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Science in Context 25(3), 401424 (2012). Copyright C Cambridge
University Pressdoi:10.1017/S0269889712000129
The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy
Allan Young
McGill UniversityE-mail: [email protected]
Argument
Neuroscience research has created multiple versions of the human
brain. The social brain isone version and it is the subject of this
paper. Most image-based research in the field of socialneuroscience
is task-driven: the brain is asked to respond to a cognitive
(perceptual) stimulus.The tasks are derived from theories,
operational models, and back-stories now circulating insocial
neuroscience. The social brain comes with a distinctive back-story,
an evolutionary historyorganized around three, interconnected
themes: mind-reading, empathy, and the emergence
ofself-consciousness. This paper focuses on how empathy has been
incorporated into the socialbrain and redefined via parallel
research streams, employing a shared, imaging technology.The
concluding section describes how these developments can be
understood as signaling theemergence of a new version of human
nature and the unconscious. My argument is not thatempathy in the
social brain is a myth, but rather that it is served by a myth
consonant with thecanons of science.
Introduction
Empathy is today a popular subject among social neuroscientists,
science journalists,and the consumers of this literature the
curious public, social and behavioral scientists,ethicists,
forensic psychiatrists, moral philosophers, other humanities
scholars, cognitivepsychologists, and investigators working on
psychopathy, autism spectrum disorder, andother developmental
pathologies. In this paper, I describe the social neuroscience
ofempathy and its object of inquiry, the social brain, from an
ethnographic perspective. Thesocial brain is indissociable from the
anatomical brain but likewise something differentfrom other
scientific visions of the brain. It is called a social brain
because of what itdoes (it permits minds and brains to read
intentions and share feelings inside otherminds and brains), how it
emerged (it is a product of hominid social evolution), andhow these
presumptions have shaped research and discourse.
For three centuries, human nature and inter-subjectivity were
similarly associatedwith the faculty of reasoning. The golden age
of social anthropology, arguably the lastof the Enlightenment
sciences, was pre-occupied with questions about the natureand
universality of reason. Were mentalities and modes of reasoning
around theworld essentially the same or different? Do human
societies occupy positions along
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402 Allan Young
a single developmental continuum, whose bedrock is the psychic
unity of mankind?Are magic and science cognate efforts to
understand and manipulate the materialworld? These well-known
debates, which included Frazer, Malinowski, Freud,
andEvans-Pritchard, focused on mentalities and cultures, and,
except for Freud, rarelyon biology and evolution (Tambiah 1990, 2).
In the anglophone world at least,human nature is increasingly
understood with reference to empathy, brain science,and
evolutionary biology, rather than reason, and without recourse any
longer to socialanthropology.
These developments include a widespread public misunderstanding.
Neuroscienceknowledge about empathy and the social brain derives
from two sources: research onmirror neurons and research based on
the same technology but in combination witha neo-Darwinian
back-story. The two streams are complementary and the boundariesare
fuzzy. The misunderstanding is that the capacities and significance
of mirror neuronsare grossly exaggerated in popular acounts, while
the back-story and associated brainresearch, the focus of much
interest among neuroscientists, are poorly understood orignored. In
part one of this paper, I discuss research on mirror neurons, their
popularappeal, and some reasons for the declining interest in them
among neuroscientists. Parttwo is about the back-story and related
research. The two parts run chronologically inparallel; my emphasis
throughout is on empathy.
Part One: Mirror Neurons
Mirror neurons were initially discovered in premotor and
inferior parietal regions ofrhesus monkey brains (Di Pellegrino et
al. 1992). Evidence of human mirror neuronswas discovered soon
afterward in homologous regions. Most neurons in these brainregions
perform a single function: they communicate sensory information to
the brainor transmit motor commands from the brain. Mirror neurons
combine these functions:an individual observes goal directed
behavior being performed by a second individual;the motor
activation pattern in the observers brain mirrors (matches) the
pattern inthe performers brain; the process is not conscious and
the motor behavior is notperformed. Mirror neurons are multimodal:
they respond to visual stimuli, auditorystimuli (e.g. the sound of
a peanut shell being cracked open), imagined events (e.g.an
athletic performance), and texts containing action verbs (Fadiga et
al. 1996; Fogassiet al. 2002 and 2005; Kohler et al. 2002;
Rizzolatti and Arbib 1998; Rizzolatti andCraighero 2004; and
Tettamanti et al. 2005).
Mirror neuron research on monkey brains is based on an invasive
procedure:microelectrodes are inserted into the brain at selected
points. For ethical reasons,this technique was not permissible for
human studies. Consequently, human researchwas based on
non-invasive techniques, fMRI and PET. These technologies can
imagethe activation of populations of neurons but not single
neurons. The problem with thistechnology is that the existence of
mirror neurons can be inferred but not demonstrated.
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The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy 403
The original conception was that every mirror neuron is strictly
congruent withan identifiable goal-oriented action. The current
conception divides mirror neuronsinto four sub-populations:
strictly congruent neurons; broadly congruent neurons
(thecorrespondence is not precise); canonical neurons (these fire
when someone observeshimself performing a relevant action or
observes an object to which this action mightbe directed, but not
when he observes someone else performing the same action);and
anti-mirror neurons (which inhibit the performance of mirrored
action patterns)(Keysers et al. 2010).
Evidence of human mirror neurons is necessarily indirect and
contested. Criticshave argued that the mirror effect that is
observed via neuroimaging is the productof three sub-populations
(sensory-motor, sensory only, motor only), no one of
whichcorresponds to the original idea of mirror neurons (Dinstein
2008; Dinstein et al.2007; Dinstein et al. 2008; Jacob 2008; Jacob
and Jeannerod 2005; Singer 2006;Turella et al. 2009). The very
existence of human sensory-motor neurons has beenquestioned. But a
recent and unprecedented single-neuron investigation (Mukamelet al.
2010), in which microelectrodes were inserted into the brains of
surgical patientsdiagnosed with intractable epilepsy, is said to
finally provide direct electrophysiologicalevidence that humans
have mirror neurons (Keysers and Gazzola 2010,R353).
