Dr. Earle Waugh's presentation on Evil As A Treatable Disease for January 24th, 2013 in the Technology and Future of Medicine course LABMP 590 http://www.singularitycourse.com at the University of Alberta in Edmonton Canada

1. Simon Baron-Cohen
Professor, Developmental Psychopathology
Departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry
University of Cambridge

2.  Backgrounder on Byron-Cohen‟s Book
 GeorgieFluter: A Personal Story
 The Thesis: Why Do People Lack Empathy?
 Baron-Cohen on the Brain and Autism
Circuitry
 Zero-Negative
 Zero-Positive
 Genetic Evidence
 Critique: Evidence Not Considered

3.  Four kinds of conditions in people exhibit
lack of empathy
 Psychopathy
 Narcissim
 Autism
 Asperger Syndrome

4.  Evil and Cruelty are the result of Lack of
Empathy
 Not the result of theological category of „sin‟
 Not the result of an incarnate evil-i.e.„devil‟
 Not purely the result of social disorder or
environment
 Not purely the result of a physical condition
 Reflect variety of categories and associations

6.  Six Levels of Empathy, based on Empathy
Quotient Questionnaire
 MRI evidence of regions of brain operative in
empathy—ten in all:
◦ Medial prefontal cortex (comparing oneself with
others)
◦ Orbitofrontal cortex ( social judgement, socially
disoriented
◦ Frontal operculum (Language processing)

7.  Inferior frontal gyrus (emotional recognition)
 Caudal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior
insula (pain matrix-both personal and
observing)
 Temporoparietal junction (intentions and
beliefs)
 Superior Temporal Sulcus (judging someone‟s
direction of looking)

8.  Somatosensory Cortex (coding sensory
experience)
 Inferior Parietal Lobule, Inferior Parietal
Sulcus( Actions & response recording „mirror‟
neurons)
 Amygdala (emotional learning and regulation)

9. Personality Disorder Borderline: Type B-
Extreme saying destructive things to others
(Marilyn Monroe)
Psychopath: Type P- Total detachment from
other‟s feelings...cold, calculating, completely
selfish
Narcissistic: Type N- Total entitlement of self,
„using‟ others, discarding those „useless‟

10.  Asperger Syndrome (Avoidance of the social,
loneliness, patterning obsession)
 Autism (Underactivity in Empathy, without
words for emotions, systemitizers to the
extreme, innovators)

11.  Aggressiveness Gene: MAOA-H „Warrior
Gene‟
 Emotional Recognition: 1. Serotonin
transporter (SLC6A4) 2. Arginine Vasopressin
Receptor (AVPR1A) Autism-linked, fear and
anger)
 Empathy Gene (Several Genes involved)

12.  Can you develop empathy?
 If you have none are you necessarily bad?
 Can a state be empathetic (i.e. Ban the death
penalty)?
 Can one be super-empathetic to the point of
being dangerous?

13.  Daniel Frankfurter: Evil Incarnate: Rumors of
Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in
History. Princeton, 2006.
 Social Construction of Evil: Endorsed in
Rituals of Political, Social and Religious
Intent-but not universally accepted.
 No Notion of Cruelty Universal: It is normally
constructed locally and from local social and
psychological conditions

14.  Why is the demonic, the chaotic, the marginal
regarded cross-culturally as “a realm”?
 Why is the definition of evil often in the hand
of “authorities”...prophets, presidents, popes?
Isn‟t he „an authority‟?
 What role does „fear‟ play in definitions of
cruelty, and evil?
 What role does conspiracy play in the
meaning of evil?

15.  New Studies do not support conclusions
◦ i.e. Some Children lose Autism Diagnosis: Fein D et. al. Optimal
outcome in individuals with history of autism, J.ChildPsyh and
Psychiatry, 2013 DOI 10.11/jepp.1203-7.
◦ i.e. Decision-making much more complex than circuitry ideology.
Haelener, RM. et al. Inferring decoding strategies from choice
probabilities in the presence of correlated variability.Nature
Neuroscience. 2013 DOI: 10.1038/nn.3.309.
 Are cruelty, evil, lack of empathy, etc. one
and the same set of phenomena?
 Are there differences between personal lack
of empathy and the social perception of evil?

16.  Why is evil behaviour apparently limited in
time and scope..i.e. the Hitler model?
 Impossible to disengage notion of evil from
Western cultural experience, including its
religious connotations.
 Perceptions of evil are real—as in
GeorgieFluter- but can they be reduced to a
model of lack-of-empathy?

17. Earle Waugh, Ph.D.
Director, Centre for the Cross-Cultural
Study of Health and Healing
Department of Family Medicine
University of Alberta
earle.waugh@ualberta.ca
780-492-6424