Varieties of Affect 9781487571887

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VARIETIES OF AFFECT

VARIETIES OF AFFECT CLAIRE ARMON-JONES

University of Toronto Press Toronto and Buffalo

First published in North America by University of Toronto Press 1991 Toronto and Buffalo Reprinted in 2018

ISBN 0-8020-2823-3 ISBN 978-1-4875-7171-9 (paper) © Harvester Wheatsheaf 1991

Printed and bound in Great Britain Toronto Studies in Philosophy 2 Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Armon-Jones, Claire Varieties of affect. Includes bibliographical references ISBN 0-8020-2823-3 1. Affect (Psychology). 2. Emotions (Philosophy). I. Title. B815.A75 1991 128'.3 091-095143-8

CONTENTS

Preface

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

vu

1

2

1 1 2 3

Introduction Prologue Summary of aims The concept of affect Cognition Paradigms and continua

12

Characterizing emotions: An alternative view

16

Introduction: The Standard View Supplementary features Neo-cognitivism The missing feature Emotionally compelling objects Emotionally viable objects Blind emotions Summary and conclusion

16 18 22 27

44

Critique of the objectual view

48

Introduction Objects The objectual view Generalized affective states: Object as 'everything • Retrospectively identified affective states The paradigm argument Living without objects Summary and conclusion

48

V

11

34

37 41

so

60

61 65 68 73 76

Contents

VI

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

CHAPTER

3

4

5

References Subject Index Name Index

Affective frames of mind

80

Introduction A default theory of moods (M states) M states and thought Undifferentiatedness The felt aspect of M states The disengaged and blind nature of M states Mood change, belief and logical inference Consequent features of M states Summary and conclusion

80 81 83 89 91 93 97 100 102

Affective dispositions

106

Introduction Affective dispositions Lapses in consciousness Causal patterns underlying cases A and B Formative frames of mind A question about Hareton's being there Application of the causal theories of objects Generative frames of mind Summary and conclusion

106 108 113 117 119 122 123 125 129

Explaining affective life

133

Introduction: The presumption of basic rationality Motivations for the rationality principle Basic rationality and M states Neurophysiology Emotion and the rationality principle Some questions about moral culpability Rationalization Rationalization and true reasons The good in affect Summary and conclusion

133 137 139 141 144 147 149 154 157 165 169 177 181

PREFACE

The arguments presented in this book were originally inspired by my dissatisfaction with my earlier work on the social construction of emotion. The constructionist approach, I felt, left many interesting and fundamental questions about the nature of emotion unanswered. Confronting these questions meant putting aside the constructionist viewpoint and starting afresh. The book was begun in the autumn of 1986 and submitted as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Oxford in the spring of 1990. During this time the work was supervised by Kathleen Wilkes of St Hilda's College, Oxford, and Paul Snowdon of Exeter College, Oxford. I would like to thank them both for their invaluable patience, guidance and encouragement. I owe a special debt to Paul Snowdon for his indefatigable willingness to read drafts, versions of drafts, and more drafts. I am also obliged to Roger Lamb of the Psychology Faculty, Oxford University, for his useful comments on Chapter 3. The dissertation was examined by Gabriele Taylor of St Anne's College, Oxford, and Adam Morton of Bristol University. I would like to thank them both for their careful reading of the work, and for making the viva voce a pleasant and edifying experience. Though the structure of the book and the arguments it contains are essentially the same as those of the dissertation, I have since altered, omitted or elaborated my views at certain points in the text. Some of these changes were prompted by further reflection; others were made in response to readers' comments. I would also like to thank Gabriele Taylor and Paul Snowdon for their extra help and advice on these matters. Sections from Chapters 2 and 5 were presented as a paper at the Symbolic Interactionism section of the Annual Conference of the American Sociological Association in Washington DC during the summer of 1990. I would like to thank Professor Michael Flaherty of Eckerd College, Florida, for his invitation to attend. vu

