Paul Bloom on Empathy

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2017

⏱️ 68 minutes

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Summary

Psychologist Paul Bloom of Yale University talks about his book Against Empathy with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Bloom argues that empathy--the ability to feel the emotions of others--is a bad guide to charitable giving and public policy. Bloom argues that reason combined with compassion is a better and more effective guide to making the world a better place.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:09.3	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:13.8	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find
0:18.9	links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:21.7	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done
0:25.9	going back to 2006.
0:28.3	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:30.8	We'd love to hear from you.
0:34.4	Today is February 6th, 2017, and my guest is psychologist and author Paul Bloom, the
0:39.6	Brooks and Suzanne Reagan, professor of psychology at Yale University.
0:44.0	His latest book has the provocative title against empathy, the case for rational compassion,
0:49.6	and he really is against it.
0:51.0	Paul, welcome to econtalk.
0:52.0	Hey, thanks for having me.
0:54.3	Now as you point out many times in the book, empathy is used in a wide variety of ways.
1:00.7	So when you say you're against empathy, which is already bad enough, but you want to clarify
1:04.4	more precisely what you mean in the book, so do that here.
1:07.2	Tell us what you mean by empathy in particular.
1:09.9	Yeah, it's kind of a terrible way to start any conversation, but I think for this, I have
1:14.5	to begin by defining my terms.
1:16.9	People use the term empathy in every imaginable way.
1:20.6	Some people use the term empathy to mean just everything good, everything kind, moral,
	...

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