anthony price birkbeck college london are emotions judgments of value

8/14/2019 Anthony Price Birkbeck College London Are Emotions Judgments of Value

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she ob!ects, surely rightly, that emotions ha#e an intentionality: they are aboutthe world,

and relate intimately to conceptions of it and beliefs about it */7)8-. $he goes further.

9#en lato and Aristotle, who accept that much, place most of the emotions within a

stratum of the soul lower than reason, that is, lower than the beliefs and desires that most

reliably capture and respect facts and #alues. Nussbaum urges that, once we comprehend

the richness of the concepts and propositional contents that constitute the emotions, we

must cease to relegate them from the bridge to the steerage of the ship of the soul. $he

writes, e could say that there is a separate emotional part of the soul that has all these

abilities. ;ut we seem to ha#e lost our grip on the reason for housing grief in a separate

noncogniti#e part: thought looks like !ust the place to house it *22-. The battle in the

imperfectly stoical soul between grief and reason is not a tug)of)war between a mindless

emotional part that is doing the grie#ing, and a reason that is thinking philosophical

thoughts, but a debate between recognition and denial of the importance of the loss that

has occurred *85-.

$o long as we hold fast to these two sa#ing truths ( that emotions are intentional,

and often intelligent, states ( we should only be in danger of lesser errors. ;ut

philosophy is a field, like nationalism, for the narcissism of small differences, and we

may still debate how best to analye the emotions e#en when we are allied in doing them

!ustice. Nussbaum interprets her grief at losing her mother as identicalto the following

!udgment: My mother, an enormously #aluable person and an important part of my life,

is dead *75-. $he calls this pattern of analysis neo)$toic./ The identification may well

strike most of us as counter)intuiti#e. This response is likely to be heightened, as she

concedes *//-, by the candour of her description of her own case. e ha#e all shared the

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eperience, This news felt like a nail suddenly dri#en into my stomach *1>-. ?ne might make !udgment sufficient

for emotion, but not ehausti#e of it: e might e#en grant that !udgment is a constituent

element in the emotion, and, as a constituent element, a sufficient cause of the other

elements as well, and yet insist that there are other elements, feelings and mo#ements,

that are not themsel#es parts of the !udgment *22)0-.> More loosely, one might identify a

case of grief not by necessary and sufficient conditions, but by family resemblance to

other instances of grie#ing, linked by a comple network of e#aluations, and of

nonintentional feelings and sensations *75-. &ere, of course, one may well be

influenced by ittgenstein.2 Nussbaums reply is that while, during any episode of

emotion, many other things may be going on as well, what holds together any emotion as

a typeis nothing but a single general !udgment.

' shall later "uestion the dichotomy between propositions that ha#e intentional

content, and feelings and sensations that do not, in a way that may recast the

ittgensteinian #iew in a mode more to Nussbaums taste. 'n general, ' do not see what

is gained in this contet by nothing-but)ery, and incline to diagnose her position as an

o#er)reaction to the ad#ersary that takes the form it does for two reasons: it is partly

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true, and she has a taste for heroism. *Mutato mutando, she in#ites a phrase that @obert

;ridges applied to his bolder friend erald Manley &opkins: anr perittotatos, meaning a

man of intellectual immoderation.-

Nussbaums focus upon one eample ( sorrow at a sudden berea#ement ( lends an

unforgettable force to her account, and ser#es her well in illustrating an intimate link

between two things that may be thought conceptually distinct: the grasp of a fact, and the

onrush of a feeling. 6et its particularity, and lack of generality, are problematic. e are

left asking: supposing that this is one form that grief can take, what is the essence of

griefB hen she writes, hat inspires grief is the death of someone belo#ed, someone

who has been an important part of ones own life *>1-, she restricts grief to berea#ement,

which suits her definitional strategy, but cannot be right. More abstract sketches of fear

and anger */8)


