Collectif_bringing the Passions Back in the Philosophy of Politics

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Bringing the Passions Back InThe Emotions in Political Philosophy

Edited by Rebecca Kingston and Leonard Ferry



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UBC Press 2008

All rights reserved. No part o this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

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Printed in Canada on ancient-orest-ree paper (100% post-consumer recycled) that is processed

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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Bringing the passions back in : the emotions in political philosophy / edited by Rebecca Kingston

and Leonard Ferry.

Includes bibliographical reerences and index.

isbn 978-0-7748-1409-6

1. Political science Philosophy. 2. Emotions Political aspects. 3. Emotions (Philosophy).

4. Political psychology. i. Kingston, Rebecca ii. Ferry, Leonard, 1971-

ja71.b753 2007 320.01 c2007-903467-5

UBC Press grateully acknowledges the nancial support or our publishing program o the

Government o Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and o

the Canada Council or the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.

This book has been published with the help o a grant rom the Canadian Federation or the

Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using undsprovided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council o Canada.

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Contents

Foreword: Politics and Passion / viiCharles Taylor

Acknowledgments / ix

Introduction: The Emotions and the History o Political Thought /3 Leonard Ferry and Rebecca Kingston

1 Explaining Emotions /19Amlie Oksenberg Rorty

2 Plato on Shame and Frank Speech in Democratic Athens /40Christina Tarnopolsky

3 The Passions o the Wise: Phrone-sis, Rhetoric, and Aristotles PassionatePractical Deliberation /60Arash Abizadeh

4 Troubling Business: The Emotions in Aquinas Philosophical Psychology /78Leonard Ferry

5 The Political Relevance o the Emotions rom Descartes to Smith /108

Rebecca Kingston

6 Passion, Power, and Impartiality in Hume /126Sharon Krause

7 Pity, Pride, and Prejudice: Rousseau on the Passions /145Ingrid Makus



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Contentsvi

8 Feelings in the Political Philosophy o J.S. Mill /155Marlene K. Sokolon

9 Emotions, Reasons, and Judgments /172Leah Bradshaw

10 The Politics o Emotion /189

Robert C. Solomon

Notes /209Bibliography /243Contributors /254Index /256



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Foreword: Politics and Passion

Charles Taylor

The idea that democracy is threatened by passion is strange but, in a sense,true. We all know cases where populations carried away by collectivepassions have done or endorsed terrible things. For example, the sense onational grievance among Germans in the Weimar Republic was playedupon by Hitler and other extreme-right demagogues with dreadul results.There are lots o other examples, perhaps not as dire in their consequences,but earul nonetheless.

But how about positive passions? The way, or instance, in which the sight

o suering people on our television screens, in the wake o a tsunami or aamine, unleashes great waves o generosity and solidarity. Or the way inwhich thousands o people are ready to demonstrate or hours and days,oten in very diicult conditions, to establish their right to vote, or to maketheir votes count, as in the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine.

These positive cases weigh less with us when we think o passions andpolitics in general because we have already ixed our basic categories. By ushere, I mean the philosophy and common sense o our culture or at leastthe major inluences that set the tone or these. And this view places passionor emotion in another category rom reason. It is one thing to be able to

think out the best thing to do; it is another to eel strongly that something isgood or bad, right or wrong. Everybody agrees that i your eelings are rightlydirected, then things will go very much better which is what happens whenwe contribute to Oxam, or stay out in the cold in Kiev.

But the idea is that, i your emotions are aligned with your reason, thisis a matter o luck or good management (especially good training); its notbecause your eelings have contributed anything to your reasoning. Feelingand thinking are separate. To many people this view is just common sense.Thinking and eeling are dierent unctions and belong to dierent acul-ties, to use the traditional language.

But history shows that this dichotomy is an invention o modern Westernculture. It doesnt exist elsewhere, not even in the deep philosophical sources



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viii

o our culture, among the Greeks. The contributors to this book make thispoint very clear. For Plato, or Aristotle, and or the Stoics, in dierent ways,

eelings, passions,pathe- were cognitive states. And there is something obvi-ously right about this. When Im angry at you or pushing me o the bus, theanger is inseparable rom my knowing (or at least believing) that it was youwho pushed me o, that you did it on purpose, that you meant harm to me;similarly, when I ear a stock market crash, the ear cant be separated rommy apprehending great disadvantage to mysel as my pension und goes upin smoke; and so on.

We know with our eelings. But sometimes what we sense through oureelings clashes with what we know through dispassionate reason. Im stillmad at you, even ater I learn that you were pushed rom behind when

you knocked me o that bus. And so perhaps we can disregard eeling as asource o knowing ater all? But this would be a big mistake. In our dealingswith others, a completely dispassionate perspective would ail to pick upthe nuances, the ambivalences, the resentments, or the hidden sympathieso others. Persons without these emotional sensitivities would be terriblenegotiators and bad political leaders, incapable o bringing people togetherin an important common enterprise.

In particular, we can see in our world how people whose sensitivities arenarrow, and only operate within their own home culture, commit tremendous

blunders in their dealings with others and remain blind to the damage theywreak in the world. The present world superpower oers daily examples othis kind o (largely involuntary) sel-stultiying action, sowing stupeactionand horror in its wake. Knowing through eeling is perhaps even more impor-tant when it comes to moral matters. Someone whose view on genocide isonly that, upon dispassionate relection, he thinks it is not a very good idea,doesnt yet know whats really wrong with it.

All this clearly shows not just that you cant actor emotions out o politics,which we already knew. More importantly, it shows that we cant actor emo-tions out o what makes or good politics, grounded in reality and moral

truth, nor out o what makes or democratic politics, in which people can bebrought together.

The excellent papers in this collection bring these points home, partly inrecovering ancient thinking on these matters (or instance, Chapters 2 and 3),partly in showing the ways in which the modern traditions o thought haveoversimpliied and lattened our understandings o reason and emotion (orinstance, Chapters 5 and 9), and partly by relecting on the nature o modernpolitics itsel. This volume will help to deepen the discussion, and to recruitmore people into the debate, on this range o issues, which is essential to ourunderstanding o ourselves and our world.

Foreword



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We would like to thank a number o individuals and organizations who havebeen important to the development o this project. The idea or this bookwas sparked by a panel we organized or a meeting o the Canadian PoliticalScience Association. We also appreciate the support o colleagues andgraduate students o the Department o Political Science at the Universityo Toronto; many vibrant discussions among us have urthered some o therelections contained in this book. Thanks are also due to the Social Sciencesand Humanities Research Council o Canada, which helped to make this

book possible.Chapter 1 is reprinted, with permission and slight revisions, rom TheJournal o Philosophy75, 3 (1978): 139-61. Chapter 3 is reprinted, with permis-sion and slight revisions, rom The Review o Metaphysics56, 2 (December2002): 267-96. Chapter 10 is reprinted, with permission rom BlackwellPublishing, rom Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 22, Philosophy oEmotions, ed. Peter E. French and Howard K. Wettstein (Notre Dame, IN:University o Notre Dame Press, 1998).

We owe a tremendous thank you to Katherine Reilly, whose patience hasrivalled that o any great Stoic. Whether rom Guatemala or Mexico City

(global citizen that she is), she has continually ensured that what at irstappeared to be a gargantuan task became a manageable one. Great thanks alsogo to Emily Andrew, our editor at UBC Press, who has been extremely helpuland encouraging, and indeed the very orm o what an editor should be.

We also wish to thank our amily and riends. Kant suggests that hisknowledge o the common man was revealed to him by reading Rousseau.In contrast, we recognize that our partners and close associates contributemost to our learning about the human condition. Rebecca thanks Ronnie,Gabriel, Zimra, and Pauline. Len thanks his grandparents (Leo, Sally, Willis,and Audrey), his parents (Leonard and Phyllis), his children (Lauren andLeonard), and or her patience and her love, his wie (Jenny).

We were greatly saddened to hear o the death o Robert C. Solomon, one

Acknowledgments



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o our contributors, while this volume was in preparation. He is, o course, theman most responsible or putting the emotions at the top o our intellectual

concerns today. In tribute to his tremendous contributions to our understandingo these issues, and indeed o ourselves, we dedicate this volume to him.

