Philosophy of Emotion

Contemporary analytic philosophy of emotions is currently dominated by two opposing

camps. In one camp we have those generally labelled cognitivists and in the other those who

favour a Jamesian approach, the neo-Jamesians. The‖term‖’cognitivism‛‖brings together

writers on emotions, some of whom might be termed pure cognitivists: e.g. Solomon (1976 &

2003c), Taylor (1985) and Nussbaum (2004); and those who might be termed hybrid

cognitivists: e.g. Goldie (2000) Greenspan (1993) Nash (1987) and Stocker (1987). Neo-

Jamesianism, as the name suggests, brings together philosophers and psychologists

who‖advance‖a‖contemporary‖variant‖of‖William‖James’s‖account‖of‖emotion and in doing

so often align themselves with the research program initiated by Darwin ([1872] 1965) and

later Ekman (1972); those Darwinian claims are often buttressed by theoretical claims drawn

from neuroscience and cognate theories of mind: e.g. Damasio (1994), Prinz (2004) and

Robinson (1995).

Cognitivists and JamesiansIn short, cognitivists take emotions to be centrally, and explain them in terms of, appraisals, judgements

or evaluative beliefs; neo-Jamesians explain emotions in terms of awareness of bodily changes, usually

patterned changes in the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).

How the debate is polarised can be captured by returning to a passage from William James’s paper in

Mind, published in 1884, a passage frequently quoted and/or referred to by those on either side of the

debate.

Our natural way of thinking about … emotions is that the mental perception of

some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind

gives rise to the bodily expression. My thesis on the contrary is that the bodily changes follow

directly the PERCEPTION of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they

occur IS the emotion.

(James, 1884: 190-191. Emphasis in original)

Cognitivism and Jamesianism• The cognitivist philosophers of emotion favour analysis of the

thoughts that constitute the emotion, in its social situation or

embedded in a narrative: the‖’natural‖way‖of‖thinking‖about‖…

‖emotions’,‖as‖James‖puts‖it.

• Neo-Jamesians, in following James’s‖claim‖that‖the ‘bodily

changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of the exciting

fact’‖reject‖the talk of thoughts and favour a cognitive

neuroscience approach, sometimes drawing on or appealing to

evolutionary psychology/socio-biology.

Cognitivism and Jamesianism• So, cognitivists depict emotional episodes as fundamentally outward-facing and Jamesians

as fundamentally introspective.

• Cognitivists argue that emotions are rational; Jamesians argue that they are non-rational or

rationally inert irruptions in an otherwise rational life (though recently neo-Jamesians have

sought to give and account of emotions which can accommodate the rationality of emotion

while retaining the central Jamesian commitment, e.g. Prinz).

• In cognitive theories, intentionality is at centre stage, our thoughts are directed at

something in the world; in neo-Jamesian theories, passivity is at centre stage, we are struck

by or afflicted by something.

COGNITIVISM JAMESIANISM

Emotions are centrally appraisals/judgements/evaluations of a certain class or family

Emotions are centrally feelings of bodily changes as those changes occur

Emotions are rational Emotions are irrational or simply not rationality-apt. More recently: emotions might be rational but their rationality is anomalous and/or extraneous

Emotions are intentional Emotions are brute

Emotional episodes are centrally outward-facing

Emotional episodes are centrally introspective

Emotional utterance = expression (functionally analogous to a smile, a frown, a grimace or a cry of anguish). The utterance is part of the emotion.

Emotional utterance = description (a report of an inner event). The utterance and emotion are discrete; the latter is merely a label we attach to our emotions.

COGNITIVISM JAMESIANISM

Study of emotion is undertaken by the analysis of thoughts in a social situation and/or embedded in a narrative: Meaning of emotion is central

Study of emotion is undertaken by cognitive neuroscience and a study of bodily changes that theorises their evolutionary purpose: Cause of emotion is central

We are answerable for our emotions We are subject to our emotions

Chief influences are philosophers and certain schools of philosophy: Aristotle and the Stoics; Nietzsche, Sartre and Existentialism; and, it is claimed, Wittgenstein.

Chief influences are neuroscience and evolutionary biology: Darwin’s‖work‖on‖emotional‖expression‖in‖’man animals‖and work on the ANS

Cognitivism’s ‘chain of events’: (i) object—(ii) perception/judgement/belief—(iii) outward behavioural manifestation

(i) we lose a loved one—(ii) we are sad—(iii) we cry [because we are sad];

(i) we meet a snake—(ii) we are frightened—(iii) we tremble and run [because we are frightened] (i) we are betrayed by a colleague—(ii) we are angry—(iii) our hands shake, we flush and shout [because we are angry]

Jamesian chain of events: (i)object—(ii) bodily change—(iii) awareness of bodily change.

