The advances of modern imaging technology mean that we no longer have to guess what the brain is up to. Our innermost thoughts and character are on display, and via scans that lay bare who has lots of empathy and who has none, who lies and who is a truth-teller, whom we should trust and welcome as a friend, and whom we should shy away from. Thanks to modern neuroscience, we can begin to piece together, for example, how we might “improve our society by harnessing the extraordinary positive force of empathy”. Since “neuroscientists, psychologists and geneticists now know which parts of the brain are specifically linked to empathy and compassion”, we should be “considering how we can enhance these abilities . . . .The empathy instinct is an idea whose time has come”.