In Pursuit of Reason: An Essay on Rationality and Emotion
type: CreativeWork
description: Since the publication of Anthony Kenny’s Action, Emotion and Will, there has been a consensus that emotions involve representing their objects as mattering to the subject in a certain way. All major contemporary theories aim to accommodate this characteristic, and those that clearly cannot have generally been abandoned. This essay is an investigation of a related but distinct characteristic of emotion, one that has often been mentioned but that is only beginning to be systematically investigated. This is that emotions are candidates for rationality: it is unreasonable to be angry with someone who is blameless, to envy someone who is wretched, or to be outraged about something that is unproblematic. In this essay, I offer an account of exactly what this rationality consists in, I argue that existing theories of emotion cannot wholly accommodate it, and I develop a theory that can. Chapter One is a critique of the currently ascendant perception theories, and Chapter Two is a critique of the formerly ascendant belief theories. Chapter Three outlines a positive account of emotions, which I characterise as a form of ‘non-doxastic cognitivism’. Chapters Four and Five look at some more specific features of emotion, namely their hedonic character and their potential for sentimentality.
abstract: Since the publication of Anthony Kenny’s Action, Emotion and Will, there has been a consensus that emotions involve representing their objects as mattering to the subject in a certain way. All major contemporary theories aim to accommodate this characteristic, and those that clearly cannot have generally been abandoned. This essay is an investigation of a related but distinct characteristic of emotion, one that has often been mentioned but that is only beginning to be systematically investigated. This is that emotions are candidates for rationality: it is unreasonable to be angry with someone who is blameless, to envy someone who is wretched, or to be outraged about something that is unproblematic. In this essay, I offer an account of exactly what this rationality consists in, I argue that existing theories of emotion cannot wholly accommodate it, and I develop a theory that can. Chapter One is a critique of the currently ascendant perception theories, and Chapter Two is a critique of the formerly ascendant belief theories. Chapter Three outlines a positive account of emotions, which I characterise as a form of ‘non-doxastic cognitivism’. Chapters Four and Five look at some more specific features of emotion, namely their hedonic character and their potential for sentimentality.
author: Hughes, Samuel
language: eng
keywords: Reasons, Emotion, Cognitivism, Belief, Sentimentality
license: https://apollo8-f-pro.lib.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/df14549d-9701-4dc4-9cdd-67bdfbc01592/download
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2020-03-31
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:01Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.59635