ABSTRACT

According to a leading view, emotions such as admiration, contempt, pride, and shame are important vehicles of agential development. Through admiration and contempt, we establish models and countermodels against which to shape our character; through pride and shame, we get a sense of how we measure up to them. Critics of this view object that these emotions always deliver uncompromising evaluations: admiration casts people in a completely positive light, while contempt casts aspersion on them. Therefore, insofar as they lack the capacity for nuance, these emotions are systematically unfitting and misleading. This paper discusses this objection as originally formulated by John Doris as well as Macalester Bell’s response. Drawing from research on emotional intentionality, it will be argued that Doris’ and Bell’s accounts are respectively misguided criticisms and inadequate defences of these emotions. Their mistake lies in an invalid transition from the claim that these emotions are intentionally directed towards persons to the claim that they deliver global evaluations of those towards whom they are directed. By rejecting this inference, it will be shown that these emotions can deliver nuanced and fitting evaluations in a way Doris’ objection overlooks and Bell’s response precludes us from articulating.

摘要

根据主流观点，钦佩、蔑视、自豪和羞耻等情绪是能动性发展的重要载体。通过钦佩和蔑视，我们建立了塑造我们性格的模式和反模式；通过骄傲和羞耻，我们了解我们如何与他们相提并论。这种观点的批评者反对这些情绪总是提供不妥协的评价：钦佩使人们完全正面，而轻蔑则对他们进行诽谤。因此，就他们缺乏细微差别的能力而言，这些情绪在系统上是不合适和误导的。本文讨论了最初由 John Doris 提出的反对意见以及 Macalester Bell 的回应。借鉴对情绪意向性的研究，有人会争辩说，多丽丝和贝尔的叙述分别是错误的批评和对这些情绪的不充分辩护。他们的错误在于从声称这些情绪是故意针对人的主张到声称它们对所针对的人进行全面评估的主张无效。通过拒绝这种推论，将表明这些情绪可以以多丽丝的反对忽略的方式提供细致入微的和合适的评估，而贝尔的回应使我们无法表达。