Huh? Empathy Just Became a Bad Thing

In breaking news, empathy - which I argued in favor of a few weeks ago in A Dangerous Lack of Empathy Prevails - apparently has become a negative. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Paul Bloom argues that "when it comes to guiding our decisions, empathy is a moral track wreck."

Oops.

Dr. Bloom is the author of Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. He cites numerous pieces of research to show that empathy can cloud our judgment and lead to public policies and personal decisions that make little sense. He writes, "It's why governments and individuals sometimes care more about a little girl stuck in a well (to recall the famous 1987 case of Baby Jessica in Midland) than about crises that affect many more people."

Bloom cites two different kinds of empathy:

Cognitive empathy is being able to comprehend what's happening in someone else's mind, without necessarily feeling what they are feeling. It's understanding at a safe distance.

Emotional empathy is actually feeling what they are feeling. It's a vitally important part of forming healthy relationships, Bloom says, but a lousy way to guide "our moral judgments and political decisions... recent research in neuroscience and psychology shows that empathy makes us biased, tribal and often cruel."

Most of my articles are about cognitive empathy. For example, in Do NOT Teach a Starving Man to Fish, I wrote:

When a person is starving, that's not the time to fill their head with knowledge. The right thing to do is to first give the person a fish - banishing their hunger - and only then teach them to fish... few of us understand the anxiety, confusion, and uncertainty that comes with overwhelming need. People in the midst of personal disasters are reeling. They can't think straight. Their nerves may be shot. Their confidence may be non-existent.

In other words, have a clue.

Think before you act. Think about what other people are experiencing. Think about whether your success depends on someone else's failure, or whether you can come up with a win/win arrangement. This logic works in business, and it also works when dealing with larger societal issues.

As the title of his book suggests, Bloom believes that compassion is a better approach. Emotional empathy leads to burnout and bad decisions, but "compassion training leads to better feelings on the part of the mediator and kinder behavior towards others."

I can't argue against compassion.

That said, aside from being a really catchy book title, I also can't fully buy into the belief that empathy is bad. Cognitive empathy does not lead to burnout - you won't feel so much pain that you can't take it anymore - and it does help us be more sensitive to the needs of others.

In fact, the only bad thing about cognitive empathy is that it is two words, not one, and requires a bit of explanation.

Let's just agree that when I say "empathy", you know what I mean.

Bruce Kasanoff is a ghostwriter for entrepreneurs, executives, and social innovators. He is the author of NEVER TELL PEOPLE WHAT YOU DO.