Michelle: That gut feeling you get to help someone in pain? The one we call empathy? It might be one of the most biased, irrational, and even dangerous forces in modern life. Today, we’re exploring why being a good person might mean learning to feel less. Mark: Whoa, hold on. That’s a heck of an opening line, Michelle. Are you telling me the thing that literally every kindergarten teacher, spiritual leader, and politician tells us is the key to being a good human is… a trap? Michelle: That's the explosive argument from Yale psychologist Paul Bloom in his book, Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. And you're right to be skeptical—the book was incredibly controversial when it came out. Mark: A Yale psychologist arguing against empathy? That feels like a firefighter arguing against water. It’s so counter-intuitive. What’s his story? Michelle: Exactly. And that’s what makes it so fascinating. Bloom isn't some fringe figure; he's a renowned cognitive scientist. He wrote this book to challenge what he saw as the unquestioned worship of empathy, arguing that our reliance on it often does more harm than good. He wants us to rethink the very foundation of our morality. Mark: Okay, I'm hooked and I'm deeply skeptical. Where do we even start with an idea this big? It feels like trying to argue against gravity.

Michelle: Let's start with an event we all remember, one that flooded the world with empathy: the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012. It was horrific. Twenty children and six adults murdered. The entire world felt that pain. Mark: I remember it vividly. It was just pure, gut-wrenching heartbreak. Everyone wanted to do something, to help in any way they could. That’s empathy in action, right? A force for good. Michelle: It certainly felt that way. And that’s the power of empathy. But Bloom uses this exact event to show us the dark side. The town of Newtown, Connecticut, was inundated with charity. People sent millions of dollars, mountains of teddy bears, truckloads of school supplies. So many gifts arrived that the town had to rent a warehouse just to store them all. It became a logistical nightmare, another burden for a grieving community. Mark: Wow, I never heard that part. So, too much of a good thing? Michelle: Here’s the crucial part. Newtown is a relatively affluent community. Bloom points out that in that same year, more schoolchildren were murdered in Chicago, a city with far more poverty and far fewer resources. But there was no national outpouring of grief, no warehouses full of teddy bears for Chicago. Why? Mark: I guess… the story wasn't the same. Sandy Hook was this shocking, singular event in a quiet suburb. It was on every news channel for weeks. Michelle: Precisely. Bloom calls empathy a spotlight. It shines brightly on one specific, emotionally compelling story—a cute child, a relatable family, a dramatic event—but it leaves everything else in darkness. The suffering in Chicago was just as real, arguably the need was greater, but it was a statistic, not a story that the empathy spotlight could fix on. Mark: Okay, I see the spotlight analogy. It's narrow. It focuses on what's vivid, not necessarily what's most important. But the intention to help Newtown was still good, wasn't it? Michelle: This is where it gets even more challenging. Bloom would say that good intentions fueled by biased empathy can lead to profoundly unjust outcomes. He cites a brilliant and disturbing experiment run by the psychologist C. Daniel Batson. It’s called the Sheri Summers experiment. Mark: Sheri Summers. Sounds innocent enough. What happened? Michelle: Researchers told participants about a young girl, Sheri, who was on a waiting list for a life-saving medical treatment. She was far down the list, and other children were ahead of her, presumably more in need. The participants listened to an interview with Sheri. Mark: Okay, I’m picturing it. You hear this little girl’s story, her voice… Michelle: Exactly. And one group of participants was specifically instructed to "try to imagine how Sheri feels." They were prompted to feel empathy for her. The other group was told to remain objective. Afterward, they were all given a choice: would you like to move Sheri to the front of the line? Mark: Oh, I see the dilemma. Moving her up means bumping other kids down, kids who might be sicker or have been waiting longer. That’s not fair. Michelle: It’s fundamentally unfair. And yet, in the group that was told to remain objective, only about a third of the people chose to move her up. But in the high-empathy group? Three-quarters of them voted to bump her to the front of the line, effectively sentencing another, more deserving child to wait longer, or maybe even die. Mark: That’s… horrifying. So feeling her pain made them act immorally. Michelle: It made them act unjustly. Bloom argues this is because empathy is "innumerate"—it can't do math. It sees one suffering person right in front of you and it screams "Help them!" It doesn't, and can't, weigh that one person's suffering against the invisible suffering of ten others. It’s a terrible guide for any decision that involves a trade-off, which, let's be honest, is almost every important moral decision in life. Mark: So it’s not just biased, it’s bad at basic arithmetic. It makes us favor the one we see over the many we don't. That’s a powerful critique. It’s like our hearts are wired for favoritism. Michelle: That's a perfect way to put it. And this bias isn't just about charity or medical waiting lists. It affects everything from who we hire to how our justice system works to which wars we decide to fight. Empathy for the victims of one side can fuel monstrous cruelty toward the other. Mark: Okay, I'm starting to see the problem with the empathy 'spotlight.' It's narrow, it's biased, it can't do math. But if we turn it off, what's left? Just cold, heartless logic? Are we supposed to become robots?

