Forms of Fellow Feeling: Empathy, Sympathy, Concern and Moral Agency

What is the basis of our capacity to act morally? This is a question that has been discussed for millennia, with philosophical debate typically distinguishing two sources of morality: reason and sentiment. This collection aims to shed light on whether the human capacity to feel for others really is central for morality and, if so, in what way. To tackle these questions, the authors discuss how fellow feeling is to be understood: its structure, content and empirical conditions. Also discussed are the exact roles that relevant psychological features - specifically: empathy, sympathy and concern - may play within morality. The collection is unique in bringing together the key participants in the various discussions of the relation of fellow feeling to moral norms, moral concepts and moral agency. By integrating conceptually sophisticated and empirically informed perspectives, Forms of Fellow Feeling will appeal to readers from philosophy, psychology, sociology and cultural studies.

Neil Roughley is Chair for Philosophical Anthropology and Ethics at the University of Duisburg–Essen. His systematic areas of specialisation lie in ethics, action theory, philosophical psychology and the theory of human nature. His historical interests concern the classical figures of ethical sentimentalism, particularly Adam Smith and David Hume, as well as the history of action theory. He is the author of Wanting and Intending. Elements of a Philosophy of Practical Mind (2015) and co-editor of the German-language volume Wollen. Seine Bedeutung, seine Grenzen (2015). Roughley also co-edited On Moral Sentimentalism (2015) with Thomas Schramme.

Thomas Schramme is Chair in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. His background is in philosophy, but he has often worked in interdisciplinary projects. He has published widely in the philosophy of medicine and psychiatry, mainly on the concepts of health and disease. He also specialises in moral psychology and political philosophy. Most recently he has published the Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine (co-edited with Steven Edwards, 2017). He has edited several collections of essays, for instance Being Amoral: Psychopathy and Moral Incapacity (2014). Schramme also co-edited On Moral Sentimentalism (2015) with Neil Roughley.