Emotions and formal objects

Dialectica 61 (3):395-415 (2007)
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Abstract

It is often claimed that emotions are linked to formal objects. But what are formal objects? What roles do they play? According to some philosophers, formal objects are axiological properties which individuate emotions, make them intelligible and give their correctness conditions. In this paper, I evaluate these claims in order to answer the above questions. I first give reasons to doubt the thesis that formal objects individuate emotions. Second, I distinguish different ways in which emotions are intelligible and argue that philosophers are wrong in claiming that emotions only make sense when they are based on prior sources of axiological information. Third, I investigate how issues of intelligibility connect with the correctness conditions of emotions. I defend a theory according to which emotions do not respond to axiological information, but to non-axiological reasons. According to this theory, we can allocate fundamental roles to the formal objects of emotions while dispensing with the problematic features of other theories.

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Fabrice Teroni
University of Geneva

Citations of this work

Emotions as Attitudes.Julien A. Deonna & Fabrice Teroni - 2015 - Dialectica 69 (3):293-311.
Emotional Justification.Santiago Echeverri - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 98 (3):541-566.

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References found in this work

Ruling Passions: A Theory of Practical Reasoning.Simon Blackburn - 1998 - New York: Oxford University Press UK.
Action, Emotion And Will.Anthony Kenny - 1963 - Ny: Humanities Press.
Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology.Robert Campbell Roberts - 2003 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Values and Secondary Qualities.John McDowell - 1985 - In Ted Honderich (ed.), Morality and Objectivity : A Tribute to J. L. Mackie. Boston: Routledge. pp. 110-129.

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