Welcome to the Untangled Mind podcast. This is Piper Harris. Empathy has become the emotional currency of our time. We're told it makes us good, moral human beings. But what if empathy without boundaries, without discernment, actually leads us astray? This is the fourth installment of the empathy series. Over the last three conversations, we've explored empathy's physiology, its cognitive traps, and its cultural distortions. Today we're taking it one step further from empathy to ethics. Because empathy may open the door to care, but ethics decides what happens once you walk through it. I'm Piper Harris, and this is Untangled Mind Podcast. Let's get to it. Well, hello, hello, hello. Welcome back. So today we're jumping into the fourth of my empathy series, fourth podcast. If you haven't been able to keep up, be sure to go back and listen to those. I had a few stops in between. So today we're going to be talking about what I see as an issue with empathy. So with the empathy series, we're talking about just some kind of slippery slopes that we can get into. And today we're really talking about ethics. Now, ethics is one of those areas that are sharply contested and debated across all people and all times. So I'm going to do my best to untangle this and hopefully I can be clear. So when we've been talking about empathy, we know that a lot of times it dominates our understanding of goodness, right? So oftentimes we begin to equate the feeling with morality, right? The feeling of empathy. And I'm saying empathy is not the stopping point. Remember our ladder where we talked about that we've got our sympathy and empathy and compassion. So sympathy, comp empathy, compassion, I'm screwing it all up. But what I'm saying is that empathy can tend to dominate. And then all of a sudden, our understanding of goodness, goodness becomes like a thought of morality. So we might say things like, Well, if I feel your pain, therefore I am compassionate, or um, I feel offended, therefore I am right. But emotion, um, like we've talked about many, many times, while it's powerful, it is not a compass necessarily. Or it's um maybe the initial compass, you know, when you see that on the shows where the little compass, the little um arrow, you know, is kind of bobbling back and forth. Think about that as emotion. It's kind of pointing us in the correct direction, but it's not exactly the right direction. So um emotion is powerful, but it's not a compass and it doesn't point um everywhere at once. And that's the tendency of emotion sometimes. So, ethics, what I want to argue, is what gives us direction to that feeling. It asks not just how do I feel about this, but what is right, even if it costs me. I think um the difference that I see, especially in today's society, it's like, well, I feel this is right, therefore this is ethical. There's just um what is the cost to me? There is, there's not really a whole thought process all the way through it, I believe. Um, truly one of the grounding points of how I use ethics is what will this cost me? Um, there should be a significant cost when we're exercising a discerned ethic. We'll get into that. So if you think about this, empathy kind of lights that spark and ethics then directs the flame. So at its core, ethics is the discipline of determining what's right, good, and just in human behavior. So it's both a system of moral principles and the reasoning process we make to or we use to make decisions that align our principles. So let's talk about what ethics is. Ethics formally is the branch of philosophy that studies moral values and rules, and it's concerned with what humans ought to do and the reason for those choices and the standards by which actions are judged as right or wrong. Now, you you noticed my inflection on ought. With CBT, we know musts, oughts, shouldn't, shoulds, shoulds, um, that can tend to be a cognitive distortion. This is why ethics is so strongly debated amongst groups, amongst people, uh across the time, because we it's it's a branch of philosophy. So we can argue about this forever. So let's just talk about this. Here's how ethics kind of breaks down. So there's moral philosophy, and this is the study, the theoretical study of right and wrong, good and evil, virtue and vice. That's the moral philosophy. Um, the second is there's a moral reasoning. And so this is the cognitive process of applying these principles to real life dilemmas. Next, we have applied ethics. So this is how those moral standards operate in specific domains, so like counseling, um, medicine, law, or even leadership. And then finally, there's ethical discernment. And this is the ability to evaluate not only um the outcome of decision, excuse me, but it's also based on intent, integrity, and consistency with truth. Now, again, I'm doing the best I can here as I was writing this podcast out. I'm like, I'm just gonna piss people off no matter what. Um, and so what I want to say is I believe in one truth. I will not get into the discussion of perception as reality. Um, I go along the side of moral philosophy, the studying of right, wrong, good, and evil virtue and vice, moral reasoning. Um, mine is very different from Joe Schmo. So I know I'm just gonna tick off many, many people. Just try, I really did try. Just try to stay with me. So I want to give you a um kind of something to think about, a problem. Now, if you've ever taken a philosophy class or the ethics class, you've heard this. So let's call it the trolley problem. So let's make it real. Imagine this: you're on a runaway trolley and it's hurling down the track towards five people. Now, you can either pull the lever to divert the trolley and save five people. But if you do, as you pull the