Emotional Fittingness for Sentimentalists

Abstract

Abstract Sentimentalism requires a theory of emotion that is not cognitivist. A compatible theory of emotion cannot invoke beliefs (or thoughts) involving the evaluative concepts it aspires to explain, as cognitivism does. Yet rational sentimentalism requires emotions to be assessable for their fittingness, and cognitivism has the most straightforward account: an emotion is fitting when its constitutive thought is true. But the attractiveness of the cognitivist account is specious. It is argued that the natural emotions must be interpreted holistically, such that each can be understood as appraising an object in a distinctive way. This approach allows for assessments of emotional fittingness without a cognitivist theory of emotion, as illustrated with the examples of pride and shame. The appraisals attributed to emotions are shown to be informative, because they constrain arguments about when these emotions are fitting.