Arts & Books Magazine Book review Ethics

Sorry, I don’t feel your pain—the dangers of empathy

Sharing in other people's woe might seem the right thing to do, but it can lead us to make bad decisions

By David Edmonds

February 16, 2017

March 2017

Against Empathy: The Case For Rational Compassion by Paul Bloom (Bodley Head, £18.99)

Buy this book on Amazon The Empathy Instinct: How to Create a More Civil Society by Peter Bazalgette (John Murray, £16.99)

Buy this book on Amazon

“Being against empathy is like being against kittens,” writes the psychologist Paul Bloom. Let’s at least agree that nobody can object to kittens. Even the new Twitter-obsessed occupant of the White House—a man who demonstrated his empathetic skills during his election campaign by publicly mocking a disabled reporter—briefly followed a Twitter…

Register today to continue reading

You’ve hit your limit of three articles in the last 30 days. To get seven more, simply enter your email address below.

You’ll also receive our free e-book Prospect’s Top Thinkers 2020 and our newsletter with the best new writing on politics, economics, literature and the arts.

Prospect may process your personal information for our legitimate business purposes, to provide you with newsletters, subscription offers and other relevant information.

Click here to learn more about these purposes and how we use your data. You will be able to opt-out of further contact on the next page and in all our communications.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to letters@prospect-magazine.co.uk

David Edmonds

David Edmonds is a senior research associate at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and co-runs www.philosophybites.com.