Acknowledgments



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We are well aware that political lie is raught with emotion. This is the casenot only or political actors, whose ambitions, loyalties, pride, ideals, et ceteraare oten reinorced and undermined in quick succession in contemporaryliberal democratic societies, but also or citizens whose hopes and ears ortheir country, as well as or their amilies and the world, ebb and low in acomplex set o reactions to the events unolding around them, emotions andpassions that can sometimes spur every one o us to political action.

Surprisingly, however, in the academic world and particularly in the nor-

mative models commonly debated among political theorists o contemporaryliberalism and liberal democracy, there is little serious regard or the importantand varied roles that emotion plays and should play within the political arena.The lack o close attention may stem rom a deep suspicion o the dangersthat unchecked passions have wrought in the political history o the West. 1Indeed, those who trace the birth o modern liberal democracy to attemptsto nd a solid basis or social accommodation in the wake o the violence othe religious wars o the early modern period may see good historical causeto sideline emotion in politics.

Still, such sidelining has its costs. The relative lack o positive interest in

human emotions in current liberal democratic thinking is decient or tworeasons. First, the traditional rational, normative approach to theory remainsan overly ideal and utopian view o political lie. Moreover, it risks holding nointerest or indeed, alienating those citizens directly implicated in polit-ical lie. Some theorists suggest that such rational, normative expectationsincrease political apathy and cynicism within our political communities.2

Second, and perhaps most importantly in theoretical terms, the rational,normative vision o politics so prevalent today can be said to harbour anincomplete, i not maniestly alse, concept o the human subject. This visionis largely derived rom Kantian inspiration in our intellectual tradition, andKant notoriously likened passions to cancerous sores.3 New developments inthe elds o psychology and the philosophy o mind show, however, that we

Introduction: The Emotions and the

History of Political ThoughtLeonard Ferry and Rebecca Kingston



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cannot easily compartmentalize the aculties o reason and emotion withinthe human soul, nor indeed malign so severely our capacities or emotion and

passion. While there is no clear consensus on how to understand and explainemotion, there is an acknowledgment that emotional capacities are more com-plex than previously thought and depend largely, i not wholly, on our cognitiveabilities. Furthermore, our capacity or emotion is an essential and positiveeature o humanity; our emotional lives, however intense, provide a necessaryoundation or the possibility o meaning and human happiness. This recogni-tion also raises the possibility o what we might call rational emotion.

All the contributors to this volume are aware o these important develop-ments and recognize their signicance or the eld o political theory. They alsoacknowledge that existing resources within our own theoretical traditions canhelp illuminate the consequences o these new understandings or politics.

The rst section o this introduction provides an overview o recent devel-opments in the literature devoted to the emotions and philosophy o mind,developments that orm a backdrop to this volume. The second sectionoers some general refections on the possible implications o these theoriesor our understanding o politics, as well as highlighting some o the moreimportant themes and points o contention ound in this collection.

What Is an Emotion?

Most o the major philosophers in the Western tradition have urnished uswith an answer to the question o what is an emotion. Given the diversityand richness o the tradition, o course these answers dier. Some theories oemotion stand in conceptual opposition to one another: compare Chrysippusidentication o the emotions with mental judgments and William Jamesidentication o them with physical eelings, or instance.4 Other theories,theories with broad amily resemblances, still dier over details. Amongcognitive accounts o the emotions, or example, there is signicant disagree-ment over the nature o and role played by judgment in the make-up o anemotion: some identiy emotions with judgments; some keep them distinct

but claim that judgments are components in, causally responsible or, orconstitutive o emotions.

Over the last ty years, there has been an explosion o interest in and agrowing consensus around a new5 amily o theories o the emotions.6 That theemotions are in some manner related to cognition or are themselves cognitivehas become a commonplace o contemporary philosophical psychology.7 Eventhose who do not accept this as a ully satisactory explanatory theory ndthemselves adopting it i only as a temporary measure, thereby acceding to itsdominant position. Take the refections o Robert Nozick as an example:

A large part o how we eel about lie is shaped by the emotions we have had and

expect to have, and that eeling too (probably) is an emotion or a combination

Leonard Ferry and Rebecca Kingston



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o them. What emotions should we desire indeed, why should we desireany

and how should we think about the emotions we do have? The recent philo-

sophical literature describes the structure o emotions in a way that is somewhatilluminating I am not completely happy with it, but I have nothing better at

present to oer. Emotions, these philosophers say, have a common structure o

three components: a belie, an evaluation, and a eeling.8

Despite his tentativeness about the theory, Nozick asks us to accept themessy interconnectedness both o human lie with the emotions and o theemotions with mental phenomena. To speak o belies and evaluations as

components o an emotion is to indicate that some relation holds betweenthe emotions and the mind. Here the psychophysical eeling o an emotion

is only one part o a larger whole, incomplete on its own. In addition, or anemotion to be experienced seems to require that the agent make judgmentsabout the acts o the situation or event to which the emotion stands asresponse. Such judgments must be accompanied by a urther relation othe agent to the situation or event with a decidedly normative cast. Thesupposition o a three-part structure, thereore, introduces into discussionso the emotions several questions about the precise nature o and role playedby cognition (we look at some o these more closely below).

Conceiving o emotions in this way also requires that we take a particular

normative stance in relation to the importance o emotion in the living o alie. For those who accept even a limited cognitivist account o the emotions,an account that makes belies or evaluations integral to the experience oan emotion, emotions cannot be dismissed as an instinct or other naturalactivity (like digestion) that stands outside o moral concern.9 So Nozick askswhy we should desire to experience emotion and leaves open the question ohow the emotions we do have should be assessed. One reason Nozick givesor thinking the emotions not merely ineliminable rom normative philoso-phy but positively contributing to the same is that they model values: they

provide a kind o picture o value They are our internal psychophysical

response to the external value, a response not only due to that value butan analog representation o it.10

Interest continues to grow, not only in these theories themselves, whichbelong chiefy to the philosophies o mind and action, but also in the avenuesthat these have opened or other branches o philosophy, including especiallypolitical and moral philosophy. The papers in this collection explore someo the themes raised by and about this recent philosophical work on theemotions.

Feelings, Beliefs, and Evaluations

What ollows is a brie characterization o some o the topics that remaincentral to conceptualizations o the emotions in some orm o cognitive

Introduction



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rame, ocusing primarily on the insights that cognitive theories have gener-ated. What we do say o noncognitivist accounts amounts to mentioning

their criticisms o their cognitivist counterparts. Still, we hope that even bydoing so little we manage to convey some o the resources that theories othe emotions have made available to the understanding o human action,individually and collectively, and to suggest some o the paths uture workwill have to tread. Lets begin with an example o a specic emotion, pride,which will enable us to point to some important distinctions and issues:

At a small campus coee shop, Bill and a ew riends discuss what theyveaccomplished during the past week. As all are graduate students, a com-mon theme is that they have not done enough they have neither read norwritten what they had hoped, indeed planned, to do. But Bill announcesthat he has had a great week. He has so managed his time as to be ableto read three large nineteenth-century novels: Dickens Bleak House,Eliots

Middlemarch,and JamesA Portrait o a Lady. Unlike his riends, Bill eelsgood about his work and about himsel. He eels a certain swelling, a sense oaccomplishment, as his riends acknowledge his achievement. The impres-sion o his own distinction in this regard lls him with condence, and thissel-assurance reveals itsel to his riends in his speech and his mannerisms.He doesnt hide his eeling o superiority. He eels fush with energy, and he

lets everyone know.11

This example suggests several questions that continue to engage phi-losophers exploring the emotions. Weve already said that our example isan instance o the emotion pride. But what is pride? The answer dependson the answer to the oten-asked question o what an emotion is. Howwill we recognize it? The best signs o passions present, Thomas Hobbesadvises, are either in the countenance, motions o the body, actions, andends, or aims, which we otherwise know the man to have.12 Hobbes list isextensive, but not obviously helpul beyond suggesting some more questions

that we might want to ask. Is Bills emotional experience identical with thephysiological changes that he experiences, as William James held? Are thesechanges unique to this emotion? Ren Descartes thought that even i theywere not unique they were helpul signs: It is easy to understand that Prideand Servility are not only vices but also Passions, because their excitation is

very noticeable externally in those who are suddenly pued up or cast downby some new occasion.13 Can we use these occurrences to identiy oneemotion as distinct rom another? And i the physiological changes Bill expe-riences are not adequate to account or the nature o this emotion, to whatmust appeal be made? In appealing to something else, are we ree to jettisonthe physical eelings Bill experiences altogether rom our descriptions o theemotion that is, are the eelings associated with an emotion necessary, i




