Fabrice Teroni

In this paper, we develop a fresh understanding of the sense in which emotions are evaluations. We argue that we should not follow mainstream accounts in locating the emotion–value connection at the level of content and that we should instead locate it at the level of attitudes or modes. We begin by explaining the contrast between content and attitude, a contrast in the light of which we review the leading contemporary accounts of the emotions. We next offer reasons to think that these accounts face substantial problems since they locate the link emotions bear to values at the level of content. This provides the incentive to pursue an alternative approach according to which emotions qualify as evaluations because they are specific types of attitudes, an approach we substantiate by appealing to felt bodily stances. We conclude by considering two reasons why this approach may be resisted; they respectively pertain to the alleged impossibility of drawing the attitude–content contrast in the case of the emotions and to the suspicion that so doing raises qualia-related worries

Le fameux paradoxe de la fiction (Radford 1975) a suscité maintes interprétations. L’une des distinctions importantes qui affleure bien souvent au sein de cette littérature, pour se voir presque aussitôt négligée, est celle entre les deux questions suivantes : « comment les émotions peuvent-elles être suscitées par des œuvres de fiction ? » et « les émotions suscitées par de telles œuvres peuvent-elles être rationnelles ? » Dans ce qui suit, je me concentrerai exclusivement sur la seconde de ces questions et chercherai à montrer que la plupart de nos réponse affectives à la fiction ne sont pas irrationnelles. Ma discussion se structure de la manière suivante. La première section esquisse la nature du lien entre émotions et valeurs et introduit une conception selon laquelle les émotions sont des attitudes évaluatives. Au cours de la deuxième section, nous nous tournerons vers le problème de la rationalité des émotions pour mettre l’accent sur deux de ses aspects – celui qui regarde le rapport entre une émotion et sa base cognitive, d’un côté, et, de l’autre, celui entre l’émotion elle-même et les jugements et comportements auxquels elle peut donner lieu. La troisième section applique ces considérations à propos de la rationalité affective aux émotions suscitées par la fiction, dont je distingue trois types principaux : les émotions esthétiques, les émotions-blob et les émotions-pour. Une quatrième et dernière section explore quelques conséquences des conclusions auxquelles m’auront amené ce qui précède.

It is striking that for each major theory of well-being, there exists a companion theory of the emotions. Thus, to classical hedonic views of well-being, there corresponds no less classical pure feeling views of the emotions; to desire views that conceive of well-being in terms of desire satisfaction, there corresponds a variety of theories approaching the emotions in terms of the satisfaction/frustration of desires; and finally, to so called objective list theories of well-being, there corresponds a variety of theories that conceive of the emotions as evaluations. Exploring these parallels constitutes a privileged route for understanding the intuitive appeal of the thoughts that a life without emotions is not worth living and that having plenty of positive emotions must be good. In the first part of our discussion, we review the key insights that are pursued within companion approaches to well-being and the emotions that respectively appeal to feelings and to desires. We explain how emotions end up being good as ends for the individual if one endorses one or the other of these combinations of views. Yet, we argue that the problems faced by these approaches favour a third combination of views: an objective list theory of well-being and a companion theory of the emotions as evaluations. Yet, this approach faces significant worries of its own: it appears to force upon us the deflationary conclusion that emotions are only instrumentally good for the individual and to promote an understanding of the emotions which makes them incapable of accounting for the insights fuelling hedonist and conativist approaches. The task of the second part of our discussion is to dissipate these worries. We explain why conceiving of emotions as evaluations allows to revisit the insights underpinning the three accounts of well-being and promotes a rich understanding of why emotions are valuable as ends for objective, hedonic and conative reasons.

