I've noticed for a long time now after reading many psychological articles on psychopath/sociopaths is the claim that they lack 'empathy' which is not necessarily true in all cases. In order to design machinations to harm, you must have empathy. You must understand how another will feel and react which is empathy. The better the empathic ability, the greater understanding of what the victim will think and experience. So empathy isnt a positive or negative ability. It just depends on how its used based on motivation. Sympathy is goes beyond which includes empathy and able to put yourself in anothers shoe with the intent of compassion or benevolence rather than detachment or malice.
