A Theory of Mind? Or A Theory of War....

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In his writings he suggests that there is a link between empathy and morality. That those who lack empathy are more capable of evil actions. He also suggests that autistics lack emotional empathy, while still having cognitive empathy. The degree of morality is determined by one's empathetic ability. I think he is wrong when he suggests autistics lack empathy (of either type.) I think that people on the spectrum take longer to recognize the experience of others, but once we do, we care. So I disagree with Baron-Cohen when he suggests that autism is linked with immorality.

This is a review of his book, The Science of Evil: On Empathy and The Origins of Cruelty

Science 2.0

He does say that, it's a generally accepted concept across all psychiatry.


Now we're getting to the nub of my point...he actually says the *opposite* of this. So your beef with him is based on a misunderstanding, not on what he actually says.


Studies prove that they do. You might not agree, but that's what the results say, and anecdotal evidence backs this up also.


That's pretty close to what SBC thinks as well.


Hopefully you now understand that SBC most certainly does not say this at all, nor thinks it. In fact he actually thinks the opposite of this and his real thoughts are in line with your own.

So what does he say then?

My understanding is that he believes autism causes immorality. I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of autism and that to link immorality to autism is lazy and harmful. Humanity is not defined by one's ability to communicate.

He says that psychopaths have intact cognitive empathy but impaired emotional empathy, and autistic people have impaired cognitive empathy but intact emotional empathy. So the things you think he is saying about autistic people he is actually saying about psychotic people.

Okay, so autistics lack cognitive empathy (or Theory of Mind) and the unhuman lack affective (or emotional) empathy. I guess the idea is that if you are not moved by another's suffering then you are not human. I'm not sure that the dichotomy of cognitive and affective is useful. For myself I struggle with both. Keeping up cognitive empathetic behaviour is exhausting. And often I am not moved by the condition of others. Not because I wish them ill, but because there is nothing I can do. Listening to someone's problem without being able to act to change it is painful for me.

Anyway, I just think it's dangerous to start linking immorality with autism.

Chichikov writes:

People tend to not understand that a lot of what he says relates to children mostly as it is a developmental disorder so best diagnosed in children, they also commonly attack him by twisting what he says into a straw man argument "SBC says autistic people have no empathy", "SBC says that women can't be autistic as you need a male brain" and other such things. Or they attack his methods when they are perfectly sound methods, the guy is a Cambridge Professor, I think he knows what he is doing. Don't shoot the messenger, as they say.


Decades ago in one of my first psychology classes, we were treated to an example of the "infallibility" of scientists during an introductory lecture, when the cognitive scientist who gave the lecture talked about taking findings at face value. His first example was Sir Francis Galton, who was knighted for his accomplishments which included twin studies, which were later used to "prove" that the upper class were "simply" genetically more intelligent. Another scientist, Sir Cyril Burt followed on and replicated these findings by creating fake data. They were both members of the eugenicist movements. In later decades, their critics were accused of "shooting the messenger" until the fraud was finally uncovered half a century later.

The false claims were accepted for decades - how could a beknighted scientist like him lie?! Then it was discovered from a former assistant of his that no data had ever existed - he had made the whole thing up, to suit his own prejudices from a position of privilege, yet the negative consequences of his fraud until then in terms of policy and the way that resources were apportioned were huge.

In the later years of my own studies, I specialized in the studying the modes and claims of shonky science, primarily in the context of experimental psychology.

And SBC isn't just talking about children. If you have read his work yourself, you will know that, his "reading the eyes" test is one example of his adult-subject claims. It may be more difficult to see the faults in his work if you don't understand how scientific reductionism works in theory and practice. What you choose to believe is of course your own affair, however telling people to "get real" as your way of expressing disagreement is gratuitously insulting, though perhaps you didn't intend that..

PS: Sir Francis Galton was a Cambridge graduate and fellow, Burt was at Cambridge also, so even that yardstick is not an infallible one..

"Proof by example" is a fallacious argument, did you ever learn that? Because one cop is corrupt are all cops corrupt? Because one man kills are all men killers? No. Some scientists are wrong for sure, that is also part of science, but unless you have some specific evidence that SBC is a liar and deliberately misleading people you can't insinuate it. You also have to bear in mind the peer review nature of science today so it isn't up to just one person to hold up what they are doing as fact.



