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I argue that we should be kind, we should be compassionate, and we should definitely be reasonable and rational, but that empathy leads us astray.

Paul Bloom

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Paul Bloom
Age: 60
Born: 1963
Born: December 24
Psychologist
University Teacher
Montreal
Quebec
Leads
Rational
Definitely
Astray
Kind
Argue
Compassionate
Empathy
Arguing
Reasonable

More quotes by Paul Bloom

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I'm very interested in why we do good things, or bad things, and where moral judgments come from.
Paul Bloom
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My younger son told me nobody uses email anymore. I'm this old fogie with my email. I don't know what I'm supposed to communicate with now - SnapChat?
Paul Bloom
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This enthusiasm [for empathy] may be misplaced. Empathy has some unfortunate features – it is parochial, narrow-minded and innumerate. We’re often at our best when we’re smart enough not to rely on it.
Paul Bloom
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If you like somebody, they look better to you. This is why spouses in happy marriages tend to think that their husband or wife looks much better than anyone else thinks that they do.
Paul Bloom
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I think empathy is really important for pleasure.
Paul Bloom
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We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good life: a life with sustained relationships, challenging work, and connections to community.
Paul Bloom
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I think there's some evidence that we're empathic by nature. There is some evidence from studies of babies and young children that they resonate with the pain of others, and there's some work by Frans de Waal that other primates also resonate with the pain of others.
Paul Bloom
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In my own life, I do not live like an effective altruist. An effective altruist would really disapprove of my life. I don't give enough to charity and I still have both my kidneys.
Paul Bloom
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Something as important and central and encompassing as empathy can't be all bad. I think empathy plays a role in intimate relationships, where you might want your partner not just to care about you or understand you but to feel what you feel.
Paul Bloom
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A religion such as Judaism or Catholicism might survive even if it comes to reject a literal account of God creating man and animals. But it cannot survive the rejection of an immaterial soul.
Paul Bloom
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I think there's some evidence that when it comes to being a doctor or nurse, a police officer or therapist, that empathetic engagement leads to burn-out. Imagine if you're dealing with severely ill children, and you felt their pain all the time, and the pain of their parents - you wouldn't be able to do that job for very long. It would kill you.
Paul Bloom
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Traditionally, psychology has been the study of two populations: university freshmen and white rats.
Paul Bloom
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It has been a period where people have been far nicer to one another in every possible way. I'm not saying it's because we're dropping our empathy that we're nicer to each other, just that the drop doesn't seem to be causing any harm.
Paul Bloom
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Individuals differ in how empathic they are. Some people would really flinch if they watched me hitting my hand with a hammer, and other people would just not care.
Paul Bloom
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Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans — language, rationality, culture, and so on. I'd stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.
Paul Bloom
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Empathy zooms you in on an individual and, as a result, it's narrow, it's innumerate, it's racist, it's very biased.
Paul Bloom
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I am never going to write about dogs again. You can write about Islam, you can write about sexuality, but no, not dogs.
Paul Bloom
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By “empathy,” some people mean everything that is good - compassion, kindness, warmth, love, being a mensch, changing the world - and I'm for all of those things. I'm not a monster.
Paul Bloom
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Even the charities I give to are related to things that touch my life, like the Special Olympics. I'm not fully rational I'm swayed by my biases and my emotions.
Paul Bloom
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I think we should really discourage this sort of empathic engagement when it comes to making moral decisions. I think we should focus on something like compassion, on getting people to care more for others without putting ourselves in their shoes.
Paul Bloom