What an [En]tangled Web We Weave: Emotions, Motivation, and Rethinking Us and the “Other”

Abstract

In Entangled Empathy, Lori Gruen offers an alternative ethic for our relationships with animals. In this article, I examine Gruen's account of entangled empathy by first focusing on entangled empathy's relation to the moral emotions of sympathy, compassion, and other emotions. I then challenge Gruen's account of how entangled empathy moves us to attend to others. Lastly, and without intending to place humans at the center of the conversation, I reflect on the ways entangled empathy can help us solve some human problems—particularly the racial divide in the United States.