Selective empathy is a moral challenge.
Empathy, the capacity to feel and understand the emotions of others, is often heralded as the foundation of human morality. Yet, in practice, empathy is rarely distributed equally (and not everyone has it).
We sat on the rooftop terrace, usually bustling, as the evening dwindled and people began heading home. Surrounded by an impressive group of well-dressed individuals, it always feels special to be there: a world of its own. Soho House Berlin.
“I did not know he was from Israel,” she said.
“Me neither,” another hissed.
“But, he has nothing to do with what is going on there,” one replied.
“I don’t know where he stands. He did not say,” another chimed in.
All I could think, as my mind spun in conflict, were two simple words I never heard—no signal, no message—just a few passing mentions, in a very short span of time, of where he was from. A complex emotion or a signal we are all struggling to send.
That line. . . “We have nothing to do with this”. . .is all too familiar, echoing eerily of the rhetoric surrounding the events of World War II.
Selective empathy: we grieve more deeply for those who look like us, live near us, or share our values, while remaining indifferent to the suffering of distant or unfamiliar others. This phenomenon, known as selective empathy, reveals a fundamental tension between our emotional instincts and our ethical ideals.
From an evolutionary perspective, selective empathy may have emerged as an adaptive trait. Early human survival depended on tightly knit communities and empathizing with kin and in-group members fostered cooperation, resource-sharing, and collective defense.
This bias—toward those genetically or culturally similar—enhanced group cohesion and, by extension, reproductive success and in this way, natural selection likely favored individuals who felt more deeply for their own tribe than for “outsiders.”
Moreover, the human brain has cognitive and emotional limits. Empathizing with everyone equally is not only inefficient but potentially paralyzing, so evolution may have shaped us to allocate empathy selectively, focusing our concern where it yields the greatest survival value.
Thus, selective empathy, depending on the point in time of our evolution, is not necessarily a moral failing, but a byproduct of adaptive efficiency.
However, what once served small, ancestral groups now poses ethical problems in a globalized world because our ancient wiring clashes with modern moral responsibilities.
Selective empathy can fuel nationalism, racism, and indifference to large-scale suffering, and genocide. It contributes to unequal media coverage, biased humanitarian responses, and widespread moral apathy.
If empathy evolved to favor the few, morality calls us to expand it to the many.
Recognizing our biases is the first step toward transcending them. Through education, awareness, and deliberate practice, we can cultivate a more universal compassion—one that honors our biological roots but is not bound by them.
When we shift our gaze from Western philosophies toward the East, our moral apathy becomes all the more stark—if not outright alarming.
As Nia Quinn of Adhiyana Buddhism observes in The Human Path to Wisdom & Compassion: Embracing Suffering to Transform the World, this contrast lays bare the spiritual deficit at the heart of modern moral disengagement.
“We often see in the scriptures that when the Buddha speaks of a sentient being’s karmic conditions, he refers to what they did in a past life as a human, which profoundly influences their future lives. . .
Being vulnerable to harm allows one to relate to sentient beings who are also vulnerable to harm. Being subject to death allows one to relate to sentient beings who are also subject to death. Being prone to mistakes allows one to relate to sentient beings who are also prone to mistakes. If one were free from all these, would sentient beings believe they could walk alongside someone god-like? They would not. . .
The lineage of the Dharma is the lineage of blood. If the bloodline is severed, the Dharma lineage is severed as well.
The stark contrast between karma, dharma vs. the ego-driven pursuits so common in Western societies makes me question the roots of moral apathy—and why selective empathy seems to have evolved so much further in this context.
So, what to do with the awareness of moral apathy and how can we begin to recover from selective empathy? Here are some thought-starters:
Do you have a clear definition of morality?
Are you practicing selective empathy?
Do you notice selective empathy around you?
Can you call it out by name, without judgement or blame?
Are there echos of entitlement in any of the reasoning for it?
What can you do today to help someone outside of your immediate circle (without it being performative and excluding the option to throw money at an organization who will do the helping)?
What can you do today to embrace an eastern philosophy?
I hope these thought-starters bear fruit. We cannot save anyone, and I feel it is toxic to consume harmful media when many things are out of our hands, but we can do something, and something is better than nothing.
This week, I feel everything and the emotions are beautiful, with so much time and space to feel them.
My work is reaching more and more people, and in this way, I feel the energetic return, like a cosmic sound wave, carrying the heartbeat of galaxies and the tremors of eternity.
I find myself in a dance of give without expectation, and in return there is a lot of getting to share. . .I hope you enjoy these poems. I hope you, too, can give without expecting to receive.
The Circle
The sun peaks through—a truce.
The leaves whisper, I can trust you.
Sometimes I feel like a broken clock, around and around I go,
To be fixed but must keep time. To not be fixed, and kept.
Today, I feel everything. Something in the air cuts deep.
I will not give up on you. I did not give up on you.
I did not give up on me. The circle of life.
A Portal in the Grey
It’s not all bad I promise!
In a world of black & white,
My hand is outstretched —
A portal in the grey.
Here the brujas say
There is no time.
There is just the line to go
Over or under, or to sunder!
We can trust, I promise.
Without the ability to be
Honest, we will stay lost in
A sea of regrets.
That’s your choice. Faith —
I will never wag my finger
With some words like, "Can’t
you hear what I’m saying?!"
Carry grace. Here
We pray for rain.
Share this post