Emotions and Values: A Sentimentalist Approach

Authors

  • Leonardo de Mello Ribeiro Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/1677-2954.2017v16n2p189

Abstract

In this paper, a qualified sentimentalist thesis is put forward to explain the relation between emotion and value, in special the acquisition of concepts and evaluative competences. This thesis advocates, on the one hand, that feelings are the essential elements for the characterization of emotions and, on the other hand, that values should be understood by reference to emotions. Two objections are considered: the circularity and the recalcitrance objections. To answer these, the idea that feelings can have intentional objects will be defended, along with the idea that evaluative concepts are higher-order concepts about adequacy conditions of evaluative emotional experiences. As for the recalcitrance objection specifically, we will argue that the sentimentalist thesis is in a better position than its main rival, the judgmentalist thesis. Lastly, we will show how the sentimentalist can explain levels of complexity among emotions and values. The final result is an attempt to show how a sentimentalist thesis may be coherent about the relation between emotion and value.

 

 

Author Biography

Leonardo de Mello Ribeiro, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG)

Doutor (PhD) em Filosofia pela University of Sheffield, Inglaterra (2008); Mestre em Filosofia pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (2004); Bacharel em Filosofia pela Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (2004); Bacharel em Comunicação Social pela Universidade Federal Fluminense (1999). Suas áreas de especialização são Ética, Meta-ética e Teoria da Ação. Mas seus interesses também se estendem à Filosofia da Mente e à História da Filosofia Moderna (sobretudo David Hume).

References

Blackburn, Simon. Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

Brink, David O. “Kantian Rationalism: Inescapability, Authority, and Supremacy”. In Cullity, G. and Gaut, B. Ethics and Practical Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.

Charland, Louis C., “Feeling and Representing: Computational Theory and the Modularity of Affect”. Synthese 105, No.3 (1995): 273-301.

Damasio, Antonio R. Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. London: Papermac, 1994.

D’Arms, Justin and Jacobson, Daniel. “The Significance of Recalcitrant Emotion (or Anti-quasijudgmentalism)”. In Hatzimoysis, A. (ed.). Philosophy and the Emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

_____. “Sentiment and Value”. Ethics 110, No.4 (2000): 722-748.

Deigh, John. “Cognitivism in the Theory of Emotions”. Ethics 104, No.4 (1994): 824-854.

Ekman, Paul. “An Argument for Basic Emotions”. Cognition and Emotion 6, No.3/4 (1992): 169-200.

Foot, Philippa. Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1978.

Frijda, Nico H. “The Place of Appraisal in Emotion”. Cognition and Emotion 7, No.3/4 (1993): 357-387.

Gibbard, Allan. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990.

Goldie, Peter. “Getting Feelings into Emotional Experience in the Right Way”. Emotion Review 1, No.3 (2009): 232-239.

_____. “Emotions, Feelings and Intentionality”. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 1 (2002): 235-254.

_____. The Emotions: a Philosophical Exploration. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

Greenspan, Patricia. Emotions and Reasons: An Inquiry into Emotional Justification. London: Routledge, 1988.

Izard, Carroll E. Human Emotions. New York: Springer Science, 1977.

James, William. “What Is An Emotion?”. Mind 9, No.34 (1884): 188-205.

Johnson-Laird, P. N. and Oatley, Keith. “Basic Emotions, Rationality, and Folk Theory”. Cognition and Emotion 6, No.3/4 (1992): 201-223.

_____. “Towards a Cognitive Theory of Emotions”. Cognition and Emotion 1, No.1 (1987): 29-50.

Kenny, Anthony. Action, Emotion and Will. London: Routledge, 1963.

Kriegel, Uriah. The Varieties of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Lazarus, Richard S. Emotion and Adaptation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

McDowell, John. “Values and Secondary Qualities”. In Mind, Value, and Reality, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Nussbaum, Martha. C. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

_____. Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.

Ortony, Andrew and Turner, Terence J. “What’s Basic about Basic Emotions?”. Psychological Review 97, No.3 (1990): 315-331.

Panksepp, Jaak. “Toward a General Psychobiological Theory of Emotions”. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 5, No.3 (1982): 407-467.

Plutchik, Robert. Emotion: A Psychoevolutionary Synthesis. New York: Harper & Row, 1980.

Prinz, Jesse J. The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

_____. Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Reisenzein, Rainer. “Emotions as Metarepresentational States of Mind: Naturalizing the Belief-desire Theory of Emotion”. Cognitive Systems Research 10, No.1 (2009): 6-20.

Scherer, Klaus R. “Feelings Integrate the Central Representation of Appraisal-driven Response Organization in Emotion”. In Mantead, A. S. R., Frijda, N., Fischer, A. (eds.). Feelings and Emotions: The Amsterdam Symposium. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Solomon, Robert C. True to Our Feelings: What Our Emotions Are Really Telling Us. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

_____. The Passions. New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1976.

Downloads

Published

2017-12-11

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 2 (2017)

Section

Articles

License

Licença Creative Commons
This obra is licensed under a  Creative Commons Atribuição-NãoComercial-SemDerivações 4.0 Internacional