Abstract
We seem to have some knowledge of the value the things around us have. And some of our knowledge of value seems to be acquired through affective experiences, i.e., by our emotions. In this paper, I will give an account of the relationship between emotions and knowledge of values, largely based on Edmund Husserl’s theory of perception of value (Wertnehmung). First, I will give a pro tanto justification of the idea that affective cognition of value exists. Then, I will briefly introduce two different accounts of affective cognition of value from early phenomenology: one account supported by Husserl, the other by Max Scheler (among others). By comparing these two accounts, I will argue that the Husserlian account is more promising of the two. It deals with emotions in analogy with sense perception. Thus, it can be regarded as one form of a perceptual account of emotion, which is quite popular in the contemporary philosophy of emotion. I will argue for the plausibility of the perceptual account of emotion in general, and then, at the end of the chapter, I will argue that my own, Husserl-inspired version of the perceptual account is a valid way of explaining our cognition of values.
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Notes
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One might wonder that, if a direct awareness of value can be a justificatory basis for thick evaluative judgments like “The dog is dangerous” or “Donald’s behavior is rude,” it would not apply for thin evaluative judgments that something is good, bad, right, or wrong. I will show in Sect. 6 of the present paper that appropriate emotions can provide the justificatory basis for evaluative judgments in general, provided that their value has an aspect-relative and context-dependent character. I admit that justificatory basis for thin judgments is more complex than that of thick judgments. However, I do not think that there is an insurmountable gap. I would like to offer my thanks to Helmut Heit for making me aware of this matter.
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For a more detailed comparison of two camps, see Vendrell Ferran 2008, chapter 6. Vendrell Ferran herself supports the Schelerian view.
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For an overview of perceptual theories of emotion and objections to it, see Deonna and Teroni 2012, chap. 6.
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Helm (2015) mentions a couple of differences between emotion and perception that I did not discuss here and argues that they are harmless for the perceptual theory for emotion.
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The previous version of this paper was presented at the Consciousness and the World: Conference on Phenomenology - East Asia held at Tongji University, Shanghai. Thanks for the helpful comments to the participants. Especially, I am grateful to Helmut Heit for a wonderful and detailed commentary on my presentation there. The author is supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS).
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Yaegashi, T. (2019). A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value. In: de Warren, N., Taguchi, S. (eds) New Phenomenological Studies in Japan. Contributions To Phenomenology, vol 101. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11893-8_6
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