Paul Bloom Quotes & Sayings

Nobody uses email anymore. I'm this old fogie with my email. I don't know what I'm supposed to communicate with now - SnapChat? — Paul Bloom

The irrationality of disgust suggests it is unreliable as a source of moral insight. There may be good arguments against gay marriage, partial-birth abortions and human cloning, but the fact that some people find such acts to be disgusting should carry no weight. — Paul Bloom

Imagination tends to be truly useful if accompanied by the power of mental control - if the worlds in one's head can be purposefully manipulated and distinguished from the real one outside it. — Paul Bloom

Maybe one of the most heartening findings from the psychology of pleasure is there's more to looking good than your physical appearance. If you like somebody, they look better to you. This is why spouses in happy marriages tend to think that their husband or wife looks much better than anyone else thinks that they do. — Paul Bloom

People differ in where they direct their empathy and their compassion. Many people are intensely concerned about the suffering of non-human animals, and some do not care at all. There are cultural differences. — Paul Bloom

Relying on the face might be human nature - even babies prefer to look at attractive people. But, of course, judging someone based on the geometry of his features is, from a moral and legal standpoint, no better than judging him based on the color of his skin. — Paul Bloom

We are constituted so that simple acts of kindness, such as giving to charity or expressing gratitude, have a positive effect on our long-term moods. The key to the happy life, it seems, is the good life: a life with sustained relationships, challenging work, and connections to community. — Paul Bloom

We have gut feelings, but we also have the capacity to override them, to think through issues, including moral issues, and to come to conclusions that can surprise us. I think this is where the real action is. It's what makes us distinctively human, and it gives us the potential to be better to one another, to create a world with less suffering and more flourishing and happiness. There — Paul Bloom

When I write I'll sometimes say things which are somewhat controversial - not because I'm seeking out controversy for its own sake, but if I don't have anything to say which is different, why am I bothering to write stuff down in the first place? — Paul Bloom

Modern science tells us that the conscious self arises from a purely physical brain. We do not have immaterial souls. — Paul Bloom

Being a good person likely is more related to distanced feelings of compassion and kindness, along with intelligence, self-control, and a sense of justice. Being a bad person has more to do with a lack of regard for others and an inability to control one's appetites. — Paul Bloom

Some of the natural world is appealing, some of it is terrifying, and some of it grosses us out. Modern people don't want to be dropped naked into a swamp. We want to tour Yosemite with our water bottles and G.P.S. devices. The natural world is a source of happiness and fulfillment, but only when prescribed in the right doses. — Paul Bloom

The emotions triggered by fiction are very real. When Charles Dickens wrote about the death of Little Nell in the 1840s, people wept - and I'm sure that the death of characters in J.K. Rowling's 'Harry Potter' series led to similar tears. — Paul Bloom

The enjoyment we get from something is powerfully influenced by what we think that thing really is. This is true for intellectual pleasures, such as the appreciation of paintings and stories, and it is true as well for pleasures that seem simpler and more animalistic, such as the satisfaction of hunger and lust. — Paul Bloom

We'd be really screwed if we had to start our life over again as children with our brains right now, because I think we lose the plasticity and flexibility. — Paul Bloom

The effects of Twitter and Facebook and all those things on people's psychologies is a really interesting question to which nobody knows the answer. — Paul Bloom

And it isn't a mistake in taste, like believing that the Matrix sequels were as good as the original. — Paul Bloom

The Old Testament tells us to love our neighbors, the New Testament to love our enemies. The moral rationale seems to be: Love your neighbors and enemies; that way you won't kill them. But frankly, I don't love my neighbors, to say nothing of my enemies. Better, then, is the following idea: Don't kill your neighbors or enemies, even if you don't love them. . . . What really has expanded is not so much a circle of empathy as a circle of rights - a commitment that other living things, no matter how distant or dissimilar, be safe from harm and exploitation. And — Paul Bloom

Even the charities I give to are related to things that touch my life, like the Special Olympics. I'm not fully rational; I'm swayed by my biases and my emotions. — Paul Bloom