What is the role of emotions in elucidating the nature of value? For example, should dangerousness be understood in term of the fear response? What is the role of emotions in our getting access to values? For example, what may be the role of fear in becoming aware that a given animal is dangerous? What value do emotions have? For example, is fear of special value because it helps behaving appropriately towards its object? We shall take up these three questions in turn and survey the most important answers they have received in the literature. As we shall discover, answering the first question amounts to surveying a variety of theories according to which there is an ontological relation between values and emotions since the former should be elucidated in terms of the latter. Addressing the second question consists in reviewing theories according to which there is an intentional relation between emotions and values because the former are apprehensions of value or evaluations. Grappling with the third question, we shall explore some reasons for thinking that emotions can exemplify values

A long-standing debate surrounds the question as to what justifies memory judgements. According to the Past Reason Theory, these judgements are justified by the reasons we had to make identical judgements in the past, whereas the Present Reason Theory claims that these justifying reasons are to be found at the time we pass the memory judgements. In this paper, I defend the original claim that, far from being exclusive, these two theories should be applied to different kinds of memory judgements. The Past Reason Theory offers the most appealing account of justified propositional memory judgements, while the Present Reason Theory provides the best approach to justified episodic memory judgements. One outcome of my discussion is thus that memory is not epistemologically unified and my argument in favour of this conclusion connects with the issues of internalism, reliabilism and the basing relation.

Fabrice Teroni,Julien Deonna | : Selon l’analyse FA des concepts évaluatifs, notre conception d’un objet comme ayant une valeur donnée est la conception d’une certaine attitude évaluative appropriée à son endroit. Cet article examine deux défis que doit relever cette analyse. Le défi psychologique exige de l’analyse qu’elle fasse appel à des attitudes qui soient à même d’éclairer nos concepts évaluatifs, tout en ne présupposant pas la maîtrise de ces mêmes concepts. Le défi normatif réclame quant à lui que la compréhension du caractère approprié des attitudes pertinentes s’articule autour d’une forme de normativité intimement liée à la nature de ces attitudes, sans pour autant dépendre de la maîtrise des concepts évaluatifs analysés. Afin d’établir si l’analyse FA peut relever ces défis, nous commençons par clarifier la nature des attitudes auxquelles il convient de faire appel. Dans la première section, nous considérons des attitudes génériques comme les désirs et présentons des raisons de privilégier des attitudes plus spécifiques, à savoir les émotions. La suite de la discussion évalue la plausibilité d’une analyse FA souscrivant à l’une ou l’autre des approches contemporaines en théorie des émotions. La deuxième section souligne qu’il est difficile d’associer l’analyse FA aux théories en termes de contenu évaluatif et la troisième présente les atouts d’une théorie en termes d’attitudes évaluatives. Dans la dernière section, nous revenons au défi normatif et esquissons une manière de le relever. | : According to the FA analysis of evaluative concepts, our conception of an object as having a given value is the conception of a given evaluative attitude towards it as being appropriate. In this paper, we explore two challenges that this analysis has to take up. The psychological challenge requires that the analysis appeal to attitudes that are apt to shed light on our evaluative concepts while not presupposing the mastery of these same concepts. The normative challenge requires that we understand the appropriateness of the relevant attitudes in terms of a kind of normativity intimately related to these attitudes, again without this presupposing the mastery of the relevant evaluative concepts. To determine whether the FA analysis can meet these challenges, we start by clarifying the sort of attitudes the analysis should appeal to. In section 1, we consider generic attitudes like desires and give some reasons to favor more specific attitudes, namely emotions. The ensuing discussion assesses the prospects of an FA analysis in light of contemporary accounts of emotions. In section 2, we argue that the FA analysis should not be combined with accounts according to which emotions have evaluative contents and then offer, in section 3, some reasons for combining the FA with an account in terms of evaluative attitudes. In section 4, we show how this allows for solving the normative challenge.

Les émotions possèdent-elles un rapport privilégié au moi ? Je montre en premier lieu qu’une thèse ambitieuse à ce propos se doit de situer ce rapport au niveau de l’intentionnalité des émotions. Ce rapport intentionnel peut prendre différentes formes dans la mesure où l’intentionnalité des émotions est complexe : une émotion porte toujours sur un objet donné qu’elle évalue. J’examine ensuite trois thèses à ce propos. La première considère que le moi constitue l’objet intentionnel de toute émotion. La deuxième fait appel à une forme de réflexivité plus subtile en affirmant que les émotions représentent toujours d’autres états psychologiques du sujet. La troisième situe le rapport au moi au niveau évaluatif : toute émotion évaluerait d’une façon relationnelle, l’un des termes de cette relation étant le sujet qui la ressent. Je cherche à montrer que ces trois thèses valent au mieux pour quelques émotions et qu’il est souvent préférable de les remplacer par des thèses considérant que le rapport au moi est non intentionnel.

