Emotion as Feeling Towards Value

Abstract

Abstract This book proposes and defends a new theory of emotional experience. Drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, with links to contemporary philosophy of mind, it argues that emotional experiences are sui generis states, not to be modelled after other mental states—such as perceptions, judgements, or bodily feelings—but given their own analysis and place within our mental economy. More specifically, emotional experiences are claimed to be feelings-towards-values. Central to the theory is the claim that emotional experiences include (non-bodily) felt attitudes which represent evaluative properties of the particular objects of those experiences. It is in this sense that emotional experiences are feelings-towards-values. After setting out a framework for theorizing about experiences and their contents, the book argues that the content of emotional experience is evaluative, doing so in more detail than in the previous literature. It then explains the best way of marrying the former claim with the presence of specific kinds of valenced attitudinal components in emotional experience and critical aspects of emotional phenomenology. It is argued that we should appeal to felt valenced attitudes of favour and disfavour, resulting in the feeling-towards-value view. Building on this, a distinctive role for bodily feelings is then introduced, by way of a somatic enrichment of these felt valenced attitudes. Finally, issues pertaining to the intelligibility of emotions are considered. It is shown how the feeling-towards-value view can account for the way in which emotional experiences often make sense in a first-person way.

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