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The Human Experience

Empathy & Sympathy

James R. Robinson asks, how do they relate, and how do they differ?

‘Empathy’ and ‘sympathy’ are often used interchangeably, because they are related terms. However, they differ in some important ways, which I hope to make clear. Affections are the star of the show in this article, because my explanation of empathy and sympathy as emotional mechanisms rests upon them being different ways of relating to affections. So I will first attempt to explain what affections are, then why affections are important for understanding empathy and sympathy, before then explaining how empathy and sympathy relate, and how they are different.

Contrasting Affections to Passions

Affections are, simply put, the mental expression of emotions. Five examples are enthusiasm, resentment, forgiveness, attention, and love. I’ll get into the details of some of these examples later. For now, I think one of the most efficient ways to explain affections is to contrast them with passions.

On the definition I’m using, a passion is an involuntary feeling arising in the body. Passions are responses to adrenaline surges or directly to physical causes. My (unusual) example is the passion of a pain felt whilst cooking: specifically, the sensation felt in response to touching a very hot pan on the stove. This feeling is clearly involuntary – we do not choose to feel the sensation of being burnt. (This does not rule out having control over our passions in certain senses: anger is a passon but it can be controlled or even channelled.) Moreover, this feeling is also undoubtedly physical, as it manifests itself within the part of the hand exposed to the heat. There will also likely be visible evidence of blistering on the skin, or worse.

Affections are different from passions because affections are mental and voluntary. By ‘voluntary’, I mean that an affection is always willed – it is not felt involuntarily, as passions are. By ‘mental’, I mean that an affection is of the mind, and, consequently, immaterial; it has no material form in the way that a passion does. It’s important to recognise that here I am talking strictly in terms of the mind, not of happenings in the brain, though no doubt the feeling of having affections – the feeling of feelings – correlates with neurological activity. Whilst the passions manifest uncalled-for in the physical body (imagine the feelings of being burnt, or of hunger), affections are subjectively lively emotional states. Additionally, affections can persist over a long period of time, in the form of attitudes, or as dispositions. In these senses then, affections are clearly in contrast to passions.

There may be a grey area between the two types of response, or it’s at least possible to envisage one: imagine a passion of love combined with an affection of love, or an affection of enthusiasm combined with a passion which comes from adrenalin. Would it be easy to draw the line in such cases? However, for the purposes of maintaining a clear focus, I’ll treat affections and passions as separate.

Some Examples of Affections

To help us understand affections better, I have a couple of examples I’d like to explore. The first involves resentment and forgiveness; the last, diligent attention.

Giving up the affection of resentment towards another person is a free act of our will which must be successfully performed before one can feel a real affection of forgiveness toward that person. Imagine the feeling of relief that can come if someone forgives us for a mistake; and then imagine providing someone else with that same feeling as we forgive them. Ideally then, in order to truly forgive, we must freely feel the forgiveness. One mechanism which attempts to inculcate the attitude of forgiveness is the line in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us” – the point being that we only ought to be forgiven if we forgive others.

Where this affection of forgiveness comes from or as to where the affection of resentment goes once we let go of it, are questions I cannot adequately answer here. One possibility, however, is that affections lie dormant in the mind, and that we can pick from those available to us and choose to make them active.

One example of the power of affection is in our ability to concentrate. Specifically, I singled out the disposition of ‘diligent attention’ as a necessary companion to working efficiently. I note from the etymology of the word ‘diligent’ – derived from the Latin verb diligere: to love or hold dear – that it is easier to be diligent in one’s attention (or it is easier to ‘pick’ that affection) if one loves what one is doing, although it’s not necessary to love what one’s doing in order to be diligent in one’s attention. Nevertheless, if one does not like one’s task, or if one is tired, or for any number of other rational or irrational reasons, it will be harder to prioritise that attitude of diligent attention.

It is also worth noting that affections do not come for free. For example, after a long spell of focusing diligently, one can have passions of tiredness, which reduce one’s mental ability to concentrate effectively.

Image © Miles Walker 2025 Please visit mileswalker.com

Empathy, Sympathy, & Affections

Now let’s turn at last to empathy and sympathy. The definitions I’ll propose are my own, but I believe they capture the way most people use these words. I define empathy as the entering into or the sharing of the affections of another person (though remember that empathy can only be an approximation of what the other person is feeling, not a reproduction of it). I define sympathy as affections of loyalty, favour, and/or support towards another person.

Empathy evidently serves a pragmatic purpose. If we’re able to share the affections of those around us, then we’re better able to understand them and navigate the social world. At least we will have some idea, be it only an approximation, of how others are feeling. This is undoubtedly useful socially. For example, it would well serve an interviewer to be empathetic with their interviewee in order to draw out their best answers or lead them down a certain path. This is independent of (though equally, does not rule out) the interviewer also having sympathy. So then, someone may want to be empathetic in order to achieve a particular result. To put it more cynically, if someone knows how a person is feeling, then they can more effectively manipulate that person in order to achieve a specific goal.

Since affections are voluntary, this implies that both empathy and sympathy are freely felt. This means that to feel either empathy or sympathy is a choice. In the case of empathy, we can choose whether or not to have a subjective mental state which is an approximation of the affections of another person. And in the case of sympathy, we can choose whether or not to have a subjective mental state which supports, favours, or is otherwise loyal towards another person.