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE

In the history of philosophy, reason has traditionally been the honourable standard against which affective life is measured, the backcloth against which it is defined and understood. For Plato (1974), Descartes (1952) and Spinoza (1955), emotions acquired philosophical importance as obstacles to the progress of reason towards truth and blessedness. Whatever else emotions are, the starting assumption was that they cloud the visions of the intellect and limit freedom. Modern analytical philosophy has dissolved the traditional opposition between reason and emotion by absorbing affective life into the domain of rationally explicable things. In this triumph over the dichotomy between reason and emotion, reason still provides the defining standard. Affective life has obliged contemporary philosophy by proving amenable to explanation in terms of beliefs, knowledge or more subtle cognitive processes. Thus conceived, it earns a new right to philosophical attention and, at the same time, gives a flattering display of just how far the scope of rational structures in mental life can be shown to extend. Where traditionally, reason's enemy was conquered, now it is disarmed. A glance through contemporary philosophical works on emotion reveals the modern emotion to be a docile creature, prone to such perturbations as righteous indignation and pinches of embarrassment on being late for dinner parties. More memorable trials of life are also mentioned. Grief, joy, terror and despair are sometimes listed, and their logical structure sometimes nicely described; but the qualities, raw details and special ramifications of such states - their reverberation through the system, their 'here-and-nowness', and their ability to destroy or change lives - is still left to literature, just as the bone specialist leaves the fleshy parts to the epidermist. Accordingly, the modern emotion is also nearly ripe for characterization in artificial intelligence terms; it can still malfunction, of course, 1

2

Introduction

depression and excessive mirth are not yet cured. On the whole though, emotion is now deemed useful to us (de Sousa 1987) and a friend of reason (Green 1972, Gordon 1987); it is less wilful than traditionally supposed (Solomon, 1984a, 1988) and if it sometimes seems to dominate, there is often a good underlying reason (Rorty 1980, Greenspan 1988). One dangerous virtue of affective life is that, precisely because it is so complex, diverse and baffling, it can be moulded to fit almost any theoretical framework; also the necessity of being selective makes for a useful instrument of bias. Thus emotions have been variously described as visceral things, pieces of knowledge, existential decisions, programmed drives, and judicial statements; they are the core of moral behaviour and scapegoats for our worst crimes. Whilst no account is without presuppositions, the exploration of the nature of affect that is the purpose of this book is an attempt to step outside of some of the more constraining assumptions that have guided philosophical theories of emotion. I have tried to make a rational inquiry into the nature of affect that, where necessary, ignores what is fashionable, that stays with what seems important, and that meets affective life on its own terms. In what follows I shall give a brief statement of the various aims of the book and the structure of the arguments it contains. SUMMARY OF AIMS

The arguments in this book are guided by various interrelated aims. One central aim is to develop an account of emotion that rectifies certain problems in currently dominant philosophical theories of emotion. In Chapter 1 I argue that the conceptual apparatus used by these theories fails to satisfy certain conditions, the fulfilment of which is necessary to a state's qualifying as an emotion. In response to these problems I develop an account that is able to fulfil these conditions, and I go on to show how it can be applied to a variety of phenomena which we would want to classify as emotions. Another central, but related, aim is to show that we need to place emotions within a broader view of affect. One virtue of the account introduced in Chapter 1 is that it enables us to explain the continuity of emotions with other classes of affective states, specifically that class commonly denoted by the term 'mood'. Since moods are a common part of human experience, it is a question of some interest why they are neglected in contemporary philosophical analysis, and of even greater interest if we consider the growing philosophical literature on the related topic of emotion. During the course of my arguments I shall consider some ways in which this neglect can be understood as theoretically motivated. States denoted by the term 'mood' clearly deserve philosophical

