I provide a unified account of hope and fear as propositional attitudes. This “mirror account” is based on the historical idea that the only difference between hope and fear is the conative attitude involved, positive for hope and negative for fear. My analysis builds on a qualified version of the standard account of hope. The epistemic condition is formulated in terms of live possibility and the conative according to a non-reductive view on desire and aversion. The account demonstrates the theoretical (...) fruitfulness of accepting Jack M. C. Kwong’s distinction between hope and fear as propositional attitudes and experiential states. (shrink)

Hope is an attitude with a distinctive epistemological dimension: it is incompatible with knowledge. This chapter examines hope as it relates to knowledge but also to probability and inductive considerations. Such epistemic constraints can make hope either impossible, or, when hope remains possible, they affect how one’s epistemic situation can make hope rational rather than irrational. Such issues are especially relevant to when hopefulness may permissibly figure in practical deliberation over a course of action. So I consider cases of second-order (...) inductive reflection on when one should, or should not, be hopeful for an outcome with which one has a long record of experience: in other words, what is the epistemology behind when one should, if ever, stop hoping for outcomes which have failed one many times in the past? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 40.2 (2007) 216-237MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Who's Afraid of Fear Appeals? Contingency, Courage, and Deliberation in Rhetorical Theory and PracticeMichael William Pfau Department of Communication University of Minnesota—DuluthFear is an influential emotion whose history reveals its impacts not only on individuals, but on entire communities, economies, and political systems. Fear has been particularly important politically, and the history of republics reveals a political discourse rife with (...) appeals to fear. But the discourse of. (shrink)

Deprivation offers a plausible explanation for the badness of death, so fear is not unreasonable. But horror at the prospect of one's death is not just extreme fear because horror is structurally different than fear. Horror requires a different explanation. For Sartre, horror is possible only in unique circumstances. I argue that Sartre's view, when combined with the subjective incomprehensibility of one's annihilation, can explain horror and other negative emotions that are not contingent on deprivation. Further, I argue that while (...) fear can be reasonable if one's death will deprive, Lucretius's Symmetry Argument shows that horror is unreasonable. (shrink)

The capacity of a work of fictional literature to elicit emotional responses is part of what is valuable about it, and having emotional responses is part of appreciating it. These claims are not very controversial; perhaps they are even common sense. But philosophy rushes in where common sense fears to tread, raising questions and looking for explanations.Are the emotions we have in appreciating fictional works of art, what I call art emotions, of the same sort as those which occur in (...) ‘real life’? Which emotions are appropriate to the work, and why: what justifies having one emotion rather than another? And why should we think emotionally responding to fiction is desirable, something which should be respected and encouraged, rather than looked at as a little weird or a waste of time? (shrink)

I shall conclude with a methodological moral. I have tried to show that there are several fundamentally different kinds of fear. One is a pure propositional attitude, one is partially a bodily state, and one is a relation between a person and a nonpropositional object. Other emotions come in similar varieties, such as hope and happiness, but with significant differences. The state of happiness, for example, does not entail any particular bodily state or feeling. So one lesson is this: it (...) is hard to generalize about “the emotions.” Further detailed, analytical studies of particular emotions are needed before a “general theory of the emotions” can be fruitfully attempted. (shrink)

There is a distinction between being afraid and being afraid that something is the case. Kathy may be afraid that it will rain without being afraid, and may be afraid without being afraid that it will rain. We shall say that the distinction is between experiential and propositional fear. To be afraid is to experience fear, to be in a state of fear. The state takes many forms, such as fright, terror, and dread. To be afraid that something is the (...) case is to have a certain propositional attitude. We may have reasons for fearing, or being fearful, that it is. My goal is to explain what it means to experience fear. I shall argue that experiential fear can be defined in terms of propositional fear. The basic idea is that fear is experienced when an occurrent propositional fear of harm causes involuntary arousal and unhappiness in a direct way. The degree of fear experienced is the extent of involuntary arousal attributable to the subject's propositional fear. We shall see how this definition accounts for the similarities and differences between fear and the related concepts of hope and anxiety. (shrink)

Many of us feel existential terror when contemplating our future nonexistence. I examine several attempts to rationally justify existential terror. The most promising of these appeals to the effects of future nonexistence on the meaningfulness of our lives. I argue that even this justification fails, and therefore existential terror is irrational.

