Simon Baron-Cohen: A lack of empathy is the root of all "evil"

Stop saying I'm a pervert!

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

They are harmful to evil, near-subhuman people, who need to be destroyed for the defence of the race/the freedom of the proletariat/they would do the same to me/because they hurt me and they must pay/etc.

Pick your excuse, really, there has never been shortage of them. But the very fact that these people feel the need to invent an excuse - and, I would argue, to con themselves into really believing in it - suggests that they are not seeking to do evil "for shits and giggles", but because they somehow got themselves into a situation in which they honestly think that their actions are justified.

However, as I said, this does not really lessen their moral culpability: if you are given an intellect and a conscience, failing to make use of them to tell good from evil is a guilty action in itself.

The only exception, perhaps, could be given by true sociopaths and perhaps people with some other kinds of massive mental issues, who cannot seriously be considered responsible for their actions and need only to be put in a safe, controlled environment, for the sake of their and other people's well-being.

EDIT: Ok, I may admit that "lack of mastery over one's impulses" can be another cause of bad actions - I have some memories about that too, like I guess anyone else.

edited 5th Apr '11 3:08:59 PM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

?

edited 5th Apr '11 3:08:47 PM by Myrmidon

Kill all math nerds

Funny, I go the other way. I started out thinking that hurting other who hurt you is justified, but then stopped believing that. If I hurt anyone now it pretty much would be because I would expect their pain to make me feel good and for no other reason.

edited 5th Apr '11 3:10:24 PM by melloncollie

Yes I know about the story, Myrm. I am playing the dumb blonde because...why am I doing that now? Oh well.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Yeah, I sort of assumed, but just in case I provided the link.

Wait, you're not blonde...

Kill all math nerds

No, but my avatar is. She also has huge tits and is therefore retarded.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

^Hey now, you got somethin' against chicks with huge tits? Maybe it's because all her extra brain matter has to go somewhere, ever think of that, HMMMM? Wow, I'm awfully whimsical today...

Back on topic though, I'm gonna have to take that empathy quiz at some point...

I'll turn your neocortex into a flowerpot!

Your score: 61
(80 is maximum)

This doesn't surprise me, given that a number of questions are worded such that agreeing would be saying "Yes, I am unable to subordinate an emotion to reason."

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Yeah, I'm just not able to make myself take that test for some reason, maybe I'm too anxious. I know I do have some level of empathy, but if I had to guess it might be less than average.

Now, I don't think this explains everything. Profound empathy deficits may account for the lack of guilt, shame, or remorse among sociopaths (but is the sole reason?). And obviously this means they don't feel others emotions at all, and have great difficulty taking the perspectives of others. But that's not the only reason they behave in "evil" ways. They have extremely poor self-control, and they are incredibly insensitive to punishment (and in a very general sense). All this, obviously, means that aggressive and anti-social impulses essentially have no checks whatsoever. From I hear, this has a large genetic component. If you add in severe child abuse, this is a recipe for an extreme sadistic personality. These people are the real societal extremes of evil.

But as they also say, evil is very often banal. In-group/out-group memes, and of course socially legitimized hierarchies (power/stigma) I think are the big reason. And poor self-control, aggression, and poor empathy are endemic. Which is the real reason we say humans aren't "perfect".

edited 5th Apr '11 3:53:30 PM by LoveHappiness

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

I got 24 on the quiz.

In spite of that, in social settings I try to be polite and kind, and feel guilty about any sort of rudeness or meanness.

edited 5th Apr '11 3:40:13 PM by AnonymousUser

57.

I don't know if some of the questions are really asking for empathy, or for the ability to read people when they're attempting subterfuge. The latter seems to be something one could train for manipulative reasons, whereas trying to evoke a strong reaction due to another's plight is something more natural.

"Doctor Who means never having to say you're kidding." - Bocaj

I got 37.

I had trouble self-evaluating some of them, though.

Kill all math nerds

And I still am the one with the lowest score. Why am I taking some sort of perverse pride out of it?

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I was nervous about the score I might get, myself.

I also had difficulty answering some of the questions, as I have never found myself in some of those situations.

Got a 17, but I don't really think I deserve it. I'm honest to a fault, and I'm really, really bad at reading facial expressions, but if I find out in retrospect that I accidentally offended someone, I get much guiltier than seems to be typical for someone my age.

I'm noticing that a lot of us are getting low scores. Given that the test deals with social skills as much as actual emotions, this isn't surprising.

As for the article itself, I'm a fan of Philip Zimbardo's ideas on the Lucifer Effect: the best way to get someone to do horrible, horrible things is to put three elements into play. One of those is to remove individuality from the people who are to be made to suffer (for instance, stripping them of their clothes and shaving their heads.) By making them seem less human, this makes it harder to empathize with them. The other elements

I agree with Baron-Cohen that the term "evil" isn't really useful. However, I don't think "non-empathetic" substitutes for "evil." Rather, "sadistic" substitutes for "evil," and "non-empathetic" substitutes for "neutral but willing to do things that are commonly classified as evil." (Of course, if your goal is to prevent destructive actions, the distinction is irrelevant—it only matters in terms of how and whether punishment should be meted out to those who have done bad things.)

As for "treatment," I would be willing to take a remedial class in how to read facial expressions, but I don't think I really need it, since I've learned how to analyze tones of voice and patterns of language to compensate. (This actually means I do better on the Internet than the average person, since most people are seriously discomfited by having to determine emotions based solely on language patterns.) In the case of someone who genuinely lacks the capability to empathize with others, I suppose I could support the idea of medication—it's not that much different from medicating for depression.

edited 5th Apr '11 4:26:13 PM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

I got a 31. Which is odd.

I remember reading somewhere, might have been the wikipedia article on empathy, that people usually make a distinction between being able to tell someone else's emotions, and actually empathising with them.

It's possible to be utterly rubbish at telling when someone's upset, but then once you do know you feel awful about it. And it's possible to be really good at making out people's feelings, but not giving a damn about them.

I think this test fails to make that distinction, which is why everyone's scores are so low.

edited 5th Apr '11 4:26:33 PM by LoniJay

Be not afraid...

I don't really think sadism equates to evil. I'm not quite sure if anything really does.

Helpful Scripts and Stylesheets here.

It wouldn't equate for me, but I would consider sadistic tendencies a very big component of a "bad" person. (Though I am admittedly guilty of having fantasies that involve inflicting pain on people I am angry at/to deliver a burst of "power"; I usually feel awful after these, though the former were at their height at the same time as my anger problems)

edited 5th Apr '11 4:49:37 PM by AnonymousUser

^^ Admittedly, the amount of Fan Wank on the Character Alignment pages shows that it's a messy term to define . . .

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

Seeing how evil is a rather subjective viewpoint, I doubt you could find a root for it.

"Si vis pacem, para bellum"

Hah, I got a 25 on the test. I think that the test isn't quite correct, since empathy is the ability to recognize emotion and react accordingly, and a fair amount of the questions had nothing to do with that, like the question about keeping up with fashion or trends.

"I don't know how I do it. I'm like the Mr. Bean of sex." -Drunkscriblerian

Call it "the Eichmann principle". Evil is banal.

Good is extraordinary.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

^^I too was puzzled by that one. (Though it's probably supposed to suggest attention to one's surroundings and peers)

edited 5th Apr '11 4:59:01 PM by AnonymousUser

Dressing like the herd is a form of empathy!

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard