Zero Degrees of Empathy

Zero Degrees of Empathy

A new theory of human cruelty

Summary

In Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty and Kindness Simon Baron-Cohen takes fascinating and challenging new look at what exactly makes our behaviour uniquely human.

How can we ever explain human cruelty?

We have always struggled to understand why some people behave in the most evil way imaginable, while others are completely self-sacrificing. Is it possible that - rather than thinking in terms of 'good' and 'evil' - all of us instead lie somewhere on the empathy spectrum, and our position on that spectrum can be affected by both genes and our environments?

From the Nazi concentration camps of World War Two to the playgrounds of today, Simon Baron-Cohen examines empathy, cruelty and understanding in a groundbreaking study of what it means to be human.

'Fascinating ... dazzling ... a full-scale assault on what we think it is to be human' Sunday Telegraph

'Highly readable ... this is a valuable book' Charlotte Moore, Spectator

'Important ... humane and immensely sympathetic' Richard Holloway, Literary Review

Reviews

  • Bringing cruelty triumphantly into the realm of science, this pioneering journey into human nature at last delivers us from 'evil'.
    Dr. Helena Cronin, Co-Director, Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, LSE

About the author

Simon Baron-Cohen

Simon Baron-Cohen is Professor at Cambridge University in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. He is also the Director of the Autism Research Centre there. He has carried out research into social neuroscience over a 20 year career. His popular science book entitled The Essential Difference (Penguin 2003) has been translated in over a dozen languages, and has been widely reviewed.
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