Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Animal PhilosophyAuthor(s): Elisa Aaltola

Source: Environmental Philosophy , Vol. 10, No. 2 (Fall 2013), pp. 75-96
Published by: Philosophy Documentation Center

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 Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and
Animal Philosophy
Elisa Aaltola
Department of Social Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, PL 1627, 70211
Kuopio, Finland; [email protected]

The aim of this paper is to investigate key works on empathy and intersubjectivity and to
compare how they relate to non-human animals. It will be suggested that intersubjectivity
forms a powerful objection to skepticism concerning the minds of other animals and lays
the grounds for normatively loaded empathic responses. It will also be argued that the
core of intersubjectivity takes place outside of propositional language, thus defying the
linguocentric stance often adopted in relation to other animals. Although descriptions
of non- or pre-lingual responses is challenging, the type of “attention” brought forward
by Simone Weil is offered as one alternative way of understanding what it is to pay heed
to animal others, and the work of the ethologist Barbara Smuts is brought forward as
an example of such attention.

Introduction
“Empathy,” “sympathy,” “compassion,” “intersubjectivity,” and
“emotional contagion” have gained considerable renewed interest in
recent years. Neuroscientists, social psychologists, cultural theorists,
and philosophers alike have begun to argue for the relevance of these
loosely related, often conflated terms. The aim of this paper is to map
out the potential of this development for animal philosophy. Emphasis
will be placed particularly on empathy and intersubjectivity, as the
question goes: “What is it like to relate to a bat, a pig, or a cow?”
It is not surprising that empathy and its co-concepts have begun
to garner attention. Reason in its more detached form has been the
target of increasing re-evaluation ever since Genevieve Lloyd’s gender-
based critique of its role in Western philosophy (1984). In animal
philosophy, a similar re-evaluation has been endorsed by figures
such as Mary Midgley (1983), and has been perhaps best expressed
by Cora Diamond, when she argues that reason can act as a form
of “deflection” from the obvious and tangible in front of us (2004).
This type of criticism has been echoed by many past thinkers, such
as Edmund Husserl and Hannah Arendt, who both warned us of
mathematizing reality by using nothing but reasoned categories and
detached logics between them to explain what surrounds us (Husserl
1970; Arendt 1968). The main thesis behind all these claims is that

Environmental Philosophy 10 (2), 75–96.

Copyright © 2013 by Environmental Philosophy.
Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

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76 Elisa Aaltola

with nothing but reason to guide us, we gain a distorted view, which
can easily be manipulated so as to allow us to ignore or even willfully
cause the plight of others. It is this that has sparked many ecofeminists
to defy the heightened status of reason (Plumwood 1991), and which
has served to at least partially question the type of animal ethics that
is furiously rationalistic.
It has to be noted that intersubjectivity and empathy have been
explored in animal philosophy. Continental authors have made
intersubjectivity one central theme of their thinking on other animals.
This follows the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, who famously
maintained that the “faces” of other human beings leave no room for
skepticism. The face signals us that the other being is an individual,
and “convinces even ‘the people who do not wish to listen’” (Levinas
1961, 201). Although Levinas himself was critical of the mindedness
of non-human creatures (and thus the possibility of an “animal
face”), Matthew Calarco has argued that his stance applies to also
other animals (2008; see also Wolfe 2003). Here the other being is
met via an immediate, embodied encounter, and laid bare of all rigid
conceptualizations (or “totalizations”)—all of which brings us close
to intersubjectivity. Moreover, echoing the philosophy of Levinas,
Jacques Derrida has maintained that shared vulnerability interrupts
self-endowed existence, and as such lays the path for an “interruptive
encounter” with animals, thus forcing us to respond to the animal
condition (2004). Again, a sense of intersubjectivity is clearly present,
as exemplified in Derrida’s famous cat narrative. Derrida talked of
“moments of madness” (Calarco 2008) when suddenly seeing a cat
(“that cat”) gaze at him. Words escaped and failed him, and as soon as
they began to resurface, the moment—during which the subjectivity of
the cat had emerged crystal clear—was lost (Derrida 2004). For Derrida
(and for Calarco), these moments defy Western metaphysics, which in
his view partly derives from the conceptual dualism between humans
and all other animals. Suddenly, there is no great Heideggerian abyss
between myself and the pig or the hen, no unreachable dividing line
that forever distances humans from their kin—rather, one creature
meets another, and both recognize each other’s subjectivity. A further
relevant theorist is Gilles Deleuze, who talked of “becomings” or
“lines of flight” between humans and other animals. Rigid identities
and categories constructed around them lose meaning, and what is
important is the process itself, the becoming something, the movement
in between (Deleuze & Guattari 1988). Here, we are pushed toward
radical intersubjectivity, wherein even boundaries between self and
other are questioned. Similar continental themes, from the viewpoint
of an embodied, somatic compassion, have been elegantly explored
by Ralph Acampora (2006). Yet, the precise nature of intersubjectivity

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 Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Animal Philosophy 77

in the context of human-animal relations, laid bare of surrounding

metaphysical notions and critiques, requires further scrutiny. Hence,
this paper hopes to add to, or valorize, existing continental thinking
by concentrating directly on the phenomenon of intersubjectivity.
Empathy, on the other hand, has been brought forward in the
feminist care tradition. Resting on Carol Gilligan’s notion of gendered
ethics, care theorists have suggested that reason and justice have been
used to subjugate women, nature, and other animals. Instead, what
is required is an emotive, contextual, and relational take on ethics,
linked to feminine identity. Here, a wide variety of emotions related
to the broad umbrella notion of “care” are brought forward. Empathy
stands as just one attitude among a plethora of emotions, and
although it is often referred to (Curtin 1991), and although common
ways of avoiding it have been mapped out (Adams 2007; Luke 1995),
it remains seldom analyzed in any greater detail. Two exceptions
emerge: Josephine Donovan, who has talked of the importance of
listening to animal voices, has offered historical analyses on empathy,
with particular emphasis in Schopenhauer and Scheler (2007), and
Lori Gruen has utilized empathy as a method of understanding
and respecting differences among beings (2007). Yet, even in these
accounts the precise nature of empathy, and the criticism directed
against it, are not a key emphasis. Therefore, it is hoped that this paper
will shed more light on what the often mentioned but rarely analyzed
“empathy” is.