I draw a lot from Buddhism, which focuses on compassion and kindness, loving kindness, as they call it, but rejects empathy because it's a poor moral guide. And I think there's a lot of evidence suggesting that they're right. — Paul Bloom

On many issues, empathy can pull us in the wrong direction. The outrage that comes from adopting the perspective of a victim can drive an appetite for retribution. — Paul Bloom

I'm not a pacifist. I think the suffering of innocent people can be a catalyst for moral action. But empathy puts too much weight on the scale in favor of war. Empathy can really lead to violence. — Paul Bloom

For instance, most everyone agrees that a just society promotes equality among its citizens, but blood is spilled over what sort of equality is morally preferable: equality of opportunity or equality of outcome — Paul Bloom

Once we accept violence as an adaptation, it makes sense that its expression is calibrated to the environment. The same individual will behave differently if he comes of age in Detroit, Mich., versus Windsor, Ontario; in New York in the 1980s versus New York now; in a culture of honor versus a culture of dignity. — Paul Bloom

If our wondrous kindness is evidence for God, is our capacity for great evil proof of the Devil? — Paul Bloom

Because of empathy, stories of the suffering of one person could lead us into a war that could kill millions of people. — Paul Bloom

I kind of like social media, and I like hearing from people. I don't like the ugly stuff, but there are some people - smart people - who have a very different perspective, and I'll get a backlash from them. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing. — Paul Bloom

I think we should really discourage this sort of empathic engagement when it comes to making moral decisions. I think we should focus on something like compassion, on getting people to care more for others without putting ourselves in their shoes. — Paul Bloom

In my own life, I do not live like an effective altruist. An effective altruist would really disapprove of my life. I don't give enough to charity and I still have both my kidneys. — Paul Bloom

Stories turn anonymous strangers into people who matter. — Paul Bloom

(...) life just creeps along, with long spans where nothing much happens... Stories solve this problem - as the critic Clive James once put it, 'Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.' This is one reason why Friends is more interesting than your friends. — Paul Bloom

I argue that we should be kind, we should be compassionate, and we should definitely be reasonable and rational, but that empathy leads us astray. — Paul Bloom

Forgery is just the most dramatic example of the importance of origin. Arthur Koestler described a friend who owned a drawing that she first took to be a reproduction. When she later discovered that it was an original by Picasso, she displayed it more prominently, claimed that she saw it differently, and enjoyed it more. For her, its value went up. — Paul Bloom

We benefit, intellectually and personally, from the interplay between different selves, from the balance between long-term contemplation and short-term impulse. We should be wary about tipping the scales too far. The community of selves shouldn't be a democracy, but it shouldn't be a dictatorship, either. — Paul Bloom

I think there's some evidence that when it comes to being a doctor or nurse, a police officer or therapist, that empathetic engagement leads to burn-out. Imagine if you're dealing with severely ill children, and you felt their pain all the time, and the pain of their parents - you wouldn't be able to do that job for very long. It would kill you. — Paul Bloom

It has been a period where people have been far nicer to one another in every possible way. I'm not saying it's because we're dropping our empathy that we're nicer to each other, just that the drop doesn't seem to be causing any harm. — Paul Bloom

Having kids has proven to be this amazing - for me, this amazing source of ideas of anecdotes, of examples, I can test my own kids without human subject permission, so they pilot - I pilot my ideas on them. And so it is a tremendous advantage to have kids if you're going to be a developmental psychologist. — Paul Bloom

I think if we could turn the dial a bit, and try to take what the philosopher Henry Sidgwick called "the point of view of the universe", and look from above, and realize that we are not special, none of us are, I think it would just cause a transformation. — Paul Bloom

You might argue on utilitarian grounds that the best way for the world to work is for everybody to take care of themselves first. And people have made that argument. But I just think we would be so much better off if we could care for distant others even a little bit more. — Paul Bloom

