It’s more than that. I’m friends with a diagnosed sociopath. Zero empathy whatsoever. And he is 100% without a doubt the most dependable and moral person I know. He always keeps his word, is always willing to lend a hand if needed, and is a champion for things like harm reduction as public policy - Gun laws, drug reform, police reform, bodily autonomy, etc… As a teen, he went through a satanist moral philosophy kick, and basically came to terms with the fact that empathy isn’t required for objective morality. Each person can choose to do good, simply because it is the right thing to do. I fully believe that he’d be a serial killer (or at least some high powered CEO who ruins lives for the people that work in his company) without that philosophy.

It actually makes him angry when conservatives do and say shit like this… Because he sees it as a complete moral failing on their part, not a lack of empathy. Basically the difference between “you’re doing bad things because you can’t understand others” and “you’re doing bad things because you refuse to do better.”

The former could be used as a crutch to explain bad actions, but he absolutely rejects that possibility because his lived experience has taught him that understanding or empathizing with others isn’t a requirement for morality. So he basically falls back to the opposite of Hanlon’s Razor, where he refuses to accept stupidity as a blanket excuse for malicious actions.

Stupidity can be used as an excuse for individual actions. “Oops, sorry I bumped into you. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” But it doesn’t work for explaining a long term pattern of behavior where the person has had opportunities to learn and improve. The headline statement is not an isolated incident where it can be explained away with stupidity or a lack of empathy. It’s more like “I go out of my way to shoulder-check people.” And that’s an intentional pattern of behavior, not an accident.