Online research in philosophy

An increasingly popular suggestion is that empathy and/or sympathy plays a foundational role in understanding harm norms and being motivated by them. In this paper, I argue these emotions play a rather more moderate role in harms norms than we are often led to believe. Evidence from people with frontal lobe damage suggests that neither empathy, nor sympathy is necessary for the understanding of such norms. Furthermore, people's understanding of why it is wrong to harm varies and is by no means limited to considerations of welfare arising from the abilities to sympathize and/or empathize. And the sorts of considerations of welfare that are central to sympathy and, to some extent empathy, are often already moralized. As such, these considerations cannot form the non-moral foundation of harm norms. Finally, empathy and sympathy are not the only emotions that motivate harm norms. Indeed, much of the evidence that has been adduced in favor of the motivational force of empathy and sympathy are studies on helping, which is quite a different behavior than aggression inhibition. Understanding and being motivated by harm norms are complex abilities. To understand them better, we need to move beyond the current fixation on empathy and sympathy.

The definition of cruelty used by the author is broad and ambiguous and does not distinguish between acts of sadism, abuse, and neglect that all lead to the suffering of other beings. Some of the research involving animal cruelty is reviewed with the aim of raising questions about the relevance of the pain–blood–death (PBD) complex described by Nell.

There are few commonalities between intraspecific aggression and predation and few convincing arguments for the conceptualisation of blood and pain as rewards for predation. Not cruelty, but ritualised intraspecific aggression is the predominant mechanism of accretion of social power and this, not cruelty, is what bestows reproductive advantages. Enjoyment of media cruelty is not reinforced by “emotional circuits” adapted to predation, but represents transient relief from culturally determined inhibition of aggression.

Presentation of evidence from multiple disciplines is the most impressive feature of Nell's article. I have observations and objections, however, about the following issues: (1) violence as a by-product of cruelty; (2) the equation of animal and human cruelty; (3) social psychological evidence contrary to the biological model; (4) whether prevention of cruelty best arises from predispositional or situational factors.

I ask four questions. Why should we think that our hominid ancestor’s predation is not just a causal influence but the main causal factor responsible for human cruelty? Why not think of human cruelty as a necessary part of a syndrome in which other phenomena are necessarily involved? What definitions of cruelty does he propose that we operate with? And what about the meaning of cruelty for human beings?

It is difficult to fully account for (1) cruelty in modern society and (2) female cruelty, referring only to a cruelty-satiation association. Instead it seems likely that cruelty acquires its reinforcing value via association with a range of reinforcers. In addition, when one's goal is violence prevention, it is important to identify causes that can be manipulated.

Recent findings in anthrozoology – the study of human–animal interactions – shed light on psychological and social aspects of cruelty. Here we briefly discuss four areas that connect animal cruelty and cruelty directed toward humans: (1) voices of perpetrators and their audiences, (2) gender differences in cruelty, (3) cruelty as play, and (4) the putative relationship between animal abuse and interpersonal violence.

I ask four questions: (1) Why should we think that our hominid ancestor's predation is not just a causal influence but the main causal factor responsible for human cruelty? (2) Why not think of human cruelty as a necessary part of a syndrome in which other phenomena are necessarily involved? (3) What definitions of cruelty does Nell propose that we operate with? And (4) what about the meaning of cruelty for human beings?

Cruelty does not emerge from a single emotional system of the brain. Its many cognitive aspects are intermeshed inextricably with the nature of negative affects ranging from fear to suffering. The rewards of cruelty may be counteracted by a variety of neurochemical factors as well as novel social policies.

Cruelty is widely regarded to be a uniquely human trait. This follows from a standard definition of cruelty as involving the deliberate infliction of suffering together with the empirical claim that humans are unique in their ability to attribute suffering (or any mental state) to other creatures. In this paper I argue that this definition is not optimum for the purposes of scientific inquiry. I suggest that its intuitive appeal stems from our abhorrence of cruelty, and our corresponding desire to define cruelty in such a way that it is almost always morally wrong. Scientifically speaking this is an arbitrary condition that inhibits our attempt to study cruelty as a natural phenomenon. I propose a fully naturalized definition of cruelty, one that considerably expands the range of creatures and behaviors that may be conceived as cruel.