Abstract
There are many psychic mechanisms by which people engage with their selves. We argue that an important yet hitherto neglected one is self-appraisal via meta-emotions. We discuss the intentional structure of meta-emotions and explore the phenomenology of a variety of examples. We then present a pilot study providing preliminary evidence that some facial displays may indicate the presence of meta-emotions. We conclude by arguing that meta-emotions have an important role to play in higher-order theories of psychic harmony and that Frankfurt-style accounts, which explain a person’s “reflective self-endorsement” exclusively in terms of volitional hierarchies, are inchoate and need to be augmented by a theory of meta-emotions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Among the few recent articles that have addressed meta-emotions from a philosophical point of view are Jäger and Bartsch (2006) and Mendonça (2013). Jäger and Bartsch (2006, p. 199) conclude that “whatever format an acceptable theory of emotions adopts, it should be equipped to deal with meta-emotions”. I stick to this claim. Mendonça (2013, p. 390) concurs with us about the “necessity of considering metaemotions for a complete emotion theory”, yet at the same time she argues that “metaemotions cannot be handled as a special case of emotion because reflexivity modifies the nature of our emotional world” (p. 391). Even if this latter claim were true we cannot see how it would follow that meta-emotions fail to constitute emotions. And if they did, why should a theory of the emotions account for them? A brief discussion of “layered emotions” can also be found in Pugmire (2005), p. 174, who argues that “certain types of emotion themselves reverberate in the mind emotionally”. Susan Feagin has argued that the “pleasures of tragedy” are “meta-responses” arising from “our awareness of, and in response to, the fact that we do have unpleasant direct responses to unpleasant events as they occur in the performing and literary arts” (1983, p. 209).
Philosophers who stress this include Griffiths (1997), Prinz (2004), Robinson (2004), De Sousa (2010, cf. p. 96), and Nussbaum (2013). For example, Griffiths (1997, p. 1) writes that “questions about the nature of emotions cannot be answered in the armchair alone but must be sought in part by empirical investigation of emotional phenomena”.
“Homo potest amare amorem, et dolere de dolere. Ergo etiam pari ratione potest timere timorem” (Aquinas, ST, I–II, q. 42, art. 4, s.c. and corpus).
“Melancholy is the joy of being sad”, says Victor Hugo (“La mélancolie, c’est le bonheur d’être triste”, Les Travailleurs de la Mer, part III, book 1, chapter 1, p. 252.). In Tolstoy’s War and Peace Count Pierre Bezukhov feels devastated when he has split up with his wife and killed his suspected rival in a duel: “Everything within and around him seemed confused, senseless, and repellent. Yet in his very repugnance of his circumstances, Pierre found a kind of tantalizing satisfaction” (book 5, chapter 1). Consider also a passage in Augustine’s Confessions, when he contemplates the seemingly paradoxical fact that sometimes “sorrow itself becomes a pleasure” and “tears and sorrows are loved” (“[D]olor ipse est voluptas eius. ... Lacrimae ... amantur et dolores.” (III, 2, 2, and 2, 3.)
For an interesting negative-positive example see also David Pugmire (2005, p. 174): “I may be ... aghast to find that I am relieved at a certain thing (that a defining personal challenge has passed me by)”.
Cf., e.g., Ben Zee’ev (2000), Ben Ze’ev (2010), pp. 47–48. Typically, multi-component views also include physiological and motor expression components. Other authors who endorse various forms of multi-component views include Goldie (2000), Roberts (2003), Pugmire (2005), Deonna and Teroni (2012), Mulligan and Scherer (2012).
Ben-Ze’ev maintains that “[e]motions occur when a change is appraised as relevant to our personal concerns” (2000, p. 18). Even William James, who famously construes emotions as “feelings of bodily changes that follow directly the perception of the exciting fact” (1890, vol. II, p. 449) argues that what produces the emotion is “the overriding idea of the significance of the event” (James 1894, p. 518).
For a more comprehensive argument concerning this point about appraisal theories see Jäger and Bartsch (2006).
De Sousa (1987) even argues that “there are as many formal objects as there are different emotion types” (p. 123), and that “formal objects do not merely constrain the emotion, they define it” (p. 126). For a critical discussion of this claim and further details about the formal objects of emotions see also Teroni (2007).
For further explorations of the relation between formal objects of intentional attitudes and the latter’s correctness conditions see Mulligan (2007).
A more detailed argument for this claim, including analyses of various kinds of privileged access claims about affective states and episodes, can be found in Jäger (2009).
