The cure for privilege.

[rrneck]

135. Empathy is a powerful incentive.

Without action empathy is little more than an exercise in self congratulation.

I should clarify since this thread has devolved into an exercise in ideological semantics. Action does not mean the act of feeling. It means something that happens in the real world that can be verified empirically. Justice, in this context, means the equitable distribution of resources. Money.

Empathy can be faked. The world is full of people that will empathize all day long as long as it doesn't cost them any money. If all you want is for people to say the right words you will be richly rewarded but poorly paid. Hence the phrase, "talk is cheap".

And since talk is cheap, it is a wonderful product with a huge profit margin. Are you familiar with Repressive desublimation? I first read about it here.

By offering instantaneous, rather than mediated gratifications,[4] repressive desublimation was considered by Marcuse to remove the energies otherwise available for a social critique; and thus to function as a conservative force under the guise of liberation.

As I recall, the notion of emotions as an impetus for rational action is about twenty five hundred years old. All I have done in the OP is to offer another way to enter a sort of feedback loop. Why should we assume that empathy is the only way to achieve social justice? Why do have to empathize first before anything else can happen?

Empathy is very important in liberal ideology, and for good reason. But what happens if we turn ideology, and it's supporting emphasis on nurture, into an object in itself rather than a means to an end? It appears that we get ideological rigidity and partisan witch hunts. The OP was very nonspecific, and yet how many have assumed that it was a denial of any other means toward social justice?

And here's another old quote.

Assume a virtue if you have it not.