Against Empathy

Best Of: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference

The Next Big Idea, 26 October 2026. The book comes up at 56 min 56 sec in.

Rutger Bregman cites Against Empathy to explain why expanding moral concern requires rationality rather than raw feeling. He summarises Bloom's argument that empathy works like a spotlight—focusing on those similar to us or animals that are cute and cuddly—leaving it an unreliable guide for addressing large-scale suffering. Bregman uses this to support his call for analytical thinking about global impact.

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