Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Humans also have strong emotional feelings toward
nonhuman animals. The easiest to understand in these
terms is the empathy we feel when animals are in pain.
We do not know for sure that they are in pain of course,
since they cannot tell us, but they act in ways similar to
the way humans behave when they are in pain and there
is every reason to believe that they feel pain in the same
way. Anatomical studies on animals confirm that many
of their nervous systems do not differ substantially
from those of humans, indicating that they feel pain.
Indirect measures, such as tomography, also support the
contention that animals feel pain in ways similar to
humans.
More problematic are the lower animals and plants.
There is some evidence that trees respond physiologically
when they are damaged, but this is far from certain. The
response may not be pain at all, but some other sensation
(if we can even suggest that trees have sensations). And
yet many of us are loathe to cut down a tree, believing
that the tree ought to be respected for what it is, a cen-
ter of life. This idea was best articulated by Albert
Schweitzer in his discussions on the ''reverence for life,''
or the idea that all life is sacred.
Empathy toward the non-human world cannot be
based solely on sentience. Something else is going on.
When a person does not want to cut down a tree because
of caring for the tree, this is certainly some form of
empathy, but it does not come close to the definitions
used by the psychologists.
The third problem with this definition of empathy is
that there is a huge disconnect between empathy and
sympathy. If an observer watches a subject getting
a finger pricked, the observer may know exactly what it
feels like, having had a similar experience in the past. So
there is great empathy. But there might be little sympa-
thy for the subject. The observer might actually be glad
that the subject is being hurt, or it might be funny to the
observer to watch the subject suffer.
Years ago on the popular television show ''Saturday
Night Live,'' there was an occasional bit where a clay
figure, Mr Bill, suffered all manner of horrible disasters
and ended up being cut, mangled, crumbled, and
squashed. Watching this may have elicited some empathy
on the part of the observers, but certainly there was no
sympathy for the destruction of the little clay man. His
destruction was meant to be funny.
We could argue that a lack of sympathy might indicate
that there must be a lack of empathy also. How is it
possible for someone to empathize with another person
getting a finger pricked, but think it to be humorous?
Perhaps there has been no empathy at all. Or perhaps we
have conditioned ourselves to laugh at others when they
get hurt as a defense mechanism (e.g., ''whistling in the
dark'') to somehow separate the violence from our own
experience. Or we have learned from and have become
desensitized by mass media and video games to destroy
others without regret.
Fairness
Empathy is not a moral value in the same way that loyalty,
truthfulness, and honesty are moral values. Each of us can
choose to tell the truth or to lie in any particular cir-
cumstance, and a moral person will tell the truth (unless
there is an overwhelming reason not to, such as to save
a life). But it is not possible to choose to have or not to
have empathy. One either has empathy or one does not.
One either cares for those in need or one does not.
Because we believe that empathy is worthwhile, and
respect and admire people who have empathy, we tend to
assign moral worth to this characteristic, and we believe
that people with empathy are virtuous. On the other
hand, we do not condemn those who do not have em-
pathy. For example, people who contribute to various
relief organizations such as CARE and Catholic Charities
do so because they have empathy for those in need, but
many people choose not to contribute. They lack some
measure of empathy for others in need, but this does not
make them bad people. They simply choose not to
contribute.
Can engineers not have empathy and still do good
engineering? That is, is empathy necessary for good en-
gineering? Certainly on a personal level, engineers read
the same newspapers and hear the same TV news as
everyone else, and thus their lack of empathy ought not
to be any more or less criticized than the lack of empathy
by anyone else. But the truth is that responsibility of
professional engineers is supererogatory to everyday
ethics. Engineering ethics is a different layer on top of
everyday common morality, and engineers share many
responsibilities not required of nonengineers. By virtue of
their training and skills engineers serve others and have
certain responsibilities that relate to their place in soci-
ety. The oft-quoted first canon in many codes of engi-
neering ethics
The engineer shall hold paramount the health, safety,
and welfare of the public
is very clear. It states that the engineer has responsibility
to the ''public,'' not to a segment of the public that fits
the design paradigm, or that segment that employs the
engineer, or that segment that has power and money. The
engineer is responsible to the public. Full stop. And in so
doing, the engineer must help that segment of the public
least able to look out for themselves. There is a
noblesse
oblige
in engineering, the responsibility of the ''nobles'' to
care for the less fortunate.
Thus, to be an effective and ''good'' engineer requires
that we be able to put ourselves in the place of those who
