Morning Wire - The Empathy Debate: Virtue or Vice?

Episode Date: July 12, 2025

Author and theologian Joe Rigney joins us to explain why empathy, when untethered from truth, can become a destructive force disguised as virtue. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.   - - -   Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A growing conversation about the downside of empathy has ignited debate online and in the media. A string of books written from a Christian perspective have focused on how empathy can be weaponized to further certain political aims. In today's episode, we speak to author Joe Rigney about his new book, The Sin of Empathy, Compassion and Its Counterfeit. I'm Georgia Howe, and I'm joined by Cabot Phillips. It's Saturday, July 12th, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire. Joining us to discuss his new book, The Sin of Empathy, is Dr. Joe Rigney. He serves as fellow of theology at New St. Andrews College and is a pastor at Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho. Joe, thanks so much for coming on. Hey, thanks for having me on.

So you recently wrote a book called The Sin of Empathy, and it's gotten a lot of buzz in the mainstream press. First, give us an overview of what your book's about. Yeah, the basic overview is that the attempted upgrade of compassion to empathy over the last, 50 years or so, has been a corruption of a noble virtue by untethering it from what is true and what is good and from reality, which leads to emotional manipulation, emotional blackmail, and various ways that people are manipulated into supporting, endorsing, going along with affirming and celebrating, all sorts of things that are harmful, destructive, and evil, but do so in the name of empathy or compassion or whatever word you want to use. And so that's the basic thesis is that like all good

things, when compassion is untethered from what is true and good, it becomes destructive. Now, I notice that you tease apart compassion versus empathy. What would you say is the difference between those two? Yeah. So if someone's drowning in quicksand, compassion wants to reach in to help them, but remain tethered to the shore, grab onto a branch so that you can actually have something to brace on to pull them out. Whereas the demand of empathy is jump in with both feet.

You need to totally immerse yourselves and my feelings, experiences, totally identify, validate, and affirm everything that I'm feeling. Otherwise, you don't really love me. And so when I'm being more precise, I'll talk in terms of untethered empathy or unanchored empathy, empathy that has become detached

from what is true and from what is good, and therefore puts passions and emotions in the driver's seat, rather than having our passions and emotions conform to what is real. Now, your title, of course, is a little bit controversial calling empathy a sin. Do you want to give us a little context for that? Is it supposed to be sort of tongue-in-cheek to kind of get people talking? Or would you say that empathy can be viewed as a sin? No, I think I mean the same way that if I were to write a book on the sin of anger,

most people would recognize that there are good and bad forms of anger. There's anger that's governed, anger that's appropriate, and then there's anger that's ungoverned and anger that can get out of control. Or you could think of fear or other passions and other emotions, where we recognize there are good and bad versions. And so when I say the sin of empathy, I mean it. I mean that there are forms of empathy that are sinful, destructive, and harmful, similar to what Ali Beth means by toxic empathy,

but not that all desire to help those who are. are hurting or who are suffering is somehow bad. I'm in favor of compassion, of sympathy. I want to see people actually help others, but that actually requires us to have a certain emotional distance in order to determine what is good, what is healthy, what is right in this situation, as opposed to being governed by the immediate feelings and distress of the moment. Now, some of these questions are informed by a conversation I had with Megan Basham, who I understand you spoke to. She said that there's an interesting concept in your book that you called steering. Can you give an example of what you mean by steering and how it relates? So if you've ever been on the receiving end of a pity party

or a guilt trip, then you'll immediately know what steering means. So it's when someone takes advantage of your natural affection or your compassion in order to get you to do something that you otherwise wouldn't do or that in your better moments you recognize is harmful, destructive, and wrong. but they play upon your pity or your compassion or your natural affection. So a good example of this is when the medical establishment says to a parent who has a child who's been indoctrinated with gender ideology, say a boy who thinks he's now a girl. And the medical establishment comes to them and says, would you rather have a dead son or a live daughter in order to pressure them to doing chemicals or castrations or what have you? That's an example of steering. they're playing upon a good and natural parental emotion, love and affection for their child,

in order to get them to do something destructive to the child. And so that's a good example of the way that our emotions or our empathy or compassion can be, we can be steered by it to do things that are harmful. Now, that's a good example for a situation that a parent or a family might be in. But what about social movements? So how does it play out when it comes to, say, public opinion about certain things? Yeah, so oftentimes people steer us by our reputations. So, for example, conservative Christians often have a kind of insecurity about whether they're compassionate or not.