Empathy as Origins
Before exploring the precise meaning of “empathy”, it is good to note
that, of course, interest in empathy and its co-concepts is nothing
new. Their famous advocates include Adam Smith and David Hume,
the latter of whom powerfully maintained that “No quality of human
nature is more remarkable, both in itself and in its consequence, than
that propensity we have to sympathize with others, and to receive by
communication their inclinations and sentiments, however different
from, or even contrary to our own” (Hume 1975, 316).1 Sympathy

1. For Hume, “in sympathy there is an evident conversion of an idea into an imp-
ression” with the use of imagination (Hume 1975, 320). External signs in others
convey an idea of an emotion in us, which is again “converted into an impres-
sion,” which can “become the very passion itself and produce an equal emotion,
as any original affection” (Hume 1975, 317). The emotions of others are felt so
vividly that they seem like our own: “The sentiments of others can never affect us,
but by becoming, in some measure, our own: in which case they operate upon us
. . . In the very same manner, as if they had been originally deriv’d from our own
temper and disposition” (Hume 1975, 593). Therefore, sympathy enables one to
experience what others experience—albeit in a weaker degree.

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78 Elisa Aaltola

emerges as an extraordinary capacity that acts as the doorway to

the reality of others and provides the grounds for morality. Arthur
Schopenhauer talks of “compassion” (Mitleid) as the only true
motivator of moral actions. He summarizes: “Only insofar as an action
has sprung from compassion does it have moral value, and every action
resulting from any other motives has none” (Schopenhauer 1998, 144).
Edith Stein, Husserl’s brilliant student and one of the few Western
philosophers to dedicate a whole book to the notion of “empathy”
(Einfühlung), also sought to draw links between empathy and morality.
She argued that we have “value feelings” (1989, 101) and that “the
ability to love, evident in our loving, is rooted in another depth from
the ability to value morally” (102). In the process, an important role
is played by empathy, for it enables deeper familiarity with others
and therefore ultimately also with morality: “Every comprehension of
different persons can become the basis of an understanding of value”
(116). Through perceiving others, we also come to perceive morality.
Contemporary thinkers have made similar correlations. For
instance, Michael Slote has asserted that “One can claim that actions
are morally wrong and contrary to moral obligation if, and only if, they
reflect or exhibit or express an absence (or lack) of fully developed
empathic concern for (or caring about) others on the part of the
agent” (2007, 31). Famous for her takes in neurophilosophy, Patricia
Churchland argues that morality “originates in the neurobiology of
attachment and bonding” (2011, 7) and continues: “Kant’s conviction
that detachment from emotions is essential in characterizing moral
obligation is strikingly at odds with what we know about our biological
nature” (175).2 According to Churchland, it is typical to social species
that their neurobiology enables individuals to care also for the interests
of (some) others, and this care in its various manifestations (including
empathy) forms the foundations of morality. Renowned psychologist
Simon Baron-Cohen has supported the correlation by exploring the
effects that lack of empathy has. Discussing various familiar personality
disorders (such as psychopathic tendencies and narcissism), which are
characterized by the inability to empathize, Baron-Cohen concludes
that lack of moral concern or awareness can often be reduced to
empathy disability. The key ingredient is objectification of others,
which walks hand in hand with lack of empathy: “When you treat
someone as an object, your empathy has been turned off” (Baron-
Cohen 2011, 7). Here, Martin Buber’s suggestion that one must

2. Primatologist Frans de Waal argues in a similar vein: “Aid to others in need

would never be internalized as a duty without the fellow-feeling that drives
people to take an interest in one another. Moral sentiments came first; moral
principles second” (1996, 87).

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 Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Animal Philosophy 79

remain in an “I-you” mode of thinking, instead of transgressing into

an “I-it” mode, is important. According to Baron-Cohen, it is the
latter mode that accompanies “empathy erosion,” and enables one to
treat others as objects instead of subjects, as points of manipulation
instead of valuable beings.
This relation between empathy and origins of morality has clear
relevance for animal philosophy. Ever since Diamond brought
forward the term “deflection,” it has appeared as if standard, reason-
prioritizing animal ethics (until now the most substantial segment of
animal philosophy) has been in trouble. This is not so much because
it fails to recognize the crucial role of shared meanings (Diamond’s
hypothesis), but because it is at times altogether ignorant of the very
factor that quite possibly motivates and directs moral thinking. You
may offer me a perfectly reasoned depiction of why the argument from
marginal cases (which lays down analogies between the treatment of
animals and human beings of equal cognitive level) applies, but if
I empathize more with disabled people and babies than I do with
non-human animals, I may quickly ignore your argument as if I had
never heard it. Animal ethics is yet to meet the human animal in her
entirety—her moral phenomenology—and it may be because of this
that many have been left un-persuaded by the so-called “Singer-
Regan” arguments.
Paying attention to empathy is important also for another reason.
It would appear that most societies and far too many individual
people suffer from empathy erosion, and even psychopathic and
narcissistic tendencies, in their relations to non-human animals. In
Buber’s terminology, they treat other animals as an ‘it’ to be rendered
into an object of manipulation. One could say that modern animal
industries are the extreme manifestation of manipulation, within
which even the most tangible of sufferings gains little relevance. The
non-human animal of the industrial farm has become the ultimate
object, whose experiences count for little or nothing. Arguably, it
is precisely the unwillingness to empathize with other animals that
has led to the current climate of “mechanomorphia” (Crist 1999) or
“anthropodenial” (de Waal 2006), within which animals are wrongly
depicted as machine-like creatures poor or wholly lacking in mental
content and ability. Hence, in order to change this epistemic relation
to other animals, within which pigs and cows are approached as “its,”
empathy is required. In other words, empathy acts as a catalyst into
perceiving animals as something more than objects of manipulation.
Following suit, it may be only by adopting empathy that the practical
demands brought forward in animal ethics can be achieved.