A widespread (and often tacit) assumption is that fear is an anticipatory emotion and, as such, inherently future-oriented. Prima facie, such an assumption is threatened by cases where we seem to be afraid of things in the past: if it is possible to fear the past, then fear entertains no special relation with the future—or so some have argued. This seems to force us to choose between an account of fear as an anticipatory emotion (supported by pre-theoretical intuitions as well (...) as empirical research in psychology) and admitting cases of past-oriented fear. In this paper, we argue for a proposal that dissolves this dilemma. Our claim is: with the right account in place, the future-orientation of fear can be made compatible with, and is actually explanatory of, cases where we are genuinely afraid of something in the past. So, there is no need to choose: fear is still future-oriented, even when we are genuinely afraid of things in the past. The key is a correct understanding of what fear’s temporal orientation amounts to, and the framework we offer here provides us with such an understanding. (shrink)

It is argued that self-sacrifice in the zombie apocalypse can be read as a cultural signifier for a series of neoliberal deformities such as social immobility, the success/failure hierarchies, corporate nepotism, the illusion of choice and ingrained prejudice. This thesis intends to provide a means of interpreting and categorising audiovisual, subjective, episodic and ludic self-sacrifices. It aims to identify how representations of self-sacrifice exist as a symptom of social hierarchies and ingrained competition. Therefore, self-sacrifice is part of a cultural vocabulary (...) that is constantly pointing out the flaws of the neoliberal state and is not being correctly understood. This study matters because it breaks new ground in the analysis of self-sacrifice and identifies representations of self-sacrifice as part of a cultural language that signifies the twisted values of modern neoliberalism. Case studies examining a range of media will present audiovisually similar accounts of self-sacrifice; however, the cultural impact, resonance and legacies will differ accordingly. The formation of self-identity is therefore reconfigured in both textual and contextual conditions. Furthermore, because society is more frequently subjected to videos, texts, films, series, games apps and other means of information transferral, one of the defining characteristics of modern neoliberalism is its intermediality. It is for this reason that this thesis shares such intermediality. With each shift to the examination of self-sacrifice in a different medium, theoretical critiques of neoliberalism take on correspondent nuances that endeavour to give the upcoming analysis depth and contemporary relevance. It outlines how competition has become ingrained in social constructions. It makes evident how pre-existing socioeconomic hierarchies are reinforced by the internalisation of failure. This thesis argues that representations of survival and the compulsion to survive are not about resourcefulness but a competitive sense of outlasting and gauging self-worth by the failure of others. The illusion of choice is also put forward as another way of interpreting the cultural defects of neoliberalism. Survival and self-sacrifice are both linked in the zombie apocalypse because they present a choice in a situation that removes all aspects of choosing. They depict an impasse that can only be traversed by self-appraisal and self-evaluation. This is because the choice to self-sacrifice is invariably set up by a previous infection or disadvantage and survival is, by definition, operative in scenarios that restrict a character’s propensity to survive. The winners survive and everyone else dies out. Again, this can be related to constructions of social competition and its tendency to reinforce the positions of those at the pinnacle of cultural hierarchies. This thesis also examines the illusion of choice to various degrees in interactive media, weighing up how the concept of self-sacrifice can represent a disruption to reestablished socioeconomic hierarchies through incremental self-enrichment. (shrink)

In this dissertation I discuss emotional rationality generally, and the fear of death specifically. I argue that the intentionality of emotion is one source of difficulty for philosophers who defend the view that the fear of death is irrational. I suggest that since there are several things we can fear when we fear death, the acceptability of some arguments will vary depending on the objects the arguments presuppose. I also argue that philosophers often employed inappropriate conceptions of emotional rationality. If (...) the conceptual framework in which these philosophers were working is unacceptable, then perhaps their arguments are unacceptable as well. I ultimately develop a view of emotional rationality that takes its inspiration from externalist accounts of belief justification. I try to show that, even if the fear of death is not a "true" emotion, it is nonetheless justified.^. (shrink)