The mirror phenomenon is a brain-to-brain product, unmediated by
mental states,and different from situations where a match between
brains (observer and performer)occurs in parallel and is routed
through consciousness. Here is an example: Participantsin this
experiment were inserted into an fMRI scanner, where they viewed
photos ofhands and feet in painful situations. They were next asked
to assess the level of pain beingexperienced by the anonymous
individuals. Participants assessments and brain imageswere
compared. High assessments correlated with high activations in
brain regionsknown (from previous research) to play a significant
role in pain processing (Jacksonet al. 2005, 771). In other words,
the distinctiveness of the mirror phenomenon dependson more than
demonstrating neural matching: it is necessary to likewise
demonstratethe absence of mental processing. To understand the
efforts of researchers to connectmirror neurons to empathy, it is
important to carefully distinguish between mirrorstates and
parallel states. There are social neuroscientists who insist on
this distinction(e.g. Singer et al. 2004), but others who do not.
For convenience, I will call the formerthe maximalists.
According to the maximalists, since the frontal and parietal
regions that arecommonly associated with mirror neurons are
connected to multiple brain regions,it can be presumed that mirror
neurons extend to these regions as well (Keysers andGazzola 2010,
R353). The relevant research has focused on the role of mirror
neuronsin the social emotions, notably disgust. In the next
paragraphs, I summarize the workpublished on this subject by
maximalists (Vittoriao Gallese, Marco Iacoboni, GiacomoRizzolatti,
Christian Keysers and colleagues) during the period of most intense
interest,between 2002 and 2007.
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404 Allan Young
Mirror neurons and disgust
[T]he fundamental mechanism at the basis of the experiential
understanding ofothers actions is the activation of the mirror
neuron system. A similar mechanism,but involving the activation of
viscero-motor centers, underlies the experientialunderstanding of
the emotions of others. Evidence obtained from multiplesources
(electrical stimulation of monkey brains, task-driven fMRI
research, clinicalobservations) indicates that these neural
populations intersect in the insula. The insulacontains neural
populations active both when the participants directly
experienceddisgust and when they understood it through the facial
expression of others. It isa center of viscero-motor integration,
and a relay between action representations(mirror neurons) and
emotion (Gallese et al. 2004, 396, 398400).
This large-scale network, composed of the mirror neuron system,
the insula, andlimbic structures including the amygdala, would
permit an observer to empathizewith others through the
representation and inner imitation of the actions
(facialexpressions, body postures) of others (Iacoboni and Dapretto
2006, 942; also Carret al. 2003). (This inner imitation or action
representation is synonymous withthe activation pattern that I have
already mentioned.)
The process is demonstrated in an fMRI study in which
participants inhaledodorants producing a strong feeling of disgust.
The same participants observed videoclips showing the emotional
facial expression of disgust. Observing such faces andfeeling of
disgust activated the same sites in the anterior insula. . . .
[Just] as observinghand actions activates the observers motor
representation of that action, observingan emotion activates the
neural representation of that emotion. Activation wasmore intense
when participants imitated the facial emotion than when they
observedit. An analogous effect is observed in monkey and mirror
neuron studies of goaldirected behavior (Wicker et al. 2003, 655;
also van der Gaag et al. 2007). In aninterview in the New York
Times, Christian Keysers explained that this neural
networkunderpins additional empathic social emotions his list
includes guilt, shame, pride,embarrassment, humiliation, rejection,
and lust and also empathic responses to pain(Blakeslee 2006).
These researchers (Keysers, Kass, and Gazzola 2010) welcomed the
publicationof Mukamel et al.s single-neuron research, since it
confirmed the existence ofhuman mirror neurons and, more
specifically, located them in regions beyond thefrontal (premotor)
and parietal regions of the brain, i.e. supplementary motorarea,
and hippocampus and environs. While these findings are consonant
with themaximalist vision of mirror neurons, there is only indirect
evidence connecting mirrorneurons to the insula and, through this
interface, connecting mirror neurons into alarge-scale network and
social emotions. The reasoning is illustrated in an fMRIstudy (Carr
et al. 2003) in which participants are asked to both imitate (a
motoractivity) and observe (a visuo-sensory experience) emotional
displays. These are thefindings:
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The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy 405
1. Imitating and observing the same emotion are shown to
activate the same premotorareas. This finding is necessary, but not
sufficient, for showing the presence ofsensory-motor neurons and,
more specifically, mirror neurons.
2. Imitating an emotion is shown to activate additional brain
areas, insula andamygdala, that are relevant to (unconscious)
action representations. This findingis necessary, but not
sufficient, for showing the modulation of the actionrepresentation
circuit onto limbic activity.
3. In other words: sensory stimulus activation of mirror neurons
actionrepresentation insula interface limbic activation (includes
the amygdala).
The lynchpin in this operation is the presence of action
representations (Fadiga andCraighero 2004; Shmuelof and Zohary
2007). I will continue with this point in thefollowing section.
Mirror neurons and empathy
Although there is no standard definition of empathy among social
neuroscientists, thereis a general understanding that empathy
refers to a state that is shared by an observerand another
individual, present or imagined. Empathic states include, singly or
incombination, cognitive empathy, emotional empathy, and somatic
empathy (mainlypain). Human mirror neurons are routinely depicted
as being intrinsically empathic(e.g. Iacoboni and Dapretto 2006;
Iacoboni 2009; Rizzolatti and Craighero 2004;Nummenmaa et al.
2008).
Motor theories of cognition date back to the nineteenth-century
(James 1890, onideomotor theory); mirror neurons provide the latest
chapter in this history (Jeannerod1994; Hickcok 2009). Until
recently, interest in empathy has concentrated in thefields of
developmental psychology, social psychology, counseling psychology,
and inclinical investigations of certain psychiatric disorders,
notably childhood autism andpersonality disorders. Biological
research on empathy focused on limbic system andneuroendocrine
responses to social signals such as expressed emotion (see
Brothers1989 for a review). The discovery of the human mirror
neuron system has expandedthe neurological frontiers of empathy by
identifying a biological mechanism that appearsto illuminate, if
not answer, one version of an enduring philosophical question,
theproblem of other minds. How do minds infer intentions embedded
in other minds(Custers and Aarts 2010, 49)?
The simplest form of mirror neuron activation (and action
representation) is referredto as resonance and it is unconscious.