Meinong's early essay, Zur erkenntnistheoretischen Würdigung des Gedächtnisses, provides, despite its brevity, a very important discussion of mnesic phenomena. In this paper, I investigate some points I believe to be of particular interest: some of them are briefly broached by Meinong, whereas others form an important part of his argument. Moreover, I will connect the discussion with more recent concerns in analytical philosophy. This presentation is structured in the following way. In section (1), I present Meinong's definition of memory, and contrast it with more recent conceptions. In section (2), I present his epistemological discussion of memory judgements, which is further investigated in section (3), where I discuss the notion of presumptive evidence via the criticisms it elicited from Franz Brentano. At the end of this presentation, we will understand why Meinong's essay is a landmark in the philosophical investigation of memory.

We start this overview by discussing the place of emotions within the broader affective domain – how different are emotions from moods, sensations and affective dispositions? Next, we examine the way emotions relate to their objects, emphasizing in the process their intimate relations to values. We move from this inquiry into the nature of emotion to an inquiry into their epistemology. Do they provide reasons for evaluative judgements and, more generally, do they contribute to our knowledge of values? We then address the question of the social dimension of emotions, explaining how the traditional nature vs. nurture contrast applies to the emotions. We finish by exploring the relations between emotions, motivation and action, concluding this overview with a more specific focus on how these relations bear on some central ethical issues.

Quel est le lien entre les émotions et la connaissance ? Selon une idée répandue, la réponse s’impose avec évidence : les émotions sont en rapport avec la connaissance dans la seule mesure où elles y font obstacle. Leur caractère disruptif, envahissant et sélectif empêcherait de raisonner correctement ou de poser un regard englobant et objectif sur les situations auxquelles nous faisons face. Je souhaite soutenir l’idée opposée, à savoir que les émotions permettent à ceux qui les ressentent d’entrer en relation avec certaines valeurs. L’hypothèse est, plus précisément, la suivante : les émotions constituent une voie épistémique privilégiée vers la connaissance des valeurs. Il conviendra bien sûr d’élucider le sens dans lequel une émotion peut constituer ou conduire à une forme de connaissance évaluative. J’aborderai ce problème à travers la notion de justification en répondant à la question : qu’est-ce qu’une émotion justifiée ? Après avoir considéré les raisons de ressentir une émotion – d’abord, dans la section 2, les raisons liées à la prise en compte de certains aspects de l’environnement (les « bases cognitives des émotions ») puis, dans la section 3, celles liées aux besoins, désirs et dispositions affectives (leurs « bases motivationnelles ») – je serai alors en mesure, dans la section 4, d’expliquer en quoi les émotions constituent une voie privilégiée vers la connaissance des valeurs. Toutefois, avant de m’aventurer sur ces terres épistémologiques, je souhaite dire quelques mots à propos du genre de conception des émotions qui sous-tend ma discussion.

We are prone to think that the emotions someone undergoes are somehow revelatory of the sort of person she is, and philosophers working in the field have frequently insisted upon the existence of an intimate relation between a subject and her emotions. But how intimate is the relation between emotions and the self? I first explain why interesting claims about this relation must locate it at the level of emotional intentionality. Given that emotions have a complex intentional structure – they are about an object and evaluate it – this means that the relation between emotions and the self may take different shapes. My discussion focuses on three different claims about this relation. According to the first claim, all emotions are about the subject who undergoes them. The second claim appeals to a more moderate form of reflexivity and affirms that emotions always feature a representation of other psychological states of the subject. The third understands the relation between emotions and the self in e...

Ma discussion est structuree autour de l examen de trois theses concernant le rapport entre emotions et moi. J examine d'abord la these selon laquelle toute emotion renferme une forme de reflexivité en ce qu elle est intentionnellement dirigee vers le sujet qui la ressent. Le moi est ici considere être l objet particulier de toute emotion. Je me consacre ensuite a l examen d une deuxieme these, plus subtile, qui considere que les emotions sont reflexives en ce qu elles portent toujours sur d autres etats psychologiques du sujet. Je me tourne enfin vers une these qui situe le rapport entre emotions et moi au niveau de l objet formel. Elle soutient que toute emotion a pour objet formel une propriete evaluative relationnelle dont l un des termes est le sujet qui la ressent. Je cherche a montrer que ces trois theses valent au mieux pour un sous-ensemble restreint d emotions et qu elles doivent parfois etre remplacee par des theses modestes quant au rapport entre emotions et moi, a savoir des theses qui ne presupposent aucun rapport intentionnel entre les deux.

