In this episode of The Soul of Enterprise, Ron and Ed take on one of the most cherished virtues of our age — empathy — and ask whether it really belongs at the heart of moral or political reasoning.

Drawing on Kevin D. Williamson’s National Review essay “Against Empathy,” they explore his case that empathy, far from being a moral compass, often clouds judgment and replaces argument with feeling. Then they turn to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom’s provocative book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion, which argues that reasoned compassion — not emotional identification — leads to better choices in ethics, policy, and everyday life.

From the courts to the classroom to the marketplace, Ron and Ed ask: what happens when emotion overrules principle? And what might a society guided by rational compassion look like instead?