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The Rationality of GriefCarolyn Price aa Open University , UKPublished online: 11 Jan 2010.

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Inquiry,Vol. 53, No. 1, 20–40, February 2010

0020-174X Print/1502-3923 Online/10/010020–21 © 2010 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/00201740903478384

SINQ0020-174X1502-3923Inquiry, Vol. 53, No. 1, November 2009: pp. 0–0Inquiry

The Rationality of Grief

The Rationality of GriefCarolyn PriceCAROLYN PRICE

Open University, UK

(Received 25 November 2008)

ABSTRACT Donald Gustafson has argued that grief centres on a combination of beliefand desire:

(1) The belief that the subject has suffered an irreparable loss.(2) The desire that this should not be the case.

And yet, as Gustafson points out, if the belief is true, the desire cannot be satisfied.Gustafson takes this to show that grief inevitably implies an irrational conflict betweenbelief and desire.

I offer a partial defence of grief against Gustafson’s charge of irrationality. Mydefence rests on two elements. First, I offer an alternative model of emotion, whichpresents emotions as complex episodes, initiated by emotional appraisals. Secondly, Iappeal to John Bowlby’s account of grief to argue that grief involves two forms of sad-ness (anguish and desolation) which Gustafson’s analysis runs together. I concede thatanguish does characteristically involve an element of irrationality. But the irrationalityof anguish does not arise from an apparently gratuitous clash between belief and desire,but from a conflict between emotion and belief—a form of irrationality that is bothfamiliar and easily explained. Moreover, desolation need not involve any irrationality.

I. The case against grief

In a list of experiences characteristic of a flourishing human life, grief at thedeath of a friend or relative might well come close to the top. Grief will be highon the list, because a flourishing life will typically involve emotional commit-ments to others: these commitments inevitably carry the risk of bereavementand grief. Moreover, it might be thought that grief has some value, despite thepain that it entails. For the pain of grief not only reflects, but also calls ourattention to the importance that our commitments hold for us: through grief,as much as through joy, we perceive what matters in our lives.1

Correspondence Address: Dr Carolyn Price, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, TheOpen University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. Email: c.s.price@open.ac.uk

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The Rationality of Grief 21

This positive assessment of grief is not universally accepted, however.Grief has sometimes been conceptualised as an illness or disorder—a dys-functional and painful syndrome from which the bereaved should be helpedto recover as quickly as possible.2 In grief, people sometimes seem to betransfixed by their loss—torturing themselves, their friends might think, tono purpose. At other times, they seem to be searching for the person whohas died, or at least expecting their return: they call out for them; they areconstantly on the look out for them; they are reluctant to discard theirbelongings (Parkes, 1970, cited by Bowlby, 1980, pp. 86–95). In some sense,they seem not to have grasped that the loss has occurred. It is not hard to seehow these phenomena might be used to support a conception of grief aspointless, dysfunctional and confused.

There are, then, three different charges that might be laid against grief:

(1) Grief is futile—an impotent response to a situation about which noth-ing can now be done.

(2) Grief is painful and disrupts the normal course of life.(3) Grief is irrational, in that it involves some internal contradiction, or

some failure to accept reality.

In this paper, I shall focus primarily on the charge of irrationality. Ishall begin by considering a discussion by Donald Gustafson (1989) inwhich he presents a particularly strong version of this charge. Indeed,some readers may find Gustafson’s claims rather too strong to be plausi-ble. Most theorists who have written on the topic reject Gustafson’saccount. As we shall see, though, the alternative account that they proposefaces a significant difficulty of its own. As I shall try to make clear, thisdebate raises some key questions about the structure of grief and the kindsof motivation that grief implies. For this reason, I would like to use it as aspringboard from which to launch a fresh investigation into these ques-tions, opening the way for a more rounded and nuanced evaluation of therationality of grief.

II. Gustafson’s argument

Gustafson characterises grief as an emotion that is characteristically experi-enced in response to the death or permanent absence of someone one lovesor needs.3 He suggests that grief is composed of a combination of a belief, adesire and a set of feelings. More precisely, he offers the following analysis ofgrief:

(G) Grief is a belief of the form “that P”, and attendant feelings suchas feelings of loss, pain, anger, fear, distress and unhappiness, and adesire (of the form “that not-P”), in a whole psychological context.(1989, pp. 463–64)

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22 Carolyn Price

According to Gustafson, the irrationality of grief becomes clear when weconsider what it is that the grieving subject believes and desires. Consider theimaginary example of Grace, who is grieving for her partner Lee. OnGustafson’s analysis, what Grace believes is that Lee is lost to her forever.What she desires is that this should not be the case. Given her belief, Grace isin a position immediately to recognise that her desire cannot be satisfied.And yet, Gustafson suggests, it is irrational to harbour a desire that is evi-dently impossible to satisfy. So, he concludes, grief necessarily involves anirrational desire.

Gustafson’s claim, then, is that grief involves a specific form of practicalirrationality—an irrational conflict between desire and belief. Gustafson’saccount implies that this form of irrationality is an inevitable feature ofgrief. Moreover, it seems to be irrationality of a relatively profound and gra-tuitous kind: certainly Gustafson himself takes it to be puzzling enough tomerit a special explanation. It is best explained, he suggests, by the hypothe-sis that grief is a hard-wired, biologically based response (1989, p. 470).

III. Desires, wishes and impossible goals

Gustafson’s argument rests on two premises:

G.1 It is irrational to harbour a desire that one believes cannot be satisfied.G.2 The grieving subject harbours a desire that they believe cannot be satis-

fied (that is, the desire that their loss should be repaired).

Both these premises are open to question.There are two different reasons someone might have for rejecting G.1.

First, it might be denied that non-instrumental desires are subject to rationalnorms. Alternatively, it might be argued that, although non-instrumentaldesires are subject to rational norms of some kind, it is not irrational to har-bour a desire that one believes cannot be satisfied.4 Whether non-instrumentaldesires are subject to rational norms and, if so, what those norms might be isa controversial and complex issue, and I am not going to try to settle it here.As a result, I must leave it open that Gustafson’s argument could be rejectedvery quickly, on the grounds that G.1 is false.

