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The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty

Simon Baron-Cohen

3.78 · Rating details · 4,850 ratings · 445 reviews

Borderline personality disorder, autism, narcissism, psychosis, Asperger's: All of these syndromes have one thing in common--lack of empathy. In some cases, this absence can be dangerous, but in others it can simply mean a different way of seeing the world.

In The Science of Evil Simon Baron-Cohen, an award-winning British researcher who has investigated psychology and auti ...more

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Hardcover, 256 pages

Published May 31st 2011 by Basic Books

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Mar 25, 2013 BookAddict ✒ La Crimson Femme rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction

This is more a 2.5 star which as people who follow me know, I truncate, not round up. This book started out very riveting. The theory proposed in this book is about the impacts based on the lack of empathy. There were two interesting concepts of Zero Negative and Zero Positive people. Basically Borderline, Psychopaths and Narcissists all fall under the Zero Negative. Different forms of autism falls under the Zero Positive.

The ideas in this book are interesting to read. What Mr. Baron-Cohen post This is more a 2.5 star which as people who follow me know, I truncate, not round up. This book started out very riveting. The theory proposed in this book is about the impacts based on the lack of empathy. There were two interesting concepts of Zero Negative and Zero Positive people. Basically Borderline, Psychopaths and Narcissists all fall under the Zero Negative. Different forms of autism falls under the Zero Positive.

The ideas in this book are interesting to read. What Mr. Baron-Cohen postulates did make me think. I can see his point regarding the how a person with zero negative and zero positive would behave. His research and theories on why these people became w/o empathy dropped me from a 4 star down to a 3 star. Yes, at the beginning, the first two chapters were very good and had me at a 4 star. At chapter 3 I started to lose interest. This is because he correlates a person with zero negative stemming from how their mother raised them. In each example, it was abuse, neglect, etc from a mother. Where is the father in all of this? Were these children through immaculate conception? This immediately made Mr. Baron-Cohen lose respectability in my eyes. To his point, he does point out it is genetics and a combination of nurture which causes a person to be a zero negative. The examples he chose left a bad taste in my mouth and I'm not even a mother.

This "mommy didn't love me enough" or "daddy abandoned me" type of victimized mentality doesn't work for me. Whenever I read this, I consider the writer yet another 1st world privileged philosopher who is only looking at "1st world" problems. Is this judgmental? You betcha. I'm tired of people using their parents as excuses for their behaviour. The victim mentality is detrimental because it focuses on how the person is helpless. I'd rather focus on the series of events which shaped a person and for them to be a survivor.

Now, Mr. Baron-Cohen did indicate while an abusive or neglectful mother isn't the only variable causing a child to become a psychopath, there was a positive correlation. He does also mention that the tie can't be that strong because otherwise, we'd have more psychopaths running around in the world. However, the book is already tainted for me because his victim theory.

Now, there are some concepts in here that are interesting. He explains that it's not that people are evil. It's because their lack of empathy which causes them to behave in manners that don't make sense to the general populace. If people w/o empathy treat the another person as a thing, one can understand how atrocities such as Jew concentration camps and the genocide of Armenians can occur. With this, I agree. That is why the military teaches it's soldiers to call them "targets". It removes the humanity of it.

Still, this book is running at a 3 star, especially the section on the zero positive. I couldn't stop thinking of the Observers from Fringe when he describes the pattern recognition in the zero positives. The highly functioning abilities of systematizing is fascinating. What was disturbing is seeing how I possibly could have been categorized as a zero positive in my early teens.

Chapter 6 is what brought the book down another 1/2 star. While it is nice to think every person can be "rehabilitated" with the single flower nurtured in the desert analogy, it's a fantasy. Here's the problem, in order for rehabilitation, the person must want to rehabilitate. I don't believe people want to change. In fact, I'd like to propose that more than the majority of people prefer not to change. I see it time and time again in both personal and professional life. People don't like to know their flaws and they don't want to improve. They'd rather hide their flaws from themselves and rationalize it is other people. So his idea to help people overcome their "lack of empathy" while noble is a pipe dream in my book. If he had specific methods of how to accomplish this, it would be a different story. Instead, he concludes the book with condemning the death penalty and explaining that "evil" actions of people are not exactly under their control. Instead, it is a combination of chemical, genetic and nurture. We should instead try to help rehabilitate all these people rather than sentence them in jail for years or kill them. These are the fancies of an ivory tower academician untouched by the stubborn people of the real world. ...more

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Jul 11, 2015 Petra-X Off having adventures rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015-read, reviewed, psycho-neurology-crime, 2016-150-reviews

Reading this, I couldn't get out of my head that the author's first cousin is Sasha Baron-Cohen. It was the vision of the ultimate evil mischief-maker that Borat was. Borat in a fluorescent green mankini was behind every word I read. Once seen, never forgotten...

mankini man

So one of them makes a living out of analysing people and philosophising on whether cruelty and evil is genetic and the other makes his living out of exploiting people with deliberate cruelty that I'm sure his victims think is evil.

