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Empathic reason imagination, morality, and the minds of others Luke Roelofs
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Roelofs, Luke, author.
- Series:
- Philosophy of memory and imagination
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Empathy.
- Judgment (Ethics).
- Other (Philosophy).
- Reason.
- empathy.
- reason.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- New York, NY Oxford University Press [2026]
- Summary:
- Is it rational to be moral? Is it irrational to not care at all about anybody but yourself? In 'Empathic Reason', Luke Roelofs defends Empathic Rationalism, a new account of the relationship between morality and rationality. They vindicate the idea that we rationally have to care about other people because failing to do so involves treating them as less real than ourselves, explaining this in terms of the indispensable role of imagination in understanding other minds
- Contents:
- Cover
- Half Title
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- 1 Why Care About Other People?
- The Challenge of Grounding Morality
- The Surprising Claim
- The Obvious Objection
- Empathic Rationalism
- The Solipsistic Diagnosis
- Empathy and Morality
- 2 What Is Empathy?
- Empathy as Imaginative Simulation of Other Minds
- Empathy as Sharing a Feeling
- Empathy as Perspective-Taking
- Empathy, Sympathy, and Compassion
- Empathy with Oneself?
- What Is Simulation?
- Anatomy of a Simulation
- Simulation, Theory, and Belief
- Voluntary and Involuntary Simulation
- Conscious and Unconscious Simulations
- What Is Imagination?
- The Difficulty of Defining Imagination
- Imaginings and Their Counterparts
- Which Simulations Are Imaginative Simulations?
- "Imaginative Simulation" or "Mental Simulation"?
- What Are Empathic Feelings?
- Defining "Feelings"
- Imaginative Counterparts of Feelings
- Are Empathic Feelings Real Feelings?
- Conclusion
- 3 What Does Imaginative Simulation Justify?
- Can Imaginative Simulation Justify Anything?
- Why Think Imagination Can Justify?
- Constrained Imagination
- Informative and Indispensable Imagining
- Can Imaginative Simulation Justify Action?
- Why Think Imagination Can Justify Action?
- The Just-Factual-Beliefs Challenge
- The Just-Existing-Desires Challenge
- The Just-Metacognitive-Beliefs Challenge
- Can We Really Imagine Being Someone Else?
- Misunderstanding Role Reversal
- Indexicals in Imaginative Simulation
- How the Self-Other Distinction Matters
- Is Egoism Just Brutely Rational?
- Rival Conceptions of Rationality
- The Force of Simplicity
- What Are the Principles of Imaginative Justification?
- What If We Don't Empathize?
- Foreseeable Rational Effects
- Regulation by Empathy
- The Redundancy Challenge
- 4 How Do We Understand Other Minds?
- Understanding from the Inside
- Failing to Understand
- Understanding How It Makes Sense
- Understanding How It Feels
- Physicalism and the From-the-Inside Thesis
- Understanding from the Inside as Imaginative Simulation
- Direct and Indirect Understanding
- Simulation and Recruitment
- Simulation and Memory
- Simulation and Theory
- Simulation, Perception, and Interaction
- Understanding Enabled by Capacities
- Scientific Understanding
- Regulating by a Capacity
- Lack of Understanding and Lack of Belief
- 5 How Is Egoism Possible?
- Fleshing Out the Obvious Objection
- An Argument Against the Solipsistic Diagnosis
- What Is Pretense?
- Layers of Representation
- Pretense and Emotion
- Immersive Fictions
- Target-Discordant Feelings
- Muted Empathy
- Pretense and Prediction
- Useful Fictions
- As-If Beliefs
- Other Minds as a Useful Fiction
- Pretense and Introspection
- Is Self-Misunderstanding Even Possible?
- When Is Self-Misunderstanding Plausible?
- The Plausibility of the Solipsistic Diagnosis
- Comparing Fictionalisms
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on May 14, 2026)
- Other Format:
- Print version :
- ISBN:
- 9780197519967
- 0197519962
- 9780197519943
- 0197519946
- OCLC:
- 1584387821
- Publisher Number:
- CIPO000373953
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license
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