Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

by Paul Bloom

A few years ago, Steven Pinker began a discussion of empathy with a list: Here is a sample of titles and subtitles that have appeared in just the past two years: The Age of Empathy, Why Empathy Matters, The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, The Science of Empathy, The Empathy Gap, Why Empathy Is Essential (and Endangered), Empathy in the Global World, and How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy. . . . [Other examples include] Teaching Empathy, Teaching Children Empathy, and The Roots of Empathy: Changing the World Child by Child, whose author, according to an endorsement by the pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton, “strives to bring about no less than world peace and protection for our planet’s future, starting with schools and classrooms everywhere, one child, one parent, one teacher at a time.”