this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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To me empathy is a social connection where feeling aren't just being heard, but understood. I'm finding it difficult to understand how that could apply to an object, so what's your definition of empathy?
Imagining how I'd feel if I were in that objects place, then projecting it onto the object. For example: my coffee maker that I've had for a very long time breaks. I feel bad throwing it away because I empathize with serving someone a long time then being disposed of.
This is spot on for me
Isn't that personification not empathy? Like you're not understanding it's feelings, but giving it feeling. I think it can be moral to attempt to fix the coffee maker. It also sounds emotionally exhausting (for me) to care that much about something that has no agency of it's own.
I mean, feeling bad cause I'm projecting feelings onto it, sure. Feeling what someone else would feel if you were in their situation is empathy though
Maybe I've got an odd take on it, or we're saying the same thing. Like humans as a whole should definitely try to be more empathetic in their lives. Being more empathetic is something I'm working on a lot myself right now. i don't think empathy is about "Feeling what someone else would feel if you were in their situation". I say that because everyones experience of life is different, some people feel pain more than others, or social pressures, or hunger, or whatever. What I mean is that we experience the world uniquely, and empathy is coming to understand the unique experience of others. As in it's not how I would experience their situation, but how they are experiencing their situation. And a coffee maker has no experience. But maybe I'm talking about something other than empathy