Simon Baron-Cohen Professor, Developmental Psychopathology Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry University of Cambridge

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

 Four kinds of conditions in people exhibit lack of empathy  Psychopathy  Narcissim  Autism  Asperger Syndrome

 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

 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)

 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)

 Somatosensory Cortex (coding sensory experience)  Inferior Parietal Lobule, Inferior Parietal Sulcus( Actions & response recording ‘mirror’ neurons)  Amygdala (emotional learning and regulation)

Personality Disorder Borderline: Type B- Extreme 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’

 Asperger Syndrome (Avoidance of the social, loneliness, patterning obsession)  Autism (Underactivity in Empathy, without words for emotions, systemitizers to the extreme, innovators)

 Aggressiveness Gene: MAOA-H ‘Warrior Gene’  Emotional Recognition: 1. Serotonin transporter (SLC6A4) 2. Arginine Vasopressin Receptor (AVPR1A) Autism-linked, fear and anger)  Empathy Gene (Several Genes involved)

 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?

 Daniel Frankfurter: Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in History. Princeton,  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

 Why is the demonic, 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 he ‘an authority’?  What role does ‘fear’ play in definitions of cruelty, and evil?  What role does conspiracy play in the meaning of evil?

 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 ◦ 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 DOI: /nn  Are cruelty, evil, lack of empathy, etc. one and the same set of phenomena?  Are there differences between personal lack of empathy and the social perception of evil?

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

Earle Waugh, Ph.D. Director, Centre for the Cross-Cultural Study of Health and Healing Department of Family Medicine University of Alberta