Animals, Emotion, & Morality

by Dixon, B. a.

• ISBN13: 9781591026297
• ISBN10: 1591026296
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2008-07-01
• Publisher: Prometheus Books

Summary

It seems obvious that animals have emotions. Dogs bark with excitement when their masters return home, snarl aggressively at the approach of a stranger, and cower with anxiety at the vets. Our ordinary ways of talking about animals suggest that animals and humans are emotional kin. In this exploration of our emotional kinship with animals, philosopher B A Dixon invites the reader to consider what is philosophically controversial about the idea that animals have emotions. Dixon guides the reader through a tangle of philosophical issues related to the concept of emotion and the various ways in which emotions are morally significant. She demonstrates that claims about animal emotion often stand in for a more fundamental property it is believed that animals and humans share-namely morality. Do some animals have "morally laden" emotions? Dixon examines various arguments in favour of this idea and finds them lacking. Her close analysis elucidates the concept of emotional kinship, the role of emotions as virtues, Darwin's principle about evolutionary continuity, the nature of primate empathy, the possibility of morally appraising children and animals, and how the animal narrative should be used as a methodology for thinking about the animal mind. Each chapter begins with an animal story or anecdote to illustrate the theme to be covered. Dixon concludes that we are unwarranted in attributing to animals morally laden emotions.

Author Biography

B. A. Dixon is associate professor of philosophy at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 9
Some Questions	p. 11
Emotional Kinship	p. 14
The Moral Kinship Hypothesis	p. 17
Morally Laden Emotions	p. 23
Evaluating the Moral Kinship Hypothesis	p. 25
Methodology	p. 26
Telling Tales	p. 28
Marking the Boundary	p. 29
Emotional Kinship	p. 35
Animals Are Like Us	p. 36
Eudaimonistic Emotions	p. 43
Wild with Grief	p. 43
A Barnyard Tale of Friendship and Loss	p. 45
Dying of Grief	p. 47
Conclusion	p. 54
Emotions and Moral Virtue	p. 59
Compassionate Animals	p. 61
What Is Compassion?	p. 65
What Is Moral Virtue?	p. 69
Why Are the Virtues Morally Good?	p. 73
What Is the Right Motivation?	p. 75
Thick and Thin	p. 77
Conclusion	p. 85
Evolutionary Continuity	p. 93
Darwin's Stories	p. 94
The Continuity Thesis	p. 98
Criticisms of the Continuity Thesis	p. 100
The Unity of Psychology	p. 104
Conclusion	p. 110
The Good Chimp	p. 117
Stories - Lending a Hand	p. 119
The Nature of Morality	p. 121
The Nature of Emotions	p. 129
Anthropomorphism	p. 137
Conclusion	p. 139
Children and Animals	p. 153
Childhood Animality	p. 153
A Puzzle about the Reactive Attitudes	p. 157
The Rationality Condition - Reflective Self-Control	p. 162
Morally Appraising Children	p. 164
The Intentionality Condition - Voluntary Action	p. 168
Conclusion	p. 171
Bad Wolves	p. 179
Story - The Loop	p. 180
Blaming	p. 184
Sharing "Simple" Emotions	p. 187
The Moral Responsibility of Trained Animals	p. 193
Conclusion	p. 199
Stories	p. 203
The Problem of Methodology	p. 205
The Role of Fancy	p. 208
The Limits of Fancy	p. 216
Reading for Context	p. 225
The Value of Animal Stories	p. 228
Conclusion	p. 231
Marking the Boundary	p. 239
Summary of the Argument	p. 243
Other Philosophical Approaches	p. 249
Human Uniqueness without Superiority	p. 252
Bibliography	p. 259
Index	p. 275
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