lever, there's someone in the way, and that will then hit that one person standing there. So it's either five to one. What do you do? This is a moral reasoning problem. So most people, we really freeze, not because we lack an empathy, but because empathy and ethics collide. So that's why this trolley problem, they've done it with a train, they've done all kinds of stuff. Um, that's why this these more uh moral reasoning problems can be so difficult. And then essentially, I've been in classrooms where we have argued hours on a problem like this. Um, because it's like, well, if you choose the one over the five, then you're determining that the five are not as good as the one. And what if one out of the five goes on to, like I heard one guy say, what if one of the five was to go on and kill baby Hitler, but we chose the one, and so then we're still left with Hitler. Like it becomes very uh lively, and then it becomes ridiculous. But this really is where we struggle, right? This is the difference between the struggle between when empathy and ethics really hit. So empathy is screaming at us like, don't hurt anyone and the what ifs. What if we save the five? No, what if we save the one and we don't save the five? I mean, it's it's all of these things, and ethics is that thing that kind of whispers, but what saves the most lives? This is such an enormous issue that we are faced in our lives for many people in the helping industry. Uh, we can see this with um in the medical industry, we can see this in police, we can see this in fire. They're constantly butting up against this moral dilemma. What do I do when um I know that, say, like, oh, for example, I was watching one of my favorite shows last night that came back on um Fire Country. And it shows that the whole family they go into this big fire, and um the the Italian chief gets lost in the fire and they all freak out and he loses his life. And they're all screaming, like, you should have left me in there. Why didn't you let me go in there? You know, they're they're screaming, and it's like everybody was doing the best they could in explaining because to lose you means we'd lose more, and then they're fighting. But what if I could have saved him? It was this whole thing. So that's the moral dilemma. But really, ethics is really that really tough place, like in this show Fire Country, where we have to make the call saying, You sit this one out. I know your dad's in there more than likely burning alive, but I have to save your life too. So that's the tension that many people feel. Many people feel in these situations. It's that twisting in your stomach, that uncertainty. Um, but what I want to say is that feeling, that that tension, that's the birthplace of discernment. And ethics lives in that discomfort. It's the moment when the feeling and the reason wrestle for control. It's very difficult to stand in that tension. So let's talk about the neuroscience of moral reasoning, since that's really what we're talking about, ethics. So, in moments like I've talked about, your brain literally lights up with the conflict, right? So the amygdala and the insula, these are the centers of pain and empathy and threat. They go into major overdrive. Meanwhile, meanwhile, the prefrontal cortex or the dorsolateral PFC that's responsible for logic and executive functions, it begins calculating outcomes. So these two systems are really rarely in harmony. So empathy pulls for comfort, whereas ethics pushes for clarity. So it's very difficult. It's very difficult. And this is where we come up with um and we confront moral injury. So I see this a lot of times that people come to me and their PTSD scores are off the charts. I can do all the EMDR, we can do all of our, you know, cognitive processing, we can do all the reframing, and we can do all of things, but ultimately people get stuck. And that's really that stuckness in almost this moral injury. So they have the flight or fight systems, but they also have this other moral system, morality system on overdrive. And so they're they're pulling, they're pulling at each other, and it causes immense pain for people. Immense pain. So empathy pulls us for comfort. And even though that's that sounds odd with like the fight or flight, comfort means I'm going to avoid the situation, right? It doesn't have to be warm and cuddly. So empathy is pulling us away, whereas ethics does tend to push us to clarity unless we get stuck like in a moral injury situation. I wrote a blog about that today. If you want to read more about that, we'll go into that in um further episodes. So healthy moral morality, excuse me, requires both emotion to signal what's mat what matters, and reason to decide what's right. So we do need emotion to signal what matters and reason to decide what's right. Emotion is a signal, it is not um necessarily a clarifier. I watched all those really crappy um reality TV shows, all the crappy ones. Um, and when I hear them say, but I I just feel this way in these situations. And I I giggle at those shows. I don't know why I watch them, it's brain dead time, but I giggle to myself, I'm like, you ain't feeling nothing other than probably below the belt, um, not to be crass. But also it it they're it's just a signal and they're not leaning into what's it actually telling me. Most of the time when you watch these reality TV shows, and yes, I'm talking about like Bachelor and all that, um, the feeling of like love is actually an indication of where they're missing something um and they've just not done the work. So um again, emotion could signal to what matters, and then reason is um what helps us to decide what's right. So that's the integration, emotion and reason working together, and that's