Love, Compassion, and Empathy In addition to our competitive and aggressive tendencies, we were endowed with a number of pro-social and altruistic tendencies and emotions. We are made to care deeply about our loved ones, to feel the pain of others, and to try to help those who belong to our tribe.44 Most people consider compassion and emotional empathy to be universally positive traits. But these emotions have a dark side too. The value of emotional empathy has been called into question by Paul Bloom in his book, Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion
