Abstract
How we take our emotional responses or those of others—how we judge them and respond to them in turn with regard to their rationality—can come apart from our moral assessments of such responses. Yet emotions not only form the foundations of our moral assessments, but they are also often assessable with respect to moral considerations (e.g., read Greenspan 1988; Stocker and Hegeman 1996; Blackburn 1998). In this chapter, I identify and explicate three kinds of emotional rationality which explain these possibilities, at least to a certain extent: the evaluative rationality of emotions, epistemic rationality of emotions, and ontological rationality of emotions, each of which entails that we can know in some sense in virtue of our emotional experiences (i.e., that we can have emotional knowledge). I begin with an account of the evaluative rationality and the epistemic rationality of emotions, and I argue that given these ways of understanding the rationality of emotions, emotions can be said to be rational and irrational in accordance with the standard criteria for the rationality of emotions, and that this conclusion is a theory independent claim which psychologists of emotion should also be willing to accept. I, therefore, propose that the evaluative rationality of emotions, epistemic rationality of emotions, and the standard criteria for the rationality of emotions ought to be accepted as fundamental principles for interdisciplinary research and theorizing in the science of emotion. I conclude with a discussion of the more controversial notion of the ontological rationality of emotion, and I argue for the acceptance of this notion for interdisciplinary research and theorizing in the science of emotion.
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Notes
- 1.
As is typically the case with philosophical writing, the mutually inclusive disjunction (“or”) is used throughout, unless stated otherwise or indicated by the use of the phrase “either, or.”
- 2.
Also consider J. L. Austin’s ([1961] 2003) example of his partiality to ice cream.
- 3.
America’s Voice Education Fund. 2019. “Immigration 101: What is Zero Tolerance Family Separation?” (website). Accessed June 19, 2020. https://americasvoice.org/blog/separation-of-children/
- 4.
Although the notions of the evaluative rationality of emotions, the epistemic rationality of emotion, and the ontological rationality of emotions can help situate the significance of emotions in our moral lives, they alone are insufficient for a complete understanding of such an important topic. For example, moral considerations would need to also include decisions about what it means for something to have moral value in contrast with something like a merely prudential value or even a merely personal value, how one decides what is morally good and morally bad, and the role of the rationality of emotions in moral decision-making. Yet, unfortunately, such a detailed discussion of ethics and emotions is outside the scope of this monograph. For examples of such discussions, read Greenspan 1988; Gibbard 1990; Blackburn 1998; Ben-Ze’ev 2000; Prinz 2008; de Sousa 2011; and Brady 2019.
- 5.
- 6.
I elaborate on this point later on in Sect. 8.3, in order to clarify the distinction between the evaluative rationality of emotions and the ontological rationality of emotions.
- 7.
With regard to entraining emotions for capitalistic ends, read Hochschild (1983) 2012.
- 8.
Doing so would also involve considerations about the instrumental rationality of our emotions (e.g., read Greenspan 1988; Damasio 1994; Stocker and Hegeman 1996; Blackburn 1998; Helm 2001; Brady 2019). I also briefly discussed the instrumental rationality of emotions in an earlier work (Mun 2016), but I leave further elaborations of it for a future work on emotion, rational deliberation, and ethics.
- 9.
Some might liken this understanding of biographical subjectivity to a “capabilities approach” to normativity. While I do not deny this, I cannot confirm this as well since I am currently unfamiliar with the literature on the capabilities approach. I hope to become familiar with it, however, as I continue to more fully develop my theory of emotion.
- 10.
Some might object to the idea that emotions bring forth values in the world. I don’t think descriptive facts about an object, like being dangerous, necessarily entails any intrinsic evaluative facts about the object. Values are only and always properties of evaluative subjects. Things with various descriptive properties exist in the world, but evaluative beings value things or not. Values are held by evaluative subjects, not by non-evaluative objects.
- 11.
For a more detailed discussion of the notion of evaluative rationality, especially with respect to one’s biographical subjectivity, read Calhoun 2018.
- 12.
Read Burge 2003, regarding the difference between the veridicality of propositional and nonpropositional contents; although I draw a distinction between veridical, unveridical, and nonveridical propositional or nonpropositional contents.
- 13.
This is one reason why emotions based on stereotypes are so problematic: the subject’s emotional response fails to take a particular person as the particular individual that they are. The subject’s emotional response fails to be an interaction between the subject and its particular object (i.e., the particular individual, in this case). As such, it is instead more akin to a kind of delusional emotional response. More specifically, it is an emotional response toward a non-existent, fictional object of the subject’s own making (black people as a monolithic group), which was based on the subject’s holding of a stereotype, and is directed at a particular person.