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us to make fine distinctions. ithin the sphere of the surprising, we can distinguish the

startling, the bewildering, the astonishing, the amaing, and the staggering. There may be

some #erbal superfluity here, but there are also se#eral real distinctions. *My immediate

source is a erman phrasebook that offers fi#e different e"ui#alents.- ?ne primarily

learns to distinguish these by obser#ing or imagining different spontaneous reactions

*some of which differ in kind, others only #aguely and in degree-+ to an etent, one can

also distinguish different appropriate occasions. As our responses de#elop, they at once

assume more refined forms, and discriminate more finely between different ob!ects. 8

hat seems unpromising is a series of reducti#e analyses of the following form: to be

startledDbewilderedDastonishedDamaedDstaggered isfully to belie#e that one faces

something startlingDbewilderingDastonishingDamaingDstaggering. *?n the other hand, it is

fine to say that to be surprised by something is to finditsurprising: this !ust registers the

difference between an ob!ect or occasion, and a mere causal condition or contributing

factor.-


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enormously #aluable part of my life is gone.F ;ut of course my concrete !udgments

entail that one, and that one is the one in terms of which ' would wish to identify and

define grief *77-. &er moti#e is clearly that, once we admit that an emotion is identified

by a network of intentional states, none of them indi#idually necessary or sufficient, we

may well wish to be inclusi#e in the range of states, intentional and non)intentional, that

we take to be criterial.1G

't is precisely in order to guarantee the emoti#ity of the constituent !udgment that

Nussbaum spells it out as A person whom ' deeply lo#e, who is central to my life, has

died, and not ;etty Hra#en is dead, or e#en My mother is dead *21-. 9#en so, she is

aware of a possible space between !udging and feeling. The issue is analogous to that of

hard acrasia: the "uestion Han ' ( not generally, but on occasion ( !udge that ' ha#e lost

someone who is deeply important to me without feeling griefB is like Han ' e#er !udge

that much the best thing for me to do isx, and yet intentionally doyinsteadB Not

infre"uently, indeed, the two "uestions connect: thoughx may be for me normally an

ob!ect of positi#e feeling and !udgment, ' may on occasion feel indifferent towards it, say

through depression or ehaustion, or ' may be emotionally drawn towardsy, while

remaining aware that doingx is a much better idea. 6et there may be a special difficulty

with e"uating !udgment and emotion: can a single e#aluation both suffice for the

eistence of an emotion, and strike the sub!ect as epressing it aptlyB Nussbaum offers

this formulation among others like it: My mother, an enormously #aluable person and an

important part of my life, is dead *75-. No doubt this is calculated to eclude two

thoughts that might limit grief e#en at a mothers death: a mother may be unmotherly

*think of 9lectras mtr amtr, mother who is no mother, $ophocles,!lectra1102-+

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and e#en a good mother may become marginal to the life of an absent or grown)up

child.11 And yet, as an epression of grief, the formulation appears doubtfully felicitous.

e dont want any implication that one can only grie#e for supposed saints or I's.

*$aying $he was a wonderful mother less e"ui#ocally epressesgrief if it doesnt also

state a !udgment ( though the loss may be magnified if she merits the accolade.- Nor do

we want, or want to be, mourners for whom the thought that dri#es the nail into the

stomach is An important part of my life is o#er: that seems too egocentric .1/ &ence

attempting to reduce the emotion to a belief sufficient to entail it risks distancing it from

any form of words by which it would be apt ( if ' may apply a concept central in

ittgenstein ( to avo"it.1>

hat is likely to mo#e one most after a berea#ement is not the abstract and self)

centered thought that might constitute an awareness of ones own loss, but any concrete

memory or reminder that abruptly brings back, while the wound is raw, the ipseity of the

person lo#ed and lost. roust well illustrates this in his description of Marcels delayed

response to his grandmothers death in the section of# la recherche du temps perdu titled

les intermittences du cJur *the intermittencies of the heart-.12 'n a sensiti#e

discussion, Nussbaum fully recognies this aspect of the occasions of emotion, and moots

saying this: rief is the acceptance of a certain content, accompanied $usually% by

rele#ant acts of the imagination *55-. 6et she concludes, This feature should probably

not be added to the definition of emotions, since it ehibits such great #ariability and

plasticity *57-.10 6et when no ade"uate definition of grief has been offered, any

comparison between aspects in respect of #ariability and plasticity seems unsafe.

