Conner Schultz (UNC, Chapel Hill), "Deliberative Control and Eliminativism About Reasons for Emotions"

Forthcoming, Australasian Journal of Philosophy

By Conner Schultz

Imagine a person named Alex who has a profound fear of flying. Alex understands and believes in the statistical data that flying is one of the safest modes of transportation. He acknowledges the rigorous safety measures and the low incidence of air travel accidents compared to other forms of transport like driving (ignore that the emergency exit didn’t just fall off a Boeing plane mid-flight). However, despite this judgment, Alex experiences intense fear even when he thinks about boarding an airplane. This fear is not only present but also sometimes escalates to the point of causing him to avoid flying altogether. He’d rather drive 20 hours than board a flight.

This is a paradigmatic case of a recalcitrant emotion: an emotion that persists even when a person believes it is inappropriate, unfitting, or unjustified by the circumstances. Recalcitrant emotions are common – indeed, ubiquitous. Our emotions are often uninvited, unwelcomed guests who refuse to leave. Yet, is there any normative significance to the recalcitrance of emotions? I think so: the phenomenon of recalcitrant emotions shows that there are no normative reasons for emotions.

The overwhelmingly dominant view is that there are normative reasons for emotions. According to the conventional wisdom, getting fired is a reason to be mad; getting dumped is a reason to be sad; receiving a birthday gift from a friend is a reason to be happy; and a friend driving you to the airport is a reason to be grateful. Indeed, one might maintain, thinking that there are reasons for emotions is so deeply ingrained into our ordinary practices that suggesting otherwise is patently absurd!

The dominant view is compelling. Yet, I argue that it is mistaken: there are no normative reasons for emotions. In my view, normative reasons don’t just favor certain actions and attitudes, but also play a crucial role in deliberation, enabling us to figure out what to do and what attitudes to form or abandon. In other words, I endorse a deliberative constraint on reasons. However, I argue that, by paying close attention to the phenomenon of recalcitrant emotions, emotions seem to be outside of our rational, deliberative control. It follows that there are no normative reasons for emotions. I call this view “Strong Eliminativism”.

This argument for Strong Eliminativism can be reconstructed as follows:

1.         A fact F is a reason for agent A to have (or refrain from having) an attitude X only if A can deliberate to X (or to refraining from having X) at least partly on the basis of F.

2.         No one can deliberate to any emotion.

Therefore, there are no reasons for emotions.

My argument for the premise 1 follows a fairly familiar argument that a deliberative constraint on reasons explains why there are reasons for some states (beliefs, intentions) but not others (headaches, indigestion). My argument for premise 2 is that emotions can remain recalcitrant even after all relevant deliberative questions have been settled. That is, one can settle (e.g.) whether flying is dangerous, whether flying is bad, whether fear of flying is appropriate, and whether to feel afraid of flying – all in the negative – without thereby extinguishing one’s fear of flying. This, I argue, shows that neither feeling nor extinguishing fear settles any of these deliberative questions. I then draw the general lesson that if emotions themselves don’t settle any deliberative questions, then we can’t deliberate to them: emotions are not themselves the conclusions of deliberation. Although forming or extinguishing an emotional state can sometimes follow an episode of deliberation, this relationship is causal and not constitutive.

              Does the truth of Strong Eliminativism give us a reason to be mad or upset? Of course not. And just for the record, getting my first paper published didn't give me a reason to be happy!

              What do you think? Please feel free to email your thoughts to con94 [at] live.unc.edu