Valuing Emotions

This book offers a realistic account of emotions and an in-depth analysis of how psychological factors affect judgments of all kind.

This 1996 book is the result of a uniquely productive union of philosophy, psychoanalysis and anthropology, and explores the complexity and importance of emotions. Michael Stocker places emotions at the very centre of human identity, life and value. He lays bare how our culture's idealisation of rationality pervades the philosophical tradition and leads those who wrestle with serious ethical and philosophical problems into distortion and misunderstanding. Professor Stocker shows how important are the social and emotional contexts of ethical dilemmas and inner conflicts, and he challenges philosophical theories that try to overgeneralise and over-simplify by leaving out the particulars of each situation. In offering a realistic account of emotions and an in-depth analysis of how psychological factors affect judgments of all kind, this book will interest a broad range of readers across the disciplines of philosophy and psychology.

Part I. Preliminary Material: 1. The irreducibility of affectivity; 2. How emotions reveal value; Part II. Emotions and Value: Some Epistemological and Constitutive Relations: 3. Emotional problems suggest epistemological problems (with Elizabeth Hegeman); 4. Do these connections show emotions important for value, or do they show something else?; 5. Emotions are important for evaluation and value; 6. Emotions as constituents and as added perfections; 7. How emotions help with evaluative knowledge (with Elizabeth Hegeman); Part III. Case Studies: Philosophical and Other Complexities of Emotions: 8. The interdependence of emotions and psychology (with Elizabeth Hegeman); 9. Affectivity and self-concern; 10. The complex evaluative world of Aristotle's Angry Man (with Elizabeth Hegeman); 11. Some final conclusions.

This book is the result of a uniquely productive union of philosophy, psychoanalysis and anthropology, and explores the complexity and importance of emotions. It offers a realistic account of emotions and an in-depth analysis of how psychological factors affect judgments of all kind.