The role of empathy and emotions in moral distinctions

Abstract

This article has as a central point the problem of the foundation of moral distinctions, as proposed by David Hume in the work Na Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals and, more specifically, the problem of moral motivation, focusing on the role that emotions and empathy have on the behavior in society of animals with complex social lives. Regarding this point, the importance given to the affections by the humean thesis will be related with the evolutionary theory, and to illustrate this point, we will use observations of wolves' (Canis lupus) social behavior as a case study. Therefore the text consists in a comparative presentation, from a humean and evolutionary perspective, of how the natural affective apparatus of social mammals, in this case men and wolves, operates in a way to incline the members of those species to approve or censor socially relevant behaviors.