Sabine A. Döring

Explaining Action by Emotion

I discuss two ways in which emotions explain actions: in the first, the explanation is expressive; in the second, the action is not only explained but also rationalized by the emotions intentional content. The belief–desire model cannot satisfactorily account for either of these cases. My main purpose is to show that the emotions constitute an irreducible category in the explanation of action, to be understood by analogy with perception. Emotions are affective perceptions. Their affect gives them motivational force, and they can rationalize actions because, like perception, they have a representational intentional content. Because of this, an emotion can non–inferentially justify a belief which in its turn justifies or rationalizes an action; so emotions may constitute a source of moral knowledge.

The Logic of Emotional Experience: Noninferentiality and the Problem of Conflict Without Contradiction

Almost all contemporary philosophers on the subject agree that emotions play an indispensable role in the justification (as opposed to the mere causation) of other mental states and actions. However, how this role is to be understood is still an open question. At the core of the debate is the phenomenon of conflict without contradiction: why is it that an emotion need not be revised in the light of better judgment and knowledge? Conflict without contradiction has been explained either by difference in content between emotion and judgment, or by a difference in the respective attitude towards content. I argue that conflict without contradiction is due to both differences, where difference in content is prior to difference in attitude.

Ten Perspectives on Emotional Experience: Introduction to the Special Issue

Author note: We thank Mark Textor for a clarifying note concerning Brentano’s views on phenomenality, and several contributors to this special issue for their comments on diverse issues discussed in our introduction. Corresponding author: Rainer Reisenzein, Institute of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Franz-Mehring-Strase 47, 17487 Greifswald, Germany. Email: rainer.reisenzein@uni-greifswald.de Ten Perspectives on Emotional Experience: Introduction to the Special Issue

Emotion-Oriented Systems and the Autonomy of Persons

Many people fear that emotion-oriented technologies (EOT) – capable of registering, modelling, influencing and responding to emotions – can easily affect their decisions and lives in ways that effectively undermine their autonomy. In this chapter, we explain why these worries are at least partly founded: EOT are particularly susceptible to abuse of autonomy, and there are ways of respecting the autonomy of persons that EOT are unable to accomplish. We draw some general ethical conclusions concerning the design and further development of EOT, contrasting our approach with the “interactional design approach”. This approach is often thought to avoid infringements of user autonomy. We argue, however, that it unduly restricts possible uses of EOT that are unproblematic from the perspective of autonomy, while at the same time it allows for uses of EOT that tend to compromise the autonomy of persons.

Emotion, Autonomy, and Weakness of Will

Acting autonomously is guiding one’s actions via reasons. Challenging traditional views, some philosophers have recently claimed that agents can guide their actions via reasons while acting against their better judgement. According to these philosophers, there are cases of so-called inverse akrasia, defined as cases in which the agent acts rationally and even morally but does so against his better judgement. The standard example is that of Huckleberry Finn who gives in to his emotions when he protects the fugitive slave Jim from the slave hunters instead of holding to his original resolve to turn Jim in. I argue that rational in the sense of autonomous action must always be authorised by judgement. This is not to say, however, that all rational action must be authorised by inference and deliberative reflection. Nor is it to say that agents ought to attempt to bar their emotions from interfering with their judgements. Such an attempt would be both hopeless and counterproductive. Judgements supply us with what we see as reasons, whereas ideal agents act for what really are reasons. In tracking normative reasons, the emotions do very well indeed. Therefore, what we ought to do is to cultivate our emotions over time. On-going cultivation of our emotions is essential for us humans in order to gain and improve our practical knowledge.

Comment on Hollan’s “Emerging Issues in the Cross-Cultural Study of Empathy”

In this comment we take up two points made by Douglas Hollan in his article “Emerging Issues in the Cross-Cultural Study of Empathy,” and discuss their possible philosophical implications. Hollan‘s concept of complex empathy may give rise to the idea that we can learn about other people’s beliefs via empathy, which is something we do not believe is possible. Furthermore, Hollan’s description of possible negative effects of empathy, such as manipulations of a person on the basis of knowledge about their emotions, might pose a problem for proponents of care ethics, who generally start from the assumption that empathy fosters altruistic behavior.

Principalism: A Method for the Ethics of Emotion-Oriented Machines

This chapter outlines the ‘four principles’ approach which is prevalent in medical ethics. Principalism was adopted as the ethical method of HUMAINE. This chapter introduces this method and also provides an account of the various criticisms of it. The chapter also includes some discussion of the relationship between ethics and scientific research. The purpose of this discussion is to show how ethics and good ethical research can be embedded in scientific practice. In conclusion, the chapter addresses the importance and the usefulness of considering fears that are embodied in works of science fiction when trying to deal with concerns and fears of the public. Consideration of the ethics of the possible is of massive practical importance and indeed should be a priority for those who are working within research groupings like HUMAINE. It is, however, often important to consider the ethics of what may never be possible – the science fiction if you like. When considering the impossible it will be important to stress the fact that these things are not and may never be possible. The role of this type of consideration lies in the importance of public engagement and showing that possible future scenarios are being taken into account by those who are pushing forward science and technology in this area.

The Ethical Distinctiveness of Emotion-Oriented Technology: Four Long-Term Issues

In this chapter we consider certain long-term ethical issues which are peculiar or special to emotion-oriented technology and which make the topic particularly charged ethically, both for the lay public and for those working in the area. We identify four such issues. First, it is far from clear whether technologies made by humans are conceivably capable of emotionality and, more generally, of phenomenal consciousness. Second, where we are dealing with a technology that simulates emotionality, we have responses that are often far from cool and rational. Third, as discussion of the first two issues will have illustrated, our ethical responses to emotion-oriented technology are often emotionally charged, lending a peculiar reflexivity to our ethical deliberations. This leads to a discussion of the kind of value that such technologies have, and of how they should be ethically treated by humans. Fourth, emotion-oriented technology impinges on many matters of law (such as laws of privacy); we discuss in particular the importance of technology that is used to filter raw emotional data on people for further use.

Risk Assessment as Virtue

We present a critique of decision theory as a normative account of decision making under risk. We claim that decision theory has to be supplemented by virtue. To establish this claim, we show first that decision theory is unable to resolve the well-known St. Petersburg paradox. The St. Petersburg game has infinite expected value and yet seems to be worth much less. We argue that the systematic deviation from apparently rational choice can be justified as an instance of virtue. Understood as virtue, risk assessment is a character trait which enables its possessor to assess risk appropriately in an immediate, non-inferential way. This means that, by contrast with decision theory, virtuous risk assessment requires having appropriate emotions. An emotion is a perception of value. Contrary to common belief, decision situations can be found in real life, e. g. in the assessment of risky technologies, which show the structure of the St. Petersburg game, or rather of the inverted St. Petersburg game, which we introduce. When a decision has to be made about possible but extremely unlikely outcomes with an “infinite” negative value, virtue is needed to avoid an inappropriate assessment by a decision theory that is expected to do too much.

Emotion and perception of one’s own actions – A comment on Wilke, Synofzik and Lindner

Wilke et al. (2012) make significant headway in gaining a better understanding of the influence affect cues may have on action perception and judgement. In our view their account also brings up a row of important questions demanding further research. This concerns (a) the role of conceptual and non-conceptual content and (b) the different effects emotions of the same valence may play in the perception and judgement of action.