Our best hope for the future [...] lies in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don’t empathize with distant strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love.

It's hard to pull apart empathy from compassion. What is really clear is that we innately care for other people at least to some extent.

I have huge admiration for people who think like the effective altruist, who try to rationally think about how they can change the world for the better, and who try not to be swayed by irrational considerations, such as skin color or whether or not someone lives in the same neighborhood.

In my own life, I do not live like an effective altruist. An effective altruist would really disapprove of my life. I don't give enough to charity and I still have both my kidneys.

If you like somebody, they look better to you. This is why spouses in happy marriages tend to think that their husband or wife looks much better than anyone else thinks that they do.

I argue that we should be kind, we should be compassionate, and we should definitely be reasonable and rational, but that empathy leads us astray.

I think there's some evidence that we're empathic by nature. There is some evidence from studies of babies and young children that they resonate with the pain of others, and there's some work by Frans de Waal that other primates also resonate with the pain of others.