The significance of recalcitrant emotion (or, anti-quasijudgmentalism)

D’Arms, Justin; Jacobson, Daniel

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511550270.009

Cited by 132 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…The foundational sentimentalist project requires the discovery of a class of emotions that are universally or at least paradigmatically human, are not infected with moral prejudices, and yet somehow have within them the potential to ground or yield moral judgments. The search is still under way for emotions answering this description (D' Arms and Jacobson 2003;Roberts 2010).…”

Section: Some Historical Positionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion

Roberts¹

2013

The International Encyclopedia of Ethics

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The disciplinary diversity of the recent literature on emotions is indicative of the many dimensions of human life that emotions touch. Neuroscientists and other physiologists study them because emotions have rather specific neurological, neurochemical, and other bodily correlates. Anthropologists and historians study them because their character and the popular understanding of them can vary significantly from culture to culture and age to age. Evolutionary psychologists study emotions because at least the most basic ones have defensive and reproductive functions in supporting species survival. Experimental and social psychologists study them, often, with respect to their behavioral outputs, where “behavior” covers a wider class of movements than what philosophers call “actions,” for example emotions’ spontaneous facial expressions. Clinical psychologists study emotions because they impinge on social functioning and psychological well‐being. Legal theorists study them because of their connection to the legal responsibility of defendants and their roles in the judgments of judges and juries. Specialists in religion study emotions because many or all religious experiences have emotional characteristics. Emotions interest philosophers in virtually all of the above connections, and in the ways these interrelate. Each of these disciplinary domains will tend to favor its own kinds of theories about what an emotion is – neuroscientists neurological models, anthropologists social regulation models, evolutionary psychologists biological survival models, etc. – but even theorists sharing the same discipline often offer many competing models. After surveying a few “scientific” models, Ronald de Sousa comments, “It should be clear from this partial sampling that … emotions theory has not unequivocally emerged from the methodological chaos that entitles it to be called philosophy” (2010: 103).

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Section: Some Historical Positionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion

Roberts¹

2013

The International Encyclopedia of Ethics

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“…6 Here I aim to be neutral on metaethical debates regarding the nature of evaluative properties. 7 The general claims in the text are widely accepted among philosophers and psychologists studying emotions-e.g., Solomon (1973), de Sousa (1987), Lazarus (1991, Ekman (1992), Nussbaum (2001), D'Arms & Jacobson (2003, Roberts (2003), andPrinz (2004). That said, this sketch needs fleshing out.…”

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confidence: 98%

“…Given that fear is about danger, it makes sense that it tends to result in a fight/flight/freeze response; likewise, given that anger concerns an offense to you or yours, it makes sense that it tends to trigger things like aggression and outrage. Jacobson (2003) reject this way of understanding emotions. As they see it, what is typically taken to be a descriptive account of an emotion's formal object is actually better understood as a normative gloss that expresses when it is appropriate to feel the emotion in question.…”

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confidence: 99%

Moral Anxiety and Moral Agency

Kurth¹

2015

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Volume 5

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Nothing in human affairs is worthy of great anxiety. -PlatoHow much should I give to charity? Is it okay for me to break this promise? As an advocate of women's rights, can I vote for the pro-life candidate? When we face difficult moral decisions like these, we feel a distinctive unease: we must make a choice but we are unsure what the correct thing to do is. Yet despite the pervasiveness of this phenomenon, surprisingly little work has been done to either characterize this emotion-this moral anxiety-or explain the role it plays in moral decision making. That's a mistake. Given that moral anxiety is a pervasive feature of our lives, it is important that we understand what it is. Moreover, and more importantly, given the many ways in which emotions can inform and distort our reasoning, it is also important to understand the role that moral anxiety plays in moral decision making.In what follows, I will argue that moral anxiety is central to good moral decision making and agency-it's an emotion that we ought to cultivate. This claim is striking on its own. But it also upends the familiar picture, one found among philosophers and folk alike, of anxiety as an inherently destructive emotion: the anxious person is someone consumed-paralyzed-by intense anxiety. What could be valuable in that? To make my case, I begin by developing a model of moral anxiety that builds from work on anxiety in general and social anxiety in particular ( § §1-3). The resulting account reveals moral anxiety to be an emotion that (i) we experience when we are uncertain about the correctness of a moral decision that we are contemplating or have made, and that (ii) prompts epistemic behaviors like deliberation and information gathering that are aimed at resolving our underlying uncertainty. With this model in hand, I then argue that moral anxiety is an emotion that is particularly well-suited to engage the capacities that are essential to good moral decision making and agency-deliberation, reflection, and

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“…8 Being the author or source of a wrong can be understood in a wide way: I can intelligibly feel guilt when I, for instance, break someone's picture frame by accident. By contrast, irrational or unintelligible guilt is thought to occur when the agent feels guilt and either (a) denies she has done wrong or (b) is not the source of the wrong even in a wider sense (Greenspan 1992;D'Arms and Jacobson 2003;Raikka 2005). Again, absent a further explanation, it seems unintelligible if I claim that I feel guilty for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln: I was not the author of the wrong nor am I causally connected to it in any wider sense.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since Arn seems to feel guilty for the very actions he was forced to commit, it might be tempting to think his feelings of guilt are irrational (Greenspan 1992;D'Arms and Jacobson 2003;Velleman 2003;Raikka 2005;Brady 2008). Irrational guilt has been explained two different ways.…”

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confidence: 99%

Guilt and Child Soldiers

Thomason

2015

Ethic Theory Moral Prac

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The use of child soldiers in armed conflict is an increasing global concern. Although philosophers have examined whether child soldiers can be considered combatants in war, much less attention has been paid to their moral responsibility. While it is tempting to think of them as having diminished or limited responsibility, child soldiers often report feeling guilt for the wrongs they commit. Here I argue that their feelings of guilt are both intelligible and morally appropriate. The feelings of guilt that child soldiers experience are not self-censure; rather their guilt arises from their attempts to come to terms with what they see as their own morally ambiguous motives. Their guilt is appropriate because it reaffirms their commitment to morality and facilitates their self-forgiveness.

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The significance of recalcitrant emotion (or, anti-quasijudgmentalism)

Cited by 132 publications

References 9 publications

Emotion

Emotion

Moral Anxiety and Moral Agency

Guilt and Child Soldiers

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