Moreo#er, there is no argument that an emotion is definable by a set of necessary and

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sufficient conditions, all of which any instance must satisfy, rather than being a

syndrome, definable only by reference to characteristic aspects that #ary between cases.

Thus the &'( defines migraine as follows: a recurrent throbbing headache that usually

affects one side of the head, often accompanied by nausea and disturbance of #ision.

ould Nussbaum infer that, if there can be no more precise definition, migraine is an

illusory categoryB

$he has other things to say in defence of her approach: when we apparently ha#e the

pertinent belief but not the emotion, perhaps the knowledge of the e#aluati#e

significance of the death has not yet sunk in *2G-+ or the knowledge is still being kept at

bay *21-.15 6et such ways of speaking are ambiguous. 'f they signify that the sub!ect

has not truly appreciated that, or how, he has grounds for an emotion, they are inade"uate

to the case. *Marcel hadnt lacked )no"ledge that a person central to his life was dead.-

'f they rather signify that the sub!ects appreciation is too narrowly cogniti#e, rather than

emotive, they are more eplanatory ( but do not support a narrowly epistemic analysis of

the emotions.17 e might enrich the bare concept of assent, adducing @ichard

ollheims richer notion of acceptance.18 hat may be sufficient for the emotion is if '

do not merely assent to an appropriate proposition, but let it register and re#erberate

throughout my being ( which means more than with all my reason *whether in the

conscious application of concepts, or with an articulate grasp of grounds-+ then ' shall not

only think, but feel, accordingly. This transcends, in any particular case, assigning a

truth)#alue to a proposition ( e#en an e#aluati#e and self)referential one.

Moreo#er, while such percolation of a proposition through the mind and heart can

enrich belief, it can also stand in for it. Nussbaum percepti#ely describes how one

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feature, surely typical, of her initial grief was an anger, at the doctors and nurses, and a

sense of guilt, on her own part, that she )ne"*her term- to be misdirected */1-. $he felt

that her mother had been unkindly treated, by them and by herself, though she was aware

that this was not so. ?n occasion, emotions are sustained by e#aluations that are

inescapable without being endorsed.10-. To the long berea#ed mother who, pathetically,

constantly keeps her childs room ready, it is tempting to ascribe an obstinate belief, in

her heart of hearts *as we say-, that the child will return. &owe#er, there is an

alternati#e, which is that, in ollheims sense, she fails to accept that her child is dead,

though she not only believes but )no"s this to be so. $he may then fail to act upon her

knowledge and belief, and instead, moti#ated by her emotions, act upon what she wishes

were true. &ere, there is still something to be learnt from lato and Aristotle. 't matters

little whether we say that the mother acts as if she belie#ed that her wishes will be

fulfilled, or "ith a belief, at some mental le#el, that they will be./G 't remains true that

emotions need to be educated and disciplined if they are to fall in line with ( or supply (

our most reliable apprehensions. 9motions are prone to an irrationality that is not merely

another proof of the possibility of inconsistency in belief. hether through false beliefs,

or despite true ones, they can easily lead us astray, either while we are immature, or when

our maturity is too se#erely tested./1

Nussbaum is aware that reducing emotions, in their essence, to !udgments may

appear unfair to feelings, but suggests that ittgensteinians will find that if they start to

try to pin the rele#ant EfamilyF down they will be ineorably drawn *despite their dislike

of necessary conditions- to talk of EfeelingsF that are really my EthoughtsF under another


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time)gap, belief may pre)eist the feeling, or follow upon it+ it may stand to it as cause, or

conse"uence. 'n other cases, the distinction between thought and feeling is conceptual,

not temporal. 6et, in all cases, the identification of feeling with thought remains

problematic.