what really makes true compassion sustainable. That you know, we gotta get to that final rung. We gotta work toward action. So I'll give you a vignette vignette. Um, I once was um talking to a colleague and she had an extraordinarily suicidal client. I will say awesome suicidal ideation. Um, and this client would text all hours. I mean, desperate for constant reassurance. And so, out of empathy, my colleague, she would respond every single time. Every single time. And eventually what happened is she became extraordinarily burned out. She was very resentful. And then she also in turn became terrified to set limits with this client. So ethically, you know, her job is not to endlessly be available, right? It's to maintain boundaries to keep both her and her client safe. So empathy, what she was practicing is I'll be there, I'll be there, I'll be there, I'll be there, right? But ethics really says I'm going to be steady for you. And so when she realized this, um, she had to learn to tolerate her guilt long enough to hold those limits, her guilt, her fear. And ultimately what happened, the client actually improved and the therapy actually stabilized. So that's what ethics does, right? It turns emotional impulse into a moral strength. Um, and so it's a a lot of us as therapists have to traverse this with clients that have high um ideation. It's very difficult because in the back of your mind is like, well, but what if this is the time? And again, it's it is, it's a very hard place. Remember when I talked about that tension sending in that tension um of like how I feel and what do I do. Uh, but eventually she was able to figure that out. So here's another vignette. This is kind of the parenting paradox that we see so much right now. So this think about this as the parent that enables their um adult child's addiction. I see this a lot. So the empathy that they're feeling is saying, I just can't manage to see them suffer anymore. So that could be looking like I'm gonna give them food because they say they need to pay their bills, but they go, you know, buy crack, or it could like look like, well, I'm gonna let them live in my basement and they're stealing my things to go buy more drugs, whatever that is. So that empathy really becomes um enabling. And so the ethics that they um the parent needs to uh lean into is like if I keep rescuing my child, I'm protecting the addiction, not my child. That's what ethics says, but it's so hard, right? It's that tension, that tension of I love my child dearly and I want to say that save them, and ethically saying I have no control over saving this human being. And what does it cost me? Remember that cost question. What does it cost me to maintain protecting this addiction? We've gotta take that that um moral pain, that ache, right? The ache of loving rightly instead of easily. It's really compassion with a backbone. Um, I saw a woman in a Facebook group the other day and I didn't respond because I just I I I hurt for her. She was talking about her daughter. It was an anonymous post, so um, her daughter um isn't Goth, she said, or emo, emo. And um the daughter refused senior pictures, and then she said she would do senior pictures, but she wanted to do them in a graveyard. And the gal said she's been going through a really a lot, and I want to support her, but I think that she's gonna really regret this when she's older. But then, you know, she's really fascinated with psychology, and I just don't know what to do. And I was just reading some of the the posts or whatever, and it was interesting this morning as I was driving home from the gym, it just kind of popped into my mind, what would I say to mom if she was sitting on my couch? And I think what I saw in her writing on this Facebook post was really this moral dilemma. I love my child, I want to support my child, but I really, in my gut of guts, not my heart of hearts, my gut of guts tells me that this is not the right way to proceed and give her her way of seeing your pictures in a graveyard. And it gave her real concern. But then she was also like, but but I love my daughter and I don't want to lose her more. What if I say no and you know, I I lose her? So it's such a painful place to sit. And if she was sitting on my couch, I would have her do basically a cost cost-benefit analysis. What does it cost you to allow your daughter to go to graveyard? What does it cost your daughter? What is the benefit of letting letting her go to the graveyard? And let me be clear benefits aren't always good, it just means what comes. The benefit would be that the daughter got her way, correct? Could the benefit also be that it continues to inform her daughter's thought processes, which are the very things that are worrying mom? And then I do the opposite. What's it cost to say no? What's the benefit of saying no? So it's it is, it's that real moral dilemma that so many of us get entangled in. So I think ethics can be our so-called moral muscle. I often tell my clients that empathy is really that raw material of care, but ethics is its discipline. So it's um the gym where empathy builds strength. So every time you choose truth over comfort, and I'll be clear on truth over comfort, you have to do the work to understand your biases. Okay. Um you have to choose truth over comfort, principle over impulse. That's a big one. That means you're you're working out that moral muscle, right? You're working it out. That's moral weightlifting. So it's very uncomfortable, it burns. Um, all of the the kind of analogies that we see out of the gym. But that is how um I would say character forms through resistance. Character is not formed in a group that is constantly screaming empathy by ethical precepts. When