I k ...more

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Sep 16, 2011 The Angry Lawn Gnome added it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, autism-spectrum, psychology, 2011, politics, borrowed

I can't really review this book, for the simple reason that I do not trust it, and am simply unsure what to believe and what not to. Perhaps my attitude is unfair, but it was these two passages that pushed me into Sgt. Schultz mode:

Some people compare him to the character that Dustin Hoffman played in the film Rain Man, which was based on a real person (Kim Peek) with autism, because... (p. 106, my edition)

Consider that back in 1542 Martin Luther wrote a pamphlet entitled Against the Jews (calli ...more

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Jul 18, 2017 Jessica rated it really liked it · review of another edition

4 Informative-Stars! ☆★☆★
There are some books that you read with your mouth open and all of your emotions displayed across your face. This is one of those books. Be warned, 'The Science of Evil' will make you disgusted and enlightened at the same time. What dug into my heart even more were the real life photos of acts of terror. It's gut-wrenching to see what people are capable of. It's unspeakable.

First Chapter:
★ Nazi scientists severed a woman's hands and then sewed them back Switched. So he ...more

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Feb 23, 2012 Avolyn Fisher rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2012

I find that this book could be a lot shorter than it is, for the fact that it is repetitive and offers a lot of hypothesis and questions rather than answers or true discoveries. It regurgitates what has already been mentioned about narcissism, autism, antisocial disorder, and borderline disorder. I am not an expert on psychological studies but it appeared to only state what has already been stated and suggest that there are links between those disorders and levels of empathy in certain individua ...more

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Jan 30, 2020 Leo Robertson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I read this over Christmas while having a mini breakdown and it did nooooot help, haha!

Life is insane.

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Jun 22, 2011 Ed rated it it was amazing

I met Simon Baron Cohen in 2004 as part of my exploration of the role of empathy (and lack of it or autism) in my field of conflict research. He is an extraordinary person to discuss these issues, with and his knowledge and compassion for the children he treats for development disorders strongly evident. His book 'The Essential Difference' played a major role in the evolution of my theory of 'induced autism' in conflict.

His latest book extends his thinking into the role of zero degrees of empat I met Simon Baron Cohen in 2004 as part of my exploration of the role of empathy (and lack of it or autism) in my field of conflict research. He is an extraordinary person to discuss these issues, with and his knowledge and compassion for the children he treats for development disorders strongly evident. His book 'The Essential Difference' played a major role in the evolution of my theory of 'induced autism' in conflict.

His latest book extends his thinking into the role of zero degrees of empathy in the commission of acts of extreme evil. Since I met him, neuroscience has moved on rapidly and his latest book brings up to date the 10 areas of the brain that seem most implicated in empathy, or its lack, and also the half a dozen or so genes whose expression also contributes a genetic dimension to empathy or its absence. Identical twin research suggests that empathy has about 60% heritability, but the sample size and peer review process is probably not complete for that to be taken as proven.

I literally read this book in one sitting (despite the trans-Atlantic jet lag) and would strongly recommend it to anyone interested in the problem of evil from a scientific viewpoint, and especially if you are interested in reducing it! Though the author warns at the onset: don't read this book if you are sensitive to descriptions of appalling evil, as that is how he starts out defining what he is trying to understand, though there is far more to the book than this. He systematically un-picks the different empathy deficiencies of borderline personality, psychopath and narcissistic disorders and how they have at their extreme zero degrees of empathy. His accounts of the genetic and developmental causes of these disorders is strongly evidence based, though in the case of extreme narcissism the research is so far limited.

He also builds on his work in The Essential Difference on the systematizer/empathizer contrast and provides a convincing case that many of those with zero empathy are not borderline, psychopath or narcissistic but in fact use their strong systematizing to build very rigid moral structures. Extreme systematizers also have given us most of our science and technology.

The only weak part of the book is that Simon stops too soon and his phenomenal ability to develop ways to address issues of autism is not fully deployed. He ends with ten steps to increase empathy in the world and even grow in those with zero degrees. I would have loved another full chapter on where now. ...more

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Feb 08, 2016 Katherine rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: No one

Shelves: mental-illness, really-bad, nonfiction

Holy fear-mongering, Batman!
Never have I read a book more toxic for the attitude towards the mentally ill. This book teaches the readers to be afraid of people who suffer really awful things already!!
Not only are the facts in this book wrong (bpd patients not having empathy? Are you kidding me right now???), they are incredibly intolerant and hurtful. The last thing the mentally ill need are outsiders telling them they're awful, unethical, evil people the way this book argues. If you value the r ...more

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Mar 11, 2020 R Nair rated it really liked it

Can evil be quantified? If you had to study 'evil' from a scientific perspective, with all the bells and whistles available within a laboratory, how would you go about it? This is the question that has fascinated me for a long time and if it fascinates you then this is a book you should peruse.

