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  • Varieties of Empathy: Moral Psychology and Animal Ethics by Elisa Aaltola
  • Susana Monsó (bio)
Varieties of Empathy: Moral Psychology and Animal Ethics
by Elisa Aaltola
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield International, 2018

If any one thing characterizes contemporary debates on empathy, it is the amount of literature devoted purely to defining the term. The definitional disagreement is such that it has even been claimed that “there are probably nearly as many definitions of empathy as people working on the topic” (Vignemont and Singer 2006, 435). Anyone attempting to contribute to the empathy debates will know that this claim is only barely an exaggeration. “Empathy” can refer to a neural mechanism, a form of social cognition, a moral motivation, an ability, an emotion, even a type of behavior. The fundamental ambiguity that comes with this term will make Elisa Aaltola’s Varieties of Empathy a very useful resource for anyone who intends to navigate the sea of available conceptions of empathy and especially for those interested in grasping how different forms of empathy can hinder or improve our relationships with other species.

Aaltola identifies six distinct forms of empathy, while at the same time acknowledging that these varieties can also at times interact with and support each other. Projective empathy involves imagining how we ourselves would feel if we were in the situation of another; simulative empathy consists of imagining that we are the other person (thus bracketing our own personalities and preferences) and engaging in a simulation of how that person feels in a concrete context; cognitive empathy happens when we grasp others’ emotive states through a process of direct perception or by way of an inference from their behavior to the underlying mental state; affective empathy is the ability to resonate with the emotions of others while maintaining a clear self-other distinction; embodied empathy consists of the direct perception of others’ subjectivity [End Page 185] by means of a bodily interaction; and reflective empathy implies the adoption of a metaperspective on empathy, whereby one constantly moves from the first-order to the second-order level, reflecting on the emotions one is experiencing in response to another and on the attitudes and beliefs that shape such responses, thus gaining a better understanding of our own empathic processes and their limitations.

Aaltola devotes one whole chapter of her Varieties of Empathy to each of these forms of empathy (barring projective and simulative ones, which are both discussed within the same chapter). The structure of each chapter is roughly the same: Aaltola begins with a discussion of how the variety of empathy in question should be best understood and to which philosophical traditions it is connected. She then explains how this form of empathy can have a role to play in our interactions with other species. Lastly, she discusses the connection of this form of empathy to what she terms “moral agency” (which she understands in a specific, normatively laden way), and argues as to what extent empathizing in this particular way can either improve or hinder our moral interactions with both humans and animals. The use of the same structure in each chapter makes the reading experience rather repetitive and inclines me to think that this book functions better as a glossary of terms than a monograph. However, it is worth mentioning that, in addition to these chapters, there is a long chapter at the end in which Aaltola carefully considers and argues against the criticisms that different scholars have raised with respect to empathy and its relation to morality. This last chapter can also be a useful resource for those interested in how the challenges that empathy faces can be overcome.

Aaltola uses the term “moral agency” in a specific way distinct from common usage. In practical philosophy, the term moral agency is normally used to refer to a capacity that most human beings share, which allows us to both behave in morally laden ways and to be held morally responsible for (at least some of) what we do. In this sense, moral agency includes both the capacity to do good and the capacity to do evil. Aaltola, however, does not use this term in its descriptive sense...

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