Nevertheless, there are reasons for not ending the discussion here. Thefirst is that, as I shall try to show in a moment, G.1 is at least not obviouslyfalse. The second is that, regardless of the truth of G.1, G.2 is an interestingand controversial claim. If G.2 is allowed to stand, grief will remain open tothe charge of futility, even if the charge of irrationality fails.

Is it possible to defend G.1? The issue does not seem to have attractedmuch attention in the literature on desire, though Richard Brandt (1969/70)argues explicitly that it is irrational to desire an impossible goal. 5 Neverthe-less, many theorists of grief—including theorists who reject Gustafson’s con-clusion—appear to assume the truth of G.1 (or something like it).6

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The Rationality of Grief 23

Moreover, as I shall explain in a moment, this assumption plays a crucialrole in shaping their accounts.

As it happens, I think that it might be possible to mount a defence of G.1.For such a defence to be plausible, however, it is necessary to understand theterm “desire” in a very narrow sense. First, it must be taken to refer only tostates that are readily influenced by the subject’s beliefs: for if this were notthe case, the conflict that Gustafson describes would not seem gratuitous orpuzzling. In this respect, then, desires will need to be distinguished fromurges or inclinations that are independent of the subject’s beliefs, such ashunger or pain. Secondly, it must be taken to refer only to states that aresupposed to motivate action. This need not imply that a subject will act onevery desire that they have: desires can conflict with each other, and theopportunity to act on a particular desire may never arise. Rather, the claimwill be that every desire presents its object as at least a candidate for action;hence, every desire has at least the potential to shape the subject’s deeds andplans. In this respect, desires will need to be distinguished from wishes,where a wish is taken to be a state that registers the value of some state ofaffairs without motivating the subject to try to attain it.7

If we were to use the term “desire” in this very narrow sense, it might bepossible to attempt a defence of G.1. For if every desire has the potential tobe drawn into practical reasoning, there is a powerful reason to avoid har-bouring desires that cannot be satisfied: taking account of such desires inpractical reasoning would be pointless and distracting.8 Hence, whilerational subjects might wish for the impossible, they will not desire it.

Clearly, much more work would need to be done to shore up this defenceof G.1. However, I do not think that this issue needs to be settled before wecan evaluate Gustafson’s argument about grief. This is because I think thatG.2 is much more questionable than G.1. Indeed—and this is really the pointthat I want to emphasise—if we understand the term “desire” in the narrowsense that G.1 requires, it becomes all the more obvious that G.2 is open tochallenge. For why should we suppose that Grace’s yearning is explained by adesire, in this narrow sense, and not by a conative state of some other kind?

This is precisely the line that is adopted by the theorists of grief that I men-tioned earlier. They include Lyons (1980, p. 96), Taylor (1986, pp. 221–23),Nussbaum (2001, p. 135) and, most recently, Roberts (2003, p. 236).9 Allthese theorists appear to accept the assumption that it is irrational (or per-haps even impossible) to desire something that cannot be achieved. UnlikeGustafson, however, they take this to show, not that grief is irrational, butthat grief does not involve a desire to repair the loss. Instead, they suggestthat the grieving subject merely wishes that things were different; for there isnothing irrational or impossible about that.

Gustafson is well aware of this possible objection to his argument. Heresponds by pointing to the phenomenological differences between a desireand a wish:

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24 Carolyn Price

What it is like to longingly want something that is not attainable is notwhat it is like . . . to wish that the world were other than it is. Theintensity of feelings, depth of despair over the loss of hope, the globalcharacter of the feelings and pain over the fact which occasions theattitudes are all among the differences. (1989, p. 473)

Robert Solomon concurs:

One might wish that someone had not died, and feel sorrow for theloss, but grief involves the turmoil of an impossible desire, an inability toaccept the loss, and the persistent demand that it not be so. (Solomon,2004, p. 85)10

On this point, I think that Gustafson and Solomon are right. Of course,there is no denying that the grieving subject will typically wish that their losscould be repaired. Nevertheless, I do not think that the intense yearning andturmoil characteristic of grief can have its origin in a wish. I do not deny thata wish can be fervent or that people can feel sad or wistful about their inabil-ity to satisfy a wish. Nevertheless, it is hard to see how a wish, no matter howfervent, could generate the intense distress and restless searching characteris-tic of grief. For this reason, I do not think that these theorists have found aplausible alternative to G.2.

Perhaps, then, the issue depends on G.1 after all. However, there remainsthe possibility that the yearning of grief originates neither with a desire in thenarrow sense that Gustafson requires, nor with a wish, but with a motiva-tional state of some other kind. As I hope to show, by exploring this possib-ility, we will be able to reach a better understanding of the nature of grief.

IV. The complexity of grief

The task is complicated by the fact that grief seems to be a rather confusingand contradictory phenomenon. Gustafson portrays grief as centring on adesire—a restless yearning to restore contact with the deceased. This sugges-tion is made plausible by things that grieving people do—cradling a photo-graph of the person who has died, crying out for them, trying to capturethem, somehow, in conversations with friends. But grief is also sometimesportrayed—for example, by Lyons (1980)—as a state of inactivity and with-drawal, in which the grieving subject spends their time in solitude, hopelesslyruminating on their loss. These two pictures of grief seem equally familiarand plausible. In considering Gustafson’s analysis, we will need to bear themboth in mind.

In this paper, I shall present a partial defence of grief against Gustafson’scharge of irrationality. My defence is partial in that I accept that grief doescharacteristically involve a degree of irrationality. However, I shall argue

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The Rationality of Grief 25

that grief can be said to be irrational only in a relatively attenuated sense;moreover, the irrationality of grief, such as it is, is of a familiar and explica-ble kind. In addition, I shall argue that grief involves two different types ofsad emotion, and that the irrationality of grief arises from just one of these.

