Abstract
Emotions are a necessary constituent of moral agency, and bear a deep impact on moral decision-making. Yet, their relevance in animal ethics has remained without sufficient focus, which is arguably one of the reasons why the theories of animal ethics are not always practically persuasive. This chapter suggests that, in order for animals to gain more serious, practically applied moral attention, it would be fruitful to cultivate reflective empathy. Reflective empathy combines first-order methods of empathy (such as perception and affective resonation) with second-order reflection, thereby offering a method of recognising how and why we empathise with given animals, and how we could broaden our empathic ability. It is also suggested that the second-order nature of reflective empathy is best supported by two further mental capacities: attention and holistic knowledge (knowledge Sub Specie Aeternitatis). The main argument is that reflective empathy, together with attention and holistic knowledge as its two constituents, renders animal ethics more affectively persuasive.
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Notes
- 1.
In this paper, “affects” refer to experiences (qualified by scales of intensity and valence), and “emotions” to categories of experience (such as “love” or “anger”).
- 2.
Some explorations into “affective animal ethics” have been made. The ecofeminist tradition has underlined the relevance of emotions in animal ethics by focusing attention on the gender politics that has partly fed the philosophical marginalisation of, say, love and compassion (Donovan 2007). Particularly empathy has been offered as a fruitful basis for animal ethics, not only from the eco-feminist perspective (Gruen 2015), but also from the viewpoint of continental philosophy (Acampora 2006) and the analytic tradition (Aaltola 2018). Yet, applying the relevance of emotions to everyday animal ethics is still in its infancy and requires considerably more focus, also in regard to the role played by different varieties of empathy.
- 3.
- 4.
For Hume, what he termed “sympathy” comprised two processes: first, we note the bodily impressions of another and form an idea (for instance “suffering”) based on them, and second, that idea again becomes an impression in ourselves (whereby we begin to undergo suffering) (Hume). In contemporary terms, the first of these processes is akin to cognitive empathy, and the second to affective empathy.
- 5.
Lori Gruen’s “entangled empathy,” discussed in animal ethics, bears some similarities with reflective empathy. According to Gruen, entangled empathy is “a type of caring perception focused on attending to another’s experience of wellbeing… in which we recognize we are in relationships with others and are called upon to be responsive and responsible [toward the other]” (Gruen 2015). Within entangled empathy, focus is on identifying with the other animal and her context, responding to her emotionally and cultivating one’s moral perception. The notion of moral cultivation is shared by both entangled and reflective empathy. However, there are also key differences. First, the latter of the two prioritises second-order reflection, and second, it is less married to pre-established moral commitments (entangled empathy aims toward a given animal ethic, whereas reflective empathy leaves the specific content of ethics open).
- 6.
Attention understood as moral love is a close kin to and a constituent of reflective empathy (see Aaltola 2019).
- 7.
Murdoch’s thoughts echo key tenets of Buddhist philosophy, which also posit that the construction of “selfhood” and the primacy of one’s own desires tend to thwart the ability to witness reality. Indeed, Murdoch makes explicit references to Buddhism and its critique of approaching the world instrumentally, as if in the Cartesian manner we were “subjects” and the rest of the world “objects” (Murdoch 2003).
- 8.
Whilst attention requires us to focus on the details of art, with our metaphoric vision thus moving along the painting’s rough surfaces, approaching objects as art via Sub Specie Aeternitatis appears to require a more detached perspective.
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Aaltola, E. (2022). Affective Animal Ethics: Reflective Empathy, Attention and Knowledge Sub Specie Aeternitatis. In: Vitale, A., Pollo, S. (eds) Human/Animal Relationships in Transformation. The Palgrave Macmillan Animal Ethics Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85277-1_5
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