This paper introduces a novel form of pragmatic encroachment: one that makes a difference to the status of emotion rather than the status of belief. I begin by isolating a distinctive standard in terms of which we can evaluate emotion – one sometimes called “subjective fittingness,” “epistemic justification,” or “warrant.” I then show how this standard for emotion could face a kind of pragmatic encroachment importantly similar to the more familiar encroachment on epistemic standards for belief. Encroachment on warranted emotion (...) is a striking proposal that deserves attention. In fact, there are good reasons to think that encroachment on warranted emotion deserves to be considered the default view for those who already accept pragmatic encroachment on the epistemic status of belief. I support this parity claim by arguing for a principle that establishes a limited coordination between the conditions that warrant emotion and the conditions that justify belief. (shrink)

We all find ourselves worrying at one point or another, and we have an intuitive sense of what is communicated by phrases such as ‘I’m worried about this’ or ‘I can’t stop worrying about that’. Despite worry’s ubiquity, however, it is not altogether clear what exactly worrying is, or why it is we worry. And, surprisingly, there has been no dedicated philosophical account given of the nature of worry specifically, although there is a body of psychological literature concerned with it (...) as well as a recent insurgence of philosophical literature concerned with the nature of anxiety. My aim in this paper, therefore, is to provide such an account. I here provide an account of the nature of worry.On the view I develop, worry is to be understood as a form of affectively motivated cognition. More specifically, I argue that worrying is a cognitive activity constituted by our engagement with forms of practical or epistemic reasoning, supplemented by imaginative engagement and motivated by anxiety. I develop this view primarily by marrying together considerations from the psychological literature on worry and the philosophical literature on anxiety. With this characterization in place, I then go on to make some novel claims about why exactly it is that we worry. The upshot should be an account of worry that addresses the questions of what it is and why we do it. (shrink)