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I believe most everyone has the same capacity for empathy, its just a matter of unlocking the door so to speak, THAT is easier for some people. Its a difficult question even for the best neurologists to answer because emotions are basically a black box at this point, we can mess with the inputs and get some sort of other result, but just making a different kind of box to study is very challenging and we don't know how it works. Neurology research is still in the basic phase with things like vision and hearing that are easier to quantify than emotions. Don't want to get too far into the hardcore neurology (though if anyone is interested or has any further resources on that, do let me know) but its very fascinating to me.
I would guess the neurological basis is there in everyones DNA but the environment can affect the ability to express it. Some people have in fact learned to suppress it, that's a major symptom of PTSD. PTSD often involves a violation of trust from the outside world, thus the learned behavior is not to trust it, not to connect, the foundation of empathy. With some forms of PTSD, you can't even connect with or trust yourself, everything else seems especially distant. Empathy can be a very personal emotion, basically the understanding of yourself, its not necessarily external. That combination of empathy and self-awareness is very human.
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"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." --Abraham Lincoln
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