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Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

Paul Bloom (Goodreads Author)

3.59 · Rating details · 3,755 ratings · 546 reviews

New York Post Best Book of 2016

We often think of our capacity to experience the suffering of others as the ultimate source of goodness. Many of our wisest policy-makers, activists, scientists, and philosophers agree that the only problem with empathy is that we don’t have enough of it.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, argues Yale researcher Paul Bloom. In AGAINST EM ...more

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Hardcover, 285 pages

Published December 6th 2016 by Ecco

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Apr 20, 2017 Darwin8u rated it liked it

Shelves: 2017

"Empathy is what makes us human; it's what makes us both subjects and objects of moral concern. Empathy betrays us only when we take it as a moral guide."
- Paul Bloom, Against Empathy

description

I'm a sucker for pop psychology or moral philosophy or moral politics books. Kinda my jam. I'm also a fan of books that flip certain general assumptions about what is an absolute good. I remember first reading a book called In Defense of Elitism years ago after my freshman year in college. It was a catchy title, and ...more

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Jan 21, 2020 Trevor rated it it was ok

Shelves: psychology, evolution, history, race

I’ve been on an odd sort of journey with this book. First of all, I came to it as a bit of a convert. You see, I’ve been doing research at work into intercultural understanding and multiculturalism, and a lot of the theory around that starts from the premise that for students to become interculturally understanding they first need to learn empathy. This hardly seems controversial – I mean, we have all read To Kill a Mockingbird, and so walking a mile in my shoes seems to be pretty good advice. B I’ve been on an odd sort of journey with this book. First of all, I came to it as a bit of a convert. You see, I’ve been doing research at work into intercultural understanding and multiculturalism, and a lot of the theory around that starts from the premise that for students to become interculturally understanding they first need to learn empathy. This hardly seems controversial – I mean, we have all read To Kill a Mockingbird, and so walking a mile in my shoes seems to be pretty good advice. But then, in the middle of last year, I mentioned to the woman who sits beside me at work that I was starting to think empathy might not be the unbridled good that I’d always taken it to be. I was almost expecting to be told to not be so bloody-minded and contrary, but instead she suggested I read Megan Boler’s ‘The Risks of Empathy: Interrogating multiculturalism’s gaze’. There’s only one thing worse than being a smartarse academic who challenges the otherwise unchallengeable – and that is being late to the game. Damn! If there is any consolation to be found, it is in the fact that this book was published in 2016, and Boler’s article was printed in 1997 – so, I’m not the only one late here.

There were things that annoyed me about this book. I was really surprised that it spent quite so much time referencing pop-psy books and writers. I mean, people like Pinker, Malcolm Gladwell and Sam Harris. The author is a professor of psychology at Yale. I know this book is written for a popular audience, but that still seems deeply strange behaviour to me. You might not think so, but one of the first things they teach you when you are becoming an academic is to go for the source of ideas, rather than the popularisers. I have problems with both Harris and Pinker – so, amusingly enough, I experienced precisely the heightened sense of cynicism he was discussing throughout this book right from the off. I’m happy to admit that the problem is my own bias – but even given my bias, it still strikes me as strange that someone in his position wouldn't be using academic references and standards more, even while writing for a popular audience.

Okay, so what is the problem with apple pie and motherhood? Or rather empathy? Well, as he says here, one of the problems is that empathy provides something of a spotlight. You can’t show empathy to more than one person at a time. If empathy means walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, well, that’s a mile in only one person’s shoes you can walk at any given time. And since there are over 7 billion people in the world, well, that’s a lot of walking you are going to have to do. By the way, 7 billion miles is another 50% further again out into space as the journey from here to Pluto. And as Boler makes clear, the problem with empathy is that there are people’s shoes that are simply not going to fit you - I'm never going to really know what it feels like to be intersexual or transexual - and my best intentioned guesses are likely to be well off the mark. And there will be shoes you simply will never be able to bring yourself to put your foot inside. But does that then mean those people do not deserve your empathy or the potential benefits that come from your empathy? Does it mean they ought to be treated badly? Am I only required to feel sympathy for people I can ultimately ‘understand’ and put myself in their place?

A case in point. My daughter spent a year in Japan and while she was there she went out with a Japanese boy for a while. One night he decided to give her a real treat. They went to an up market restaurant and he ordered Fugo for them – fugo is otherwise known as the fish that kills. Well, sort of – because actually most fugo is now farmed, rather than caught in the ocean, and so it never gets to eat the algae it would use to produce the poison that can kill you. You know, it is the same old story, when myth and fact conflict, print the myth. That wasn’t the part of the story that bothered my daughter, though – you know, the part about her new boyfriend trying to poison her. The problem was that the fish arrived at the table very much alive (at least to my daughter's eyes) – it had been filleted alive only moments before arriving at the table, and so the fillets were still moving on the plate - 'moving'? 'Quivering'? Anyway, she told her boyfriend that there was simply no way she could bring herself to put an ‘alive’ piece of fish into her mouth. Her boyfriend looked at her dumbfounded - not least because this was probably costing him an arm and a leg, and kept saying to her – ‘but it’s so fresh – it’s so delicious’. This cultural difference was so great and so fascinating to her that she ended up writing her Honours thesis around it.

