Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion

by Paul Bloom

A different concern is raised by Jennifer Skeem and her colleagues. They note that scores on both the “callous/lack of empathy” item and the “shallow affect” item are weak predictors of future violence and crime. The Psychopathy Checklist is predictive of future bad behavior not because it assesses empathy and related sentiments but because, first, it contains items that assess criminal history and current antisocial behavior—questions about juvenile delinquency, criminal versatility, parasitic lifestyle—and, second, it contains items that have to do with lack of inhibition and poor impulse control. This conclusion about psychopaths fits well with what we know about aggressive behavior in nonpsychopaths. As we discussed in an earlier chapter, a meta-analysis summarized the data from all studies that looked at the relationship between empathy and aggression, including verbal aggression, physical aggression, and sexual aggression. It turns out that the relationship is surprisingly low.