Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T02:55:47.823Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Emotionally guiding our actions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Mary Carman*
Affiliation:
Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

Abstract

If emotions have a rational role in action, then one challenge for accounting for how we can act rationally when acting emotionally is to show how we can guide our actions by our emotional considerations, seen as reasons. In this paper, I put forward a novel proposal for how this can be so. Drawing on the interconnection between emotions, cares and caring, I argue that, as the emotional agent is a caring agent, she can be aware of the emotional consideration as a pro tanto reason favouring an action choice and, even, as the reason for which she should act.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arpaly, Nomi. 2002. “On Acting Rationally Against One’s Best Judgment.” In Unprincipled Virtue, 3363. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/0195152042.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arpaly, Nomi, and Schroeder, Timothy. 2012. “Deliberation and Acting for Reasons.” Philosophical Review 121(2): 209239. 10.1215/00318108-1539089CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, Michael. 2013. Emotional Insight. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199685523.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broome, John. 2015. “Does Rationality Consist in Responding Correctly to Reasons?Journal of Moral Philosophy 4(3): 349374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clore, Gerald. 1994. “Why Emotions Require Cognition.” In The Nature of Emotion, edited by Ekman, Paul and Davidson, R., 181191. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deonna, Julien, and Teroni, Fabrice. 2012. The Emotions. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Döring, Sabine. 2007. “Seeing What to Do: Affective Perception and Rational Motivation.” Dialectica 61(3): 363394. 10.1111/dltc.2007.61.issue-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Döring, Sabine. 2010. “Why Be Emotional?” In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion, edited by Goldie, Peter, 283301. Oxford: Oxford Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Döring, Sabine. 2014. “Why Recalcitrant Emotions Are Not Irrational.” In Emotion and Value, edited by Roeser, Sabine and Todd, Cain, 124136. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry. 1982. “The Importance of What We Care About.” Synthese 53(2): 257272. 10.1007/BF00484902CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry. 1988. “Identification and Externality.” In The Importance of What We Care About, edited by Frankfurt, Harry, 5868. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511818172CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frijda, Nico. 1986. The Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Helm, Bennett. 2001. Emotional Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511520044CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaworska, Agnieszka. 2007. “Caring and Internality.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74(3): 529568. 10.1111/phpr.2007.74.issue-3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Karen. 2003. “Emotions, Weakness of Will, and the Normative Conception of Agency.” In Philosophy and the Emotions, edited by Hatzimoysis, Anthony, 181200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511550270CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Karen. 2006. “Quick and Smart? Modularity and the pro-Emotion Consensus.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 36(32): 327.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine. 2008. “The Normativity of Instrumental Reason.” In The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology, edited by Korsgaard, Christine, 2768. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199552733.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendlow, Gabriel S. 2014. “Want of Care: An Essay on Wayward Action.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 17(2): 299310. 10.1007/s10677-013-9436-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pacherie, Elisabeth. 2002. “The Role of Emotions in the Explanation of Action.” European Review of Philosophy 5: 5392.Google Scholar
Roberts, Robert. 2003. Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511610202CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scanlon, T. M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Velleman, J. David. 1996. “The Possibility of Practical Reason.” Ethics 106(4): 694726. 10.1086/233669CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, R. Jay. 1999. “Three Conceptions of Rational Agency.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 2(3): 217242. 10.1023/A:1009946911117CrossRefGoogle Scholar