Recently, a new theory of the way in which narrative fictions engage the emotions and the moral understanding has come to the fore in Anglo-American philosophy. Advanced by Gregory Currie and others, it attempts to exploit a theory developed in the context of the philosophy of mind in order to characterize our emotional and moral encounters with fictions. This view may be called simulation theory. Stated roughly, simulation theory in the philosophy of mind is the hypothesis that we predict, understand, and interpret others by putting ourselves in their place, that is to say, by adopting their point of view. Philosophers of art like Currie suggest that the apparatus of simulation is also what we use when we read, view, or listen to narratives. The grain of truth in what is informally called “identification” is, ex hypothesi, the process of simulation. Currie writes: “What is so often called audience identification with a character is best described as mental simulation of the character's situation by the audience who are then better able to imagine the character's experience.”

By simulating the mental states of fictional characters, we come to experience what it would be like – that is, for example, what it would feel like – to be in situations such as those in which the characters find themselves. This is relevant to morality, inasmuch as we learn, by acquaintance, what it would feel like to undertake certain courses of action – what it would be like to murder someone, for instance.