Emotion, EthicsIf a person fails to feel pain or suffering for events which usually bring such things about – if they don’t miss their family or home while away, or if they don’t grieve for dead relatives or pets, or if they don’t get upset when they fail an exam or lose their job – is it sensible to hold them somehow for flawed, or to claim that they are inhuman? Is emotional numbness or indifference a moral wrong?
October 7, 2010
Response from Charles Taliaferro on October 10, 2010
Great question! You have definitely (in my view) described a disturbing emotional indifference or numbness, but this may not be due to any moral wrong. People might be in such a condition because they have suffered some great trauma or brain injury through no fault of their own. Philosophers have differed in terms of their view of how natural it is for us to empathetic or have sympathy for one another –Aristotle and Locke think we are desposed to care for one another whereas Hobbes almost sees friendship as something we are drawn to for reasons of prudence and self-concern (caring for others is a kind of strategy for us to avoid premature violent death). In natural law theory, lack of concern for the dead or an indifference to personal failure or failing to honor family may be seen as failures to exercise important human virtues (whether or not this is due to a vice or an innocent injury). But some philosophers in ancient Greece taught that we should try to give up desires and attachments –not all Stoics did, but some saw this as an important goal. Even so, the person you are describing may not so much be in the grip of a philosophical theory, as much as they are suffering from a disorder that has an organic or chemical base.
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