Shadowing Practice: Why I’m against empathy | Paul Bloom - Learn English Speaking with Video
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I'm against empathy.
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I'm not against empathy for everything.
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I think empathy is a lot of fun when you're watching a movie, empathy for a fictional character.
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I think empathy is an important part of all sorts of exciting activities, but I'm against empathy as a moral guide.
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I think we could do better.
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The sense of empathy I'm most interested in is when you, in a sense, put yourself in another person's shoes and feel what they feel.
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Psychologists call this emotional empathy.
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A lot of people think this is core to being a good person.
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A few years ago I wrote a book called Against Empathy, The Case for Rational Compassion.
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And I argued this form of empathy, though it might seem wonderful, is actually a very poor moral guide.
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Who do you feel empathy for?
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Who do you most naturally put yourself in the shoes of?
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Well, we know the answer this from study after study after study
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we naturally feel empathy for people who look like us who speak our language who we feel are safe
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and because of that empathy is of all of the human feelings perhaps the most bias and parochial
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when you put a book out the title against empathy you gotta expect a certain amount of blowback
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and a lot of people responded to me with their own experiences in our own arguments.
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Sometimes people agreed with me, sometimes they argued against me.
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So one argument against the purpose of my book is although empathy could have negative effects, could be bias, could provoke us into violence,
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could cause all sorts of trouble, it also could have good effects and I can see this in my book.
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And so some people have said look if you add it all up the positive benefits of empathy outweigh the negative.
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I'm not always convinced about that sort of math but even
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if it were true we have moral capacities that are better than empathy
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another objection is that empathy whatever you think of its role
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when it comes to war and charity and broad moral decisions is a necessary part of an intimate relationship
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one philosopher in a critique of me said my wife comes in and she's mad at somebody at work
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It's all well and good for me to say, I love you very much, and I understand where you're coming from.
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But isn't what she wants me to share her anger, get angry with her?
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And my response to that is, it's kind of right.
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I don't deny that.
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There are cases where what we look for in a relationship with others is that sort of shared feeling.
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You're mad.
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You want me to be mad too.
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My critical response is, there's all sorts of cases where that's not what we want.
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My favorite example here is anxiety.
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I go to my partner and I'm very anxious.
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I'm stressed out.
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Do I want her to start sharing my feeling of anxiety?
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To look at me and say, oh my God, it's horrible.
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Yeah, it's horrible.
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No. I want her to be calm.
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I want her to say, I love you.
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Calm down.
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Let me tell you how to think it differently.
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Sometimes what we want from people isn't a mirror of us.
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It's rather another intelligent, caring, loving person responding to us as a distinct being
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and working to make our life better
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and I think sometimes empathy is exactly what we do not want now
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if I'm gonna say this I have to come up with something
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that will replace empathy I'm not saying we should give up on morality
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so my book is called against empathy
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but the subtitle of my book is the case for rational compassion
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and therein lies the substitute I think and the substitute has two parts one is rationality if I'm going to help somebody,
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I have to know what's the best way to help them.
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Sometimes what might seem to be the best way to help them simply makes things worse.
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Sometimes figuring out what to do to make the world a better place is an extraordinarily difficult task, too big for one brain,
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and we do our best when as communities we work together to think about that.
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So that's rationality.
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Rationality itself is great at pursuing ends, but it doesn't provide ends.
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It doesn't provide goals.
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What you need is compassion.
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You need to care.
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So what I argue in the book is that our best decisions, our fairest, our most equitable ones,
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are done through a combination of a rational judgment of how does one make the world a better place,
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plus compassion, love, caring, but not the sort of love and caring that requires you put yourself in another person's shoes.
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Even if empathy is unbalanced, has a positive effect, compassion does better.
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If we could reconfigure our moral attitudes to be less biased, less parochial, more with our head and less with our heart, we would do better.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Why I’m against empathy”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: empathy, compassion, moral, rationality, biased. This video has 39 sentences and 847 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:38. The speaker talks fast, about 183 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| empathy noun | /ˈɛmpəθi/ | Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person. |
| moral adjective | /ˈmoɹəl/ | Of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behaviour, especially conforming to principles of rectitude. |
| compassion noun | /kəmˈpæʃ.ən/ | Deep awareness of the suffering of others that people have to the point of them being motivated to relieve such states. |
| argue verb | /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ | To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply. |
| shoe noun | /ˈʃu/ | A protective covering for the foot, with a bottom part composed of thick leather or plastic sole and often a thicker heel, and a softer upper part made of… |
| bias noun | /ˈbaɪ.əs/ | Inclination towards something. |
| rational adjective | /ˈɹæʃ(ə)nəl/ | Capable of reasoning. |
| naturally adverb | /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/ | In a natural manner. |
| anxiety noun | /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/ | An unpleasant state of mental uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension and obsession or concern about some uncertain event. |
| horrible adjective | /ˈhɔɹ.ɪ.bəl/ | Causing horror; terrible; shocking. |
| substitute noun | /ˈsʌb.stɪ.tʃuːt/ | A replacement or stand-in for something that achieves a similar result or purpose. |
| mirror noun | /ˈmiɹɚ/ | A smooth surface, usually made of glass with reflective material painted on the underside, that reflects light so as to give an image of what is in front of it. |
| charity noun | /ˈtʃæɹɪti/ | An organization, the objective of which is to carry out a charitable purpose. |
| anger noun | /ˈæŋɡə/ | A strong and unpleasant feeling of displeasure, hostility, or antagonism, usually combined with an urge to yell, curse, damage or destroy things, or harm… |
| deny verb | /dəˈnaɪ/ | To disallow or reject. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| calm down verb | To become less excited, intense, or angry. |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| stress out verb | To become stressed. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Who do you feel empathy for?
- Who do you most naturally put yourself in the shoes of?
- You're mad, you want me to be mad too.
- Do I want her to start sharing my feeling of anxiety?
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 20 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, doesn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: empathy /ˈɛmpəθi/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, therein /ˈðɛəɹˈɪn/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: compassion /kəmˈpæʃ.ən/, shoe /ˈʃu/, rational /ˈɹæʃ(ə)nəl/, anxious /ˈæŋkʃəs/, fictional /ˈfɪkʃənəl/
- Long words — get the stress right: naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/, intelligent /ɪnˈtɛlɪd͡ʒənt/, differently /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like empathy, moral, compassion.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.