't is a truism that emotions characteristically colour the ways in which we percei#e

and imagine aspects of the world that humanly matter to us. This can be distorting+

ideally, if natural #irtues ha#e been de#eloped into full #irtues *Aristotle,*icomachean

!thics I' 1>, 1122b1)17-, it can be uni"uely percepti#e. ?f course, it is true that our

percei#ing and imaginings depend greatly upon our beliefs+ yet an analysis that identifies

emotions with e#aluati#e beliefs is so far silent about the ways in which an ethical

character that comes of a schooling of the emotions makes us perceptually recepti#e of

the right saliences in a manner that may #ary between articulacy and inarticulacy. Take a

simple eample of the desirability e#en of an untutored emotion: E' will ha#e no man in

my boat,F said $tarbuck, Ewho is not afraid of a whale.F ;y this, he seemed to mean, not

only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair

estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more

dangerous comrade than a coward./> A recognition that the emotions can play this role is

central to an appreciation of their cogniti#e potentialities+ for percei#ing is the way in

which we apprehend current circumstances, while imagining is a way in which we

comprehend absent ones. ;y contrast, an act of forming a belief eercises conceptual

capacities, but is not itself a mode of cogniing anything. 'f we simply say, plausibly or

implausibly, that to be afraid is fully to belie#e that one faces a real danger, we are not

yet doing !ustice to the ability of a more or less educated capacity for fear to alert one to

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dangers that one might otherwise o#erlook, and thereby toprompt one to responses that

might otherwise fail to follow, or follow too late.

Nussbaum embraces this inference: 't is, of course, a conse"uence of the #iew '

ha#e been de#eloping that emotions, like other beliefs, can be true or false *25-. This is

indeed an implicatum, but hardly a datum, or e#en a plausible supposition. e speak

both of a beliefs being true or false to fact, and of someones truly *i.e. sincerely-

belie#ing something+ yet, while we speak of truly *i.e. genuinely- lo#ing or hating, we

cant call the lo#e or hate true or false to fact. *ariss lo#e for &elen did not become

false when, according to $tesichoruss palinode, only a simulacrum of her followed him

to Troy.- here an emotion can be assessed as fitting or unfitting in relation to its ob!ect,

we ha#e a rich range of alternati#es: well)directed or ill)directed, apposite or

inapposite, proportionate or disproportionate, and the like. *These pairs also apply

to actions interpreted as responses to situations.- e dont want a theory that makes a

pule of the absence from the list of true or false./2

ittgenstein obser#es that emotion is epressible in a way that belief is not:

Hompare the epression of fear and hope with that of EbeliefF that such)and)such will

happen. ( That is why hope and fear are counted among the emotions+ belief *or

belie#ing-, howe#er, is not *+emar)s on the Philosophy of Psychology, i. 0


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epectation, i.e. "ait for *ibid.-. hich is rele#ant as follows: ;elief is not any kind of

occupation with the ob!ect of belief. Lear, howe#er, longing, and hope, occupy

themsel#es with their ob!ects *ii. 100-. $o does grief: rief incessantly rehearses the

sad thoughts *i. 8>0-. This is sensiti#ely spelled out for fearful apprehension by Anselm

Mller:/5

Now, what should ' answer, if someone were to ask me, for eample, what it really is to be

afraid before an eamB ' shall perhaps say: 'n the morning ' wake earlier than usual+ ' at

once sit down at my desk and study+ ' wish that it was all long past+ ' cant but think all the

time of my first attempt, which was a failure, and then ' ha#e this unpleasant tickling in the

region of my stomach+ ' also wonder whether ' could postpone the date+ ' cant concentrate on

other things

!ven ifthis all presupposed an underlying !udgement of this form ' am facing an

important eam that ' ha#e a real chance of failing, it would still tell again any reduction

of the emotion to that !udgment./7 Nussbaum betrays an awareness of this in sliding *or

gliding- from !udging as,udging thatto !udging as exercising ,udgment: e are

concei#ing of !udging as dynamic, not static. @eason here mo#es, embraces, refuses+ it

can mo#e rapidly or slowly, it can mo#e directly or with hesitation *20-. This fits

coming to!udge thatp, and perhaps returning to the thought thatp *and associated

thoughts-, but not !udging, in the sense of belie#ing, thatp. The capacity of !udgment

may be eercised dynamically or obsessi#ely in forming or rehearsing beliefs+ the state of

belie#ing thatp can itself be neither dynamic nor obsessi#e.