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80 Elisa Aaltola

Empathy as a Way of Knowing

There is considerable divergence when it comes to definitions
of “empathy.”3 Empathy and its sister concepts are often used
indiscriminately—particularly sympathy, compassion, and empathy
tend to be conflated. One often repeated distinction is that whereas
sympathy and compassion concern feeling for another being, empathy
consists of feeling with (see Nilsson 2003). Yet, things are not so easy.
Particularly compassion can also be viewed as a strong feeling with
another—so strong that categories between “I” and “other” crumble
down. Hence, Schopenhauer brings compassion close to another sister
concept, “emotional contagion,” since within it “I suffer directly with
him, I feel his woe just as I ordinarily feel only my own” (Schopenhauer
1998, 143). Hume talks similarly of “sympathy,” thus proving the
common distinction lacking. An alternative way to distinguish
empathy from its siblings is to peel off this contagious element. Such
a decision was made by Stein, who argued that “Empathy is a kind
of act of perceiving sui generis. . . . Empathy . . . is the experience of
foreign consciousness in general” (1989, 11). What is important in this
account is that empathy is representational, like memory or fantasy, not
“primordial”: it represents the experiences of others to us, but we do not
actually have to feel those experiences. Therefore, empathy is a quasi-
experience, rather than a direct, lived experience, of the mental contents
of another being. This means that whereas sympathy and compassion
blur the “I-other” distinction, in empathy it remains intact (hence,
Stein criticized the stance—advocated by her contemporary Theodore
Lipps—according to which in empathy the boundaries between “I”
and “other” disappear). When looking at a fox trapped in a cage, I can
perceive that she is in a state of fear and pain, without needing to feel
this fear and pain myself.4
Therefore, empathy is usually separated from emotional contagion:
we do not need to share another person’s mental state in order to
have empathy with her. Consequently, it is commonly argued that
empathic experiences are “off-line” (see Nilsson 2003; Goldman 1995).
But of what is this quasi-, off-line experience comprised? According
to some, imagination takes center stage, as we try to imagine what
the experiences of others are like, without necessarily sharing those

3. References to “sympathy” are very old, and can already be found in Aristot-
le’s philosophy. “Empathy,” on the other hand, although also briefly mentioned
by Aristotle, came as a translation from the German Einfuhlung (“feeling oneself
into”) in the early 20th century. Theodor Lipps was one of the most popular
advocates of this term, and used it in relation to aesthetics.
4. In a state of empathy, we do not actually feel the pain, fear, or sadness of
others, but rather engage in grief or concern for what we perceive to be the un-
fortunate state of the other individual (Churchland 2011).

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 Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Animal Philosophy 81

experiences. From this perspective, empathy is like sketching, with

the help of imagination, the experiences of another creature. To use
Peter Goldie’s words, “Empathy is a process or procedure by which
a person centrally imagines the narrative (the thoughts, feelings and
emotions) of another person” (2000, 195). Yet, it would appear Stein is
after something more direct or immediate, as for her empathy is a form
of intuition to be separated from mental states we can doubt, such as
perception or fantasy. Following suit, we can loosely define empathy as
an experienced insight into the experiences of others. When I empathize,
I grasp (or rather I feel that I grasp) in an embodied, affective sense the
mental states of another being—however, I do not need to feel those
experiences as they originally occurred, nor do I simply intentionally
produce detached flights of fancy or inference. (In contemporary
neuropsychological literature, empathy is often divided into “affective”
and “cognitive” varieties—see Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright 2004. The
definition used here forms a broad combination of both.)
This definition goes some way toward answering the age old question,
which concerns the leap of faith required in inter-species empathy.
How can a human being cross the species boundary and perceive the
experiences of other animals? As Richard Holton and Rae Langton
emphasize, many other animals may simply be too different from human
beings for empathy to produce accurate readings. Thomas Nagel’s famous
bat, together with species such as the platypus, remain overly singular for
one to conceive of their experiences: “We have no idea what it is like to
see the world this way—and no amount of sharpening our sensitivities
could ever help us find out.” As a result, “the method of imaginative
identification has achieved nothing” (Holton & Langton 1998, 15).
Fortunately, Stein’s approach offers a partial solution to this issue
of other minds. Human beings do not need to share the experiences
of other animals and thereby claim to fully know them, for all that
suffices is that they seek—with whatever limited means are available—
to envision what those experiences might be. In other words, the
species differences need not be miraculously collapsed and the human
morphed into the non-human mind, for the latter remains her distinct,
breathtakingly different and in many ways unknowable being even
when we experience empathy toward her. The catch is to perceive of
insight as something other than simulation or complete familiarity, and
rather to understand it as a vision of something one may be unable to
explain or fully depict, but which nonetheless appears real, tangible,
and immediately present.
Stein maintains that empathy toward other animals is entirely
possible, for even if their physiologies are different or even alien in many
ways, they are not so distinct as to disable all identification—particularly
when we position them in the context of lived experience. Stein argues

