Contemporary psychologist Paul Bloom has served as a Professor of Psychology at both the University of Toronto and at Yale University, and formerly as the president of the Society of Philosophy and Psychology. Using findings from his studies, Bloom has authored multiple books exploring his research on human pleasure and morality—among other topics—and challenged widely accepted psychological and cultural ideas, furthering scholarly conversation while sharing his ideas with the masses. In Against Empathy, Bloom dives into how our empathy often guides our moral compass and why empathy, specifically its role in being a “good person,” should not be valued as highly as it is in our culture.

Well-meaning efforts can often do more damage than good when a person does not objectively consider the consequences of his or her charity. Though empathy is not inherently detrimental to our decision-making process, more often than not it skews and distorts our reasoning to the point where we would make better decisions without it when trying to do good and act on our care for others. The ability to reason is what sets humanity apart from the animal kingdom, and we must use it to figure out how we can do the most good for the most people. Our culture, however, holds empathy in much higher esteem than reason. This may be to blame for our lack of progress in finding practical solutions and effective policies to alleviate poverty, injustice, violence, and similar issues, despite our desperate desire to address them.

People who prioritize reason are often seen as cold-hearted, while those who embrace empathy are praised as selfless, generous do-gooders—those who will change the world for the better. While empathy might inspire us to care more for others, we need something sturdier—like reason—to guide our morality. Those who think through the long-term effects of their actions and determine where their aid might be most beneficial—as opposed to where their hearts pull them—often end up doing far more good than those who are moved solely by empathy. Acting on our empathy for one person often leads us to neglect, or even harm, many others. It prioritizes the present and neglects to consider the people we can’t see or relate to.

Ultimately, reason can lead us to act most compassionately, while empathy doesn’t do much good beyond initially urging us to consider the experiences of others rather than only our own.

Empathy, as Bloom discusses, is merely the act of sharing in the emotions someone else is experiencing—more precisely, the emotions you believe someone else is experiencing. Compassion, on the other hand, is more similar to concern for another and a desire to assist him or her in some way. Compassion deserves the praise it has earned when it comes to motivating us to do good and make the world a better place, while empathy does not necessarily correlate to taking any action to help others. Sometimes, empathy simply paralyzes us and lets us sit heavy with grief and hopelessness. When absorbing these emotions of grief and hopelessness—or sometimes joy and excitement—we often feel proud of how compassionate and caring we are for being so moved by the experiences of others, yet we still fail to actually do anything helpful for those we are empathizing with. Empathy must also be accompanied by a desire and will to do good, or else it does no good for anybody. 

Consider how empathizing with someone experiencing sorrow or hopelessness might motivate a desire to escape the hurting person. When we experience negative emotion, even if it is really someone else’s emotion, we want it to go away. The easiest way to get rid of this hurt when it is not directly connected to our own experience is to simply abandon it. We can turn off the TV, turn a blind eye to the hurting person, or remove ourselves from them completely in order to find relief. Empathy alone can simply make us uncomfortable. Instead, when genuine care and concern for others accompanies empathy, people do take action to alleviate the suffering of others. Compassion for others—not just empathy—is necessary in order to do good and act selflessly.

Similarly, empathy might inhibit our efforts to help if empathy with a hopeless person leads us also to believe there is no hope for a situation. As these feelings of empathy increase and intensify, the likelihood of us using our reasoning abilities and compassion to help the other person diminishes as we deem these efforts worthless. Sometimes it is necessary to be cold in order to be kind—to separate ourselves from others’ emotions rather than indulging in them, and to use our concern alongside our reason to scope out the best course of action to behave most compassionately.

Possibly the most troubling aspect of empathy is its susceptibility to bias. Bias, whether we choose to believe so or not, is in our nature. We have evolved to care for those who are most similar to us—our families, our friends—so that when we need help, they too will care more about us than others in times of need. In many ways, this reality holds communities together, keeps families tight knit, and promotes a sense of loyalty among friends. Unfortunately, it also makes empathy unreliable as a guide when it comes to selecting who we should help and care about the most. Bias can reinforce racist beliefs and prejudices as it prioritizes the experiences of some rather than others. Though this bias often goes unnoticed as a person may not have any malicious intent toward another people group, it can easily lead to neglect of people who are unlike us, but still in desperate need of our compassion and assistance.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting highlights the tendency of empathy to lean into the emotions of those we identify with. While the victims’ families and the community of Newtown, Connecticut deserve our every ounce of empathy, we might question why the media and the American population become laser-focused on scenarios like this, yet seem to experience little to no empathy for, say, the everyday victims of violence in inner-city Chicago. 

