On empathy, in scattered, conversational format.

H&I have been talking Hume of late, and sentimentalism of other stripes. H says he is dubious that empathetic sentiments -- that is, sentiments of identification with another -- are as natural and automatic and unreflective as Hume assumes; I say that babies above say three, or certainly six, months respond palpably to the moods of those around them. H says that Hume is thinking of something stronger -- not merely natural proclivity towards others' stances and status, but positive feeling as if it were happening to you, and belief that it could happen to you. I say I can go along as far as feeling as if it were happening to you, that it is natural to blush for your friend who has got mud all over herself, and to be afraid for your friend who is going to a war zone, and to cry for Baptiste et al. in "Children of Paradise." He agrees but considers the further requirement false and onerous. Aristotle sometimes seems to say such things in the Poetics, I say, and there too it is a bafflingly unnecessary restriction. It is true that the characters must be somewhat like us to evoke our pity (and fear?): I cannot pity a character in a noh drama, whose language and affect and gestures and appearance convey little to me; I know I lose something from the nineteeth century social dramas because I cannot really understand the stakes in the bizarre reputation games they are always playing. It is not true that I have to consider myself very likely to encounter the character's situation, else no one would appreciate Euripides's "Medea" or Sophocles's "Oedipus the King." It is not clear how important the thought that if I were in this situation, I might think it through like them, let alone that I would respond as they do, is. Surely it makes some difference. Surely we empathize more when we identify more closely, and surely we pity more when we empathize more. The issues are of thresholds.

I do always think of what Chesterton's Father Brown says: I understand criminal behavior because I am a criminal, too. It is not a stretch for a human being to imagine herself coming to cause unnecessary harm.