Why a lack of empathy is the root of all evil
Lack of empathy is another way of saying that selfishness is the cardinal sin. Capitalism, not accidentally, is built on it.
From casual violence to genocide, acts of cruelty can be traced back to how the perpetrator identifies with other people, argues psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen. Is he right?
By Clint Witchalls | Tuesday, 5 April 2011 |
Lucy Adeniji
Empathy, like height, is a continuous variable, but for convenience, Baron-Cohen splits the continuum into six degrees – seven if you count zero empathy. Answering the empathy quotient (EQ) questionnaire, developed by Baron-Cohen and colleagues, will put you somewhere on the empathy bell curve. People with zero degrees of empathy will be at one end of the bell curve and those with six degrees of empathy at the other end.
Empathy excess, however, is much rarer than empathy deficit. And while people with empathy excess suffer alone, those with empathy deficits cause others to suffer. Or at least some of them do.
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.
The question is: did people with these personality disorders lose their empathy or were they born that way?
Given that testosterone is found in higher quantities in men than women, it may come as no surprise that men score lower on empathy than women. So there is a clear hormonal link to empathy. Another biological factor is genetics. Recent research by Baron-Cohen and colleagues found four genes associated with empathy – one sex steroid gene, one gene related to social-emotional behaviour and two associated with neural growth.
Does that mean, in the future, we will have gene-therapy to correct for low empathy?
Indeed, but we are all capable of making moral choices. Making the right choice may be more difficult for people with compromised empathy circuits, but the choice still exists.
If you consider the big atrocities in history – the ones we think of as evil – the Spanish Inquisition, the Holocaust, the slave trade, communist purges, Rwandan genocide, apartheid, etc, it took the support of the masses to make them happen. Can we blame evil on this scale on psychopaths (who comprise less than one per cent of the population) and narcissists (also less than one per cent of the population)?
Surely beliefs are a much bigger cause of evil than biology or upbringing? Negative memes are spread by the church or state about the outgroup until they become thoroughly dehumanised. And the thing to restore humanity to the outgroup is not drugs and therapy but re-humanising narratives.
So far, science has made little progress in treating empathy deficits. Psychopaths, for example, are notoriously untreatable as are children who present with callousness/unemotional (CU) trait. And trying to improve the empathy of sex offenders is one of the least effective interventions, according to Tom Fahy, professor of forensic mental health at the Institute of Psychiatry.
Zero Degrees of Empathy: A new theory of human cruelty’ is published by Allen Lane on 7 April (£20). To order a copy for the special price of £18 (free P&P) call Independent Books Direct on 08430 600 030, or visit www.independentbooksdirect.co.uk