The human mirror neuron system is capableof de-coupling an action
representation so that it can be projected (attributed) backto its
source, the performer, thereby differentiating between self and
other. Recentresearch suggests that sometimes de-coupling is
spontaneously reversed during memoryreconsolidation (retrieval).
This occurs in instances where an observer remembers
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406 Allan Young
someone elses performance (via an action representation) as
having been his ownexperience a phenomenon that is conventionally
called source amnesia and falsememory (Lindner et al. 2010).
The mirror neurons and action representation are sufficient for
inferring theperformers intention. I put it this way failing to
indicate who or what is doingthe inferring to make a point. Many
theorists presume that mirror neurons possessthis capacity: that
is, they can interpret action representations and detect
intentionswithout cognitive processing by other parts of the brain.
It is possible that certainnon-human species are capable of doing
this, but there is much disagreement onthis point. It is clear that
only humans are capable of the final stage, in which de-coupled
representations can be objectified, i.e. detached from their source
(performersand original performances) and stored for future use as
templates and prototypesfor imitation, emulation, analogical
reasoning, and sophisticated forms of mind-reading. While language
obviously facilitates objectification, researchers are dividedas to
whether it was essential for the emergence of this capacity, since
pre-linguisticbabies are demonstrably capable of performing these
functions.
The final process, the basis of cognitive empathy, operates with
different levels ofaction representation, from the motor intention
that drives a given chain of motor actsto the propositional
attitudes (beliefs, desires and so on) that . . . explain the
observedbehaviour in terms of its plausible psychological reasons.
The end-product is anover-arching mentalizing network that connects
the mirror neuron system whoseaction representations provide a
subpersonally instantiated common space betweenobserver and
performer and a scaffold for bootstrapping mutual intelligibility
(Galleseand Goldman 1998; Gallese 2001 and 2003) to high-level
operations (reasoning incortical areas without demonstrable mirror
properties (Corrado 2010, 264; also Kilnerand Frith 2008). Evidence
connecting mirror neurons to the putative network andother brain
regions is, once again, indirect, e.g. bolstered by efforts to
discovermirror neuron abnormalities in people diagnosed with autism
spectrum disorders, adiagnosis associated with poor mind-reading
abilities and other deficits in cognitiveempathy (Hadjikhani et al.
2006; Oberman et al. 2005; Rizzolatti and Fabbri-Destro2010).
Controversy
There are obvious similarities between human mirror neurons, as
I have describedthem, and the mental modules delineated by Jerry
Fodor (1983) and later elaboratedby evolutionary psychologists
(Barkow et al. 1992). The modules and neuronsrespond spontaneously
to domain-specific sensory inputs that require no
cognitiveprocessing. Their operations are depicted as automatic
(obligatory), rapid (unimpededby consciousness), and encapsulated
(invisible to reflective consciousness). Eachis associated with a
dedicated neural architecture and a characteristic pattern of
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The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy 407
decomposition (pathology). And they are both products of
evolution and adaptation.Commonality is exemplified by the
so-called intentionality detector (a functionrequired for mind
reading) that evolutionary psychologists conceive as a mental
moduleand neuroscientists attribute to human mirror neurons. The
intentionality detector alsohighlights an important difference,
affecting the way in which the two perspectivesare connecting the
mind to the brain: mental modules are connected to the
brainmetaphorically (e.g. via inference engines and mental organs);
mirror neuronsare biological mechanisms that uniquely bridge the
gap between mind and brain (viaaction representations).
While the discovery of a visible bridge connecting mind to brain
and the possibility,perhaps inevitability, of reducing mind to
brain, has stimulated intense popularinterest in mirror neurons,
these claims have likewise drawn the attention of
skepticalresearchers. Skeptics have three concerns. Do mirror
neurons exist? (Mukamel et al.2010 has resolved this concern for
the time being). If they do, do they possess thislist of
module-like features? Is there convincing evidence that mirror
neurons canindependently infer intentions?
To answer these questions, one should begin with the lynchpin of
mirror neuronoperations, the notion of action representations. The
cognitive science view ofthe central nervous system is that it is a
dynamic apparatus comprising parts andprocesses that respond
adaptively to a dynamic external world, a process facilitatedby a
sensory-motor loop. Adaptation is constant and requires the nervous
system toconstruct and continually update its representations of
the external world (Boden2006, 11781179). Mirror neurons are
presumed, by advocates, to be pre-adaptedcomponents, and their
action representations are static, unaffected by experience
ormemory. During interactions with the external environment
observing behavior mirror neurons form logically related chains of
representations that, in turn, make itpossible to represent
performers intentions (Iacoboni et al. 2005). The process
takesplace outside of consciousness, without the interference of
mentalizing structures. Thislogic is unlike propositional logic,
and Gallese identifies it with the brains forwardmodel
architecture. This model is a theoretical system that describes how
motoroutput and bodily movement is regulated in vertebrate species.
Thus:
When I am going to stretch my arm to grasp a handle in front of
me, the resultingpostural perturbation that would follow, causing
my body to bend [forward], is canceledby a forward signal sent to
the posterior muscles of my leg, which stabilize my
standingposture. The muscles . . . contract before my arm is set in
motion. The contraction . . .anticipates, predicts the outcome of
the programmed action of the arm, [the] perturbation,[thus]
preventing it. . . . Neither overt knowledge nor conscious
inference is involved.(Gallese 2001, 38)
The job of the system represented in the forward model is to
compare itsestablished predictions/representations with internal
sensory feedback from the external
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408 Allan Young
environment (inverse model representations). When a mismatch
between predictionsand real-time feedback exceeds a predetermined
limit, the forward model readjusts themotor command. Following
sufficient cycles, a revised prediction/representation
isestablished. The forward model logic thus logical relations among
mirror neuronrepresentations has been appropriated from the field
of control engineering,where the model is employed to manage
dynamic constellations of internal forces,resistances (intrinsic to
all mechanical systems), and feedback from the external
world(Schwartz 1999; Kosslyn 2005; Boden 2008, 1184; de Vignemont
and Haggard 2008)systematically decomposes the non-propositional
logic attributed to mirror neurons.
