Empathy in animal-based tourism contrasting constructed care and care ethics at a captive wildlife venue
David A. Fennell
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to introduce the work of the eighteenth-century German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder on empathy to contemporary tourism. Animals and humans share a language of nature, which was an essential point of departure for Herder in arguing that the sensual must be elevated alongside the empirical in arriving at deeper truths. Herder’s philosophy is used as a benchmark to examine empathy-based programmes at the Seattle Aquarium, which also speaks of a language of nature through its animal-based empathy programming. A synthesis of these two bodies of knowledge, and conceptual framework, uncovers several comparatives over the ethos, pathos and logos of empathy at captive animal venues, where we must reconcile use as a function of institutional realities and the constructed care that goes into the facilitation of animal-human interactions.