Niklas Lehmann comments on New book — “Suffering-Focused Ethics: Defense and Implications”

[Niklas Lehmann]

I often find it very depressing to deeply think about suffering focused ethics. You have written yourself that it might be natural not to give too much thought to extreme suffering because too much of it may cause damage to your psyche. Have you found a way to reframe your thinking about suffering focused topics so that they do not seem so dark compared to a moral view that is highly motivated by positive feelings or a distant utopia ?

[Magnus Vinding]

Thanks for your question, Niklas. It’s an important one.

The following link contains some resources for sustainable activism that I’ve found useful:

https://​​magnusvinding.com/​​2017/​​12/​​30/​​resources-for-sustainable-activism/​​

But specifically, it may be useful to cultivate compassion — the desire for other beings to be free from suffering — more than (affective) empathy, i.e. actually feeling the feelings of those who suffer.

Here is an informative conversation about it: https://​​www.youtube.com/​​watch?v=CJ1SuKOchps

As I write in section 9.5 (see the book for references):

Research suggests that these meditation practices [i.e. compassion and loving-kindness meditation] not only increase compassionate responses to suffering, but that they also help to increase life satisfaction and reduce depressive symptoms for the practitioner, as well as to foster better coping mechanisms and increased positive affect in the face of suffering.