There are prominent neuroscientists who reject this account, on
the grounds thatmirror neurons cannot independently infer
intentions because they do not possessthe modular properties that
make this feat conceivable. Thus according to Heyes andcolleagues,
humans are not born with mirror neurons; while human mirror
neuronsdo emerge, they are not pre-adapted to anything in
particular. Evolution provides uswith motor neurons that become
mirror neurons, but it has not selectively establishedlinks between
visual and motor neurons coding the same action (Heyes 2010,
790).These neurons form during each individuals development via a
familiar Hebbianprocess, the idea that neurons that fire together
wire together (Heyes 2010, 789;Hickok 2009). Similarly, it is
mistaken to suppose that these neurons are capable ofrepresenting a
movement or object without a context. Hume correctly argued
thatmeaningful perceptions presuppose an act of interpretation and
contextualization, andthis act relies on memory and associations
acquired through experience (Brass etal. 2007; Csibra and Gergely
2007). Consider an experiment conducted by Gergelyet al. (2002).
Preverbal babies observed a goal-directed action: a seated adult
activateda light-box by leaning forward and touching the box with
her forehead. At onesession (context), her hands were encumbered
and unavailable; at a second session, herhands were free.
Two-thirds of the babies imitated the unusual head-down
behaviorafter watching the hands-free demonstration; just one-fifth
imitated this behavior afterobserving the hands-occupied
demonstration. In the first context, babies inferred thatthe head
action offered some advantage, since the demonstrator could have
turned onthe light in the familiar way, using her hands, if she had
wished. In the second context,most babies chose to emulate motor
actions in their repertoire (using their hands), afterpresumably
concluding that that the head action was not the most rational.
Conclusion to Part One
There is a consensus among social and cognitive neuroscientists
that human mirrorneurons exist in one form or another. Opinion is
divided on whether mirror neuronsare pre-adapted to recognize
(match) and represent specific goal directed actionsand identify
performers intentions. One opinion is that mirror neurons
performboth functions. An alternative view among neuroscientists is
that mirror neurons
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The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy 409
exist but are not innate and perform neither function. A third
view questions theexistence of mirror neurons, but doubts seem
untenable in the light of recent single-neuron research. Mirror
neurons are now widely identified with embodied empathy(biologized
intersubjectivity). This is one way for fMRI images to represent
embodiedempathy. Embodied empathy is also represented in research
that shows matching brainactivations in observer and performer, but
without the involvement of mirror neurons.The distinction between
the two demonstrations between mirrored and parallel kindsof
activations is very often blurred in journalistic accounts, leaving
the mistakenimpression that mirror neurons are a default mechanism
rather than just one possibility.
Part Two: A neo-Darwinian back-story
A narratives back-story is a fictive or notional history that
precedes the eventsdescribed in the narrative. An effective
back-story makes fictional charactersrecognizable, and creates
expectations in the reader that the author can manipulateas the
narrative develops. A prologue is an overt back-story; the
introduction sectionin science publications performs a similar
function. The invocation can be didactic, aswhen a fictional
character overtly reflects on his past, or subtle, as when
back-storiesunfold in a series of clues and strings of
bibliographic citations. The effectiveness of theseclues for
creating a sub-text depends partly on the readers background
knowledge.
This neo-Darwinian back-story is a plausible genealogy of the
social brain. Bythe end of the Paleolithic era, the course of
social and biological evolution hasproduced the psychologically
modern human and the cognitively demanding kindsof reciprocity that
are both source and product of the social brain. This story has
been(and continues to be) erected piece-meal: the work of multiple
authors, each tacklinga discrete puzzle, with no collective goal in
mind. The story is compelling because itis consonant with the
available empirical evidence and because the constituent puzzlesand
solutions are logically connected. The story is also implicit, in
that it is part ofthe collective consciousness of social brain
researchers, but there is (as yet) no occasionwhen it is retold in
its entirety. Individual investigators are not necessarily
familiarwith, or subscribe to, all of the episodes. While
individual episodes can be (and are)operationalized through
empirical research, the entirety extending perhaps sevenmillion
years can only be inferred, and a researcher can justifiably claim
that herwork is confined to the topic that currently attracts her
attention, e.g. the intersectionof affective empathy and perceived
fairness. One might compare this back-story withthe idea of myth
described in Paul Veynes book, Did the Greeks Believe in their
Myths?An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination:
[N]othing shines in the night of the world. The materiality of
things has no naturalluminescence. . . . But the accidents of human
history, as erratic and unplanned as thesuccessive hands in a poker
game, lead men to shine an endlessly changing lighting on
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410 Allan Young
their affairs. Only then is the materiality of things reflected
in the light. This lighting. . . begins to make a certain world
exist. It is a spontaneous creation, the product of animagination.
When a lighted clearing appears in this way, it is generally taken
for the verytruth, since there is nothing else to see. (Veyne 1988,
125)
Before proceeding to the back-story, I want to clarify what
neo-Darwinianmeans in this context of the social brain. Beginning
in the 1950s, John MaynardSmith, an evolutionary biologist,
pioneered an empiricist approach to natural selectionthat combined
the methods and perspectives of population genetics, game
theory,and cost-benefit analysis. The approach was the basis for a
dialectical understandingof human biological evolution and, we
shall see, a back-story for the neurosciencerevolution (Maynard
Smith 1979). In an article, Reconciling Marx and Darwin,published
shortly before his death in 2004, Maynard Smith recalls Marxs
thesis onhuman consciousness thoughts, inferences, perceptions, and
desires the view thatconsciousness is determined by the material
conditions of social life. Marx mightreasonably claim to be a
materialist, Maynard Smith writes, but he was not a
reductionist,someone interested in investigating the biological
evolution of social life and the brainthat made human consciousness
possible in the first place. Marxs vision of humannature as
malleable a view shared by many cultural anthropologists during
the1950s was unscientific and proved to be tragically flawed and a
manifest failurewhen put into action by communist regimes.
The neo-Darwinian back-story for the social brain begins with
two puzzles. Itis propelled forward, from the emergence earliest
hominids (perhaps five millionyears ago) to the advent and
dispersion of psychologically modern humans, by adialectical logic.
