My book is going to be called Against Empathy, which may give you a feeling for where my argument is going to go. Whenever I talk about this, I have to begin in the most boring of all possible ways: by defining my terms. By "empathy," some people mean everything that is good - compassion, kindness, warmth, love, being a mensch, changing the world - and I'm for all of those things. I'm not a monster.
Paul BloomThe fact that something can be used for good isn't necessarily a knockdown argument for it.
Paul BloomAnd empathy is narrow; it connects us to particular individuals, real or imagined, but is insensitive to numerical differences and statistical data.
Paul BloomI'm very interested in why we do good things, or bad things, and where moral judgments come from.
Paul Bloom