Mindfulness can help see through our baises toward selfish tendencies and increase empathy
Through out our lives we may learn ethical values that are based on (and subjectively biased toward) cultural and situational norms. By appealing to ethical judgments that all members of our human moral community would make if they were alert and unbiased, we can make sense of the idea that individuals and groups sometimes get the normative truth wrong, and that we sometimes get it right. Being able to see our subjective biases, which are born from our previous reactions, may be enough to help us learn a common human ethic.
The development of awareness entails a fundamental realignment of oneās sensitivity to the feelings, needs, longings and fears of others. Thus, mindfulness means empathizing with the condition and plight of others as revealed through an enhanced āreadingā of their bodies. This clarity is important for disrupting innate tendencies of selfishness, which in turn contributes to letting go of self-interested reactivity. If we can take off our blur-inducing glasses of self-focus and subjective bias, which lead us to habitually react to the world through fear, anger, and so forth, we will be able to see the results of our actions more clearly (by getting a better read from othersā body language), and we may respond more skillfully to each momentās unique circumstances.
References
- Brewer, Judson. (2017). The Craving Mind Chapter 8. Learning to Be Meanāand Nice (Location 2286). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Metadata
Type:š“ Tags: Psychology / Philosophy / Ethics Status:āļø