Entangled empathy is a form of reflective empathy which “directs our attention to the things that need moral response”. Rather than feeling in artificial unison with a person or a non-human animal, this form of empathy aims to recognize the inherent intersectionality of interests amongst agents in a relationship based on the inhabitance of a common ecosystem. As opposed to sympathy which is the cognitive act of recognizing one’s pain, entangled empathy aims to unify both the emotional experience of another’s pain and the cognitive understanding of their unique experience of it. 

 

Cherry extends from the rudimentary form of expressive empathy which Hume poses to be the understanding of another’s behavior with Adam Smith's account of empathy. Smith argues that empathy must also be capable of capturing feeling what others ought to feel on their behalf. In the same way, we wouldn’t mirror a friend’s self-depreciation, empathy towards non-human animals must be capable of capturing feelings on behalf of animals who aren’t equipped to respond to a cognitively demanding situation with feelings that accurately demonstrate the moral implications of it. If a testing laboratory rewards monkeys with bananas for their ‘services’ and the monkeys seem to enjoy the cycles of pleasure and pain that have been imposed on them, this does not exempt humans who understand the moral implications of entrapping animals in this manner from working towards their liberation. Smith’s account moves beyond purely mimicking another’s emotion based on how we imagine them to feel, but rather to consider what our own emotional response would be if we were placed in a similar situation. 

 

Entangled empathy guides moral emotional responses, and thus can act as a womb for the development of other emotions. Civil action requires emotional context in order to rightly guide the attitude of the law or the policies we deploy in the aid and protection of animals. Thus the attitude which flows from the type of empathy employed is a matter of moral significance.  Cherry argues that “entangled empathy as a moral process [that] helps us frame what is morally salient”, which thus allows for the derivation of a balanced form of compassion and sympathy. 

This balance is captured by the author’s moderation claim. Entangled empathy needs to consider the division of emotional spheres in order to preserve morality and authenticity of responses. If we mirror an emotion we miss the authenticity necessary to be rightly aligned with the moral interests of the holder of that emotion. If we are overly entangled with another’s emotional state, we might act out of selfish reasons to dissipate guilt or shame, or we might even find ourselves too depressed or anxious to be an aid to anyone. Entangled empathy by definition establishes a relationship with others that is built on responsibility and caring perception.

 

Entangled empathy ‘keeps us mindful of differences’, thus allowing for the understanding of others beyond the similarities in our experiences. Being in an ethical relation according to Gruen involves understanding and responding to another’s ‘needs interests, desires, vulnerabilities, hopes, perspectives’ rather than simply reconstructing what we think to have been their experience. Regular empathy requires an intimacy that can be found in human relationships between family and friends, but that can lead to the anthropomorphizing of animals given the unequal power dynamics between animals and their human counterparts. Moreover, racial empathy literature reflects a disproportionate tendency to empathize with those who belong to our in group, as well as an inconsistent capacity to do so. We might be able to imagine what it's like for a dog to be mistreated by their owner, but as Laurie Paul posits, not enough is enough to supplement imagination for the reality of their experience. Entangled empathy circumvents this limitation by acknowledging the ‘moral considerability and ethical relationships’ which preserves both the interdependence of individuals, as well as their agency in emotionally charged situations. 

 

This type of empathy is a matter of recognizing our inhabitance in an ecosystem of pre-existing relationships that call on us to reflect on them and care for the quality of their standing. Instead of limiting our understanding of pre-existing relationships to in-groups and outgroups based on race or species, entangled empathy breaks down these barriers of division and acknowledges the unity of sentient beings in a much wider collective, a much grander in-group to which we owe moral allegiance to. The difference is in the attitude to which we approach moral and political decisions related to human and non-human animals, whether they’re based on empathetic responses based on relational dynamics, or whether they’re paternalistic and harmful.