Re-read what I actually said and feel free to argue against what I actually say, not what you claim I say. Kinda ironic really

You obviously are not aware of last years' exposure of the peer review scandals that were exposed by Nature and other prestigious journals. Even the editors of the most august journals like Nature had been conned by chicanery in the peer review system, because they hadn't previous suspected how devious some "respectable" scientists were.

I didn't say SBC was a liar - that's your strawman. I have said that his findings are not robust/spurious because of the methodologies and that he overclaims his findings as objective fact without considering that his methodology may be producing facts to fit his theory. You are either innocently misunderstanding or deliberately misconstruing my position.

The assumptions that all research claims must be automatically valid and reliable because they come from a prestigious university and have been peer reviewed have been proved erroneous in a very conclusive fashion. Most scientists are not charlatans, though (as Nature has shown) the extent of the chicanery is much more far reaching than is commonly supposed by the public. Bias is the biggest factor, and it doesn't always operate consciously in the kind of scientists who are most affected by it; adherents of behaviouristic experimental psychology seem more likely to be prone to that weakness in forming their conclusions, and Thomas Kuhn's "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (as a previous poster suggested) is a useful book for elaborating the wider context and process of how flawed conceptualisations become reified into science paradigms generally.

I'm sure there are scandals all the time, but again of what relevance is it? It seems that you're edging toward confirmation bias, discarding the findings of SBC because you don't agree with them and using the rational that because others were fraudulent he is likely to be as well, however I am sure you level no such allegation against scientists whose findings you do agree with. Correct? Or do you disregard all science as fraud?



I didn't say you did, again please confine yourself to things I have actually said.

This has become a pointless waste of my time and energy. I anticipated this might happen which is why my opening post included:

If you are a totally committed believer of Simon Baron-Cohen's theory of mind, think twice before reading the link.

That's a rather convenient way of never having to deal with evidence that you might be wrong, I hope it serves you well Personally I prefer to side with arguments that the evidence supports, it stops me wasting my time and energy.

So I guess my "autism doesn't equate with immorality hypothesis" is lacking supportive evidence. Or perhaps I have misunderstood something else. But in the absence of your criticisms you have nothing to offer. Forget about Baron-Cohen, do you think autism can be linked intrinsically with immorality?

Chichikov, do you agree that Simon also says autistic people lack empathy?

An excerpt from commentary published by the journal Nature, November 2011:

Some critics are also rankled by Baron-Cohen's history of headline-grabbing theories — particularly one that autism is an 'extreme male' brain state. They worry that his theory about technically minded parents may be giving the public wrong ideas, including the impression that autism is linked to being a 'geek'.

Baron-Cohen acknowledges that "there is a problem that there are too few attempts at replication" of his studies, and says that he remains "open minded about these hypotheses until there are sufficient data to evaluate them". But he says he doesn't see a problem with introducing theories before definitive evidence has been collected. "I would see it as a positive contribution rather than a concern that scientists move from preliminary evidence to formulate the more general theory, especially when the theory is highly testable, since this is how science advances," he says.

You can't prove a negative


I'm not offering anything as I'm not a scientist, I've done no studies, and I have no theories to propose either, I'm simply responding to the criticisms against SBC where I think they are unjustified. I personally don't think there is any link between autism and immorality, but that's really here nor there, I've never heard of the two even being connected, but I don't doubt that some people think there might be a link as there seems to be a common trend with certain types of criminals being diagnosed with AS soon after their arrest, and that kind of thing seeps into the public's mind.


That's a simplified statement, but yes I agree people with autism can have lower levels of certain types of empathy. However once again we have to avoid fallacious reasoning; for a start you are paraphrasing SBC and by way of that slightly misrepresenting what he said, also there are some conditions where a lack of a certain type of empathy allows the person to more easily commit "evil" acts, however that doesn't mean everyone who lacks *any* type of empathy is more likely to commit evil acts. So I do feel your question is somewhat of a leading question, based on a slight misrepresentation, attempting to lead me into some trap....If your follow-up remark is going to be along the lines of "ah so you do agree autistic people are immoral then!", you really needn't bother as I'm telling you now that is not what I'm saying.

No, it's not about you, it's about Simon's assertions, that's what I'm hoping to pin down. Thanks for the parts of your post that address this. As for the rest, I'll leave it to those who read this thread to decide for themselves whether or not anybody here misrepresented anybody or tried to trap anybody or make them look silly, if that kind of thing is of any interest to them.