Michelle: That's the million-dollar question, and it’s what the second half of the book is all about. Bloom’s alternative isn't cold indifference. It's a concept he calls "rational compassion." Mark: Rational compassion. Break that down for me. How is that different from empathy? Michelle: It's a crucial distinction. Empathy, as Bloom defines it, is feeling what another person feels. It’s emotional contagion. If you’re in pain, I feel pain. Compassion, on the other hand, is caring about another person's well-being and wanting to help them, but without necessarily taking on their suffering yourself. It’s a warmer, more detached concern. The "rational" part is about using your head—logic, evidence, cost-benefit analysis—to figure out the best way to help. Mark: It’s like being a doctor in an ER. You have to care about saving lives, but you can't break down crying with every patient. You have to triage based on logic, not who's screaming the loudest. Is that it? Michelle: That is a fantastic analogy. An empathic doctor would be a terrible doctor. They’d be emotionally exhausted after one patient and make poor decisions. A compassionate doctor, however, understands the suffering, wants to alleviate it, and uses their training and intellect to do so effectively. Mark: That makes sense. But it still feels a bit abstract. What does this look like in the real world? Who actually lives like this? Michelle: Bloom gives us a truly mind-bending example: a man named Zell Kravinsky. Kravinsky was a real estate investor who made a fortune, around 45 million dollars. And then, guided by a kind of hyper-rationality, he gave almost all of it away to charity. Mark: Okay, a generous philanthropist. We've heard of those. Michelle: But it gets more extreme. After giving away his money, he felt he hadn't done enough. He learned that thousands of people die each year waiting for a kidney transplant. So, he did the math. He calculated the risk of dying from donating a kidney—about 1 in 4,000—and weighed it against the certainty of saving a life. And based on that calculation, he donated one of his kidneys. To a complete stranger. Mark: Wait. He donated a kidney to a stranger because of a math problem? Not because he met someone and felt for them, but because the numbers told him to? Michelle: Exactly. When people asked him why, he famously said they just "don't understand math." He wasn't driven by an emotional connection. He was driven by a logical conclusion about how to maximize good in the world. This is the epitome of rational compassion. Mark: That's incredible, but also... a little robotic? Is that really the ideal we're aiming for? Making moral choices like a spreadsheet? It feels like it’s missing something human. Michelle: And Bloom acknowledges that. He's not saying we should all become these "moral saints" or that there's no place for emotion. Kravinsky is an extreme case used to illustrate a principle. The point is that this different system of morality—one based on reason and a commitment to overall well-being—can motivate profound acts of goodness, arguably more effective goodness than empathy ever could. Mark: How so? Michelle: Think about the world's biggest problems: climate change, global poverty, pandemic prevention. These are vast, statistical problems. You can't empathize with the 1.3 billion people who will be displaced by rising sea levels in 2100. You can't feel the pain of millions of children suffering from malaria. Empathy breaks down when faced with large numbers and abstract future consequences. Mark: The spotlight can't find them. Michelle: It can't. But rational compassion can. It allows us to look at the data from an organization like GiveWell, see that a $5 mosquito net can prevent a child from dying of malaria, and conclude that donating to that cause is one of the most effective ways to reduce suffering on the planet. That decision doesn't require you to feel a child's fever. It requires you to care, and to think. Mark: So you're saying it's a more powerful tool for large-scale problems. It scales up in a way that emotional empathy just can't. Michelle: Precisely. It allows us to be fair, to be effective, and to care about the people who are outside our immediate emotional spotlight.

Mark: So the big takeaway isn't 'don't care about people.' It's 'be careful how you care.' Your feelings, your empathy, can actually trick you into being unfair or ineffective. Michelle: Exactly. Bloom's ultimate point is that our moral circle has expanded over centuries because of reason, not just empathy. We abolished slavery not because slave-owners suddenly started feeling the pain of their slaves, but because of powerful moral arguments about rights and humanity. Reason is what tells us that a person's suffering in another country is just as real and just as important as our neighbor's, even if we can't feel their pain directly. Rational compassion is about acting on that knowledge. Mark: It’s a shift from a reactive, emotional morality to a proactive, intellectual one. Michelle: It is. It’s about moving from a morality of feeling to a morality of doing, and doing it smartly. It’s less about the warm glow you get from helping and more about the actual good you accomplish in the world. Mark: So what's the one thing someone listening can do differently after hearing this? This is a huge idea to swallow. Michelle: Bloom suggests a simple mental check. The next time you feel that powerful, gut-wrenching empathic pull to help someone or donate to a cause, just pause for a second. Ask yourself: Is this the most effective way to do good, or just the one that feels the best to me right now? Is my empathy spotlight showing me the whole picture, or just one bright, emotionally charged corner of it? Mark: That’s a powerful shift. It’s about moving from "I feel your pain" to something more like, "I understand your pain, and I'm committed to helping in the smartest way possible." Michelle: That’s the heart of it. It’s not about being against kindness or love or compassion. It’s about being for a smarter, fairer, and ultimately more effective version of it. Mark: It really leaves you with a big question to chew on: Are your good deeds driven by your feelings, or by real, measurable impact? Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.