Abstract

The subject of this thesis is the emotion-object relationship and the problem of the justification of emotions as it bears on the emotion-object relationship. We will consider three possible constituents of the concept of emotion: feelings, behavior, and belief. ;Feeling cannot be the only constituent of emotion because there are not enough distinct feelings to account for the number of emotions we seem to have. However, the Schachter-Singer study indicates that, though feelings are not the means by which we identify emotions, nevertheless we will not claim to have an emotion unless we experience some feeling. ;Behaviour too fails as the sole constituent of the concept of emotion, since there are not enough consistent behavior patterns with which to identify emotions. However, again, we will want to say that sometimes behaviour does play a part in emotions. ;Finally, beliefs cannot be the only constituent of the concept of emotion, but they can allow us to account for the number of emotions we have, and do seem to be present in every emotion. These beliefs are evaluative beliefs. ;The common sense notion of an object as that of something in the world will be adopted. Beliefs are the only constituent of emotions that can take an object; unfortunately, things can go wrong with these beliefs. We can make systematic mistakes about objects, thus we must take this into consideration when constructing a picture of the emotion-object relationship. In cases of mistake, when the most crucial features of the object are present in the belief, such as spatio-temporal location and other basis physical characteristics, we will say that the emotion has an object but the emotion is unjustified