everybody's thinking the same, you don't own your own character. This is a group's character identity. Does that make sense? So it's really important for us to wrestle with these things to clearly create who and what our character is. So most people um I find avoid ethics because it demands discomfort. And again, um, you know, there's there's this has been contested and debated for centuries, right? So this idea of ethics and morals. And so, you know, this area of ethics really does demand that we have discomfort and it forces us to tolerate guilt and possibly some ambiguity, or I mean, like the fear of being wrong, for example, the mom I just talked about. So empathy completely spares us that, it gives us instant gratification. So we feel good about feeling bad. That's where I see a lot of parents just give in to these kids. And it's like, okay, well, you spared yourself from feeling bad. They feel good for a moment, but what's the cost? So, you know, that comfort that does not define your character, and that doesn't give you that muscle, you know, that that strength to be able to traverse through these things. So we grow when we let ourselves sit in that tension long enough because what's right is not what's easy most of the time. 99.9% of the time. That's why moral reasoning feels so draining and it's a full body exercise and restraint. I mean, it really is. So I want to talk about a caveat because as I said, I know I'm gonna tick off some people, um, and this part might sting. Many people in my industry, in the therapeutic industry, proclaim ethics. But when you question what their ethical standing means, it typically comes down to two things. One, they don't like being challenged. And two, they haven't done their inner work to recognize their own biases. Okay. So a couple of examples. Um last year, and I talked about this, someone, um, who knows who um turned in a um, what do you call it, an allegation to the state for my business partner. Um, and one of the things the state board said is this is unethical. And I'm sitting there going, what's unethical? I I was so confused by what's what what what's not working here? We actually followed everything to the letter of the law. We were taking care of clients. I mean, like all of the things that were were mandated to do, we went through the ACA code of ethics, the AACC, A ACC code of ethics. I mean, I'm like, I I have no idea what they mean. What is unethical? I I don't understand because when I hear this is unethical, I'm hearing this is a charge against your integrity. And I that's a moral uh declaration against my character. And I was so confused. Like, I don't understand what's going on. And uh fortunately, fortunately, it was completely unfounded. Um, and whoever turned us in, I don't know, maybe they're gonna do it again. Um, but it was unfounded. The board learned there was nothing unethical going on, it was just they didn't like it because it hadn't been done before, but there was no ethical violation. So I found in that moment that they're proclaiming this is unethical. And I hear this a lot in my industry, but really what it is is I just don't like it. I just don't like it. So I'll give you another example. Um, just the other day, I was flipping through, you know, the gram or something, and I watched a therapist video, and she was super passionate and articulate and really clearly cared about empowering her clients. Now, listen, our political ideologies completely different. I differ. I don't know where her spiritual qualities are or where she lies there, but um, I really did appreciate her conviction and her tenacity for her work. I love watching her videos, that's why I follow her. Just because we might not align on anything everything doesn't mean that I don't think she's awesome, right? But here's where I struggled with her video. She all of a sudden shifted in this narrative and she says, I'm a liberation psychologist. So her argument was that clients have to learn to recognize the systems that keep them oppressed, and that this awareness, she said, was an ethical mandate. Okay, here's where I struggle. If your ethical framework keeps people focused on systems rather than their agency within them, are you helping them heal or are you reinforcing the very paralysis that you claim to oppose? I know this is gonna rustle some feathers. So if ethics becomes a mirror of your ideology rather than the measure of, say, integrity, it's no longer ethical reasoning, it's confirmation bias dressed in virtue. We've talked about this. The the toxicity of empathy turns into this virtue. So ethics requires self-interrogation, not self-righteousness, righteousness. Now, this is what I want to say. If you've built your truth on this liberation, okay, gotcha. I just wonder about the self-agency in it. Now, listen, my my ethical structure is based on my Christian beliefs. So anybody could oppose that too, right? That's Jesus Christ is the most contested figure in history. So, but I just that framework, it just it caught me. I'm like, wait a second, you're for the liberation of people, but you keep them forced into a conversation about the systems rather than provide them agency. I I just don't see how ethically you're helping them heal. I don't, I don't see it. So when our ethics becomes a mirror of our ideology rather than the measure of um, say our our integrity, it's no longer ethical reasoning. It's it's this confirmation bias dressed up as virtue. I'm sorry. Ethics does require some major work, some major work. It it demands that we test our beliefs, not preach them. We have to test those beliefs. Now, when it comes to Christianity, how do I test my beliefs? Well, you don't see Jesus, you don't see God.

