We should all be more compassionate. But should we feel each other's pain? Is there a difference?

Last year, the psychologist Paul Bloom wrote a provocative article called "Against Empathy", and the response was predictably angry.

Empathy is a confusing subject. It's used to describe many parts of human psychology and many parts of our lives. Bloom makes a distinction between three kinds of empathy and I will his follow his terminology throughout this article.

First, there is emotional empathy. This is when we literally feel the pain of others—think of the sadness you feel when you see a TV ad for Save the Children.

Second, there is cognitive empathy. This is when we understand the mental states of others.

Third, there is compassion. Compassion is more complex than emotional or cognitive empathy, because it's more entwined with practical judgement and action. Bloom describes compassion as "a more distanced love and kindness and concern for others." That isn't as straightforward as feeling someone's pain or knowing what someone is thinking. And it isn't as directly observable by, for instance, fMRI.

Bloom wrote his article in the Boston Review forum. In the forum, the Boston Review requests responses from other writers, and many of the respondents criticized Bloom uncharitably. There's much to criticize in Bloom's article. And the caustic headline "Against Empathy" didn't help. But the respondents who disagreed, as well as later respondents in the New York Times, ignored Bloom's distinction between emotional empathy, cognitive empathy, and compassion. They presented Bloom's views as totally absurd and indefensible. A notable exception was Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig, who wrote in a way that we should all emulate. She made an attempt to read Bloom's article charitably, and then made a reasoned critique based on her unique knowledge and perspective.

On the other hand, the psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen wrote that Bloom's views are compatible with the Nazis murdering the disabled. It's hard to square that with Bloom's emphasis on Buddhist "great compassion".

These respondents refused to read Bloom charitably. And I think I know why. Part of the reason is that most people experience the three varieties of empathy together as a coherent whole, at least most of the time. But I think there's a larger reason as well: we think that it's necessarily true that people are selfish, and emotional empathy is the only thing that can motivate us to be altruistic. So when we read a criticism of emotional empathy, it comes off as an attack on human decency in general. I think Baron-Cohen's response makes sense as a defense of human decency, but he can't see that there's more to decency than just emotional empathy.

We're stuck on one image of human behavior: people act out of self-interest. If we do something that appears altruistic, we need some kind of explanation that ends with "human beings are self-interested".

I don't mean that we assume people are selfish jerks, and that we never help other people. But I think we assume that people are self-interested in a more abstract sense. We assume that we can only explain human behavior by referring to individual wants and desires.

For instance, we might think that Sally only helps Jane because Sally enjoys it when she empathizes with Jane's happiness.

This picture doesn't represent human beings properly because it fails to account for all of our behavior. It's easier to see this if we compare it with another view. Specifically, some religious people think that we only act morally because we want God to reward us.

I find it easy to understand this view of moral motivation, and I find it easy to understand its appeal. It explains a lot with a little. People act morally because it's in our interests to be rewarded by God. God's rewards build a bridge between morality and self-interest.

In many countries today, more people are atheists. And even very religious people can see that atheists act morally, at least some of the time. So the "divine-command theory" of moral motivation is less popular. It just fails to explain the moral behavior of atheists.

But we've replaced divine commands with a theory that retains the same structure: we act morally because we literally feel the pain of others, and we share in someone's joy when we help them. People act morally because it's in our interests to avoid the pain of empathy and to feel the joy of empathy. We used to say that God builds a bridge between morality and self-interest. Now that we don't believe in God, we've put emotional empathy in God's place.

Again, emotional empathy explains a lot with a little. But it doesn't explain some moral or immoral acts. For instance, when a friend is depressed or grieving, it can be hard to make yourself visit them, because you know you'll feel their pain so intensely. If you're a health professional and you need to give someone a painful treatment or examination, it can be hard to go through with it for the same reason. And I think we've all seen TV ads for charities, only to change the channel because it's just too much to feel the pain of starving children or maimed victims of war.

In all of these examples, we have to overcome our emotional empathy if we want to act morally—to act with compassion. A good friend will be supportive. A good nurse or doctor does what's in the long-term interest of their patient. A good person will learn about large-scale suffering so they can figure out how to help.

So emotional empathy can't be the source of all of moral behavior either. It definitely contributes to our motivations and informs our judgements. But there's more to it.

At a more abstract level, we shouldn't think there is only one kind of explanation of people's behavior. That's because we shouldn't think there's only one kind of explanation in general.

Hilary Putnam has a great example of this in his wonderful essay, "Why there isn't a ready-made world". Imagine that space aliens are investigating a forest fire on Earth. The aliens quickly figure out the source of the problem: The danged atmosphere was full of oxygen, and the oxygen caused the combustion that burned down the forest.

There's something nutty about this answer, but it isn't really wrong. We would just prefer an explanation that is more relevant to our interests, like a lit cigarette or lightning. And different explanations are appropriate to different interests. You could say that the "true cause" of an event is the total state of the universe immediately before the event. But that is boring, uninformative, and obtuse.

Let's try applying this to a very mundane example of human altruism. Someone asks you for the time. You take out your phone and tell them.

Why did you do it?

You could say it was because of the total state of the universe leading up to that moment. You could say it was because of the oxygen in the atmosphere. You could even say it was because you had a desire to tell them.

It's true that we can re-describe almost any behavior in the language of self-interest. We could say that someone donates bone marrow because they want to donate bone marrow. So a bone marrow donor is really acting from self-interest, just as much as a conventional greedy hedonist. I tend to think this is abusing language, but it's easy to get stuck in this picture of human motivation.

So why did you tell a stranger the time? They asked! Isn't that the best explanation?

When we explain moral behavior in terms of self-interested wants and desires, it isn't always the best explanation. It doesn't always jibe with our experiences; sometimes it hurts to do the right thing. And it isn't more scientific; it's more of a philosophical picture of human action, rather than a scientific theory.