I will consider each puzzle in turn. The first puzzle concerns
altruism.Population geneticists define altruism as behavior that
transfers some or all of thealtruists reproductive potential
(fitness) to a beneficiary. In the most extreme case, analtruist
dies so that a beneficiary might live and reproduce. Altruistic
behavior is oftenobserved in animal populations, and presumed to be
genetically determined. It is apuzzle because it gives the
non-altruist recipients (lacking altruism genes) a
reproductiveadvantage. They will eventually outbreed altruists, and
altruists and altruism genes willeventually disappear from the
population. This does not happen however and this is thepuzzle.
W.D. Hamilton solved the puzzle in the 1960s with the theory of kin
selection(inclusive fitness). The theory says that altruistic
behavior, including self-sacrifice, hasfavorable cost-benefits if
the beneficiaries are closely related to the altruists. Whenthis
happens, altruism preserves a homogeneous gene pool and a
continuing supply ofaltruism genes for future generations.
Hamiltons solution leads to a new puzzle, once biologists
discover populationsin which altruistic behavior is common but the
altruists and beneficiaries areoften unrelated or too distantly
related for Hamiltons solution. Robert Trivers, ananthropologist,
solved this puzzle in 1971 by demonstrating that the
arrangementworks (benefits are greater than costs) if altruism is
reciprocal. The recipient repays the
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The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy 411
altruist. Reciprocal behavior is common among non-human
primates, but limited toindividuals living in close proximity. It
is typically restricted to grooming and, lessoften, food-sharing,
and the interval between gift-giving and repayment is brief, a
fewseconds in the case of capuchin monkeys and just minutes with
chimpanzees. Morecomplex forms of reciprocity would involve
dispersed partners, and long intervalsbetween gifts and repayment.
In time, multiple local groups would be connected, andextensive
social networks and coalitions would develop. But these
developments dependon the ability of the individuals to keep track
of their exchanges and the reputations ofpotential exchange
partners. Thus memory-based reciprocity represented a great
leapforward, but was cognitively demanding, and presupposed various
developments in thenervous system, including the capacity to
inhibit the archaic impulse for immediategratification.
When altruism and reciprocity are limited to a genetically
homogeneous population,cheating is impossible. Of course there will
be non-reciprocators and their reproductivefitness will benefit
from the costs absorbed by the altruists. But the costs and
benefitscirculate within a closed system. The term cheater is
reserved for geneticallyheterogeneous populations, in which costs
and benefits can accumulate withindifferent lineages circumstances
that emerge together with memory-based reciprocity.Once again,
there is a solution (reciprocity) that creates a problem (cheaters)
and apuzzle. Cheaters are inevitable because all organisms are
driven to maximize theirreproductive interests and the interests of
close kin a neo-Darwinian premise.The cost-benefits of cheating
always favor cheaters. All things being equal,
cheaters(non-reciprocators) will outbreed the reciprocators; the
nascent social networks willcollapse; human social evolution will
progress no farther (Nowak and Sigmund 2005;Rosas 2008). Of course
the collapse did not occur. This is a puzzle. There is
aneo-Darwinian solution, and it leads to a further contradiction.
Puzzle solution contradiction puzzle etc.: this is the dialectic
that glues the back-storytogether.
In this case, the solution is in two parts. The social fabric is
preserved by theevolution of positive sentiments that include
friendship, gratitude, and sympathy. Fastforward to the present
time: evidence from game-playing experiments, mathematicalmodeling
and simulation, and ethnographies of small-scale, pre-industrial
communitiesindicate that positive sentiments are insufficient to
prevent the collapse. Somethingstronger is needed and the evidence
points to a gene-driven impulse to punish cheaters.The solution is
efficient except in one respect: it cannot pay for itself. The
fitnesscosts of being an enforcer exceed the benefits. Punishment
consumes resources (e.g.energy) and can be terminally expensive if
cheaters retaliate violently. For this reason,the enforcers
behavior is labeled altruistic punishment. There is a further
problemor contradiction, in that punishment creates a new class of
cheaters, namely friendsand neighbors who are good reciprocators
but unwilling to be enforcers. These aresecond order cheaters; they
get the cost-free benefits of punishment and eventuallythey should
outbreed gene-driven enforcers (Boyd et al. 2003).
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412 Allan Young
Human nature and empathic cruelty
Punishment can prevent entropy, but why would a rational
individual someoneinnately self-interested and able to estimate
cost-benefits become an enforcer?Benefits are often hypothetical
(scheduled to arrive in the distant future) and indirect(dissuading
potential cheaters), and costs are unpredictable (perhaps bringing
retaliationby the cheater or his kin). Even when an enforcer gets
his fair share, he cannotknow whether this would happen without his
intervention. Thus material rewards canprovide only a weak motive
for altruistic punishment.
A solution is described in The neural basis of altruistic
punishment, publishedin Science (de Qervain et al. 2004). The
experiment is bit of ontological theater,based on the trust game.
The game comprises interaction between two anonymousparticipants, A
and B. Individual A plays the game seven times, facing seven
differentBs. Each participant is given 10 money units, convertible
into Swiss francs. The ruleis that A can transfer all or none of
his units to B. If he gives 10 units to B, they arequadrupled, so
that B now has 50 units (40 plus his original 10). B can now send
25units to A (fair behavior), or he can keep the entire 50 for
himself (unfair). Ais now given an additional 20 units. If A now
wants to punish B, he can do this inthree ways: 1. he can buy
penalty points (each point costs A one unit, and subtractstwo units
from B); 2. he can reduce Bs sum cost-free (A does not have to pay
for thepenalty points); or 3. he can reduce Bs sum symbolically (B
is informed of As decisionbut loses no units). Each game is limited
to just one formula (1, 2, or 3), designatedby the researchers.
There is an additional variable: in some games, a random
devicedetermines whether Bs choice will be fair or unfair. A knows
the rules obtainingduring each game: that is, whether his option is
1, 2, or 3, and whether Bs choicewas decided by the random device.
Once A learns Bs choice, he has one minute tomake a decision
whether to punish, how much to punish. During this
one-minuteinterval, his brain is scanned via PET. As brain images
reflect his deliberations and hisanticipation (imagining) of Bs
response.
