We describe all manner of wrongdoings as 'evil', but should we be focusing instead on our levels of empathy? Simon Baron-Cohen believes our ability to empathise with others is key to unlocking
the dark side of human nature

EVIL IS a topic of perennial interest to us humans. Whether we're pondering the dreadfulness of the latest murder to hit the headlines or scaring ourselves silly with horror movies, we seem to be fascinated by the idea that evil is a kind of abstract entity that descends from the sky, gets us in its malevolent grip, and forces us to behave badly. In our sound-bite world, the word "evil" is applied to all kinds of human activity, from rape to suicide bombings. But has the notion of evil passed its sell-by date? Simon Baron-Cohen thinks it has. In a new book, Zero Degrees of Empathy, he suggests that it's high time we gave evil a makeover.

The director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge, Baron-Cohen’s theory of the “extreme male brain” has been highly influential in current thinking on the nature of autism. He claims that human brains are predominantly attuned either to empathising with others or to understanding how systems work. He places people with classic autism and Asperger’s into the latter category. In his considerable experience – more than 20 years of clinical practice and research – people in this category are often very good at maths or other classification-type activities, but find it really hard to read facial expressions or to relate to other people’s emotions. In other words, they have a problem with empathy.

But isn’t it a long way from empathy to evil? “People with classic autism and Asperger’s have difficulties with empathy,” says Baron-Cohen, “but the majority of them don’t do things that are cruel or that involve hurting others. However, there are certain psychiatric conditions – psychopaths, for example – where low empathy does result in people hurting other people. So for me, it was a question of, how do these conditions relate to each other? Does low empathy always lead to cruelty?

“In the case of these other conditions, very often the explanation given is that the person was ‘evil’. For me, that’s not really an explanation. In this book I try to redefine ‘evil’ in terms of empathy, and look at why some people have more or less empathy than others, and what happens when we lose it.”

He insists that despite the unpalatable nature of the topic, Zero Degrees of Empathyis a timely book.

“There’s a huge amount of relevant work going on in the field of neuroscience, which has really accelerated over the past 10 years. I thought it was time to bring the two things together.”

Baron-Cohen has another, more personal, reason for his desire to explore the mechanics of human cruelty. His family is Jewish; his cousin is the no-holds-barred comedian Sacha Baron-Cohen, who investigated contemporary anti-Semitism by posing as an anti-Semite himself in the 2006 mockumentary film Borat. The author of Zero Degrees of Empathydoesn't pull his punches either. The opening paragraph of the book reads: "When I was seven years old, my father told me the Nazis had turned Jews into lampshades. Just one of those comments that you hear once and the thought never goes away. To a child's mind – even to an adult's – these two types of thing just don't belong together. He also told me the Nazis turned Jews into bars of soap."

His Jewish background meant, Baron-Cohen writes, that “this image of turning people into objects felt a bit close to home”. The book goes on to offer some examples of contemporary cruelty – or, as Baron-Cohen calls it, “empathy erosion”. An 11-year-old Austrian girl is imprisoned and repeatedly raped by her father. A Kenyan woman has her finger cut off at the supermarket checkout by a thief who’s after her wedding ring.

“My argument is that when you treat someone as an object,” he writes, “your empathy has been turned off.”

Extremes of cruelty are, thankfully, rare. Research shows most of us are neither saints nor psychopaths; rather we are situated somewhere in the middle of an empathy spectrum which ranges from low to high – which suggests, says Baron-Cohen, that empathy is “more like a dimmer control than an all-or-none switch”. But if you can turn it down, you can also turn it up – that is, nurture and encourage empathy in yourself and those around you.

Along with some of his colleagues at Cambridge he devised an EQ, or Empathy Quotient, test which allows us to measure where we might be on this scale. If you know you’re scoring low, the theory goes, you can then consciously develop your empathy quotient.

BARON-COHEN DISTINGUISHES between Zero-Negative and Zero-Positive on the empathy spectrum. Zero-Negative personalities fall into one of three categories: psychopaths, narcissists and borderlines. All of these, as Baron-Cohen points out, “are unequivocally bad for the sufferer and for those around them”. People with autism and Asperger’s are, on the other hand, classed as Zero-Positive. They may score low on the empathy spectrum, but the way in which their cognitive processes operate – they’re often wizards at spotting patterns and organising factual information – leads them “not to be immoral, but super-moral”; they thrive in a highly ordered environment in which rules are made and adhered to.

Baron-Cohen’s speculations about empathy aren’t just wishful thinking. He goes into fascinating detail about the brain’s “empathy circuit”, and shows how different parts of our brain are activated when we feel empathy; at present, 10 interconnected regions are involved, though neuroscientists are open to the possibility that more connections remain to be discovered. He also investigates the possibility of a genetic component in empathy, and the relationship between “nature” and “nurture” in developing empathy in young children.

Baron-Cohen clearly believes that “surfing up the empathy curve”, as he puts it, has a positive role to play in social development. It’s not just a question of feeling good about ourselves, it has practical application in all kinds of situations from international conflicts through domestic arguments to disagreements with the neighbours.

Whether he can persuade us all to give up our auld evil, though, remains to be seen. The reason we’re so attached to the term is precisely because it’s not scientific; as a species, we don’t seem to be particularly bothered by irrationality or blatant over-simplicity.

Ask anyone who remembers Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech, or fans of the best-selling computer game Evil Genius. After all, if evil arrives from some other moral dimension, there’s nothing we can do about it. Certainly not change our ways for the better.

Test your evil/empathy levels

IF YOU want to see how you score on Simon Baron-Cohen's Empathy Quotient test, you'll have to go through the full version – which contains 40 questions – provided in Zero Degrees of Empathy.

He emphasises that this short selection of 10 questions isn’t scientifically valid, but it does give you a flavour of what’s involved in an empathy test.

1. I can easily tell if someone else wants to enter a conversation.

2. I really enjoy caring for other people.

3. I find it difficult to explain to others things that I understand easily, when they don’t understand it first time.

4. I find it hard to know what to do in a social situation.

5. People often tell me that I went too far in driving my point home in a discussion.

6. It doesn’t bother me too much if I am late meeting a friend.

7. Friendships and relationships are just too difficult, so I tend not to bother with them.

8. I often find it difficult to judge if something is rude or polite.

9. In a conversation, I tend to focus on my own thoughts rather than on what my listener may be thinking.

10. When I was a child, I enjoyed cutting up worms to see what would happen.

How to score:

For statements 1 and 2, score one point for each statement you agree with.

For statements 3 to 10, score one point for each statement you disagree with.

The maximum you can score is 10, the higher your score, the better your empathy.

Zero Degrees of Empathyby Simon Baron-Cohen is published by Allen Lane, £20