My argument will involve rejecting two aspects of Gustafson’s account.First, Gustafson seems to hold that grief is a simple emotion, on a par withsorrow. In contrast, I take it that grief is a complex emotional process, invol-ving a number of emotions. Secondly, although Gustafson gives some roleto feelings in his analysis, the central roles are played by belief and desire.The model of emotion that I shall adopt is of a rather different kind. As Ishall explain, both these moves are required for my defence of grief.

V. Emotional phenomena

I shall begin by giving a lightning sketch of my preferred model of emo-tion.11 I am not going to present it in any detail. I am just going to pick outthe points that are crucial in what follows.

Recent theories of emotion have increasingly emphasised the complexityof emotional phenomena. Indeed, emotional phenomena are complex in anumber of ways. First, there seem to be many different types of emotionalresponse. For example, we might distinguish between:

(1) A momentary emotional reaction to a situation: for example, amomentary stab of fear on first seeing a snake.

(2) A brief episode of emotion which lasts for minutes or hours: forexample, fear elicited by an encounter with a snake, which continuesuntil the snake is removed.

(3) An extended episode of emotion which continues for days or weeks:for example, anxiety concerning an impending examination.

(4) An emotional process—for example, falling in love—which tends toeventuate in a particular psychological outcome or resolution.12

Secondly, there is complexity in the relationship between emotionalresponses and other kinds of psychological state, such as thoughts anddesires: in some ways, emotional responses appear to interact with, and per-haps include, thoughts and desires; yet they also seem to stand in oppositionto thoughts and desires, and indeed they can conflict. Thirdly, emotionalresponses themselves seem to be complex and multi-layered, involving arange of physiological and psychological changes.13

Consider, for example, a brief emotional episode. Suppose that you noticea snake sliding towards you. Probably, your initial reaction will be one offear. Immediately, your attention is riveted on the snake; your heart races;your eyes widen and your hands clamp over your mouth; you are urgentlymotivated to get away from the snake. This initial fearful reaction helps toconstrain the thoughts, desires and wishes that follow: you are more likely to

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26 Carolyn Price

notice the snake’s speed and size than the telephone ringing in the nextroom; you are more likely to want a weapon than a refreshing Martini. Thedirection of your attention will also help to determine further emotional reac-tions—a fresh wave of fear when the snake moves, disgust at its glisteningscales, and so on. Even a relatively brief emotional episode, then, involves acomplex pattern of feelings, thoughts, desires and emotional reactions.

Like most theorists of emotion, I take it that emotional episodes and proc-esses are initiated and sustained by intentional states of some kind. Borrowingfrom Paul Ekman (1980), I shall refer to these intentional states as “emo-tional appraisals”. A fearful appraisal does two things: first, it registers thatthe subject faces a physical threat; secondly, it motivates the subject to dealwith the threat. As a result, a fearful appraisal can be ascribed a combina-tion of descriptive and directive content. For example, we might express thecontent of the appraisal that triggers your fearful reaction to the snake, veryroughly, as follows:

(F) That snake is threatening, in that it is likely to injure me; I mustmake sure that it does not injure me, by keeping away from it.

Hence, a fearful appraisal does not merely register the threat to the subject;it also represents it as something to be avoided. It is for this reason, I wouldsuggest, that it makes sense to describe it as constituting an appraisal or eval-uation of the situation, rather than as simply signalling that some state ofaffairs has occurred. Fearful, anxious, angry, disgusted and sad appraisalsare all negative appraisals, in that they represent a certain situation as some-thing to be avoided or changed. Happy appraisals, in contrast, appraise thesubject’s situation positively, as something to be sustained or repeated.

The content of (F), then, is concerned with threats. But what kinds ofthreat, exactly? The answer to this will depend on the theory of content thatwe adopt. In this discussion, I am going to assume that the correct theory toadopt is a teleosemantic theory, of the kind I have developed elsewhere(Price, 2001; 2006. See also Delancey, 2002). On this approach, the content ofan emotional appraisal will depend on function or purpose of the emotionalresponse that it prompts. The fearful response prompted by (F), for example,seems to be designed to deal with physical threats that are occurring here andnow. Hence, the content of (F) will concern threats of just that kind.14

Like many recent theorists of emotion, I take it that emotional appraisalsconstitute a distinctive type of intentional state. Hence, although episodes ofemotion can involve thoughts and desires, an emotional appraisal is notitself a combination of belief and desire.15 There are several reasons for tak-ing this view, but one very simple and well-worn consideration has to dowith the nature of conflicts between emotion and belief. Suppose, forexample, that I am afraid of a snake, despite believing that it is not reallydangerous. If this were a conflict between contradictory beliefs, it should be

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The Rationality of Grief 27

possible to resolve the issue by investigating it further—by looking for moreevidence or by giving the matter more thought. I might suspend judgementuntil I have resolved the issue. But conflicts between emotion and beliefoften cannot be resolved by further thought or inquiry: they can persist longafter the subject has thoroughly investigated the matter. Many theorists ofemotion take this to suggest that belief and emotion involve distinct kinds ofevaluation.16

How are emotional appraisals elicited? It seems that the subject’s beliefs,evaluations and desires can sometimes play a role in generating emotionalappraisals. To recognise a situation as dangerous or insulting or sad candepend on knowing quite sophisticated things about one’s physical andsocial environment, as well being aware of one’s own intentions and goals.But there are two provisos here:

(1) While dispassionate evaluations might sometimes help to generateemotional appraisals, emotional appraisals and dispassionate evalua-tions are produced by separate processes, which work in different waysand which may call on a different range of information. In particular,some kinds of appraisal seem to be produced by a “fast and frugal”process, which calls on only a subset of the information available tothe subject.17

(2) More tentatively, it is possible that the processes that produce emo-tional appraisals are more sensitive to certain sources of informationthan others. Although the subject’s beliefs can help to generate emo-tional appraisals, it does at least seem plausible that perceiving orimagining a situation often carries more emotional weight than, say,simply being told that it has occurred.

Given these two provisos, it is easy to see why a subject’s emotional appraisalsoften conflict with their dispassionate evaluation of the situation. In somecases, conflicts will arise because the emotional appraisal is based on only asubset of the information available to the subject. In addition, it is possiblethat conflicts sometimes occur because information that counts against theappraisal has not been presented to the subject in an emotionally powerfulway. Emotional appraisals, then, are not readily influenced by the subject’sbeliefs: emotional motivations are not desires in the narrow sense describedearlier.

