Précis
Emotion: The Basics
Michael Brady
University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Brady, Michael. 2021. “Précis: Emotion: The Basics.”
Journal of Philosophy of Emotion 3, no. 1: 1-4. https://doi.org/10.33497/2021.summer.1.
Embedded Files
Where scholarship meets technological innovation . . .
Abstract: Emotion: The Basics is an introductory text about the nature and value of emotion, and highlights the very many ways in which emotions can be good for us: epistemically, deliberatively, socially, morally, and aesthetically. It proposes a pluralist account of what emotions are, and includes both an overview of current literature on emotion, and original proposals about emotion’s importance.
Keywords: theories of emotion, epistemic value, decision-making, social value, morality, and art
It was an enjoyable, and rather challenging, task to write an introductory text on a topic as large as the emotions. In one sense, the challenges are due to the fact that emotions are studied in a variety of disciplines, with philosophy coming to the academic table somewhat late in the day. Psychologists, neuroscientists, and historians have all studied emotions in detail, and the literature on emotions in these areas—psychology in particular—is significant indeed. There are different approaches to the nature of emotions, ranging from those who judge emotions to be more-or-less adaptations from a set of biologically basic types, to those who think that emotions are more-or-less socially constructed. There are those who are interested in more theoretical questions about the nature of emotions, with some focusing on the question of whether we can define what an emotion is, whereas others are much more concerned about practical questions about what emotions enable us to do. Even within a subject—let’s focus on philosophy here—there are divergent research interests. Some wish to study emotions because they are interested in broadly moral or ethical questions (for instance, those having to do with the relation between emotion and virtue, or the role of emotion in moral judgement and motivation). Some are interested in the role that emotions play in aesthetics, while others focus more on the contribution that
[page 1]
emotions make to action and decision-making, and others still on the role and value of emotions for our epistemic activities.
In another sense, writing the book was tricky because of the need to speak to different audiences. In the main, the book is intended as an introductory text for those who are studying emotions (and related topics) at a college or university, or who have an academic interest in some of the central topics that engage philosophers (and those who are working in some other disciplines). However, the book is also aimed at a general reader: someone who is interested and curious about emotion and who has an intrinsic interest or curiosity in finding out about the subject for its own sake, but who is not engaged in academic or other forms of study. As a result, the book needed to be written to be of sufficient interest to different cohorts of readers, albeit ones united in the desire to find out more about a central element of human life and experience.
As I discovered, it is also a tricky balancing act between writing something accessible and informative for someone without (much of) a philosophy background, whilst at the same time having enough philosophical content to be of use to philosophy students, and to those with research interest in the emotions. As it turned out, I focused somewhat more on the first two categories of readers than the last category—a sensible decision, given the aim of the Basics series, and word limits—but one which, as we’ll see in the following commentaries, left some of the more philosophical issues and questions under-explained and under-discussed. Likewise, and as the commentators point out, there is (too) little said here about the history of emotion, and not much about socially constructed emotions, and what there is about psychological theories of emotion is unfortunately brief and sketchy. I hope, therefore, that my responses to the commentaries go some way towards acknowledging things that I should have said, both in terms of areas where I got things wrong, and places where more clarity and detail was required.
Let me now turn to the general structure of the book, and the ideas therein. As we’ll also see, I paint a rather positive—perhaps too positive—picture of the emotions, of what they are and of what they can do for us. In part this was also due to structural constraints. It is good to have a central organizing theme running through any book, and I took for mine the overarching idea that emotions can be extremely valuable for us, in a number of ways, which I then explain. It is not surprising, given this theme, that the positive contribution that emotions make is emphasized rather more than their genuine, well-known, and deleterious effects on ourselves and our society. Another guiding thought will be a familiar one: emotions can have significant value insofar as they are outside of, and run counter to, rational thinking and deliberation. In a clash between reason and emotion, therefore, we might do better by being moved by the latter instead of the former. Once again, I’m under no illusions about the many ways in which our emotions can have a negative impact on our flourishing and our successful pursuit of our goals. So it is no part of my remit that we should always follow our heart rather than our head. That would be a recipe for disaster. But what I hope that the book achieves, in this area, is to strengthen the case for a more careful and judicious consideration—by researchers and readers alike—of those situations where emotions, rather than reason, should hold sway. As I suggest, this might happen more often than common-sense thinking about the relation between these two “faculties” proposes. The content of the book’s five chapters is as follows.
