A review by allegedrat
The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty by Simon Baron-Cohen

3.0

I had different expectations going into this book. I thought it would be more about how we view those who are evil and dissect varying meanings of evil. However, despite the book turning out to be an argument for why we should push the study of empathy, I was pleasantly surprised. Cohen uses many arguments for how empathy is developed and understood (environmental, genetic, etc) so I don't feel he is pushing a particular origin rather suggesting that empathy has a larger role in our lives than currently understood and that we need to continue to learn about it. I'd compare this book more so to a review on what we already know about some disorders and their relation to empathy and the development of new terminologies and frameworks could elucidate how we continue to think about those disorders and future ones.

This book posits more ideas than concludes but I think if you're open minded to reading an opinion piece with substantial evidence to support it, it could be an interesting read.