When empathy makes us feel pain, the reaction is often a desire to escape. Jonathan Glover tells of a woman who lived near the death camps in Nazi Germany and who could easily see atrocities from her house, such as prisoners being shot and left to die. She wrote an angry letter: "One is often an unwilling witness to such outrages. I am anyway sickly and such a sight makes such a demand on my nerves that in the long run I cannot bear this. I request that it be arranged that such inhuman deeds be discontinued, or else be done where one does not see it." She was definitely suffering from seeing the treatment of the prisoners, but it didn't motivate her to want to save them: She would be satisfied if she could have this suffering continue out of her sight. — Paul Bloom

Periods of cooperation between political parties shouldn't be taken for granted; they are a stunning human achievement. — Paul Bloom

If you look within the United States, religion seems to make you a better person. Yet atheist societies do very well - better, in many ways, than devout ones. — Paul Bloom

It is surprising to see how often the worst people in the world - rapists interviewed in prison, say - see themselves as the real victims. They are wrong to see themselves as innocents, but we are wrong as well to see them as different creatures from the rest of us. If you want to think about evil, real evil, a better way to proceed is this: Don't think about what other people have done to you; think instead about your own actions that hurt others, that made others want you to apologize and make amends. Don't think about other nations' atrocities toward your country and its allies; think instead about the actions of your country that other people rage against. Your — Paul Bloom

It's not that empathy itself automatically leads to kindness. Rather, empathy has to connect to kindness that already exists. Empathy makes good people better, then, because kind people don't like suffering, and empathy makes this suffering salient. If you made a sadist more empathic, it would just lead to a happier sadist, — Paul Bloom

Strong moral arguments exist for why we should often try to ignore stereotypes or override them. But we shouldn't assume they represent some irrational quirk of the unconscious mind. In fact, they're largely the consequence of the mind's attempt to make a rational decision. — Paul Bloom

In 1999, the anthropologist Christopher Boehm addressed this issue in Hierarchy in the Forest, which reviewed the lifestyles of dozens of small-scale human groups. Perhaps surprisingly, he found that they are egalitarian. Material inequality is kept to a minimum; goods are distributed to everyone. The old and sick are cared for. There are leaders, but their power is kept in check; and the social structure is flexible and nonhierarchical. It looks less like Stalin's Russia and more like Occupy Wall Street. — Paul Bloom

Natural selection shaped the human brain to be drawn toward aspects of nature that enhance our survival and reproduction, like verdant landscapes and docile creatures. There is no payoff to getting the warm fuzzies in the presence of rats, snakes, mosquitoes, cockroaches, herpes simplex and the rabies virus. — Paul Bloom

Even in the most peaceful communities, an appetite for violence shows up in dreams, fantasies, sports, play, literature, movies and television. And, so long as we don't transform into angels, violence and the threat of violence - as in punishment and deterrence - is needed to rein in our worst instincts. — Paul Bloom

When people want to inspire you to turn against some group of people, they'll often use empathy. — Paul Bloom

It is clear that rituals and sacrifices can bring people together, and it may well be that a group that does such things has an advantage over one that does not. But it is not clear why a religion has to be involved. Why are gods, souls, an afterlife, miracles, divine creation of the universe, and so on brought in? — Paul Bloom

The real problem with natural selection is that it makes no intuitive sense. It is like quantum physics; we may intellectually grasp it, but it will never feel right to us. — Paul Bloom

I think there's some evidence that we're empathic by nature. There is some evidence from studies of babies and young children that they resonate with the pain of others, and there's some work by Frans de Waal that other primates also resonate with the pain of others. — Paul Bloom

The idea I'll explore is that the act of feeling what you think others are feeling - whatever one chooses to call this - is different from being compassionate, from being kind, and most of all, from being good. From a moral standpoint, we're better off without it. — Paul Bloom

I love teaching. I wouldn't take a job that didn't include it. — Paul Bloom

Humans are social beings, and we are happier, and better, when connected to others. — Paul Bloom

Marsh recounts an anecdote about a psychopath who was being tested with a series of pictures and who failed over and over again to recognize fearful expressions, until finally she figured it out: "That's the look people get right before I stab them. — Paul Bloom

Some scholars argue that although the brain might contain neural subsystems, or modules, specialized for tasks like recognizing faces and understanding language, it also contains a part that constitutes a person, a self: the chief executive of all the subsystems. — Paul Bloom

