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Affectivity and moral experience: an extended phenomenological account

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between affectivity and moral experience from a phenomenological perspective. I will start by showing how in a phenomenologically oriented account emotions can be conceived as intentional evaluative feelings which play a role in both moral epistemology and the motivation of moral behaviour. I will then move to discuss a particular kind of affect, “existential feelings” (Ratcliffe in Journal of Consciousness Studies 12(8–10), 43–60, 2005, 2008), which has not been considered so far in the discourse on moral and affective experience. Relying on the notion of pre-intentionality through which Ratcliffe characterizes existential feelings (Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 53(6), 602–626, 2010) and on some insights into the relationship between affectivity and ethics developed by De Monticelli (2003, 2006), I suggest that key to the role played by existential feelings in moral experience is that they determine the kinds of evaluations that it is possible for us to make and the range of our possibilities of action. I then illustrate and further develop this idea through a phenomenological analysis of some forms of psychopathological experience. More specifically, by considering some experiential features of depression and borderline personality disorder, I claim that, by acquiring an existential character, emotions such as guilt, feelings of isolation, anger and shame can radically alter the structure of the individual evaluative perspective, having a deep impact on both moral judgements and behaviours.

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Notes

  1. The notion of “affectivity” here at issue refers to the variety of feeling states that we can experience, and thus encompasses both intentional and non-intentional states, short-lived and long-lasting emotions, moods, and character traits. Central to the way in which this notion is conceived within the phenomenological tradition is the idea that affects are essentially felt, and that they are distinct but fundamentally connected to cognitive states such as beliefs and judgments, as well as desires and actions.

  2. According to Prinz (2010: 510), there are two fundamental perspectives from which the role of emotions in moral psychology can be investigated: their contribution to moral epistemology on the one hand, and the role they play in the motivation of moral behaviour on the other. In this paper I adopt this framework to explore from a phenomenological perspective the relationship which exists between different kinds of affects and moral experience.

  3. For a critical discussion of these approaches see Tappolet (2000).

  4. Characteristic of the phenomenological approach is thus a distinct view of the structure of intentional affective states. It is common to refer to these states with the term “emotion” and this is the terminology that I will adopt in the rest of this work, considering emotions as affective responses which are directed at particular intentional objects.

  5. For a critical review see for instance Deonna and Teroni (2012).

  6. In addition, as remarked by Ratcliffe, pre-intentional affective states do not necessarily have a specific duration. He indeed claims that existential feelings can be both short-lived, persistent over a period of time or maintained over a life-time as “habitual temperaments” (2008: 55), thus drawing attention to the fact that pre-intentional affects can become personality traits. In this regard, however, it is important to note that while personality traits are often attributed a dispositional character, it is arguable that long-lasting existential feelings remain experientially salient, that is, they not only dispose us to behave in certain ways, but they also have a distinct phenomenology.

  7. One of the main differences between the two notions consists in the fact that while existential feelings are not directed to specific objects, sentiments as they are conceived by De Monticelli seem to be characterized by a specific form of intentionality. In addition, De Monticelli conceives of sentiments as relational affects (2006), namely affects which are essentially connected to the interpersonal domain, a characteristic which is not shared by existential feelings.

  8. See Teroni and Deonna (2008) for a critical discussion of various psychological accounts of the difference between shame and guilt.

  9. My translation.

  10. The symptoms listed by the DSM are:

    1. “1)

      Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment […]

    2. 2)

      A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.

    3. 3)

      Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.

    4. 4)

      Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). […]

    5. 5)

      Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.

    6. 6)

      Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).

    7. 7)

      Chronic feelings of emptiness.

    8. 8)

      Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).

    9. 9)

      Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms” (APA 2013: 663).

  11. Anger is often conceived as a “primary” or “basic” emotion (e.g. Damasio 2000), namely an innate affective response independent of the possession of linguistic and conceptual abilities and universally characterized by the same physical manifestations. Emotions such as shame and guilt, on the other hand, are often thought to be dependent on the possession of specific cognitive abilities (e.g. Lewis 1992) and to be more easily shaped by social and cultural influences. Such a distinction is not necessarily in conflict with the idea that there are complex, cognitively impregnated varieties of basic emotions, and the characterization of anger I give in this paper is compatible with the latter position. Indeed, by characterizing anger as related to moral evaluation, in this study I assume that there is at least a widely spread variety of this emotion which is shaped by linguistic and conceptual abilities, but doing so does not commit me to either accept or reject the notion of basic emotions.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Matthew Ratcliffe for his comments on previous versions of this paper. An earlier version of this study was presented at the conference Moral Emotions and Intuitions in The Hague in 2011, and I am grateful for the feedback I received from the audience on that occasion. Many thanks also to the anonymous reviewers for their comments.

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Bortolan, A. Affectivity and moral experience: an extended phenomenological account. Phenom Cogn Sci 16, 471–490 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-016-9468-9

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