Thus the experiment reproduces moments in the evolutionary
narrative thepunishment of free-loaders by enforcers is simulated
when B is unfair and A penalizeshim; altruistic punishment is
simulated by option 1 (A buys Bs penalty points). ThePET images of
enforcers brains show activation of the caudate nucleus of the
dorsalstriatum, a region is associated with dopamine excretion and
part of the brains rewardcenter. The images also indicate that the
intensity of the activation correlates positivelywith the severity
of the punishment the number of penalty points that A assigns to
B.Thus the images show that when A is paying out units to punish B,
As brain is payingitself back with pleasure. In which case,
(altruistic) punishment is its own reward.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines cruelty as having pleasure
in anotherssuffering. If so, the back-story permits the conclusion
that cruelty entered humannature along with our felicitous
pro-social disposition to altruistic punishment. (Thisis an
ethnographic observation, not a moral judgment.) The enforcers in
the experiment
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The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy 413
actively imagined the disappointment that will be experienced by
the defectors; theyvicariously participated in the defectors state
of mind. This is not simple cruelty but,more precisely, empathic
cruelty.
Research by Takahashi et al. (2009) on Schadenfreude is evenmore
explicit. Accordingto Takahashi, Schadenfreude (pleasurable
response to news that a misfortune has fallento a person who is
envied or resented) and envy (a painful feeling of inferiority
andresentment that results from awareness of someone elses superior
quality, achievement,or possessions) are two sides of one coin.
Students in the experiment read descriptionsof three fictive
students A, B, and C and were instructed to see B and Cfrom As
perspective. Student A had average abilities, achievements,
possessions, socialendowments and prospects. Student B was superior
and successful in each respect andalso in life domains important to
A. Student C was superior and successful but indomains not
important to A. Participants silently read additional texts
pertaining to A,B, and C while their brains were scanned (fMRI). In
phase one, the texts describedthe successes of B and C, and
participants reported how envious the descriptions madethem feel.
In phase two, texts described misfortunes that spoiled events and
prospectsfor A, B, and C. Participants reported the intensity of
their pleasure (Schadenfreude)regarding each of the events. Brain
images and self-reports were compared.
Empathic cruelty has three elements: the targets present or
anticipated distress, theperpetrators pleasure (reward), and
empathy (shared pain, distress, etc.). In Takahashisexperiment,
brain images demonstrated the pleasure part directly, via the
activationof the participants reward center (dorsal and ventral
striatum and medial orbitofrontalcortex). Evidence of empathy is
more complicated. Prior research shows that cognitiveconflicts and
social pain are processed in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex
(dACC),part of the brains pain matrix. Brain images of the
participants in Takahashisexperiment showed activation of the dACC
after reading the texts. This activationhad two sources: the
participants envy (phase one) and his internal
representations(imagination) of the targets distress (phase two).
Thus the brain images are evidenceof shared affect identified with
empathy.
To the extent that envy is an expression of frustrated
entitlement, the enviedperson (target) in Takahashis experiment
resembles the unfair person in de Quervainsexperiment. No data
relating to empathic affect was collected by de Quervain et
al.Participants were simply asked to describe their own feelings
while deciding to punishunfair participants (for additional
research relating to empathic cruelty, see Fehr andCamerer 2007;
Fliessbach et al. 2007; Knoch et al. 2006; Lanzetta and Englis
1989;Shamay-Tsoory et al. 2009; Singer et al. 2006).
Empathy and evolution
The neo-Darwinian back-story of the social brain starts with two
puzzles: one puzzleconcerns altruism, the second concerns the
brain. The size of the human brain is
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414 Allan Young
an evolutionary puzzle. Our ancestors split from the great apes
six million years ago.During this period, the ancestral human brain
quadrupled in volume. The metaboliccost of the human brain is
enormous: it constitutes 2 per cent of total body weightand
consumes 15 per cent of cardiac output and 20 per cent of body
oxygen, andthese demands are ceaseless and inflexible. We can
assume that the bigger brain paid foritself, yielding favorable
cost-benefits. However efforts to model these developmentsindicate
that increasing metabolic cost would eventually exceed benefits.
Why didthe brain continue to grow (in size and power) when further
growth was no longeradaptive? This is the puzzle, and its solution
is a story about how brains adapted to otherbrains.
The process is a cognitive arms race (Byrne andWhiten 1988;
Barton andDunbar 1997;Dunbar 2003). It begins with the emergence of
a mind-reading capacity: the abilityto detect the intentions and
predict the behavior of other individuals. Mind-readingfacilitates
more complex social relations, but it also facilitates cheaters,
individualswho use mind-reading to manipulate and deceive other
individuals. All things beingequal, cheating is cost-effective: it
gives cheaters a reproductive advantage. As cheatersincrease as a
proportion of a population, social life grows more unpredictable,
thusundermining the stability of social relations. Entropy looms.
This might have been theevolutionary fate of our hominid ancestors,
but it was not. Entropy was avoided througha further improvement to
the neural hardware: the emergence of a cheater detector.This could
be no more than a temporary solution however. The next generation
ofopportunists used their improved brains to subvert the function
(or adaptation) of thecheater-detector. Entropy was avoided by the
evolution of an improved version ofthe cheater-detector that would,
of course, facilitate the emergence of a cohort ofimproved
cheaters. And so on over millions of years, following the
dialectical logicof the neo-Darwinian back-story.
This part of the story begins with mind-reading. Opinion in
neuroscience isdivided on the biological basis of this ability.
There are rival explanatory accountsof mind-reading: a version
based on mirror neurons and a version based on cognitivemechanisms,
including analogical reasoning, as mentioned by Hume. In both
versions,the evolution of empathy is understood to be a pro-social
development: the glueof the social world, drawing us to help others
and stopping us from hurting others(Baron-Cohen andWheelwright
2004, 163; see also Lawson et al. 2004; Baron-Cohenet al. 2005;
Wheelright et al. 2006; Williams et al. 2001; Iacoboni and Dapretto
2006).According to Simon Baron-Cohen, an authority on autism, human
evolution producedtwo (polar) kinds of brains: a female brain with
highly developed empathic capacitiesand a male brain adapted to
manipulating objects and creating systems. Empathyoriginated as a
pro-social adaptation allowing females to detect the wants of
pre-verbalchildren and the moods of the potentially dangerous males
with whom they lived(see also Hrdy 2009). Autistic individuals are
characteristically poor empathizers, andautisms epidemiology is
biased towards males: 10 to 1, in high functioning
autisticdisorder.