Another, similar coding system had first been proposed by Hjortsjö (1969).
For critical discussions see for example Russell (1995), Russell and Fernández-Dols (1997), Fernández-Dols and Ruiz-Belda (1995, 1997), Fridlund (1997), Parkinson, Fischer and Manstead (2005), ch. 6. Proponents of facial expression approaches include, in addition to Darwin (1872) and Ekman and Friesen, Izard (1971, 1994), Scherer and Wallbott (1994), Frijda and Tcherkassof (1997), Scherer and Grandjean (2008). For a helpful overview of the literature both critical and in defense of facial action studies see also Niedenthal and Krauth-Gruber (2006), chapter 4. We discuss some of the criticisms below.
The footage is archived at the Institute of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Prof. Eva Bänninger-Huber, and can be inspected on demand.
Such interactions are a specific form of diagnostic interview which, on the basis of the patient’s symptoms, aim to assign specific mental disorders to the patient (such as depression, personality disorders, or eating disorders).
An anonymous referee has pressed us on this point.
Parkinson, Fischer and Manstead, in a detailed chapter on “Moving Faces in Interpersonal Life”, argue that “rather than claiming that facial movements display social motives instead of expressing emotions, ... it is possible to conclude that they communicate both kinds of information in different circumstances” (2005, p. 169, our emphasis). We believe that they can do both even in one and the same situation.
Thanks to an anonymous referee for this objection and the next.
These include, to mention just a few, Michael Bratman, Sarah Buss, Wayne Davis, John Martin Fischer, Christine Koorsgaard, Richard Moran, Eleonore Stump, Thomas Scanlon, Michael Taylor, Gary Watson, Susan Wolf, Linda Zagzebski, and many others. For some representative discussions and Frankfurt’s replies, see for example the essays in Buss and Overton (eds.) (2002).
For more on this point and further arguments for distinguishing emotions from desires see, e.g., Deonna and Teroni (2012), chapters 1 and 3.
Note that if you have a first-order emotion with a negative hedonic tone it need not be negative in other respects (e.g., it needn’t be normatively or morally inappropriate). For example, you may be tormented by deep grief about the loss of a loved one but accept this grief as perfectly appropriate.
Frankfurt occasionally describes our first-order “psychic raw material” in terms of “cognitive, affective, attitudinal, and behavioral processes” or “feelings, desires, ... attitudes and motives” (Frankfurt 1992, p. 103, 2006, pp. 5–6). Accordingly, some commentators have touched on the topic of emotions. For example, Buss (2002, p. xi) characterizes Frankfurt’s view of self-alienation by saying that “most of us find it difficult to identify wholeheartedly with all of our emotions, desires, and inclinations”. However, Frankfurt unperturbedly continues to portray the kind of (dis)harmony at issue in terms of volitional hierarchies.
“Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris. Nescio. Sed fieri sentio et excrucior.” Catullus (CAR), Carmen 85.
For helpful discussions we wish to thank Katherine Dormandy and two anonymous referees for Synthese.
References
Amis, K. (1955). That uncertain feeling. London: Victor Gollancz.
Augustine. (1992). (CF): Confessions. J. J. O’Donnell (Ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Aquinas, T. (1901). (ST): Summa Theologiae. Prima Secundae (Ed.). Marietti, Rome.
Bartsch, A., Appel, M., & Storch, D. (2010). Predicting emotions and meta-emotions at the movies: The role of the need for affect in audiences’ experience of horror and drama. Communication Research, 37, 167–190.
Ben Zee’ev, A. (2000). The subtlety of emotions. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Ben Ze’ev, A. (2010). The thing called emotion. P. Goldie (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of emotion (pp. 41–62). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brady, M. S. (2013). Emotional insight—The epistemic role of emotional experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Buss, S. (2002). Introduction, in Buss and Overton (2002), pp. xi–xx.
Buss, S., & Overton, L. (Eds.). (2002). Contours of agency: Essays on themes from Harry Frankfurt. Cambridge, Mass, London: MIT Press.
Catullus, G. V. (1958). (CAR): Carmina. R. A. B. Mynors (Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958.
Chovil, N., & Fridlund, A. J. (1991). Why emotionality cannot equal sociality. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 15, 163–167.