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'f the thought, more loosely, is that emotion is an eercise of reason, one may

wonder why it should be defined solely by reference to propositions *that is, intentional

contents capable of truth and falsity-. ?ne might rather think of aniety, for instance, as

asking "uestions. Aristotle actually defines anger as a kind of desire *certainly one that

presupposes a background of belief, factual and e#aluati#e-: Anger may be defined as

desire accompanied by pain for an e#ident retaliation on account of an e#ident slight to

oneself or a friend by someone from whom the slight was inappropriate *+hetoric'' /,

1>78a>G)>/-. Many of the other affections orpathhe defines as kinds of pain *lyp-:

this is true of fear, shame, pity, indignation, en#y, and emulation. There is no emotion

that he defines purely as a belief with a distincti#e content. 't is plausible to suppose that

partly constituti#e of grief is an intense wish, epressible in reek by the optati#e, that

something should not ha#e occurred. 'f one must be monistic *but to what purposeB-,

why not identify emotions with wishes ( or else states of feeling glad about something(

directed at past, present, or futureB

&owe#er, ' would rather end by trying to dissol#e a debate. Apparent disagreement

is rife within philosophy+ genuine di#ergence is harder to achie#e. ' do not belie#e that

the neo)$toic analysis of emotion offers any real alternati#e to a ittgensteinian appeal

to family resemblances. An unhappiness that ' ha#e already epressed may be

answered by a remark that ' ha#ent yet "uoted. ' doubted the felicity of a#owing a sense

of berea#ement by formulations of this kind: My mother, an enormously #aluable person

and an important part of my life, is dead *75-. 6et Nussbaum may not disagree, for she

comments upon the !udgment An enormously #aluable part of my life is gone as

follows: 9#en if ' would not e#er put the matter that way to myself, it seems to me that '

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do ha#e that general !udgment. *e should bear in mind that not all of the rele#ant

!udgments need be conscious.- *77-. hat then actually constitutes implicitly making (

and, ' would want to add, accepting ( that !udgmentB *'t cant be that the latent !udgment

is !ust somewhere there in the mind, atomistically, like the beetle in a bo.- 't looks as if

the answer may be simply: consciously grie#ing. ;ut then why shouldnt whate#er

implies the !udgment amount to grief alreadyB

?f course, Nussbaum may say that to identify the case as one of grief isto infer that

the sub!ect is implicitly making the !udgment, but the inference now seems idle. e can

bypass it as the ground for ascribing grief by an ob#ious short cut: the criteria for

ascribing the implicit !udgment, and therebygrief, can become criteria for ascribing grief

directly. The neo)$toic analysis may turn out to be a pointless if permissible epicycle

upon a ittgensteinian one. 'f we do admit the implicit !udgment, we may prefer to

concei#e of the epicycle as a corollary rather than a condition, saying not that implicitly

making the egocentric e#aluation constitutes ha#ing the emotion, but that consciously

ha#ing the emotion constitutes implicitly making *and accepting- the egocentric

e#aluation. Iery simply, knowing that one is grie#ing at a loss is one way of knowing

that it matters to one. e might still identify the conscious emotion and the implicit

!udgment that it imports, in a way as Nussbaum proposes ( but, she may well feel, with

some economy of effect./8

This re#ersal of eplanation seems imperati#e if the identification is to apply to a

kind of emotion not to be ecluded a priori. There are emotions that ma)e it the casethat

an ob!ect is important to the sub!ect when, without them, it would matter to her not at all

or much less. These may be romantic *such as courtly lo#e, which may flourish outside