This is basically my criticism of this book. While there is lots of discussion about empathy, and the problems of empathy – and most of these I agree with (you know, nationalism neatly divides the world into those you can and can’t feel empathy for) I think one of the mechanisms that helps ensure empathy cannot develop that is underestimated in this book is disgust. You know, as Pinker himself says in one of his books, the reason for food taboos in cultures is to ensure that you don’t end up marrying someone from outside your ‘group’ – and these food taboos are always taboos to do with meat. No religion bars the eating of carrots – but eating pork…or eating alive fish... And if you can’t share food with someone, it is very hard to develop any other form of relationship with them. This is part of the reason why Christianity, which from the very beginning sought to be a universal religion, rejected the food taboos of the commandments in the Old Testament. A companion is literally someone you eat with (from the Latin for ‘with bread’) – stopping people from eating together puts a significant obstacle in the way of them becoming friends.

But the other thing that annoyed me about this is something else I’ve been reading about lately – that the most effective way to overcome cultural differences (to develop empathy, to get people to understand each other despite their cultural differences) is to do what you can to get them to actively work together toward a common goal. A really good book on this is O’Connor’s The Nature of Prejudice.

Which then brings me to my final concern with this book – it’s the ‘we just need to be more rational’ bias it displays. I’ve got nothing against reason, per se, but he ends this book by saying that reason is objective (basically the same for everyone no matter their background) and so it is our main hope. And, to be honest, as much as I would quite like that to be the case, it isn’t hard to see the number of times ‘reason’ has been used to demonise entire populations. You know, one of this guy’s heroes, as I've already mentioned, is Sam Harris – and Sam's ‘all of Islam is evil’ approach to world politics seems to me to be lacking both empathy and compassion (and 'reason' if it comes to that). It makes me a bit ill to think of how he has used his 'reason' to effectively justify god knows how many millions of deaths since 9/11.

Like I said at the beginning of this review – I don’t think empathy is enough, I might even agree that empathy is worse at achieving positive relations between cultures than it is generally made out to, but I also think that we know the answer to how to address this. We need to actively find ways to achieve transformation based on different cultures working together towards common ends as equals. This has been proven time and again to be the most effective way to end conflict and to encourage people to recognise their common humanity. If ‘reason’ leads us to Sam Harris and his 'Islam is evil' rubbish – we have no hope at all.

...more

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Feb 05, 2017 Joachim Stoop rated it liked it

This was not a very clear, graspable, usable book.
There are lots of valid points here and he uses a flood of empirical data.
But while he says he hates endless discussions about connotations, I found the explanation and meaning of the title all about linguistic nuance. I actually find the title a bit of a sales pitch.
'Against empathy'. Yes, but fom page one he defends himself against possible misunderstandings. He based this entire book on possible critique against his title, instead of just maki ...more

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Jun 06, 2017 Leo Walsh rated it it was ok

I first stumbled on Yale developmental psychologist Paul Bloom reading a New Yorker editorial called The Baby In the Well: The case against empathy . It was an interesting dissection of empathy. Not because it's bad, but because it forces people into crappy decisions.

For instance, people across America felt the mourning Sandy Hook parents’ pain as they followed media coverage of the mass murder in horror. Understandable. Dead kids suck, and if you cannot feel a grieving parent's pain, you ai ...more

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Dec 15, 2016 Moshe Hoffman rated it really liked it

"Against Empathy" does a nice job summarizing all the limitations of empathy, and our altruistic drives more generally, such as being nicer to our kin and neighbors, and being especially prone to newsworthy suffering and insensitive to numbers, scale, and efficacy. Paul rightly points out that our logical arguments and conscious deliberation often lead us toward more utilitarian considerations that are a better way to do good. In the process he reviews a ton of interesting experiments and anecdo "Against Empathy" does a nice job summarizing all the limitations of empathy, and our altruistic drives more generally, such as being nicer to our kin and neighbors, and being especially prone to newsworthy suffering and insensitive to numbers, scale, and efficacy. Paul rightly points out that our logical arguments and conscious deliberation often lead us toward more utilitarian considerations that are a better way to do good. In the process he reviews a ton of interesting experiments and anecdotes in the process, in a thoroughly readable book.

However, Paul makes the same mistake many who have studied morality are prone to make: he assumes that the reason logic often leads us toward utilitarianism is because utilitarianism is actually dictated by logic—smart people just realize that every life counts equally, whether far or close, kin or stranger, and saving one life is exactly one tenth as good as saving ten lives.

This argument seems right, and is commonly given, but it's wrong.

It is not reason that dictates that all lives count equally. That is a value we have. Not something we are born having. Not something that is universal or biologically evolved. Not something that is inherently true about the universe. But something that is valued in our culture. Something that we look good saying. Something we get in trouble for by espousing. Given that this is something we are socialized, and incentivized, to say, we of course come to believe it. Believe in it whole-heartedly. Believe it is self evidently true despite no evidence in support (or in fact any ability to provide such evidence given that it is not even truth-functional statement). Which makes us all the more trustworthy to pursue and enforce this value.

