Episode 34: Paul Bloom on Empathy, Rationality, Morality, and Cruelty

Blog post with show notes, audio player, and transcript: www.prepostero...
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Within every person’s mind there is on ongoing battle between reason and emotion. It’s not always a battle, of course; very often the two can work together. But at other times, our emotions push us toward actions that our reason would counsel against. Paul Bloom is a well-known psychologist and author who wrote the provocatively-titled book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, and is currently writing a book about the nature of cruelty. While I sympathize with parts of his anti-empathy stance, I try to stick up for the importance of empathy in the right circumstances. We have a great discussion about the relationship between reason and emotion.
Paul Bloom received his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from MIT. He is currently the Ragen Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University. His research ranges over a variety of topics in moral psychology and childhood development. He is the author of several books and the recipient of numerous prizes, including the $1 million Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize in 2017.

[@davidjimenez7556]

Excellent guest. Both of them did a fantastic job of explaining their views and discussing them.

[@thedduck]

Dang, I've been waiting for this since you mention Paul in first ep. (I think). I'm a fan of Paul Bloom way back from his Open Yale Course on Intro Psych. Watched many of his talks especially on his book Against Empathy (It's mind opening really). Oh man this is good Sean 👍.

[@TheOriginalRaster]

This was *very* interesting. The points of view expressed I found original in many cases which prods me to think more on some novel subjects. Sean's purpose for having a podcast achieving an admirable goal. Cheers!

[@ŚmiemWątpić]

Thank you! :) That was an amazing interview :)

[@fasligand7034]

Wow, nie spodziewałem się ciebie tutaj ;)

[@profesee6]

Just came to be that guy.... 50 cents. The ball costs 50 cents 😂 Spectacular interview!! Thanks for the content!

[@nathane5287]

Great conversation! When Sean took up that people were doing empathy wrong (somewhere around 20-30min) and Paul mentioned how biased, parochial and easily manipulated empathy is, another core feature Paul wrote in the book as being fundamentally flawed in empathy, making it so that you can't really do it better in public moral spheres, is how consuming it is for us, and there a more diffuse, abstract compassion beats empathy in promoting kindness without burning out people from the intensity of dealing with thinking more intimately about the lives of specific individuals. Seeing the perspective of people suffering from racism can push you away out of pain from the intensity of empathy, making it backfire. Making an abstract case and cultivating a more general compassion, will make people more resilient and understanding, without losing perspective of the larger picture.

[@1weirdsister]

Good discussion! Thanks. Empathy and compassion are very different things. That being said, I wish you (as an interviewer) would have asked prof. Bloom more about the differences between the two, and how they can and should be applied to moral hierarchies and social/political structures/actions.

[@ck58npj72]

Hi Sean, first of all, love this series of podcasts😊 Is there anyway possible that you would have a discussion with David Deutsch?

[@leerass]

This is constantly making the same mistake as most people in the nature/nurture debate are making: trying to emphasize the one over the other, while the truth always seems to lie in the complex interplay of the two. Same with empathy an reason I would say. Empathy without reason will lead to as much problems as reason without empathy. Instead of arguing about which should be dominant over the other I think we should focus on how the one can enhance the strengths and soften the weaknesses of the other. He might just be doing it for polemic reasons, and fair enough, but I hope we can avoid the unproductive back and forth and just go straight for the meat of the matter.

[@leerass]

Not surprisingly he missed why I would say that killing a robot in Westworld seems wrong. Rationally there is no reason why it’s wrong because it’t just a machine, but the moral principal you are breaking is empathy. It feels wrong because when a robot seems human in every way, for all intent and purposes, it is human phenomenologically and if we didn’t know it was a robot we would extend our human empathy to them unquestionably. The argument that if you could be cruel to the robot you’d be to others too seems problematic to me too. Nazi guards were perfectly loving fathers and husbands after a day of work in the camps. The Jews were so thoroughly dehumanized that the empathy of the (not all) guards no longer extended to them and so there was no moral mismatch to them. Same goes for basic military or slaughterhouse workers. You can only do these jobs when you don’t feel empathy for the ones you are killing. When empathy is transformed into disgust atrocities like genocide is possible. Nobody feels bad about bug exterminators, more feel bad about slaughterhouse workers and we all hate a person that would be going around killing cats and dogs. The amount of death decreases, but the moral significance increases and all because of disgust vs empathy.

