Empathy and Its Discontents

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 2017, Pages 24-31

  Bloom, Paul ^a  

^a YALE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

compassion; empathy; morality

Indexed keywords

COGNITIVE SYSTEMS;

COMPASSION; EMPATHY; MORALITY; NOCV1;

BIOLOGY;

AGGRESSION; BURNOUT; EMPATHY; EXHAUSTION; HUMAN; MORALITY; MOTIVATION; REVIEW; EMOTION; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR;

EMOTIONS; EMPATHY; HUMANS; MORALS; MOTIVATION; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR;

EID: 85006736237     PISSN: 13646613     EISSN: 1879307X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2016.11.004     Document Type: Review

References (55)

1. 1 Safire, W. (2008) The New York Times 5 September, p. MM24.
2. 2 Lakoff, G., The Political Mind: A Cognitive Scientist's Guide to Your Brain and Its Politics. 2008, Penguin.
3. 3 Rifkin, J., The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. 2009, Penguin.
4. 4 Baron-Cohen, S., The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty. 2012, Basic Books.
5. 5 Hoffman, M.L., Empathy and Moral Development: Implications for Caring and Justice. 2001, Cambridge University Press.
6. 6 Slote, M., The Ethics of Care and Empathy. 2007, Routledge.
7. 7 De Vignemont, F., Singer, T., The empathic brain: how, when and why?. Trends Cogn. Sci. 10 (2006), 435–441.
8. 8 Smith, A., The Theory of Moral Sentiments. 2010, Penguin.
9. 9 Batson, C.D., Altruism in Humans. 2011, Oxford University Press.
10. 10 Bloom, P., Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. 2016, Ecco Press.
11. 11 Prinz, J., Is empathy necessary for morality?. Coplan, A., Goldie, P., (eds.) Empathy: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives, 2011, Oxford University Press, 211–229.
12. 12 Scarry, E., The difficulty of imagining other people. Nussbaum, M.C., Cohen, J., (eds.) For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism, 1996, Beacon Press, 98–110.
13. 13 Batson, C.D., et al. Immorality from empathy-induced altruism: when compassion and justice conflict. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., 68, 1995, 1042.
14. 14 Kahneman, D., et al. Economic preferences or attitude expressions? An analysis of dollar responses to public issues. Fischhoff, B., Manski, C.F., (eds.) Elicitation of Preferences, 1999, Springer, 203–242.
15. 15 Baron, J., Greene, J., Determinants of insensitivity to quantity in valuation of public goods: contribution, warm glow, budget constraints, availability, and prominence. J. Exp. Psychol. 2 (1996), 107–125.
16. 16 Kogut, T., Ritov, I., The “identified victim” effect: an identified group, or just a single individual?. J. Behav. Decis. Mak. 18 (2005), 157–167.
17. 17 Kogut, T., Ritov, I., The singularity effect of identified victims in separate and joint evaluations. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 97 (2005), 106–116.
18. 18 Schelling, T.C., The life you save may be your own. Chase, S.B., (eds.) Problems in Public Expenditure Analysis, 1968, Brookings Institution, 127–162.
19. 19 Zaki, J., Ochsner, K.N., The neuroscience of empathy: progress, pitfalls and promise. Nat. Neurosci. 15 (2012), 675–680.
20. 20 Decety, J., et al. The blame game: the effect of responsibility and social stigma on empathy for pain. J. Cogn. Neurosci. 22 (2010), 985–997.
21. 21 Hein, G., et al. Neural responses to ingroup and outgroup members’ suffering predict individual differences in costly helping. Neuron 68 (2010), 149–160.
22. 22 Slovic, P., “If I look at the mass I will never act”: numbing and genocide. Judgm. Decis. Mak. 2 (2007), 79–95.
23. 23 Rubenstein, J. (2015) Forum: the logic of effective altruism. Boston Review 6 July.
24. 24 Singer, P., The Most Good You Can Do, Yale. 2016, University Press.
25. 25 Rachels, J., Rachels, S., The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 1993, McGraw-Hill.