VI. Evaluating emotional appraisals

Emotional appraisals can be evaluated in several ways. First, we can askwhether an emotional appraisal fits the subject’s situation. For example,suppose that you really are at risk of being attacked by a snake. If so, theappraisal that triggers your fearful reaction will fit your situation. But if thesnake is not dangerous, your appraisal will be misplaced.

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28 Carolyn Price

Secondly, even if a fearful appraisal is misplaced, we can still ask whetherit is warranted by the information on which it is based. It is possible that thestandards of warrant that apply to emotional appraisals differ from the stan-dards that apply to evaluative judgements. For example, if some emotionalappraisals are supposed to be produced by a “fast and frugal” process, thismight suggest that the standards that apply to these appraisals are lessdemanding than the standards that apply to dispassionate evaluations.18

Finally, we can ask whether a fearful appraisal accords with other psycho-logical states—for example, the subject’s factual and evaluative judgementsabout the situation. I have suggested that conflict between an emotionalappraisal and a belief does not imply that the subject has contradictorybeliefs. Nevertheless an emotional appraisal can conflict with a belief, just asa perceptual experience can conflict with a belief. For even though they arepsychological states of different kinds, they may represent the world inmutually incompatible ways.

I am suggesting, then, that there is an analogy between the following twocases:

(1) I am looking at a Müller-Lyer diagram: I see the lines as unequal inlength but I believe that they are the same length.

(2) I am afraid of a snake, but I believe that it is not dangerous.

Conflict between perception and belief implies no irrationality. We mightconclude, then, that conflict between an emotional appraisal and a beliefimplies no irrationality either. Admittedly, when an emotional appraisalconflicts with a judgement, people often describe the resulting emotionalresponse as irrational. But it might be thought that this use of the term “irra-tional” is mistaken and reflects a false picture of what an emotion is.

However, as a number of writers have pointed out, there are also somesignificant disanalogies between the two cases.19 In the first case, my percep-tual experience conflicts with a factual belief. Moreover, once I have identi-fied the illusion as an illusion, there is little temptation to believe my eyes: Ican sit back and contemplate my perceptual experience without risk of beingfooled. But in the second case, the conflict is an evaluative one: my beliefimplies that there is no need to flee from the snake; but my fearful appraisalrepresents the snake as something to be fled. Moreover, my fearful appraisalactually motivates me to flee. In this case, then, there is a risk—a risk that Iwill act in a way that, if my belief is true, does not fit the situation. In thiscase, then, I have a pressing reason to try to suppress my fear of the snake.In this sense, at least, my fear might be called “irrational”.

Nevertheless, if this is a form of irrationality, it is irrationality of a famil-iar and explicable kind. In particular, it does not arise as the result of abreakdown in a single psychological mechanism, but from the fact that myfearful appraisal and my belief are produced by different mechanisms, whichhave different jobs to do, and use information in different ways. As a result,

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The Rationality of Grief 29

these mechanisms can produce conflicting results, even when they are eachfunctioning as they should.

It should be clear that the model of emotion that I have sketched here isvery different from the model to which Gustafson appeals. AlthoughI have suggested that emotional episodes will involve thoughts and desires,I have introduced an additional element—an emotional appraisal—whichis not itself a thought or a desire. I have accepted that conflict betweenemotional appraisal and a belief can be called irrational, at least in anattenuated sense; but I have argued that this is irrationality of a familiarand explicable kind.

VII. Applying the model to grief

It might be thought that a partial defence of grief could rest here. Thethought would be that, if we adopt this model of emotion, we can portraythe grieving subject as subject to a conflict, not between belief and desire, butbetween a belief and an emotional appraisal. So, while grief might involvesome irrationality, it will be irrationality in only an attenuated sense. Thisline of thought will indeed constitute one element in my defence of grief.However, it is not the whole story. This is because, even if we adopt thismodel of grief, it is possible for the kind of incoherence identified byGustafson to crop up in an even more disturbing form—that is, inside thesubject’s emotional appraisal of the situation.

For example, consider Grace, who is grieving for her partner Lee. Apply-ing the model set out in the last section, we might suppose that Grace’s griefis underpinned by an enduring emotional appraisal of her loss. What mightthe intentional content of this appraisal be? A natural thought is that itcould be expressed roughly as follows:

(G*) I have suffered an irreparable loss, in that Lee has died; I shouldrepair the loss.

If this were the correct way to express the content of Grace’s appraisal, wewould have to suppose that her appraisal is itself internally incoherent.20

Is this a serious problem? Earlier, I suggested that someone might denythat it is irrational to harbour an evidently impossible desire. In a similarspirit, someone might deny that there is anything problematic about (G*). Inthis case, however, there seems to be a much stronger reason to resist thismove. On Gustafson’s account, the irrationality of grief arises from a con-flict between two intentional states—a belief and a desire. Hence, the desireof the grieving subject is not incoherent in itself, but only in the light of thesubject’s belief. According to (G*), however, the conflict arises within thegrief-stricken appraisal itself. Not only does the appraisal conflict with thesubject’s beliefs, it is also intrinsically self-defeating. So replacing Gustafson’s

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30 Carolyn Price

analysis with (G*) does not seem to be a good way to defend grief from thecharge that it is an incoherent and confused response.

How might we solve this problem? One way would be to modify thedescriptive content of Grace’s grief-stricken appraisal in order to avoid theimplication that it presents Lee’s death as an irreparable loss. On thisstrategy, the suggestion would be that, while Grace believes that her loss isirreparable, she does not feel that it is. Alternatively, we might try to modifythe directive content of the appraisal, by rejecting the assumption that theappraisal motivates Grace to try to restore contact with Lee.