It would be nice if everybody who had something interesting to say about my work could say it politely and civilly, but it doesn't work that way ... Sometimes people are just really nasty. — Paul Bloom

Moral deliberation has to be somewhere in the brain, after all. It's not going to be in the foot or the stomach, and it's certainly not going to reside in some mysterious immaterial realm. So who cares about precisely where? — Paul Bloom

Something as important and central and encompassing as empathy can't be all bad. I think empathy plays a role in intimate relationships, where you might want your partner not just to care about you or understand you but to feel what you feel. — Paul Bloom

Part of the satisfaction of tattling surely comes from showing oneself to adults as a good moral agent, a responsible being who is sensitive to right and wrong. But I would bet that children would tattle even if they could do so only anonymously. They would do it just to have justice done. — Paul Bloom

We can imagine our bodies being destroyed, our brains ceasing to function, our bones turning to dust, but it is harder - some would say impossible - to imagine the end of our very existence. — Paul Bloom

Almost nobody believes anymore that infants are insensate blobs. It seems both mad and evil to deny experience and feeling to a laughing, gurgling creature. — Paul Bloom

Blood is thicker than water - and many see something ridiculous, or worse, about anyone who doesn't know this. In his discussion of Gandhi's autobiography, George Orwell expresses admiration for Gandhi's courage but is repelled by Gandhi's rejection of special relationships - of friends and family, of sexual and romantic love. Orwell describes this as "inhuman," and goes on to say: "The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection, that one is sometimes willing to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, that one does not push asceticism to the point where it makes friendly intercourse impossible, and that one is prepared in the end to be defeated and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one's love upon other human individuals." To — Paul Bloom

It's hard to pull apart empathy from compassion. What is really clear is that we innately care for other people at least to some extent. — Paul Bloom

Some people think that without that spark of empathy we would do nothing, but that's just flat-out wrong. You could feel compassion for somebody without the spark of empathy. — Paul Bloom

You'd expect, as good Darwinian creatures, we would evolve to be fascinated with how the world really is, and we would use language to convey real-world information, we'd be obsessed with knowing the way things are, and we would entirely reject stories that aren't true. They're useless. But that's not the way we work. — Paul Bloom

A religion such as Judaism or Catholicism might survive even if it comes to reject a literal account of God creating man and animals. But it cannot survive the rejection of an immaterial soul. — Paul Bloom

Every president, Democratic or Republican, simply works on the supposition that it's better to keep jobs in America than let them go to Mexico. — Paul Bloom

Enjoying fiction requires a shift in selfhood. You give up your own identity and try on the identities of other people, adopting their perspectives so as to share their experiences. This allows us to enjoy fictional events that would shock and sadden us in real life. — Paul Bloom

I think what a lot of fiction is, is the imagining of the worst so as to prepare ourselves. — Paul Bloom

I have my own difficulty with movies in which the suffering of the characters is too real, and many find it difficult to watch comedies that rely too heavily on embarrassment; the vicarious reaction to this is too unpleasant. — Paul Bloom

Helgeson and Fritz speculate that the gender difference here explains women's greater propensity to anxiety and depression, a conclusion that meshes with the proposal by Barbara Oakley, who, drawing on work on "pathological altruism," notes, "It's surprising how many diseases and syndromes commonly seen in women seem to be related to women's generally stronger empathy for and focus on others." The — Paul Bloom

For the most part, people use "empathy" to mean everything good. For instance, many medical schools have courses in empathy. But if you look at what they mean, they just want medical students to be nicer to their patients, to listen to them, to respect them, to understand them. What's not to like? If they were really teaching empathy, then I'd say there is a world of problems there. — Paul Bloom

As you would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise," or Rabbi Hillel's statement, "What is hateful to you do not do to your neighbor; that is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary thereof. — Paul Bloom

In politics and in society, we can use our reason to rise above our parochial natures. Too bad that our elected officials don't choose to do so more often. — Paul Bloom

Families survive the Terrible Twos because toddlers aren't strong enough to kill with their hands and aren't capable of using lethal weapons. A 2-year-old with the physical capacities of an adult would be terrifying. — Paul Bloom

