Non-human animal emotions: homological or functional kinds?
In our daily lives, we attribute emotions to non-human animals. However,the ontological commitments this implies are still in discussion. Particularly,philosophers still debate whether considerations about the mechanisms un-derlying emotions are necessary or not to attribute emotions to non-humanani...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE)
2022-12-01
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| Series: | Perspectiva Filosófica |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://periodicos.ufpe.br/revistas/index.php/perspectivafilosofica/article/view/256754 |
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| Summary: | In our daily lives, we attribute emotions to non-human animals. However,the ontological commitments this implies are still in discussion. Particularly,philosophers still debate whether considerations about the mechanisms un-derlying emotions are necessary or not to attribute emotions to non-humananimals. Here, I argue that such considerations are not sufficient, and that afunctionalist perspective is more fruitful than its main contender, the homo-logy thinking view. To do this, I consider findings from experimental psy-chology on emotion attribution to non-human animals and distinguish twoquestions concerning such emotions. I then discuss functionalism and ho-mology thinking, claiming that homology thinking precludes promising em-pirical hypotheses from the outset, resulting in a more limited position thanfunctionalism. Hence, functionalism inherits many benefits of homologythinking while providing more productive grounds.
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| ISSN: | 0104-6454 2357-9986 |