I take it that neither of these strategies is wholly attractive. It seems verynatural to suppose that part of the pain of grief is one’s awareness that theloss one has suffered cannot be reversed. If we adopted the first strategy, wewould have to deny this. The second strategy cannot explain the grievingsubject’s restless yearning for the person who has died. In what follows, Ishall propose a third strategy. This third strategy rests on the claim that griefis a more complex phenomenon than (G*) implies. More specifically, I shallsuggest that grief involves two distinct forms of sadness, which (G*) runstogether.

VIII. What is grief?

As we have seen, Gustafson seems to characterise grief as a simple emotion.In contrast, I would like to suggest that grief is best thought of as a complexemotion, involving a number of component emotions. Grief is characteristi-cally manifested in feelings of sadness concerning the subject’s loss; but itmay also involve anxiety, anger, guilt, shame and envy.21 Moreover, it hasbeen suggested that grief should be thought of as an emotional process,which passes through a number of distinct phases. For example, JohnBowlby (1980, p. 85) suggests that grief characteristically involves an initialstage of numbing or shock, followed by a phase of searching, a phase ofdespair, and finally, a phase of reorganisation and recovery. Grief endswhen the subject has adapted to their loss. In this discussion, I am particu-larly concerned with the idea that grief involves distinct states of searchingand despair. This seems to be plausible. Certainly, it makes sense of theapparently contradictory accounts of grief in the philosophical literature,where, as we have seen, grief is portrayed both as a state of restless yearningand as a state of passive withdrawal.

Drawing on Bowlby’s account, I would like to suggest that grief involvesat least two different kinds of sad emotion. I shall use the label “anguish” torefer to the sad emotion that corresponds to Bowlby’s “searching” stage ofgrief; and I shall use the label “desolation” to refer to the sad emotion whichcorresponds to his “despairing” stage.22 In what follows, I shall draw on themodel of emotion sketched earlier to give an account of anguished and deso-late appraisals.

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IX. Anguished grief

Drawing on a study conducted by Parkes (1970), Bowlby (1980, pp. 86-95)describes a number of ways in which people characteristically behave duringthe “searching” phase of grief: they are restless; they think intensely aboutthe person who has died; they call out for them; they are constantly on thelook out for them and sometimes seem to see or hear them; they treasurepersonal items that remind them of the deceased.

Suppose that a week or so after Lee’s death, Grace is the “searching”phase of grief. On the face of it, she might well seem to be in the irrationalstate that Gustafson describes: on the one hand, she has been confrontedwith conclusive evidence that she has lost Lee for ever; clearly, though, shestill longs for contact with him. Indeed, it might be suggested that Grace is inan even more irrational state than Gustafson suggests. For Grace has everyreason to believe that Lee is gone for good; yet, in some ways, she seems tobe expecting his return. Hence, it might be suggested that Grace’s griefinvolves not only an evidently impossible desire, but also contradictorybeliefs, in that she both believes that Lee is dead and believes that he mayreturn. Indeed, Bowlby (1980, p. 87) himself characterises the searching sub-ject’s attitude to their loss as one of “disbelief”.

Should we accept that Grace is harbouring inconsistent beliefs? A more chari-table explanation is simply that that her habits and expectations have not yetadjusted to the change. This is plausible, as far as it goes. But it is not clear that itgoes far enough: simple habit will not explain why Grace refuses to throw awayLee’s possessions. Instead, I would like to suggest that it is not only Grace’s hab-its, but also her emotions that have yet to catch up with her situation. AlthoughGrace believes that Lee is gone forever, she does not yet feel that this is so. IfGrace sees and hears him around the house, this is not simply because she stillexpects to see him, but because, in her anguish, she is looking out for him.

To make sense of this suggestion, we must first suppose that anguishedsadness is not an emotion that is specific to grief. Rather, it is an emotionwhich is also experienced in response to a loss that the subject still has somechance—however slim—of reversing. For example, a traveller, far fromhome and family, might feel anguished about the separation, and desperateto get home; a child separated from her mother might feel anguished aboutthe separation, and desperate to bring it to an end. The point of ananguished response is to ensure that the subject ends the separation, bygoing in search of what has been lost. In these cases, anguish may stillachieve its object. But in Grace’s case, it cannot.

X. Is anguished grief irrational?

Earlier, I suggested that in assigning content to an emotional appraisal, weneed to begin by considering the function or purpose of the emotional

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response that it generates. The point of anguish, I have suggested, is toensure that the subject ends the separation by going in search of what hasbeen lost. This implies, then, that anguish is properly experienced inresponse to a loss that can be repaired in this way: for it is this kind of situ-ation that anguished behaviour is designed to resolve.23 In other words, thecontent of Grace’s anguished appraisal should be expressed in somethinglike the following way:

(A) I have suffered an important but reparable loss, in that Lee isabsent; I should repair the loss by searching for Lee now.24

If this is right, Grace’s anguished appraisal is clearly misplaced. This isbecause it represents her separation from Lee as reparable, when it is not.Moreover, her appraisal conflicts with her belief that she has lost Lee for-ever. Indeed it conflicts with her belief in two ways: first in that it representsLee’s absence as a reparable loss, and secondly, in that it motivates her torepair the loss—a goal that she believes she cannot satisfy. Hence Grace hasa reason to try to extinguish her feelings of anguish or, at least, to try towork through them as quickly as possible. This conflict can be said to consti-tute a form of irrationality, albeit in the attenuated sense characterised inSection VI.25

On the model of emotion that I am assuming, however, there is no reasonto suppose that Grace is harbouring inconsistent beliefs or a gratuitouslyirrational desire.26 Nor is her anguished appraisal itself internally incoher-ent, as G* is. Hence there is no reason to posit some special explanation forthe irrationality of grief. Rather, the conflict arises from a mismatch betweenher emotional appraisal and her belief. This form of irrationality (such as itis) is of a familiar and explicable kind. Indeed, in this case, it is possible tosee how Grace has arrived at her appraisal. There is powerful evidence in itsfavour: Lee is, after all, absent from home. In episodes of anguish, Grace’sattention will be firmly fixed on this fact, leaving little space for a rationalcritique of her feelings.

