Emotions and Values

Teroni, Fabrice; Deonna, Julien (2014). Emotions and Values (In Press). In: Hirose, Iwao; Olson, Jonas (eds.) The Handbook of Value Theory. New York: Oxford University Press

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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).

Item Type:

Book Section (Book Chapter)

Division/Institute:

06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute of Philosophy

UniBE Contributor:

Teroni, Fabrice

Subjects:

100 Philosophy
100 Philosophy > 110 Metaphysics

ISBN:

9780199959303

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

Language:

English

Submitter:

Fabrice Teroni

Date Deposited:

03 Oct 2014 11:28

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:33

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.50112

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/50112

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