So this might just be me rambling but...
The first few chapters of my book about great apes seem to be an attempt to cause sympathy for the apes. Is this okay? It seems like a blatant attempt to make them seem human so we can allow ourselves to feel sensitive towards them. This might be the best way to start a revolution of thinking among people reading the book, but is it fair of the authors?
An excellent question. What does everyone think?
ReplyDeleteWhat book are you reading, the Great Ape Project? What is the main objective of the book?
ReplyDeleteWe often censor our feelings and emotions in rational discourse; yet sympathy and empathy are at times the driving force of our social interactions and rational propositions. If the author is attempting to raise emotional awareness towards the apes by emphasizing certain human-like characteristics, this may represent an honest examination based on the feeling that apes deserve some form of protection, perhaps even personhood status. Yet, I wonder if we may feel sympathy and empathy with other creatures less like us; lobsters for example. We might ask, is it anthropomorphic of us to demand human-like conditions of others before we may allow ourselves to feel empathy or sympathy? And, does our reason dominate our emotions in such scenarios? Is this reasonable? Unless we are discussing such things as mathematical certainty for example, we cannot avoid emotions; perhaps without feeling and emotion, all things rational are empty concepts.
ReplyDeleteI think that if it is the objective of the author to make you empathetic toward apes in order to start this revolution - then it is fair. If this is the whole point of their book, then the authors are going to provide what they think is the best argument, that may be based of pathos. I personally believe that scientific data and strong arguments that are based of facts is the best way to present a case- but maybe this ape data wasn't compelling enough to do this. And when in doubt, you can always play the sympathy card.
ReplyDeleteEven mathematical certainty still demands that you care enough to make the inference and get the right answer. Hence emotion is irreducible even in this context.
ReplyDeleteWhether the book commits a fallacy of appeal to pity, or rather invokes appropriate emotional response to apes, will depend on how the author uses the emotional data. We can't settle the question without reading the book.