Do emotions belong to the class of rationally assessable phenomena or should they be classified as arational reactions? This article provides an overview of the debate on this question, focusing on contemporary attempts to show that emotions are rationally assessable. We look at these attempts through the lens of the prominent distinction between a structuralist and a substantivist conception of rationality. According to the structuralist view, rationality requires coherence among our mental sta…
Read moreDo emotions belong to the class of rationally assessable phenomena or should they be classified as arational reactions? This article provides an overview of the debate on this question, focusing on contemporary attempts to show that emotions are rationally assessable. We look at these attempts through the lens of the prominent distinction between a structuralist and a substantivist conception of rationality. According to the structuralist view, rationality requires coherence among our mental states. By contrast, on the substantivist view, it requires responsiveness to reasons. Whereas the most explicit contemporary defenses of emotional rationality endorse structuralism, we explore in detail the case for the view that emotions are substantively rational. Topics addressed include how we should construe the claim that emotions are rational, whether reasons-talk is intelligible in the case of emotions, candidates for normative reasons for emotion, and whether emotions can be genuine responses to reasons.