Cohen begins with the fascinating idea of redefining evil as an absence of empathy. This tiny little change opens the door for a scientifically valid method of quantifying evil from a psychological perspe Can evil be quantified? If you had to study 'evil' from a scientific perspective, with all the bells and whistles available within a laboratory, how would you go about it? This is the question that has fascinated me for a long time and if it fascinates you then this is a book you should peruse.

Cohen begins with the fascinating idea of redefining evil as an absence of empathy. This tiny little change opens the door for a scientifically valid method of quantifying evil from a psychological perspective.

If empathy is the ability to identify with someone else's thinking and responding in an acceptable manner then a complete absence of such an intuition opens the door for categorizing different personality types typically accused of being evil. The book initially elaborates on borderline personality disorder, psychopathy and narcissistic personality disorder. The author goes into detail with regards to the parts of the brain contributing to the sense of empathy (cumulatively the 'empathy circuit') and explains well how these areas fire abnormally in the brains of people with such psychological issues.

The definition of empathy that the author proposes also opens up a window into understanding autism spectrum disorders from a fresh perspective. If psychopaths are people who do not feel any empathy (no affective empathy) but can recognize the feeling from the expressions/body language in others (cognitive empathy), what if people in the autistic spectrum are the exact opposite? According to this thesis, if the empathy circuit in the brain is wired such that a person can feel empathy (affective empathy) but cannot understand that others are capable of the same (cognitive empathy) then psychologists commonly diagnose such individuals under the umbrella term of autism-spectrum. Cohen gives a lot of experimental findings that seem to support this idea and to me it was a fascinating experience to gain a new perspective into autism and asperger syndrome. Here I also learned about 'alexithymia' - the inability of understanding emotion (of others and one's own), literally meaning 'without words for emotion' and this is something individuals with autism invariably experience (hence supporting the cognitive empathy prognosis in the previous sentence).
Cohen's appeal that psychologists and psychiatrists should pay more attention to empathy and the empathy centers of their patients before treating them sounded like good advice by the end of the book.

The main idea that this book propounds and one which I found fascinating even if it requires further experimental evidence to be accepted fully is that when acts of cruelty occur, they are invariably the result of a malfunctioning empathy circuit. Various factors could influence this malfunction such as genetics, cultural sanctions, personal ideology, obedience etc. This puts goosebumps-inducing force into the words of Historian Ian Kershaw - "The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference"

The reason why I enjoyed reading this book was summed up eloquently by the author himself - "If I have an agenda, it is to urge people not to be satisfied with the concept of "evil" as an explanatory tool, and if I have successfully moved the debate out of the domain of religion and into the social and biological sciences, I will feel this book has made a contribution."

I enjoy books that talk about new ideas that I wasn't previously familiar with and that probably added to my enjoyment. If you are someone well-versed/well-read in cognitive psychology and behavioral sciences then there may not be much that is new here for you. For others, this may be a fun book to read. ...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Bob Nichols rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This is a disappointing book. The author overstates the case for empathy. "Empathy itself is the most valuable resource in the world," he writes. Since uncaring leads to cruelty and inappropriate social responses, he argues that we need more empathy. If it were as simple as asserting that it be so.

The author defines empathy as only a good thing as far as social relationships are concerned, but some have argued that it is this capacity to identify with what goes on in others that gives sadists p This is a disappointing book. The author overstates the case for empathy. "Empathy itself is the most valuable resource in the world," he writes. Since uncaring leads to cruelty and inappropriate social responses, he argues that we need more empathy. If it were as simple as asserting that it be so.

The author defines empathy as only a good thing as far as social relationships are concerned, but some have argued that it is this capacity to identify with what goes on in others that gives sadists pleasure or possibly underlies homophobia. Still, we know that the author doesn't mean that kind of empathy. He says the good kind of empathy varies across a range (the empathy bell curve) from zero to much, and argues that both environmental and genetic factors interact in ways that determine where one falls within that range. That suggests we can work on enhancing empathy (teaching, good habits, etc.), but it also suggests that a good part of human kind is inherently predisposed to anti-social behavior.

Then there are the empirical measures the author uses for empathy. Empirical suggests scientific, but the measures seem subjective and likely miss the essence of what he's after. Among his top ten measures, he asks whether one enjoys caring for others, whether it's hard to know what to do in a social situation, and whether it bothers one to be late meeting a friend. It's common enough to not really "enjoy caring" for others, but that's not the same as wishing them ill and acting to harm. It could be the awkwardness of a social situation is due to boredom or frustration with superficiality. As for lateness, does this mean a good part of the non western world is not empathetic? If these questions seem nit picky, look at these measures from another perspective: Are some "non-empathetic" sociopaths good at manipulation because they are acutely aware of how others will react to what they do?