We overemphasize the role of emotional empathy because we're trapped in one kind of explanation. But we should be open to focusing our empathy appropriately so that we don't get burnt out and we can still act with compassion.

I would describe compassion as the ability and proclivity to see the full dignity of others as human beings, to see what's important about their suffering, to take the appropriate attitude, and to act appropriately in response.

That description gestures at something important about being human, but it doesn't require us to literally feel everyone's pain, even if that is also a valuable way of being human. In this and in other things, we shouldn't let a simple explanation seduce us into ignoring the complexities of life.

Market socialism isn't crazy, so why haven't I ever met a market socialist?

The time I met socialist economist Abba Lerner. This did not happen.

People believe in all sorts of ideologies. Some of those ideologies are reasonable, some are totally nuts. I've met red Tories, libertarians, market liberals, social democrats, Marxists, and anarchists. But I've never met a market socialist. And I think I know why.

I've always found it easy to sympathize with the radical, democratic left. The world isn't as it should be and capitalism is the likely culprit, not only because we have a capitalist economy, but because capitalism treats human beings as a mean to its own ends. And that's the essence of immorality. So it's no surprise that many people want to dismantle capitalism. Unfortunately, no one is sure what should replace capitalism. We know that society is messed up and needs to be radically transformed, but attempts to replace capitalism wholesale with central planning have been a disaster.

Worse still, it is difficult to propose a moderately radical transformation of society. Karl Marx explains in his Critique of the Gotha Program:.

"Do not the bourgeois assert that the present-day distribution is "fair"? And is it not, in fact, the only "fair" distribution on the basis of the present-day mode of production? Are economic relations regulated by legal conceptions, or do not, on the contrary, legal relations arise out of economic ones?"

Marx is criticizing the United Workers Party because they speak of  "the fair distribution of the proceeds of labor" even though their moralistic language implicitly justifies the current distribution of wealth. According to Marx, we must uproot our economic relations if we want to conceive of a "fairness" that could justify equality.

Marx thought that economic relations are the real basis of our society: our social structure and moral beliefs are an epiphenomenal outgrowth of economic relations—Marx's base and superstructure.

Most people don't share Marx's views that our thinking is determined by our economic relations. But we could ask Marx's same rhetorical questions about contemporary policy analysis. Do not the market liberals assert that present-day policy is "good"? And is it not, in fact, the only "good" policy on the basis of the present-day mode of production?

I think the answer is no. But that criticism still packs a punch. From the premises of contemporary capitalism, tax cuts and deregulation make sense—at least some of the time. And it's difficult to analyse a policy change like "socialize the means of production". So it can be hard to square revolutionary fervor with bourgeois policy analysis.

Can we follow Marx's example in policy? If we uproot our economic system, can we find the basis for better and fairer policy?

Market socialism is a system such that the economy is organized through markets, but the firms that participate in those markets are owned by the people.

Let's look at John Roemer's succinct outline of his version of market socialism. [I've separated the quote into paragraphs to make it more readable. The quote is from Roemer's review of Whither Socialism]

There should be a separate currency (call it the ‘coupon’ currency) which could be used only for the purchase of shares of firms in the ‘public’ sector, or of mutual funds of such firms’ stock. Conversely, only coupon currency, not regular money, could be used to purchase such stock or mutual funds. 

Each citizen would receive an endowment of coupons at the age of majority, and would purchase mutual funds/firm stock with it. The shares of these funds/firms would trade on a stock market, with prices denominated (only) in coupon currency. Since no regular currency would be useful on this stock market, the wealthy could not purchase more shares in these firms than the poor. 

The profits of firms in the public sector would be distributed to citizens in proportion to their share holdings. It would be illegal to give shares to others, and at death, a person’s portfolio of such shares would be returned to the state treasury. 

Firms, in turn, would compete for the coupons of citizens, for they would be able to exchange coupons with the state for investment funds; as in the Bardhan proposal and as in Japan and Germany, they would be primarily monitored by banks. The coupon stock market is a mechanism to induce firms to compete for investment funds, to permit citizens to hold diversified portfolios, and to distribute a substantial share of the nation’s profits in a fairly equal manner among citizens.

None of these seem like terrible ideas, but it's hard to imagine who would find them appealing.

From the standpoint of economic policy, Roemer's ideas are at best untested. And they raise many questions about savings and corporate governance. Roemer's ideas are unappealing from a revolutionary standpoint as well. They sound less like the emancipation of human beings, and more like a dull videogame.

But we shouldn't throw up our hands and accept our economic system as it is. Market liberalism doesn't have a monopoly on good policy. Single-payer healthcare isn't necessarily market-oriented. But it's the best policy idea anyone's ever had, and it's a radical transformation of society that's both fairer and more efficient.

In the same vein, I think that the left can make criticisms of capitalism without needing a full-blown replacement. It doesn't require a revolution in our thinking to see that capitalism and our mixed economy are often poorly thought-out, poorly run, and morally suspect. It doesn't require a revolution in our economic relations to see that either. We can take single-payer healthcare as a model and look for a political program that is both inspiring and feasible. For instance, a carbon tax could raise money for state action while saving our environment. And more radically, a guaranteed annual income is easy to understand and easy to manage, and it would genuinely transform people's lives if they didn't have to worry about choosing between a terrible job and starvation.

You could argue that this is just defining socialism down. And there's some truth to that. Socialism is workers' control of the means of production. But when we look at market socialism as a practicable forms of worker's control, socialism doesn't necessarily sate our desire for a new, fair, and workable society.

I don't think we'll ever have market socialism because it doesn't work as a bourgeois policy proposal, and it doesn't inspire as a utopian vision. But there's other ways of achieving both.