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not sucient, conditions o an emotion? Are we compelled to shit our ocusrom the physical to the mental? Does such an analysis make o the physical

expression o Bills emotion merely a contingent event? Peter Goldie hasrecently objected to the reductive treatment o many o the eelings o anemotion in the hands o cognitive theories, whether those theories treat theeelings as something added to an emotion experience or as unnecessary.14

Uncomortable with the inability o physiological explanations to accountor the specication o discrete emotions, philosophers since Anthony Kennyhave indeed turned to the mental (without denying that the same is embed-ded in physical brain states).15 Here too questions arise. Just what is requiredor the experience o an emotion? Is the emotion o pride identical to Billsbelie that he has read three novels last week? Benedict de Spinoza denedpride as consisting in thinking too much o ourselves, through sel-love pride is an eect or property o sel-love, and it may thereore be denedas love o ourselves or sel-satisaction, in so ar as it aects us so that wethink too highly o ourselves.16 To experience pride, then, we need to makea judgment or hold some belie about ourselves and our accomplishments.Bill believes that he has read three books, and his emotion has or its objectat least this belie. Talk about emotions having objects, however, introducesinto the discussion what is generally reerred to as the intentionality o anemotion. Emotions are about something. We perceive ourselves threatened

by some person, thing, or event and experience ear. Someone treats us ina manner we judge as slighting and we become angryat the person and thesupposed slight. Does Bills belie that he has read three books cause hisemotion? Is this actual belie sucient to account or the judgment thatSpinoza identies as central to pride?

The mere description Bill read three books doesnt seem sucient.Recall Nozicks three-part structure: belie, evaluation, and eeling. It wouldseem possible or Bill to have such a belie without experiencing any emo-tion. Surely Bill can believe that he has eaten three meals on the day inquestion without eeling proud o it. What else is needed? Many o those

who have taken up the cognitive approach to explaining emotions claim thatthe actual description o a given situation must be attached to a normativeor evaluative judgment. Having read three books, or at least these threebooks, is signicant and something to eel proud about. Something like thiskind o evaluation seems necessary to the overall claim Bill makes in eelingproud. And, as Charles Taylor has argued, the relevant import-ascriptioncannot merely be subjective, because the import-ascription o an emotioninvolves a judgment about the way things are, which cannot simply bereduced to the way we eel about them.17 Although it may prove dicult toagree on what standard is being deployed, we must agree that this secondeature o an emotion requires the invocation o some evaluative standard.Does this mean that the emotion is equivalent to the actual description plus

Introduction



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the evaluative judgment? I not, how are they related to the emotion? Arethey causal actors, or components? What role do these two mental aspects,

actual description and evaluative judgment, play in the experience o anemotion?

That both are necessary conditions o the intelligibility o an emotion issuggested by an argument Nozick makes in The Examined Lie: Suppose yousay you eel proud that you read three books last week, and I say that youremisremembering; I counted and you read only one book last week. You grantthe correction and reply that nevertheless you eel proud that you read three.This is bewildering.18 The source o the bewilderment is that without thebelie that caused or accompanied the emotion, the emotion itsel should nolonger obtain. A similar conclusion ollows, Nozick argues, i the evaluationthat goes with the belie ails. I, or example, Bill can be convinced thatreading is not good and not something to eel proud about, then or him tocontinue to eel proud would be equally bewildering. Whatever Bill might beeeling, it wouldnt be pride. Pride requires both a belie about certain acts

that something is or is not the case (that Bill has read three books) andan evaluation o a specic kind that pride is elt in relation to having donesomething to distinguish onesel (Bills having read these three books seemsa real accomplishment given a belie that reading three books o this sort is agenuine achievement and something to be admired.)

When these two requirements are satised, Nozick continues, thereperhaps goes a eeling, a sensation, an inner experience. Nozicks inabilityto assert the necessity o the third component o an emotion, its eeling,highlights the act that the physiological level o understanding the emotionsis the most problematic or cognitivist theorists. Is the eeling o an emotionnecessary? What are its sources? Is it also merely a mental state? Or doesthe eel o an emotion require also an accompanying physiological change?The problem involves how one conceives the relation o the mind (belie andjudgment) to the body (physiological reaction). Are there other grounds orbelieving the belie and evaluation that inorm the intentional object o an

emotion to be necessary and perhaps sucient or the emotion?Imagine that in the above example Bills riends, instead o bemoaning

their idleness, had been exchanging lists o books that they had read. Eachlist contained the three books mentioned by Bill as well as others. This groupo riends would hardly nd Bills achievement something to esteem. Absenttheir recognition, would Bill himsel think that his accomplishment meritedhis eelings? Its possible, o course, that or Bill this still would representan accomplishment that the others could acknowledge perhaps Bill is anathlete who spends much o his time training. In either case it seems clearthat the evaluative aspect cannot be removed without changing the nature othe experience.

Can the same be said o the actual description? Assume that Jane, another




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riend, enters the coee shop. She notices Bills behaviour and discoversits source. But she nds hersel in a slightly uncomortable position: she

has stopped by the coee shop hoping to return Bills copy oMiddlemarch,which she borrowed at the beginning o the week. How will Bill react i shedivulges this act? I Bill did not deliberately deceive his riends but, rather,misstated the acts in the heat o the moment (or even misrememberedthem: perhaps he only began the novel beore Jane borrowed it), he maysimply have to concede that he didnt read three novels. But i the evaluativejudgment depends on it being three, allowing that two books is a sucientlylesser eat, will Bill still eel proud? This question seems to demand a nega-tive answer: how can Bill eel proud o having done something that he didntactually do? He might alter his evaluative judgment, lowering the standard,as it were, and so eel proud that he read two books; but he could not eelproud o having read three novels while knowing that he had only read two.

Emotions and Evaluations

In addition to these thorny problems, the relationship between emotionsand value raises others. For example, Spinozas denition o pride raises itsassociation with vice. He sees pride on its own as a problematic emotion: Itwould take too much time to enumerate here all the evils o pride, or theproud are subject to all emotions, but to none are they less subject than to

those o love and pity.19

Contrast this with David Hume, who acknowledgesthat his discussion o pride will oend those amiliar with the style o theschools and pulpit that characterizes pride as exclusively vicious. For Hume,although pride can be vicious, it is potentially virtuous: I observe, that bypride I understand that agreeable impression, which arises in the mind, whenthe view either o our virtue, beauty, riches or power makes us satisyd withourselves.20

For the moment, we want to point out only some o the ways in whichthe emotions relate to the good lie. At least three conditions o tting-ness exist with respect to the emotions. From the supposition that they are

cognitive that they depend upon belies and judgments about descriptiveand normative states o aairs it ollows that emotions can be tting oruntting, locally and in general. By locally, we mean that the belie itselcan be mistaken and that the emotion may or may not be appropriate to thebelie. Return or a moment to the example o pride. I Bill is wrong abouthaving read three books, or i he is wrong to think that reading is a goodto be pursued, the response that he has will itsel be mistaken. The rstsupposition is experiential: either he has or hasnt read this many books. Thesecond concerns evaluation: having read this many books in a week is or isnot a matter about which one should eel pride because it is or is not some-thing integral to good living. The third condition o ttingness is proportion.I Bill over-reacts, becoming ecstatic about having read three books to the

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point where his response becomes a nuisance to others who value such anaccomplishment dierently, then his reaction may be judged inappropriate.