Something more fundamental is missing from this discussion of "the science of evil." The widespread cruelty throughout history by leaders and collective groupings of people points in the direction of deeper biological factors that override empathy. These, for example, may involve the role of alpha leaders and their followers, and tribal dynamics that result in the need to hate, demonize and dehumanize. ...more

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Sep 05, 2018 Wayne Barrett rated it really liked it

Shelves: medical, non-fiction, science, 2018, psychology, philosophy

Interesting details concerning the make-up of evil inherent in the human species, especially dealing with empathy, or as touched on in this book, the lack thereof. This book broke down the science of the condition, explaining how that we are all not, either good or bad, but rather in measure, we are all a mixture of both. I'm reminded of the cartoon I used to see where every person has an invisible little angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other, each trying to persuade us to do eit ...more

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Nov 09, 2015 Mike (the Paladin) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Interesting book. That's about all I can really say. I don't find this as practical for the "layperson" as some books on the idea of evil and the human brain and mind are. Still you may find it draws you in a bit.

I think how this one hits you will depend on your own bent and interests. I picked it up after reading a few books on Psychopathy. That's not exactly what's discussed here, but it is interesting. ...more

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Jul 05, 2018 Tim rated it really liked it

Shelves: science, nonfiction, psychology, 2018

An attempt to explain evil from an empirical standpoint rather than an ideological or a philosophical one. The author is only dealing with a certain type of evil; not natural evil (things like earthquakes and flooding) but moral evil (things like murder and rape). In a move parallel to Augustine of Hippo, he defines evil in terms of privation. Just as one might define darkness as the absence of light, Augustine defined evil as the absence of good, and Baron-Cohen defines it as the absence of emp An attempt to explain evil from an empirical standpoint rather than an ideological or a philosophical one. The author is only dealing with a certain type of evil; not natural evil (things like earthquakes and flooding) but moral evil (things like murder and rape). In a move parallel to Augustine of Hippo, he defines evil in terms of privation. Just as one might define darkness as the absence of light, Augustine defined evil as the absence of good, and Baron-Cohen defines it as the absence of empathy. There is a continuum between light and darkness. People are not either staring directly into the sun or trapped in a lightless grotto deep beneath the earth at any given moment (I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the fact that a person who is staring at the sun and a person trapped in a lightless room are equally blind serves as a useful metaphor for the dangers of extremism). One can parallel the light/dark continuum with the continuum between empathy and a lack of empathy in the psychology of individual human beings. It is by using this continuum that the author tries to better understand human evil. The author considers two ways of relating to the world, the Ich-Du (I-you) mode of being and the Ich-Es (I-it) mode of being. In the first mode of being you connect with another person as the end in itself. A highly empathetic person would operate in this mode of being since they would have the ability to identify what someone else is thinking or feeling and to respond to their thoughts and feelings with an appropriate emotion. In the second mode of being you connect with another person as a means to an end. They are not a person so much as an object to be used in the pursuit of some purpose. A person without empathy operates entirely in the Ich-Es mode of being. People are things. The author writes: 'Treating other people as if they were just objects is one of the worst things you can do to another human being, to ignore their subjectivity, their thoughts and feelings.' As the old chest nut goes, you can love people and use things or love things and use people.

A mistake we might make is thinking once again that these are binary options. The author uses the helpful metaphor of a light switch. It is not a matter of whether we are in the off position (Ich-Es) or the on position (Ich-Du) because people are not like traditional light switches that must be entirely in one of these states or the other. They are more like dimmer switches. Empathy erosion is like a person who has the dimmer switch turned low, either as a temporary state or as a permanent trait. In his words: 'I'm going to argue that some people are at the low end of this empathy dimension in a potentially permanent way, and that some (but not all) of those at this extreme end are whom we might call “evil” or cruel. That is, they never had much empathy and they may never. Others may be at the low end of the empathy dimension because they experienced a transient shutting down of their empathy as the result of their current situation. That is, they had empathy and lost it, however briefly. But however you get to this low point on the empathy scale, the result can be the same. At that point you become capable of dehumanizing other people, of turning other people into objects, and this can have tragic consequences.'

The author rightly points out that saying people engage in certain behaviours because they are evil is a sort of non-explanation: 'Why did the murderer kill the innocent child? Because he was evil. Why did the terrorist become a suicide bomber? Because she was evil.' The empirical approach he advocates is not content to merely slap a label on this type of behaviour and be done with it but is an attempt to understand how some people are capable of behaving in ways that other people find abhorrent. To do this he substitutes the phrase 'empathy erosion' where we would usually place the word evil. He then asks two questions: 1) What is empathy? 2) Why do some people have less than others?

He writes: 'Empathy occurs when we suspend our single-minded focus of attention and instead adopt a double-minded focus of attention.' You actively step out of your perspective and to the best of your ability step into the perspective of the other. Here is a real world example the author gives:

'I sat in Alyth Gardens synagogue in Golders Green in north London last year. Two men went up on the stage. The first one spoke. “I am Ahmed, and I am a Palestinian. My son died in the Intifada, killed by an Israeli bullet. I come to wish you all Shabbat Shalom.” Then the other man spoke. “I am Moishe, and I am an Israeli. My son also died in the Intifada, killed by a homemade petrol bomb thrown by a Palestinian teenager. I come to wish you all Salaam Aleikem.”