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The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy 415
In both versions, there is the further assumption that empathy
is intrinsically amorally positive disposition. According to
Baron-Cohen, we respond to suffering inthree ways: the response
mirrors the sufferers distress (we experience it); the responseis
culturally appropriate (e.g. pity) but does not mirror the
suffering; or the observertakes pleasure in the sufferers
condition. Baron-Cohen equates empathy with thefirst two responses,
and explicitly excludes the third. De Quervains research
vindicatesa further possibility empathic cruelty in which the
observers brain mirrors thesufferers distress and also takes
pleasure in the sufferers condition.
This is an unexpected twist in the evolutionary back-story:
evidence of an evolvedempathic disposition that is simultaneously
pro-social and cruel. Human nature inthe age of neuroscience grows
morally complex: a theme that recurs in the storyof the cognitive
arms race, where an uncomplicated kind of cheating, the refusal
toreciprocate, evolves, via mind-reading, into deception, the
effort to represent the currentsituation as something different
from the reality. Deception puts great demands on thebrain, which
is now required to do two things simultaneously. An individual
mustconstruct a lie and also withhold (inhibit) the truth.
Experimental and clinical evidencesuggests that telling the truth
is the brains default response, a legacy of a
pro-socialevolutionary adaptation. Responding with a lie demands
something extra, and . . .will engage executive prefrontal systems
[responsible for planning, decision-making,and monitoring] more
than does telling the truth (Spence 2004, 8; see also Spenceet al.
2004). Thus a deceiver is in constant danger of signaling the truth
and betrayinghimself, for instance, by involuntarily and detectable
hesitation preceding a lie. Tosucceed, deception requires a
capacity for self-deception, the ability to conceal ones
trueintentions and facts from oneself (Trivers 1971). At this
point, two unprecedentedobjects are created there is the other
(created via projection) and the self (refracted in adoppelganger,
the fraudulent self).
Empathic time travel
The evolutionary origins of the self are brought to life in
research on mental timetravel (Suddendorf et al. 2009). Mental time
travel is the capacity to project onesself into situations in the
past, future, and subjunctive (an alternative scenario to theactual
past or present). Travel to the past evolved first and provided a
prototype (anepisodic memory in which the thinker is spectator or
protagonist) for constructingmental representations of possible
futures and also alternative presents and pasts.1 Theemergence of
language notably pronouns and verb forms and empathy were
1 See Ingvar 1985 for initial appearance of memory of the
future; see Busby and Suddendorf 2005, andSchacter et al. 2007, on
the role of the prospective brain in facilitating strategic
planning and behavioralflexibility in new situations; and see Addis
et al. 2007, Okuda et al. 2003, and Szpunar et al. 2007, on
sharedand non-shared neural substrates of memories of the past and
future.
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416 Allan Young
prerequisite for the evolution of mental time travel (Corballis
2009). The idea thatwe simply project ourselves wholesale into the
past or future oversimplifies timetravel. It is a first-person
experience that requires the splitting of the self: one mustbe both
here-and-now and there-and-then at the same time. The bond between
thesplit-selves is empathic, but not necessarily positive. (In this
sense, time travel parallelsTrivers account of self-deception.)
Neuroscience makes it possible to see time travel: pain provides
an efficientmodality. Jean Decety and his collaborators conducted
fMRI experiments in whichthey asked participants to imagine
themselves and others in painful situations(Decety and Gre`zes
2006). In other words, participants traveled to the subjunctive(an
alternative present-time). One expects that, in some participants,
the targetedsituations stimulated spontaneous time travel to other
places as well notably travel tointensely empathic memories
involving loved ones in pain. The imagined situationsactivated one
might say mirrored brain regions reliably associated
withexperiencing the emotional content of pain in present-time.
There was nophenomenological confusion between the mental act and
the experience however.Neuroimages in the self vs. other scenarios
were similar but, as one might expect, therewere discernible
differences which is what one would expect, given that a
minimaldistinction between self and other is essential for social
interaction in general and forempathy in particular.
In the neo-Darwinian back-story, human evolutionary history
begins with a greatleap forward. Up to this point, social exchange
is based on altruism and simple kindsof reciprocity between
genetically similar individuals. Afterwards, relations take theform
of networks of exchange (reciprocity) among individuals genetically
unrelated oronly distantly related. Many problems were encountered
along the dialectical road tomodern times. The future was one of
these problems. Where reciprocity entails longdelays between giving
and repayment, exchange partners must share some awarenessof time,
as a continuum that connects past-time to future-time and is the
sine quanon for debt. It is assumed that the concept of time would
emerge from incessanttravels between memories of the past and the
future.
The benefits of having or knowing time are obvious. Time travel
promotesbehavioral flexibility in novel situations and it is the
basis for long-term strategicplanning targeted to pre-selected
goals. With the emergence of language, transientmemories of
individuals could be transformed into reproducible narratives that
couldbe accumulated and circulated within groups, creating a
powerful collective memory.But human nature can be uncooperative,
since there is a demonstrable tendency forpeople to treat
present-time and future-time unequally when they calculate costs
andbenefits: they discount future benefits while inflating costs
incurred in the present. Thusself-interest is intrinsically
impulsive and opportunistic, going for immediate gain.
Ifunrestrained, it limits reciprocity and would have curtailed the
dialectical developmentsdescribed in the back-story. We have
already seen this work in the genesis ofpunishment: the
cost-benefits of being an enforcer and the benefits (rewards)
provided
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The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy 417
by empathic cruelty and time travel to the future. A suitable
countermotivationdevice was needed and there was one available:
Memory for emotions . . . does not align with our current goals.
