The aim of this article is to explore in a systematic way the rationality of emotions elicited when we engage with works of fiction. I first lay out the approach to the emotions on which my discussion is premised. Next, I concentrate on two facets of emotional rationality—the first pertains to the relation between emotions and the mental states on which they are based, the second to the relation between emotions and the judgements and behaviour they elicit. These observations about (...) emotional rationality are then applied to emotions elicited by works of fiction. After having distinguished several families of emotions, I concentrate on what I call blob-emotions and emotions-for. I argue that, given their nature as direct responses to a restricted range of stimuli, blob-emotions are not irrational. As regards emotions-for fictional entities, I emphasize that a subject’s rationality shows in the way her emotions-for respond to evidence. On this basis, I discard an influential reason to think that emotions-for fictional entities are irrational. Finally, I offer an argument to conclude that they are typically correct and rational. (shrink)

The study of the arts in philosophy has often concentrated on the role that emotions (and affective responses more generally) play in art’s creation and value. Philosophical theories of art have sometimes even defined art in terms of its capacity to elicit or express emotions. Philosophers have debated such questions as what it is to express an emotion in art; whether emotions form part of the value of an artwork; whether the emotions involved in art appreciation are of the same (...) kind as those that we experience in real life, or of a different, even sui generis kind (i.e., aesthetic emotions); whether it is rational or appropriate to experience emotions in response to art; and what value, if any, there is in art that evokes unpleasant emotions. Although the focus here will be on what, to a first approximation, can be characterized as the “Western mainstream philosophical tradition,” discussion of the role of emotions in art can also be found in different approaches and traditions of thought: from Indian philosophy to cognitive science, to so-called Continental philosophy. (shrink)