Zoempathy: A Foundational Understanding

adannoone
Dec 31, 2024
12 min read

For further reading, I recommend these companion essays:

"Compassion as Resistance: Beyond the Default of Violence"

and "A Circle for All: How Moral Exclusion Led to Planetary Hospice"

The ancient Greeks are credited with identifying eight types of love, Agape (ah-gah-pay) being love's pinnacle. And for thousands of years we've accepted the list and the hierarchy. But are there really only eight types of love? And is Agape the "highest form of love" as nearly universally accepted? No. And No. I've witnessed the highest form of love, an all-encompassing, all-inclusive love. I've seen it again and again. It's time we gave it a name: Zoempathy.

The human capacity for love has been extensively studied, categorized, and celebrated throughout history. From the Greeks' careful delineation of love types (eros, agape, philia, storge, etc.) to modern psychological frameworks, we have developed rich vocabularies for describing human connections and emotions. Yet there exists a fundamental form of love that has gone unnamed and largely unexamined—a love that emerges spontaneously in childhood, transcends species boundaries, and often becomes dormant through socialization only to reemerge in transformative moments of reconnection.

I propose the term "Zoempathy" for this distinct form of love, derived from the Greek "zoe" (life itself) and "empathy" (the ability to understand and share feelings).

Notes

If you have already heard the term or are already using the term, please know that I am not trying to "own" the term. I simply offer my perspective.

I present this partly as reflection and partly as an academic essay.

My reflections are based on my experiences having grown up living and working on animal farms, and upon my own reawakening of Zoempathy which led to my working most of my adult life trying to save and protect animals. Advocating, writing, creating, and talking to and with thousands of people. Trying to make up for what I had done. Trying to make the world a kinder place. Even if it proved impossible.

Academically, I introduce the framework of Zoempathy to the world so that it may help heal and open the heart of even one human to the simple forgotten fact that they can live without purposefully adding to the pain and suffering of others.

Rather than risk losing you, dear reader, somewhere in my own reflections, I will place them near the end of this essay so that we can get right to the heart of the matter.

Zoempathy Defined

Zoempathy is a fundamental form of love characterized by spontaneous recognition of and connection to the consciousness of other beings, particularly those more vulnerable than ourselves. Unlike learned or socially constructed forms of love, it emerges naturally in early childhood and exists independent of species boundaries or expectations of reciprocation. While it may become dormant through social conditioning, it remains retrievable through conscious reconnection. Zoempathy encompasses but transcends mere compassion, combining visceral emotional connection with moral recognition and protective action.

Key Characteristics

1. Natural Emergence

Appears spontaneously in early childhood.
Requires no teaching or social conditioning.
Functions "like air"—an unquestioned part of our being.

2. Transcendent Nature

Crosses species boundaries effortlessly.
Operates independent of reciprocation.
Exists beyond utility or social convention.

3. Visceral Connection

Enables direct feeling of another's emotional state.
Drives protective instincts.
Creates immediate recognition of another's consciousness.

4. Dormancy and Reawakening

Often suppressed through socialization.
Remains retrievable through conscious reconnection.
Can be reactivated by meaningful encounters or emotional breakthroughs.

5. Growth Through Consciousness

Deepens and broadens with awareness.
Encompasses both emotional connection and moral recognition.
Becomes more powerful and less deniable with deeper understanding.

Distinction from Other Forms of Love

Compassion. While "to suffer with" (com-passion) is certainly an element of Zoempathy, it doesn't represent all aspects. Compassion typically describes a response to suffering, a desire to relieve the suffering of another. Zoempathy love exists independent of suffering. It's there in moments of joy, in peaceful connection, in protective instinct, and in simple recognition of another being's consciousness.

The ancient Greeks are credited with identifying eight types of love:

Eros Love. Eros embodies intense romantic and sexual passion, drawing inspiration from the Greek god of love. This love ignites strong emotional reactions, leading individuals to act on impulse for their beloved, sometimes neglecting potential consequences.