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82 Elisa Aaltola

as follows: “Should I perhaps consider a dog’s paw in comparison with

my hand, I do not have a mere physical body, either, but a sensitive
limb of a living body. And here a degree of projection is possible, too.
For example, I may sense-in pain when the animal is injured” (1989,
59). Empathy springs from an awareness of how bodies very different
from each other still encompass key points of affinity, such as sentience
and life, through which one can seek to envision the lived experiences
of others, even if often only faintly and only for a moment. As Stein
argues: “This individual is not given as a physical body, but as a
sensitive, living body belonging to an ‘I,’ an ‘I’ that senses, thinks, feels
and wills. The living body of this ‘I’ not only fits into my phenomenal
world but is itself the centre of orientation of such phenomenal world.
It faces this world and communicates with me” (5). Body parts and
sensory systems that appear alien can perform similar experienced
functions or phenomenalities for their subjects, and these experiences
are communicable. Therefore, the worlds of bats and platypuses may
not be wholly beyond our reach, even if they include much that a
human being can never completely fathom let alone experience. A
whale in the deep blue may experience fear or joy, despite the obvious
physiological and environmental differences. The key here is to look at
behavior and follow its lead: if the behavior of the whale paves the way
for insights or perceptions of fear, no further reasons may be required.
Perhaps in an effort to portray this line of thinking, Stein maintains that
understanding foreign expressions is equal to comprehending other
animals: “thus, too, I can understand the tail wagging of a dog as an
expression of joy if its appearance and its behavior otherwise disclose
such feelings and its situation warrants them” (86).5
Indeed, Stein emphasises that it is possible to entertain experiences
one has little familiarity with: “He who has never looked a danger in
the face himself can still experience himself as brave or cowardly in the
empathic representation of another’s situation” (115). Perhaps similarly,
she who has never known what it is like to be confined to a space hardly
the size of one’s body or (more positively) what it is like to swirl through

5. But how, exactly, can empathy allow for the difference of those animals
who are far removed from human beings? Some further advice is found from
Smith, who argued in his Theory of Moral Sentiments for a contextual take on sym-
pathy: “Sympathy does not in general arise from an idea of another person’s
passion, but rather from an idea of the situation in which the other finds him-
self” (Nilsson, 47). Smith asserts that “I consider what I should suffer if I was
really you, and I not only change circumstances with you, but I change persons
and characters” (Smith 2002, 374). It would appear such contextuality is crucial
if empathy with other animals is to hold relevance. What is needed is thorough
attention to the situation of the animal—not only her physiology, but also her
history, sensory world, surroundings, evolution, etc.

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 Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Animal Philosophy 83

waves can imagine the anxiety or joy of doing so. Again, it is behavior
that serves as the reference point and constructs empathetic insights:
the sorry gait, the barren look, or the playful flicks of the tail. Of course,
there likely exists a varied plethora of experiences wholly unknown to
human beings. This is the little-talked-of aspect of the mental lives of
other animals: the types of mental contents that are wholly specific to
them. Here, it is perhaps only imagination, a flight of fancy, that can
serve as a proximate—and easily mislead—guide. Yet, it would be an
overestimation to suggest that all non-human experience falls into this
category, and that therefore none of it will ever be a legitimate point of
call for empathy.
The obvious question still remains: How can one ever know for
certain? Even if human beings need not share the experiences of other
animals, the issue of accuracy seemingly stays relevant. Are these insights
not mere projection, for surely behaviour too can be misinterpreted?
Yet for Stein, such a question makes no sense. According to her,
empathy is “inner intuition” (34), a form of immediate knowledge
that offers certainty, a beyond-doubt grasp of the experiences of other
beings. The accuracy of empathy cannot sensibly be questioned: “The
world in which we live is not only a world of physical bodies but also
of experiencing subjects external to us, of whose experiences we know.
This knowledge is indubitable” (5). This point must be emphasized.
For Stein, empathy cannot be questioned, for it is the very method
through which we can comprehend that the world and even our
own experiences exist: it is only by understanding that we and our
surroundings are there for others to witness and experience that we do
not fall into the desperate abyss of solipsism and beyond. In fact, the
search for evidence is absurd, as Stein continues to claim that through
the viewpoint of “inference of analogy,” “we see nothing around us but
physical soulless and lifeless bodies” (26). For her, this is “odium of
complete absurdity.” In our everyday dealings with others, it is empathy
rather than inference that offers certainty by being a platform which it
makes no sense to question (or makes sense only for those who have not
come to grips with what is at stake). Without empathy, we not only live
in a world of pure physicality, but will have to question even this world’s
existence: “Empathy as the basis of intersubjective experience becomes
the condition of possible knowledge of the existing outer world” (64).
What is more, comprehending one’s own individuality is dependent on
grasping the individuality of others: “Our own individual . . . occurs on
the basis of the perception of foreign physical bodies in which we come
upon a conscious life by the mediation of empathy. We first actually
consider ourselves as an individual, as ‘one “I” amongst many,’ when

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84 Elisa Aaltola

we have learned to consider ourselves by ‘analogy’ with another” (64).6

Husserl offers a similar argument. When we perceive the world,
we are already assuming that others have their own viewpoints to it,
that it is shared and interpreted via perhaps innumerable perspectives:
“And each subject can at the same time recognize, in virtue of mutual
understanding, that what is given to him and what is given to his
companions is one and the same thing” (Husserl 1989, 208). It is only
by abandoning skepticism and affirming intersubjectivity that we can
calmly trust that the world and its contents exist and are not just a
Cartesian, demonic play with our imagination. In short, the world must
exist, because I am not alone in perceiving it. Therefore, empathy exists
beyond doubt, because it gives us the world. To question its validity is
nonsensical. Objectively, it may well be that empathy is coloured by
presumptions, but this type of a skeptical analyses has no place in its
context. A point of reference used by the phenomenologists is sight:
it may well be subjective and only offer us partial readings, or even
hallucinations, but we trust it nonetheless. This is because we have to
trust it—to doubt sight would lead into a state of chaotic disbelief that
paralyzed our everyday lives. Empathy can be viewed in a similar light.
Equally, as when I see a tree, I do not doubt its existence or my own
perception of it, I do not doubt my own empathy, for otherwise I lose
the world. Therefore, empathy emerges as a bridge to the experiences
of others, a clear insight—like a light suddenly illuminating a dark
landscape—into what it is to be the other creature. Theoretically, it can
be doubted and indeed its contents may be utterly misconceived, yet to
raise doubt may be absurd.
This approach is commonly followed in relation to other human
beings. We usually do not step back and doubt our empathetic
responses toward them, but instead accept these responses as methods
of knowledge. It appears unclear why the same should not apply to
other animals. Yet, many contemporary approaches to non-human
animals begin with the sceptical assumption that hens or sheep have
no inner lives until we have definite proof for believing so. It is often
considered unscientific to rely on empathy, even if ever so slightly,
and thus for instance many animal welfare scientists (despite Bernard
Rollin’s pleas) still use quotation marks when they discuss animal
consciousness or joy. It is precisely against this sceptical attitude that
Stein’s way of formulating empathy as a type of immediate knowledge,

6. In a similar vein, Evan Thompson states that self-knowledge requires em-

pathy: “One’s awareness of oneself as an embodied individual embedded in the
world depends on empathy” (2001, 14). Patricia Churchland offers this view
scientific credential as she argues that self-attribution and other-attribution de-
velop in relation to one another (2011).