Clark, M. (2012). Paradoxes (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. P. Ekman (Ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
De Sousa, R. (1987). The rationality of emotions. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
De Sousa, R. (2010). The mind’s Bermuda Triangle: Philosophy of emotions and empirical science. In P. Goldie (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of emotion (pp. 95–117). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Sousa, R. (2011). Emotional truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deigh, John. (2013). Introduction—Robert Solomon’s theory of emotions in retrospect. In J. Deigh (Ed.), On emotions (pp. 1–13). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deonna, J. A., & Teroni, F. (2012). The emotions. London, NY: Routledge.
Ekman, P. (1982). Emotion in the human face (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ekman, P. (1999a). Basic emotions. In T. Dalgleish & M. Power (Eds.), Handbook of cognition and emotion (pp. 45–60). Chichester: Wiley.
Ekman, P. (1999b). Facial expressions. In T. Dalgleish & M. Power (Eds.), Handbook of cognition and emotion (pp. 301–320). Chichester: Wiley.
Ekman, P. & Friesen, W. V. (1975). Unmasking the face—A guide to recognizing emotions from facial expressions. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, repr. Cambridge, Mass.: Malor Books, 2003.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1978). Facial action coding system: A technique for the measurement of facial movement. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Ekman P. & Friesen, W. V. (1982). EMFACS coder’s guide, (unpubl. manuscript).
Ekman, P., Friesen, W. V., & Hager, J. C. (2002). Facial action coding system. The manual on CD Rom. Salt Lake City, UT: Network Information Research Corporation.
Ekman, P., & Rosenberg, E. L. (Eds.). (2005). What the face reveals. Basic and applied studies of spontaneous expression using the facial coding system (FACS) (2nd ed.). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
Feagin, S. (1983). The pleasures of tragedy. American Philosophical Quarterly, 20, 95–104. Repr. In A. Neil and A. Ridley (Eds.), Arguing About Art, 1. New York et al.: McGraw-Hill 1995, pp. 204–218.
Fernández-Dols, J., & Ruiz-Belda, M.-A. (1995). Are smiles a sign of happiness? Gold medal winners at the Olympic games. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 1113–1119.
Fernández-Dols, J.-M., & Ruiz-Belda, M.-A. (1997). Spontaneous facial behavior during intense emotional episodes: Artistic truth and optical truth. In J. A. Russell & J. M. Fernández-Dols (Eds.), The psychology of facial expression (pp. 255–274). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Frankfurt, H. G. (1971). Freedom of the will and the concept of a person. Repr. In H. G. Frankfurt, The importance of what we care about—Philosophical essays (pp. 11–25). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Frankfurt, H. G. (1987). Identification and Wholeheartedness. Repr. In H. G. Frankfurt, The importance of what we care about—Philosophical essays (pp. 159–176). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Frankfurt, H. G. (1992). The faintest passion. Repr. In H. G. Frankfurt, Necessity, volition, and love (pp. 95–107). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Frankfurt, H. G. (2004). The reasons of love. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Frankfurt, H. G. (2006). Taking ourselves seriously and getting it right. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press.
Fridlund, A. J. (1997). The new ethology of human facial expressions. In J. A. Russell & J. M. Fernández-Dols (Eds.), The psychology of facial expression (pp. 103–129). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Frijda, N. H. (1986). The emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Frijda, N. H. (2007). The laws of emotion. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Frijda, N. H., & Tcherkassof, A. (1997). Facial expressions as modes of action readiness. In J. A. Russell & J. M. Fernández-Dols (Eds.), The psychology of facial expression (pp. 78–102). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Goldie, P. (2000). The emotions: A philosophical exploration. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Gottman, J. M., Katz, L. F., & Hooven, C. (1997). Meta-emotion: How families communicate emotionally. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Griffiths, P. E. (1997). What emotions really are. Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press.
Griffiths, P., & Scarantino, A. (2009). Emotions in the wild: The situated perspective on emotion. In P. Robbins & M. Aydede (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of situated cognition (pp. 437–453). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hjortsjö, C.-H. (1969). Man’s face and mimic language (orig.: Människans ansikte och mimiska språket). Malmö: Studentlitteratur.
Hochschild, A. R. (1979). Emotion work, feeling rules and social structure. American Journal of Sociology, 85, 551–575.
Hugo, V. (1866). Les Travailleurs de la Mer, E. Testard (Ed.), 1891.
Hunter, E. C., et al. (2011). How do I feel about feelings? Depressed and healthy adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 49, 428–441.
Izard, C. E. (1971). The face of emotion. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Izard, C. E. (1994). Innate and universal facial expressions: Evidence from developmental and cross-cultural research. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 288–299.
Jäger, C. (2009). Affective ignorance. Erkenntnis, 71, 123–139.