I was shocked: Here were two fathers, from different sides of the political divide, united by their grief and now embracing each other's language. How had they met? Moishe had taken the opportunity offered by a charity called the Parents Circle for Israelis and Palestinians to make free phone calls directly into each other's homes to express their empathy to bereaved parents on the other side of the barbed-wire fence. Ahmed described how he had been at home in Gaza one day when the phone rang. It was Moishe, at that time a stranger in Jerusalem, who had taken that brave first step. They both openly wept on the phone. Neither had ever met or spoke to someone from the other community, but both told the other they knew what the other was going through.'

The book delves a fair bit into the brain based aspect of empathy, identifying ten areas of the brain that are associated with the ability to empathize with other people. Much of this area of research is based on the behaviour of people that have suffered damage to these areas of the brain. The author also examines studies on whether there are correlations between how active any of these areas are and the level of empathy a particular individual demonstrates.

Four types of non-empathetic people are examined in depth, three that the author identifies as level 0 negative personalities (borderline personality disorder, psychopathy, and narcissism) and one level 0 positive personality (Asperger's Syndrome). The author then goes on to consider the role of genetic and environmental factors in how empathetic any particular individual is. As is often the case in behavioural studies, comparing the behaviour of identical and non-identical twins is considered, and also whether adopted children end up sharing more in common with their birth parents or their adopted parents. The book also looks at empathy in the animal kingdom.

The book ends with a number of questions for further study: Are evil acts always the result of early environmental factors (emotional deprivation) or biological factors (genes and/or hormones, neurotransmitters, etc.) affecting the empathy circuit? If empathy is missing in childhood or adolescence, can it be developed later? The role of biology and environment in fashioning the self you are is an interesting question in itself. It is kind of hard to deny they play a very large role in making you the self that you are but a further question is this: can the self that you are then turn around and take a conscious hand in fashioning who it is? I am inclined to say yes.

I mostly agree with what the author has to say in this book. The biggest problem I have with it is that though it is only a partial explanation, it is presented in a way that lulls you into thinking it is a complete explanation. One could easily imagine situations where it is your experiencing empathy for another person that could lead to morally ambiguous actions so whatever empirical approach you might want to take to understanding evil, there are clearly more facets to it than a lack of empathy. The fact that he spends a portion of the book discussing non-empathic people that are not malevolent demonstrates that there are other factors to consider. Evil requires a better explanation than the mere absence of something. It clearly has positive (in the sense of existent) qualities of its own. To steal a metaphor from Dorothy L. Sayers, the categories are not Hamlet and non-Hamlet, they are Hamlet and anti-Hamlet. ...more

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Oct 25, 2020 Nicole rated it really liked it

This was a really short but interesting look at the origins of evil and empathy.

I found this book really fascinating. Even though I knew some of what was mentioned having studied psychology, I definitely learnt some new stuff too.

This book is really quick, less than 200 pages. It's more that in depth so its more of a book that you pick up and if you find interesting, then you want to read more about. It's a great introduction to the topic.

I think this book is really accessible. It does have a b ...more

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Nov 28, 2020 Rachel rated it did not like it

Wow...stating that people with Autism or Borderline Personality Disorder lack empathy is grossly inaccurate. For example, many people with BPD feel empathy to the extreme, to the point where it destroys their lives.

It’s dangerous to write books with false information parading around as fact.

Many of these conditions are so poorly understood and it’s truly harmful to people who suffer from them.

How did this get published? Horrifying.

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Jun 12, 2011 Nina rated it really liked it

I have approached writing this book review several times and have hesitated ...This book was extremely difficult for me to review because it is a nice, neat, concise little package, which I felt was rather suspect considering the daunting topic of providing an explanation for human cruelty. I expected complexity, but I almost feel as if Baron-Cohen has provided a simple “no brainer”: people who are capable of cruelty lack empathy.

Honestly though, he goes a little further and he groups his findi I have approached writing this book review several times and have hesitated ...This book was extremely difficult for me to review because it is a nice, neat, concise little package, which I felt was rather suspect considering the daunting topic of providing an explanation for human cruelty. I expected complexity, but I almost feel as if Baron-Cohen has provided a simple “no brainer”: people who are capable of cruelty lack empathy.

Honestly though, he goes a little further and he groups his findings into neat categorizations, which are admittedly quite intriguing. He talks specifically about personality “disorders”, three in particular, and how they all involve impaired empathy as one of their traits. Baron-Cohen writes neatly and tidily and presents his theories very simply and attainably for the lay reader.

