Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

by Paul Bloom

This separateness has some interesting consequences. Consider how to make sense of criminal psychopaths. One recent scientific article struggles with the question of whether these troubling individuals are high in empathy or low in empathy. For the authors, the evidence suggests both: “Psychopathic criminals can be charming and attuned while seducing a victim, thereby suggesting empathy, and later callous while raping a victim, thereby suggesting impaired empathy.” So which is it? The authors try to resolve this apparent paradox in terms of a distinction between ability (one’s capacity to deploy empathy) and propensity (one’s willingness to do so). They suggest that these criminal psychopaths have normal empathic ability but adjust it like the dial of a radio—turn it up when you want to listen to the lyrics, turn it down if you want to focus on passing a slow truck on the I-95. Turn up empathy when you want to figure out how to charm people and win their trust; turn it down when you’re assaulting them.