And of course, if we espouse this value, and want others to think we espouse it and treat it as sacred, we have all the incentive in the world to ensure that our behavior is consistent with this value ESPECIALLY when such inconsistency is made clear to our conscious minds, or is shoved in our face. As Peter Singer's drowning child example does. As Paul‘s book nicely does. As all the evidence Paul points out on how narrowly focused our altruism tends to be. Hence, when we think about morality, when we reason through moral dilemmas, when we are faced with such inconsistencies, we tend to become more utilitarian. But this doesn't imply that utilitarianism is DICTATES by reason, or that we are utilitarian BECAUSE we are smart. It implies we are utilitarian because we want people (and hence ourselves) to think of us as caring about others welfare, and caring about notions of equality, and don't want to look inconsistent when our hypocrisy is called out or made blatant. That's different.

This difference sounds semantic. But it’s really not.

Believing that utilitarianism comes from reason or intelligence is quite misleading, leading to many non-sequitors, and preventing us from noting some valuable insights about how human morality ACTUALLY works.

In particular, if reason leads to utilitarianism (in the absence of the social/cultural incentive to espouse values of caring and equality) then Paul ought to have a rather hard time explaining the Nazis, and slave holders, not to mention Immanuel Kant. All of whom have quite thoroughly reasoned arguments, quite a lot of iq, and invested immense conscious deliberation, that lead them to conclude the exact opposite: that slavery was good, or Jews and Gypsy's and Slavs are not equal, or that omissions count quite a bit differently than commissions. And in fact, it is rather hard to point to a place in Nazi arguments, or the statements of slave holders, or Kant, where reason is any more or less flimsy than Peter Singer. And that’s because the difference doesn't lie in their logical abilities, but in the values they started with. Their axioms. Slaveholders didn't mind stating that they don't believe all humans are equal. Nor did the Nazis. They put extra weight (all?) on a particular race. Is this a LOGICAL error? No more so than our notion that all are equal. It might be abhorrent. But that’s not logic. That’s our values. Our axioms. Kant simply never accepted the axiom that consequences are all that matters. Where is the logical fallacy there? The problem isn't in reason, it's in the values.

Likewise, if reason (alone) is what drives us to utilitarianism, we are left with quite a few paradoxes. Is it reasonable to ignore unborn people? To count unborn people? Does reason lead us to maximize average utility or total utility? What about utility monsters (those who get a bomb of pleasure for every dollar you give them, or for seeing another being suffer)? Should I go to jail for the $1,000 I wasted on a suit, causing a death in the developing world by omission? These sound like paradoxes because they pit various intuitions against each other. Various values we espouse and want to signal we have. Thereby forcing us to admit inconsistency with at least one (or come up with a convoluted argument that twists and turns reason in ways it isn't meant to be bent). Instead of just admitting, that there is nothing in logic that answers these questions. We just have various values and intuitions that evolved (or are learned, or socially reinforced) for various reasons. Each of which we have an incentive to espouse, and an incentive to show others we value as sacred and unbending. It just turns out that it's not logically possible to have all these values in an unbending way at once. But that doesn't stop us from wanting to argue that we can. Hence paradoxes. But such moral philosophizing isn't "right" or "true" it's just what we are left with when we pretend it's reason that drives these values, and not admitting what it is: values we want others to think we hold as sacred.

As a consequence, Paul is left without wondering why empathy has all these quirks, instead of at once grasping all the perfect evidence that empathy and altruism, when not directed toward kin, is clearly designed, subconsciously at least, toward reputational gains. And at the same time, Paul is left missing the interesting question of why we came to espouse the value of equality, how moral reasoning often lead many toward other conclusions, what game people are playing when they make moral arguments, and how to optimally persuade someone to in fact be utilitarian. All insights and questions that would have been close at hand had he kept his objective psychology hat on, or his evolutionary perspective tuned.

But unfortunately, he did what many do and accepted the moral arguments we tell and the intuitions we hold dear, as self-evident truths, and not psychological features to be understood and explained.

...more

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Apr 17, 2017 Holly rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017-reads

Bloom is not really against empathy as in kindness, compassion, other-regard. He's against a kind of empathy that is short-sighted, selfish (as in simple self-regard), that stops us from thinking and using our moral conscience. When he discusses compassion it's in the context of "cognitive empathy" and not "affective empathy." He quotes Adam Smith a lot.

I wished for more emphasis on how empathy depends on a certain selfish or self-regarding feeling. I had this sense a lot while reading Leslie J Bloom is not really against empathy as in kindness, compassion, other-regard. He's against a kind of empathy that is short-sighted, selfish (as in simple self-regard), that stops us from thinking and using our moral conscience. When he discusses compassion it's in the context of "cognitive empathy" and not "affective empathy." He quotes Adam Smith a lot.

I wished for more emphasis on how empathy depends on a certain selfish or self-regarding feeling. I had this sense a lot while reading Leslie Jamison's Empathy Exams: that why do we have to rely on this emotion that "I feel it inside myself - as if it's happening to me - and so that's why I have compassion for this person"? Doesn't this "only if I pretend it's happening to me" mindset seem a little meager? Maybe I can still feel compassion without understanding exactly what you are experiencing? Would I be more helpful if I put MY emotions aside and looked at the situation?