The concept of affect

3

analysis in their own right, the provision of which is the main objective of Chapters 2 and 3. In Chapter 2 I outline certain features of those states which we describe as moods, and I examine the viability of the assumption, discernible in the philosophical literature, that such states are instances of emotions. I argue that they have certain features which logically distinguish them from the class of emotion states. This analysis is continued in Chapter 3 where I examine other aspects of the mood states which help us to circumscribe their nature. I outline certain features that explain their membership of the class of affective states, and discuss some respects in which they deviate from the network of concepts standardly used to explain emotions. I argue, amongst other things, that they are exemplars of a certain kind of cognition which points to a more subtle understanding of the role ·of cognition in affect. The states investigated in Chapters 2 and 3 also deserve philosophical attention because they enrich our understanding of emotions. My aim in Chapter 4 is to examine certain kinds of relation they bear to emotions, and their role in our concept of affective dispositions. I argue that a significant relation between the two modes of affect derives from the dispositional role they each possess as felt, occurrent states, and I go on to consider various causal patterns which underlie their continuity in such instances. A subsidiary aim of this book is to show that we can achieve a better understanding of the varieties of, and relationships between, affective states if we dispense with the causal theory of emotion objects. This criticism is developed at various points; however, the arguments of Chapters 4 and 5 in particular show the scope of those affective states that violate the conditions of the causal theory. In Chapter 5 I assess some implications of my arguments for current philosophical theories of emotion. I suggest that they provide a standpoint from which we can take a more detached view of some of the intellectual and moral concerns that guide these theories, and that places their insights within a broader view of affect. This view helps to explain, in a more satisfactory way, the connections between affect and ourselves as rational beings, as ideologists, as lay theorizers, and as biological beings. I conclude by discussing some implications of these points for our conception of the good in affect. THE CONCEPT OF AFFECT

Since this book is about affective life, it is essential that, before continuing, an account is provided of what kind of thing an affective state is. The rest of this chapter will be devoted to giving a preliminary outline of the concept of affect and of the kinds of states that qualify as affective

4

Introduction

states. I shall also outline some of the conceptual tools that I use in subsequent chapters. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) defines affect as 'feeling, emotion, desire'. In accordance with this definition, one class of affective states I discuss is emotion. I use the term 'emotion' to range over states such as anger, grief, joy, fear, happiness, sadness, jealousy, pride, admiration, envy, embarrassment, remorse, pity, and so on. Though we intuitively connect emotions with feelings, contemporary philosophers note that emotion ascriptions do not entail ascriptions of feeling. 'Jo feels introduces an element of contingency, which in turn raises an issue concerning the status of de facto unidentified x type feelings . If Jo's identification of an appropriate object is not immediate, then it must be contingent whether he succeeds in identifying an object at all. Suppose that he is diverted by the alarm bell from recognizing an object, say, an unpleasant task, via which he can identify x as 'dread'. Kenny has to argue that here, where recognition is interrupted, x remains unidentified; but this will surely go against Jo's insistence, even with the intrusion of the alarm bell, that what he felt at tl was dread. Jo's ability to identify x