[@fashionlandscape7386]

This comment is so spot on! The nature vs nurture analogy is exactly the one I recurred to when discussing with my husband about empathy vs reason. How we are is a complex interaction between genes and the environment, not either one or the other, it's both at the same time and it's the exact same with empathy, which you need to keep in check with reason and viceversa (I think Sean Carroll basically said this). I have this life philosophy for many years now based on the theory that everything works in a symbiotic mode. i am very happy to see more people thinking the same way. I do think both Sean and Paul's interactions between each other simply strengthened and completed this idea.

[@pleiadesglow]

Sean Carroll, you are an early riser!

[@Zeitgeist420]

Thank you Sean & Paul

[@dogsdomain8458]

"Reason is a slave to desire" -Hume

[@kennethmurphy8122]

I wish I was half as smart as I think I am

[@michaeldavis9357]

We reach a level of knowledge that allows true realism and then it's all downhill after that!

[@mohamedmilad1]

Without empathy we see others as not people. It's logical reasoning that created problems as it lacks empathy. .prejudice uses disgust not empathy. Empathy is your antidot to your fears

[@mitchwaller8225]

These guys are empathising the crap out of each other 😆

[@DraconianPolicy]

The problem with rationality is that, while it's valuable to a point, an arbitrary line always has to be drawn somewhere. The line between emotion and rationality is the crucial matter... and it's subjective. The "universality" of morality is actually very limited. Paul Bloom brought up slavery as something he believes is universally wrong, and people who believe otherwise simply haven't thought about it long enough. But what about animal slavery? Is that universally wrong also? And it's when we try to create this universal concept of "personhood", the limits of rationality become very evident. If we look at human history, the cold truth is that a civilization will tend to view slavery as wrong when it becomes less of a practical economic necessity. I don't think it's a coincidence. And if we take the statement "one life is not worth more than a hundred" to its rational conclusion, then it isn't clear that any life is worth anything at all. Therefore, one life is not worth more than a hundred, because a hundred lives, or even a billion lives, still have no value whatsoever. After all, we're just talking about matter and energy. Everyone and everything in the universe is equally worthless. So some type of irrational bias has to be injected into one's perception of the world in order to give value to a life form over an inanimate object. And nobody treats all life forms the same way because then we would all be dead. Everyone gives more value to certain life forms, whether it's human lives or animal lives or lives with a central nervous system over other sentient lives, and at some point rational argumentation in support of this bias breaks down. This bias and limited perception is inescapable, even to Paul Bloom. Another example is that people often say the world is better off today than it was in the past... but whose past exactly? What's implied but left out is that "from the perspective of people alive today, the world is a better place than it was in the past". But from the perspective of exterminated indigenous people and cultures all over the world, it isn't necessarily better today than it was in the past. This conflict between rationality and emotion is really a conflict between objective reality and our biased, limited perception of reality.

[@myothersoul1953]

You are right, rationality, reason on its own goes nowhere. It goes nowhere because it starts nowhere. Reasoning is a set of operations that are performed on an a priori set of facts or truths. Reason can't create the initial set of moral principles but once that initial set is create it it can help us be consistent and answer more complex issues. The real problem is, how to come up with that initial set? I don't think we will be given any help there, we are on our own and the choice make really matter.

[@DraconianPolicy]

@@myothersoul1953 Well, technically, I would say it doesn't actually matter and we don't actually make decisions :) If you think it matters, then it's because you're already operating under a specific set of subjective values where certain things matter. So... yeah. I know what you mean, but I think I just have a real problem jumping back and forth between objective and subjective perception. Awareness hasn't actually helped me in any way, it's only made things much more.... uncertain and questionable.

[@myothersoul1953]

@@DraconianPolicy Well, technically I think we do actually made decisions ;-) I think that because I think we are physical things that take in information and respond to it. That response is us (the physical stuff we are) making a decision. I don't know how we can evade that responsibility without first positing that we are something separate from the physical thing that we are. Without awareness morality would have no point. That's why rocks are so amoral.

