Anticipatory-Vicarious Grief: The Anatomy of a Moral Emotion. (2nd March 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Varga, Somogy; Gallagher, Shaun
• Is Part Of: Monist. Volume 103:Number 2(2020)
• Page Start: 176
• Page End: 189
• Publication Date: 2020-03-02
• Subjects: Monism -- Periodicals; 147.3
• DOI: 10.1093/monist/onz034
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0026-9662

Abstract

Abstract: 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.