The Empathy Gap: Building Bridges to the Good Life and the Good Society

by J. D. Trout Narrated by J. D. Trout

Overview

Drawing on his sweeping and innovative research, philosopher and cognitive scientist J. D. Trout recruits the latest findings in psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience to answer the question: How can we make better personal decisions and design social policies that improve the lives of everyone?

We are touched when faced with the hardships of others, whether caused by unemployment, poor schools, crime, poverty, poor health, or the financial insecurity of credit and mortgage debt. Some people are strapped because they chose poorly. But millions of ordinary citizens, the author explains, have only bad options in the first place or are ambushed by unconscious cognitive bias. We may want society to insulate people from the damages of bad fortune and yet we don't act. Our empathic wiring evolved to care for our families and close neighbors, less for strangers with unfamiliar customs or for future selves we can only dimly imagine. And so we are left with an empathy gap between people separated by culture, personality, current mood, geography, and time.

Trout travels the leading edge of scientific research on empathy, free will, and decision making, to show how the same science of judgment that improves our decision making can create concrete, realistic, and often money-saving policies to improve human well-being. Decent people can vault the empathy gap, reinforcing cherished American ideals like equality, access to health care, decent education for all, and effective opportunity. Individuals and governments alike can learn to practice this intelligent and responsible empathy.

Editorial Reviews

In our selfish world, the empathy gap alluded to in J. D. Trout's book sometimes looks more like a gaping chasm. As good Americans, we understandably cherish free will, individualism, and laissez-faire economics, but often the choices we make do more harm than good. Social psychologist Trout believes that there are good reasons to believe that government can and should bridge the empathy gap. Citing examples such as vaccination, food safety laws, and estate taxes, he argues that in numerous instances, society can act more effectively than any "invisible hand."

APRIL 2009 - AudioFile

The tone of Trout's narration may seem at odds with the subject of empathy when one is first listening to his flat vocalization of his text. Yet the focus of this narrative is not how often people are inspired to acts of empathy, but rather all the instances when humans resist the urge towards empathy because of other cognitive functions. Trout details the shortcomings of well-fed Congressmen making decisions for the poor, a jury’s need for empathy to reach a just verdict, and other scenarios. Instances in which people withhold help or assistance despite the dire circumstances of others, called “gaps” by Trout, are predicated on the amount of social distance between the listener and the person who is affected. M.R. © AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171526573
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	02/05/2009
Edition description:	Unabridged

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