We might wonder why Grace’s anguished yearning persists, despite thefact that she has conclusive evidence that Lee will not return. One possibilityis that Grace is guilty of some kind of motivated irrationality: perhaps shefails to confront the mismatch between her emotion and her belief, becauseto do so would be too painful. But another possibility is that the evidencethat her loss cannot be repaired has not been presented to her in an emotion-ally powerful form. That Lee is irretrievably lost is not itself something thatcan be perceived or easily imagined, but only believed. It is possible that thisrather abstract belief carries little emotional weight in comparison with theperceptual cues that favour her appraisal.

Is this form of irrationality an inevitable feature of grief? The answer willdepend, first, on what the grieving subject must believe. Certainly, it is

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possible to imagine cases of grief in which the subject does not believe thatthey have suffered a serious and irreparable loss. For example, the subjectmight believe that their loss is reparable (perhaps their religious beliefs implythis); or they might believe that their loss is not serious enough to merit grief.However, this possibility makes little difference overall: for these cases intro-duce other kinds of conflict between emotion and belief.27 Secondly, theanswer depends on whether grief always involves a phase of anguishedsearching. This, I take it, is an empirical issue: there is nothing in my (orBowlby’s) account that implies that grief must always involve all the phasesthat he identifies.28

Nevertheless, I do not want to make too much of this: even if there can becases of grief that do not involve anguish, my account implies that conflictbetween anguish and belief is at least a common feature of grief. The point Iwish to emphasise is that this form of irrationality is of a familiar and unsur-prising kind: it arises in much the same way as other conflicts between emo-tional appraisals and beliefs. It requires no special explanation. Moreover,as I shall explain in the next section, there is no reason to think that desolategrief involves any kind of conflict.

XI. Desolate grief

Bowlby (1980, p. 93–94) characterises the third stage of grief as one ofdespair: at this stage, the grieving subject has accepted that the separationcannot be reversed. Bowlby presents this stage of grief as characterised, pri-marily, by withdrawal and lethargy. He also touches on a further feature ofdespairing grief: its reflective or ruminative character.29 In this phase ofgrief, we might expect Grace to spend much of her time in solitude, hope-lessly ruminating on her loss.

In despairing grief, it seems, the subject experiences a form of sadness thatdiffers from anguish. I shall refer to this form of sadness as “desolation”.Desolation involves the recognition that the subject’s loss cannot berepaired. What is harder to determine is what we should say about the dir-ective content of a desolate appraisal: in her desolation, Grace does not seemto be motivated to do very much, beyond sitting and thinking sad thoughtsabout Lee’s death.

Indeed, it might be suggested that desolate appraisals have no directivecontent. If so, the intentional states that sustain states of desolation need notbe characterised as appraisals: they simply signal the fact that the subject hassuffered an irreparable loss, triggering a state of lethargy and withdrawal. Itake it that this is an unattractive result: on the face of it, desolation impliesan appraisal of the subject’s loss as something very bad—as something to beavoided or changed. One possibility is that desolation involves somethingakin to a wish that the loss had not occurred. Once again, however, it mightbe doubted whether this does enough to explain the intense distress of

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desolation. There is reason to suspect, then, that desolation has some moti-vational effect.

But what might a desolate appraisal motivate the subject to do? One pos-sibility, of course, is that it motivates the subject to try to repair their loss. Ifso, desolate appraisals will turn out to be internally incoherent, like (G*). Inwhat follows, however, I would like to try to develop an account of desolategrief that does not have this implication. The account is a speculative one:my aim is to establish only that there is room for a conception of desolategrief as a coherent response to loss.

Some psychologists have suggested that our capacity for grief functions toensure that the loss of a friend or family member is experienced as pro-foundly painful—that is, as something to be avoided at all costs.30 Thismight be taken to suggest that the motivational effect of a desolate appraisalis not to prompt the subject to repair their loss, but to ensure that the subjectdoes not incur such a loss again.31 On this picture, the psychological pain ofdesolation might be compared to the physical pain of a burn, which moti-vates the subject to stay away from fire.

Avoiding further losses need not simply be a matter of trying to preventfurther deaths. The subject’s loss is not simply the death, but the terminationof a relationship between the subject and someone they loved or needed.Hence, the subject’s motivation to avoid further losses might reveal itself in avariety of ways: in a protective attitude to friends and family; in a reluctanceto form new ties; or perhaps in a commitment to make the most of the sub-ject’s remaining relationships before they too run their course.

If this suggestion is correct, the motivational role of desolation will turnout to be rather different from the motivational role of fear and anguishedsadness. Both fear and anguished sadness motivate the subject to takeimmediate action to remedy the situation. The effect of desolation, in con-trast, will be to inculcate—or further entrench—a set of motivations thathave a lasting and pervasive effect on the subject’s behaviour. Indeed,there is no need to suppose that the subject is consciously aware of thechange.

I am suggesting, then, that the content of the appraisal that sustainsGrace’s desolate attitude to Lee’s death might be expressed (in part and veryloosely) as follows:

(D) I have suffered an important and irreparable loss, in that Lee hasdied; in future, I should do whatever I can to avoid incurring such aloss.

This desolate appraisal involves no internal incoherence. Moreover, it isappropriate to Grace’s situation. Finally, it need involve no conflict withGrace’s existing beliefs or desires. On this account, then, the irrationality ofgrief, such as it is, will be found in anguish, not in desolation.

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XII. Desolation and rumination

Is this a plausible account of the content of a desolate appraisal? On the faceof it, the account faces several objections. In this section, I shall mentionthree possible objections. I shall argue that they can be answered once wetake full account of a further feature of desolate grief—its reflective or rumi-native character.

The first objection is that the account leaves the content of a desolateappraisal unacceptably vague. What kind of event will count as “such aloss”? Will this include only the loss of a partner in a traffic accident on arainy Saturday night? Or might it include the death of anyone Grace knows,or perhaps even the permanent loss of anything that is of any value to her?Unless this can be settled, Grace’s desolate appraisal cannot be ascribed adeterminate content.

