if certain politicians had more empathy, they wouldn’t be endorsing such rotten policies. Certainly many of us feel that if the people in our lives had more empathy for our situations—if they could really feel what our lives are like—they would treat us a lot better. I think this is all mistaken. The problems we face as a society and as individuals are rarely due to lack of empathy. Actually, they are often due to too much of it. This isn’t just an attack on empathy. There is a broader agenda here. I want to make a case for the value of conscious, deliberative reasoning in everyday life,
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