Similarly, i, having accomplished something that is recognized as a source opride, he shows no emotion, he may be aulted or being cold and uneeling.Emotions are tting, Nozick writes, when the belie is true, the evaluationis correct, and the eeling is proportionate to the evaluation.21

The emotions can also t or ail to t in a larger sense. Generally, one mustconsider whether or not one should experience emotions or seek to situateonesel in such a way as to prove impervious to them. I a lie lived withoutemotion is determined to be the best sort o lie or human beings, then thethird condition o t will never obtain, because and insoar as the ttingnesso the prior judgments or belies have altered. The Stoics argue orceully thatthe elimination o emotion is a precondition o human fourishing, and theiranalysis o the emotions is intimately tied to this normative conclusion.

Becoming impervious to the emotions is only possible, however, i the emo-tions are under our control. Conceiving o emotions as cognitive events o arelatively complex order, such that they can be constituted by i not identifedwith rational judgments, brings them into the realm o the voluntary, accordingto Cicero in the third and ourth books o the Tusculan Disputations. Oneneed not agree with the Stoic conclusion. Sartre did not expect the emotionsto be driven rom the human agent, but he did reject excusing agents because

o their emotions: The existentialist does not believe in the power o pas-sion. He will never agree that a sweeping passion is a ravaging torrent whichatally leads a man to certain acts and is thereore an excuse. He thinks thatman is responsible or his passion.22 Others have been ar less condent inpronouncing on the responsibility o agents or the emotions. But all have hadsomething to say about the relation o the emotions to the lived lives o agents,to their pursuit o ullness, to their conceptions o value and the good.

Politics and the Emotions

So what are the repercussions o these ways o conceptualizing the interplay

and interdependency o emotion, cognition, and reason or our understand-ings o and possibilities or democratic engagement? Regarding our capacityto reason as inextricably tied to our emotional capacities may do little tochange our understandings other than to suggest an alternative phenomeno-logical description o what sort o reasoning is actually taking place. Indeed,it might be suggested that the most dominant theories o our time, suchas RawlsA Theory o Justice, already recognize an emotional underpinning,such as an ongoing desire or justice, that makes a normative picture pos-sible.23 I such is the case, we need only to supplement those establishednormative visions, on a terrain that they have conceded, with a somewhatthicker understanding o the human subject. And this would not necessitateany real changes to the content and implications o those theories.

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But the consequences may not be quite so straightorward. The articlesin this volume point to a variety o ways in which, by taking seriously these

new accounts o the complexity o the human psyche and the intricate con-nections between emotion and reason, we must begin to rethink some oour common suppositions. All the authors in this collection recognize thathuman emotional capacities, given their necessary and sometimes desirablecontributions to political lie, also present challenges. From among thecontributions to this book we can identiy at least our ways in which thesenew theories can have an important impact on contemporary democraticand liberal democratic theory: they can generate a rethinking o our tradi-tional ways o distinguishing between private and public; they can lead usto seek greater clarity on the ways in which emotion continues to sustaincurrent political commitments in liberal and democratic regimes; they cancontribute to recognizing better outcomes in democratic practice includingdemocratic deliberation; and nally, in general, they allow us to develop amore realistic set o political expectations.

Public and Private

There is a long tradition o regarding state institutions as guardians o sobersecond thought against the excessive emotional responses o private individ-uals and even elected legislative bodies. In a recent work, or example, Cass

Sunstein highlights the role o government ocials in examining public earsin the light o expert evidence and in subjecting citizens emotive responsesand public panics to the sane adjudication o administrative rationality. Sucha role supposes a boundary between the higher reason o ocialdom andpopulist unenlightened emotionalism.24 In addition, we can see that despiteRawls recognition o a desire or justice as a precondition or a just politicalcommunity, the distinction between the public domain and the particularinterests that remain hidden behind the veil o ignorance in the realm othe private depends on, and indeed is constituted by, a conception o publicreason itsel.25 O course, many eminist critics o the liberal tradition have

long been aware o the dangers o these conceptions.26 Still, many theoristscontinue to conceive the border between the private and the public withinliberal thought as that point where one crosses rom unreason and the senti-ment o households to rational public justication.

The primordial importance o the emotions at the core o political liecould disrupt this distinction between the public and private that has beena common trope o our liberal democratic understanding. Do we not beginto blur the line between acceptable and unacceptable policy justications iwe admit o an emotional grounding to a drive or justice? I we accept cur-rent developments in the philosophy o mind, acknowledging a much morecomplex human psychology including an inextricable connection betweenemotion and reason, the normative models in political theory that give public

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legitimacy to reason over and against the emotion o the private sphere mustbe rethought.

Emotions and Citizenship

Dismantling the reason-emotion divide as one o the proper boundaries opolitical lie may also open up debate on whether the emotional lives ocitizens can be regarded as a worthy object o public policy, and in whatways. In Britain, recent reorms have led to a great increase in the avail-ability o cognitive behavioural therapy through the National Health Service,and the government has even embarked on a project to institute a programor emotional literacy in the schools.27 While liberals may be averse to theidea o directly legislating the emotional lives o citizens, these reorms gosome way in promoting certain models o emotional well-being or citizenry.How can they be reconciled with liberal assumptions? A more sophisticatedunderstanding o human psychology than that traditionally acknowledged inpolitical theory will allow us to better come to terms with such new areaso policy. In general, i we are concerned about the ailure o contempo-rary liberal democracies to oster the qualities required or the exercise oresponsible citizenship, then these new understandings can be helpul to aneducational project to promote the critical yet aective judgment required oa mature liberal democratic citizen.28

In addition, an acknowledgment o the relevance o emotions in politicaljudgment and political lie may help us better to acknowledge the dier-ences among liberal regimes, even those with similar institutional orms andconstitutional ideals. This is crucial to understanding the opportunities aswell as pitalls in building and sustaining democratic regimes worldwide.For example, what general dispositions o the citizenry are necessary or theeective unctioning o liberal democracy itsel? While certain authors, aswe have seen, believe a general desire or justice among citizenry to be indis-pensable, others have conceptualized this undamental liberal democraticethos in competing ways, or example Judith Shklars ear o cruelty (the

liberalism o ear) or Alexis de Tocquevilles love o equality.29 Most politicaltheorists could agree, however, that the emotions play an important rolein assuring the centrality o liberal values in the experience o the liberaldemocratic citizen. In other words, it is our emotions along with our reasonthat relay to us the importance o a set o practices that express recognitiono dignity and respect or the human person, the importance o reedom, andother key commitments through which liberalism can be dened.

Still, to recognize judiciously the inextricable importance o the emotionsor our political lives, we must nd some means by which we can adjudicateamong them, nding criteria by which we can assess those emotional quali-ties or associations which can urther the cause o democracy and justiceand those which can detract rom them. Should we accept all orms o




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emotion and o emotional states as in some way conducive to liberalism ordemocracy, or should some emotional templates be encouraged (or discour-

aged) or the sake o maximizing equality and reedom? In either case, howcan this be done?

Another approach to examining the place o the emotions in a varietyo regimes is perhaps more common to the ancients than among todayspolitical scientists, at least until recent attempts to revive the republicantradition.30 This approach explores the varying orms oethos across dierenttypes o society. On a broad scale, some theorists argue within a cognitivistramework that the emotions are socially constructed, in whole or in part.31I emotions are largely the product o our belies and evaluations, and i ourbelies and evaluations are in general acquired through cultural transmis-sion, then our emotional experiences can be regarded as a direct legacy oour social experiences and education. For the ancients, this was a mattero diering structures o governance. Can competing orms o government,such as monarchies, constitutional monarchies, republics, and tyrannies,still be associated with distinct emotional patterns among the rulers or thecitizenry? Here emphasis can be placed on the patterns by which power isexercised and their possible impact on our political identities. The idea holdsthat a variety o emotional dispositions are associated with diering politicalorms, and that these public passions, so to speak, can play an important and

positive role in the dening and consolidating o our broader political com-mitments. This may help us to understand the possibilities and limitations ocompeting orms o governance, as well as the continuing distinctions thatwe can see among dierent orms and practices o regimes.