How does shame differ from guilt? Empirical psychology has recently offered distinct and seemingly incompatible answers to this question. This article brings together four prominent answers into a cohesive whole. These are that shame differs from guilt in being a social emotion; shame, in contrast to guilt, affects the whole self; shame is linked with ideals, whereas guilt concerns prohibitions and shame is oriented towards the self, guilt towards others. After presenting the relevant empirical evidence, we defend specific interpretations of each of these answers and argue that they are related to four different dimensions of the emotions. This not only allows us to overcome the conclusion that the above criteria are either unrelated or conflicting with one another, it also allows us to tell apart what is constitutive from what is typical of them.

Negative emotions are familiar enough, but they have rarely been a topic of study in their own right. This volume brings together fourteen chapters on negative emotions, written in a highly accessible style for non-specialists and specialists alike. It starts with chapters on general issues raised by negative emotions, such as the nature of valence, the theoretical implications of nasty emotions, the role of negative emotions in fiction, as well as the puzzles raised by ambivalent and mixed emotions. The second part of the volume consists of studies of specific emotional phenomena, ranging from the emotion of being moved and the sense of uncanniness to jealousy, hatred, shame, contempt, anxiety, and grief.

Les émotions peuvent être pénibles, voire néfastes. Pensons par exemple à la peur, la colère, la haine, la jalousie ou au mépris. De telles émotions sont souvent qualifiées de négatives. Mais que sont les émotions négatives et comment se distinguent-elles des émotions positives ? Plus généralement, qu’impliquent-elles pour notre compréhension des émotions ? Et quels sont concrètement leurs effets sur nos pensées et nos vies ? De plus, comment analyser l’ambivalence affective, comme quand on ressent à la fois de l’amour et de la haine ? Réunissant dix contributions rédigées pour l’occasion, Les ombres de l’âme propose des éléments de réponses originaux à ces questions. Ce faisant, cet ouvrage jette les bases d’une philosophie des émotions négatives.

It is often claimed that emotions are linked to formal objects. But what are formal objects? What roles do they play? According to some philosophers, formal objects are axiological properties which individuate emotions, make them intelligible and give their correctness conditions. In this paper, I evaluate these claims in order to answer the above questions. I first give reasons to doubt the thesis that formal objects individuate emotions. Second, I distinguish different ways in which emotions are intelligible and argue that philosophers are wrong in claiming that emotions only make sense when they are based on prior sources of axiological information. Third, I investigate how issues of intelligibility connect with the correctness conditions of emotions. I defend a theory according to which emotions do not respond to axiological information, but to non-axiological reasons. According to this theory, we can allocate fundamental roles to the formal objects of emotions while dispensing with the problematic features of other theories.

There are close links between emotions and values, or at least this is what our ordinary ways of talking suggest. For many, if not all, types of emotion it is thus possible to find a corresponding evaluative term, one often derived from the name of the emotion in question. These are for example evaluative terms such as ‘shameful', ‘offensive, ‘annoying', ‘dangerous', ‘contemptible', ‘admirable', ‘amusing', ‘exciting', ‘boring', and the like. Starting perhaps from these linguistic observations, the philosophical task is of course to elucidate the nature of the links between emotions and values, and attempts at doing so have traditionally revolved around the following three questions: first, what is the role of emotions in elucidating the nature of value? For example, should dangerousness be understood in term of the fear response? Second, what is the role of emotions in our getting access to values? For example, what may be the role of fear in becoming aware that a given animal is dangerous? Third, what value do emotions have? For example, is fear of special value because it helps behaving appropriately towards its object? We hall take up these questions in turn and survey the most important answers they have received in the literature. As we shall discover, answering the first question amounts to surveying a variety of theories according to which there is an ontological relation between values and emotions since the former should be elucidated in terms of the latter (Sec. 1). Addressing the second question consists in reviewing theories according to which there is an intentional relation between emotions and values because the former are apprehensions of value or evaluations (Sec. 2). Grappling with the third question, we shall explore some reasons for thinking that emotions can exemplify values (Sec. 3).

