ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how to interpret the empathic response to others in need and its relation to the psychological construct of ‘personal distress’. For researchers in moral psychology, the fact that psychopaths’ lacking empathic distress is based on a deficient defensive response is a juicy piece of information. Dispositional measures of empathy are based mainly on self-reports, which are notoriously fallible. More importantly, the way that distress is described on many empathy measures may not capture the normal distress element in being exposed to others in pain or distress. For instance, ultra-conservatives are presumably able to experience empathy, but they don’t think welfare is particularly important compared to other moral ideals, such as purity, in-group loyalty, or authority. As a result, they score like psychopaths on harm and fairness considerations, which is to say abnormally low.
