not raw emotion.
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum disagrees. She believes emotions like empathy, when properly shaped, help us understand injustice and support democracy. She sees literature and education as tools to develop mature, thoughtful empathy.
Both agree that empathy needs guidance. It should not drive our moral decisions by itself. It must be educated, guided, and held accountable to something larger—whether that’s justice, truth, or the public good.
When Empathy Goes Wrong
Empathy has become a partisan flashpoint because it now plays a central role in bitter debates over the moral identity of political movements.
▪ Are Trump-era immigration policies cruel, callous, and dehumanizing, or are they a necessary assertion of national sovereignty?
▪ Are progressive approaches to education and criminal justice compassionate and reform-minded, or dangerously permissive and naive?
▪ Debates over how society should support transgender youth are often framed through the lens of empathy: Is affirming a young person’s gender identity a compassionate response, or is raising concerns about medical interventions a more responsible form of care?
These are not abstract philosophical questions—they are emotionally charged disputes over whose suffering matters, and how far compassion should go.
Empathy can backfire when it overrides fairness, responsibility, or public safety. In San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin attempted to reform the justice system by focusing on the suffering of offenders. But critics argued that his policies ignored victims, undermined accountability, and made neighborhoods feel less safe.
In public schools, efforts to accommodate students with trauma histories or learning challenges have, in some cases, created tensions between support and maintaining consistent academic and behavioral expectations. In one widely publicized Oakland case, school officials declined to discipline a student who made escalating threats, citing "restorative justice" principles. Violence followed. Empathy for one student eclipsed concern for the safety of many.
Debates around transgender issues are equally fraught. Supporters of gender-affirming care argue that denying such treatment inflicts deep psychological harm. Critics, including some liberal feminists and medical ethicists, contend that affirming too quickly can silence needed scrutiny and overlook long-term consequences. In this context, empathy becomes weaponized: either you care, or you don’t. Nuance is cast aside.
Even in foreign policy and journalism, appeals to empathy can influence how acts of violence are framed and understood. Some analysts interpret attacks on civilians as desperate responses to oppression or as forms of resistance, while others present them as unfortunate but necessary tactics within broader military strategies.
In both cases, the focus often shifts to the motivations and circumstances of the perpetrators, shaping how the morality of such actions is judged.
What ties these examples together is a common error: treating empathy as a moral end in itself. When empathy becomes untethered from principle, it risks enabling injustice rather than preventing it.
Why Empathy Is Hard to Use Well
Using empathy as a guide for moral judgment is anything but straightforward. One reason is that we no longer share a common set of moral frameworks. Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argues that modern society has lost the coherent ethical traditions that once provided shared standards for evaluating right and wrong. We still use terms like "justice," "harm," and "care," but we often mean different things by them—depending on our political, cultural, or personal lenses.
This lack of shared moral frameworks makes it hard to use empathy in a consistent or reliable way. Without clear ethical standards, emotional responses often take the place of careful judgment. But relying on feelings alone can lead us astray. Hannah Arendt warned that when public life is guided more by sentiment than by reason, it can result in decisions that are emotionally satisfying but ethically flawed.
The point isn’t to abandon empathy—it’s to recognize that it must be paired with other tools: ethical reasoning, a sense of proportion, and a willingness to consider competing claims. Otherwise, empathy risks becoming reactive rather than reflective—a mirror for our biases rather than a bridge to justice.
Empathy in a Divided Society
Empathy is often applied selectively, shaped by political goals and media narratives. Politicians and journalists frequently use emotional stories to sway opinion, but these stories rarely show the whole picture. One side might emphasize the suffering of refugees to appeal for compassion, while the other highlights crimes or economic burdens to justify restriction or punishment.
Both use empathy to stir feelings, not to encourage careful thinking.
Jonathan Haidt’s research shows that different people value different moral principles. Liberals focus more on care and fairness. Conservatives value loyalty, tradition, and authority. So the same act of empathy can look like virtue to one person and weakness to another.
We should not throw out empathy. But we do need to use it better. That means:
▪ Setting clear expectations and consequences, even when someone has experienced hardship or trauma.
▪ Acknowledging facts and evidence, even when they challenge our emotional instincts or preferred narratives.
▪ Weighing the needs and rights of all involved, not just the person we empathize with most.
Philosophers like John Rawls and Hannah Arendt offer ways to do this. Rawls envisioned a fair society designed by individuals who were unaware of their own social status, wealth, or personal advantages—ensuring that the rules they created would be just for everyone. Arendt described the importance of imagining another person’s perspective—of “visiting” their viewpoint—while still maintaining your own independent judgment. These are forms of empathy that lead to justice, not just emotion.
In short, we need to use empathy with care. That means linking it to judgment, fairness, and responsibility. Feeling someone’s pain is not the same as making the right decision.
A society that values empathy but neglects accountability and fairness risks losing its moral direction. However, a society without empathy is one that is cold, indifferent, and ultimately inhumane.
We need empathy with an edge—strong enough to care, smart enough to judge, and balanced enough to act fairly.