Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T22:12:45.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Problem of Expressive Action

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2021

Christopher Bennett
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Rational explanation of action out of emotion faces a number of challenges. The Wrong Explanation Challenge says that explaining action out of emotion by reference to a purpose rather than an emotion gets it wrong. The Redundancy Challenge says that if explanation of an action by reference to emotion is sufficient then rational explanation is redundant. And the No Further Justification Challenge says that there is no more to say, at the level of rational explanation, about why people act as they do out of a particular emotion. Furthermore, even if these challenges can be addressed, there is a Problem of Expressive Action, since many actions out of emotion seem unpromising candidates for being guided by normative practical reasons of the prudential, instrumental, deontic or consequentialist sort. In response, I argue that many actions out of emotions should be understood as expressive actions guided by the agent's conception of normative practical reasons: specifically, their conception of expressive reasons.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 96 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 277 - 300
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 2021

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

Adams, R. M., ‘Involuntary Sins,’ Philosophical Review 94 (1985) 3–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alvarez, Maria, Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth, Value in Ethics and Economics (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth and Pildes, Richard, ‘Expressive Theories of Law: A General Restatement,’ University of Pennsylvania Law Review 148 (2000), 1503–1575.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anscombe, G. E. M., Intention (Oxford: Blackwell, 1957).Google Scholar
Bennett, Christopher, ‘Excuses, Justifications and the Normativity of Expressive Behaviour,’ Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 32 (2012), 563–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, Christopher, ‘Expressive Actions’ in Abell, Catherine and Smith, Joel (eds), The Expression of Emotion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 73–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, Jason and Jaworski, Peter, ‘Markets Without Symbolic Limits,’ Ethics 125 (2015), 1053–1077.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carman, Mary, ‘Emotionally Guiding Our Actions,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 48 (2018a), 43–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carman, Mary, ‘How Emotions Do Not Provide Reasons to Act,’ Philosophia 46 (2018b), 555–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D'Arms, Justin and Jacobson, Dan, ‘The Moralistic Fallacy: On the “Appropriateness” of Emotions,’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (2000), 65–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldie, Peter, ‘Explaining Expressions of Emotion’ Mind 109 (2000), 25–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenspan, Patricia, Emotions and Reasons: An Enquiry Into Emotional Justification (New York: Routledge, 1988).Google Scholar
Greenspan, Patricia, ‘Emotional Strategies and Rationality,’ Ethics 110 (2000), 469–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helm, Bennett, Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation and the Nature of Value (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffiths, Paul, What Emotions Really Are (London: University of Chicago Press, 1997).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hampton, Jean, ‘Forgiveness, Resentment and Hatred’ in Murphy, J. G. and Hampton, J., Forgiveness and Mercy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 35–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hursthouse, Rosalind, ‘Arational Actions,’ Journal of Philosophy 88 (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kovach, Adam and De Lancey, Craig, ‘On Emotions and the Explanation of Behavior,’ Noûs 39 (2005), 106–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, John, Mind and World (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Pacherie, Elisabeth, ‘The Role of Emotions in the Explanation of Action,’ European Review of Philosophy 5 (2002), 53–91.Google Scholar
Pettit, Philip, ‘Three Mistakes About Doing Good (and Bad),’ Journal of Applied Philosophy 35 (2018), 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prinz, J., Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).Google Scholar
Quinn, Warren, ‘Putting Rationality in Its Place’ in Quinn, Morality and Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).Google Scholar
Roberts, Robert C., ‘What An Emotion Is: A Sketch,’ Philosophical Review 97 (1988), 183–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartre, Jean-Paul, Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions, trans. Mairet, P. (New York: Routledge, 2002).Google Scholar
Scanlon, T. M., What We Owe To Each Other (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Searle, John, Intentionality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skorupski, John, The Domain of Reasons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Srinivasan, Amia, ‘The Aptness of Anger,’ Journal of Political Philosophy 26 (2018), 123–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Angela, ‘Responsibility for Attitudes: Activity and Passivity in Mental Life,’ Ethics 115 (2005), 236–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strawson, P. F., ‘Freedom and Resentment,’ Proceedings of the British Academy 48 (1962), 1–25.Google Scholar