Jäger, C., & Bartsch, A. (2006). Meta-emotions. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 73, 179–204.
James, H. (1876/77). The American. Repr. New York: Penguin Classics, 1981.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. I and II). New York: Henry Holt and Company.
James, W. (1894). The physical basis of emotion. Psychological Review, 1, 516–529.
Kenny, A. (1963). Action, emotion and will. London: Routledge.
Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Matsumoto, D. (1992). More evidence for the universality of a contempt expression. Motivation and Emotion, 16, 363–368.
Matsumoto, D., Ekman, P., & Fridlund, A. (1991). Analyzing nonverbal behaviour. In P. W. Dowrick (Ed.), Practical guide to using video in the behavioural sciences (pp. 153–165). New York: Wiley.
Mendonça, D. (2013). Emotions about emotions. Emotion Review, 5, 390–396.
Moors, A., Ellsworth, P. C., Scherer, K. R., & Frijda, N. H. (2013). Appraisal theories of emotion: State of the art and future development. Emotion Review, 5, 119–124.
Mulligan, K. (2007). Intentionality, knowledge and formal objects. In T. Rønnow-Rasmussen, B. Petersson, J. Joseffsson, & D. Egonsson Hommage à Wlodek, electronic Festschrift for Wlodek Rabinowicz. www.fil.lu.se/hommageawlodek.
Mulligan, K., & Scherer, K. R. (2012). Toward a working definition of emotion. Emotion Review, 4, 345–357.
Niedenthal, P. M., & Krauth-Gruber, S. (2006). Psychology of emotion. New York, Hove: Psychology Press.
Nussbaum, C. (2013). Emotion and personal identity. In J. Deigh (Ed.), On Emotions (pp. 198–214). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum, M. (2004). Emotions as judgments of value and importance. In R. C. Solomon (Ed.), Thinking about feeling: Contemporary philosophers on emotions (pp. 183–199). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Oliver, M. B. (1993). Exploring the paradox of sad films. Human Communication Research, 19, 315–342.
Parkinson, B., Fischer, A. H., & Manstead, A. S. R. (2005). Emotions in social relations. New York: Psychology Press.
Prinz, J. (2004). Gut reactions: A perceptual theory of emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pugmire, D. (2005). Sound sentiments: Integrity in the emotions. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ricci Bitti, P. E., Brighetti, G., Garotti, P. L., & Boggi-Cavallo, P. (1989). Is contempt expressed by pancultural facial movements? In J. P. Forgas & J. M. Innes (Eds.), Recent advances in social psychology: An international perspective (pp. 329–339). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Roberts, R. C. (2003). Emotions: An essay in aid of moral psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Robinson, J. (2004). Emotion—Biological fact or social construction? In R. C. Solomon (Ed.), Thinking about feeling: Contemporary philosophers on emotions (pp. 28–43). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roosevelt, F. D. (1933). Inaugural address, March 4, 1933. In S. Rosenman (Ed.), The public papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vol. 2: The year of crisis, 1933 (pp. 11–16). New York: Random House, 1938.
Russell, J. A. (1995). Facial expressions of emotion: What lies beyond minimal universality? Psychological Bulletin, 118, 379–391.
Russell, J. A., & Fernández-Dols, J. M. (1997). What does facial expression mean? In J. A. Russell & J. M. Fernández-Dols (Eds.), The psychology of facial expression (pp. 3–30). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Russell, J. A., & Fernández-Dols, J. M. (Eds.). (1997). The psychology of facial expression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scherer, K. R., & Grandjean, D. (2008). Facial expressions allow inference of both emotions and their components. Cognition and Emotion, 22, 789–801.
Scherer, K. R., & Wallbott, H. G. (1994). Evidence for the universality and cultural variation of differential emotion response patterning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 310–328.
Solomon, R. (1976). The passions—The myth and nature of human emotion. Garden City, NJ: Anchor Press/Doubleday.
Solomon, R. (2003). Emotions, thoughts, and feelings: What is a ‘cognitive theory’ of the emotions and does it neglect affectivity? In A. Hatzimoysis (Ed.), Philosophy and the emotions (pp. 1–18). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Teroni, F. (2007). Emotions and formal objects. Dialectica, 61, 395–415.
Tolstoy, L. (1869). War and Peace (critical Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge World Classics, 2010.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jäger, C., Bänninger-Huber, E. Looking into meta-emotions. Synthese 192, 787–811 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-014-0588-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-014-0588-x