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

I can't remember where I first heard this, but just because you cannot bare to watch doesn't mean you can't simply turn your head away.

So yeah, way too simple to explain the whole issue. Besides, I'm of the opinion that empathizing with people's physical and emotional pain is completely different from understanding subtle social cues. I may blunder through being social in RL and insult everyone in the room, but that doesn't mean I'm just going to sit there blank faced while someone gets tortured. Hell, I'd probably be one of those useless people who would howl and cry in terror while someone's fingers where being chopped off.

Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit Deviantart.

The "do you dream at night?" question was somewhat puzzling. What do dreams have to do with interpersonal skills?

Kill all math nerds

If sadism is the root of all evil, then punishing sadists becomes a knotty moral dillema in and of itself.

I scored 33, mostly due to introverted tendencies.

edited 5th Apr '11 5:32:08 PM by DarkDecapodian

Aww, did I hurt your widdle fee-fees?

This is really interesting. I think Baron-Cohen's position is both more nuanced than a lot of you are giving it credit for, and at the same time conflates things that could be treated separately.

From the article: "Empathy is our ability to identify what someone else is thinking or feeling, and to respond to their thoughts and feelings with an appropriate emotion," writes Baron-Cohen. People who lack empathy see others as mere objects."

- I think you have to distinguish intellectual empathy (being able to deduce what others are feeling from the available evidence) from intuitive empathy (sharing the same emotional reaction, like flinching when one observes someone else in pain). Intuitive empathy would be more effective in preventing one from causing pain or suffering in other people.

"Being at the far ends of the bell curve (extremely high or extremely low empathy scores) is not necessarily pathological. It is possible to have zero degrees of empathy and not be a murderer, torturer or rapist, although you're unlikely to be any of these things if you are at the other end of the empathy spectrum – level six empathy."

- So he is not actually arguing that empathy is the root of evil, but rather that high levels of empathy are effective in preventing one from doing evil things.

And for those of you who may be Asperger's and/or high functioning autistics, you aren't evil: "At zero degrees of empathy are two distinct groups. Baron-Cohen calls them zero-negative and zero-positive. Zero-positives include people with autism or Asperger's syndrome. They have zero empathy but their "systemising" nature means they are drawn to patterns, regularity and consistency. As a result, they are likely to follow rules and regulations – the patterns of civic life.

Zero-negatives are the pathological group. These are people with borderline personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. They are capable of inflicting physical and psychological harm on others and are unmoved by the plight of those they hurt. Baron-Cohen says people with these conditions all have one thing in common: zero empathy."

So he does make some useful distinctions.

However, overall I don't like his model. I have two general objections to it: 1) He seems to place the locus of behavior entirely within the individual. As we know from the Zimbardo's Prison Simulation, and other similar research, the situation can radically change one's level of empathy 2) He seems to equate "evil" entirely with "cruelty". Other definitions of evil would yeild a different model.

Some definitions of the difference between good and evil are not centered on cruelty, and allow that good people or good behaviors may sometimes appear cruel or cause suffering ("You have to be cruel to be kind"). What of someone who causes suffering in the short term in order to achieve some long term good? Other definitions include things other than cruelty as the baseline evil character trait- insincerity appears to some people as more "wrong" than cruelty per se. Buddhists define good as being in a state of personal enlightenment, many theists define good as being in subordination to the will of God, etc.

The questionnaire conflates things as well. "3. I try to keep up with the latest trends and fashions" seems oriented toward awareness of others, "6. I really enjoy caring for other people" is symapthy (a concern for other people) not empathy (knowing what another is feeling), "8. I find it hard to know what to do in a social situation" is skill in social situation, and so on.

However, I do agree with his assessment that many people simply use "evil" as a label which acts to shut off discussion, and prevents people from thinking about what causes evil and how we can manage or prevent it. Eventually, I think most of the things we currently call "evil" will be identified as some form of mental illness.

Oh- and I got a 14.

edited 5th Apr '11 5:52:19 PM by DeMarquis

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

^^ Like I said, the distinction doesn't really matter from a perspective of preventing bad deeds—if you kill someone for money, they're just as dead as if you kill them for fun. (And of course, not all sadists will commit evil deeds—I wouldn't dare argue such a thing on a forum with so many members who profess to sadism.)

edited 5th Apr '11 5:51:47 PM by feotakahari

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

20? D:

I got 15. Apparently I am worse at empathy than an autistic person. :/

I too object to the test's idea that introvert = no empathy.

But in general, I agree with Baron-Cohen for a given definition of "empathy." I mean, I'm sure you can come up with counterexamples, but most violent criminals/murderers/rapists/etc. know that what they're doing is wrong, that they're hurting another person, and they don't care. If that's not lack of empathy, I don't know what is.

I don't like the statement/implication that autism-spectrum people can't feel empathy. I am on the spectrum and know that's bull.

edited 5th Apr '11 6:38:31 PM by AnonymousUser

I scored 4...