I suppose my real difficulty, in the process of creating a review, was accepting his theories. At best, I think what Baron-Cohen has done is put the available pieces of a puzzle together and extrapolated what was missing, to create a partial picture of what is occurring on a societal and personal level with regards to people with impaired empathy. I think what is missing is the complete science, the complete understanding of the intricacies of the internal functions of the brain. Baron-Cohen layers in some psychology with the explanation of each “zero empathy” case, what makes them unique, and summarizes his theories will a philosophical final chapter. Nice, neat, right? The problem is that which is classified as “borderline” is neither simple, neat nor concise. There are borderlines who do not harm others in the extreme way as in the singular example. There are also psychopaths who exude empathy, enough in fact to lure and trap victims. They ARE reading people, whether their neural activity is demonstrating so or not. Meanwhile people with Asperger’s Syndrome are kind of the anomaly, there is a distinction making them zero empathy positive: morals. Yet, the very existence of morals demands an understanding of empathy. Morals are social rules; social rules are learned or understood mainly through empathy. Or so it would seem?

In addition to categorizing minds and personalities along a spectrum of empathy, Baron-Coen goes further to suggest that conventional systems of justice should not be applicable to certain kinds of zero empathy behavior, especially when the person committing the offense suffers from conditions such as autism. Baron-Cohen suggests an inherent lack of moral agency in a person suffering from autism, based on the fact that in an autistic mind the empathy circuit had been negatively impacted. Without empathy autistic people might be inclined to commit socially inappropriate acts. However, in his view they should not be held responsible according to classical retributive justice systems because if their mind is impaired they lack the requisite moral agency to know how to better behave.

This argument is of course interlaced with the debate on free will and human consciousness. Baron-Cohen clearly acknowledges this and also the fact that, in the case of grave crime, restoring a sense of justice is crucial for ensuring societal peace.

The final issue which was not addressed much in the book, are the evolutionary advantages and disadvantages of possessing empathy or lacking empathy. While some theorists argue that empathy is at the root of human survival, others believe that the capability for switching off the empathy circuit could be to an evolutionary advantage.

One thing was clear when reading Baron-Cohen’s sensitive writing on the subject; he is a scientist, a systematized thinker, with a clear and genuine function of empathy. I learned much from this book and it is recommended reading for any interested in psychology and neuroscience. ...more

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Sep 21, 2011 Tom rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, medical-behavioral-psychology

I picked up this book because the dust jacket mentioned the role of mirror neurons in how people understand one another. Baron-Cohen argues that mirror neurons are only a small part of a more elaborate system he calls the empathy circuit. Using a questionnaire (a copy of which is in the book) that measures empathy, what he calls the empathy quotient, he focuses on those who measure zero. As you might anticipate, psychopaths are on this end of the scale. What is interesting is that he also places I picked up this book because the dust jacket mentioned the role of mirror neurons in how people understand one another. Baron-Cohen argues that mirror neurons are only a small part of a more elaborate system he calls the empathy circuit. Using a questionnaire (a copy of which is in the book) that measures empathy, what he calls the empathy quotient, he focuses on those who measure zero. As you might anticipate, psychopaths are on this end of the scale. What is interesting is that he also places borderline personalities and the narcissistic personalities there as well. He calls this group zero negative, meaning, they measure zero in empathy and have negative personality traits. Naturally, there are a range of scores that can be found in these groups and, when you look at the questions used in the instrument and try to imagine someone who scores zero, you know they are, thankfully, rare. Perhaps more interesting though, he describes those with Asperger's syndrome and autism as zero positive, meaning that though they have zero empathy, they do not generally hurt others. Rather, they choose to avoid social situations altogether. They may be strong in something he calls the systemizer quotient meaning they are able to see patterns where others don't.

These classifications are underpinned by reference to neuroimaging studies that have focused on those areas of the brain that have been found to be involved in empathy. Those who score low or zero in empathy have underactive empathy pathways as demonstrated by these studies.

The framework described here leads to lots of questions: what problems are encountered by people who score very high on the EQ? What environmental cues are important in encouraging and empathic state (as distinct from trait)? This is especially interesting in the health care setting where, I expect we have many situations that blunt people who are normally empathic. However, is it always useful to be very empathic? If a surgeon were to be highly empathic, would he/she be able to do their job? ...more

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Jun 14, 2011 Richard marked it as to-read

Shelves: evil-and-ideology, nonfiction, philosophy, really-deep-thinking

Yet another book to add on evil. I probably should start a separate shelf.

A collection of reviews —
• Read the informative New York Times review: From Hitler to Mother Teresa: 6 Degrees of Empathy .

• Another more personal review is at the GuardianUK, subtitled A book that gets to the heart of man's inhumanity to man .

• The Wall Street Journal is mildly critical: The Problem With 'Evil' .

• And one more from The Economist: Medical diagnosis of malfeasance .

For the record, my Empathy Quo ...more

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Nov 09, 2014 Becky (Blogs of a Bookaholic) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone interested in empathy, cruelty, autism and personality disorders.

