Another problem I see in the article is that it calls upon guilt as one of the possible "replacements" for empathy, but guilt to me is a consequence of empathy.

Not to mention that people seem to be really good at guilt-proofing themselves when they see it coming, or transferring their guilt onto things that do more to salve conscience than actually help a situation.

As someone on the autistic spectrum it's been my impression that neurotypicals in my society really aren't that great at empathy as a general thing -- "strong empathy" seems to be a specific trait, like strong muscles or a gift for music. Typically NTs seem to be looking for adherence to recognizable scripts as a necessary precondition for empathy, and the moment the subject deviates from that their ability to empathize is gone -- people do inconvenient or upsetting things "to get attention" or to annoy them, animals are reduced to two-bit animatrons or even deemed without subjective experience; in many cases even autistic people are read this way, and sociopaths if the person has a coherent idea of them will be thought to be this way (even as they miss the sociopath in their midst, who may be better at faking signalling).

I guess this paper doesn't feel like a great takedown of empathy from my perspective, because the average person already seems to be fairly bad at it.