Secondly, it might be objected that, on this account, the motivationaleffect of desolate grief is redundant. If Grace loves someone, that by itselfimplies that she is strongly motivated to do all she can to avoid losing them.Similarly, if she cares about her own well-being, she is already motivated toavoid forming dangerous dependencies and to make the most of the rela-tionships that she has. She does not need the experience of grief to motivateher to do these things.

Thirdly, it might be objected that the account is hard to square with thephenomenology of desolate grief. In her desolate state, Grace’s attention isfirmly fixed on the particular circumstances of Lee’s death; it is this particu-lar past event that her appraisal represents as deplorable. And yet, on thissuggestion, the motivational role of desolate grief is concerned, not withLee’s death, but with averting a similar loss in the future. If this were correct,should we not expect Grace’s attention to be directed onto the future—as itmight be, for example, in a case of anxiety?

I would like to suggest that the key to answering these objections lies withthe reflective or ruminative character of desolate grief. In particular, I shallargue that desolate rumination may play a role in determining the motiva-tional effects of desolate grief.

To see this, it is necessary to consider what the point of desolate rumina-tion might be. In her desolation, I have suggested, Grace will ruminate onthe dreadful nature of her loss—how young Lee was when he died, the plansthey had together, that they had quarrelled that afternoon. It may seem that,in dwelling on these things, Grace is torturing herself to no purpose. Argua-bly, however, desolate rumination has a point: it has a heuristic or epistemicfunction. In other words, as she reflects on what has happened, Grace is notsimply dwelling on what she already knows; rather, she is identifying andcoming to appreciate the many ways in which Lee’s death is a terrible thing.

Still, it may seem that this has just pushed the problem back: what isthe point of Grace coming to appreciate these things? There are several

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(mutually compatible) possibilities here. But one possibility is that whatGrace uncovers helps to determine, perhaps unconsciously, the motiva-tional effects of her grief. For to appreciate why Lee’s death was a terri-ble thing just is, in part, to recognise why it was an event worth avoiding.And to know this is to know what to guard against in future.32

If this is right, it suggests a way of answering the three objections that Ihave just set out. First, we do not need to suppose that what counts as “sucha loss” is fully specified in advance: rather, desolate rumination might helpto determine what constitutes “such a loss”. Secondly, we do not need tosuppose that desolation motivates Grace to avoid outcomes which shealready knows to be deplorable. In ruminating on her loss, Grace is notdwelling on the badness of bereavement in general, but identifying the spe-cific ways in which Lee’s death is a dreadful thing. In being motivated toavoid “such a loss”, she is motivated to avoid outcomes with these specificcharacteristics. Thirdly, we can appeal to the ruminative character of desolategrief to explain the phenomenology of desolation—and, in particular, why epi-sodes of desolation characteristically involve an intense focus on the circum-stances of the death that has occurred. Indeed, we might expect this to be amuch more salient feature in the subject’s experience of desolate grief than themotivation to avoid future losses: as we have seen, the motivational changeswrought by desolation need not be evident to the subject. Hence the ruminativecharacter of desolate grief can explain why the attention of the grieving subjectis characteristically focused on the past, rather than the future.

Does this account imply that we should welcome the pain of desolation?Certainly, desolate rumination carries certain risks. There is a risk that theprocess will produce an excessively idealised portrait of the person or therelationship that has been lost.33 Again, there is a risk that the grieving sub-ject will draw the wrong conclusions from their experience—for example, bywithdrawing from further relationships, even though this is not justifiedwhat has happened to them. But these difficulties are not inevitable: there isscope for the desolate subject to arrive at a balanced and insightful assess-ment of what has occurred.

XIII. Conclusion

I have argued that, although grief characteristically involves some form ofirrationality, this is not irrationality of the gratuitous kind implied byGustafson’s analysis. The irrationality of grief arises from a conflict betweenthe subject’s belief that their loss is irreparable and their anguish for theperson who has died. I have suggested that this conflict can be labelled “irra-tional”, at least in an attenuated sense; but I have argued that this form ofirrationality is of a familiar and explicable kind. In contrast, I have arguedthat it is possible to develop an account of desolate grief as wholly appropri-ate to the subject’s loss.

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My (partial) defence of grief rests on two foundations—the claim thatgrief is a complex emotional response, which involves more than one form ofsadness; and the rejection of Gustafson’s analysis of grief, with its emphasison belief and desire. As should now be clear, both these moves are essentialto my argument. The distinction between anguish and desolation makes itpossible to explain how grief can involve both yearning and despair, withoutsupposing that grief implies an incoherent appraisal of the situation. But if Ihad tried to analyse these emotions in terms of the subject’s beliefs anddesires, this would not have been much help. For, although it would havebeen possible to defend desolation against the charge of irrationality, thecharges against anguish would have multiplied.

Finally, the account reveals some of the different ways in which griefmight bear witness to the magnitude of the subject’s loss—both in the sub-ject’s anguished recognition of what is now missing, and in their desolaterumination on the disaster, in all its dreadful aspects. In both cases, this real-isation may be, for a time, consuming, but in the case of desolation, at least,it need be neither misplaced nor futile.34

Notes

1. For some sympathetic discussions of grief, see Kopelman (1995), Nussbaum (1998, pp.19–88), Roberts ( 2003, pp. 235–40; pp. 325–26); Solomon (2004, pp. 75–101); andMcCracken (2005).

2. See Wilkinson (2000).3. I shall follow Gustafson in treating grief at the death of a loved one as a paradigm case.4. There is room for a spectrum of views here: perhaps it is irrational to desire something

one believes to be logically impossible, but not something one believes to be causallyimpossible. The goal that Gustafson attributes to the grieving subject seems to be caus-ally but not logically impossible.

5. For a contrary view, see Black (1955, pp. 186–87).6. I give some examples later on in this section. In contrast, Robert Solomon (2004, p. 82–85)

characterises the grieving subject’s desire to repair their loss as “paradoxical” rather thanirrational.

7. See Hinton (1970). For the remainder of this paper I shall continue to use the terms“desire” and “wish” in the senses defined here.

8. Black disagrees, citing cases in which people aim at ideals that they believe to be unat-tainable, in the hope of coming as near to their ideal as they can (Black, 1955, pp. 186–7).However, we do not need to describe these subjects as desiring to attain their ideal: per-haps they desire to get as close to it as they can, and believe that the best way to do so isto try to attain it.

