Is there Runaway Empathy?

[Purple Knight]

Question for Debate: Can empathy go to far?



This video shows a good example: Activists protecting invasive species like grey squirrels, which leads to all the red squirrels dying.

Another example is people who are against punishment of any sort, and would have a serial killer go free and, if he wanted, kill more people.

Now, you could argue, that is not agape love, which some Christians were talking about. If you loved everyone, you would not want the murderer to go free, because he would kill others, who you also loved. The many simply win over the few and you lock him up and that's that. It doesn't have to be putting the murderer lower - he's exactly the same and exactly as deserving of love as his victims.

The real issue is the action versus inaction crowd. They cannot defend letting a serial killer go free based on love of the serial killer, but if they believe in a meaningful distinction between action and inaction, they can say without logical error that it is wrong to take any action against a murderer. Now, they're still not really a threat, because at this point you can lock up the murderer and they can't take action against you, because you're the same as the murderer now, and must remain free despite your horrid actions. However, there are two more subdivisions they need to turn into a very potent threat: Innocence versus wilful immorality (the murderer doesn't know better, but you who lock him up claim to be acting in accordance with morality) and forceful punishment being justified only against the willfully immoral. A pacifist who thinks that the sole good reason to attack someone is for not being a pacifist, is the apex moral strategy in that it can eliminate all the others. It is a grey squirrel in a world of inferior and less competitive red ones. Is this also an example of empathy gone off the deep end?