Shelves: favourites-shelf, non-fiction

Didn't get to read all of this because I originally got it out of the library to complete a degree assignment, but then found myself totally captivated by it. I think I only missed out two chapters in the end but ohh boy, this is one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read, smartly written, entertaining and very informative! It even debunks to an extent the idea that those with autism spectrum disorder and psychopathy don't have any empathy, rather, they both lack a specific type of empathy ...more

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Jul 26, 2012 Kristi Thielen rated it really liked it

Not an agonizing recitation of evil acts, this book is about scientific studies to determine why some people are so lacking in empathy.

The environment vs. genetics issues are explored and how a deadly mixture of both may create the monsters who engage in cruel acts. But the book also explores the minds of people who seem to lack empathy, but do not commit evil acts, because they have a very structured moral code. (People who fall somewhere on the autism spectrum.)

As the mother of a 27-year-old ...more

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Nov 07, 2014 Mimi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: contemporary, psychological-thriller

Damn i DIDNT REALISE A BOOK COULD GIVE ME A DEEP INSIGHT IN MY SELF
this book made me realise that I may have Borderline Personality Disorder

*wanting to be a soulmate and yet fearing intimacy, believing she will
lose her identity and cease to exist in relationships
*Impulsivity potentially self-destructive
*Extreme mood swings, from depression to anger to elation and enthusiasm,
each mood lasting only a few hours
*Inability to control anger
*Suicidal threats
*Identity confusion
*Extreme emptiness lonel ...more

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Dec 21, 2011 Kaethe Douglas marked it as stricken

Baron-Cohen does crap science; I don't need to read this ...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Emma Sea rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction, auckland-library, psychology, autism, aspergers

2.5 stars, rounded down. A bit too dry. However the tiny part on Nazi atrocities at the beginning made me cry in public :(

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Jun 24, 2018 881 rated it did not like it

Shelves: didn-t-finish, underwhelming, waste-of-my-life, read-in-2018, non-fiction

I wish I can give this book negative 5 stars. It's subjective and weakly supported and overall a mess of a book. Don't bother with it.

I DNF this book. It is incredibly bias and lumps up people into categories without considering their other qualities. He doesn't see "people" he sees "a psychopath" "a borderline" and "a narcissist." He might be more reliable about what he says about Autism, but he has very weak understanding and knowledge of personality disorders. He basically makes these weird I wish I can give this book negative 5 stars. It's subjective and weakly supported and overall a mess of a book. Don't bother with it.

I DNF this book. It is incredibly bias and lumps up people into categories without considering their other qualities. He doesn't see "people" he sees "a psychopath" "a borderline" and "a narcissist." He might be more reliable about what he says about Autism, but he has very weak understanding and knowledge of personality disorders. He basically makes these weird categories "negative zero/positive zero etc" which not only sound dumb, but are not quantified anywhere. I researched these categories, and nada. So who is to judge empathy then? who are you to lump people into black and white categories based on stereotypes and slap some weak research findings onto them. He picks bias research, doesn't make objective and well supported arguments. In fact he mostly uses specific situations and pathos, and to make things worst, he doesn't address the main topic: the science of evil. Having no empathy does NOT mean you are evil, it does NOT mean that you are socially inept, and it does NOT automatically result in you being a criminal or aggressive.

The book repeats it self, and is quiet disorganized and lacks clarity. His views are black and white, yet he says disorders are spectrums, but then he says that Cluster B disorders have NEGATIVE ZERO empathy! FIRST OF ALL, YOU CAN'T SAY ZERO NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE, IT IS JUST STUPID AND SHOWS A LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF A SIMPLE CONCEPT OF A NUMBER THAT REPRESENTS A BASELINE OR THE ABSENCE OF SOMETHING. This whole book could be summed in a couple of condensed pages.

Also measuring empathy objectively is nearly impossible. Using one test to quantify empathy lacks scientific ground. A couple of things about research you must consider:
-Validity-- Is the instrument we are using to measure, is actually accuretly measuring what we want to measure?
- reliability-- Internal reliability is a measure of how well your test is actually measuring what you want it to measure. External reliability means that your test or measure can be generalized beyond what you’re using it for.

Considering these 2, it is clear to me that this book is not a good source of info. ...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Oscar rated it really liked it

Simon Baron-Cohen addresses the question of evil with an emphasis on moving away from biblical or religious theories towards scientific and psychiatric explanations. Baron-Cohen argues that much of what can constitute cruelty towards others is a result of a lack of empathy, that is, lacking feeling towards the victim and seeing them more or less as objects. In the book, Baron-Cohen argues that empathy exists on a spectrum, and while anyone can lack empathy for a brief moment, the book argues tha ...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Michael George rated it it was amazing

Shelves: psychology

The Science of Evil
S. Baron-Cohen
Basic Books, 2011

What is evil? This is a question that is addressed in the first chapter of this book. The point of view is adopted to discuss this from the standpoint of a lack of empathy. In the second chapter, empathy is discussed as if it were a measurable characteristic, with a variation in the human population characterized by a “bell-shaped curve”. The concept of “empathy quotient”, or EQ, is introduced, and we are introduced to a questionnaire whose resul ...more