Emotions and Democratic Deliberation

A third approach explores the particular and oten competing passions opeople living within liberal democratic states. While traditional theories,as we have seen, have oten relied on the emotions to secure broad com-mitment to core liberal values such as liberty and equality, in more specic

political debates the emotions have oten been regarded as problematic. Theconsequent challenge has been to seek a mechanism whereby the competingpassions o the public could be neutralized or minimized beore or throughthe process o public deliberation. With the recognition that the idea o apurely rational public debate is ounded on alse notions o the relationshipbetween reason and the emotions, it is incumbent upon political theoriststo seek new means o integrating an appreciation or emotional lie into theheart o our theories o public deliberation. The actual workings o delibera-tion involve a wide variety o motivations on the part o citizens, and onecannot expect outcomes o deliberation in an actual democratic setting to bebased on bare rational principles. A new understanding o deliberation thatnot only incorporates an understanding o the inextricable importance and

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positive contribution o emotion in the ormation o political judgment butalso explores the means by which the passions can work in the public sphere

to achieve a degree o impartiality will help us become better judges o thedemocratic process.

One eect o this may be, as recognized by Michael Walzer, an appre-ciation not only o the passionate commitment that is required in a vibrantdemocratic community but also o the importance or politics o confict,both within and among nation states.32 This appreciation should teach us toavoid a narrow view o politics as the achievement o idealized consensualoutcomes through rational deliberation. The centrality o emotion and com-peting passions in all orms o political action will inevitably mean that somepeople will eel better than others do about any political outcome.

Emotions and Political Aspirations

A nal, and hopeully positive, eect o these rather new questions in politic-al theory is to provide a vision o political lie that more clearly conormsto the lives and aspirations o citizenry. Those who take up the cause o

bringing the emotions back in have oten suggested that the decline ocitizen interest in the ormal political process, as measured by a number oindicators, is in part due to a cynicism bred by an unrealistic model o whatthe political process should be.33 While political theorists may be hubristic to

think that their models o politics have so much popular impact, nonethelessan important gap is evident between contemporary political theory and therealities o politics in liberal democratic regimes. I our theorizing is to meansomething in a world o new challenges to democratic governance, we mustrst seek a groundwork that conorms more adequately to the experience ocitizens. A positive re-evaluation o the emotions in the political realm is onestep towards a more meaningul dialogue with our own liberal democraticexperience.

Overview of the Chapters

The essays in this volume are arranged or the most part chronologically,seeking to retrieve the importance o the debate on the emotions in politicallie through a number o thinkers and historical contexts in the Western tra-dition. Chapter 1, Explaining Emotions, by the distinguished philosopherAmlie Oksenberg Rorty, is her classic 1978 statement o the need or a morecomplex approach to emotional lie. She shows that no one principle canexplain our emotional lives and that along with questions o individual andgenetic dispositions we should also consider the social and cultural causeso both our emotions and the perceptions that underpin them. This chapterhelps to lay the groundwork or this collection insoar as it provides an import-ant philosophic account o how the emotions are being reconsidered. Rortyalso provides us with a new postscript to this path-breaking article.




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This volumes historical project begins with a consideration o ancientAthens. In Plato on Shame and Frank Speech in Democratic Athens

(Chapter 2), Christina Tarnopolsky builds on revisionist accounts o PlatosSocrates. She argues that Plato, through an examination o the workings oparrhe-sia, was putting orward a model o respectul shame to apply in bothphilosophy and politics as a corrective to (rather than replacement or) thenorms o democratic practice in Athens. Like Sharon Krause and MarleneSokolon in later chapters, Tarnopolsky suggests that we should reject thetemptation to categorize our emotions as intrinsically either helpul or harm-ul or liberal democracy. Rather, we should embrace the ull range o ouremotions, acknowledging that they can serve democracy well only i they aremaniested in ways that warn us about our vulnerability and mortality.

Arash Abizadehs The Passions o the Wise: Phrone-sis, Rhetoric, andAristotles Passionate Practical Deliberation (Chapter 3) shows that thepractical wisdom central to Aristotles ethics and politics does not unctionwithout emotion. Indeed, he argues that emotion (pathos), character (ethos),and logic (logos) are constitutive elements o both Aristotelian rhetoric andphrone-sis, partly in terms o how the particulars are perceived and partlyin terms o how deliberation proceeds in view o that perception. A properunderstanding o the place o emotion in Aristotelianphrone-sis and rhetoric,and an understanding o how the democratic orum can constrain rhetorical

practice, allows a more avourable outlook on the possibilities o democraticpolitics in the absence o what Aristotle would judge to be ull virtue on thepart o statesmen and citizens.

In Troubling Business: The Emotions in Aquinas Philosophical Psychol-ogy (Chapter 4), Leonard Ferry suggests a means to negotiate betweenthose theories that view the emotions as ully conditioned by chemical andneurological reactions and those that suggest that the soul is wholly underour cognitive control. In broad terms, Thomas Aquinas view o humanaction allows or a spectrum o possibilities in the human soul ranging romundamentally physically generated eeling through a gradual range o emo-

tion over which we can be said to hold an increasing degree o control. Ferrymaintains that the perspective o Aquinas allows us to understand more ullythose aspects o the soul over which we may have a certain command andthose aspects that are more a matter o physical refex. This has importantpolitical and legal implications, given the inconsistency in how our insti-tutions deal with individual responsibility or emotional lie. A better andmore comprehensive understanding o the range o emotional lie and thepossibilities, though limited, o cognitive control will provide a better basisor inorming our political and legal judgments.

In The Political Relevance o the Emotions rom Descartes to Smith(Chapter 5), Rebecca Kingston argues that an important change occurred inthe study o emotions in the seventeenth century. In the eort to apply new

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scientic methods to the study o the soul, theorists began to conceptualizeemotion and passion as not only an internal phenomenon but an individual

one. They thus abandoned a whole tradition in political theory that can betraced back to the ancients, a tradition that recognized the possibility o distin-guishing social and political communities on the basis o a shared emotionaldisposition. Kingston maintains that the abandonment o the idea o publicpassion has impoverished political discourse, leading to a contemporaryunderstanding o liberalism that devalues the passions in public lie by relegat-ing their legitimate sphere o action to private lie. Noting that this decline othe idea o a public passion was an unintended consequence, Kingston callsnot only or recognition o this idea as an analytical tool to help make senseo our political lives today but also or a larger and more positive role or theemotions in our normative understanding o politics.

Sharon Krause, in Passion, Power, and Impartiality in Hume (Chapter 6),re-examines David Humes phenomenology o judgment and demonstrateshow it is a relevant and realist corrective to theories o modern liberalism.She shows how the central importance o aect or moral judgment doesnot undermine the possibility o impartiality in Hume, due to the socialabric o moral eeling (which is built on a certain sensitivity to the pains andpleasures o others), the need or a generalized perspective in judgment thatmitigates against the imposition o our own individual interests, and, nally,

the limits imposed by human nature on what can and cannot be approvedo in moral judgment. She acknowledges that, today, the acceptance o aHumean account o moral judgment would need to be supplemented bya commitment to broad orums o democratic deliberation, so as to extendindividual sympathies and to provide the conditions or as broad and asgeneralized a standpoint as possible.

Ingrid Makus explores the place o emotions in the thought o Jean-JacquesRousseau in Pity, Pride, and Prejudice: Rousseau on the Passions (Chapter7). At the outset she describes the problems or contemporary liberal demo-cratic thought in reviving a theory o the relationship between the passions

and politics. Such a theory, she argues, must eschew oundationalist thinkingwhile still holding to eatures o the ancient account o politics that recognizethe centrality o the passions and a tie between reason and emotion securedby virtue. But how can virtue be addressed in a contemporary liberal demo-cratic context that is pluralistic in both theory and practice? She argues thatthe philosophy o Jean-Jacques Rousseau can help to overcome the impasse,in particular through an understanding o the possibilities or the educationo the natural human impulse to compassion.

