# Extreme acts of cruelty require a high level of empathy



## Nilo (Apr 25, 2014)

I've been watching Hannibal and I stumbled upon an interesting thought:

_Extreme acts of cruelty require a high level of empathy_

As a person who is reading this topic now, what do *YOU* think would be the pro's and con's to support or refute the idea?


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## Wellsy (Oct 24, 2011)

The cruel acts dont require empathy but empathy in the sherlock sense is required for what Will Graham does, its not emotional but intellectual empathy. Being able to put ones self in the persons place to see how they'd see things. What will has to empathize is pretty confronting so it fucks with someone as sensitive as him.


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## Nilo (Apr 25, 2014)

If we understand empathy as the desire to help someone to fix some sort of problems, then I think the quote would be spot on. For example: if you see a person close to you hurt, you want to hurt the person who made the person close to you feel that way. 
Hence the more empathy you have, more cruel you are. You don't have to be cruel on the outside, I think its mainly on the inside, until one day it may lash out if you're exposed to too much situations where empathy kicks in.


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## westlose (Oct 9, 2014)

Nilo said:


> For example: if you see a person close to you hurt, you want to hurt the person who made the person close to you feel that way.


What if I don't want to hurt this person, because my empathy makes me feel bad about hurting someone? Even if this person did hurt my friend?


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## Nilo (Apr 25, 2014)

westlose said:


> What if I don't want to hurt this person, because my empathy makes me feel bad about hurting someone? Even if this person did hurt my friend?


Exactly what I was trying to figure out - would that happen. Although how do you know its the empathy that makes you feel bad about hurting someone and not just lack of willingness to take action? And even when you feel bad about hurting someone, don't you imagine it would be just to do so?


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## westlose (Oct 9, 2014)

Nilo said:


> Exactly what I was trying to figure out - would that happen. Although how do you know its the empathy that makes you feel bad about hurting someone and not just lack of willingness to take action? And even when you feel bad about hurting someone, don't you imagine it would be just to do so?


It is empathy, and here is the explanation : 
This person hurts my friend and there is certainly a reason to this act. First of all, I feel bad for my friend, because she get hurt, and I can easily detach from my self and perceive things through my friend's perspective.

Then, I can also detach from myself and perceive events through this person perspective, and I can feel and sense how she'll be hurt. Even if I don't like this person, this pain remains the same. It's not a lack of willingness to take action, but just a lack of willingness to inflict pain. Because I don't want to feel this pain _therefore_, I don't want to inflict this pain neither.

But of course, there is a case where my empathy will not be taken into account: If this person actually want to destroy me or my friend. In the case where only one group will survive, I won't hesitate to take action, even if that means that I have to hurt them.

Do you get what I mean? The best thing to do is to calm down the conflicts, and to find a common ground. But if this common ground doesn't exist, then we can't sacrifice ourselves.

So I don't really "want to hurt the person who hurt my friend". But I want "everybody to feel good". Yeah that's a bit idealistic and stupid right? But that would be the best scenario, and best thing to do objectively.


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## Nilo (Apr 25, 2014)

That is a very good point, westlose. Keeping in mind the plasticity of the brain, there are no stupid things. What we strive for - we become. So your idealistic goal is quite good. And yes, conflicts do make humans narrow minded, therefore when one arises its best to calm down and the solution will be evident really quickly.

Although there's a thing I would like to clarify: we may have miscommunicated at one point - when I said 'hurt' I meant in the physical sense, not an emotional sense. And I'm getting the feeling that you mean 'hurt' in an emotional sense. Is that right?


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## westlose (Oct 9, 2014)

Nilo said:


> That is a very good point, westlose. Keeping in mind the plasticity of the brain, there are no stupid things. What we strive for - we become. So your idealistic goal is quite good. And yes, conflicts do make humans narrow minded, therefore when one arises its best to calm down and the solution will be evident really quickly.
> 
> Although there's a thing I would like to clarify: we may have miscommunicated at one point - when I said 'hurt' I meant in the physical sense, not an emotional sense. And I'm getting the feeling that you mean 'hurt' in an emotional sense. Is that right?


Hmm, well I guess that I was thinking of "hurt" in the general sense. That implies that it could be physical or emotional.

That's why I talked about the possibility where the person would "destroy my friend", which was more in a physical sense.
But emotional pain can also have some physical and negative consequences, and that's why it should be taken seriously.


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## Nilo (Apr 25, 2014)

westlose said:


> Hmm, well I guess that I was thinking of "hurt" in the general sense. That implies that it could be physical or emotional.
> 
> That's why I talked about the possibility where the person would "destroy my friend", which was more in a physical sense.
> But emotional pain can also have some physical and negative consequences, and that's why it should be taken seriously.


No one can inflict emotional pain without our consensus. If we expect the world to act according to our little illusion of how the world 'really' works (or if we just care about the external world too much) we'r bound to get hurt. Hence while physical pain can be inflicted by external events, emotional pain is caused by us (although it is easier to assume that someone else caused it).


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## Mr inappropriate (Dec 17, 2013)

I'm assuming its said about sadistic acts. Well, you'll need to connect with your victim's pain to get pleasure of that, which requires emphaty. I think intentional cruelty needs empathy of some sort, just the twisted kind.


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## CocaColaBR (Jun 6, 2015)

Nilo said:


> _Extreme acts of cruelty require a high level of empathy_


Psychopaths does not have empathy however they are extremally cruel. What you said doesn't make sense at all.