Bloom is worried that empathy will limit us - make us identify only with certain people and not others. He finds empathy suspect. This is a challenge to argue, since it seems as if we're always talking about empathy in the culture these days. (And I know from personal experience that so much becomes clear when it finally occurs to one that the reason a close family-member is utterly thoughtless is that he is deficient in the ability to "put himself in another's shoes." - Empathy is invaluable as a starting point to human relations.)

Bloom does go off on tangents that don't always seem exactly pertinent to his argument but he is responding to critics - it isn't a traditional scholarly book and more conversational. But not necessarily easy reading either.

Is Paul Bloom a social conservative? I don't pick up on that myself and I think I would, but I may have read some critiques of his Just Babies that suggest that. I don't think he is a jerk anyway.

I agree with him for the most part - but it feels as if the book is unfinished and he spends much time responding to his critics rather than advancing his actual position. I suppose it is a work in progress, which I understand. His subtitle - the case for rational compassion - isn't borne out. He talks very little about compassion itself, and what this rational compassion looks like in the world. He's very interested in rationality, which is of course suspect these days (neuroscience in the courtroom; claims to refute the existence of free will through brain imaging results).

Fascinating reading. I expect to hear more about this subject - the value of empathy and whether we shouldn't put so much stake in it; alternatives to empathy that are as important and more so - from Bloom and other thinkers. ...more

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Mar 23, 2018 Khush rated it did not like it

I heard a lot about this book. In fact, a friend of mine suggested that I should read this book. The title itself is quite titillating.

As I began to read this book, I found it quite irritating. Half through the book, the writer is still busy explaining what he means by empathy. It is not an easy case to make for 'against empathy,' he tried but I did not find him convincing. Very often, in the book, I felt that he was supporting, and very mildly suggesting, something dangerous that human beings s ...more

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Dec 17, 2016 Ceil rated it it was ok

Shelves: culture

Really wanted to like this book, having long suspected that "I feel your pain" is part of an anti-logic, anti-rational trend that glorifies individual feelings above all. Aside from setting up some useful distinctions (empathy v compassion, etc.), the author muses at length on examples of linguistic legerdemain around the concept. Nothing particularly useful here. ...more

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Jul 13, 2018 Blair rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 2016-release

Hmm, I thought I would enjoy this more than I did – or at least that I would be more stimulated by it than I was. It takes balls to title your book Against Empathy, but that's somewhat undermined by the fact that the author spends so much time reiterating a) what he means by empathy and b) that he is in fact very much pro-kindness and compassion. Bloom's definition of 'empathy' is the practice of feeling for a person/group by trying to feel their pain, i.e. putting yourself 'in someone else's sh Hmm, I thought I would enjoy this more than I did – or at least that I would be more stimulated by it than I was. It takes balls to title your book Against Empathy, but that's somewhat undermined by the fact that the author spends so much time reiterating a) what he means by empathy and b) that he is in fact very much pro-kindness and compassion. Bloom's definition of 'empathy' is the practice of feeling for a person/group by trying to feel their pain, i.e. putting yourself 'in someone else's shoes'. This is absolutely fine, but it's repeated so often that it sometimes feels like it's being mentioned every three or four pages, especially in the first half of the book. It could have been defined in the introduction and left at that.

Against Empathy is, imo, not so much an argument against empathy as it is a meticulous separation of the specific concept of empathy from the other values it is often conflated with, such as kindness, compassion, generosity, etc. Bloom believes that empathy can be a poor moral guide. This is most apparent in cases where too much empathy might hinder a person's judgement. For example, an extremely empathic doctor might not be best placed to help a patient; an extremely empathic parent would likely be overprotective to a suffocating degree; charitable acts that centre empathy often do more to assuage the giver's guilt than to help the greatest number of people in the most efficient way. Instead, a combination of rational decision-making and diffused compassion should replace empathy in our process of moral reasoning.

There's a decent and persuasive argument at the heart of Against Empathy, but as a book it is repetitive and feels very padded out. Having read it, I feel like I have a much clearer idea of what Bloom thinks is good and useful about being rational, kind and compassionate than what he finds bad and harmful about empathy. I originally put the word 'ironically' at the beginning of that sentence, but I wonder if that was the point after all.

TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr ...more

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Dec 01, 2018 Sandra rated it it was ok

Shelves: social-sci, book-club, psychology, philosophy

Paul Bloom puts empathy in a jar and attempts to dissect it. It does not work, not outside the evolutionary context. We are in 2018, not 1958.

This is a magazine article, fluffed up to a length of a book.