You know, how do you test those? Fruit of the Spirit. I don't know.

So as a therapist, our job isn't to turn clients into reflections of our our convictions. If if they seek us out because we have similar beliefs, great, but our job is to lead them to discern their own convictions. We have to help them think and feel and act with autonomy. That's our ethical work. That's what we're asked to do. So I want to ask, is it truly ethical to practice to keep clients staring at the system, staring there, sitting there, or is it ethical to equip them to rise within it despite it? Now, therefore, see, this is a problem with the moral dilemmas, right? And the ethics, therefore, we can see, you know, riding in the streets, they're opposing those systems. Every single person believes this way. Or again, have we moved into this mass psychosis?

This is where the hard work is.

So, you know, you've heard me talk about the latter across the series. So empathy, sympathy, compassion. But I would, I really would say that like the final rung is ethics, or it's right there with compassion. So empathy means we feel another's pain, sympathy acknowledges it, compassion regulates it into action, and ethics disciplines it into the alignment with truth. So, what I want to say is empathy without um ethics is like consider water without banks, it floods and destroys. Ethics allows it to have shape and direction and power to nourish. That's that's what it is. And I think that our our culture um doesn't really struggle with a lack of empathy. I actually think that it struggles with a lack of discernment, ethical discernment. We see it absolutely everywhere. You know, in therapy, the clinicians confuse the validation with healing. In leadership, we can see this people choosing popularity over principle. And in activism, which we're seeing a lot of these days, we're seeing outrage that's replaced true understanding. So when discernment collapses, um empathy kind of fills that vacuum and the chaos completely follows. So if you can think about this, ethics will rebuild the walls. It's what um it's what says, like, I feel yes, but to think and weigh is to help me to decide. So for me, again, like I said, ethics, um, my ethics finds its grounding in faith, in my Catholic Christian faith. So I'm guessing that this absolutely would be called into question from many in my industry, which is highly secularized. But if if you would just hear me out. So scripture says in 1 Thessalonians, test everything, hold fast to what is good. So, what this is saying is testing requires discernment. And that really is the refusal to let emotion dictate truth. And here's the thing: this principle is not just confined to faith. So, where did, and then here we go again, where did ethics come from? Where did morals come from? But what I want to say, it's not just confined to Jesus Christ. The Stoics said the same thing. Marcus Durelius wrote, if someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth by which no one was ever truly harmed. Even Marcus Durelius is saying, Listen, if I'm wrong and I have blinders on and I'm not seeing this accurately, I will happily, happily change. Please help me find the truth. So that no one continues in my harm of maybe this blanket empathy. So that is the essence of ethical humility, what he said, right? It's to prefer truth over our ego, to prefer correction over comfort. Even Gandhi echoed this sentiment from a completely different tradition, right? He says an error does not become truth by reason by of multiplied propagation. Let me say that again. An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Do you hear this? So both men across time and worldviews agree with scripture.

Truth must be tested, not felt.

