Good for Nothing

Picture a fourteen-year-old who thinks nothing of harming animals, making threats against her own family's house, and trading sexual favours for presents. Now picture a man who, hearing a woman struggling in icy water a short distance away, dives in after her without hesitation. What separates the two? Abigail Marsh, a neuroscientist, set out to answer that question by scanning the brains of children with psychopathic traits alongside those of people who go to extreme lengths to help strangers.

Her central finding is that the difference rests on our capacity to read fear in other people's faces and bodies. Marsh's work suggests that the brain's response to another person's distress is a key part of how moral behaviour is wired, for better or worse.

By looking at both heroism and cruelty, the book sheds light on how human morality takes shape in the brain. It will appeal to readers interested in the science of empathy and in what drives human beings to care for, or to disregard, the people around them.