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any relationship demandingde#otion-, or altruistic *such as Nussbaums anger at the

situation of women in de#eloping countries *72-, undoubtedly important, but not,

independently of her anger, to her-./


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N?T9$

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1't runs from The 0ragility of 1oodness2 3uc) and !thics in 1ree) Tragedy and Philosophy *Hambridge:

Hambridge Oni#ersity ress, 1


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5;ut consider the following. ' belie#e that a stray meteor might at any time de#astate human life as it is once

supposed to ha#e de#astated the dinosaurs, though ' ha#e no idea of the probability. Am ' aniousB Actually,

not at all. And ' doubt whether e#en thinking through the possibility in imaginati#e detail would make me

anious ( though it might ha#e that effect upon someone whose personality is such that he is more troubled by

minute chances of a catastrophe than ' can be.

7?ne general trend in philosophy o#er Nussbaums and my professional lifetimes has been a growing scepticism

about the aptness and practicability of definingsuch fundamental notions as knowledge, or perception, or

intention in the manner that was central to the analytical approach of . 9. Moore and his successors. Moore

famously ecluded goodness as sui generis and simple+ yet we should not presume, for eample, that knowledge

is either simple, or reducible to some #ariety of belief.

8holly pertinent here is @ichard ollheims conception of the de#elopmental potentialities released by what

he calls comple pro!ection+ see The Thread of 3ife *Hambridge: Hambridge Oni#ersity ress, 1


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1/'n &opkinss poem $pring and Lall, about a child grie#ing D ?#er oldengro#e unlea#ing, 't is Margaret

you mourn for is not, and could not be, what Margaret says.

1>?r are many emotions essentially decepti#e in that they disguise ( and have to disguise ( the fundamental

egocentricity of some concernB This would need argument *and ' would cite ollheim, The Thread of 3ife,

/>0)05 against it-. Hontingently, of course, they are no more insulated against self)deception than desires and

intentions. 6et neither a hope that this century will impro#e on its predecessor *post &itler, $talin, and Mao-,

nor a fear that *because of o#er)population or global warming- it wont, needs be egocentric in order to be

sincere, and e#en intense.

12'n the current lQiade *2 #ols, aris: allimard, 1/-+ that is, e think we

no longer lo#e the dead, but this is because we dont remember them+ if we suddenly catch sight again of an old

glo#e, we burst into tears.

10$imilarly, she earlier conceded, e may want to grant here that there are some nonintentional feelings that

are freuently associated with a gi#en emotion: take boiling and anger, or trembling and fear *5G-, but likewise

continued, Nonetheless, it appears that here too the plasticity and #ariability of people *both of the same person

o#er time and across people- pre#ents us from plugging the feeling into the definition as an absolutely necessary

element. 9arlier, she had allowed more latitude, though within a single style of definition: There are

noncentral cases that share only some of the features of the central cases */2-.

15'n3oves 4no"ledge, she had written as follows *21-: 'f one really accepts or takes in a certain belief, one

will eperience the emotion Lor eample, if a person belie#es that9 is the most important person in her life

and that9 has !ust died, she will feel grief. 'f she does not, this is because in some sense she doesnt fully

comprehend or has not taken in or is repressing these facts.

17e mustnt, in pursuit of a thesis, eclude truisms like the following, which ' "uote from M. @. ;ennett and .

M. $. &acker,Philosophical 0oundations of *euroscience*?ford: ;lackwell, /GG>-, //G: ?f course,

knowledge of the facts that constitute a reason for feeling such)and)such an emotion does not necessitate any

such feeling. ;ut if one does not respond appropriately to the tragic or !oyful circumstance, one is deficient in


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sensibility, and lacks the feeling proper to the circumstance ( which is a mark of not caring about things which,

in general, we think we should care about. 't may on occasion be true, but is certainly not always true, that

ac"uiring knowledge can remedy such a deficiency. *Their chapter on the emotions is #aluable not !ust for an

eposure of the conceptual confusions of neuroscientists, but for a many true obser#ations and nice distinctions.-

18The Thread of 3ife, />7.