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Feb 21, 2017 Charlene rated it it was amazing

Shelves: how-to-not-be-an-asshole, decision-making

Absolutely BRILLIANT! This is a must read for anyone interested in things like:
decision-making
empathy
ingroup/outgroup dynamics
policy making
social constructs
inequality
logic v. emotional regulation on a grand scale

Why out of 293 Goodreads reviews does this book only have a 3.75? I can't say for sure, especially since I have not taken the time to read all the negative reviews, but I suspect they come from people who pride themselves on being "a good person", because they identify as an empathetic Absolutely BRILLIANT! This is a must read for anyone interested in things like:
decision-making
empathy
ingroup/outgroup dynamics
policy making
social constructs
inequality
logic v. emotional regulation on a grand scale

Why out of 293 Goodreads reviews does this book only have a 3.75? I can't say for sure, especially since I have not taken the time to read all the negative reviews, but I suspect they come from people who pride themselves on being "a good person", because they identify as an empathetic person. They see that as a positive thing, no matter what the result of their emotional decisions. But, just as we came to understand that oxytocin is not just the "love and trust drug" and that it is also a key regulator of ingroup/ outgroup thinking (which results in poor treatment for the outgroup), humans are now beginning to understand the downside, and in fact often immoral side, of empathy. Empathy too often results in local empathy that is the equivalent of being on teams, which results in team-like dynamics. The reality is that often when you empathize with one person or one side of an argument, you close yourself off to the other side or the other person. I am not talking about giving 2 sides of an argument equal billing. For example, if one person is being racist, sexist, or otherwise oppressive, the logical course of action is not to give both sides equal empathy or equal consideration. That is not what this book is about.

This book is about how to follow multiple lines of logic and not let knee-jerk local empathetic reactions to your favorite people or favorite causes blind you to the realities of decision-making. There are better ways, if you follow the logic all the way out *and* use your emotions, to come up with the best outcomes -- no matter if they are for your personal life, for the wellbeing of whole societies, or affect things on a global scale.

Empathy can often lead to dynamics that involve impulsivity, manipulation, logical inconsistencies, and suboptimal outcomes. This is one of the most exciting books in the social sciences to come in a long time. A+

** Note: Bloom also clarified what he has come to understand since writing Just Babies. As new evidence filtered in, he saw that he was mistaken about some things and updated his thinking and shared that with his reader. I love any author who updates based on new evidence and is willing to own up to it. (Are you taking notes Dawkins?) ...more

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Jan 23, 2017 Jennifer rated it really liked it

Shelves: library, short-stories

I saw the title of this book and I had to read it. I mean, who could be opposed to empathy? Does he want us to stop being nice to each other?

The subtitle of the book offers a clue: Bloom would prefer us to be compassionate in more rational ways. When we 'put ourselves in others' shoes,' which is what many mean by the term empathy, it can lead to some irrational, even horrifying results. Whether it's making feel-good donations rather than researching to see where our charitable contributions woul ...more

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Oct 22, 2018 Nicky rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, philosophy

Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.

“Against empathy? How could anyone be against empathy?”

That was probably my first reaction too, because I and the people around me are all focused on being good to other people, and empathy seems to offer a way to do that. It seems to offer us insight, so we know the right things to say and do. But Paul Bloom’s contention is that empathy doesn’t always lead us in the right direction: he reminds the reader that empathy is what makes us focus on one sick child whose Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.

“Against empathy? How could anyone be against empathy?”

That was probably my first reaction too, because I and the people around me are all focused on being good to other people, and empathy seems to offer a way to do that. It seems to offer us insight, so we know the right things to say and do. But Paul Bloom’s contention is that empathy doesn’t always lead us in the right direction: he reminds the reader that empathy is what makes us focus on one sick child whose name and face we know, even if we don’t actually know the child is even real, over tens or hundreds of other sick children. Empathy can focus us powerfully on feeling how a single other person “must” be feeling — and therein lies the problem. It’s hard, if not impossible, to empathise with everyone in a whole crowd, and our instincts aren’t always accurate in guessing how other people feel. If they were, then we’d never say exactly the wrong thing when we want to comfort someone who is sad — we’d know what to say.

What Bloom isn’t against is compassion: he speaks admiringly of the Buddhist ideal of compassion without attachment, for instance. Compassion linked with reason can indeed guide us to do good, to do the moral thing, to ensure he hurt the least number of people. But empathy — pure “I feel what you feel” emotional attachment leads us astray, and Bloom argues that point well.

To empathise is a human emotion that many of us share, and Bloom isn’t claiming it’s inherently a bad thing. That would be to misread the book entirely. Honestly, despite often thinking that empathy is a virtue and people can do more of it, I find it difficult to disagree with Bloom’s conclusions. Part of that is that he writes really clearly, which makes it easy to knee-jerk believe that he’s right, but I think I’ll still be thinking about (and agreeing with) this in a few days, weeks, months.