- 14.
One might wonder whether perceptual experiences can also be nonveridical. With respect to the notion of qualia, I am inclined to reject experiences of qualia that are not appropriately connected to some object of perception as perceptual experiences, and I would instead regard them to be non-perceptual experiences of our perceptual system. As such, one might say that they are examples of a kind of representational failure of our perceptual system that would be nonveridical. Those experiences of qualia that are appropriately connected to some perceptual object, regardless of whether or not the relevant aspects of an object are veridically or unveridically represented by such qualia, would at least partially constitute the qualitative experiences with which we represent the object of our representation.
- 15.
Some might regard values to be desire-based or connotative representations (de Sousa 1987; Maiese 2011). I don’t deny that desires are instrumental in giving rise to values, but I want to distinguish desire-based values from what I would regard to be eudemonistic values. One may desire something on a regular basis, such as fast food or haute cuisine, and so value certain kinds of gastronomic experiences, but such values may not lead one to live a good life; although one might believe they do. The values, generally speaking, that would lead one to live a good life (i.e., eudaimonistic values) are those that arise from the primitive, biological, and social needs that a subject must fulfill in order for that subject to flourish. For example, I may not need fast food or haute cuisine to flourish, but I do need a nutritious meal that is full of the vital nutrients that is necessary for my health and growth as the particular individual that I am. I should, therefore, value foods that are nutritious for my health, and therefore my flourishing. I also want to draw a distinction between preferences and values. So I refer to these kinds of values—which are not simply desire-based and are more than mere preferences—as eudaimonistic values.
- 16.
Note that it is a controversial claim that normative ascriptions require an individual to be agentially responsible (read Strawson 1974).
- 17.
Prinz’s reason for doing so may be that he conceives the visual perception of emotion elicitors to be a part of a distinct system to a certain extent, such as a visual perceptual system, and so he treats the assessments of truth and warrant that pertain to this (somewhat) distinct system as being categorically distinct.
- 18.
Throughout this monograph, I use superscripts (e.g., VeridcalityF, VeridcalityV, WarrantF, WarrantV) to indicate the context in which a particular term should be understood (e.g., the factive or evaluative context for considerations of veridicality or warrant).
- 19.
Read Mun 2019 for an alternative interpretation of Philip’s shame in Maugham’s passage. I provide this interpretation here in order to also demonstrate that regardless of the interpretation, there is something problematic with how one would assess the rationality of Philip’s shame according to Taylor’s standard account of shame.
- 20.
One might also add Philip’s belief that he-is-unable-to-play-football as a belief of rational intelligibility, but I do not believe it accurately interprets Philip’s experience of shame in Maugham’s passage.
- 21.
The superscript “F” indicates a factive understanding of the content, the superscript “V” indicates an evaluative understanding of the content, and the double turnstile symbol with the “W” superscript (⊨W) indicates the warranting relation where p ⊨W q indicates that p warrants q.
- 22.
The decision to regard the first two logical possibilities (1 and 2) as involving factive warrant and the last two logical possibilities (3 and 4) as involving evaluative warrant is somewhat arbitrary. I chose to regard the first two as involving factive warrant and the last two as involving evaluative warrant because I believe that the most relevant concern here is about how that which provides the warrant does so for that which is warranted, especially with respect to the nature of that which is warranted. So whether or not that which is warranted is factive or evaluative ought to be the most salient aspect of our concerns.
- 23.
For example, consider the passage where Philip catches some of the boys at his school privately mocking him. As Maugham notes, “Philip was completely scared. He could not make out why they were laughing at him.” (Maugham 1915, 45). If Philip did negatively value his club foot, he would not have been confused about why the other boys were laughing at him. He would have immediately discerned that they were laughing at him because he had a club foot.
- 24.
Cf. this notion of a superordinate inference rule with Prinz’s (2004) notion of an “inference rule” (i.e., calibration file). One obvious difference is that a calibration file is constituted by representations of elicitors of a certain discrete emotion type whereas a superordinate inference rule refers to the psychological law(s) that govern the integrated operation of an individual’s emotional systems into an experience of an emotion of a certain discrete emotion type.
- 25.
- 26.
For those who are not yet convinced by the arguments given in this chapter for why the ontological rationality of emotions ought to be distinguished from both the epistemic and evaluative rationality of emotions, I provide additional arguments in Chap. 9.
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Mun, C. (2021). How Can We Know? Let Me Count Three Ways. In: Interdisciplinary Foundations for the Science of Emotion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71194-8_8
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