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abstract: This essay develops a new account of the phenomenon of imaginative resistance. Imaginative resistance is best conceived of as a limited phenomenon. It occurs when we try to engage imaginatively with different moral worlds that are insufficiently articulated so that they do not allow us either to quarantine our imaginative engagement from our normal moral attitudes or to agree with the expressed moral judgment from the perspective of moral deliberation. Imaginative resistance thus reveals the central epistemic importance that empathy plays for our understanding of rational agents in a context where we try to make sense of the moral appropriateness of their reasons for acting. Reflecting on the phenomenon of imaginative resistance allows us to recognize important features of the relationship between imaginative perspective taking and ordinary moral deliberation.
1. INTRODUCTION
Inspired by some of Hume's sketchy remarks in his essay "Of the Standard of Taste" (1757), philosophers have increasingly become interested in the so-called puzzle of imaginative resistance and have grown increasingly sophisticated in vigorously discussing its nature and its source. At the center of this debate is an observed asymmetry between our ability to imaginatively relate to fictional worlds as far as factual states of affairs are concerned and our ability to relate to such worlds imaginatively with regard to moral matters. We do not seem to have any difficulties in accepting and imaginatively engaging with worlds where the cow flies over the moon or bears are sitting on three chairs, where Lord Voldemort has seven horcruxes and people have all sorts of other magical powers, or where people wake up one morning and are metamorphosed into cockroaches. Moreover, not only do we seem to have no difficulty in imaginatively engaging with such worlds, we also find it rather entertaining to do so and are happy that our kids spend hours absorbed in books describing adventures in such magical worlds rather than spending their time playing video games. While we do not seem to have difficulties in accepting worlds that differ dramatically in their natural constitution, we do seem to have a hard time letting ourselves get drawn into those worlds that explicitly differ in their moral structure and their moral standards. To use a typical example from the philosophical...