Time to look up Effective Altruism again, and do something with the information this time. ...more

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Oct 25, 2017 Wayland Smith rated it it was ok

The author makes some interesting arguments about how empathy can lead public policy, and personal decisions, astray. It's written a bit dryly, and he goes through a few contortions with some of his logic at times. The short version is he more or less seems to think people should be a bit more Vulcan, and he's really big into that "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one" expression. It's an exercise in philosophy which made a few interesting points, but overall I had to push a bit t ...more

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Jan 26, 2019 Amirography rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy, cognitive-science, favorites, by-the-bed-books

This book offers a great argument against what we think of as empathy in psychology: the ability to feel what others feel.
Though the book was written by a prominent child psychologist I failed to find anything about psychology that I did not know already. Also the author failed to offer any explanation about why empathy came to be from evolutionary perspective. So I can say that this book was mostly a philosophical, ethical arguement against the use of empathy as our moral compass.
The writing st ...more

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Feb 12, 2017 fromcouchtomoon rated it really liked it

Interesting argument, but misleading title, as it's not empathy he's railing against, but small-mindedness. Packaged to be provocative without being as provocative as claimed. ...more

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Oct 23, 2020 Kris rated it liked it

Shelves: politics, audiobooks

I'm much more a "think with your head, not with your heart" person, so this was right up my alley.

I was surprised at the (mostly) balanced discussion Bloom held here. He focuses more on the social-science and psych aspects, rather than specific political agendas. He makes the very logical observation that people care more about their immediate family and friends, rather than society at large. Therefore, one must be careful before using feelings to make policy decisions.

So why the three stars? No ...more

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Nov 30, 2018 Blair rated it did not like it

Shelves: psychology, zzz-public-library, philosophy, politics

Gibberish.

Sure, if you randomly open the book anywhere the story being told will make sense. Try to combine these stories into a coherent message, and all you get is an ever shifting definition of empathy that amounts to “something that leads to bad choices”. So we make poor decisions when we rely only on emotion. Who knew?

At best, we can treat this work like the I Ching to inspire conversation. As a whole, it is gibberish.

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May 01, 2018 Диана rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This book is defeating a straw man.
Author is presenting a couple of reasons to think that what he calls empathy - feeling exactly what another person feels - is not always leading us to perform the best action, is not always good for the empathiser, and is not at the core of morality. But no one of the thinkers who have argued for the benefits of empathy actually claim the views Bloom is against, and few if any thinkers out there would define empathy in his limited way. The rhetoric of this book This book is defeating a straw man.
Author is presenting a couple of reasons to think that what he calls empathy - feeling exactly what another person feels - is not always leading us to perform the best action, is not always good for the empathiser, and is not at the core of morality. But no one of the thinkers who have argued for the benefits of empathy actually claim the views Bloom is against, and few if any thinkers out there would define empathy in his limited way. The rhetoric of this book is misleading, as author would make it sound as if he is presenting a drastic position, but he is either misrepresenting what other thinkers hold, or making a series of completely uninteresting and unsurprising claims in a bad style and cheating language. Or both.
Despite defeating a straw man - what should be an easy target - the argument is incoherent at times as Bloom seems to be contradicting himself a couple of times without making a good enough effort to make his position clear. Also he is not presenting others' positions with sufficient accuracy or charity. The whole book feels like cheating, trying to make the reader believe that the author is right, sometimes resorting to emotional strategies like jokes and exclamation marks, without actually making the issues any much clearer in the reader's mind.
There is a way to speak about complex issues in a simple manner, without cheating or otherwise suffocating the reader's intelligence. This book doesn't get close to it.
The only reason I give it a second star is that I am writing a thesis on empathy, and a few of the references will be useful to me. But I won't be able, in my own writing, to engage with Bloom's argument, because it is a bad argument. If you are looking for a more thoughtful argument about the negatives of empathy, perhaps check the philosopher Jesse Prinz, it will be less a waste of time than reading this book.
PS: What I really like about this book is the cover. The cover is great - just look at it. Best of minimalist design. 5 stars to the person who came up with it. ...more

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Jan 25, 2017 Ryan rated it really liked it

I once gave a presentation entitled something like "Generating Empathetic Responses Through Cognitive Role Taking in Writing." I asked my audience, all teachers like me, how many of us assumed developing empathy in others was a good thing. All hands rose.

I agreed with my audience that empathy is pretty much a great thing.

I still remember those times when I powerfully felt the wrongness of something by immersing myself in a situation through writing. Somehow, merely thinking abstractly and conclu ...more

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Jan 22, 2017 Bookworm rated it did not like it

Author has a case...unfortunately it's buried. I was perfectly open to reading Bloom's dissertation that there is *too much* empathy, rather than the need for more. This seemed highly relevant to recent events, plus as a general rule: why is it that certain events get far more attention and time when others don't? Does empathy affect our judgment too much?

Unfortunately, Bloom's message is completely muddled and buried in what seems like a word salad. He goes off too long and too many times on ...more

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Feb 26, 2017 Daniel rated it it was amazing

This is one of those rare books that challenge my assumption about morality and it is great. Empathy is the ability for us to feel what others feel. It has recently been touted as the most important attribute for successful and moral lives. It turns out that it is probably false.

