WAGM Lecture: Lauren Kopajtic

The Department of Philosophy’s Chapter of Women and Gender Minorites (WAGM) is delighted to welcome Lauren Kopajtic (Fordham University). Prof. Kopajtic will deliver a talk based on her latest work, “Of Cats, Mice, and Men: Catharine Macaulay on Animals and Moral Education.”

Summary

This paper explores the place of non-human animals in Catharine Macaulay’s understanding of moral education, specifically, in the cultivation of sympathy and benevolence. Other writers on education, including Locke and Rousseau, instructed parents and governors to discourage children from harming or mistreating animals in an effort to prevent the development of cruelty or callousness, but said little beyond this. Macaulay’s views run deeper. I show that in her Letters on Education, Macaulay centers her view of moral education on the development of the natural capacity for sympathy, through which we discover the principle of equity, and thereby cultivate the virtue of benevolence, the most “comprehensive” virtue on her view, which contains “the principle of every moral duty” (Book 1, Letter XII). I then show that Macaulay repeatedly connects sympathy and benevolence to the early associations and habits formed through one’s relations to sentient creatures—humans and non-human animals alike—revealing how her associationistic psychology provides the foundation for her views on morality and moral education. Finally, I trace how her careful and systematic treatment of the place of non-human animals in moral education results in practical suggestions for raising children not just to avoid cruelty but to practice active caregiving for other creatures.