The art of imaginatively stepping into another person’s shoes and seeing the world from their perspective is, it would seem, a most valuable and valued twenty-first century asset. Not so, says Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, leading the counter-charge against empathy’s popularity surge. Bloom creates a false – and dangerous – dichotomy between empathy and reason, and misses the long lesson from history: that time and again, empathy has played a crucial role in creating a democratic culture that respects human rights. So where have the critics gone wrong? … If affective empathy is our mirror for reflecting others’ emotions, cognitive empathy is, by contrast, a pair of shoes that invites … Continue reading Roman Krznaric