Emotions, Actions and Inclinations to Act

Erkenntnis 87 (6):2571-2588 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Emotional responses to fiction are part of our experience with art and media. Some of these responses (“fictional emotions”) seem to be directed towards fictional entities—entities that we believe do not exist. Some philosophers argue that fictional emotions differ in nature from other emotional responses. (cf. Walton in J Philos 75(1):5–27, 1978, Mimesis as make-believe, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1990, Walton, in: Hjort, Laver (ed.) Emotion and the arts, Oxford University, New York, 1997; Currie in The nature of fiction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990; Stecker in Br J Aesthet 51(3):295–308, 2011) The claim is supposed to be supported among others by ‘the argument from action.’ In contrast to genuine emotions, proponents of this argument claim, fictional emotions do not motivate their bearers to act. (cf. Yanal in Paradoxes of emotion and fiction, Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, 1999; Lamarque in Br J Aesthet 21(4):291–304, 1981; Carroll in The philosophy of horror: or, paradoxes of the heart, Routledge, London, 1990; Currie 1990; Walton 1978, 1990; Suits in Pac Philos Q 87(3):369–386, 2006; Friend, in: Kind (ed.) The Routledge handbook of philosophy of imagination, Routledge, New York, 2016) This claim grounds in what may appear to be an obvious fact: that viewers and readers of are not led to act by their fictional emotions. It is certainly true that viewers and readers of fiction do not form intentions to perform actions directed towards fictional entities. In contrast to the proponents of the argument from action, I will argue that the lack of any such intentions can be explained only with reference to intending’s doxastic conditions, conditions that are unsatisfied in the fictional scenario. Decisively, this explanation does not refer to the motivational force of the agent’s emotions; indeed, it doesn’t refer to emotions at all. Thus, the lack of intentions to perform actions directed towards fictional objects provides no support for the claim that fictional emotions are no genuine emotions.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 97,006

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Aptness of Fiction-Directed Emotions.Moonyoung Song - 2020 - British Journal of Aesthetics 60 (1):45-59.
Fiction and emotion.Stacie Friend - 2016 - In Amy Kind (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Imagination. New York: Routledge. pp. 217-229.
Do we weep for Cordelia?Elisa Galgut - 2003 - South African Journal of Philosophy 22 (3):267-275.
Poetic Faith and Prosaic Concerns.Elisa Lynn Galgut - 2000 - Dissertation, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick
Emotion, Fiction and Rationality.Fabrice Teroni - 2019 - British Journal of Aesthetics 59 (2):113-128.
Thoughts on the 'paradox' of fiction.Kathleen Stock - 2006 - Postgraduate Journal of Aesthetics 3 (2):59-65.
Who’s Afraid Of Fictional Characters?Carola Barbero - 2017 - Rivista di Estetica 66:148-164.
Emotion, Reason and Truth in Literature.Vendrell Ferran Íngrid - 2009 - Universitas Philosophica 26 (52):19-52.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-10-15

Downloads
54 (#315,319)

6 months
20 (#203,417)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Intention, plans, and practical reason.Michael Bratman - 1987 - Cambridge: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Emotions, Value, and Agency.Christine Tappolet - 2016 - Oxford: Oxford University Press UK.
Actions, Reasons, and Causes.Donald Davidson - 1963 - Journal of Philosophy 60 (23):685.

View all 78 references / Add more references