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The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

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07/05/2011

07/05/2011 GMT

BBC World Service - The Forum, 07/05/2011

Is understanding the empathy circuit in our brain the key to combating cruelty?

Why shining a spotlight on the brain's capacity for empathy may give clues to human callousness. And what social and economic conditions make crime and cruelty flourish?

What is it that makes some people want to hurt or kill? In the wake of Osama Bin Laden’s death, we investigate the triggers, in the brain and in society, that make crime and cruelty flourish. 

One of Britain's leading psychiatrists, Simon Baron-Cohen, suggests that if we want a scientific understanding, we should stop talking about evil and consider how our brains are wired for empathy, or lack of it.

Federico Varese, who studies mafias, considers crime and the community and in particular what it is that makes organized crime networks flourish.

And best-selling Indian novelist Radhika Jha suggests that one way to build empathy is to create shared stories.

Illustration by Emily Kasriel: as collective mafias switch off empathy in order to tell stories to commit acts of cruelty.

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