I recommend “Against Empathy” by Paul Bloom. Overlong for such a simple concept but it makes the point that things like “being nice” and “empathy” are nonsense concepts because we subjectively choose who we are nice to and who we have empathy for so all you’re doing is selecting a set of judgements which suit you.
I worked in a role where empathy was supposed to be an essential component of the job. Always found that the people who failed to deliver for certain difficult people were the ones who claimed to have the most empathy.