Before looking at the way empathy has recently been under attack, it helps to understand what it is and what it isn’t. Professor Gad Saad calls empathy a “noble emotion,” but it’s not an emotion. A few American Christian leaders have labelled empathy a “sin,” but it’s actually a brain function. As neuroscientist Simon Baron-Cohen researches, empathy is neural circuitry in the brain that engages at least 10 regions. It is cognitive (thinking) and affective (feeling).

Babies are born wired for empathy as they need to understand what people, upon whom they depend are thinking, feeling, and intending. A quick video by professor of social work Brené Brown is an effective way to understand empathy in action and how it differs from sympathy.

While you might use your cognitive empathy to read someone like a book, understanding their thinking, feeling, and intending, if you can’t feel their pain, do not relate or respond on a brain level to their thoughts, emotions, and intentions, it might lead you to maltreat them. It could mean your affective empathy is eroded, which is how neuroscientist Simon Baron-Cohen documents psychopathic behaviour on a brain level.

One of the early indicators of a lack of empathy or psychopathology in children is their harming of animals. The lack of brain level reaction to causing a creature or person pain and suffering is a red flag of “empathy erosion.” Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist explains: “Empathy is intrinsic to morality.” If an individual does not feel the pain of their........

© Psychology Today