Ethical judgments based on empathy
Introduction
In contemporary society, schools are called upon to assist children to learn ways of thinking ethically. This has forced the schools to adopt the formal and informal curriculum of ethics. Moreover, the tragic events like school shootings dominating the news make ethics to be regarded as an important subject to teach. This has made teachers look for ways to include ethics discussions in daily classroom activities. Ethics involves the process of making decisions that have outcomes presenting with moral consequences. Books are the natural starting point of teaching ethics in schools. Various novels form an excellent set to use in ethical discussion. Such novels include protagonists who have to make a difficult moral decision. However, because moral decisions have been made does not necessarily render the book appropriate for the teaching of ethics. Several books tend to take a preachy, didactic tone with the characters making quick and unreasonable decisions. In these books, not much consideration is expected from the reader. Scarry, in her fascinating article, mentions the three things that render a reading ethical: empathy, reliance on deliberative thought, and beauty.
It is believed that when people read literature the theory of mind gets improved whereby individuals can identify and understand the subjective states of others. This theory is linked to empathy making empathy a crucial component of positive intergroup and interpersonal relations. When Scarry highlights empathy as one of the things that makes a reading ethical she tries to indicate that through reading, empathy increases as it aids in expanding our knowledge regarding the lives of others besides assisting us to recognize our similarities to them. Additionally, the complexity of reading makes individuals practice empathy. Through the invitation to empathy, literature has been seen to diminish the acts of injury in the societies all through the Humanitarian Revolution up to now. Several authors have either defended, berates, celebrated, or doubted the role of empathy in literature. However, Scarry refers to Pinker and Hunt claiming that they use empathy to mean the ability of literature to reinforce and exercise readers’ recognition that there exist other viewpoints in the world and to come up with such recognition, the law against hurting others can be passed and thereafter the ban it shows gets independent and freestanding of sensibility. These words make readers understand that empathy is not the ability of literature to make readers feel compassion for a reading.
Another attribute that works against injury includes the reliance on deliberative thought. This attribute is regarded as an antecedent of empathy that is evoked through reading literature. Early writings including the composition of medieval poems led to deliberations which triggered the pro and con debates regarding a reading. Having disputing voices in reading such as the Iliad, reminds readers that there is nothing anti-lyric concerning its deliberative structure. Besides, the poetry styles used tends to bring readers face-to-face with deliberative acts. With reliance on deliberative thought, readers can connect with the choices the characters make.
Beauty is another thing that makes a reading ethical. Beauty plays a key role in interrupting and providing readers with a sudden relief from their minds. Scarry considers beauty as an attribute contributing to the lessening of injury. When reading a text, the reader tends to have their injuries diminished since through reading, their life is extended. Beautiful pieces of art and poems are seen as the surest ways to initiate quicker and multiple consciousnesses among readers. Apart from readers, other individuals can be beneficiaries of one’s reading through different paths beauty uses to realize the outcome. Beautiful things contain attributes like unity and symmetry that anticipate similar attributes in the domain of justice. Also, beauty interrupts and provides readers a sudden relief from their minds. Furthermore, having contact with beauty makes a difference in justice.
I consider empathy as a more convincing item that makes a reading ethical. In the book titled “Against Empathy”, the author Paul Bloom applies clinical studies and simple logic to make arguments regarding empathy. Besides considering empathy as well-intended, the author considers it a poor guide in moral reasoning. Societies and individuals tend to make ethical judgments based on empathy and turn out to be less sensitive to the suffering of others. The author urges readers to strive to use their heads instead of their hearts.