The author contests only the first type of empathy wherein one loses oneself in another’s emotional world. This second type of empathy could be defined as social cognition or social intelligence. “Empathy is the act of coming to experience the world as you think someone else does.”īloom begins by differentiating between emotional empathy (defined in the quote above) and cognitive empathy (the ability to understand someone’s emotional state without actually experiencing it yourself). As this definition is the basis for all other arguments, it’s important to be as specific as possible in the fluid, ever-changing realm of human sentiment. It’s casually interchanged with words like sympathy, pity, compassion and caring. It’s used ubiquitously and, often, erroneously. Bloom is first tasked with bringing the readers into a common understanding about the word empathy. The author may not sway all readers to his point of view, but he lays out some fascinating reasoning. The content within contains an equally controversial, yet logically laid out, argument against what most people assume is one of the greatest emotions we have. The title of the book is provocative in its own right, but it’s more than an attention grab. Empathy doesn’t equal kindness and it definitely won’t save the world – at least that’s what Paul Bloom argues in Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. The difference is that empathy might not be everything it’s advertised as.

It’s like the yoga and fitness movement: it can be annoyingly shallow and debase the fundamental goodness in such activities, but all-in-all, there are worse things to be doing than working out and spiritual betterment. These days, to be socially aware, politically involved and philanthropic is to be trendy but such characteristics lack the negative connotation that usually accompanies the word. Taking a look at: Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion by Paul Bloom

The case for rational compassion