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The Science of Evil On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty

The Science of Evil On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty. Simon Baron-Cohen Professor, Developmental Psychopathology Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry University of Cambridge. Class Outline for teaching session with Earle Waugh, Ph.D. Backgrounder on Byron-Cohen’s Book

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The Science of Evil On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty

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  1. The Science of EvilOn Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty Simon Baron-Cohen Professor, Developmental Psychopathology Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry University of Cambridge

  2. Class Outline for teaching session with Earle Waugh, Ph.D. • Backgrounder on Byron-Cohen’s Book • Georgie Fluter: A Personal Story • The Thesis: Why Do People Lack Empathy? • Baron-Cohen on the Brain and Autism Circuitry • Zero-Negative • Zero-Positive • Genetic Evidence • Critique: Evidence Not Considered

  3. Why do people have a lack of empathy? • Four kinds of conditions in people exhibit lack of empathy • Psychopathy • Narcissim • Autism • Asperger Syndrome

  4. Baron-Cohen • Evil and Cruelty are the result of Lack of Empathy • Not the result of theological category of ‘sin’ • Not the result of an incarnate evil-i.e.‘devil’ • Not purely the result of social disorder or environment • Not purely the result of a physical condition • Reflect variety of categories and associations

  5. The Empathy Circuit • Six Levels of Empathy, based on Empathy Quotient Questionnaire • MRI evidence of regions of brain operative in empathy—ten in all: • Medial prefontal cortex (comparing oneself with others) • Orbitofrontal cortex ( social judgement, socially disoriented • Frontal operculum (Language processing)

  6. The Empathy Circuit (cont’d) • Inferior frontal gyrus (emotional recognition) • Caudal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula (pain matrix-both personal and observing) • Temporoparietal junction (intentions and beliefs) • Superior Temporal Sulcus (judging someone’s direction of looking)

  7. The Empathy Circuit (cont’d) • Somatosensory Cortex (coding sensory experience) • Inferior Parietal Lobule, Inferior Parietal Sulcus( Actions & response recording ‘mirror’ neurons) • Amygdala (emotional learning and regulation)

  8. Zero-Negative (Nothing Positive to Recommend) Personality Disorder Borderline: Type B- Extreme saying destructive things to others (Marilyn Monroe) Psychopath: Type P- Total detachment from other’s feelings...cold, calculating, completely selfish Narcissistic: Type N- Total entitlement of self, ‘using’ others, discarding those ‘useless’

  9. Zero-Positive • Asperger Syndrome (Avoidance of the social, loneliness, patterning obsession) • Autism (Underactivity in Empathy, without words for emotions, systemitizers to the extreme, innovators)

  10. Genetic Evidence • Aggressiveness Gene: MAOA-H ‘Warrior Gene’ • Emotional Recognition: 1. Serotonin transporter (SLC6A4) 2. Arginine Vasopressin Receptor (AVPR1A) Autism-linked, fear and anger) • Empathy Gene (Several Genes involved)

  11. CRITIQUE: BROADER RANGE OF Evidence? • Can you develop empathy? • If you have none are you necessarily bad? • Can a state be empathetic (i.e. Ban the death penalty)? • Can one be super-empathetic to the point of being dangerous?

  12. Evidence Not Considered • Daniel Frankfurter: Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in History. Princeton, 2006. • Social Construction of Evil: Endorsed in Rituals of Political, Social and Religious Intent-but not universally accepted. • No Notion of Cruelty Universal: It is normally constructed locally and from local social and psychological conditions

  13. Assumptions acceptable? • Why is the demonic, the chaotic, the marginal regarded cross-culturally as “a realm”? • Why is the definition of evil often in the hand of “authorities”...prophets, presidents, popes? Isn’t he ‘an authority’? • What role does ‘fear’ play in definitions of cruelty, and evil? • What role does conspiracy play in the meaning of evil?

  14. Direct Critiques of Baron-Cohen’s Thesis • New Studies do not support conclusions • i.e. Some Children lose Autism Diagnosis: Fein D et. al. Optimal outcome in individuals with history of autism, J.Child Psyh and Psychiatry, 2013 DOI 10.11/jepp.1203-7. • i.e. Decision-making much more complex than circuitry ideology. Haelener, RM. et al. Inferring decoding strategies from choice probabilities in the presence of correlated variability.Nature Neuroscience. 2013 DOI: 10.1038/nn.3.309. • Are cruelty, evil, lack of empathy, etc. one and the same set of phenomena? • Are there differences between personal lack of empathy and the social perception of evil?

  15. Direct Critiques of Baron-Cohen’s Thesis • Why is evil behaviour apparently limited in time and scope..i.e. the Hitler model? • Impossible to disengage notion of evil from Western cultural experience, including its religious connotations. • Perceptions of evil are real—as in Georgie Fluter- but can they be reduced to a model of lack-of-empathy?

  16. CONTACT INFORMATION Earle Waugh, Ph.D. Director, Centre for the Cross-Cultural Study of Health and Healing Department of Family Medicine University of Alberta earle.waugh@ualberta.ca 780-492-6424

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