So in our culture, compassion and empathy are left-coded virtues. The left has sort of monopolized those and made people think that they are the compassionate ones. And so conservatives often feel an insecurity about this and are trying to play catch-up, which means that one of the ways to launder, progressive ideology into conservative institutions is to threaten them to say, if you don't support this, if you don't prioritize these issues, then you're not being compassionate. If you don't prioritize climate change or if you don't support amnesty for illegal immigrants, if you don't do these things, you're not being a compassionate person. And for those who, as Christians,

who want to follow Christ, who was compassionate, the model of compassion was compassionate toward us, we know that we ought to be kind and tenderhearted. We want to have that reputation and therefore the left has become very adept at holding that reputation over our heads in order to steer us. So there's a big steering wheel on the back of many conservatives that has to do with their reputation as someone who is kind, compassionate, empathetic, which is more about reputation and appearances and not about reality because the reality is that many of the left's policies are not compassionate and good for people. They're harmful and destructive, but when they're branded as compassionate, they can still be effective at laundering

them into conservative spaces. Now, one of the criticisms of your book has been that criticizing empathy is a little bit female coded and that some female voices are going to be the ones that are drowned out when we say to quash some of your toxic or sinful empathy. What's your response to that? Yeah, so the first thing I would say is that women are by nature the more empathetic and compassionate sex, which I think is a virtue. I think it's a great benefit. I think it's a design feature that God is built into male-female relationships. It's why women are great mothers, why they nurture and they

care, why they're often first responders when people are in pain. And I think this is all to the good. But when it comes to certain activities, certain responsibilities, for example, in a Christian church context, when it comes to guarding the doctrine of a church or the morality and ethics of a church, empathy can actually become a liability because if someone presents themselves to you as a victim, as someone who's been marginalized or oppressed, and therefore say your doctrines are hurtful.

When you say that marriage, for example, is between one man and one woman, or when you say that an unborn child has a right to life and therefore cannot be killed, that's hurtful to people. And if you've prioritized empathy or if you have the more empathetic sex in positions of ministerial authority

as pastors or as priests, you're more susceptible to being to the slippery slope because they will steer that empathy in order to lead you to abandon that case biblical doctrine, which is precisely what we've seen over the last 60 or 70 years as mainline denominations, ordained women to the priesthood, to the pastorate, and then very quickly abandoned biblical truth and a whole host of areas, often in the name of empathy. And so I think there are certain places where that guardianship role, that setting the perimeter, guarding the doctrine and worship of a church, or when it comes to things like the military and other guardianship roles, where men have been equipped and designed to do that kind of setting the perimeter and being willing to displease people and not be susceptible in the same way to that empathetic manipulation. Now, I have seen in some left-wing press that there is displeased people. discussion about how conservatives are now down on empathy. And of course, that makes us look not compassionate. As you mentioned, I know the New York Times, I believe reviewed your book, also Christianity

Today, NPR, the New Yorker. What has the media response been to your main argument? Yeah, so I think it's interesting to see that progressive media especially recognizes the threat posed by books like mine, like Ali Beths, and by the way that other prominent figures like, you Elon Musk and others are advancing this argument that empathy, when it's untethered, becomes destructive. And I think they recognize that in highlighting the dynamics and recognizing the play that's being run on us, we're basically taking a weapon out of their hands. And so the hostility is understandable. But I'm in favor of compassion.

I simply want our compassion to be tethered to what is true and what is good for people and not simply be feelings run amok or passions run amok where we put them in the driver's seat and we allow others to steer our emotional vehicles to do things that are harmful and destructive to others. And so I'm not surprised by the media reaction to it. In some ways, I welcome it because I think it means I'm over the target. But I still want to commend to Christians, to conservatives, we ought to actually be compassionate, but we ought to be willing to be called heartless because we're holding to what is true and what is good.

