Youce Xiang

My thesis argues against the prevalent view that recalcitrant emotions are irrational (in the sense of being incoherent) because they cause an epistemic inconsistency between one’s incorrect emotional evaluative construals and one’s correct beliefs or judgments. I argue that recalcitrant emotions are not irrational in cases where they are fitting and convey correct evaluative construals, whereas one’s beliefs or judgments about the emotion-eliciting objects or circumstances turn out to be false. I label these cases as incorrect-belief recalcitrance and outline a general form for other paradigmatic emotions exemplifying incorrect-belief recalcitrance. In these cases, one’s "considered" beliefs falsely deny the instantiation of the formal objects of their emotions, resulting in the inconsistency between their correct emotional construal and their false belief. I argue that cases of incorrect-belief recalcitrance occur quite often and offer a brief causal explanation regarding why agents might hold onto their false beliefs in the face of contrary emotional construals. Furthermore, I suggest that to meet the rationality requirement of epistemic consistency, agents should either reduce their unfitting emotions or change their false beliefs to resolve emotional recalcitrance. The takeaway of my argument is that recalcitrant emotions should be placed on a more equal epistemic footing with beliefs at the start of inquiry—that is, the new default should be that either emotions or beliefs turn out to be incorrect (Updated abstract).