Empathy with vicious perspectives? A puzzle about the moral limits of empathetic imagination.
Are there limits to what it is morally okay to imagine? More particularly, is imaginatively inhabiting morally suspect perspectives something that is off-limits for truly virtuous people? In this paper, I investigate the surprisingly fraught relation between virtue and a familiar form of imaginative...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 199; no. 3/4; pp. 9621 - 9648 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Dec2021
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=154096868&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 154096868 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Dec2021 vid: 199 iid: 3/4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 154096868 10.1007/s11229-021-03219-z ppf: 9621 ppct: 27 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 704KB tig: atl: Empathy with vicious perspectives? A puzzle about the moral limits of empathetic imagination. aug: au: Bailey, Olivia affil: Department of Philosophy, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA su: Smith, Adam, 1723-1790 Empathy Imagination Puzzles Perspective taking Psychology sug: subj: Smith, Adam, 1723-1790 Empathy Imagination Puzzles Perspective taking Psychology keyword: Adam Smith Evaluation McDowell Perception Sensibility Sympathy Understanding Vice Virtue ab: Are there limits to what it is morally okay to imagine? More particularly, is imaginatively inhabiting morally suspect perspectives something that is off-limits for truly virtuous people? In this paper, I investigate the surprisingly fraught relation between virtue and a familiar form of imaginative perspective taking I call empathy. I draw out a puzzle about the relation between empathy and virtuousness. First, I present an argument to the effect that empathy with vicious attitudes is not, in fact, something that the fully virtuous person can indulge in. At least one prominent way of thinking about the psychology of the virtuous person excludes the possibility that the virtuous could emotionally apprehend the world in a less than virtuous way, and empathizing with vicious outlooks does seem to run afoul of that restriction. Then, I develop an argument that runs in the contrary direction: virtue in fact requires empathy with vicious outlooks, at least in some situations. There is reason to think that a crucial part of being virtuous is ministering effectively to others' needs, and there is also reason to think that other people may need to be empathized with, even if their emotional outlooks are at least minorly vicious. Finally, I outline two different solutions to this puzzle. Both solutions hold some promise, but they also bring new challenges in their train. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2021. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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