In this chapter, we will offer a sketch of the state of the art as concerns existing accounts of virtue acquisition in relation to automaticity. In particular, we will focus on the so-called “skill model,” which we aim to improve by questioning its rather common underlying dualistic picture of the mind. Then we will propose an account of skillful emotions by identifying the features that make them both automatic and embedded in an intelligent practice. Finally, we will show how this (...) view can help the skill model by offering a better description of emotion shaping in virtue acquisition. By doing so, we will contend that emotions contribute autonomously and actively to the skillfulness of the habits in which they are embedded. (shrink)

To showaffective empathyis to share in another person's experiences, including her emotions. Most philosophers who write about emotions accept the broadly cognitivist view that emotions are rationally connected with beliefs. We argue that affective empathy is also rationally connected with belief; you can only share in another's emotions insofar as you can share certain of her beliefs. In light of that claim, we argue that affective empathy brings both epistemic dangers and epistemic benefits, that the ideal of universal empathy cannot (...) be built upon affective empathy, and that affective empathy cannot be the basis of morality. (shrink)

Emotions have long been of interest to philosophers and have deep historical roots going back to the Ancients. They have also become one of the most exciting areas of current research in philosophy, the cognitive sciences, and beyond. -/- This book explains the philosophy of the emotions, structuring the investigation around seven fundamental questions: What are emotions? Are emotions natural kinds? Do animals have emotions? Are emotions epistemically valuable? Are emotions the foundation for value and morality? Are emotions the basis (...) for responsibility? Do emotions make us better people? -/- In the course of exploring these questions, the book also discusses cutting-edge empirical research on emotion, feminist approaches to emotions and their value, and methodological questions on how to theorize about the emotions. The book also contains in-depth discussions of specific emotions like compassion, disgust, anxiety, and curiosity. It also highlights emerging trends in emotion research. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to reassess the prospects of a widely neglected affective conception of the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art. On the proposed picture, the aesthetic evaluation and appreciation of art are non-contingently constituted by a particular kind of pleasure. Artworks that are valuable qua artworks merit, deserve, and call for a certain pleasure, the same pleasure that reveals (or at least purports to reveal) them to be valuable in the way that they are, and constitutes (...) their aesthetic evaluation and appreciation. This is why and how art is non-contingently related to pleasure. Call this, the Affective View. While I don’t advance conclusive arguments for the Affective View in this paper, I aim to reassess its prospects by (1) undermining central objections against it, (2) dissociating it from hedonism about the value of artworks (the view that this value is grounded in, and explained by, its possessors’ power to please), and (3) introducing some observations on the practice of art in support of it. Given that the objections I discuss miss their target, and given the observations in support of it, I conclude that the Affective View is worth serious reconsideration. (shrink)

Is disgust morally valuable? The answer to that question turns, in large part, on what we can do to shape disgust for the better. But this cultivation question has received surprisingly little attention in philosophical debates. To address this deficiency, this article examines empirical work on disgust and emotion regulation. This research reveals that while we can exert some control over how we experience disgust, there’s little we can do to substantively change it at a more fundamental level. These empirical (...) insights have revisionary implications both for debates about disgust’s moral value and for our understanding of agency and moral development more generally. (shrink)

Caring is a complex attitude. At first look, it appears very complex: it seems to involve a wide range of emotional and other dispositions, all focused on the object cared about. What ties these dispositions together, so that they jointly comprise a single attitude? I offer a theory of caring, the Attentional Theory, that answers this question. According to the Attentional Theory, caring consists of just two, logically distinct dispositions: a disposition to attend to an object and hence to considerations (...) pertaining to it, and a disposition to respond to the real or apparent reasons those considerations provide. The emotional and other attitudes involved in caring are instantiations of these two, more general dispositions; and these apparently diverse emotional and other dispositions are connected because the real or apparent reasons to which they are dispositions to respond are connected, in structured “packages.” The fact that the reasons to which a caring agent responds are connected in this way provides the basis for an error theory, explaining why it appears as if the emotions involved in caring are governed by rational coherence requirements. (shrink)

A philosopher’s case for the importance of good—if ethically questionable—humor. A good sense of humor is key to the good life, but a joke taken too far can get anyone into trouble. Where to draw the line is not as simple as it may seem. After all, even the most innocent quips between friends rely on deception, sarcasm, and stereotypes and often run the risk of disrespect, meanness, and harm. How do we face this dilemma without taking ourselves too seriously? (...) In Wisecracks, philosopher David Shoemaker examines this interplay between humor and morality and ultimately argues that even morally suspect humor is an essential part of ethical life. Shoemaker shows how improvised “wisecracks” between family and friends—unlike scripted stand-up, sketches, or serials—help us develop a critical human skill: the ability to carry on and find the funny in tragedy. In developing a new ethics of humor in defense of questionable gibes, Wisecracks offers a powerful case for humor as a healing presence in human life. (shrink)

That emotions are especially valuable for our well-being has become a widely agreed upon claim. In this article, we argue that many of the ways in which the emotions are commonly considered to be prudentially valuable – hedonically, experientially, and adaptively – are not specific to the emotions: they are in fact shared by other affective reactions such as drives and sensory affects. This may suggest that emotions are not prudentially valuable in any distinctive manner. We challenge this suggestion by (...) arguing that, unlike other affective reactions, emotions provide unique contexts in which to refine our general sensibility to a wide variety of evaluative properties – and that in this sense they are prudentially valuable in a distinctive way. (shrink)

This article uses a particular view of the basic emotions in order to develop and defend an account of paradigmatic emotion-linked evaluative properties. The view is that felt emotions are constituted by an awareness that one is about to behave in a certain way. This view provides support for a fitting-attitude account of certain evaluative properties. But the relevant sense of fittingness is not to be understood in terms of reasons. The account therefore sidesteps the well-known Wrong Kind of Reasons (...) problem. Throughout the article, a contrast is made with the rational sentimentalism of Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson. (shrink)

According to the Fittingness Defense, even if the consequences of anger are overall bad, it does not follow that we should aim to avoid it. This is because fitting anger involves an accurate appraisal of wrongdoing and is essential for appreciating injustice and signaling our disapproval. My aim in this paper is to show that the Fittingness Defense fails. While accurate appraisals are prima facie rational and justified on epistemic grounds, I argue that this type of fittingness does not vindicate (...) anger because there are alternative modes of recognizing and appreciating wrongdoing that can generate the benefits of anger without the harmful effects. Moreover, anger involves more than its appraisal of wrongdoing—it also consists of attitudes and motivations that are arguably of intrinsic disvalue. (shrink)