“Can science justify moral decisions?
Concepts of empathy according to Simon
Baron - Cohen and Paul Bloom”

Abstract
Simon Baron - Cohen gave his book the title - Theory of Evil -
on empathy and the genesis of cruelty. This means that the described
structure of empathy, is also treated by him normatively. Also in the
titles of Paul Bloom’s studies and publications, which form a scientific
discourse with Cohen’s work, the concepts of good and evil appear.
Suffice it to mention the famous study Just Babies: The origins of
good and evil. The normative nature of these positions, allows the
introduction of the category of morality, which continues to appear in
the discourse on empathy. Simon Baron - Cohen presents the structure
of empathy very strictly and scientifically. He describes the peripheral
empathy system that has emerged from many studies, detailing the
neurobiological structures. He applies this model to various exam-
ples of horrific violence that have occurred throughout history - war
crimes, acts of violence in everyday life. If it were not for the lack of
empathy, such acts would not have happened, he says. However, the
phenomenon of cruelty seems to be inscribed by cultural context and
historical changes. In Western culture, the concepts of good and evil,
moral choices, have strong Christian connotations - there is a personal
evil opposed to a good God. The other functioning definition comes
from St. Augustine, who says that evil is the absence of good. Moral-
ity as a concept is also taken up by philosophy. Socrates claimed that
virtue is knowledge and that if I know how to do good, I will always do
so. Simon Baron - Cohen expresses a very similar position - if, when
inflicting pain, we felt the same as the victim, we would not inflict
it. Relatively recently, empathy and morality have been studied as
natural phenomena despite the fact that these concepts have a longer
history than empirical research in neuroscience, social psychology and
evolutionary psychology. It also seems that it was not until the events
of World War I and World War II that discourse and deep reflection
on human cruelty was introduced for good.

References
Simon Baron - Cohen, “Theory of Evil - on empathy and the genesis of
cruelty”
Paul Bloom, “Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion”
How infants and toddlers react to antisocial others JK Hamlin, K Wynn,
P Bloom, N Mahajan Proceedings of the national academy of sciences 108
(50),https://www.twine.net/signin
Zaburzenia teorii umysłu oraz empatii w schizofrenii i chorobie afektywnej
dwubiegunowej Dawid Wiener,Marta Andrzejewska,Anna Bodnar,Janusz
Rybakowski Neuropsychiatria i Neuropsychologia 2011; 6, 2: 85–92