Empathy is:
1. Narrow minded (we feel more for people who are like us, attractive etc)
2. Innumerate (we don't feel more sad if 5000 people suffer vs 1 person. Indeed it may be that we feel more for one person who is spot ...more

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Jan 24, 2017 Erica rated it liked it

I'm not entirely sure what to make of this book. It definitely generated some good conversation and has given me a lot to talk about. But I think it would have been effectively done as an essay. In many places it seemed to just be going around in circles.
The key issue at hand is the role of empathy in moral judgments, not overall in relationships, storytelling, etc. As long as you keep that frame of reference very clearly in mind while you read, I think you can get something out of it. ...more

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Jan 23, 2017 Samuel rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017

Full of interesting content and discussion but the only problem was that his arguments, though grounded in sound reason and fact fell short in impact. I was left at the end of each chapter rather dissapointed that his arguments didn't have enough grit and bravado to both feel wholesome in its explaintory power and have that badass feel of being a contrarian. ...more

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Mar 10, 2019 Leo Robertson rated it it was amazing

I think this book changed my brain for the better.

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May 03, 2020 Uhtred rated it liked it · review of another edition

This book struck me for the title: for years we have been surrounded by messages that enhance empathy, which offer it as a solution to all social, corporate and condominium problems. So, a Yale scholar who analyzes empathy from a scientific-psychological and not simplistic-goodistic point of view, immediately attracted me. Bloom's thesis is rather counter-current, given that he tries to demonstrate that empathy, understood as "putting yourself in the shoes of others" is a bad adviser if you want This book struck me for the title: for years we have been surrounded by messages that enhance empathy, which offer it as a solution to all social, corporate and condominium problems. So, a Yale scholar who analyzes empathy from a scientific-psychological and not simplistic-goodistic point of view, immediately attracted me. Bloom's thesis is rather counter-current, given that he tries to demonstrate that empathy, understood as "putting yourself in the shoes of others" is a bad adviser if you want to make right decisions. Quite the opposite of the answer you would get if you interview ordinary people, but also the many social media "gurus" who want to teach us how to be successful in business or politics.
In fact, usually, empathy is always-and-only seen as a positive concept: it has good press, it is always present on the lips of politicians, it is the subject of study by great scholars but also the man in the street perceives that it is a good thing, that when it is absent there is indifference, cynicism, insensitivity. In general everyone thinks that if there was more empathy the world would be better.
Well, the title of the book, so fiercely aggressive that it had attracted me, in the book is very diluted: the thesis that Bloom wants to demonstrate, is demonstrated very well and very clearly in the first 50 pages, the rest is just a repetition of the concepts, with various examples which, however interesting and shareable, add nothing to the thesis demonstrated. Bloom, in essence, differentiates empathy so well in its various aspects and conceptions, to isolate it in such a way that you can only say he is right: if empathy is understood as synonymous with morality, compassion, kindness, it is impossible to speak bad of it ; but if we understand it in its narrowest meaning, that is, as the ability to make the feelings of others our own, then things change a lot. Bloom says that empathy then becomes like a stage beacon, which illuminates only one thing very well, leaving the rest of the scene in the shadows. You can see very well who is in front of you, you "feel" all his problems and you want to do something for him, without wondering if this is right or if this can penalize others. Which others, since they are not in the eye of the stage lighthouse, disappear in our eyes.
Bloom argues that an excess of empathy can suggest a choice of heart, even where a choice of brain is needed. The example he gives is that of people induced to advance a little girl on the waiting list for access to medical treatment if it is given the opportunity to know her story and identify with her point of view, even if this it means bypassing other subjects (who they don’t know anything about).
Bloom then analyzes the exploitation of empathy by politicians and public administrators, who ride this sentimentality to direct the public's attention towards this or that group, emphasizing that too much empathy means manipulable voters, while it would be necessary for people to maintain a detached sense of compassion and attention to others, supported by reason, cost-benefit analysis and a longer-term vision than the immediate here and now.
Bloom says that if one does not want to give alms to a beggar, it is not necessarily indifferent; it may be that he needs to help others by following the rules. He may not like to give money if he doesn't know where that money goes. A choice that has nothing to do with selfishness, but with being sure that altruism is effective.
To substantiate even more the concept that sometimes we are in a hurry to emphasize the good of empathy but we are blind to its costs, Bloom recalls the case of a dog suffering from ebola which in Dallas aroused such compassion that were spent to treat it 27 thousand dollars of public money, an absurd figure that would have been good for many patients unable to pay for their medicines; but the dog had become a media phenomenon, while the poors were unknown and uninteresting to journalists.
Bloom then tells us how declaring himself against empathy can be dangerous, as the supporters of empathy are very fierce. When Bloom dared to write against empathy on the New Yorker he was overwhelmed: the article was called an intellectual disgrace, the stupidest thing ever written, and the author was a moral monster.
Obviously this is not the case, and Bloom in the book indicates scientific research which, while searching for it, has not found relationships between little empathy and aggression or cruelty. For my part, I confirm: I am not particularly empathetic yet I usually do not insult people and beat them.
In essence, a book that promises too much in the title, but which is still a good read if we want to understand a little more about this world and also about ourselves.
...more

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Jan 18, 2017 Mark Henderson rated it it was ok

Thesis is straightforward enough and the author himself suggests a better title in the first chapter: "Potential misapplications of empathy" (maybe an overzealous publisher is to blame here). He certainly didn't need 300 pages to make the point. Short read though it was, one can get his general point from one of many substantially smaller internet articles. ...more

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Feb 14, 2020 F. rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The case against empathy and for compassion is well argued and engagingly told. Some sections feel a little unfinished and the thread lost. But overall a very good book.