In Feelings in the Political Philosophy o J.S. Mill (Chapter 8), MarleneSokolon explores some o the tensions evident in Mills work around thetheme o emotions, or what Mill calls eeling. Mills reaction to his athersstrain o utilitarianism was in part inspired by a need to incorporate a more




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sympathetic role or the emotions in utilitarian thought and calculation, buthe was also suspicious o the workings o certain types o emotions (a tendency

refected in contemporary discussions on the emotions today, which Sokoloncalls the negative-positive polarity). Mill thought that one could construct apolitical community in which the undesirable or destructive emotions wouldbe isolated rom political and ethical decision making. Sokolon, examininghow these tendencies in Mills thought resonate in contemporary debateson the emotions in public lie, argues against this view. She suggests thatthe whole range o emotional response (including shame, disgust, and otherseemingly negative emotions) can, in principle, be valuable in public lie.The task o politics is to ensure that these emotional responses are associatedwith the appropriate objects or public approval and disapproval.

Leah Bradshaws Emotions, Reasons, and Judgments (Chapter 9) evalu-ates the arguments o various philosophers who advocate a more importantrole or emotion in democratic judgment and deliberation. She begins withcontrasting the views o Aristotle and Kant on the place o reason and emo-tion in politics, and then shows how more modern developments in politicaltheory, like the work o Richard Rorty, maniest a departure rom both. Sheis critical o Rorty and other thinkers who advocate a ull embrace o emo-tion and passion in politics without some regard or the place o reason,no matter how worthy an emotion such as compassion may seem on the

surace. As she states, For compassion to have any substance politically, ithas to be converted to virtue, which is measured by reasoned actions. Sheargues that only emotion aligned with reason, such as ound in moderndemands rising rom indignation (rather than compassion), constitutes aground or just political action. As such, she provides what may be regardedas a reconsideration o the arguments o this collection, given her return tothe classics to support the centrality o reason or virtue and the need ortraditional political and educational reorm. Nonetheless, she recognizesthat the orceul passions (such as indignation) will always be allied to those

virtues (such as courage) that are closely associated with the pursuit o

justice. In this regard she thus acknowledges that we cannot develop anunderstanding o politics without an idea o passion as a potentially positiveagent o change.

Chapter 10 is an essay by Robert C. Solomon entitled The Politics oEmotion. The chapter examines our ways in which the emotions can beconsidered political: rst, emotions should be considered as situated in theworld and not just inside individual minds, given their association with actualevents and situations; second, emotions are political in their unction to swayand persuade others to view a situation in a certain way; third, emotionshave a political unction in our relation with our own selves, that is, howwe shape our own relation to the world and our perceptions o it; ourth,the very description and labelling o emotions carries important political

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implications. This piece broadens the conversation among the authors inthis book by describing a wider scope or the play o politics associated with

our emotional lives and our attempts to understand them.All o these contributions orce us to come to terms with a more complex yet

more realistic human psychology than has traditionally been acknowledgedin political theory. The authors all agree that the history o political thoughtcan shed light on ways o reconceptualizing the place o the emotions andpassions in politics. In addition, the chapters in this volume share a toneo caution, insoar as none o the authors call or a reliance on emotionalprinciples alone; rather they seek a better recognition o the importanceo emotion and o its links to rationality than is currently ound in mostcontemporary liberal democratic theory.

Matters of Contention

Needless to say, this collection is an overview and does not claim to be acomprehensive treatment o the theme in the history o political thought. Norindeed do all the authors agree on the way in which the emotions are mostrelevant to the political process. These disagreements point to a number oareas where there are emerging debates in the eld o emotion and politics.For example, can emotion on its own, through the course o deliberation,lead us to just and publicly worthy outcomes in judgment? To what degree,

and in what manner, should education be central to the liberal democraticproject? Can we acknowledge or indeed nd any worth in the process bywhich our emotional lives are constituted by our social and political context?Should we regard these eatures o our selves as inherited prejudice and alikely source o misjudgment, or are they a matter o our very identities thatmust be respected to enable proper political judgment?

The work highlights the dierences between those who argue or a keyset o emotional dispositions (such as a capacity or shame, indignation, orcompassion) as particularly relevant or democratic lie, and those who holdthat any emotion can be both helpul and destructive in the democratic

process. Still, both positions point to a need to explore in greater detail thedierence between the potentially positive and negative orce o emotion inpolitical lie and how precisely this is to be adjudicated. I we are to accepta certain blurring o the distinction between the working o emotion andrational discernment, then how precisely do we determine the vision o thepolitical good by which we can adjudicate helpul and destructive modes opolitical lie? Can such a vision be achieved through democratic consensus?I not, how can it be justied as a normative vision?

In the long run, we hope that the deliberations begun here will encour-age those who have developed an interest in these issues and will point outurther avenues or refection both within and outside the Western traditiono political theory.




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Sometimes our emotions change straight away when we learn that whatwe believed is not true. The grieving husband recovers when he learns that,because she missed her plane, his wie did not die in the plane crash. Butoten changes in emotions do not appropriately ollow changes in belie.Their tenacity, their inertia, suggests that there isakrasia o the emotions; itreveals the complex structure o their intentionality.1

I want to examine the strategies we use to explain cases o unexpectedconservation o emotions: those that seem to confict with a persons judg-

ments and those that appear to have distorted our perceptions and belies,making them uncharacteristically resistant to change or correction.2 I shallbegin with complex cases, so that we will be orced to uncover layers oexplanation that need not normally be brought into play in what are takento be the standard cases. When people act or react in ways that can beexplained by reasonable belies and desires, we tend to suppose that thesebelies and desires are the causes o their behaviour. We then try to constructour explanations o the more complex cases using only what was necessaryto explain the simple ones. Not surprisingly, we are oten let with bizarrecases at the margins o our theory: sel-deception,akrasia, and the irrational

conservation o emotions. By beginning with ringe cases, we may nd themore complex structures that underlie the apparently straightorward casesbut which are dicult to discern when everything is going as we expect.

One o the diculties o our enterprise is speciying the psychological prin-ciples that rationalize a persons belies and desires, her interpretations andresponses. When an emotion appears to be anomalous, and its explanationrequires tracing its etiology, identiying the intentional object o the emotionis dicult without constructing its rationale, i not actually its justication.But accurately describing a persons belies and attitudes, especially whenthey involveakrasia or the apparently inappropriate conservation o the emo-tions, oten involves attributing alse belies, apparently irrational intentionalsets.3 Sometimes it is implausible and inaccurate to explain an inappropriate

Explaining Emotions

Amlie Oksenberg Rorty

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attitude by attributing a belie or desire that would rationalize it, because theapparently anomalous emotion is embedded in a system o other inappropriate

attitudes or alse belies. Yet explaining a persons condition requires tracingits causal history, reconstructing the details o a ramied, gradually changingintentional system o attitudes, belies, and habits o attention and ocusing.Constructing this causal history oten involves reconstructing a rationale: theproblem is to determine at what point in that history to apply some modied

version o the principle o charity.4 Oten it is accurately applied only quitear back in the persons psychological history, to explain the ormation o pre-propositional but intentional habits o salience, organization, and interpreta-tion. These habits, through later intervening belies and attitudes many othem alse and inappropriate explain the conservation o emotions. Whenso applied, the principle o charity is modied: it accounts or the coherentappropriateness o the ormation o a persons intentional system withoutmaximizing agreement on the number o true belies. It is not the belie oremotion that is rationalized but how a person came to have it.

Emotions do not orm a natural class. A set o distinctions that hasgenerally haunted the philosophy o mind stands in the way o giving gooddescriptions o the phenomena o emotion. We have inherited distinctionsbetween being active and being passive; between psychological states pri-marily explained by physical processes and psychological states not reducible

to nor adequately explained by physical processes; between states that areprimarily nonrational and those that are either rational or irrational; betweenvoluntary and nonvoluntary states. Once these distinctions were drawn, typeso psychological activities were parceled out en bloc to one or another side othese dichotomies. The next step was to argue reclassication: to claim thatperception is not passive but active, or that the imagination has objectiveas well as subjective rules o association. Historically, the list o emotionshas expanded as a result o these controversies. For instance, the opponentso Thomas Hobbes, wanting to secure benevolence, sympathy, and otherdisinterested attitudes as counterbalances to sel-interest, introduced them

as sentiments with motivational power. Passions became emotions and wereclassied as activities rather than as passive states. When the intentional-ity o emotions was discussed, the list expanded still urther: ressentiment,aesthetic and religious awe, anxiety, and dread were included. Emotionsbecame aects or attitudes. As the class grew, its members became moreheterogeneous and the analysis became more ambiguous; counterexampleswere explained away by charges o sel-deception.

