La leçon de la main de Thomas Reid (1710-1796) qui est ici traduite et présentée date de ses années d’enseignement dans la chaire de philosophie morale à Glasgow. Elle consiste en la discussion intransigeante de la « théorie » du titulaire précédent, Adam Smith (1723-1790). Le « système de la sympathie » exposé dans The theory of moral sentiments est l’objet de plusieurs objections, puisées dans l’arsenal que Reid emploie dans son attaque générale contre toutes les formes de sentimentalisme moral (...) qui s’appuient unilatéralement sur la composante affective des évaluations. Le texte montre que Francis Hutcheson et David Hume n’étaient pas les seules cibles de cette critique et met en lumière certaines difficultés et certaines audaces de la « théorie de la morale » d’Adam Smith. (shrink)

The puzzle is this: I argue that for Reid, moral sense needs benevolent affections – i.e. some of our animal, non-cognitive principles of action – to apply the rules of duty. But he also thinks that duty can conflict with benevolent affections. So what happens in these conflict cases? I will argue that Reid takes moral psychology seriously and that he believes that our natural benevolent affections can be used as indicators of duty. Although creative, his account has a major (...) problem, because he does not resolve certain conflicts that arise between what action a duty prescribes and what action a natural affection, associated to that duty, inclines us to do. (shrink)

Our collective enthusiasm for empathy reflects a sense that it is deeply valuable. I show that empathy bears a complex and surprisingly problematic relation to another social epistemic phenomenon that we have reason to value, namely testimonial trust. My discussion focuses on empathy with and trust in people who are members of one or more oppressed groups. Empathy for oppressed people can be a powerful tool for engendering a certain form of testimonial trust, because there is a tight connection between (...) empathy and a approval of another's outlook. I then argue that the qualities of empathy that make it such a powerful tool for bridging differences and building trust also have a problematic upshot: they make it the case that reliance on empathy will sometimes have a distorting effect upon the ways we extend testimonial trust. (shrink)

Empathy is a form of emotionally charged imaginative perspective‐taking. It is also the unique source of a particular form of understanding, which I will call humane understanding. Humane understanding consists in the direct apprehension of the intelligibility of others’ emotions. This apprehension is an epistemic good whose ethical significance is multifarious. In this paper, I focus on elaborating the sense in which humane understanding of others is non‐instrumentally valuable to its recipients. People have a complex but profound need to be (...) humanely understood. Because we respond to others’ very real need when we pursue this sort of understanding of their emotions, empathy is best understood as itself a way of caring, rather than just a means to promote other caring behavior. (shrink)