This is striking in thecommon phenomenon of rumination, the
unwanted but persistent activation of thoughtsconcerning an
unpleasant past situation. . . . Time travel . . . provides
emotions that bypasscurrent goals, as well as time discounting and
. . . provides us with immediate counter-rewards against
opportunistic motivation. (Boyer 2010, 222; see above, the
evolutionaryorigins of empathic cruelty)
Clinical psychiatry was acquainted with mental time travel avant
la lettre, as earlyas the 1880s. Today, posttraumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) is the most widely knowntime travel syndrome (Young
2004). PTSD comprises an etiological event, a distressfuland
intrusive memory of this event, and a behavioral syndrome that
represents anadaptation to the memory. Traumatic memories are a
pathological expression of thephenomenon of rumination mentioned by
Boyer (Berntsen and Hall 2004). In thelanguage of psychiatry,
traumatic memories are re-experiences and their exemplaris the
flashback. Schreckneurose or fright neurosis is especially
interesting in thisregard. The disorder, the German variation of
shellshock during World War One, wascharacterized by the victims
terrifying dreams of a traumatizing experience. In theview of
influential German doctors, the syndrome could be caused by
re-experiences(memories, nightmares) of the future in combination
with the past. The theory isthat the soldiers were fixated on
visions of their deaths. The man is overcome by anempathic
tenderness for himself the subject in the nightmares and intrusive
images. Theremembered event is a composite of two events: a real
past event and an imagined futureevent. The past is re-enacted in
the future but with a significant change. The past eventwas
harmless; the future event is fatal. He experiences two events as a
single, etiologicalevent, in the past. His abnormality is a
weakness of will and an excess of self-empathy.His symptoms, which
often include psychogenic paralysis, are an unconscious effort
tohide from the future. His true defect is moral, not medical. A
real man (a soldier) livesin the present moment. The doctors job is
to terminate to the patients pathogenictime travel with the most
effective means, including electrical torture (Lerner 2003;Young
1995).2
Post-Paleolithic developments
Human nature, as portrayed in the back-story, was fully formed
during the upperPaleolithic Period. The story tells us that we are
innately empathic, but that
2 See also Young 2002, on self-traumatized perpetrators, a
clinical phenomenon that intersects pathologicaltime travel and
empathic cruelty.
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418 Allan Young
empathy may include unexpected and undesirable attitudes:
dissimulation, self-deceit, spitefulness, Schadenfreude, and
cruelty. Western normative institutions religion, secular ethics,
clinical psychology regard these attitudes as anti-social
andself-destructive. The dialectical history in this chapter views
these attitudes from adifferent perspective, as the causes and
consequences of human social evolution and self-awareness. Leaving
aside the professional cynics, no one is claiming that these
attitudesform the core or essence of human nature.Mind-reading,
perspective-taking, hormonalresponsiveness, and mental time travel
were likewise responsible for psychologicalaltruism, the propensity
to adjust ones desires and intentions to the perceived needsor
wishes of others. (In contrast, the starting point for the
neo-Darwinian back-story isbiological altruism, which is defined by
fitness costs and unconcerned with altruistsperceptions and
intentions.) Human nature, as described in the back-story, is
morallycomplex, even contradictory, certainly inclined to read and
share the concern ofothers (Hrdy 2009), but likewise prepared for
cruel pleasures.
Conclusion
A recent article in the New Yorker magazine celebrates a
revolution in consciousnessattributed to neuroscience (Brooks
2011a). The author, David Brooks, is a columnistfor the New York
Times and author of a recent book on brain science, human
nature,and public policy (Brooks 2011b). Revolutions have winners
and losers, and Brooksloser is the idea of consciousness that we
inherited from the Enlightenment. Hiswinner is a new vision of the
unconscious. According to Brooks, the revolutionelevates emotion
over pure reason, social connections over individual choice,
moralintuition over abstract logic, [and] perceptiveness over I.Q.
The biases, longings,[and] predispositions . . . about which our
culture has least to say now command ourrespect and not, as in the
past, contempt. Where shall we find our ontological bearingsin this
new world? Neuroscience is the source of the problem (the primacy
of theunconscious) and also the source of the solution: Brain
science helps fill the hole leftby the atrophy of theology and
philosophy (Brooks 2011a, 26).
Multiple versions of the unconscious have circulated for two
centuries. Theyshare the idea that some determinants and contents
of mental life are located beyondconsciousness, and that certain
kinds of puzzling behavior, mainly connected withintentionality,
are attributable to these hidden elements. The notable puzzles
includebehavior that occurs in the absence of conscious intentions,
and occasions when peopleerroneously believe that their intentions
(reasons) are also the causes of their behavior.Freuds
Psychopathology of Everyday Life is of course about actions without
intentions:slips of the tongue, forgetting proper names, mistakes
made while reading and writing,and erroneously performed actions.
Likewise his writing on Oedipal desire is aboutconfusing reasons
with causes. The Freudian unconscious is obsolescent, as interest
hasmoved from forces hidden in the mind to forces sequestered in
the brain.
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The Social Brain and the Myth of Empathy 419
The new unconscious originates in cognitive science, in
experiments published inthe 1980s. The emblematic experiment (Libet
et al. 1983) challenged the idea thatour decisions to perform our
actions necessarily precede the brains preparation tomake these
actions happen. Libets experiment showed that cerebral initiation
of aspontaneous, freely voluntary act can begin unconsciously
(ibid., 399400). The oldand new unconscious are obviously unlike:
Freuds self-confirming style of reasoning,based on his clinical
observations, is now replaced by brain imaging, experimentation,and
falsifiable hypotheses (Hassan, Uleman, and Bargh 2005; Bargh
andMorsella 2008).The old and new versions are similar in one
notable respect: they are organized aroundtheories and myths about
evolutionary origins. Myth is not antithetical to science,and the
myth of empathy, the twists and turns that lead dialectically from
altruismto empathic cruelty, are not antithetical to the emergence
of a science of empathy.Freuds evolutionary myth was the work of
just one man, writing and revising hisaccounts over the course of
three decades, in Totem and Taboo (1913), Overview of
theTransference Neurosis (1915), Group Psychology (1921), andMoses
and Monotheism (1939).The neo-Darwinian myth, the back-story to the
social brain, began sixty years ago. It isa collective effort,
combining population biology, evolutionary science,
mathematicalmodeling, anthropology, primatology, experimental
economics, and brain science, andit is still unfinished.
Acknowledgments
This paper has been supported by a research grant provided by
the Social Science andHumanities Research Council of Canada.
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