If you lack empathy are you bad if you make up for it?

If you lack empathy for others but try to be a good person to make up for it does that still make you a bad person?

Yes always 13
No never 38
Other 15
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Comments ( 17 )
  • green_boogers

    You can choose to be good. People should be judged on what they do.

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  • seakelp

    Here's a secret that people don't like to talk about: empathy is as much learned/grown as it is inherent (if not more so).

    If you find yourself lacking empathy for your fellow humans, work on it- put some effort into the thing. You'll be amazed. The key with empathy is that you realize that people really aren't that different from each other, and also that you're a person.

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    • (s)aint

      Really? I'm "sadly" really emphatic and the smallest sad story can make me cry my eyes out.
      I can't really recall this being something that I have learned- I have just always been like this.

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  • Cuntsiclestick

    Lacking empathy doesn't make you a bad person. Some people just don't feel over certain things. Trying to be "good" wouldn't make them bad either.

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  • sega31098

    Hitler had empathy.
    Sherlock has none.
    Which one do you think is better?

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    • How did Hitler have empathy?

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  • Lacking empathy doesn't make you bad.

    I'm a good example of this. I don't seem to have much empathy and don't have much emotion, although I do have a bit. At the same time I do good things. Its not to make up for anything though. Doing the right thing simply makes more sense than being a dick head.

    You don't need emotion to do the right thing. The right thing is usually simply the logical choice.

    Peoples thoughts do not make them bad.

    What makes someone a bad person is their negative actions.

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  • GiveMeAFuckingNameAlready!

    I don't know what this is called so I'll make something up. 'The Constantine effect" - Trying to buy ones way into heaven. Doing good but not meaning it, or because its socially acceptable. Is not the same as doing good because it comes naturally and you want to.

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    • Yes, and I never said it was.

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  • cupcake_wants

    Empathy is very important to have! If u dont u create bad karma, & if thats the case its so not worth it in the end.

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    • Bad karma comes from bad deeds. So doing good deeds because you know its correct vs doing good deeds because you care would not give you bad karma. That isn't how "Karma" even works. Before you start using words you don't understand try looking them up. You are on a computer. Should not be that hard.

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      • cupcake_wants

        I understand a lot better than YOU understand what i'm talking about. Your condescending approach doesn't make you righr. I'm old enough to have been there, done that many times over, plus I have studied buddism and that philosophy on karma. When you dont have empathy in general it is not necessarily, directly related to your karma, i'll give you that. However, the lack of empathy can make u not care about what happens to others & very commonly leads to bad karma.

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        • No you don't. Also if Karma did work that way that would say no one should ever do good deeds. Not everyone is inherently generous, or overly emotional or love everyone or have a perfect moral compass.

          So you really cant expect the entire world to do good things because they feel like it. This would also destroy every system that implements Karma. Such as Christianity.

          "Do good things you go to heaven" or "Do bad things and go to hell". Sin is doing bad things you know are bad but you want to do. Which is how many religions work. Such as reincarnation. "If you do good in this life you will become something better in the next life".

          Avoiding sins is not doing the right thing even if you don't feel like it. So no karma is doing a good thing not doing a good thing because you want to.

          Christianity works on a system of karma. So if Karma is based on if someone wants to do good there is no point in trying to be a good person.

          Since that says we are all doomed from the very beginning and there is no use in doing good. Meaning that would break the system. So no karma is bad vs good deeds. Not if someone cares to do those deeds.

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  • Trying to be good for your lack of empathy doesn't make you "good", perhaps it makes it less bad and perhaps you can't be blamed, but still not "good", just unfair/

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  • ParadiseLost1323

    Lacking empathy doesn't automatically make you a bad person, though.

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  • lolol555

    In the first place, imo, a lack of empathy doesn't make you a bad person since you can't help not having it.

    And for doing good deeds:
    "It's not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me."
    Haha..

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  • Crusades

    I can have empathy for pretty much all people besides gay people. When something horrible happens to a gay person i cannot help but giggle a bit at the thought. You can have a fag experience the most brutal death that your brain can ever fathom, i simply cannot feel any kind of sympathy for them.

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