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 Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Animal Philosophy 85

on par with sight, offers a poignant challenge. The crucial point here
is that there need not be certain evidence, nor certainty—what suffices is
that we have something that it makes little sense to doubt.
Here, we do not only ascertain, as Nagel did, that bats have inner
lives, but also make claims about the content of those lives. But do
attributions of content not easily lead us astray? Moreover, does Stein’s
account really mean that “any empathy goes,” that even the most
clearly warped anthropomorphic conceptions are as valid as any other?
Alternatively, does reliance on empathy not mean that certain animals
will unduly remain outside the sphere of recognition? As already Hume
pointed out, similarity and proximity render sympathy stronger, and
the same claim has been repeated time and again in contemporary social
psychology, with obvious implications for non-human animals. Thus, the
dreaded consequence of empathy may be anthropomorphism, which to
some runs the risk of offering animals too much moral significance, and
which for others will eradicate the difference of animals, and as a result
render genuine moral respect toward them impossible (see Weil 2012)—
moreover, on the other side, we run the risk of mechanomorphia. Thus,
according to critics, empathy is unreliable and will yield us humanized
or mechanomorphised animal forms empty of animal content.
This would suggest that something more than empathy is required.
Now, for Hume the answer was to be found from efforts of impartiality.
Reflection could help one to steer away from stubborn bias against those
unlike oneself—simply giving up and conforming to existing biases was
not an option. Arguably, a similar commitment is required in relation
to other animals: empathy requires work in the form of reflection. But
how, precisely, is this accomplished without falling back into the type
of skepticism rejected by Stein?
Here the philosophy of Simone Weil offers one enticing alternative.
Weil’s philosophy includes the notion of “attention,” which gains an
aura of religious mysticism, but which can also be understood in a
more secular sense, as a moral imperative. Indeed, for Weil attention
is the core of all human activity, albeit it is seldom truly realized or
noted. Attention enables one to see clearly, to comprehend the obvious,
and thus to escape prejudiced constructions. The key element is that it
escapes wants, expectations, efforts, and ultimately all egoistic factors:
we gain attention when we ignore, even if only for a moment, our own
self-directed motivations. Thus, Weil explains that in order to perceive
truth: “attention alone—that attention which is so full that the ‘I’
disappears—is required of me” (2002, 118; see also Weil 2005).
Now, Weil’s philosophy has been incorporated into some animal
philosophy. Josephine Donovan refers to “attentive love” in the context
of ethical awareness (2007), and Anat Pick has used Weil as a guide
to comprehend creaturely vulnerability (2011). However, what has

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86 Elisa Aaltola

remained unexplored is whether attention per se has an epistemological

relation to empathy: could impartiality be achieved by Weilian
attentiveness? The answer is affirmative (indeed, Lori Gruen remarks
that “empathy for different others requires attentiveness to their
experiences,” and Marti Kheel talks of empathy as a “culmination of
many small acts of attention,” see Gruen 2007, 339; Kheel 2008, 229). It
may be only when the demands, expectations, and desires of the self are
set aside that the other being appears in all her difference. Of course,
such setting aside is difficult and may never be fully achieved; in fact,
to wholly let go of it would be detrimental to personhood. Yet, seeking
at least partial letting go of the most obvious motivations of the self
appears necessary in order for one to truly grasp another being and to
afford space for her particularity. It is in this type of attention that the
door to immediacy is found. In essence, it requires one to approach
other animals without expectation or demands, and to dive beyond
or under ready-made presumptions. In this way, attention consists of
meeting another animal outside the most obvious of prejudices, positive
or negative, to see the pig or the rat and to follow their lead. In this
process, it is important that one does not consciously try to understand
the other being. In fact, it is by letting go of all efforts that the other
creature may surface. Weil continues: “Not to try to interpret them, but
to look at them till the light suddenly dawns” (Weil 2002, 120).

Intersubjectivity
For Buber, there is a way out from the objectifying “I-it” mode, which
is to be found from forsaking categorical distinctions between ourselves
and others and seeking for a state of “inbetweenness” (Wallace 2001).
Here, the “I” and the “other” cease to be two separate and independent
individuals, and rather constitute a new, joint way of being. It is here
that we meet the term intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity goes beyond
empathy, for rather than approaching two creatures as separate, it
views them as a continuum, a whole (Zahavi 2001). Following suit, it
is often defined as a coming together of two (or more) individuals to
form something more, something novel. One plus one is more than
two. Stein describes intersubjectivity as follows: “From the ‘I’ and ‘you’
arises the ‘we’ as a subject of a higher level” (1989, 17), and ethologist
Barbara Smuts argues that in intersubjectivity “the relationship
creates for each individual a new subjective reality . . . That transcends
(without negating) the individuality of the participants” (2001, 308).
Like empathy, intersubjectivity is familiar from phenomenology and
has been gaining increasing interdisciplinary attention in the past few
years. What makes it significant in the context of empathy is that it acts
as the basis for the latter: it is via intersubjective openness toward others
that the type of empathy advocated here arises.