26. 26 Singer, P., The Expanding Circle. 1981, Oxford Clarendon Press.
27. 27 Zaki, J., Cikara, M., Addressing empathic failures. Curr. Dir. Psychol. Sci. 24 (2015), 471–476.
28. 28 Zaki, J. Empathy is a moral force. In The Atlas of Moral Psychology (Gray, K. and Graham, J., eds), Guilford Press (in press).
29. 29 Easterly, W.R., The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. 2006, Penguin.
30. 30 Buffone, A.E., Poulin, M.J., Empathy, target distress, and neurohormone genes interact to predict aggression for others – even without provocation. Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 40 (2014), 1406–1422.
31. 31 Bennett B. and Weisskopf, M. (2003) The sum of two evils. Time 25 May.
32. 32 Pinker, S., The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. 2011, Viking Books.
33. 33 Bloom, P. (2014) Forum: against empathy. Boston Review 10 September.
34. 34 Christov-Moore, L. and Iacoboni, M. (2014) Forum: against empathy. Boston Review August.
35. 35 O'Connor, L.E. and Berry, J.W. (2014) Forum: against empathy. Boston Review August.
36. 36 Jordan, M.R. et al. Are empathy and concern psychologically distinct? Emotion. Published online September 26, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000228.
37. 37 Singer, T., Klimecki, O.M., Empathy and compassion. Curr. Biol. 24 (2014), R875–R878.
38. 38 Klimecki, O., et al. Empathy versus compassion: lessons from 1st and 3rd person methods. Singer, T., Bolz, M., (eds.) Compassion: Bridging Practice and Science, 2013, Max Planck Society, 272–287.
39. 39 Klimecki, O.M., et al. Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after compassion and empathy training. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci., 2014, 9873–9879.
40. 40 Lim, D., et al. Mindfulness and compassion: an examination of mechanism and scalability. PLoS One, 10, 2015, e0118221.
41. 41 Condon, P., et al. Meditation increases compassionate responses to suffering. Psychol. Sci. 24 (2013), 2125–2127.
42. 42 Bloom, P., How Pleasure Works. 2010, Random House.
43. 43 Batson, C.D., These things called empathy: eight related but distinct phenomena. Decety, J., Ickes, W., (eds.) The Social Neuroscience of Empathy, 2009, MIT Press.
44. 44 Decety, J., Cowell, J.M., Friends or foes: is empathy necessary for moral behavior?. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 9 (2014), 525–537.
45. 45 Decety, J., Cowell, J.M., The complex relation between morality and empathy. Trends Cogn. Sci. 18 (2014), 337–339.
46. 46 Ronson, J., The Psychopath Test: A Journey through the Madness Industry. 2012, Riverhead Books.
47. 47 Hare, R.D., The Hare Psychopathy Checklist – Revised. 2nd edn, 2003, Multi-Health Systems.
48. 48 Decety, J., et al. Brain response to empathy-eliciting scenarios involving pain in incarcerated individuals with psychopathy. JAMA Psychiatry 70 (2013), 638–645.
49. 49 Marsh, A.A., et al. Empathic responsiveness in amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex in youths with psychopathic traits. J. Child Psychol. Psychiatry 54 (2013), 900–910.
50. 50 Skeem, J.L., et al. Psychopathic personality bridging the gap between scientific evidence and public policy. Psychol. Sci. Public Interest 12 (2011), 95–162.
51. 51 Vachon, D.D., et al. The (non)relation between empathy and aggression: surprising results from a meta-analysis. Psychol. Bull., 140, 2014, 751.
52. 52 Gleichgerrcht, E., Young, L., Low levels of empathic concern predict utilitarian moral judgment. PLoS One, 8, 2013, e60418.
53. 53 Kahane, G., et al. ‘Utilitarian’ judgments in sacrificial moral dilemmas do not reflect impartial concern for the greater good. Cognition 134 (2015), 193–209.
54. 54 Darwall, S., Honor, History, and Relationship: Essays In Second-Personal Ethics, vol. 2, 2013, Oxford University Press.
55. 55 Buber, M., I and Thou. 1970, Charles Scribner's Sons (Kaufmann, W., trans.).