Fighting Bullying with Babies

Lots of people these days are lamenting the lack of empathy in today's society. With feelings of intolerance being widespread, there are more and more reports and fears of bullying. I often wonder, if people are more empathetic, would it make them less likely to act like a jerk? Being insensitive is one thing, but to know how it feels when someone is hurt and to actively hurt them is malicious behavior, pure and simple. It's the difference between being amoral and immoral. Is it still considered malicious if a person understands that an action will hurt you, but they just don't care because it doesn't hurt them or that hurting you is to their advantage? Would empathy mitigate selfish behavior as well?

In any case, the below article seems to suggest that with empathy, people are more likely to be nicer and kinder. I don't know to what extent people become nicer and kinder in the experiment cited, but it gives evidence that perhaps, most people are jerks because they're insensitive rather than malicious. Maybe there is hope of mankind after all?

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/fighting-bullying-with-babies/?src=me&ref=homepage