When we ocus on their consequences on behaviour, most emotions canalso be described as motives; some but not all emotions can also bedescribed as eelings, associated with proprioceptive states.5 The objects osome emotions exuberance, melancholy are dicult to speciy; suchglobal states verge on being moods.6 Still other emotions come close to being

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dispositional character traits: we speak o vengeul or aectionate persons.But when we speak o psychological state as an emotion, contrasting it to

motives, eelings, moods, or character traits, we ocus on the ways we areaected by our appraisals, evaluative perceptions, or descriptions.7

The causal history o an individuals emotions, the signicant events thatorm his habits o response, aects his conception o their objects. Thatcausal history contains three closely interwoven strands: (1) the ormativeevents in a persons psychological past, the development o patterns ointentional ocusing and salience, and habits o thought and response; (2)the socially and culturally determined range o emotions and their character-istic behavioural and linguistic expressions; and (3) a persons constitutionalinheritance, the set o genetically xed threshold sensitivities and patterns oresponse. Because the social and genetic actors were assumed to be sharedor invariable, their eects always appearing within a persons psychologicalhistory, we have treated them, when we ocused on them at all, as xedbackground conditions. But they are essential to the ull account, and otencritical in explaining apparent anomalies: their contribution to that explana-tion does not reduce simply to a variant o individual psychological expla-nation.8 I shall, however, abstract rom the social and genetic actors, andconcentrate on the intentional components in the ormation o a personsindividual emotional dispositions.

Causes, Objects, Targets

Jonah, a news writer, resents Esther, his editor, whom he thinks domineering,even tyrannical. But as bosses go, Esther is exceptionally careul to consultwith the sta, oten ollowing consensus even when it conficts with herjudgment. His colleagues try to convince Jonah that Esthers assignmentsare not demeaning, her requests not arbitrary. Jonah comes to believe he wasmistaken in thinking her actions dictatorial; he retreats to remarking thatshe derives secret pleasure rom the demands that circumstances require.

Where his colleagues see a smile, he sees a smirk. Ater a time o working

with Esther, Jonah realizes that she is not a petty tyrant, but he still receivesher assignments with a dull resentul ache; and when Anita, the new editor,arrives, he is seething with hostility even beore she has had time to settle inand put her amily photographs on her desk. Although many o the womenon the secretarial sta are more hard-edged in mind and personality thaneither Esther or Anita, he regards them all as charmingly endowed withintuitive insight. He patronizes rather than resents them.

To understand Jonahs plight, we need distinctions. We are indebted to DavidHume or the distinction between the object and the cause o emotions.But that distinction needs to be rened beore we can use it to understand

Jonahs emotional condition. In the case o the husband who believed his

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wie had been killed in a plane crash, the precipitating or immediate cause othe mans grie is hearing a newscast announcing the atal crash o the plane

his wie intended to take. But o course the newscast has such a poweruleect on him because such a news story is itsel an eect o the signicantcause o his grie: her death in the crash. Oten when we nd emotionspuzzling, it is because we do not see why the immediate cause should havesuch an eect.

The signicant cause o an emotion is the set o events the entire causalhistory that explains the ecacy o the immediate or precipitating cause.Oten the signicant cause is not in the immediate past; it may be an event,or a series o events, long orgotten, that ormed a set o dispositions thatare triggered by the immediate cause. Tracing the ull causal story oteninvolves more than locating initial conditions or identiying immediatecauses: it requires analyzing the magnetizing eects o the ormation o ouremotional dispositions, habits o thought, as well as habits o action andresponse.9 Magnetizing dispositions are dispositions to gravitate toward andto create conditions that engender other dispositions. A magnetized disposi-tion to irascibility not only involves a set o specic low thresholds (e.g., torustration or betrayal) but also involves looking or rustrating conditionsby perceiving situations as rustrating. It not only involves wearing a chipon ones shoulder but involves looking or someone to knock that chip o.

Magnetizing dispositions need not by themselves explain actions or attitudi-nal reactions: they can do so indirectly, by characterizing the type o belies,perceptions, and desires a person is likely to have. Such traits determineactions and reactions by determining the selective range o a persons beliesand desires.10 The genesis o a magnetizing disposition need not always liein an individuals particular psychological history; such dispositions are otenacquired, along with other characteristically culture-specic intentionalsets and motives, as part o a persons socialization. It is because signicantcauses oten produce magnetizing dispositions that they are successul inexplaining the ecacy o the immediate causes o an emotion: they explain

not only the response but the tendencies to structure experience in ways thatwill elicit that characteristic response.

In order to understand the relation between the immediate and the signi-cant cause, we need to rene the account o the objects o the emotions. Theimmediate object o an emotion is characteristically intentional, directed,and reerring to objects under descriptions that cannot be substitutedsalvaaectione.11 Standardly, the immediate object not only is the ocus o theemotion but also is taken by the person as providing its ground or rationale.The immediate target o the emotion is the object extensionally describedand identied. I shall reer to a persons emotion-grounding descriptiono the target as the intentional component o the emotion,to his havingthat description as his intentional state, and to the associated magnetized




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disposition as his intentional set. O course a person need not be able toarticulate the intentional component o his emotions. Ascriptions o emo-

tions, like ascriptions o belie, are inerences to the best explanation.12A persons intentional set may ail to ground the emotion because the tar-

get does not in act have the relevant properties, or because it does not havethem in the conguration with the centrality that would ground the emotion,or because it does not in act exist: the description does not succeed in reer-ring. The diculties o ascribing intentional states and o reerring in opaquecontexts are no more (and no less) devastating in ascribing emotions thanthey are elsewhere.13 When an otherwise perceptive and reasonable personwidely and persistently misdescribes matters or persistently responds in away that apparently conficts with his belies, we rst try standard strategiesor explaining misperceptions and errors. Sometimes, indeed, we persuadea person that her emotion is unounded; and sometimes this persuasion issucient or the emotion to change.

When an emotion remains intractable or an anomalous intentional setpersists, we suspect that the emotion is rooted in habits o selective attentionand interpretation whose activation is best explained by tracing them backto the signicant causes o a magnetized disposition.14 The causal story othat ormation can take several orms. For instance, we might suspect that

Jonah resents Esther because he now is, or once was, resentul o his mother.

His mother may be the (acknowledged or unacknowledged) target o hisemotions, and Esther only the ront or that target. But Jonahs mother neednot be the explanatory target acknowledged or not o Jonahs emotion;she may simply have been a crucial part o the signicant cause o Jonahsmagnetized disposition to structure and interpret situations by locating someemale gure whom he sees as hostile and domineering, a gure who, soseen, grounds his resentment. Which o the various alternatives best explains

Jonahs condition is a matter or extended investigation; we would have toexamine a wide range o Jonahs responses, interpretations, and emotionsunder dierent conditions. In any case, our best explanatory strategy is as

ollows: when in doubt about how the immediate target and precipitatingcause explain the emotion, look or the signicant cause o the dispositionalset that orms the intentional component o the emotion.15

Habits and Intentional Sets

The signicant cause can help us reconstruct the rationale o the intentionalcomponent o the emotion, once we examine the composition o the signi-cant cause. An important part o the history o Jonahs condition will showus what we need:

Not only does Jonah regard women in high places with resentment and hostil-ity; he also suers rom nightmares and, sometimes, rom obsessive terrors.




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Both have a recurring theme: his mother is trying to kill him. Moreover, heloathes scarves, reusing to wear them even in the coldest, dampest weather.