(i) we lose a loved one—(ii) we cry—(iii) we are sad [because we cry]

(i) we meet a snake—(ii) we tremble and run—(iii) we are frightened [because we tremble] (i) we are betrayed by a colleague—(ii) our hands shake, we flush and shout—(iii) we are angry [because we are shaking, flushing and raising our voice]

Deigh’s Emotion GapJohn Deigh (2004) has identified that the problem facing theories of emotions in both camps

is their inability to cover both of two facts about emotions.

Fact one is the intentionality of emotion.

Fact two is that, as Deigh puts it, ‘emotions are common to both humans and beasts’ (with

caveats that a. humans have a broader set of emotions, and b. we are not committed to all

beasts having emotions).

Whenever theorists of emotion try to cover intentionality adequately, they do so, according

to Deigh, by forgoing the ability to explain emotion in non-human animals. Of course,

cognitivists are historically seen as strong on fact one, while Jamesians/Darwinians are taken

to be strong on fact two.

We might equally observe that it is often taken to be the case that cognitivists face

substantial difficulty in acknowledging fact two just as Jamesians, at least appear to, deny fact

one.

A successful theory of emotions must account for both of these facts [Facts one and

two]. It cannot skirt them. Yet accounting for both has proven to be surprisingly difficult.

Some theories, particularly the cognitivist theories that have been so influential in

philosophy and psychology over the last thirty years, use the first fact as their point of

departure and leading idea, but they then have trouble accommodating the second.

Other theories, particularly those that have developed under

the‖influence‖of‖Darwin’s‖seminal‖work‖The Expression of the Emotions in Man and

Animals (1998), take the second fact as their springboard, but then they have trouble

accommodating the first. The reason in either case, is the way intentional states of mind

are typically understood and the way primitive emotions are typically understood. The

problem of closing this gap seems to outstrip the resources of these theories. The point

is not generally recognised, however. It tends to‖lie‖beyond‖the‖theories’‖horizons.

(Deigh, 2004: p. 10)

PAUL‖GRIFFITHS:‖THE‖ELIMINATIVIST’S‖RESPONSE

Paul Griffiths (1997) has suggested that the problem is the very thought that one can, indeed, provide an account of emotion.

For Griffiths, the term “emotion” does not pick out a natural kind, but rather two natural kinds (plus, possibly, one pseudo-kind of “disclaimed action ‘emotions’”).

The vernacular concept ‘emotion’, should be eliminated, according to Griffiths, in favour of two new kind terms.‖

Two Natural KindsThe first kind of emotions are the “basic emotions”, best explained, according to

Griffiths, by Ekman’s “Affect Program research” and complemented by the work of

Damasio.

These basic emotions are said to roughly correspond to the vernacular emotion

concepts of “anger, surprise, joy, and disgust”

The second kind of emotions are the “higher cognitive” or “complex” emotions,

best explained, according to Griffiths, by evolutionary psychological explanation.

These “complex” emotions are said to correspond roughly to the vernacular

emotion concepts of “guilt, remorse, loyalty, and shame.”

Analogue / Homologue Distinction

Griffiths’ response to the problem as identified by Deigh, therefore, is to simply say

that providing one theory that covers both facts cannot be done; thus, trying to

provide one is ill-conceived.

Any‖likeness‖between‖the‖’basic’‖emotions and‖the ’complex’‖emotions is purely

analogous.

Griffiths imports here a distinction from the philosophy of biology between

analogous correspondence and homologous correspondence: the former is merely

superficial likeness (a likeness in function or purpose), claims Griffiths. While the

latter, homologous correspondence, is real correspondence (a correspondence in

essential structural form).

Blade Runner• Let us imagine two beings who appear to share the same attributes. They look like

two healthy human beings. They both feel pain, though one has a higher pain threshold than the other.

• They respond to loss and bereavement in the same way, though one has experienced much and is now more ‘hardened.’

• they understand each other as on occasion being afraid and on having lost a loved one, being grief-stricken. One comforts the other and reports their grief in a certain tone of voice to friends and relatives.

• In‖this‖way‖they‖acknowledge‖one‖another,‖through acknowledgement of‖one‖another’s fears, grief, joy &c. .

• All things considered, they are the same sort of being in terms of their lives in the world, their interactions and transactions with others in their shared world.

• What changes for you about this story if one finds that one of these two beings has radically different biological mechanisms that physically facilitate certain of their typical fear behaviour or grief behaviour?

Prinz and the Emotion ProblemSo we have a serious puzzle. The fact that emotions are meaningful, reason

sensitive, and intentional suggests that they must be cognitive. The fact

that some emotions arise without intervention of the neocortex suggests

that emotions cannot all be cognitive. The emotions that arise in this way

seem to be meaningful. This seems to suggest that being meaningful does

not require being cognitive. Noncognitive states are explanatorily anaemic

and cognitive states are explanatorily superfluous. Noncognitive theories

give us too little, and cognitive theories give us too much. Call this the

Emotion Problem.

