Yale psychologist Paul Bloom challenges common assumptions about empathy, arguing that feeling others’ emotions isn’t always the best guide for moral decision-making.
He suggests that empathy can be biased, limited in scope, and sometimes counterproductive when trying to create just or effective policies and advocates for rational compassion—using reason to achieve fairer outcomes.
If you’re interested in exploring these ideas further, Bloom develops this argument in much greater depth in his book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, where he examines how empathy can mislead moral judgment and makes a sustained case for reasoned compassion as a more effective foundation for ethical decision-making and social impact work.