Agency, Emotions, and the Problem of Import

Bibliographic Data

ID23697253
AuthorsBennett W Helm (0009-0003-1433-2823, corresponding author)
Year2010
Pages49-74
Publication date2010-01-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueLove, friendship, and the self (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199567898.003.0002
OpenAlexW2493265353
ISBN9780199567898
LanguageEN
References cited50

This chapter sketches a basic account of what it is for something to have import to an agent — of what it is for an agent to care about something — in terms of which is distinguished mere goal-directedness from genuine desire, and hence mere intentional systems from genuine agents. The resulting account rejects the cognitive-conative divide: emotions, desires, and evaluative judgments are not cognitions insofar as they serve to constitute their objects as having import, and yet they are not conations insofar as they are rationally evaluable in terms of that import. Rather, import and the rational patterns of felt evaluations and evaluative judgments emerge simultaneously, each presupposing the other in a way that is unintelligible were we to accept the cognitive-conative divide. This account paves the way for an account of love that understands love like caring to be neither simply an appraisal nor simply a bestowal of value; instead, love is simultaneously both.

Agency (philosophy) · Business · Social science · Sociology · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Free Will and Agency · Philosophical Ethics and Theory

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