A pure case of Selective Empathy?

The motivation for writing this blog comes from a post recently shared by one of my friends as his WhatsApp Status. His status reads like this 

 "If you feel anguished about the elephant killing in Kerala but you yourself love eating non-veg food just for your taste buds, then you are the part of the problem". 

I immediately replied to his status "So true". But later on, I gave it a thought and I changed my mind. 

In the aftermath of the incident of the elephant killing in Kerala, a lot of posts similar to this were shared across social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram among many others. The main reason for sharing such posts could be to criticize people for their hypocrisy, make them feel guilty, and try to change their food consumption practices.

Are people empathetic in one case ( Killing of the elephant) and they are not empathetic in other cases ( say, killing of chicken)? 

Yes, they are and they are in huge numbers. This is a pure case of Selective Empathy. Selective empathy means an individual shows empathy towards one set of living species and whereas the same individual doesn't show empathy towards other species. Based on the empathy level, there are three sets of individuals - the ones who are empathetic towards no one, the ones who are empathetic towards everyone, and the ones who are empathetic towards selected species. There are many subclasses of individuals who show selective empathy for example- people who love cats but not dogs, people who love dogs but not cats, and so on and so fouth.

Should a person who is empathetic towards one species necessarily show empathy towards all other species?

Ideally "yes" but practically "No". They are expected to have a high score on a measure of empathy. For simplicity, we can measure the empathy level on a scale of 0 to 1. We can give a score of Zero for "No-Empathy", one for "Universal Empathy" and somewhere in between for selected empathy. Selected empathy individuals should have high scores (ideally 1).

Will such posts help?

Firstly, let me make it clear that I am a vegetarian who doesn't even take eggs, so I have no incentive to defend who eats non-veg. But, still, I think these posts will do more harm than good. There are two possibilities: The first possibility is that those who eat non-veg will think about their act of selective empathy as hypocrisy and will reduce their consumption of the non-veg. Second, they will stop showing empathy which they have towards some species just to avoid any criticism and keep on continuing the consumption of non-veg. My hunch is that the second case will be more dominant as changing food habits can be tough and people will stop showing even some empathy they have. Hence, I think let people show empathy in whatever form they have and we shouldn't criticize them. At least they are better than those who don't stand even for this ugly incident. 

Comments

  1. Ravi khadotra12 October 2020 at 15:07

    I agree with your viewpoint for the people with selective empathy i.e we should not call them hypocrites but I question their logic behind their support for that elephant case i.e "Animals feels pain too". so when they are consuming them, did't they have any idea of the pain suffered by that animal from the very birth till its death. I think that selective empathy does't depend upon the type of animal or any creature but depends upon our own craving and benefits. we know that those animals which we eat also go through same suffering but only for our own craving we over see those suffering. again I agree that those with selective empathy are better then those who are neutral to those incidents but as per me selective empathy depends upon our own needs/wishes/benefits/cravings.

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    Replies
    1. Jai Kamal12 October 2020 at 15:39

      I think not all of them have idea of the pain suffered by the animals. Some people change their mind when they actually realise it. Recently, a video that gone viral on social media depicts that a couple changed their mind to buy meat. I also agree that some people do give preference to taste/cravings. But, all belong to this category.


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