Biology and Philosophy 25 (1):75-94 (2010)
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Abstract |
In the last 10 years, several authors including Griffiths and Matthen have employed classificatory principles from biology to argue for a radical revision in the way that we individuate psychological traits. Arguing that the fundamental basis for classification of traits in biology is that of ‘homology’ (similarity due to common descent) rather than ‘analogy’, or ‘shared function’, and that psychological traits are a special case of biological traits, they maintain that psychological categories should be individuated primarily by relations of homology rather than in terms of shared function. This poses a direct challenge to the dominant philosophical view of how to define psychological categories, viz., ‘functionalism’. Although the implications of this position extend to all psychological traits, the debate has centered around ‘emotion’ as an example of a psychological category ripe for reinterpretation within this new framework of classification. I address arguments by Griffiths that emotions should be divided into at least two distinct classes, basic emotions and higher cognitive emotions, and that these two classes require radically different theories to explain them. Griffiths argues that while basic emotions in humans are homologous to the corresponding states in other animals, higher cognitive emotions are dependent on mental capacities unique to humans, and are therefore not homologous to basic emotions. Using the example of shame, I argue that (a) many emotions that are commonly classified as being higher cognitive emotions actually correspond to certain basic emotions, and that (b) the “higher cognitive forms” of these emotions are best seen as being homologous to their basic forms.
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Keywords | Philosophy Evolutionary Biology Philosophy of Biology |
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DOI | 10.1007/s10539-009-9170-1 |
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References found in this work BETA
Machiavellian Intelligence: Social Expertise and the Evolution of Intellect in Monkeys, Apes, and Humans.Richard W. Byrne & Andrew Whiten (eds.) - 1988 - Oxford University Press.
What Emotions Really Are: The Problem of Psychological Categories.Paul E. Griffiths - 1997 - University of Chicago Press.
How Does Moral Judgment Work?Joshua Greene & Jonathan Haidt - 2002 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6 (12):517-523.
Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved: How Morality Evolved.Frans de Waal - 2006 - Princeton University Press.
Exaptation–A Missing Term in the Science of Form.Stephen Jay Gould & Elisabeth S. Vrba - 1982 - In David L. Hull & Michael Ruse (eds.), The Philosophy of Biology. Oxford University Press.
View all 31 references / Add more references
Citations of this work BETA
The Role of Bodily Perception in Emotion: In Defense of an Impure Somatic Theory.Luca Barlassina & Albert Newen - 2014 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 89 (3):637-678.
View all 17 citations / Add more citations
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