I think empathy can serve as a moral spark, motivating us to do good things. But anything can be a moral spark. — Paul Bloom

We know that young babies, as they become capable of moving voluntarily, will share. They will share food, for instance, with their siblings and with kids that are around. They will sooth. If they see somebody else in pain, even the youngest of toddlers will try to reach out and pat the person. — Paul Bloom

More-radical scholars insist that an inherent clash exists between science and our long-held conceptions about consciousness and moral agency: if you accept that our brains are a myriad of smaller components, you must reject such notions as character, praise, blame, and free will. — Paul Bloom

It's really difficult working with kids and with babies because they are not cooperative subjects: they are not socialized into the idea that they should cheerfully and cooperatively give you information. They're not like undergraduates, who you can bribe with beer money or course credit. — Paul Bloom

Because of empathy, we care more for, and devote far more resources to, someone who is familiar, from our country or our group, than a stranger. — Paul Bloom

One way to make a baby cry is to expose it to cries of other babies. There's sort of contagiousness to the crying. It's not just crying. We also know that if a baby sees another human in silent pain, it will distress the baby. It seems part of our very nature is to suffer at the suffering of others. — Paul Bloom

Any simple claim that you need religion to be good is flat wrong. — Paul Bloom

Philosophers have often looked for the defining feature of humans - language, rationality, culture, and so on. I'd stick with this: Man is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce. — Paul Bloom

By "empathy," some people mean everything that is good - compassion, kindness, warmth, love, being a mensch, changing the world - and I'm for all of those things. I'm not a monster. — Paul Bloom

A sympathetic parent might see the spark of consciousness in a baby's large eyes and eagerly accept the popular claim that babies are wonderful learners, but it is hard to avoid the impression that they begin as ignorant as bread loaves. — Paul Bloom

A growing body of evidence suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life. — Paul Bloom

I'm really interested in the pleasure we get from stories and the pleasure we get from movies, and certainly the pleasure we get from virtual experiences. My complaint is against empathy as a moral guide. But as a source of pleasure, it can't be beat. — Paul Bloom

Imagination is Reality Lite - a useful substitute when the real pleasure is inaccessible, too risky, or too much work. — Paul Bloom

When you start writing things to try to persuade someone who's not already part of your guild or your profession that something is interesting, it forces you to ask yourself, "Well, why is this interesting?" — Paul Bloom

If Inigo Montoya were around now, he wouldn't need to storm the castle to bring his father's murderer to justice; the police would do it for him, and fewer people would have to die. — Paul Bloom

I think Americans are always going to care more about Americans than about Mexicans. — Paul Bloom

I don't doubt that the explanation for consciousness will arise from the mercilessly scientific account of psychology and neuroscience, but, still, isn't it neat that the universe is such that it gave rise to conscious beings like you and me? — Paul Bloom

Empathy zooms you in on an individual and, as a result, it's narrow, it's innumerate, it's racist, it's very biased. — Paul Bloom

As the psychologist Steven Pinker puts it, "Exposure to worlds that can be seen only through the eyes of a foreigner, an explorer, or a historian can turn an unquestioned norm ('That's the way it's done') into an explicit observation ('That's what our tribe happens to do now')." This is the point that Herodotus was making when he told the story of the Greeks and the Indians. — Paul Bloom

I have two teenage sons, and they're both surviving, thriving, and having a great time, and they're always on social media. — Paul Bloom

I think empathy is really important for pleasure. — Paul Bloom

Gopnik compares baby consciousness to that of an adult dumped into the middle of a foreign city, totally overwhelmed, constantly turning to see new things, struggling to make sense of it all. Things are even worse for a baby, actually, because even the most stressed-out adult can choose to think of something else: we can look forward to getting back to the hotel; imagine how we would describe our trip to friends; fantasize, daydream, or pray. The baby just is, trapped in the here and now. — Paul Bloom

Humans are born with a hard-wired morality: a sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. I know this claim might sound outlandish, but it's supported now by research in several laboratories. — Paul Bloom