What about animals that are known to have emphatic behavior and are fully capable of making non instinctual choices yet will gladly be very cruel (e.g. wolves, dolphins)?

No contradictions here. You don't even have to go to the animal realm. There are some humans who are capable of empathy towards some people but happily inflict pain on other people. This however should not be an argument for the rest of us to behave in a cruel manner towards anybody.

-Some- humans? Have some humility. Everyone shows empathy towards some and aggression towards others.

Not everyone deserves empathy, either.

> Not everyone deserves empathy, either.

Could you expand on that? I’m always curious to understand how other people think about these issues.

If I see people that are with causing folks around them pain, of whatever type, my usual suspicion is that they suffered some sort of massive pain or trauma themselves that they never found a healthy way to deal with.

I'm not the GP, but I think what he means to say is that the in the realms of human nature and free association, empathy is not a default nor should is it required to be. My expansion on this thinking is that, with respect to Earth's total population, there are very few that one would concern himself with and, thus, fewer still who are granted any such depth of thought that could be considered empathy.

Humans are known to have empathic behaviour, yet can also be extremely cruel. Are you suggesting we should therefore take a regressive approach to societal development and do our best to mimic dolphin cruelty?

No, because that’s ridiculous. There are humans that can be cruel but I’m not saying humanity should mimic this. I’m saying that humans are much more developed than animals and can do better. Just because there are outliers that doesn’t mean the notion is invalid.

I don't think that would result in a better society but I think I can be convinced. We could instead also uphold the dolphins to our standards and give them the same rights and responsibility as any human. I would love to live in a world where we made dolphins pay tax.

I feel like empathy is used in confusing ways in the last 10 years or so. I consider empathy to be no different than theory of mind, a faculty all apes share, that is, we can model other people's states of mind. But whether most people are sympathetic, that is, in the strict etymological sense of the term, feel or identify with another's suffering, is a rather contextual, diverse phenomenon.

The C-level and oligarchs of the world tends to be highly empathic, hence their politicking skills, persuasion, observational skills and general theatre, but not particularly sympathetic.

Twitter is a mix of demonstrations of high empathy/low sympathy and every other permutation

Dolphins gang rape their females. Would you advocate that humans therefore do the same?

If not, then obviously the normative argument of “well, lots of animals do it...” isn’t nearly morally sufficent for human behavior.

Why did you ask such a ridiculous question?

Reductio ad absurdum. It's a tactless demonstration that one shouldn't view animals as moral paragons.

moral is not an absolute. everybody who claims different is either incapable of or simply refuses to see the whole picture. moral is always biased and based on socio-political goals, under guarantee not meant for every entity on the planet.

depending on the socio/political background it is just to erase individuals who do not comply with the societys goal / judification system, speaking of death penalty or in other situations disbelievers & heretics. even in non-radical ethnocultural religious systems it is justifyable to use entities who are regarded of lesser value. or - if one belongs to the wrong political faction - it is also ok and just to strip away any so called basic human rights (just call sb a terrorist and therefor a prisoner of war, and - tadaa - it is ok to do so). guidances such as some in stone written rules are also not for the greater good, but to keep sheeps in line and not to support any outgroups. other ideological ideas/works/concepts/books are always used to support ones own position and goals. "humanism" is just another word for a moral ethical system which puts one sentinent species above other sentinent species.

in other words any moral is as good as the other. be it based on abstract concepts, words believed to be from higher entities or taken from animal kingdom. in the end the one who sits at the non-dangerous end of a gun is the one who is right.

if you want something absolute take this:

the one thing that we learn from history, is that we do not learn from history.

It’s not about animal rights - it’s about human responsibility.

> Humans (should) have empathy for others

It seems you forget that not only humans are capable of feelings and empathy.

A monkey is walking by a river. It sees a lot of fish in a shallow area. The monkey makes its way there and starts grabbing them. One by one the monkey grabbed the fishes and put them up in tree branches.

Why would the monkey do such thing?

Well, you see, the monkey was saving the fish from drowning. What an empathetic creature!