The evaluations involved in shame are, intuitively at least, of many different sorts. One feels ashamed when seen by others doing something one would prefer doing alone (social shame). One is ashamed because of one’s ugly nose (shame about permanent traits). One feels ashamed of one’s dishonest behavior (moral shame), etc. The variety of evaluations in shame is striking; and it is even more so if one takes a cross-cultural perspective on this emotion. So the difficulty – the “unity problem” of shame- turns out to be the following: is there a common trait shared by all shame evaluations that will allow us to differentiate these evaluations from those that feature in other negative self-reflexive emotions like anger at oneself or self disappointment? Some progress is perhaps accomplished if we say that, in shame, a given trait or behavior is evaluated as degrading or as revealing one’s lack of worth. Still, even if we agree with this last claim, truth is that these answers are less illuminating than we might wish. A theory of shame should surely further elucidate the aspect of one’s identity relevant for shame, namely, the self of shame. In this connexion, philosophers have referred to “self-esteem,” “self-respect” or the “social self,” significantly disagreeing thus on which aspect of one’s identity is at stake in shame. After critically discussing the different solutions to the problem, we offer our own. Shame, we claim, consists in an awareness of a distinctive inability to discharge a commitment that goes with holding self-relevant values. This conception solves the unity problem while illuminating other aspects of this emotion.

The emotions are at the centre of our lives and, for better or worse, imbue them with much of their significance. The philosophical problems stirred up by the existence of the emotions, over which many great philosophers of the past have laboured, revolve around attempts to understand what this significance amounts to. Are emotions feelings, thoughts, or experiences? If they are experiences, what are they experiences of? Are emotions rational? In what sense do emotions give meaning to what surrounds us? The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction introduces and explores these questions in a clear and accessible way. The authors discuss the following key topics: the diversity and unity of the emotions the relations between emotion, belief and desire the nature of values the relations between emotions and perceptions emotions viewed as evaluative attitudes the link between emotions and evaluative knowledge the nature of moods, sentiments, and character traits. Including chapter summaries and guides to further reading, The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction is an ideal starting point for any philosopher or student studying the emotions. It will also be of interest to those in related disciplines such as psychology and the social sciences.

Cet ouvrage répond à la question « Qu’est-ce qu’une émotion? » à la lumière des débats les plus contemporains en philosophie des émotions tout en s’appuyant sur les recherches empiriques les plus récentes au sujet de l’affect. Une fois exposée la manière dont les émotions se distinguent d’autres phénomènes affectifs tels que les humeurs, les sentiments et les dispositions affectives, l’étude propose une élucidation originale du problème majeur auquel fait face aujourd’hui la philosophie des émotions : comment comprendre la spécificité de l’intentionnalité affective? A travers une discussion à la fois fouillée et didactique des théories contemporaines les plus abouties concernant les relations entre émotion et désir d’une part, et entre émotion et valeur d’autre part, les auteurs défendent l’idée selon laquelle le corps ressenti peut fonctionner comme présentation intentionnelle en première personne d’un monde de valeurs

The contemporary consensus on shame is pessimistic. Three main reasons, all connected with the alleged fact that, in shame, you allow yourself to become the victim of external pressures, appear to motivate this conclusion. First, shame is said to be the emotion of social sanction: when you feel shame, you submit to the judgements of others. Second, shame is supposed to be triggered by the way you look in the eyes of others. Thirdly, and as a result, shame allegedly motivates at best withdrawal from others, at worse violence towards them. In this paper, we scrutinize these claims and argue that, while each of them contains a grain of truth, they fail to justify shame’s bad reputation.

The nature of emotion is an important question in several philosophical domains, but little attention has so far been paid to identifying the general ontological category to which emotions belong. Given that they are short-lived, are they events? Since they often have components or stages, are they processes? Or does their close link with behaviour mean they are dispositions? In this volume, leading scholars investigate these basic ontological issues, contributing to current discussions about emotions and paving the way for new research into an underexplored area of philosophy. With chapters addressing issues including the temporal profile of emotions, the distinction between emotions and other affective states, and the epistemology of emotion, this highly original book will be valuable for students and specialists of philosophy, and particularly for those working in the metaphysics of mind and emotions.

