Pre-emotional Awareness and the Content-Priority View

Bibliographic Data

ID4352148
AuthorsJonathan Mitchell (0000-0002-7008-4655, University of Manchester, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume69
Issue277
Pages771-794
Publication date2019-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqz018
OpenAlexW2944083327
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited31

Much contemporary philosophy of emotion has been in broad agreement about the claim that emotional experiences have evaluative content. This paper assesses a relatively neglected alternative, which I call the content-priority view, according to which emotions are responses to a form of pre-emotional value awareness, as what we are aware of in having certain non-emotional evaluative states which are temporally prior to emotion. I argue that the central motivations of the view require a personal level conscious state of pre-emotional value awareness. However, consideration of extant suggestions for the relevant type of evaluative state shows them all to be problematic. As such, I conclude that at present we do not have a persuasive formulation of the content-priority view, and that to get one defenders of the view need to specify which version they are committed to and defend it against the criticisms raised

Cognitive psychology · Content (measure theory) · Epistemology · Extant taxon · State (computer science) · Value (mathematics) · Computer Science · Emotions and Moral Behavior · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access