Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty

Simon Baron-Cohen

Penguin Books Limited, Dec 21, 2011 - Science - 190 pages

HOW CAN WE EVER EXPLAIN HUMAN CRUELTY?

Simon Baron-Cohen, expert in autism and developmental psychopathology, has carried out groundbreaking research to isolate and understand the factors that cause people to treat others as if they were mere objects. In this book he proposes a radical shift, turning the focus away from evil and on to the central factor, empathy.

Putting empathy under the microscope, he explores four new ideas- first, that we all lie somewhere on an empathy spectrum, from six degrees at one end, down to zero degrees at the other. At six degrees we meet highly empathic people, while at zero degrees we meet the psychopath. Secondly, that deep within the brain lies the 'empathy circuit'. How this circuit functions determines where we each lie on the empathy spectrum. Thirdly, that empathy is both the result of experiencing parental love, and the result of genes. And fourthly, he asks an almost unthinkable question- while a lack of empathy leads to mostly negative results, is it always negative?

Full of original research and radical ideas, Zero Degrees of Empathypresents a new way of understanding what it is that leads individuals to treat others inhumanely, and challenges all of us to reconsider entirely the idea of evil.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - kk1 - LibraryThing

This book is like a catch 22 on empathy and I say that after mulling it over for a few weeks. I wasn't keen to read it, because I am not keen on the phrase - "extreme male brain theory of autism". I ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - themythbookshelf - LibraryThing

Baron-Cohen begins with a couple of grappling chapters on the concept of evil, calling for the more appropriate and less abstract phrase "empathy erosion". He admits that though we are all capable of ...

About the author

Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor at Cambridge University in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. He is also the Director of Cambridge's internationally-renowned Autism Research Centre. He has carried out research into social neuroscience over a career spanning twenty years. The Essential Difference (Penguin 2003) has been translated in over a dozen languages and put forward the theory of 'the extreme male brain'.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty; Penguin books; Volume 30 of Routledge library editions: Political science
• Author: Simon Baron-Cohen
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Penguin Books Limited, 2011
• ISBN: 0713997915, 9780713997910
• Length: 190 pages
• Subjects: Science / General