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 Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Animal Philosophy 87

Intersubjectivity is perhaps best explained by reference to two

common ways of depicting empathy. The first of these is “theory-
theory,” which presumes that one has a theory of mind concerning the
other being before empathy can truly flourish. This is the chosen path
of skepticism, which via inference seeks to find evidence of the minds of
others by applying a theory to all those individuals it encounters. The
other option is “simulation-theory,” according to which “mind-reading
depends not on the possession of a tacit psychological theory, but on
the ability to mentally ‘simulate’ another person” (Thompson 2001, 11).
According to this approach, which touches on emotional contagion, as
we simulate other beings, we come to see them as minded creatures.
Yet, some argue that neither of these options does justice to empathy.
Something remains lacking, some common ground that empathy
requires as its basis, and this ground is, according to Evan Thompson,
intersubjectivity. The claim is that the self must be “intersubjectively
open” before empathy can take place—one must have a “pre-reflective
experience of the other as an embodied being like oneself” (12).
Similarly, Shaun Gallagher criticizes both theory-theory and simulation-
theory on the grounds that “I must already have an understanding of
the other and their experience—including the other as the subject of
intentional action” (2001, 86).
Therefore, intersubjectivity feeds empathy. It is the approach we
have toward other beings: we presume that others have minds, that
there are experiences and other mental contents with which we can
identify. It is precisely intersubjectivity that lends empathy its aura of
immediacy, for it presents the minds of others as accessible. In order to
come to grips with empathy toward other animals, it is crucial to map
out what intersubjectivity in relation to them may mean.
One important feature of intersubjectivity is that it is intrinsically
opposed to skepticism. Rather than meeting others with theory or
simulation, others are indeed approached as beings with minds. This
point was emphasized by Husserl, who argued that only by forsaking
skepticism can one discover a route to the experiences of others. That
is, after one accepts the stance according to which other beings are
creatures with minds (rather than merely a stance according to which
they might have minds), it becomes steadily easier to comprehend what
their mental contents are. The vital thing is the chosen approach. The
most common example of this is that we approach other human beings
not as potential zombies, but as minded mortals—in fact, it makes no
sense at all to adopt the skeptical stance in relation to them. Husserl
states that “Now, as to the persons we encounter in society, their bodies
are naturally given to us in intuition just like the other objects of our
environment, and consequently so are they as persons, unified with
the bodies. But we do not find there two things, entwined with one

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88 Elisa Aaltola

another in an external way; bodies and persons. We find unitary human

beings, who have dealings with us” (Husserl 1989, 246). Similarly,
Wittgenstein famously stated that “My attitude toward him is an
attitude towards a soul: I am not of the opinion that he has a soul” (1958,
178). Human beings do not have minds only after proof is offered, we
do not approach them primarily as bodies, but rather they are seen as
creatures with embodied minds—and this appears self-evident. It is here
that we find the core of intersubjectivity.7
Intersubjectivity is argued to be a vital ingredient not only in
comprehending others but also in comprehending the world and
ourselves. It is precisely here that we find the core root of Stein’s
argument against skepticism, mentioned above. Serious doubt,
thoroughly felt skepticism, would lead to an intellectual catastrophe, a
reality devoid of meaning. The same sense of intersubjective immediacy
can apply to perceiving other animals. Thus, for instance, Dale
Jamieson has argued that other animals ought to be approached via
an “affective stance.” For him, skepticism offers a misleading approach,
and instead of it something akin to intersubjectivity is to be favoured
(2002). Just as we do not assume other human beings to be zombies and
recognize their minds only after evidence has been offered, it strikes as
unfeasible to assume that other animals are pure instinct, nothing but
biological mechanisms. Instead, it would be wise to accept the type of
intersubjective openness many of us have toward other animals, but
which many have learned to ignore or altogether reject. That is, refusal
of skepticism begins with intersubjectivity and its openness toward the
mindedness of other animals.
Perhaps the most obvious trait of anthropocentrism has been
precisely the refusal to become intersubjectively open to creatures
different from human beings, partly because this has enabled its
narcissistic yet lonely dream of human solitude. In fact, it could be
argued that human epistemology has suffered a significant restriction
in the shape of skepticism, as the innumerous different takes on this
world—the odd, peculiar, and surprising viewpoints of other animals—
have gone unnoted. As a result, human understanding of non-human
animals, the world, and the self may remain limited and obscured.
That is, if indeed Stein and Husserl are right in maintaining that we
can only truly have a grasp of the world and ourselves if we accept the
mindedness of others, the worrying possibility is that not recognizing
the minds of other animals has rendered the world and the human self

7. The term “affective” is often used here. Thompson argues that instead of “an
epistemic gulf that can be crossed only by inference,” we need to underline “af-
fective engagement” (2001, 13), within which the starting premise is that other
beings are their own subjects.

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 Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Animal Philosophy 89

into grey, bland entities, devoid of the type of richness animal oddity
and difference can foster. As the ethologist Barbara Smuts argues,
“Experience suggests that by opening more fully to the presence of
‘self’ in others, including animals, we further develop that presence in
ourselves and thus become more fully alive and awake participants in
life” (2001, 308).
But from where does intersubjectivity spring? Thompson argues
that social minds develop via a “dynamic co-determination of self and
other” (2001, 3). Social animals are born with this ability, they are
“intrinsically ‘intersubjectively open’” (14). We come to this world with
the ability to relate to others as creatures with minds. This openness
is pre-lingual or non-lingual, and thus takes place on a much more
fundamental level than theory-theory: “An embodied practice of mind
begins much earlier than the onset of theory or mind capabilities
. . . [which constitutes] a strong claim for primary intersubjectivity”
(Gallagher 2001, 103). Here, we understand others via an “immediate,
less theoretical (non-mentalistic) mode of interaction” (87). This claim
is supported by recent neurostudies and “interpersonal neurobiology,”
which define social beings as inherently intersubjective. From our very
first experiences, far before the development of propositional language,
we want to relate to others as a “you” and to be treated as a “you” by
others—in fact, our psychological health depends on the fulfillment of
this tendency (Siegel 2010).
Intersubjectivity is not pre- or non-lingual only in youth, but often
also in adulthood. Although the era of reason has made second-order
thinking appear vital, and although it has fed the notorious illusion
that propositional language is our “prison,” outside of which there
is no experience, no meaning, and perhaps no reality at all, much of
what we say and do is based on—not propositional reflection—but
something far more immediate. Often it is only when immediacy offers
conflicting responses, or no responses at all, that we seek to understand
what is happening by means of analysis and theory (Gallagher 2001).
Intersubjectivity forms one of these immediate ways of relating to one’s
surroundings. Therefore, it is evolutionarily written into the minds of
social creatures and manifested in their daily routines.
The important implication here is that by not allowing space
for intersubjectivity with other animals, we may be making a crucial
mistake. If it really is the core of social comprehension, not offering it
space will render us socially inept. And if understanding the minds of
others is primarily a social phenomenon, something that depends on a
capacity to relate to others in a correct way, then those who block off
intersubjectivity in their dealings with other animals will lose the prospect
of ever comprehending animal cognition. Intersubjectivity is the bridge
to grasping what happens in the minds of other animals, and ignoring it

