79. Paul Bloom (Psychologist) – Cold-Blooded Kindness
Spontaneous talk on surprise topics. Psychologist Paul Bloom wants us to abandon empathy as a guide to moral decision making. He's probably right.
December 31, 2016
51 min
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80 of 237
December 31, 2016
79. Paul Bloom (Psychologist) – Cold-Blooded Kindness
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79. Paul Bloom (Psychologist) – Cold-Blooded Kindness
Summary
Since 2008, Big Think has been sharing big ideas from creative and curious minds. The Think Again podcast takes us out of our comfort zone, surprising our guests and Jason Gots, your host, with unexpected conversation starters from Big Think’s interview archives.
Paul Bloom is an internationally recognized expert on the the psychology of child development, social reasoning, and morality, and the author of numerous books including Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil. His newest book is Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. Is managing a hedge-fund a better way to do good in the world than joining the Peace Corps? Does donating for disaster-relief (without really thinking it through) often make matters worse? At the risk of being mistaken for a Scrooge-like figure, Paul Bloom advances a smart, nuanced argument that empathy, in the sense of feeling others' suffering, is a terrible guide to moral decision-making.
Surprise conversation starter interview clips in this episode: Juanita Rilling on the psychology and the realities of disaster relief, David Eagleman on mass shootings, Wesley Lowery on freedom of the press.
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