In this article, the authors examine and debate the categories of emotions, moods, temperaments, character traits and sentiments. They define them and offer an account of the relations that exist among the phenomena they cover. They argue that, whereas ascribing character traits and sentiments (dispositions) is to ascribe a specific coherence and stability to the emotions (episodes) the subject is likely to feel, ascribing temperaments (dispositions) is to ascribe a certain stability to the subject's moods (episodes). The rationale for this distinction, the authors claim, lies in the fact that, whereas appeal to character traits or sentiments in explanation is tantamount to making sense of a given behaviour in terms of an individual's specific evaluative perspective - as embodied in this individual's emotional profile - appeal to temperaments makes sense of it independently of any such evaluative perspective.

In this article, we present, assess and give reasons to reject the popular claim that shame is essentially social. We start by presenting several theses which the social claim has motivated in the philosophical literature. All of them, in their own way, regard shame as displaying a structure in which "others" play an essential role. We argue that while all these theses are true of some important families of shame episodes, none of them generalize so as to motivate the conclusion that shame is an essentially social emotion. We consider each thesis in turn, explaining in the process their connections with one another as well as the constraints on a theory of shame they help uncover. Finally, we show how a non-social picture of shame is not only capable of meeting these constraints, but has the further virtue of shedding light on those situations in which others seem to play no role in why we feel shame.

Is shame social? Is it superficial? Is it a morally problematic emotion? Researchers in disciplines as different as psychology, philosophy, and anthropology have thought so. But what is the nature of shame and why are claims regarding its social nature and moral standing interesting and important? Do they tell us anything worthwhile about the value of shame and its potential legal and political applications? In this book, Julien Deonna, Raffaele Rodogno, and Fabrice Teroni propose an original philosophical account of shame aimed at answering these questions. The book begins with a detailed examination of the evidence and arguments that are taken to support what they call the two dogmas about shame: its alleged social nature and its morally dubious character. Their analysis is conducted against the backdrop of a novel account of shame and ultimately leads to the rejection of these two dogmas. On this account, shame involves a specific form of negative evaluation that the subject takes towards herself: a verdict of incapacity with regard to values to which she is attached. One central virtue of the account resides in the subtle manner it clarifies the ways in which the subject's identity is at stake in shame, thus shedding light on many aspects of this complex emotion and allowing for a sophisticated understanding of its moral significance. This philosophical account of shame engages with all the current debates on shame as they are conducted within disciplines as varied as ethics, moral, experimental, developmental and evolutionary psychology, anthropology, legal studies, feminist studies, politics and public polic

Why think that emotions are kinds of evaluations? This chapter puts forward an original account of emotions as evaluations apt to circumvent some of the chief difficulties with which alternative approaches find themselves confronted. We shall proceed by first introducing the idea that emotions are evaluations (sec. I). Next, two well-known approaches attempting to account for this idea in terms of attitudes that are in and of themselves unemotional but are alleged to become emotional when directed towards evaluative contents are explored. According to the first approach, emotions are nothing but evaluative judgments. Sec. II reminds the reader of the problems associated with this idea: one of its consequences is to deprive creatures with limited cognitive capacities of any sort of partaking of emotional life. According to the second approach, which is often praised for its capacity to avoid the pitfalls facing an appeal to evaluative judgments, emotions are perception-like experiences of evaluative properties and are as such within the reach of creatures bereft of conceptual capacities. This perceptual theory is taken up in sect. III, in which we explain why it remains unsatisfactory insofar as it shares with the evaluative judgement theory the idea that what makes emotions evaluations is the specific contents that they have. On this basis, we proceed by outlining in sect. IV an alternative—the attitudinal theory of emotions. Its main point of departure from current theorizing about the emotions consists in elucidating the fact that emotions are evaluations not in terms of what they represent, but rather in terms of the sort of attitude subjects take towards what they represent. We explore here what sorts of attitudes emotions are and defend the idea that they are felt bodily attitudes.