Hostname: page-component-6587cd75c8-vj8bv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-23T10:29:54.119Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Epistemic perceptualism and neo-sentimentalist objections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Robert Cowan
Robert Cowan*
Affiliation:
Philosophy, School of Humanities, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Epistemic Perceptualists claim that emotions are sources of immediate defeasible justification for evaluative propositions that can (and do) sometimes ground undefeated immediately justified evaluative beliefs. For example, fear can constitute the justificatory ground for a belief that some object or event is dangerous. Despite its attractiveness, the view is apparently vulnerable to several objections. In this paper, I provide a limited defence of Epistemic Perceptualism by responding to a family of objections which all take as a premise a popular and attractive view in value theory – Neo-Sentimentalism – according to which values are analysed in terms of fitting emotions.

Keywords

Perceptual theory of emotionsimmediate justificationaffective intuitionismneo-sentimentalismevaluative judgement
Type
Distinguished Lecture
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 59 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Bain, D. 2013. “What Makes Pains Unpleasant?” Philosophical Studies 166(S1): 69–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, E. 2012. “Emergence and Fundamentality.” Mind 121(484): 873–901.10.1093/mind/fzt001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bengson, J. 2015. Review of Intuition, by Chudnoff, Elijah.Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.Google Scholar
Brady, M. 2013. Emotional Insight. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broad, C. D. 1944. “Some Reflections on Moral-Sense Theories in Ethics." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 45: 131–166.10.1093/aristotelian/45.1.131CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chudnoff, E. 2013. Intuition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chudnoff, E. Forthcoming. “Moral Perception: High-Level Perception or Low-Level Intuition?” In In Phenomenology of Thinking, edited by Breyer, T. and Gutland, C., 207–220. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Church, J. 2010. “Seeing Reasons.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 80(3): 638–670.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, S. 2002. “Basic Knowledge and the Problem of Easy Knowledge.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65(2): 309–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowan, R. 2015. “Cognitive Penetrability and Ethical Perception.” The Review of Philosophy and Psychology 6(4): 665–682.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cuneo, T. 2006. “Signs of Value: Reid on the Evidential Role of Feelings in Moral Judgement.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 14(1): 69–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dancy, J. 2014. “Intuition and Emotion.” Ethics 124(4): 787–812.10.1086/675879CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Arms, J., and Jacobson, D.. 2000a. “Sentiment and Value.” Ethics 110(4): 722–748.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Arms, J., and Jacobson, D.. 2000b. “The Moralistic Fallacy: On the ‘Appropriateness’ of Emotions.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61: 65–90.10.2307/2653403CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deonna, J., and Teroni, F. 2012. The Emotions: A Philosophical Introduction. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dokic, J., and Lemaire, S.. 2013. “Are Emotions Perceptions of Value?” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 43(2): 227–247.10.1080/00455091.2013.826057CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Döring, S. 2003. “Explaining Action by Emotion.” The Philosophical Quarterly 53(211): 214–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Döring, S. 2007. “Seeing What to Do: Affective Perception and Rational Motivation.” Dialectica 61(3): 363–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elgin, C. Z. 2008. “Emotion and Understanding.” In Epistemology and Emotions, edited by Brun, Georg, Dogouglu, Uvli, and Kunzle, Dominique, 33–50. London: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Goldie, P. 2000. The Emotions: A Philosophical Exploration. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Goldie, P. 2004. “Emotion, Reason, and Virtue.” In Emotion, Evolution, and Rationality, edited by Evans, D. and Cruse, P., 249—267. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kagan, S. 2001. “Thinking about Cases.” Social Philosophy and Policy 18(2): 44–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kauppinen, A. 2013. “A Humean Theory of Moral Intuition.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 43(3): 360–381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyons, J. C. 2009. Perception and Basic Beliefs. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, J. 1998. Mind, Value, and Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Oddie, G. 2005. Value, Reality, and Desire. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parfit, D. 2001. “Rationality and Reasons.” In Exploring Practical Philosophy: From Action to Values, edited by Egonsson, D., Josefsson, J. Petersson, B., and Rønnow Rasmussen, T., 17–40. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Pelser, A. C., 2014. “Emotion, Evaluative Perception, and Epistemic Justification.” In Emotion and Value, edited by Roeser, S. and Todd, C., 107–123. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Poellner, P. 2007. “Affect, Value, and Objectivity.” In Nietzsche and Morality, edited by Leiter, B. and Sinhababu, N., 227–261. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Prinz, J. 2004. Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of the Emotions. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pryor, J., 2005. “There is Immediate Justification.” In Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, edited by Steup, M., Turri, J. and Sosa, E., 181—202. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rabinowicz, W., and Ronnow‐Rasmussen, T.. 2004. “The Strike of the Demon: On Fitting pro‐Attitudes and Value.” Ethics 114(3): 391–423.10.1086/381694CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, R. C. 2003. Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salmela, M. 2011. “Can Emotion Be Modelled on Perception?” Dialectica 65(1): 1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scanlon, T. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.Google Scholar
Smith, M. 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tappolet, C. 2000. Emotions Et Valeurs []. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.10.3917/puf.tappo.2000.01CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tappolet, C. 2011. “Values and Emotions: Neo-Sentimentalism’s Prospects.” In Morality and the Emotions, edited by Bagnoli, C., 117–134. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tappolet, C. 2012. “Emotions, Perceptions, and Emotional Illusions.” In Perceptual Illusions: Philosophical and Psychological Essays, edited by Clotilde, C., 207–224. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Van Roojen, M. 2014. “Moral Intuitionism, Experiments and Skeptical Arguments.” In Intuitions, edited by Booth, A. and Rowbottom, D., 148–164. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199609192.003.0009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vance, J. 2014. “Emotion and the New Epistemic Challenge from Cognitive Penetrability.” Philosophical Studies 169(2): 257–283.10.1007/s11098-013-0181-zCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, J. 2008. “Epistemic Bootstrapping.” Journal of Philosophy 105(9): 518–539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiggins, D. 1998. “A Sensible Subjectivism?” In Needs, Values, Truth: Essays in the Philosophy of Value. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar