I love teaching. I wouldn't take a job that didn't include it.

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.

It would be nice if everybody who had something interesting to say about my work could say it politely and civilly, but it doesn't work that way... Sometimes people are just really nasty.

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.

I am never going to write about dogs again. You can write about Islam, you can write about sexuality, but no, not dogs.

For the most part, people use "empathy" to mean everything good. For instance, many medical schools have courses in empathy. But if you look at what they mean, they just want medical students to be nicer to their patients, to listen to them, to respect them, to understand them. What's not to like? If they were really teaching empathy, then I'd say there is a world of problems there.

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.