The Limits of Imagination. Animals, Empathy, Anthropomorphis

The project aims at an analysis of the relevance as well as the limits of imagination in ethics. Animal ethics will serve as an important example of the investigations, but also the perspective on and the treatment of humans, who do not conform to an alleged average normality, (for instance, people with disability) play a pivotal role. To date, many relevant theories in ethics generally and in animal ethics in particular emphasise (supposedly) rational principles and methods when reflecting on moral obligations. Yet such a procedure disregards that, in a responsible treatment of humans and animals, imagination and empathy which always show an emotional component play a crucial role. Moreover, it is relevant to be aware under which conditions and in the face of which groups of living beings we reach the limits of understanding, empathy and compassion. Is it always easily possible to empathise with a jellyfish, a bat or, for instance, with a human person with autism and, consequently, do justice to them? Drawing from relevant theories on empathy and intersubjectivity, this project will, therefore, tackle the following questions: 1. What can imagination do? How is our imaginative power influenced by social and cultural realities? To what extent can we learn or at least support imagination? 2. Empathy, i.e. the capacity to read and understand others emotions and intentions, will be examined regarding the basic possibility to know something about foreign mental states. Moreover, we will tackle the question how cultural prerequisites co-determine what we can(not) understand and where the frontier of empathy lies. 3. Are we always bound to a specifically human perspective? What would that mean for our dealing with animals, wouldnt we find, thus, only the human in the animal? If we tacitly proceed from a particular image of the human how does this influence empathy with those humans, who do not conform to this image due to impairment, illness or other forms of anormality?