Empathy Quotient

[paulpablo]

Being against empathy just seems like a phrase someone would use to be controversial and sell a book.

Its got to be less of a distraction to have no empathy when doing certain tasks. And acting instinctively on empathy with a lack of understanding is obviously disasterous.
I think it's more sensible to say that acting instinctively on empathy can be bad, but that won't sell as many books or get as much of a reaction as saying you're against empathy.
I think there's a good reason why empathy is in the gene pool and it's been selected for in evolution.

I think it would be good for raising a child to be able to understand what that child is feeling, while at the same time you can't act instinctively and obsessively based on empathy and give the child whatever it wants when it cries, or you'll have a child with diabetes from chocolate and sweets. On the other hand I don't see where caring for children or any other human would come from without empathy. Other humans would just be sources of sex, money and food.