Philia Love. Philia represents the essence of friendship, characterized by genuine affection without hidden agendas. Unlike Eros, Philia relies on deeper emotional bonds, where true friends care selflessly, expecting nothing in return.

Storge Love. Storge reflects familial love within family connections, showcasing the deep affection between parents and children. This pure, unconditional love is freely given and fosters essential bonds during upbringing.

Ludus Love. Ludus, or playful love, brings the joy and excitement of early romantic stages. However, it can also lead to impulsivity, as lovers may overlook risks amid the thrills.

Mania Love. Mania is often seen as obsessive love, prevalent among young or inexperienced partners who idealize their love interests, sometimes leading to clinginess and dependence as they seek fulfillment from their partners.

Pragma Love. Pragma love is characterized by maturity and stability, often found in long-term relationships. It celebrates loyalty and the harmonious dynamics between partners who understand each other's needs.

Philautia Love. Philautia, or self-love, is essential for personal well-being and should not be confused with narcissism. Embracing healthy self-love allows individuals to extend genuine love to others.

Agape Love. Agape is a universal, unconditional form of love that rises above personal desires. It embodies selflessness, offering love freely and without expectation. This profound love persists beyond transient feelings, demonstrating true empathy by understanding the needs and thoughts of others. Agape love is forgiving, avoids grudges, and provides a refuge amid life’s challenges.

Distinguishing Agape from Zoempathy

Agape is the closest we've come to Zoempathy. But it is still imperfect. A crucial distinction between agape and Zoempathy is that Agape does not encompass Zoempathy, while Zoempathy does encompass Agape. While both are forms of unconditional love, they serve fundamentally different purposes and operate in different moral contexts.

Agape (ἀγάπη) in its classical Greek and Christian theological context is typically understood as unconditional, selfless love. So far so good. While some modern philosophers and kindness advocates like myself have attempted to extend Agape to include all animals, human and nonhuman, its traditional and most commonly understood form is distinctly human-centric. This is especially true in its most influential interpretations:

Christian theology. According to Christian belief, Agape represents the Christian god's unconditional love for humans and the human capacity to reflect this divine love toward others. While some modern Christian thinkers have expanded this to include creation more broadly, the traditional focus is human-to-human love.

Contemporary philosophy. While some philosophers have tried to expand agape to include nonhuman beings, this remains a minority interpretation and often feels like retrofitting rather than capturing the essence of what I'm presenting. As mentioned, I have tried convincing thousands of otherwise thoughtful people to expand their traditional understanding of Agape with relatively little success.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s usage. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most well-known proponents and teachers of Agape. It's fitting to address this more fully. His application of Agape was also specifically human-centric. It was about loving one's human oppressors and, in so doing, seeking their transformation through one's own.

King's use of Agape focuses on loving human oppressors and seeking their transformation, emphasizing the importance of recognizing shared humanity. It was about recognizing the humanity in those who deny yours (an oppressed human).

This human-centric and transformative approach is based on the idea that both the oppressor and the oppressed have moral agency and the capacity for change. In contrast, Zoempathy operates within a different moral framework—calling for our own moral responsibility and our own potential for transformation.

This inversion means that while Agape aims to transform both parties, Zoempathy transforms only the individual experiencing it. It uses the unchanged nature of animals as a touchstone for returning to a more authentic being. In this context, humans are the oppressors (which of course we are), making Zoempathy a pathway to moral awakening. It emphasizes recognizing and correcting the wrongs we inflict on others rather than forgiving those who wrong us.

In other words: The beings we feel Zoempathy toward require no moral elevation; because they exist in a state of pure being. Animals have no moral failings to forgive.

Zoempathy is powerful but challenging because it places the burden of transformation solely on us humans. Still, Agape is the closest we seem to have gotten to defining this attempt to love truly unconditionally.

Key distinctions between Agape and Zoempathy:

1. Direction of Transformation

Agape seeks to transform both parties (oppressor and oppressed, enemy and enemy).
Zoempathy recognizes the inherent completeness of the other being; only the human requires transformation.