9. See also de Sousa (1987, p. 169); Ben-Ze’ev (2000, p. 62).10. See also, McCracken (2005, p. 142).11. For a fuller account, see Price (2006).12. For example, falling in love tends towards the formation of a loving attachment between

the subject and the beloved.13. For some (otherwise very different) accounts of emotional phenomena as complex proc-

esses, see Ekman (1980, pp. 80–95); Goldie (2000, pp. 12–14); Prinz (2004, pp. 3–4).14. The idea that emotions can be understood in functional terms is both long-standing and

relatively commonplace. One attraction of a teleosemantic approach to emotional

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appraisals is that it fits very neatly within this broader conception. There are other pos-sible approaches, however, and I shall take some account of this in what follows: seenotes 23 and 25.

15. There is much more that to be said about what kind of state an emotional appraisal is.For some different accounts, see de Sousa (1987); Goldie (2000: pp. 72–83) Ekman(1980, p. 84); Robinson (2005, p. 59); Prinz (2004, pp. 60–67). For a much fuller accountof my own views, see Price (2006).

16. For some examples see: Greenspan (1981); Roberts (1988: p. 183); Griffiths (1990);Goldie (2000, p. 75); Helm (2001, pp. 60–75); Tappolet (2003, pp. 109–10); Döring(2003, p. 223).

17. See Ekman (1980, p. 84) and Griffiths (1987, p. 92).18. Compare Greenspan (1980).19. The precise nature of these disanalogies is controversial. For a discussion, see Helm

(2003, pp. 41–46); Roberts (2003, p. 92); and Döring (2008). The position I adopt here isclosest to Döring’s.

20. Indeed, on the teleosemantic theory that I am assuming, it is not clear that such anascription of content would even be possible.

21. See Izard (1991, p. 205).22. My use of the terms “anguish” and “desolation” is not intended to accord with normal

usage. The term “anguish”, in particular, normally has a much broader meaning. Here Iam commandeering it to refer to a particular kind of anguished or restless sadness.

23. For discussion of this point, see Price (2006, pp. 221–23). Other theories of content,though, need not have this implication. Suppose, instead, that we took the content of anemotional appraisal to be concerned with the kind of situation that would normally elicitsuch an appraisal in a normal subject. This would imply that anguish is properly experi-enced in response to any important loss, whether reparable or irreparable: for, after all,normal subjects do normally experience anguish in response to a death. See note 25.

24. In ascribing this content to (A), I am not trying to describe thoughts or beliefs thatGrace will entertain, but rather to capture the circumstances under which her appraisalwould properly be elicited.

25. What of the rival view mentioned in note 23? On this rival view, (A) would not be mis-placed; nor would it involve any factual conflict with Grace’s belief. But the conflictbetween the motivational aspect of (A) and Grace’s belief would remain. Even on thisaccount, then, Grace has a reason to try to work through her feelings of anguish asquickly as she can. Whether this more limited form of conflict would constitute a form ofirrationality is a moot point, and I shall not attempt to adjudicate it here. (The questiondoes not arise on my preferred theory.) Conceivably, though, on some theories of con-tent, Grace’s anguish should not be described as irrational, even in the attenuated senseat issue here. It will, though, be futile.

26. Of course, Grace might form a desire to find Lee, and she might try to satisfy it—forexample, by attending a séance. But her anguished yearning will not necessarily generatesuch a desire—at least, not in the narrow sense of “desire” required to defend G.1. Inmany cases, it may manifest itself simply as a restless yearning.

27. In the first case (as the discussion in the next section will make clear), the subject’s beliefimplies that desolation is misplaced. In the second, the subject’s belief implies thatanguish and desolation are both misplaced.

28. Bowlby (1980, p. 119) hints that in some cases, anticipatory mourning can eliminate the“searching” phase of grief.

29. This aspect of grief is discussed in some detail by McCracken (2005). See also Bowlby(1980, p. 93) and Solomon (2004, pp. 91–92).

30. For some examples, see Averill (1969); Izard (1991, p. 205).31. This is not intended to rule out the possibility that desolation might have other motiva-

tional effects. For example, perhaps one effect of a desolate appraisal is to motivate the

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subject to withdraw from social encounters while they are in a vulnerable state. How-ever, this would not imply that desolation involves a negative appraisal of the subject’sloss, only of the subject’s vulnerable state.

32. Another possibility is that Grace’s new understanding helps to prepare her for the pro-cess of reconstruction and recovery that brings grief to an end.

33. See Bowlby (1980, pp. 203–06); Kopelman (1995, p. 216).34. Earlier drafts of this paper were delivered at seminars held at the Open University and at

Reading University and at a conference on death organised by The Open University andYork University. I am very grateful to those present on those occasions for their manyinsightful and constructive comments. I would also like to thank two anonymous refe-rees for this journal, together with the editors, for their comments on the paper, whichhas been much improved as a result.

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40 Carolyn Price

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Price, C. (2001) Functions in Mind: A Theory of Perceptual Content (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress).

Price, C. (2006) “Fearing Fluffy: the content of an emotional appraisal”, in: G. MacDonald andD. Papineau (Eds) Teleosemantics: New Philosophical Essays, pp. 208–28 (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press).

Prinz, J. (2004) Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotion (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress).

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Robinson, J. (2005) Deeper Than Reason: Emotion and its Role in Literature, Music and Art(Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Solomon, R. (2004) In Defence of Sentimentality (Oxford: Oxford University Press).Tappolet, C. (2003) “Emotions and the intelligibility of akratic action”, in: S. Stroud and C.

Tappolet (Eds) Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality, pp. 97–120. (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press).

Taylor, C.C.W. (1986) “Emotions and wants”, in: J. Marks (Ed.) The Ways of Desire, pp.217–31 (Chicago, IL: Precedent Publishing).

Wilkinson, S. (2000) “Is ‘normal grief’ a mental disorder?”, The Philosophical Quarterly, 50, pp.289–304.

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