Moral Emotions PDF

Moral Emotions Professor Lucy Allais Plan for today - Plan for the rest of term - Why emotions and morality? - Introduction to how philosophers think about emotions Plan for today - Plan for the rest of term How to approach this part of the course: It is essential to do the pres...

Moral Emotions Professor Lucy Allais Plan for today - Plan for the rest of term - Why emotions and morality? - Introduction to how philosophers think about emotions Plan for today - Plan for the rest of term How to approach this part of the course: It is essential to do the prescribed reading, both before and after the lecture. It is essential to attend lectures. Learn actively! Plan for today - Plan for the rest of term Anger and Blame Forgiveness Guilt and Shame Trust Hope Some of the other moral emotions on which there is interesting philosophical work: contempt, gratitude, resentment, pride, remorse, jealousy … Resources - I have uploaded extra readings on the uLwazi site. - Stanford Encyclopedia Resources - I have uploaded extra readings on the uLwazi site. - Stanford Encyclopedia https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-71-kate-norlock-on-self- forgiveness/id956404060?i=1000626468887 self forgiveness https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-69-alice-maclachlan-on- revenge/id956404060?i=1000626468888 revenge https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-67-miranda-fricker-on-ambivalence-about- forgiveness/id956404060?i=1000626468702 ambivalence https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-059-sam-fleischacker-on- empathy/id956404060?i=1000526066324 empathy https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-057-alfred-archer-on-emotional- imperialism/id956404060?i=1000526066320 emotional imperialism https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-045-lindsey-stewart-on-black- joy/id956404060?i=1000473689292 black joy Myisha Cherry Plan for today - Plan for the rest of term - Why emotions and morality? - Introduction to how philosophers think about emotions Why emotions and morality? - Emotions express and reveal our values: they are about things we care about. ‘No aspect of our mental life is more important to the quality and meaning of our existence than the emotions. They are what make life worth living and sometimes worth ending.’ Scarantino, Andrea and Ronald de Sousa, "Emotion", https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/ Why emotions and morality? - Some philosophers think that moral judgments are tied up with emotions. - Emotivism as a meta-ethical theory, claims that moral judgments simply are expressions of emotion. - Moral judgments are closely related to expressions of emotion. Why emotions and morality? - Emotions play a social role - they are part of how we form moral community. - Humans are hyper-social animals – our central evolutionary strategy is community. Emotions play central roles in our interactions and forming of community. - Caring, love, empathy, sympathy, gratitude, trust. Moral emotions Jonathan Haidt: ‘a preliminary definition of the moral emotions as those emotions that are linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than the judge or agent.’ ‘there is more to morality than altruism and niceness. Emotions that motivate helping behavior are easy to label as moral emotions, but emotions that lead to ostracism, shaming, and murderous vengeance are no less a part of our moral nature. The human social world is a miraculous and tenuous co- construction of its participants, and any emotion that leads people to care about that world, and to support, enforce, or improve its integrity should be considered a moral emotion, even when the actions taken are not "nice.”’ Guilt, shame, anger, blame, contempt, indignation Moral emotions Jonathan Haidt: Other-condemning emotions: contempt, anger, disgust, indignation. Self-conscious emotions: shame, embarrassment, guilt Other-suffering emotions: compassion Other-praising emotions: gratitude, elevation ‘Once people (or earlier hominids) began reacting with contempt, anger, and disgust to social violations, it became adaptive for individuals to monitor and constrain their own behavior. People have a strong need to belong to groups (Baumeister & Leary, 1995), and the self-conscious emotions seem designed to help people navigate the complexities of fitting in to groups without triggering the contempt, anger, and disgust of others.’ (Haidt) Why emotions and morality? - Emotions express our responses to other people’s actions. - They are part of how we see each other as responsible moral agents. - Blame, resentment, gratitude – are attitudes to something a person has done. - They have very particular content. - What might be meant by saying that emotions have content? Plan for today - Plan for the rest of term - Why emotions and morality? - Introduction to how philosophers think about emotions Emotions have content. There is something emotions are about – emotions have an object. Eg I am angry about your breaking my phone. I am grateful for your help. Emotions have a way they present their object as being. How should we think about what emotions are, such that we can understand them as having content? What are emotions? The study of emotions is a rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field of study, involving psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, philosophy. Long and fascinating history, and also studied in different philosophical traditions. Lots of controversy and disagreement! https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concept-emotion-india/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion-Christian- tradition/ There is disagreement about what emotions are; Disagreement about whether there is something all emotions are – whether they form a unified class in any way, or rather are simply a disunified mass of different states; Disagreement about which states are emotions. Relatively uncontroversial paradigm emotions: fear, panic, pride, remorse, indignation, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, anger, shame, envy, gratitude, hope, anxiety, jealousy, grief, despair, remorse, joy, resentment, curiosity. Less standard, more controversial cases: startlement, amusement, depression, indifference, vanity, faith, kindliness, laziness, avarice, generosity, obsequiousness, loyalty, boredom. Complex and variable: ‘At first blush, the things we ordinarily call emotions differ from one another along several dimensions. For example, some emotions are occurrences (e.g., panic), and others are dispositions (e.g., hostility); some are short-lived (e.g., anger) and others are long-lived (e.g., grief); some involve primitive cognitive processing (e.g., fear of a suddenly looming object), and others involve sophisticated cognitive processing (e.g., fear of losing a chess match); some are conscious (e.g., disgust about an insect in the mouth) and others are unconscious (e.g., unconscious fear of failing in life); some have prototypical facial expressions (e.g., surprise) and others lack them (e.g., regret). Some involve strong motivations to act (e.g., rage) and others do not (e.g., sadness). Some are present across species (e.g., fear) and others are exclusively human (e.g., schadenfreude). And so on.’ (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) In the psychological literature there is a debate about whether there are some basic emotions which are universal and independent of specific cultures. Most importantly: there is not a simple contrast between reason and emotion. Emotions have content. Emotions relate to beliefs. Emotions play a role in reasoning. Peter Goldie, Emotion Peter Goldie Emotions are mental states. They are also (often) bodily states, or have typical physiological states associated with them. There is usually something they feel like; there is something that it is like to have a particular emotion. They have a phenomenology. They are connected to motivation so often closely connected to action. They are sometimes (but not always!) subject to the will. They have intentional content (compare to non-intentional feelings) Intentional content. ‘Intentionality is the property that the mind has of being directed onto things’. ‘Emotions do seem to be intentional: your surprise is at the sudden noise; your fear is of the dog, your love is of your parents, you are angry that civil liberties are being eroded. These things (taking the notion of ‘thing’ suitably widely) are the objects of your emotion: the noise, the dog, our parents, the fact that civil liberties are being eroded. (Goldie Emotion p 930). Intentional content. Goldie: ‘the intentional object of an emotion need not be its cause: your irritability might be caused by drinking too much coffee, but it is your partner’s way of buttering the toast that is the object of your irritation.’ (Goldie Emotion p 930). Emotions can be highly complex ‘one can feel guilty that one felt delight at making fun of her embarrassment on hearing his somewhat off-colour joke.’ (Goldie Emotion p 928-9). There is not a simple contrast between reason and emotion. Emotions have content. Emotions relate to beliefs. Emotions play a role in reasoning. Sometimes changing a belief changes an emotion …. But sometimes it doesn’t. Some emotions are described as cognitively impenetrable, eg phobias. Unlike beliefs, emotions are not evaluated as true or false, but they can be evaluated as: Appropriate or inappropriate. Apt or inapt. Proportionate or disproportionate. What are emotions? Emotions as feelings Emotions as judgments Emotions as perceptual or quasi-perceptua l What are emotions? A bodily-feeling account Emotions as feelings – feelings constituted by awareness of changes in the body which are caused by perceiving something. (William James, Jesse Prinz) Objection: such feelings are insufficient to individuate emotions. What are emotions? A cognitive account Emotions as judgments – appraisals or value judgments (Nussbaum) What are emotions? Emotions as judgments – appraisals or value judgments (Nussbaum) - Objection: it seems we can have judgments without emotions. - ‘sometimes we disbelieve the proposition that would be affirmed in the judgment corresponding to the emotion’ (Roberts 195) - Emotions are more subject to the will than beliefs are?: ‘a rational person has more options with respect to his emotions than he has with respect to his judgments’ (198 Roberts) What are emotions? Emotions as complexes of feelings and judgments (and other possible components) What are emotions? Emotions as perceptual or quasi-perceptua l – emotions present the world to us in some way analogous to perception. Emotions as determining salience: fields of focus and framing, attention. This is argued to solve problems of sorting information in decision-making. What are emotions? An Intentional Feeling account Goldie argues that emotions are both essentially feelings and essentially intentional: the intentional content is part of the feeling. There is general agreement that: Emotions have content. Emotions can be appropriate, inappropriate, fitting, proportionate, disproportionate, etc. They have characteristic physiological and phenomenological components Emotions are not necessarily opposed to reason and they stand in relations to other psychological states. Emotions are related to or correlated with desires or motivations, and therefore often to action. Emotions involve appraisals/concern/value. They concern things that matter to us. Why emotions and morality? - Emotions express our responses to other people’s actions. - They are part of how we see each other as responsible moral agents. - Blame, resentment, gratitude – are attitudes to something a person has done. - They have very particular content. Blame, resentment and gratitude are attitudes to persons or agents, which involve seeing an action: As chosen or willed; As something the agent could have chosen not to do; As chosen or willed in the light of some kind of minimal moral requirement. In the context of the way the person thought about what they were doing. For example, when we resent someone we see them as having culpably done something we were entitled to require them not to do. When we feel, for example, gratitude towards someone, we see them as having done something (as the author of an action that flowed from their will) that expressed more good will towards us than we were entitled to expect. There seems to be a close link between these kind of emotions (which philosophers call ’reactive attitudes’ and seeing people as morally responsible agents whose attitudes towards us we care about. It doesn’t seem to make sense to feel resentment to the weather or your car. If you never feel attitudes like gratitude or resentment towards someone it seems that you don’t see them as an agent or you don’t have any expectations of them or you don’t value them. These attitudes play a central role in our moral interactions with each other. Further reading: Roberts, Robert C, What an Emotion is: A Sketch, The Philosophical Review, 97 (2), 1988. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/ J. Haidt, ‘The Moral Emotions’, 2003. https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~jhaidt/articles/alternate_versions/ haidt.2003.the-moral-emotions.pub025-as-html.html