[@DraconianPolicy]

@@myothersoul1953 ​If you really want to have this discussion, then I guess we can do that. But it will be long, because I believe you're already displaying layers of contradictions here. Unless I'm misinterpreting you, of course. But first, certain things have to be established up front. We have to agree that there are laws of physics that exist, and that everything in the physical universe, including human beings, their thoughts, and their behavior, can be reduced and described in terms of particles and energy (even if we do not know exactly how) that act in accordance with the laws of physics and we are not capable of deviating from those laws. We also have to agree on what a "decision" really is. You just described a decision in terms of action and reaction, cause and effect, or to make it more palatable... sensing, interpreting, reacting. We call that decision in terms of computer programming, but it isn't really a decision in the traditional "human" sense. It's actually just action and reaction, a chain of causality. When the program encounters this event, then it will do this, or else it will do that. It's totally predictable if you know all the conditions and parameters, just like classical mechanics, or the reaction of a rock slamming into another rock in space, as opposed to drifting through space indefinitely. In order for a decision to actually exist, then an agent has to be capable of producing multiple possible outcomes under the exact same conditions in reality. The agent has to be unpredictable, even theoretically. So, in other words, you have to believe it's possible to generate a different output with the exact same input. If you say, "had I known different information, i would have made a different decision" then you're changing the conditions of the situation. You're changing the input to get a different output. That's still action and reaction. Just like if a rock had been drifting in space at a slightly different velocity, then it wouldn't have hit the other rock. But no actual decision was made. A decision doesn't actually exist simply because you do not perceive all the natural laws acting upon your neurons, your synapses, your molecules, your genes, etc. Your lack of "awareness" does not produce a decision in reality. To put it another way, if I cannot see over the top of a hill to the other side of it, it doesn't mean that multiple realities might actually exist on the other side of the hill. There is one specific reality that exists on the other side of the hill, and my lack of certainty or awareness of what that reality is might cause me to imagine multiple possibilities, but only one possibility exists in reality.

[@RaysAstrophotography]

Great point of view Sean! Absolutely agree!

[@robertglass1698]

Moving beyond empathy is a good goal, but I think it's a good idea for people to become empathetic first, then learn to move beyond that. If you encourage people to skip straight to the rational view, then a lot bad mistakes will likely be made.

[@myothersoul1953]

1:07 Even if it isn't conscious it's not ok to do evil things to it. Why? I think that's true because of empathy. People will have empathy for a non-conscious thing even if they know it's not conscious. Empathy stops us, the spot light empathy, from doing evil things. Overriding that empathy, even for a non-conscious thing, isn't good idea. Rationally doing evil things to non-conscious robots doesn't matter, it matters because of what it might do to our ability to empathize. Why? Because empathy matters.

[@quill444]

I really feel like this guy might have discovered something very important here. - j q t -

[@chrisrecord5625]

Having concern about when you have empathy vs. when you don't is okay, if you do it equally. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 together. A MLB player can make $35 million a year with a ten year contract. I have empathy for the bat and ball.

[@chrisrecord5625]

Road rage seems clearly an instance when the moral fervor to punish the human who cut you off suddenly goes off the chart.

[@michaeldavis9357]

What an all too easily under-estimated topic! Although Sean, you must be up to about 50 scientific specialties at last count, which makes you a philosopher. We know everything... My two bits is that empathetic suppositions are created with rationality and reason, which are skewed however by the soundness of the data & the rigorousness of the process. I think that is why Jordan Peterson is wrong about the source of modern western morals being based on Judaeo/Christian tenets; he does not consider the physical (or moral) perception of reciprocity which is at least as old as we humans are ourselves.

[@peterz53]

"...tricks and strategies to make ourselves seem more rational..." exactly!!!

[@popojaga7312]

46:40 hmm.. I do go out of my way to abuse chairs and tables if I accidently hit my foot fingers into them, they i follow with some quick abuse on them as revenge...

[@beefcurtainz69]

I really wish there were more with only you and not guests. There have only been a select few that I have even heard of. I just like hearing you alone speaking on these topics

[@qzbnyv]

Support him on Patreon and get access to the ~monthly Q&A recordings which are just hours of him talking alone answering questions :)

[@beefcurtainz69]

NWN that sounds perfect actually! Thanks!

[@woody7652]

First! Listening now, thanks in advance.

[@psycho2soundz]

Imagine being out in the sahara and the tall grass sways. Rational thought would be, “maybe that’s the wind” emotional thought would say “that’s a predator” one action would survive over the other.

[@tookie36]

Fml Sean only has 36k subscribers

[@Life_42]

Be nice to robots!

[@unclebirdman]

Be Kind To Robots

[@dancingbubbles1126]

How to politely disagree.

[@russdill]

Thanks, empathy along with fear, are the two #1 tools of the anti-vaxx movement.

[@twiedenfeld]

Why would a purely rational person want to be moral if they don't have empathy? What's the point of talking about humanity without empathy when it's not something that can be gotten rid of?

[@slimetime6056]

Having a high iq (rationality) increases compassion due to higher brain dopamine levels. Empathy isn’t needed

[@madderhat5852]

Why doesn't everyone just realise that I am always correct?😖