2026-09-19 09:12 UTC
Is empathy a less reliable basis for morality than people tend to assume?
A thread on empathy, morality, and autistic reasoning ♾️
Empathy works a bit like a spotlight. It illuminates a certain bit of the landscape – the bit that’s in front of us, or that we choose to see – but not all of it.
That's a problem if we confuse empathy with morality.
(Note: at the end I've explained what I mean by 'empathy')
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#ActuallyAutistic #Neurodivergent #Autism #Empathy #Morality #SocialJustice #CriticalPsychology #AutismResearch
Replies (1)
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@KatyElphinstone@mas.to 2026-09-19 09:13
So… we can care hugely about one suffering person, while staying blind to the system that keeps producing suffering people. We can be moved by an individual story, while ignoring the data. We can feel deeply for somebody we identify with, while extending little understanding to somebody whose behaviour, background, language, or way of thinking is unfamiliar to us. And we then mistake the intensity of that feeling for morality itself. ⬇️