(Prinz 2003a: 78)

Prinz’s Emotion Problem as a syllogism

1. Cognition is absent. [put Prinz’s‖way: nothing is taking place in the brain which involves

the intervention of the neocortex]

2. (while‖‘cognition’‖is‖absent),‖the‖person‖is‖in‖an‖emotional state and‖this‖suggests that

something akin to cognition—something that fulfils the outward criteria for being

cognition—is taking place. [i.e. something akin to the perception and evaluation of an

object]

3. the conclusion drawn is that something else, other than the involvement of the neocortex,

must be playing the role of cognition; something noncognitive must give-forth meaning,

and must be directed onto things in the world: must be intentional. [Since cognition-as-

neural-activity-involving-the-intervention-of-the-neocortex (what Prinz takes to be

cognition) is not present, but a meaningful emotional episode is, meaning must emerge

from an embodied emotion having semantic properties which enable it to refer in the

absence of cognition (in the absence of neocortical intervention).]

Prinz’s ‘solution’ to his ‘problem’

Emotions‖can‖be‖individuated‖by‖their‖reliable‖elicitors.‖This

suggestion‖can be taken a step further. According to prevailing theories of

mental representation, a mental state gets its intentional content in virtue of

being reliably caused (or having the function of being reliably caused) by

something (Dretske, 1981, 1988;‖Fodor‖1990).

Let’s assume that‖a‖theory‖of‖this‖kind,‖whatever the details, is correct.

[11] There is some causal relation that confers content. If emotions are

perceptions of bodily states, they are caused by changes in the body. But if

those changes in the body are reliably caused by core relational themes,

then our representations of the body may also represent those themes.

(Prinz, 2004: 55)

Responding to PrinzWe‖are‖told‖by‖Prinz‖that‖cognition‖does not take place because the neocortex

does not intervene in the brain processes; hence, we cannot make sense of our

emotions having meaning when they occur in the absence of neocortical

intervention.

The solution is proposed that we have some inner concepts; i.e. the semantically

endowed inner concepts of psychosemantics. But if our ordinary (public) concepts

were not sufficient for meaning in the absence of neocortical intervention then

why are the concepts of psychosemantics?

What is the telling difference between our public concepts and those of

psychosemantics?

The only difference seems to be that the former are outer and public, and the

latter are, in some sense, inner and private; this seems far from sufficient for the

latter to have any powers over and above those we might predicate of the former.

World-Taking Cognitivism

when one sees an event as (for example) shameful, one has perceived an internal relation between one’s way of taking (seeing) that event—i.e., one’s conceptual characterization of it—and one’s conception of shame. Such internal relations can emerge as live for us through the forming of both our human and second nature (Bildung). In those situations where we might not be alive to such aspects at a particular time, we might come to be so at a later time by means of the dawning of an aspect

Léopard’s shame“Some try to show remorse but tremble before the truth. They sneak around it, because of too many conflicting interests, and wind up flung backwards. It was in a camp in Congo that I first felt my heart ache. I prayed, hoping to find relief, but in vain. After prayers or hymns, shame waited for me, without fail. So I began being sorry out loud, paying no attention to the mockery spewing from my comrades’ mouths. In prison I told my whole truth. It came out freely. Ever since then, whenever someone asks me for it, it flows the same way.”

Shame and HumanityIn the perpetration of his crimes, Léopard refused to acknowledge the humanity of his

victims. It was not that he refused to admit that the extension of the concept of “human

being” is “member of the species Homo sapiens.” It was rather that he had refused to

acknowledge, had turned away from, the meaning of human being as a moral concept with,

we might say, all its normative richness. He had gone through a process whereby he failed to

acknowledge the humanity of others—that is to say, he failed to see the moral claims

acknowledging the humanity that another make’s on one. Léopard was in a state of denial

regarding the humanity of those he subjected to brutality, suffering, and death, and in being

so, in being able to act as he did, he had also denied that humanity to himself. This is what

creeps up on Léopard; the situations in which Léopard committed those crimes had not

elicited shame because he had not seen the acts as shameful. In carrying out those actions,

Léopard denied—was in denial as regards—the humanity of his victims and had justified the

suspending of the pre-genocide order, whereby acting in such a way is inhuman.

Shame and Humanity

One helpful way to understand Léopard’s ability to commit his crimes without, until years later, feeling remorse or shame is to think of it in terms of the internal relations that under normal conditions hold between the moral concept of human being and concepts such as dignity, care, compassion, and justice, and those relations being suspended, or (it may be more accurate to say) having been latent in Léopard’s case for some time. When those relations were re-established, when they came to life, then shame for his acts emerged.

Four Types of Shame-Absence• Kaspar Hauser type– Absence of enculturation (passive)

• Diogenes of Synope type– Active denial of the culturally-conferred judgements

• World-Change type– A radical change in social norms, rendering one’s

enculturation at odds with one’s lifeworld• Object Prejudice type– The object of the emotion is diffuse and complex and

thus can seem absent (leading the emotion to be absent)