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90 Elisa Aaltola

will yield to nothing but mechanomorphia. In this way, the fundamental

reason why skepticism is flawed stems from its inability to recognize the
importance of the social aspect of knowledge concerning other minds,
and the most elemental grounds for approaching other animals via
intersubjectivity is that only by doing so will their minds appear.
Merleau-Ponty famously asserted that instead of following
psychological narratives of rational development and intellectual
cultivation, which require detachment from lived experience, it would
be more beneficial to seek the child in us, the pre-linguistic state of being,
in which immediacy is vividly present (Merleau-Ponty 2002). Perhaps
it is precisely this that is required for eradicating the contemporary
logics of detachment that tell us it is anthropomorphic, sentimental,
or simply absurd to suggest that cows and pigs have inner mental lives.
That is, less attention needs to be placed on reasoned meta-analyses and
propositional language, and more emphasis channeled on immediacy
and intersubjectivity. Arguably, if indeed intersubjectivity is inherent
to social beings, most of us have experienced it in relation to other
animals. Yet cultural ramifications, our education into “being human,”
may have laid obstacles on the way. It is by eradicating these obstacles
that the animal may begin to appear.
There are further solid grounds for doing so. Accentuating reason
and propositional language often (albeit not necessarily) entwines
with anthropocentric hierarchies. That which distances us from
intersubjectivity is also that which is named as the guiding feature of
humanity. As infamously exemplified by Descartes in his Discourse on the
Method, language and reason are often celebrated as human qualities
that all other animals lack and that imply unique moral importance.
Within this ramification, intersubjectivity with other animals is viewed
as something “less than human”—the stuff of children, the mentally
undeveloped, or (in the misogynistic imagination) women. It may thus
be necessary for a thorough criticism of anthropocentrism that not only
is the moral relevance of other animals manifested via reason, or their
reasoned capacities brought forward, but that also the very status of
reason be scrutinized critically. Offering reasoned arguments for animal
ethics while dismissing other-than-reason may be a self-defeating project.
Few have analysed intersubjectivity in great detail, and in fact, there
seems to be something quite indefinable about it—although it is so
integral to us, it escapes clear conceptualizations. Perhaps this capacity
that comes before language is also intricately difficult to define with
language—words fail to thoroughly grasp something so fundamental, so
immediate. What we are left with are sketches that touch on its possible
neurological origins or social psychological manifestations, and
carefully illuminated accounts of its presence. Because of its avoidance
of propositional language, it is not surprising that intersubjectivity is

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 Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Animal Philosophy 91

often described as something rather mysterious: a primordial awareness

beyond language, a “mysterious space” between beings (Wallace 2001).
On the level of immediacy, it can be tangibly evident, but on the level
of propositional language, descriptions often appear hopelessly base
and insufficient.
Perhaps the best place to search for inter-species intersubjectivity
are the accounts of those who have spent considerable time with other
animals while carefully trying to comprehend what their own relation
to those animals is. One of the most eloquent or resonating accounts
comes from Barbara Smuts. An ethologist who spent years in the
company of wild baboons and who since has also researched dogs,
she has sought to understand the mysterious space that is formed of
and between humans and other animals. After spending a significant
amount of time with baboons, Smuts found that she was “learning a
whole new way of being in the world—the way of the baboon” (2001,
295). Expanding on the idea, Smuts writes: “The baboon’s thorough
acceptance of me, combined with my immersion in their daily lives,
deeply affected my identity. The shift I experienced is well described by
millennia of mystics but rarely acknowledged by scientists. Increasingly,
my subjective consciousness seemed to merge with the group-mind
of the baboons” (299). Crucially, in this process, she “had gone from
thinking about the world analytically to experiencing the world directly
and intuitively” (299).
Smuts’ account beautifully demonstrates that, within
intersubjectivity, one is guided toward a non-lingual, non-analytical
mode of being, compelling in its ability to reconfigure our
understanding of ourselves and others. Suddenly, these moments
“just exist,” and with breathtaking ease guide our actions toward new
directions. A human being finds herself immersed in the company of
other animals and witnesses in herself an ability to relate to a cat, a
cow, or a rat. The mysteriousness of these moments is accentuated by
the way in which human–animal interaction can defy the readily given
categories of “human” and “animal,” and perhaps even question the
validity of language itself. Here, the categories between ‘I’ and ‘other’
become unstable or fluctuating. Describing her relation with her rescue
dog Safi, Smuts states that “Trust deepens, mutual attunement grows,
and that elusive quality we call consciousness seems to extend beyond
the boundaries of a single mind” (305). The two have formed a new
way of being, a new space of intersubjectivity, with its own rules and
perspective. Smuts describes one particular moment when she found
a very profound connection with Safi: “Looking into her eyes, my
body relaxed. Her face became the world, and I seemed to fall into her
being” (305). It is difficult to think what could more concretely defy the
standard dichotomy between humans and other animals.