18)28-, which one may

well take to eemplify emotion that is neither according, nor contrary, to belief. ?n the one hand, she writes of


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sharing the emotion of a character by identification */2/-, e.g. sharing hiloctetes anger and desolation, or the

de#astation of ?edipus when he disco#ers what he has done */2G-. ?n the other, she proposes that an episode

that has mythic power does so because it is Ea thing such as might happenF, and in a way that affects oneself,

directly or indirectly */25-. $he reconciles these #iews by ascribing them to two le#els: at a concrete le#el, the

intentional ob!ect of ones emotion is the fictional character+ at a more general le#el, its ob!ect is the un!ustified

suffering that is really in the world, and to which one is #ulnerable oneself */20-.

Though Aristotle is citable in her support *+hetoric '' 8, 1>80b1>)15-, this seems to me to eaggerate ones

attachment both to reality ( of which, it has been said, mankind cannot bear too much ( and to ones o"n reality.

*Kearning only to be mo#ed by what is, or is taken to be, real would be an achie#ement, though not an attracti#e

one+ ad#ancing age has occasionally been known to ha#e a similar effect.- A reader or theatre)goer may well be

mo#ed specifically by the specific content of what is presented to him, though he has no opinion ( or a sceptical

one ( of its plausibility *let alone of its rele#ance to his own life-. No doubt it will then connect in some way

with his own moti#ations and eperiences+ yet this may be because his sympathies are a loose function of these,

and not because he is really being affected by an awareness of some general human peril or predicament to

which he too is sub!ect. *'t is true that my reaction to Arnolds $ohrab and @ustum has been intensified by

becoming a father myself+ not, howe#er, because of any new knowledge of the dangers of failing to recognie

ones own son.-

//?ne reads that ;en!amin ;ritten could not eat on the day of a concert in which he was taking part without

throwing up. as that not part and parcel of his ner#ous anticipationB Again, A. 9. &ousman famously

confessed that, if a line of true poetry *the sort whose meaning doesnt matter- came to his mind while he was

sha#ing, his skin would bristle up and obstruct the raor. &e feltpoetry "ith his s)in, at once a physical liability

and a cogniti#e ability.

/>Mel#ille,Moby-(ic) *New 6ork: The Kibrary of America, 1-, 8>a5)7-, ideally through trac)ing present dangers and possible escapes. Lor an

Aristotelian discussion of such ethical perception, which was originally inspired by3oves 4no"ledge, see my

Aristotelian Iirtue and ractical %udgement, in H. ill *ed.-, :irtue/ *orms/ and 'b,ectivity2 6ssues in Ancient

and Modern !thics *?ford: Hlarendon ress, /GG0-, /0


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/2?ne might reflect upon the range of thoughts rele#ant to such assessments: in a case of "uestionable anger, &e

didnt do it at all, or 't really wasnt so bad, or 6ou mustnt let it eat you up inside, or Ket not the sun go

down upon your wrath. Note that the first two relate to the occasion of anger, the second two to its place within

a life+ in assessing an instance of emotion, we may reflect upon either or both *as again arises in the case of

actions-. The old $toic formulations yield !udgments that not only assess the ob!ects and occasions of emotion,

but appro#e current responses and reactions. This has the merit of confirming the rele#ance of thoughts of my

second kind. &ow, according to Nussbaum, is one to criticie a grief that is well grounded, but becomes

obsessi#eB Sueen Iictoria doubtless mourned too long and too much for rince Albert+ yet one couldnt ha#e

said to her, 't is not truethat your husband, an enormously #aluable person and an important part of your life, is

dead. Nor would it be an instant solution to read your life as your present life+ for the trouble was precisely

that Albert continuedto be all)important to her, and in her life, long after that ought to ha#e changed. *$o should

we add that the ob!ect is taken to be such as one is right to care intensely aboutB ;ut then what is caring

intensely if it isnt itself an emotionB-

/0Trs . 9. M. Anscombe, then H. . Kuckhardt and M. A. 9. Aue */ #ols, ?ford: ;asil ;lackwell, 1

anthony price birkbeck college london are emotions judgments of value

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