And if you want to look further, look to C.S. Lewis. When he said, when the whole world is running towards a cliff, the one who is running the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind. What's he saying there? That is actually ethics in motion. The courage to stand apart, to think clearly when the crowd is demanding this empathy and feeling. The one that's running away from the cliff is the one everybody says, look at that crazy guy, but they're all careening to the edge of the cliff. Who's crazy? So that's the work. That's the work of ethical compassion, ethical empathy. In counseling, ethics separates helping from enabling, right? I don't rescue clients from pain, I walk with them through it. I also challenge disorder thinking. It's not to shame them, it's to strengthen them. And I when I confront their avoidance, this is not cruelty, it's compassion that refuses to collude with their fear. But like I said, ethics often feels yucky. It feels like loss because it it denies us some sort of um moral indulgence, dare I say? It forces us to admit that um good people can cause harm through misguided care. That's the hard part, right? That's why these ethical moral dilemma debates go on and on and on and on. Yeah, but what about this person? What about that person? What about this person?

That is the tough place because unfortunately we are all human and we can't cause harm.

So when ethics starts to feel like loss, um we just we've got to start kind of leaning into that with ethics because it strips away the illusion that feeling deeply is enough. It really does. When you start to feel that tension, it is is trying to guide you to feeling deeply is not enough. And it asks us to grow to um trade our moral sentimentality for moral maturity. Oof. But here's the paradox. What feels like loss is actually liberation. Like the gal said she was a liberation psychologist. If you perpetuate the belief that they have had loss in a system, but all you talk about is a loss in the system, aren't you actually you know, emboldening the loss?

Does that make sense?

So once you're entered, you're anchored in ethics, you know, you're no longer at the mercy of emotion. Now, I mean, we all are emotionally driven, but it can give us that pump to the break before we act impulsively. So let me ask you a couple questions. Let's take a break right now. I hope I did okay with talking about this. I know it's a minefield. I'm a little worried about this one. So let's ask these questions. Number one, when have you chosen comfort over clarity? Because that's going to be that that empathy poll, right? Are you sitting in empathy because it feels good? There's comfort there, or you recognize it rather than clarity, which would be kind of this ethical challenge that I'm speaking to you about. Number two, where do you confuse feeling good with doing good? Ah, but what's doing good, Piper? Again, we're getting into the moral dilemmas. Number three, what area of your life needs moral muscle where discernment has to outweigh empathy? You gotta work out that that muscle, the ethical muscle. You have to. Otherwise, you're just on a runaway train of empathy. So these are the questions that will help you build ethical integrity. And it really is the foundation of both strong therapy and I believe strong humanity. I really do. I think part of my conquest, not conquest, that's not a quest, not conquest, quest, is to help my clients discern what are the principles that guide my life, what are the ethics that guide my life? What are those standards, those ethics? What, what, what do I need in my life? And I I hold on to those. It's really important for us to think about those things because I oftentimes people are landed into therapy because they've just been guided on this kind of empathy shift, right? And keeping in mind that it's really emotionally driven. And so it's either fight or flight, I'm running away, or it's leaning into maybe um bad relationships or you know, whatever it may be. Um, and so so it lands them in the therapy room. And my job is to help reveal some of those answers and some of those mechanisms mechanisms, excuse me, that have caused them harm. So, in closing, in closing, I want to give you a little visual. If you didn't know, I was born in Montana State, raised in the Pacific Northwest until 2006. So I love the river. I am a hippie at heart, y'all. Um, even though we didn't say y'all back there. Um, so I want to give you this imagery. So the river and its banks. So imagine this empathy is water, it's water, so it flows freely and it's nourishing everything it touches. It's wonderful, but without banks, without both bank lines, it floods and destroys.

The ethics are those banks. They don't limit your empathy, they just give it shape, they direct its energy toward life, sometimes a little chaos.

I don't think whitewater rafting, which is fun, but ultimately those ethics, those banks are ensuring that it doesn't flow over and hurt you. So, in a world obsessed with feeling, ethics reminds us that the truest form of care is actually truly clarity. That's what it is. So, thanks for joining me today. I'll see you next time. That brings us to the end of this episode. Thanks so much for joining me. Hi Perris with the Untangled Mind Podcast. I hope you learned some tools that can equip you to untangle your mind and untangle your life. If you're curious about working with me for your anxiety or trauma, head on over to my website, untangledmind.net, to connect with me. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review me on your podcast listening platform and share it with your friends and family. As always, thanks so much for listening to me, Pyper Harris with the Untangled Mind Podcast. I'll talk with you next time.