Metaphilosophy 48 (4):504-526 (2017)
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Abstract |
This article criticizes what it calls perspectival thought experiments, which require subjects to mentally simulate a perspective before making judgments from within it. Examples include Judith Thomson's violinist analogy, Philippa Foot's trolley problem, and Bernard Williams's Jim case. The article argues that advances in the philosophical and psychological study of empathy suggest that the simulative capacities required by perspectival thought experiments are all but impossible. These thought experiments require agents to consciously simulate necessarily unconscious features of subjectivity. To complete these experiments subjects must deploy theory-theoretical frameworks to predict what they think they would do. These outputs, however, systematically mislead subjects and are highly prone to error. They are of negligible probative value, and this bodes poorly for their continued use. The article ends with two suggestions. First, many thought experiments are not problematically perspectival. Second, it should be possible to carry out “in-their-shoes” perspectival thought experiments by off-loading simulations onto virtual environments into which philosophers place subjects.
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Keywords | empathy phenomenology simulation theory of mind thought experiments virtual reality |
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DOI | 10.1111/meta.12249 |
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References found in this work BETA
Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading.Amy Coplan - 2008 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (1):94-97.
Empathy: Its Ultimate and Proximate Bases.Stephanie D. Preston & Frans B. M. de Waal - 2001 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 25 (1):1-20.
View all 24 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
What It’s Like to Be a ___: Why It’s (Often) Unethical to Use VR as an Empathy Nudging Tool.Erick Jose Ramirez, Miles Elliott & Per-Erik Milam - 2021 - Ethics and Information Technology 1 (3):527-542.
The Relational Value of Empathy.Monika Betzler - 2019 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (2):136-161.
Real Moral Problems in the Use of Virtual Reality.Erick Jose Ramirez & Scott LaBarge - 2018 - Ethics and Information Technology (4):249-263.
Ecological and Ethical Issues in Virtual Reality Research: A Call for Increased Scrutiny.Erick Jose Ramirez - 2018 - Philosophical Psychology 32 (2):211-233.
Virtual Reality and Empathy Enhancement: Ethical Aspects.Jon Rueda & Francisco Lara - 2020 - Frontiers in Robotics and AI 7.
View all 9 citations / Add more citations
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