79. Paul Bloom (Psychologist) – Cold-Blooded Kindness

Think Again - a Big Think Podcast

Big Think / Panoply

Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 594 Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2016

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Since 2008, Big Think has been sharing big ideas from creative and curious minds. The Think Again podcast takes us out of our comfort zone, surprising our guests and Jason Gots, your host, with unexpected conversation starters from Big Think’s interview archives. Paul Bloom is an internationally recognized expert on the the psychology of child development, social reasoning, and morality, and the author of numerous books including Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil. His newest book is Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. Is managing a hedge-fund a better way to do good in the world than joining the Peace Corps? Does donating for disaster-relief (without really thinking it through) often make matters worse? At the risk of being mistaken for a Scrooge-like figure, Paul Bloom advances a smart, nuanced argument that empathy, in the sense of feeling others' suffering, is a terrible guide to moral decision-making. Surprise conversation starter interview clips in this episode: Juanita Rilling on the psychology and the realities of disaster relief, David Eagleman on mass shootings, Wesley Lowery on freedom of the press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Huh, have you ever wondered what a sandwich sounds like?
0:04.3	Not much to it, is there?
0:06.2	Unless, of course, it's a Walker's sandwich.
0:10.9	Mmm, that is good.
0:12.9	Now that's what Asani should sound like.
0:15.8	Go all crisp in with walkers.
0:19.0	Delicious.
0:20.0	Hey there, I'm Jason Gots and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.
0:29.0	Started in 2008, Big Think is a kind of online think tank of important emerging ideas
0:34.1	from some of the most creative thinkers on the planet.
0:36.8	On this podcast, we revisit these ideas in new ways.
0:40.1	Our producers surprise me and my guests with short interview clips from Big Thinks
0:44.9	Archives, ideas that we didn't necessarily come here expecting to discuss.
0:49.5	I'm very happy to be here today with Paul Bloom.
0:52.0	He's an internationally recognized expert on the psychology
0:54.7	of child development, social reasoning, and morality, and the author of numerous books, including
0:59.8	Just Babies, The Origins of Good and Evil. His newest book is called Against Empathy, The Case for
1:06.7	Rational Compassion. Welcome to Think Again, Paul. Thanks for having me here, Jason. So the
1:12.0	original title of the book was against puppies, I understand, but then the editor
1:17.6	thought that was a little too extreme. We went through against kittens, against
1:21.2	world peace. We settle on against empathy. The most provocative of all possible
1:27.0	titles.
	...

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