Heapers’ Hangout

22

I'm interested in how tropers would categorize the women that the article used as an example. I think there is something extremely abhorrent to doing that to anyone, especially a child. As a child abuser, she only ranks slightly higher than people who murder children. I would have no trouble sending her away for life, even if she couldn't feel any empathy. Actually, especially if she had no empathy. While there might not be any punitive effect on her (isn't remorse integrally tied to empathy?)there is something to be said for keeping the community safe from a predator like her. For the record, I got a 27.

edited 5th Apr '11 6:56:15 PM by Freekippers

Empathy is a weird thing for me.

Usually if I'm in a situation where I'm hurting someone, I like it. It feels good being able to "punish" someone by inflicting pain upon them, and it makes me feel powerful to be able to manipulate how someone's feeling on such a basic level.

But afterwards...afterwards I see that I've hurt someone. And I feel bad. Even though hurting them was my intent all along, once I actually see the results, I regret having done it, and I don't quite know why.

Heapers’ Hangout

I think the "power" thing is quite common actually. There wouldn't be a BDSM kink without it. You're not a monster.

^^This is yet another situation in which we are very much opposites. I don't like hurting others at all.

edited 5th Apr '11 7:01:27 PM by AnonymousUser

,I sometimes fantasize about doing very evil things, but the thought of harming others in Real Life is quite horrific to me.

I have never been diagnosed by a human with any mental disorders, but I consistently score as an Aspie/Avoidant/Love Shy/etc. on web tests.

I used to think I was good at knowing how others felt. Then I discovered I was very wrong.

edited 5th Apr '11 7:05:37 PM by FrodoGoofballCoTV

I got a 22. I think this test suffered from not having an "I don't know" option. There were quite a few questions where such an answer would be warranted for me, yet it did not exist so I had to choose one of the "slightly"s based on which i would think more likely, which is, I would think, not likely to be in the spirit of the test.

There are also those things which aren't bad on an individual level, but when a large group does it en masse, the effects get worse.

I got 51. High end of normal. I felt like a lot of the questions were just about social skills (it was those that knocked down my score), though, rather than emotional capacities...is that right? Or are they one and the same?

edited 5th Apr '11 7:19:31 PM by SPACETRAVEL

whoever wrote this shit needs to step on a rake in a comedic fashion

It's not as though I go around hurting other people just for the hell of it. It's just that sometimes, when someone seriously pisses me off, I lose control and just want to beat the crap out of them.

(Luckily, I've been learning to control this)

Still...a 4...

edited 5th Apr '11 7:11:45 PM by CentralAvenue

Heapers’ Hangout

Those thoughts aren't bad, if you don't act on them.

And the quiz's definition of "empathy" is kind of flawed/influenced by other things that aren't quite it (like the trends/fashions question).

edited 5th Apr '11 7:23:59 PM by AnonymousUser

Don't worry about it too much. This was an abridged version of the EQ test used by psychologists. The actual test is a little over a hundred questions long, if I remember right, and then it requires a counselor to sit with you and discuss the questions you did poorly on.

For example, I dissected worms as a child. It wasn't done out of cruelty, but it was because I was genuinely curious about the inside of a worm. I later went on to major in biology with the intent of specifying entomology for my masters. I'm just interested in bugs and the stuff that makes living things live.

On this test, it knocked my EQ down.

Same goes for being bad in social situations. My parents kept me cloistered until I got to high school. While other kids were out having playdates and extracurricular activities, my parents kept me away from other people as much as possible. As a result, I didn't get the early life experience needed and I'm still catching up to my peers. It also doesn't help that much of my experience with social scenes has been highly negative, which makes me want to avoid them. This also artificially lowered the EQ score on this test.

I do have a generalized anxiety disorder, and a high likelihood of having post-traumatic stress disorder, neither of which are autism-spectrum, and neither of which are taken into account on the test.

edited 5th Apr '11 7:27:57 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

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

I got a 19, not too bad. Although, I tend to be very careful about trying to feel something, so for things like "It doesn't bother me too much if I am late meeting a friend", I try to feel upset, because I believe that failure to do so would be wrong.

The line is kind of blurry; I had trouble answering questions, as more often than not, I can't tell if I'm genuinely feeling a certain way, or if I made it up because I "should"...

Better than before, at least.

I would argue that empathy is merely being able to see that what you're doing is hurting someone else. If a violent criminal knows that they are hurting someone, and can even put themselves in their shoes, then they have a good level of empathy. Doesn't stop them from hurting others.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

No, I think that's sympathy. Isn't sympathy "Oh, man, that must hurt," whereas empathy is "Wow, it actually makes me hurt to look at that."

Be not afraid...

"Empathy is an ability with many different definitions. They cover a broad spectrum, ranging from feeling a concern for other people that creates a desire to help them, experiencing emotions that match another person's emotions, knowing what the other person is thinking or feeling, to blurring the line between self and other" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#Theorists_and_Definition

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

I got 41. I have high-functioning autism, so I was a little surprised when I got this. I can be a little slow when it comes to catching subtleties, but beyond that, I don't really have a problem talking to people.

Jagged Alliance 2 LP (Redux) (Closed!)