Emotions and Evaluative Judgments
Abstract
There has been an
ongoing debate on whether emotions are evaluative judgments, and as such
cognitive. Though philosophers, who commit themselves to the idea that emotions
are constituted or structured by evaluative judgments, provide us with very
rich accounts of the nature of emotions, they downplay its ethical dimension.
In order to correct this we should focus on particular emotions. Here I focus
on compassion and conclude that though there is an intrinsic relationship
between emotions and evaluative judgments this is not necessarily a one-sided
one. Finally, I claim that any suspension of judgment (Arendt on Eichmann) can
lead to a state of indifference, or an emotion-free state. And here I am
interested in the ethical consequences of such a state, namely that with the
suspension of judgment and accordingly of emotions, it is much easier for
someone to avoid any moral action, and accordingly any sense of accountability.
Keywords
References
- ANSELL-PEARSON, Keith (2013). “Introduction: Nietzsche and the Passions”, Journal of Nietzsche studies, 44(1): 1-5.
- ARENDT, Hannah (1964). Eichmann in Jerusalem, Middlesex: Penguin.
- ARISTOTLE (1954). Rhetoric and Poetics, New York: Random House.
- ARISTOTLE (2004). The Nicomachean Ethics, London: Penguin.
- DAMASIO, Antonio (1994). Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, New York: Avon Books.
- DAMASIO, Antonio (2003). Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain, London: William Heinemann.
- GOLDIE, Peter (2002). The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- HUNT, Lester (2006). “Martha Nussbaum on the Emotions”, Ethics, 116(3): 552-577.
Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Zeynep Talay Turner
*
This is me
0000-0002-3967-6142
Türkiye
Publication Date
October 30, 2018
Submission Date
October 21, 2018
Acceptance Date
September 5, 2018
Published in Issue
Year 2018 Number: 31