Empathy vs Conscience - What's the difference?
empathy | conscience |
the intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person
capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding
(parapsychology, science fiction) a paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions
The moral sense of right and wrong, chiefly as it affects one's own behaviour.
* 1949 , , as quoted by Virgil Henshaw in Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist ,
* 1951 , (Isaac Asimov), publication), part V: “The Merchant Princes”, chapter 14, page 175, ¶ 7
* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=18 (chiefly fiction) A personification of the moral sense of right and wrong, usually in the form of a person, a being or merely a voice that gives moral lessons and advices.
(obsolete) Consciousness; thinking; awareness, especially self-awareness.
* 1603 , (William Shakespeare), (Hamlet) , act 3, scene 1,
As nouns the difference between empathy and conscience
is that empathy is the intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person while conscience is the moral sense of right and wrong, chiefly as it affects one's own behaviour.empathy
English
Noun
(wikipedia empathy)- She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too.
Usage notes
Used similarly to sympathy, interchangeably in looser usage. In stricter usage, empathy is stronger and more intimate, meaning that the subject understands and shares an emotion with the object – as in “I feel your pain” – while (term) is weaker and more distant – concern, but not shared emotion: “I care for you”.conscience
English
(wikipedia conscience)Noun
(en noun)- Never do anything against conscience , even if the state demands it.
- [“]Twer is not a friend of mine testifying against me reluctantly and for conscience ’ sake, as the prosecution would have you believe. He is a spy, performing his paid job.[”]
citation, passage=‘Then the father has a great fight with his terrible conscience ,’ said Munday with granite seriousness. ‘Should he make a row with the police […]? Or should he say nothing about it and condone brutality for fear of appearing in the newspapers?}}
- Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
- And thus the native hue of resolution
- Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.