No matter what wonderul things have just happened to him, he breaks intoan anxious sweat when he walks through the scar section at Woolworths. Hismother, a gru, brusque woman, used to swathe him in scarves that she knit-ted hersel. But she always bought the itchiest wool imaginable; and when shebundled him up in winter, she used to tie the scar with a swit, harsh motion,pulling it tightly around his throat. She had never come close to trying to killhim. She was in act an aectionate woman, but an awkward one. Certainlyshe was occasionally ambivalent, and sometimes exasperated and angry. It wasbecause Jonah was sensitive to the negative undertones o her attitudes (asensitivity that had an explanation o its own) that he elt the pressure o thescar as painul rather than as reassuring or comorting.

To understand what has happened to Jonah, we must examine severalcomponents o the signicant causes o his nightmares, phobias, and terrors.

When children remember events as attacks, they may be picking up genuineundercurrents in the behaviour o those around them. Adults oten behavewith hostility without attacking, seductively without trying to seduce. Becausechildren are unable to place the undercurrents they discern in the context oa persons whole psychological character, they magniy what rightens them.

So the antasy oten rests on something perceived. Perception shades intomagnied or distorted interpretation, which shades into antasy, oten in waysthat can be distinguished only with the benet o theory-laden hindsight.

But let us suppose that what Jonahs mother did was not in itsel sucientto orm his emotional dispositions. His perceptions o the attitudes thatdetermined her manner toward him are essential ingredients in the causalstory o his condition. There were not two events, two signicant causes butone: the tying o scar in a way that pained Jonah. In such situations it isoten necessary not only to identiy the signicant cause by an extensionaldescription (scar tied at a certain speed and a certain pressure) but also to

see it through the eyes o the beholder. When we understand that both com-ponents o the signicant cause the scar tightly tied and Jonahs eelingthat tying as painul are used in the orming o Jonahs emotional disposi-tions, we can see how locating the signicant cause can help us reconstructthe emotion-grounding description that links the intentional component o

Jonahs emotion to its immediate cause and target.Because the intentional component o the signicant cause and the

intentional component o the apparently anomalous emotion do not alwaysall under the same description, the signicant cause is not always as easyto spot as, in this post-Freudian age, we have located the signicant cause

and even the explanatory target o Jonahs emotion, almost withoutstopping to think. Nor need the signicant cause involve a particular set




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o events that used and ormed the persons magnetized dispositions, thepatterns o salience and attention. The causal story is likely to involve

idiosyncratic belies and associations, many dicult to recover or articulate.In any case, our motto can now be made more precise: when in doubtabout the rationale o an emotion, look or the intentional component othe signicant cause o the dispositional set that orms the intentionalcomponent o the emotion.

But we are not yet through explaining Jonahs condition, or we do notyet have an account o his tendency to interpret the minimally harsh man-ner o his mothers scar-tying ways as hostile. It might seem as i we havereintroduced our original problem the problem o explaining an anomalousemotional reaction at an earlier stage. Jonahs perceiving his mother ashostile is an essential part o the signicant cause o his phobias and histroubles with emale bosses. Nevertheless, i only Jonah and not his brotherAbednego has this intentional set, although Abednego was also tightlyswathed in itchy scarves, we have not got the signicant cause in all its glory:though our explanation is uller, it is not yet complete.

To understand why the usually perceptive Jonah so misperceived hismothers attitudes, I must tell you more o his story:

Jonah was the eldest o the children. During his childhood, his ather, the

Major, was given army leave only to return home or short visits. At an appro-priate time ater one o these visits, Abednego was born. Since his mother wason her own at the time, Jonah was sent o to stay with his adored grandatherwhile his mother was in the hospital. Now the truth o the matter is that theadored grandather loathed his daughter-in-law, whom he saw as a domi-neering, angry woman, the ruination o his son. Without intending to do so,

Jonahs grandather conveyed these attitudes to Jonah, who at that time wasapprehensive o losing his mothers aections. Susceptible to the infuenceo a gure who represented his absent ather, he ound in his grandathersattitudes the conrmation and seal o what might have been a passing mood.

His grandathers perspective became strongly entrenched as his own.

We now have an account o why a reasonable person might, in a perectlyreasonable way, have developed an intentional set that, as it happens, gener-ates wildly askew interpretations and reactions.16 But have we ound a stop-ping place, thinking weve explained an anomalous attitude simply becausewe have come to a amiliar platitude? Perhaps: that is a risk explanations run;but i we have stopped too soon, at a place that requires urther explanation,we can move, whenever the need arises, arther back in the causal story. Andindeed, we may want explanations o reactions that are not at all anomalous:we can ask why an accurate perception or a true belie has the orm it does,why a person ocused on matters this way rather than that.




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The principle o charity is now seen to be very general in scope.Characteristically, it is best applied to the intentional components o the

signicant causes o magnetizing dispositions, where it accounts or a rangeo attitudes and belies (without necessarily maximizing agreement on truth),rather than to individual episodic belies. Moreover, its use presupposes notonly that we have a certain gravitational attraction toward truth but that we arealso endowed with a wide range o psychological dispositions that determinethe ways in which we acquire and change our belies and attitudes. Thesedispositions are quite varied: some are neurophysiological determinants operceptual salience (e.g., red being more salient than grey under standardbackground and contrast conditions); others are psychological in character(e.g., the dominance order o emotions under standard conditions: ear dis-placing and reorganizing the emotional eld in characteristic patterns); stillothers are psychosocial (e.g., the eects o mass hysteria or the presence oa schizophrenic on a persons schema o intentional sets). In short, when wetry to apply the principle o charity where it best explains and identies therange o our attitudes, its canonic ormulation is so modied as to disappearas a special principle.

But having come to the end o Jonahs story, have we come to the end o anaccount o how we explain emotions? Our questions seem now to multiply:

Will we, in tracing the signicant cause to an appropriate stopping point,

always still introduce an intentional component o the signicant cause?Are we to interpret young Jonahs tendency to take on the intentional seto a gure who stands in a certain relation to him as itsel an intentionalset? Or do signicant causes o magnetizing dispositions sometimes haveno intentional component o their own? We do not know enough about theneurophysiology and psychology o early learning to know what constraintsshould be set on our philosophical theory. In any case, an account o theetiology o the intentional components o emotional dispositions is nestledwithin a general psychological theory and inseparable rom theories operception and theories o motivation. The holistic character o mental lie

makes piecemeal philosophical psychology suspect.Since airtight arguments have vacuous conclusions, it would be olly to

stop speaking at the point where we must start speculating. There are good,but by no means conclusive, reasons or recognizing a gradation betweenbelies or judgments in propositional orm, and quasi-intentions that can alsobe physically or extensionally identied. Let us distinguish:

1 belies that can be articulated in propositional orm, with well-denedtruth conditions

2 vague belies in sentential orm whose truth or satisaction conditions canbe roughly but not ully specied (It is better to have good riends thanto be rich.)




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3 specic patterns o intentional salience that can be ormulated asgeneral belies (A pattern o ocusing on aspects o womens behaviour

construed as domineering or hostile rather than as competent orinsecure might in principle be treated as a set o predictions about thebehaviour o women under specic conditions.)

4 intentional sets that cannot be easily ormulated as belies (A pattern oocusing on the military deensibility o a landscape, rather than on itsertility or aesthetic composition, cannot be so easily ormulated as aset o predictions about the benets o giving priority to militarydeence over ertility or aesthetic charm. Nor can such patterns osalience be translated straightorwardly as preerence rankings. Forinstance, a painter can ocus on patterns o colour in a landscaperather than on its compositional lines, but the patterns and habits ohis attending are quite distinct rom his painterly preerences.)

5 quasi-intentional sets that can, in principle, be ully specied inphysical or extensional descriptions (e.g., other things being equal,painul sensations are more salient than pleasurable ones).

For such intentional sets patterns o discrimination and attention thequestion o whether the signicant cause o a magnetized intentional set hasan irreducibly intentional component is an open one. Such quasi-intentional

components orm patterns o ocusing and salience without determining thedescription o those patterns. A quasi-intentional set (patterns o perceptualsalience under standard conditions o contrast and imprinting) can be givenboth physical and intentional descriptions; in some contexts, the physical-istic descriptions ca

Collectif_bringing the Passions Back in the Philosophy of Politics

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