 More recently, such ultimately positive evaluation of empathy’s contributing role in constituting us as moral agents, as agents who address each other from the moral stance, has encountered penetrating criticism, particularly by Prinz (2011a,b) and Bloom (2016). Both emphasize the dark side of empathy, that is, the aforementioned “here and now” biases. More specifically Prinz mentions explicitly the cuteness, salience, and proximity effects—the fact that we tend to empathize more easily with attractive persons, with persons that are in close proximity and only if their suffering is particularly noteworthy— similarity biases and the fact that we tend to be rather selective in choosing whom to empathize with. Empathy is also very easily modulated by a variety of top-down factors that influence our perception of the social world and that let us register social divisions that seem to be prima facie incompatible with the more impartial stance demanded by the moral perspective. Research has documented these biases in a more fine-grained manner and shown that subjects generally “reported experiencing more empathy for the in–group then the out–group targets and more counter–empathy for the out–group than in–group targets”(Cikara et. al. 2014, 120), counter–empathy here being understood as the feeling of pleasure at the misfortune of another (Schadenfreude) or the feeling displeasure at something fortunate happening to another (Glückschmerz). This is particularly true if the other group is viewed to be in competition with one’s own group. Empathy can also be further reduced through various dehumanizing and objectifying strategies, strategies that have certainly employed in the context of the genocides of the twentieth century and the system of racial slavery in the United States (See Fuchs 2019, Kteily and Bruneau 2017). Heightened empathy for perceived wrongs done to members of the in–group can also lead to violent and immoral behavior (Bloom 2016, chap. 5). In addition, empathy tends to focus on the one (particularly if he or she is identifiable) rather than the many, what Bloom refers to as its spotlight feature. Empathy can mislead us particularly in contexts where we need to take into account statistically relevant information when addressing a moral or social problem, such as when thinking about the benefits of vaccination where it is more appropriate to think about the large numbers of children saved rather than empathizing with the bad effects such vaccination might have on one specific child. For all of these reasons, Prinz favors the moral emotions such as anger, guilt and shame as the foundation for morality, while Bloom prefers sympathy guided by reason as a more viable means than empathy to steer us in moral matters.