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92 Elisa Aaltola

Arguably, interaction with other animals often constitutes a

kind of moment of madness that Derrida discusses—mad, because
propositional language and standard dichotomies fail to do it justice. It
is these moments that Smuts’ accounts exemplify. By simply entering
into a wordless world, where other animals are subjects just as surely as
she is, Smuts gains epiphanies that escape language, and that seem far
more substantial than the constricted, biased, and perhaps hopelessly
narcissistic constructions offered by reasoned analysis. Her accounts act
as a perfect example of human-animal intersubjectivity, which defies
reason, language, categories, and ultimately anthropocentrism. Smuts
also depicts Deleuzian “becomings” or movement, which challenges
stereotypes and strict categories built around “humans” and “animals.”
It is no longer important what species you are, but rather how you relate
to others, how you submerge into their world, and how each moment
is marked by creation of something new. Here, anthropocentric
hierarchies and dualisms are questioned as one plus one does, indeed,
become more than two, and as the most crucial question becomes:
“How to approach others?”
Therefore, intersubjectivity marks a point of openness toward other
animals, and Smut’s account serves as its graceful manifestation. It acts
as the basis on which to build empathy and also forms an alternative
to the way in which the latter respects boundaries between “I” and
“other.” Intersubjectivity’s wordless, category-defying nature can invite
connotations of mysticism, yet it would appear that it is also intrinsic to
our animal being, and hence something also to be acknowledged in the
company of non-human creatures.

Outside Theory
It is not difficult to see why empathy and intersubjectivity form an
attractive basis for animal philosophy. First, they invite us to witness
the experiences of other animals, and thereby to pay heed to the animal
herself. She becomes the primary point of interest, and arguably it is
only such prioritization that can do justice to other animals. We need to
understand them better, to try and “see” them, before animal philosophy
and ethics can gain validity. The animal needs to be the reference of all
inquiry, the constant point of attention, for one to be able to find or
construct norms and values that resonate more with what she is than
with our own prejudices.
The second and related benefit is that empathy and intersubjectivity
shield us from deflection. The animal is not rendered into an abstract
point of theoretical pondering, but remains a flesh and blood creature,
with her own very tangible and inherently specific viewpoint. In fact,
there are no generic “animals,” but only specific beings, with their own
particular bodies, mental characteristics, and histories. Empathy and

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 Empathy, Intersubjectivity, and Animal Philosophy 93

intersubjectivity spring from the specificity and concreteness at the root

of the individual animal. Thus they by necessity resist generic depictions
and thereby ultimately also abstraction.
The third advantage is defiance against dualism. By questioning
the rigidity of the boundaries between humans and other animals,
intersubjectivity in particular can, on a concrete level, challenge this
cornerstone of anthropocentric thinking. We no longer have “humans”
and “animals” as rigid categories, but rather something new is formed
of the two—a process that takes place in countless relations between
beings.
The fourth advantage is that empathy and intersubjectivity remind
us of the difference of other animals. Although a common fear in relation
to empathy in particular is that it leads to “sameness” and forces all non-
human animals to fit anthropomorphic illusions, thus creating ‘little
people’ of pigs and sheep, a contrary argument is that intersubjectivity
and empathy hold the promise of underlining difference. Taken as
efforts to question the priority of the “I,” and to enter into a space of
other-directedness, they can at best show us glimpses of what it is to a
be another, utterly different creature. As Smuts argues, “These moments
reminded me how little we really know about the ‘more-than-human
world’” (2001, 301). Here Weil’s “attention” in the form of holding
back one’s own presumptions, even one’s own thoughts and emotions,
takes precedence. It is only then that the other being emerges, in all her
tantalizing difference.
Finally, it is important to note that empathy and intersubjectivity
may perhaps never be objective—in fact, they take flight from the
subjective level—but this does not hinder their potential to steer away
from the types of warped biases installed in us. The promise that
empathy and intersubjectivity hold is not so much objectivity as immediacy.
It is all that comes in between beings—reasoned arguments, utilitarian
manipulations, or sheer cultural myth—that ought to be scrutinized, not
subjectivity as such. By sweeping aside at least some of these influences,
and by facing the animal (even if on an inherently subjective level),
animal philosophy can take flight.

Conclusion
Empathy has been linked to the origins of moral awareness, and
positioned even as the latter’s necessary basis. Intersubjectivity, on
the other hand, gives grounds for empathy. Together the two offer a
challenge against, not only anthropocentric modes of thought, but also
more abstract forms of animal philosophy.
Although many would argue that there is no cognition outside
propositional language, a tantalizing possibility—unduly discarded
in much of modern philosophy—is that most of what happens within

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94 Elisa Aaltola

and between beings is external to language. Here animal minds emerge

as fantastical terrains, striking in their resistance to anthropogenic
conceptualizations. As Virginia Woolf states in her book Flush about a
dog, “Not a single myriad sensation ever submitted itself to the deformity
of words” (Woolf 1998, 87). Empathy and intersubjectivity are gateways
to this type of non-human immediacy. Allowing them to play more of
a role will not only show us the plethora of experience inaccessible
to language, but will also be beneficial for the human animal. Smuts
follows Husserl and Stein when she suggests that the intersubjective
mode of being offers the prospect of building entirely new ways of
understanding the world: “My awareness of the individuality of all
beings, and of the capacity of at least some beings to respond to the
individuality in me, transforms the world into a universe replete with
opportunities to develop personal relationships of all kinds” (2001,
301). With empathy and intersubjectivity, the world may appear anew,
filled with fresh perspectives, mutuality, and awe.
Although this paper has concentrated on those creatures most
obviously sentient, it should be noted that empathy and particularly
intersubjectivity can also be expanded toward those less akin to
mammals and birds (indeed some, such as Marti Kheel, expand empathy
to natural entities, see Kheel 2008). Arguably, our understanding
concerning the capacities and subjectivities found in the animal world
is very limited, and it is a wise decision to remain open toward minded
engagement even with those creatures tiny, distant, or bizarre, who at
first glance appear wholly out of subjective reach.

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