Zero degrees of empathy: a new theory of human cruelty

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• Tuesday 19 April 2011
• 7.00pm to 8.30pm
• Lecturers: Prof Simon Baron-Cohen

Simon Baron-Cohen, expert in autism and developmental psychopathology, has always wanted to isolate and understand the factors that cause people to treat others as if they were mere objects. In this event he proposes a radical shift, turning the focus away from evil and on to the central factor, empathy. Unlike the concept of evil, he argues, empathy has real explanatory power.

Putting empathy under the microscope he explores four new ideas: firstly, that we all lie somewhere on an empathy spectrum, from high to low, from six degrees to zero degrees. Secondly that, deep within the brain lies the ‘empathy circuit’. How this circuit functions determines where we lie on the empathy spectrum. Thirdly, that empathy is not only something we learn but that there are also genes associated with empathy. And fourthly, while a lack of empathy leads to mostly negative results, is it always negative?

Full of original research, this event presents a new way of understanding what it is that leads individuals down negative paths, and challenges all of us to consider replacing the idea of evil with the idea of empathy-starvation.
 
Tickets £10 standard, £7 concessions, £5 Ri Members


Make a night of it! Come for a cocktail or something delicious, modern and British to eat in the bar. ‘Time & Space' at the Ri has the perfect atmosphere for a night out.