But when a third group of subjects was told the child’s name and shown her picture, the donations shot up – now there were greater donations to the one than to the eight. People would give roughly the same in both cases. In one classic series of studies, psychologists asked some subjects how much money they would give to help develop a drug that would save the life of one child and asked others how much they would give to save eight children. One problem is that empathy is innumerate, favouring the one over the many. So if the world were a simple place, where the only difficulties one had to deal with involved a single person in some sort of immediate distress, and where helping that person had positive effects, the case for empathy would be solid.īut the world is not a simple place. This is backed by laboratory research, by everyday experience and by common sense.

Indeed, one of the best arguments in favour of empathy is that it really does make you kinder to the person you are empathising with. The main problem with empathy is that it works like a spotlight, highlighting certain people in the here and now, making their suffering salient to you.

It can lead to irrational and unfair political decisions. It grounds foolish judgments and often motivates indifference and cruelty. And it can be a valuable aspect of intimate relationships. It can be a great source of pleasure, involved in art, fiction and sports. There are many who maintain that if certain politicians had more empathy, they wouldn’t be endorsing such rotten policies. It’s said that whites don’t have enough empathy for blacks and that men don’t have enough empathy for women. I t is often said the rich don’t make enough effort to appreciate what it is like to be poor and if they did we would have more equality and social justice.

Bloom against empathy