Now, would you say there's been any fair coverage in the left-wing press of your book? I'm trying to think if I've seen any. I've not seen, there's been some that will frequently what will happen is they will describe the argument accurately, noting that I'm attacking untethered empathy, empathy run amok, empathy that's excessive and that puts others, that loses touch with reality. But then very quickly pivot and adopt a caricature that says, I'm, you know, I want to kick kittens and puppies, and that I'm opposed to all things, sweetness and light. And so there's often a kind of double-faced nature to the criticism where they are able to accurately describe the argument. But they don't stick with that too long because it would not suit their larger agenda. Now, you mentioned that you've gotten the sense that you're a little bit over the target with this argument. Do you sense that there is a growing awareness that this is a problem and that the left may be being slightly defanged with this particular tool and their tool belt?

I think so. I think, you know, when you look at something like back earlier this year, when J.D. Vance in that famous interview said, I don't really care, Margaret. That's a good instance of him recognizing that there's a particular play being run on him where she's appealing to, hey, these people, I think it was the context was about immigration and illegal immigrants. And she's trying to appeal to compassion.

And he's saying, no, bottom line is, we have a right to determine who's in our country and who's not. And so I'm not going to allow you to emotionally manipulate or steer me into. feeling apologetic for doing what the American people elected me to do. And so I do think that there is among conservative politicians a growing awareness of the ways that we've been manipulated by our soft-heartedness. And the solution there, again, is not to abandon the soft-heartedness, but it's to have a clear-mindedness that allows our compassion to be channeled in fruitful, productive, and good directions, as opposed to harmful and destructive ones. But overall, I would also say that I think that there's among conservatives,

there's frequently a failure to recognize the depth to which this game has been played. And oftentimes I think there's conservatives want to be a little bit pregnant. So in other words, we allow it in certain cases. We allow ourselves to be steered up to a certain point. But then if you get to transing the kids, well, that's a bridge too far. And I think we actually need to go back to first principles and determine what actually is true and what is good. As a Christian, of course, I think that has to do with what God has designed us for. what the scriptures teach. I think that's what we ought to anchor our compassion too. I think Christ

is the model in this regard. But I think that's a place where conservatives have to push beyond simply the excesses of wokeness and realize that there's a deeper question about the moral framework that we have to adopt in order to rightly channel our compassion, our anger, our fear, all of our emotions in ways that are good for us and for society. Now, last question. I think a lot of people will hear you and they'll say they agree with this. But then when they're in the hot seat and they're having a conversation, maybe with mixed opinion peers, they don't actually know what to say when they're asked their opinion about things and they know there's going to be some pushback. So do you have any pragmatic advice for people navigating those conversations and how they can do it in a way that

leaves them feeling empowered and like they didn't bend? Yeah. So I think that one thing would be to focus on your goal in a conversation like that. And one of my goals, frequently is to be clear. So rather than making the first school appease this person or help them, you know, to even maybe they won't agree with me, don't make that the first school. Make the first goal to bring clarity to the situation. Where is actually the divide of the difference? And keep your eye on that ball and struggle in labor to make yourself clear to maintain your convictions and to be clear about them. And then let the chips fall where they may. You might find that you're actually more fearful of their reaction than is actually warranted.

And that if you simply labor to be clear about what you believe to be true and what you believe to be good and how you should respond, what policies you support, that people actually might be more willing to engage and respond to that if your first priority is clarity and not necessarily appeasement or a kind of reverse manipulation where you're trying to duck and dodge. And people pick up on that and they begin to think, is this person hiding something? and the reaction, the negative reaction you get may be to that dynamic as opposed to if you just say it straight up. The other element is, I would say for people, be more concerned to encourage those who already agree with you, right?

In other words, courage is contagious. And so a lot of times what's required in these kind of settings is to simply say the truth out loud where people can hear it. And to be unapologetic about it in order to encourage and buttress those who think these things in their head, but might be slow to say them out loud. I've personally been encouraged when I hear other people boldly and courageously commend what I believe to be true in the public square. And that's emboldened me to want to be similarly an encouragement to others. All right. Well, Joe, thank you so much for coming on.

Where can people find you and where can they find your book? Yeah, so I'm on X at Joe underscore Rigney. If you want to pick up the book, you can go to scent of empathy.com and get it there or anywhere book search. That was author Joe Rigney. been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.