In Chapter 1 I outline at a very general level of the kind of thing emotion is, and survey some of the main theories about emotion. I focus on feeling, cognitive, and perceptual theories (although we’ll see later that this
[page 2]
division, and the terminology, might be suspect!). We start with a basic model of emotion: as a phenomenon which involves various elements or components, which are all present in paradigmatic cases of emotion. I then explain how each theory prioritizes one particular component—the feeling theory focuses on (bodily) feelings, the cognitive theory on judgements or beliefs, the perceptual model on perceptual experiences of value—and suggest that each is correct with respect to a limited range of emotion. No one theory is plausible as an explanation of all of the things we regard as emotions, in other words. This pluralist picture goes some way to explaining the plausibility of each theory for its supporters—who tend to focus on the kinds or types of emotion that best support their own theoretical cases—and also the persistent disagreement between theories, generated by the attempt to cover all other types.
In the chapters that follow I explain how the different components that are present in paradigmatic cases of emotion work in enabling us to live good and happy lives. Chapter 2 examines the ‘“epistemic value” of emotion: how emotion can help us in our believing, knowing, and understanding. I look in some detail at the emotion of curiosity as an exemplar of an emotion with particular epistemic value, moving us to seek out and amass potentially valuable information at relatively little cognitive cost. I then focus on the role that emotional attention plays, in helping us to gain vital information about, and evaluative understanding of, ourselves and our world.
Chapter 3 focuses on the important roles that emotion plays when it comes to decision-making and action. Here I argue against the idea that decision-making is, ideally, a practice that is as free from emotion as possible. Such a view is (or at least was) standard fare in traditional thinking about how rational people make choices. But the model is seriously flawed, as a number of theorists have pointed out. Instead, I explain, following Antonio Damasio, how decision-making is imbued with emotion, so much so that effective decisions would be nigh on impossible without it. I then look at how emotion is vital for motivating us effectively, in a way that moves beyond the standard belief-desire model of motivation. That model might be true in a range of non-emotional cases, but it is a mistaken picture of emotional motivation, precisely because it leaves out how emotional feelings play a central and vital role when emotions move us. I illustrate the motivational importance of feelings by looking at the emotion of remorse.
Chapter 4 turns away from the individual to focus on the social. Here I show how emotions are of great value for promoting and maintaining a variety of social goods: cooperative behaviour, personal relationships, and social and political movements. I consider how emotions can have social value because they help to maintain and strengthen interpersonal relationships. Following Robert Frank, I explain how emotions such as love can be vital for solving certain “commitment problems”; I then consider how emotions such as pride can communicate to others one’s valuable qualities, thereby facilitating productive co-operative activity; and I close by looking at how group emotions such as feelings of indignation and solidarity can have significant social value in motivating political change and other social goods.
In the concluding chapter (Ch. 5), I show how emotions are centrally involved in the distinctively human activities surrounding morality and art. I explain why, in the absence of emotion, we wouldn’t develop morally and could not be virtuous; equally, without emotion we would fail to engage with and understand works of art, literature, and music. I close by suggesting that something similar is true for scientific endeavour and religious
[page 3]
practice. If so, the case can be made that emotion is at the heart of those distinctive practices that make us human.
Notes
Acknowledgement: I would like to offer thanks and gratitude to Routledge for commissioning and publishing Emotion: The Basics; to Cecilea Mun, and the Society for the Philosophy of Emotion, for organising the APA symposium on the book; and my commentators for taking the time to read the book and offer such outstanding comments. I found the symposium and all of the commentaries exceptionally helpful, generous, and thought-provoking. The commentators have given me a lot to think about, in trying to make further sense of our emotional lives and our emotional landscapes, and for that I am very grateful indeed.
[page 4]
Michael Brady © 2021
Author email: Michael.Brady[at]glasgow.ac.uk
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse