Empathy is what makes us human.

 

Many people would agree with this statement, empathy is often spoken about not just as an important part of being human but as the defining quality of it. It’s considered to be the thing that separates us from animals. This ability to feel what others are feeling, to fully understand their emotions is considered so uniquely human that to not have it is to be missing full humanity. This correlation between empathy and humanity proves to be a problematic one, not only because empathy or qualities very similar to it have been found in non-human animals, but also because not every human experiences the same levels of empathy or even experiences it at all. To make empathy as requirement for humanity is to deny humanity to people who don’t or can’t experiences.

Supporters of the idea of empathy as humanity would say that it’s okay to deny humanity to those with low empathy since some of these people commit terrible acts. However, this is also wrong since low empathy by itself doesn’t mean that someone will commit a horrible act.  Even if lack of empathy meant that people would be more likely to harm others, it would still be wrong to remove them of their humanity since it would just be a way to deny the fact that humans have the capacity to do harm.

There is no definitive evidence to empathy being a defining human quality or the only thing stopping people from doing wrong, so it should not be treated as if it is.