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## Dark NiTe (Mar 5, 2012)

CocaColaBR said:


> Psychopaths does not have empathy however they are extremally cruel. What you said doesn't make sense at all.


This assumes @crashbandicoot's post to be entirely false. This thread is talking about sadistic acts. Not all paychopaths are "extremely cruel" just like not all of them are serial killers. I would think a complete absence of empathy would view hurting a human being as essentially the same as crumpling a blank piece of paper; done without consideration of consequences which is pretty much the exact opposite of cruelty. Sadism is knowing your act will result in a specific adverse consequence and deriving pleasure from it, not being oblivious to consequences of your act.

If what you've said is true, than your average popular kid is a paychopath along with everybody who commits acts of cruelty against outgroups in order to maintain ingroup status.


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## Grandmaster Yoda (Jan 18, 2014)

Empathy as in the great understanding of using assault weapons


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## CocaColaBR (Jun 6, 2015)

benr3600 said:


> This assumes @crashbandicoot's post to be entirely false. This thread is talking about sadistic acts. Not all paychopaths are "extremely cruel" just like not all of them are serial killers. I would think a complete absence of empathy would view hurting a human being as essentially the same as crumpling a blank piece of paper; done without consideration of consequences which is pretty much the exact opposite of cruelty. Sadism is knowing your act will result in a specific adverse consequence and deriving pleasure from it, not being oblivious to consequences of your act.
> 
> If what you've said is true, than your average popular kid is a paychopath along with everybody who commits acts of cruelty against outgroups in order to maintain ingroup status.


I never said that lack of empathy is psychopatology, I said that psychopatology includes lack of empathy.


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## Dark NiTe (Mar 5, 2012)

CocaColaBR said:


> I never said that lack of empathy is psychopatology, I said that psychopatology includes lack of empathy.


You asserted that all psychopaths are "extremely cruel." I was simply arguing that lack of empathy is not mutually inclusive to cruelty because millions of empathic and healthy people commit cruel acts of all degrees and some psychopaths are like the neurology professor who discovered he had the brain of a psychopath but is not one, at least as you define it, because he was fortunate enough to never be subjected to abuses that would result in rage and sadism. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure the Stanford prison experiment shows that most all people are capable of extreme cruelty and wasn't the very coincidental result of psychopaths being randomly chosen and put into a position to commit extremely cruel acts


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## CocaColaBR (Jun 6, 2015)

benr3600 said:


> You asserted that all psychopaths are "extremely cruel." I was simply arguing that lack of empathy is not mutually inclusive to cruelty because millions of empathic and healthy people commit cruel acts of all degrees and some psychopaths are like the neurology professor who discovered he had the brain of a psychopath but is not one, at least as you define it, because he was fortunate enough to never be subjected to abuses that would result in rage and sadism. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure the Stanford prison experiment shows that most all people are capable of extreme cruelty and wasn't the very coincidental result of psychopaths being randomly chosen and put into a position to commit extremely cruel acts


He said: "Extreme acts of cruelty require a high level of empathy" Which is false, because there is people without empathy that can be highly cruelty.

I did not say:

1# Everybody with empathy is cruel
2# everybody without empathy is cruel
3# To be cruel you need to have apathy instead of empathy
4# All psychopaths are cruel
I never said that. Don't try to expel things where there aren't things


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## Dark NiTe (Mar 5, 2012)

CocaColaBR said:


> He said: "Extreme acts of cruelty require a high level of empathy" Which is false, because there is people without empathy that can be highly cruelty.
> 
> I did not say:
> 
> ...





CocaColaBR said:


> Psychopaths does not have empathy however they are extremally cruel. What you said doesn't make sense at all.


It seems as if you said plainly #4 on the basis that possessing no empathy = being cruel. I merely argued otherwise. It is a fact that people with and without empathy can commit acts of extreme cruelty and your claim does not prove that an act of cruelty requires no empathy. I can see the OP's point and I don't think it's fair to say they are wrong based on falsely attributing acts of cruelty to no empathy.

Not all Germans who stuffed Jews into gas chambers did so because they have no empathy. Not everybody who participates in bullying somebody to the point of suicide does so because of no empathy. Not every soldier who raped or tortured POWs did so due to not empathy. Not everybody who chose to administer lethal voltage to a test subject in the Milgram experiment lacked empathy.

Do you understand my argument now?


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## Lelu (Jun 1, 2015)

This isn't sound at all. All it requires is for one to know themselves. "If this is painful to me, then it should be painful to someone else" or "I know X about someone, so taking away Y from them should be effective." 

Empathy would be the mechanism that says "I do not want to do this to someone else because I wouldn't want it done to me" or at least make one cringe at certain actions.

Someone with empathy could do something cruel, however, it is not a requirement and I would argue someone without it would probably be more likely to commit a cruel act.


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## Fenrisulfr (Jun 24, 2015)

Not empathy but requires a high level of sympathy.


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## Kyusaku (Mar 18, 2014)

@benr3600 One of the first symptoms of psychopathy is when people start to kill their pets. They become totally numb to the pain of others, and they are well aware that this kind of behavior is unacceptable, which is why psychopaths feign feelings and sensitivity. In reality they feel superior because they aren't bound like us by empathy and moral dilemmas. While a psychopath might not necessarily be a killer, the fact that he could torture you and not feel any different than if he was plucking out the legs of an insect is rather freaky.


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