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Apr 09, 2019 Britta rated it it was ok

I really wanted to like Against Empathy, because I have recently come to believe that we too often use empathy as a means to keep people from taking responsibility for unsavory actions, and I also believe that not taking responsibility for actions comes at a price. I've seen this working in schools--teachers and parents with too much empathy don't give children the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, which is a disservice to their development and growth. Bloom's argument against empathy is I really wanted to like Against Empathy, because I have recently come to believe that we too often use empathy as a means to keep people from taking responsibility for unsavory actions, and I also believe that not taking responsibility for actions comes at a price. I've seen this working in schools--teachers and parents with too much empathy don't give children the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, which is a disservice to their development and growth. Bloom's argument against empathy is on more of a larger scale (even his Intimate Relationships chapter felt less about individuals and more about specific groups of individuals, e.g. therapists, doctors, and patients), but I still found his thoughts on the less than savory merits of empathy worth considering.

Overall, I agreed with his argument that our in the moment, gut decisions often feel good in the moment, but lead to longer term consequences. However, his argument wavers. For one, he makes a semantic decision about the definition of empathy that his whole against empathy argument rests on. He does his best to back this decision up, but I think he largely fails in convincing the reader that his definition of empathy is the definition of empathy. Furthermore, when someone makes an executive decision about a word's definition for the sake of an argument, I automatically have a hard time taking them seriously. Who are you to say this is the right definition of empathy, sir? He acknowledges different types of empathy, and then goes on to say that what some call cognitive empathy is actually rational compassion (but then uses the term cognitive empathy throughout the book? MAKE UP YOUR MIND, MAN!). The book as a whole has a lack of cohesion. At times, I forgot I was supposed to be reading about empathy. Or rather, why empathy is bad. The last chapter is called "The Age of Reason", and Bloom spends a lot of time debating about whether or not humans are reasonable beings. Umm. Hello. I didn't come to this book for a philosophy discussion! Oh, and a lot of this book felt like a philosophy discussion over semantics and human abilities rather than a psychological text arguing against empathy. I was disappointed that the Buddhist discussion of the issues of empathy was only a couple of pages. This could have been elaborated on, and it also could have strengthened Bloom's argument. I also disagree with Bloom's belief that we live in world where violence is unavoidable and that going to war is sometimes justified. Violence is unavoidable in the current system we have set up, but that doesn't mean this system can't change. Do I believe world peace is attainable? I'm not sure, but I sure think we can have a world with less violence and less war. I disagree that humanity cares more about one little girl stuck in a well (Bloom's example) than hundreds of people dying in war or genocide. It's often easier for us to conceptualize one person suffering than a million people suffering, and it's also easier to give support to one person suffering than a million. I don't think this has anything to do with too much empathy towards individuals and not enough towards large groups, but more so the challenge humans have in envisioning large numbers of anything along with a lack of resources at the local level to help large groups of people in need.

I don't think Paul Bloom is actually against empathy. This book title and his whole argument is clickbait. I think he wants people to consider if and when trusting our feeling-based gut decisions is appropriate and if it would be more reasonable to think our decisions through on a regular basis. Bloom should have written a book about the merits of rational decision making rather than a book that has a wavering argument against empathy. ...more

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Feb 23, 2019 Michael Austin rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2019

Being against empathy, Paul Bloom acknowledge at the beginning of his book Against Empathy is roughly the same as being against kittens. This is because most people see empathy is an ultimate good, so, when you say you are against it, you end up sounding like you are against love and compassion and morality and everything else that separates us from Hannibal Lector (who makes an appearance in the book too). Empathy is hard to be against because most people have too broad a definition of it.

He is ...more

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About Paul Bloom

Paul Bloom

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Paul Bloom is the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University. His research explores how children and adults understand the physical and social world, with special focus on morality, religion, fiction, and art. He has published more than a hundred scientific articles in journals such as Science and Nature, and his popular writing has appeared in the Ne ...more

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“The Old Testament tells us to love our neighbors, the New Testament to love our enemies. The moral rationale seems to be: Love your neighbors and enemies; that way you won’t kill them. But frankly, I don’t love my neighbors, to say nothing of my enemies. Better, then, is the following idea: Don’t kill your neighbors or enemies, even if you don’t love them. . . . What really has expanded is not so much a circle of empathy as a circle of rights—a commitment that other living things, no matter how distant or dissimilar, be safe from harm and exploitation. And” — 3 likes

“When empathy makes us feel pain, the reaction is often a desire to escape. Jonathan Glover tells of a woman who lived near the death camps in Nazi Germany and who could easily see atrocities from her house, such as prisoners being shot and left to die. She wrote an angry letter: “One is often an unwilling witness to such outrages. I am anyway sickly and such a sight makes such a demand on my nerves that in the long run I cannot bear this. I request that it be arranged that such inhuman deeds be discontinued, or else be done where one does not see it.” She was definitely suffering from seeing the treatment of the prisoners, but it didn’t motivate her to want to save them: She would be satisfied if she could have this suffering continue out of her sight.” — 3 likes

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