It's occurred to me that my dissertation's subject matter is probably more relevant now than it was in the 2010s, when I was still trying to be an academic. In any event, my children's various questions about what's going on in the world around them have answers in the reading I did, which suggests to me I found something of use way back when.
A brief excursus, and then to the point. Hugo Grotius, father of international law, wrote De jure belli ac pacis in 1625 with exactly one aim, which he conveniently explains in his dedication: to convince the French (Catholic) king that it was acceptable, even good, to side with the (Protestant) nations opposed to the Hapsburg (Catholic) empire, since those peoples in small nations would be crushed at best if they lost. To convince a leader to fight against his ostensible co-religionists (they were different flavors of Catholic who also hated each other), Grotius borrowed from neutral, historical sources as well as religious ones, to demonstrate that war could be fought to save others and that engaging in certain prohibited conduct in war would also constitute a reason to get involved.
To do all of this, he draws on the simple point that human beings have responsibilities to one another. Even when there are no other links between people, the mere fact of being another human being places responsibilities, even very serious ones, on each person. If you live in Christianity's moral universe, this is a familiar thought: a person across the world who I will never meet has a moral claim on me and the way I think about my own actions and behavior simply because they are a human being, part of creation, and created in God's image.
From all of this, it follows that empathy should be the base human response to any person who is in trouble or needs help. If you are a human being and recognize the humanity in others, there's no other possible response.* If you make light of empathy, or pronounce it a vice, then you have simply turned your back on what it means to be a person.** There's nothing left to say to them.
* The ethical and political implications that can be drawn from this vary widely: liberalism of fear, Rawlsian liberalism, social democracy, communism, communitarianism, the kind of conservatism Oakeshott liked but no one practices nowadays, care ethics, etc etc all seem like possible inferences.
** There's a difference between this and a Norm Geras-style Contract of Mutual Indifference. The Contract of Mutual Indifference--I won't help you, and because I have not helped you I know you won't help me--has a morally tragic dimension because it recognizes that there is an obligation even as it also recognizes that it won't be fulfilled. People who don't care at all about empathy don't consider anything about it tragic.
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