2. Moral Framework

Agape often operates within a framework of redemption and elevation.
Zoempathy operates from recognition and connection to beings who need no elevation.

3. Origin

Agape is often conceived as something we must cultivate or achieve.
Zoempathy is innate but suppressed, requiring reconnection rather than cultivation.

4. Relationship to Consciousness

Agape focuses on spiritual or moral consciousness.
Zoempathy involves direct recognition of sentience and being.

Given these important differences, my experience of trying to use Agape to advocate for animals and meeting resistance makes perfect sense—I was trying to expand a concept that, despite its beauty and power, remains fundamentally human-centric in both its origin and in its common understanding.

This is why Zoempathy needs its own definition and framework. It's not just an expansion of Agape but a fundamentally different way of recognizing and connecting with other beings. It's about remembering a capacity we're born with rather than developing a new form of love.

Societal Implications

The systematic suppression of Zoempathy in human development may represent one of our species' most significant moral blind spots. By closing ourselves off from this fundamental form of love, we enable systems of exploitation and cruelty in the animal world and beyond while diminishing our own capacity for authentic connection with our living world.

Path Forward

Understanding and naming Zoempathy represents a first step toward:

Recognizing its presence in our early development.
Understanding the mechanisms of its suppression.
Creating conditions for its reawakening.
Developing frameworks for maintaining and sharing it.
Building ethical systems that honor rather than suppress this connection.

The challenge ahead lies not in teaching humans something new, but in helping them reconnect with something they've always known—a fundamental capacity for love that transcends the artificial boundaries we've constructed between ourselves and other living beings.

Further Research Directions: A Little Help?

1. Developmental psychology of Zoempathy emergence and suppression.

2. Sociological barriers to maintaining Zoempathy.

3. Case studies of reawakening experiences.

4. Practical frameworks for nurturing Zoempathy.

5. Implications for ethical and social systems.

This foundational understanding sets the stage for deeper exploration of how Zoempathy might inform our individual and collective development toward a more conscious and connected way of being. I hope to continue to develop it with the input of others.

We are in planetary hospice. We can't fix it. But maybe we have one final opportunity to demonstrate what we could have been.

We are in planetary hospice. We can't fix the problems we’ve created. But maybe we have one final opportunity to demonstrate what we could have been.

For more on how our circle of consideration is artificially constricted by our lack of Zoempathy and how this has led in part to our final undoing, please read my companion essay “A Circle for All: How Moral Exclusion Led to Planetary Hospice”

Experiential Data: My Two Cents

Humans are born with a remarkable capacity for love—one that knows no boundaries, requires no justification, and flows as naturally as breath itself. This love, which I call Zoempathy, emerges in our earliest years before we're taught by the people around us and by society at large to draw lines around our hearts that constrict our existing circle of moral consideration. It appears spontaneously in the child who cradles injured birds, in the toddler who instinctively comforts crying animals, in the pure recognition that passes between young eyes and ones somehow familiar across the species barrier.

Many of us carry such memories. For me, there was a special chicken who seemed to see me truly. We were friends. He was my best friend. And my family (and I) betrayed him. And on our family farm, there was a nameless momma pig whose gaze held universes of understanding, a moment when I suddenly re-recognized the consciousness looking back at me from behind nonhuman eyes. Perhaps weak, perhaps unsure what I could do, I left the farm and never returned. My vegan/nonviolent lifestyle and my animal advocacy started shortly thereafter.

Nearly every human child has felt the same connections with animals, perhaps with a beloved family pet, or a friendly wild animal visiting a backyard or window sill, or a farmed animal, or an animal in need, even a butterfly struggling to fly. These weren't just encounters—they were recognitions, moments when we experienced connection in its purest form, before we learned to close our hearts behind carefully constructed walls of rationalization and tradition.

This love is different from other forms we've named and studied. Unlike compassion, which responds to suffering, Zoempathy exists in moments of joy and simple being. Unlike agape, which seeks to transform both lover and beloved, Zoempathy recognizes the fundamental perfection of the other—it is we humans who must transform to honor the connection we already know exists.

