actually, empathy is pretty great for our species as a whole. the lack of empathy is what allows psychopaths to ignore the impacts of their actions on other people.
if you knew for a fact that you wouldn't experience any negative effects (like going to jail, having people label you as an outcast, etc.), would you kill a complete stranger for $100? if you had no empathy, you would.
Part of a comment I left on a discussion on LessWrong last week:
it has been annoying me lately that there are three distinct usages of "empathy" that are frequently conflated.
1) "Empathy" as the emotional interest in others, could also be called "moral sense", the kind of empathy that sociopaths are said to lack.
2) "Empathy" as the ability to identify emotionally with others, the set of instincts or "firmware" that make interpersonal communications and interactions go smoothly, the kind of empathy that autistics are said to lack.
3) "Empathy" or "imaginative identification with others", a more intellectual version, part of the definition of an intelligent being which is associated with metalaw. The ability to intellectually and purposely imagine yourself in the place of another, even a very different other, such as an extra-terrestrial alien, hence its association with metalaw.
Note, in the documentary "I, Psychopath" http://youtu.be/jKvhKI6Kxew they run tests in the MRI to predict psychopathy as the inability to consider future consequences on present choices. Thus, in view of this, lack of empathy is not the determining factor in psychopathy, it is lack of foresight. (perhaps it was about being oblivious to future pain - can't quite recall)
Interesting, I recently watched a show that showed that psychopaths are just as able to predict consequences, just like everyone else, but they just don't care if it negatively affects other people. Not because they're actively bad but because they have no empathic impulse.
Also it showed that they demonstrate no emotional response to words such as 'rape'. If you could monitor everyone's brain who just read that word in an MRI, you would be able to see mental activity that is associated with negative emotions. Everyone except psychopaths.
It looks like "empathy" and "psychopath" is being conflated with simply being moral and immoral. It is entirely possible for a very empathetic person to do something immoral, and a very psychopathic person to be moral (i.e. be categorically opposed to murder).
if you knew for a fact that you wouldn't experience any negative effects (like going to jail, having people label you as an outcast, etc.), would you kill a complete stranger for $100? if you had no empathy, you would.