British Academy Project - Emotions as Feelings Towards Values
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This research project will examine how emotions connect us with our environment. I will argue for a novel theory, according to which emotional experiences can be understood as feelings towards values, in that they present evaluative properties of their objects (e.g. the dangerousness of a dog) through attitudes of favour and disfavour. The project will therefore elucidate the important connection between emotions and evaluative properties of objects in our environment. Further, it will emphasize, in a way often overlooked by emotion theorists, the need for a substantive account not just of what emotions represent, but how they represent. The account will also be used to provide new perspectives on long-standing debates in philosophy of emotion, with connections to philosophy of mind. My approach is to treat emotions as sui generis states, not to be modelled on more familiar mental states, but given their own analysis within our mental economy.
This research project will examine how emotions connect us with our environment. I will argue for a novel theory, according to which emotional experiences can be understood as feelings towards values, in that they present evaluative properties of their objects (e.g. the dangerousness of a dog) through attitudes of favour and disfavour. The project will therefore elucidate the important connection between emotions and evaluative properties of objects in our environment. Further, it will emphasize, in a way often overlooked by emotion theorists, the need for a substantive account not just of what emotions represent, but how they represent. The account will also be used to provide new perspectives on long-standing debates in philosophy of emotion, with connections to philosophy of mind. My approach is to treat emotions as sui generis states, not to be modelled on more familiar mental states, but given their own analysis within our mental economy.
