The Science of Evil On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty

THE SCIENCE OF EVILON EMPATHY AND THE ORIGINS OF CRUELTY

Simon Baron-CohenProfessor, Developmental PsychopathologyDepartments of Experimental Psychology and PsychiatryUniversity of Cambridge

AT ISSUE: CAN ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR BE ACCOUNTED FOR IN BRAIN CIRCUITRY? The Legacy of Hitler The Violence of the Herd Wanton Killing of Innocents Impact of Stressors Ease of Torture Human Destruction of Rape and Murder The `Sick` Mind in Mayhem on Streets and

among Families The Random Act of Violence

CLASS OUTLINE Georgie Fluter: A Personal Story Backgrounder on Byron-Cohen’s Book 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

BARON-COHEN’ S ARGUMENT 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

WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE A LACK OF EMPATHY?

Four kinds of conditions in people exhibit lack of empathy

Psychopathy Narcissim Autism Asperger Syndrome

BARON-COHEN: 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)

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)

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)

B-C’S CATEGORIES: ZERO-NEGATIVE (NOTHING POSITIVE TO RECOMMEND)

Personality Disorder Borderline: Type B- Extremes: 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’

B-C’S CATEGORIES: ZERO-POSITIVE Asperger Syndrome (Avoidance of the

social, loneliness, patterning obsession) Autism (Underactivity in Empathy,

without words for emotions, systemitizers to the extreme, innovators)

A section of over 8000 Terracotta Warriors in the mausoleum of the first Qin emperor outside Xian, China. Intense warfare is the evolutionary driver of large complex societies, according to a new mathematical model whose findings accurately match those of the historical record in the ancient world.

(Credit: iStockphoto)

RELATED: WAR HARD-WIRED INTO HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS?

GENETIC EVIDENCE FOR CIRCUITRY Aggressiveness Gene: MAOA-H ‘Warrior

Gene’ Emotional Recognition Genetic

Constructs: 1. Serotonin transporter (SLC6A4) 2. Arginine Vasopressin Receptor

(AVPR1A) Autism-linked, fear and anger Empathy Gene (Several Genes

involved)

CRITIQUE OF BARON-COHEN: EMPATHY RELATED TO 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? Even if circuitry explains lack of

empathy can this transmute into larger category of evil?

NEW STUDY: IMAGINING OTHERS IN PAIN This is response in the right amygdala across groups of low

(L), medium (M) and high (H) psychopathy participants, when they adopted an imagine-self and an imagine-other affective perspective while viewing bodily injuries. Groupwise effects (bars at the bottom of the figure) are expanded to show the contribution of continuous PCL-R subscores on factor 1, which encompasses the emotional/interpersonal features of psychopathy.

Jean Decety, Chenyi Chen, Carla Harenski and Kent A. Kiehl.An fMRI study of affective perspective taking in individuals with psychopathy: imagining another in pain does not evoke empathy. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2013 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00489

EVIDENCE NOT CONSIDERED BY B-C. 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

ARE HIS ASSUMPTIONS ACCEPTABLE?

Why is the demonic/evil, 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 Byron-Cohen ‘an authority’?

What role does ‘fear’ play in definitions of cruelty, and evil?

What role does conspiracy play in the meaning of evil?

OTHER 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.

OTHER CRITIQUES OF BARON-COHEN’S THESIS

No proof that cruelty, evil, lack of empathy, etc. one and the same set of phenomena.

What of the differences between personal lack of empathy and the social perception of evil?

Can a theory in one area of scientific knowledge necessarily apply in others?

SOME CRITIQUES OF BARON-COHEN’S THESIS

Why is evil behaviour apparently limited in time and scope..i.e. to the Hitler model?

Cultural determinants--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?

Variables in human mind are so great that isolating one circuitry hardly explains all.

CONTACT INFORMATIONEarle Waugh, Ph.D.Director, Centre for Health and CultureDepartment of Family MedicineUniversity of Albertaearle.waugh@ualberta.ca780-492-6424