Anticipatory-Vicarious Grief: The Anatomy of a Moral Emotion

Authors

Somogy Varga
Shaun Gallagher, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

142455

Publication Details

Varga, S. & Gallagher, S. (2020). Anticipatory-Vicarious Grief: The Anatomy of a Moral Emotion. Monist, 103 (2), 176-189.

Abstract

© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Grief is often described as characterized by a particular emotional response to another person's death. While this is true of paradigm cases, we argue that a broader notion of grief allows accommodating forms of this emotional experience that deviate from the paradigmatic case. The bulk of the paper explores such a nonparadigmatic form of grief, anticipatory-vicarious grief (AV-grief), which is typically triggered by pondering the inevitability of our own death. We argue that AV-grief is a particular moral emotion that serves a unique function and is indissolubly linked to the practical identities of human agents. An agent's AV-grief is about the harm that occurs to individuals whose practical identities depend on the agent.