Yet somewhere along the way, most of us learn to shut this love away. We're taught that such pure connection is childish, impractical, something to be outgrown. "It's just part of life," we're told, as we're guided to participate in systems of exploitation and violence that require us to deaden this essential part of ourselves. We learn to draw circles of moral consideration, to decide who matters and who doesn't, to justify the unjustifiable through increasingly complex systems of rationalization.

Reignition

Zoempathy never truly dies. It lies dormant in each of us, waiting for the moment when something cracks open our carefully constructed defenses—a sick mother pig's desperate gaze, a chicken's final blink, a moment of recognition that bridges the artificial gap we've created between ourselves and other beings. In these moments, we remember what we've always known: that love doesn't naturally come with boundaries, that consciousness recognizes consciousness, that connection is our default state.

The sparks that reignite our love and respect for nonhumans vary greatly by individual. Some read the facts about sentience or the horrors inflicted upon them and immediately make the connection. My experience has been that this is exceedingly rare. New animal advocates, my younger self included, feel the spark and are enthusiastic about spreading the message. "If people knew about this, they would do the right thing!" We are so sure. Nope. Our default modes of existence are carefully constructed systems of disconnection - economic, psychological, and ethical infrastructures that normalize violence while rendering it invisible.

Empathy requires active cultivation, which takes effort. While indifference and violence represent the path of least resistance. Indifference is not a passive state, but an active choice.

Still others find their Zoempathic fire on a less direct path. My own father and sister, for example, made the decision to go vegan after years of my cajoling. But neither went vegan for the animals or for the planet; there's was motivated by more selfish reasons: their health. I use "selfish" in the gentlest sense, meaning it wasn't about being kind or environmentally conscious, it was about themselves.

And here's where the magic happens...

While there are many psychosocial mechanisms at play in their reignition of Zoempathy, confirmation bias is the most obvious to me. Confirmation bias is the tendency of people to favor and gather information that confirms or strengthens their beliefs or values. Once my father and sister had committed themselves to their new lifestyle choice, they were suddenly more open to the information I had been sharing for years. They did their own research on their own time without any prompting from me. Within a year, I was pleasantly surprised that both of them had become animal rights advocates. Now, while health is still a priority for them, animals and non-exploitation are forefront in their sticking with their decision. I have seen this exact same formula play out hundreds of times. Zoempathy can spark in the most surprising ways.

The journey back to this love isn't easy. It requires us to face the pain of our complicity in systems of harm, to acknowledge the artificial nature of the moral boundaries we've drawn, to accept that we've been participating in a great lie: that some beings matter less than others, that some suffering can be justified, that some lives are worth less than our preferences.

I write this as we’ve entered planetary hospice. Hope is no longer in the vocabulary of the collapse aware. Yet, in the potential for a reignition of Zoempathy, I find a form of hope. It’s not a hope just for individual transformation, but for collective awakening. I have witnessed enough to have given up on the vast majority of humans to become caring again. Not just because we’ve run out of time, but because the systems of violence in which we are immersed have become insurmountable. But each person who reconnects with their capacity for Zoempathy becomes a living reminder that another way is possible. Each heart that cracks open creates space for others to remember their own original love.

This love asks everything of us because it shows us the truth about ourselves and our relationship to all living beings. It reminds us that we can live differently, that we can make choices aligned with what we know in our hearts rather than what society has taught us to accept. And in return, it offers something precious: the chance to live authentically, to honor the connection we've always felt, to become who we truly are.

The path forward isn't about learning something new but remembering something ancient—

a way of being that exists in every child before the world teaches us to close our hearts. It's about recognizing that the boundaries we've drawn were always artificial, that the circle of moral consideration never needed to expand because it was always complete.

In rediscovering Zoempathy, we find not just a different way to love, but a different way to be human. A way of living that honors rather than denies our fundamental connection to all living beings. This is the love we were born with, the love we never truly lost, the love that waits patiently for us to give it a name.