This raises some interesting ethical questions, as we may choose to feel or not feel empathy and/or sympathy with others depending on the nature of our relationship with them. Perhaps they are my friend, partner, mother or colleague, so of course I have a significant relationship with them; or my neighbour, in either the literal or the Biblical sense, or both. Or perhaps the sight of sorrow in a stranger’s face places compels me to act. I invite you to think of your own examples. Moreover, what form or what way support and favour can be manifested can vary. Depending on the situation, the best form of sympathy might change: sometimes people need a helping hand or someone to be there for them; or validation or to be actively listened to; other times encouragement or a pep talk; or indeed constructive criticism or a reconciliation with the reality of what they have done.

It is worth exploring why empathy and sympathy are affections and not passions. Ultimately, the answer will come down to affections being voluntary and passions not. However, there is value in providing a counter-example of sorts, and seeing why it fails.

Let’s imagine you have a friend who has cut his head open and is losing blood. He will certainly be experiencing passions of pain. If we were to define empathy not specifically as sharing affections, but rather as sharing emotions in general, including passions, then to have empathy with him we too would need to experience similar passions of pain. However, this does not match reality. Quite clearly, when someone else is in physical pain, one does not generally feel a reproduction of their pain. Rather, the only notable source of similar physical feelings is via remembering similar physical pains we’ve had in the past. (According to my research, this idea is first attributable in writing to Anastasia Philippa Scrutton’s 2013 article, ‘Divine Passibility: God and Emotion’.) But remembering physical feelings does not meet the criteria for empathy because remembering a physical feeling is never the same as feeling a physical feeling!

In the last analysis, passions are involuntary and therefore cannot be ‘picked from’ voluntarily, as affections can be. In any case, and nevertheless, this does not prevent us helping our physically hurt friend. We can bandage his wound, give him a painkiller, and take him to the hospital if necessary. Consequently, the question raised is where do the empathy and sympathy lie in instances of other people’s passions?

That’s actually a trick question, for there can be no empathy or sympathy with passions per se, at least according to the definitions I have proposed here. We can only have affections of empathy or sympathy with other peoples’s affections. I will, however, show where I think empathy and sympathy do lie concerning people experiencing passions of pain. First, I will propose, it’s via feeling empathetic with the affections that accompany those passions of pain.

Differences Between Empathy and Sympathy

Given the definitions I’m using, there are some clear differences between empathy and sympathy. As we saw, we cannot technically feel empathy for people who are feeling physical pain, as that pain is a passion, and so involuntary, and not something that can be voluntarily evoked. However, that does not rule out feeling empathy with any related affections. For example, after suffering an onset of severe back pain whilst at work, a father may be unable to drive to collect his children from school. He may call a fellow parent who has children at the school to ask if she’ll pick up his kids instead. Whilst this other parent will not be feeling the physical pain, she will surely share the affection of concern that the father undoubtedly has about his children. That would be empathy. The friend may then also develop their own affections of support, such as wanting to help the father further. That would be sympathy. Such sympathetic affections can be evidenced by her saying that it’s ‘no problem’ for her to pick up the children, for example. The practical action is separate from the sympathy, but it was sympathy that led to the action. Moreover, it’s clear that it was via empathy for the concern that sympathy, and then later practical action, was obtained.

Does Empathy Always Lead To Sympathy?

It is not necessarily the case that empathy will lead to sympathy – that sharing feelings will always produce feelings of support. It could be that a person is very empathetic, easily entering into the feelings of another, yet they then don’t know how to be sympathetically supportive (or decide not to be). This may be because they do not have a significant relationship with this other person according to their standards, and thus are not brought to sympathy. Or it may be because their relationship with the other person is explicitly bad , and they actively decide to not have sympathy. Or perhaps they simply don’t want to invest the energy: they’re tired or busy, or maybe they’re just being selfish. Affections do not come for free, either in terms of mental energy, or especially when practical action is needed – so feeling sympathy for others does clearly have a limit.

Associations & Relationships

The examples for empathy and sympathy I have given in this article have revolved around instances of pain, concern, and worry, and possible attempts to alleviate those negative affections. However, positive affections such as enthusiasm and love (the latter not always being strictly positive!) can equally be shared via empathy, and then also built upon and reinforced by sympathy, via feelings of loyalty and favour. A group of friends, family, colleagues, or of likeminded people in a sports club, or a work group, etc, provide obvious, clear, and natural examples of more positive situations.

Some fascinating examples can arise for different types of relationships. For example, a person may have a connection to someone in the sense that they think of them as their neighbour in the moral or biblical sense, yet they might not even like them very much personally. In this sense, a person may be empathetic, may also be sympathetic, but out of a sense of moral duty rather than out of personal fondness. Indeed, all sorts of relationship combinations and responses are possible. I encourage you to think of your own – if you sympathise with the idea.

James Robinson lives in Somerset, England, and is working towards becoming a financial adviser. He developed many of the ideas in this article in his MA thesis, which he wrote whilst living in The Netherlands. It can be found here: https://doi.org/10.17613/ec8j4-vtk48.