The answer, Bloom suggests, is firstly that tragedies like the Sandy Hook massacre are novel and thus naturally capture our attention more. He argues, however, that there is something deeper that motivates the intense empathy shared with the Sandy Hook community: that those families are people with whom the majority of Americans can identify. Just by imagining their own children facing such violence in the everyday act of going to school, every American parent could share in the fear and horror the Sandy Hook parents experienced. On top of that, most of the children were white—making it even more natural for most Americans to identify with them, unlike the primarily black population plagued by gang violence and murders daily in Chicago. We don’t need to compare tragedies and levels of empathy when the unthinkable hits, but it is critical to think outside our empathy to guide our charity toward hurting people. The excessive amount of money sent to the already wealthy community of Newtown, Connecticut after the shooting can be seen as a demonstration of empathy’s shortcomings. These people didn’t need more money. Meanwhile, there are other organizations that might significantly benefit from that generosity. We need to be intentional and strategic with how we assist those in need.

It is true that empathy can play a key role in dissolving things like racism and prejudice, and it certainly does when a person chooses to empathize with someone who is unlike him or herself, or when a person encounters a situation in which it is difficult not to feel for another in need of help. Because empathy’s nature is biased, however, it will most often reflect these biases unless one makes a conscious and willing effort to avoid it. Thus, using empathy to guide our well-meaning moral decisions often distracts from and perpetuates injustices, rather than alleviating them.

People want to feel good about themselves and will prioritize this nearly every time they make decisions from an emotional standpoint. This is true even when it comes to behavior that is usually considered selfless, like making charitable donations. Research has proven that people are more likely to give when they know they will receive recognition for their giving. 

Similarly, many people are willing to be more generous when they can be directly involved in the process of giving, like handing money to a homeless man and seeing his reaction with their own eyes. Entering a donation into a text box on a website is not as moving for people, despite knowing that money might do a lot of good somewhere unseen. This demonstrates the often selfish nature of empathy. We want to empathize with the people we are supporting because it makes us feel better about ourselves and allows us to share in the joy, even if we know our money may have been better directed elsewhere.

Despite extensive studies conducted on the relationship between empathy and moral behavior, few studies have concluded there is any correlation between the two. Those who experience low empathy can still be motivated by other factors to do good and can be highly compassionate people. In fact, many of the people our society views as models of generosity and selflessness were not motivated by empathy, but rather by religion, logic, or a sense of duty. These motives are arguably more connected to our thinking processes than to our emotions, and yet they are often the most powerful driving forces in doing good. 

Likewise, people who experience high empathy are not necessarily more motivated to act morally. A person who is easily swayed and driven by the emotions of others is likely to also be easily swayed by his or her own emotions when making decisions. When prioritizing emotion in decision-making, it becomes more difficult to give up things like comfort and security. It often takes something stronger–like a sense of duty or moral responsibility–to do something that benefits the other rather than the self. Ultimately, it comes down to an intentional effort and a willingness to help others, and an ability to separate oneself from one's own selfish desires rather than merely sharing the feelings of others.

Empathy’s role in personal, close relationships is quite different from its role in larger scale issues of political policy and charity. In intimate relationships, it is important that people have someone who can understand their emotions and experiences. This is the glue that holds romantic relationships, friendships, and families together. Here, empathy’s bias can be a good thing, a demonstration of love. It is okay to not treat everyone the same, as this would be unnecessary, disingenuous, and simply strange.

While empathy can be a positive thing as it bonds people to one another, it is beneficial only in moderation. Being constantly concerned with the feelings and opinions of others is unhealthy and can lead people to neglect themselves in favor of serving others.Being overly focused on others suggests insecurity and is often an attempt to try to win the care of others. Meanwhile, it leads to significant inequality and unreasonable expectations within relationships. In order to care for people well, we have to consider their emotions and learn to understand them, but we must also consider ourselves and what it takes for us to be a healthy individual. The physical stress caused by empathic emotion is particularly intense when we are sharing the emotions of someone close to us. Often, in times of crisis, it is critical that one person can maintain stability and offer strength to their partner, family, or friend rather than simply offering their empathy.

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