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Dec 25, 2019 Jef Sneider rated it liked it

Shelves: science, psychology, science-philosophy

This is really not a book about evil. Believe the subtitle. The author makes his case that there are individuals who are hard wired, by genetics and development, to lack empathy and that 3 types of these individuals are capable of inflicting harm on others without considering the harm done. Three types of personality disorder fit into the most harmful category as we know it from standard psychological classifications: psychopathic, borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. When fully ex This is really not a book about evil. Believe the subtitle. The author makes his case that there are individuals who are hard wired, by genetics and development, to lack empathy and that 3 types of these individuals are capable of inflicting harm on others without considering the harm done. Three types of personality disorder fit into the most harmful category as we know it from standard psychological classifications: psychopathic, borderline and narcissistic personality disorders. When fully expressed, people with each of these disorders really suffer from a lack of empathy. They are unable to feel or understand what another person feels. The author uses scientific evidence to show that empathy is wired into 10 different regions of our brains and that the brains of people who lack empathy show both anatomic variations and differences from "normal" on functional MRI scanning.

For each of us, other people may be reduced to objects at times of stress. Soldiers in the heat of battle, must see the enemy, for better or worse, as an enemy, not a human being. Each of us, when stressed or hurried, might walk by a person lying on the street and not even notice the human being that is there. Sometimes shutting down our empathy circuits is a good thing, a positive adaptation. A surgeon needs to see only the problem she is working on, not the human being. All of these cases occur in everyday life. Most people are capable of recognizing, at least in retrospect, that we have caused harm by objectifying others. We can experience regret, remorse and even shame for our actions.

This is not so with those who truly lack empathy. Their behavior shows that they treat other people as objects to be manipulated, and their thoughts often conform without regret and without shame. Of course, a lack of empathy alone does not lead to evil actions. The author argues that environmental factors and opportunity combined with a lack of empathy can lead to some awful actions, including abuse, neglect, and murder. Examples are cited which are real, and they just make me shake my head. We know that there are people who do evil. We just can't understand it.

Simon Baron-Cohen helps us to understand how it is possible, due to a total lack of empathy, for a mother to neglect her children, for a father to rape his daughter and keep her locked up for years and for a gang member to rape and murder without remorse.

Unfortunately, he is less helpful helping us figure out to do with knowledge based on his theories and evidence. The people he describes would generally be thought of as "bad people" who do bad things and should be punished or just locked away to keep the rest of us safe. Or should they? Can people who are biologically lacking in empathy be rehabilitated? Can they change? Can they learn empathy? Are they responsible for their crimes?

With a few quick remarks about the death penalty and philosophy, the book draws to a conclusion. This has left me with an uneasy feeling. I am uneasy just being reminded that there are people out there who can commit crimes and hurt people as a matter of course, with no thoughts to the feelings of their victims. I know these people exist. I know that they do bad things. I just find that explaining their evil actions using a fixed biological and scientific framework leaves me with a very negative and depressing and hopeless view of the world. How can we escape the biology of ruthless killers in the world? To paraphrase Jack Nicholson's character speaking in the movie A Few Good Men, "We can't handle the truth!" He may be right. ...more

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Aug 28, 2016 Book rated it really liked it

Shelves: science, neuroscience, social-science

The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty by Simon Baron-Cohen

“The Science of Evil” is a very interesting book that examines human cruelty. British researcher Simon Baron-Cohen takes the reader on a fascinating ride that focuses on the social and genetic factors that impact empathy. This stimulating 272-page book includes the following six chapters: 1. Explaining “Evil” and Human Cruelty, 2. Empathy Mechanism: The Bell Curve, 3. When Zero Degrees of Empathy Is Negative, 4.When Z ...more

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Aug 25, 2019 berthamason rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5 stars. And yes, he's related to Sacha Baron-Cohen. ...more

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May 01, 2019 Amy rated it liked it

Shelves: mental-health

I totally agree with the arguments presented discussing degrees of empathy and how they manifest in day-to-day life. I especially enjoyed the last chapter on empathy as a solution to world issues. My only complaint is that (for me) the brain science gets a bit dry.

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About Simon Baron-Cohen

Simon Baron-Cohen

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Simon Baron-Cohen FBA is Professor of Developmental psychopathology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. He is the Director of the University's Autism Research Centre, and a Fellow of Trinity College. He has worked on autism, including the theory that autism involves degrees of mind-blindness (or delays in the development of theory of mind) and his later theory that autism is an e ...more

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“Parents who discipline their child by discussing the consequences of their actions produce children who have better moral development , compared to children whose parents use authoritarian methods and punishment.” — 86 likes

“empathy is like a universal solvent. Any problem immersed in empathy becomes soluble.” — 17 likes

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