Online research in philosophy

Abstract Robert Solomon, a philosopher noted for arguing the conciliation of reason and emotion, holds that emotions which are a lapse from rationality are unimportant. Their importance is supported here. Emotional habits of discourse, as well as of action, are discussed, unlike in most treatments of reason and emotion. The implication for cognitive and moral education is that the ability to engage in rational discussion, and the discipline to maintain application to difficult tasks, are seen as potentially curtailed by emotional habits of evasion. Comments are added to contest the decisiveness of the main argument used to reconcile reason and emotion, that is, the analysis of emotions as having a cognitive element.

There are some seemingly clear cases of the use of the concepts of rationality and irrationality in talk about the emotions. Even in such contexts, it is argued here, while not entirely wrong-headed, the use is much less clearly appropriate, upon reflection, than many of us seem to believe. The paper starts with a conception of the emotions which emphasizes the way we construe the world (or some aspect of the world) while we experience them and because of what it is to experience them. According to this approach, an emotion’s appropriateness is simply a function of the features of the relevant part of the world actually being in the way specified by a proper analysis of that emotion. It is then argued that this analysis is not favorable to using the concept of rationality in the sorts of cases that interest us.

In this essay I want to offer an analysis of the structure of the fictional emotions that we have reading novels. I shall start with a presentation of the structure of emotions in general and their relation to aesthetic fiction. Afterwards, I shall offer a critical review of the current positions on fictional emotions. The aim of this section is to question the presuppositions that dominate the current debate on fictional emotions in particular and on emotions in general. Finally, I shall develop my own account on this issue. The thesis that I am going to defend is that fictional emotions possess doxastic and practical rationality and that they are full fledged emotional experiences the reality of which we should not doubt, even though they show some peculiarities.

Key Words: Fictional emotion, quasi-emotion, doxastic rationality, practical rationality, assumption.

n this essay I want to offer an analysis of the structure of the fictional emotions that we have reading novels. I shall start with a presentation of the structure of emotions in general and their relation to aesthetic fiction. Afterwards, I shall offer a critical review of the current positions on fictional emotions. The aim of this section is to question the presuppositions that dominate the current debate on fictional emotions in particular and on emotions in general. Finally, I shall develop my own account on this issue. The thesis that I am going to defend is that fictional emotions possess doxastic and practical rationality and that they are full fledged emotional experiences the reality of which we should not doubt, even though they show some peculiarities.

Key Words: Fictional emotion, quasi-emotion, doxastic rationality, practical rationality, assumption.

Abstract In a recent paper Richard Barrett criticises Solomon (and the so?called cognitivists in general) for dismissing irrational emotions as marginal and atypical. This paper argues that Barrett's criticism is unwarranted. Two explanations are suggested for his misconception of Solomon's view (and, more generally, of the cognitive view) on irrational emotions. First, Barrett mistakenly conceives the reconciliation of emotion and reason as a conciliation of emotion and rationality in an evaluative or normative sense. Secondly, Barrett disregards the difference between the cognitive conception of (ir)rationality and his own definition of (ir)rationality in terms of coping. Some implications of the argument for the education of (moral) emotions are spelled out.

This paper examines the sense and extent to which emotions can be thought of as rational. Through considering a number of examples, it argues (a) that there is more than one way of understanding the claims that we often make about emotions being “rational” or “justified”; (b) that none of the models of rationality already available to us can singly account for all of the various senses in which we think of emotions as rational; yet (c) that they can do so jointly, that is, by each explicating at least one of these senses. Thus, in the end it is suggested that, despite it not being right to identify emotions with either beliefs or actions, there is no obvious reason to believe that the claims we make about the rationality of our emotions need to be understood by appeal to any separate model of rationality, specific to the emotions, additional to the “cognitive” and “strategic” models already available to us for understanding the rationality of other states like beliefs and judgements on the one hand, and actions on the other.

This paper begins with an examination of Amelie Rorty’s claim that although “emotions cannot be rational in the narrow sense of being logically derived from accepted premises, they can be deemed rational . . . as ‘appropriately formed to serve our thriving.’” This is the background against which (i) I develop a notion of ‘emotional holism’ based on the aetiology of emotion in infantile phantasy; and (ii) introduce a dark corollary about the likelihood that our emotions do not, on the whole, match the myths we use to describe them to ourselves. The paper has five sections: (1) The Rationality of Kinds of Emotion and the Argument Against the Rationality of Particular Emotions; (2) Alternative Views of the Rationality of Emotions; (3) Is EmotionaI Behavior RationaI?; (4) Do Particular Emotions Generally Serve Our Thriving?; and (5) Are There Emotions Not Worth Having?: EmotionaI Holism and Manipulating One’s Emotional Repertoire.