Retrospectively identified affective states

67

as dread prior to, or without, an object identification highlights an inconsistency in the retrospective identification argument. This is that whilst its adherents imply that x is identifiable as 'dread' only via an object identification at t2, they also successfully manage to identify and label x as 'dread' at tl. So in making the identification at tl, are they not admitting that x is recognizable as dread independently of object recognition after all? Armstrong's reply to these objections is that the label 'dread' is being used in these instances to describe a proxy - a feeling of dread 'by courtesy' which resembles, and stands in for, proper, objectual dread. Yet this is implausible. We can assume that Jo feels ill at ease, apprehensive, and has a general sense of foreboding or trepidation. Certainly, whether Jo chooses the label 'dread' or a different affective label such as 'anxiety' will depend upon the quality of his feelings . Anxiety commonly has an active, agitated quality whereas dread, like depression, is a more passive, quiescent condition; but if Jo's feelings of apprehension and foreboding have the qualities characteristic of dread then it seems gratuitous to insist that he is not feeling dread as such but merely a proxy. The same difficulties arise in applying these arguments to other states. It seems absurd to claim that until or unless an object is identified for depression, Jo is not feeling depressed as such, but a proxy. Since all that is lacking here is object recognition, we can presume that he is undergoing those remaining experiences which, ordinarily at least, we regard as characteristic of depression. Suppose him to be moping around, looking cheerless and downcast, occupying his mind with, and sometimes expressing, gloomy thoughts. Or suppose him to be thinking cheerful thoughts, and behaving in a cheerful manner, which both he and observers describe as a state of 'cheerfulness'. Since these feelings are identified both by Jo and observers as depression and cheerfulness, there seems to be no obvious justification denying that they are. The fact that these feelings are not accompanied by object recognition does nothing to weaken our conviction and Jo's that he is depressed, or cheerful. To insist that these convictions are wrong is surely an instance of the theoretical tendency to let 'systematic thinking and convictions [make] a fact disappear' Qorgensen, p. 310, 1928). The only factor left for the objectual theorist to use in support of the difference between genuine and proxy instances of term 'cheerful' describes, not a mere disposition to emotion, but an M state which possesses a disposition to induce an emotion as one of its features, along with other features that mark it out as a felt, occurrent affective state of the subject. So to complete the picture above we need to add that, where q> describes a disposition to feel certain M states, it implies a nested disposition. In such cases q> describes someone who has a disposition to feel certain M states q> and who, given the dispositional role of the M state itself, is also disposed, whilst feeling q>, to feel certain emotions. In assigning a cheerful disposition to someone we are sometimes describing him as inordinately prone to experience M states of cheerfulness, and also as, during his cheerful phases, liable to be 'easily pleased', to have a low threshold for positive emotions of delight and happiness. Similarly, an 'irascible disposition' sometimes describes persons who are often to be found in a bad mood, and who, during these phases, have a low threshold for emotions of anger and rage. These observations tell against the assimilation of all dispositional uses of q> terms to descriptions of mere emotion tendencies. They suggest that sometimes the description needs to be filled out to include reference to the fact that what disposes the subject to feel a certain emotion is his disposition to feel a certain M state which itself disposes him to feel that emotion. However, it is important to stress that it is not a necessary feature of M states that, for an M state to dispose someone to feel a certain emotion, it must itself be stabilized in that person's affective life as a long-term dispositional trait. A person's occurrent M states of depression may be too rare to qualify as states which he has a disposition to feel. All the same, on those occasions when he feels M depressed, he may be prone to focus his negative feelings on particular objects. In the discussion that follows I shall be exclusively concerned with the dispositional role that belongs to M states as felt, occurrent states, for I want to examine this feature of M states in more detail. I shall not be concerned with q> terms that simply describe non-occurrent dispositions to emotions; nor sha!l I be concerned with the role of q> terms in

Affective dispositions

111

describing those long-term dispositions to feel certain M states that indicate character traits, for, as already noted, M states have an emotioninducing disposition, irrespective of their being long-term dispositional attributes of the subject. The M states I discuss can certainly be viewed as long-term dispositions, but my arguments do not depend upon viewing them this way. To say that M states have a disposition to induce emotions is not to say that, for any instance q> of an M state, if Jo feels q>, then necessarily he will feel a certain emotion. M states such as depression, elation, cheerfulness, and so on, do not invariably cause the subject to become emotional, as the instances described in previous chapters suggest. For an M state to have a disposition to induce an emotion is for it to have a capacity that, like the capacity to shatter, is realized only under certain conditions. However, the analogy between the dispositional role of M states and dispositional predicates such as 'fragile' is imperfect because, though 'fragile' is an 'incomplete predicate' {Prior, p. 7, 1985) - will be realized for different kinds of object under different conditions - the explanation is nomological in each case. For M states, we lack the kinds of empirical laws which we have for fragility that would enable us to give a nomological account of the conditions under which their disposition to induce emotions is realized, either between individuals, or for an individual across time. Also, explanations of shattering usually involve conjunctions of internal and external factors, whereas I think that this is not typically the case for M states. Conditions relevant to an object's shattering usually concern facts about its internal constitution in conjunction with facts about the application of an external force. In the case of M states, sometimes it will be true to say that, given certain external conditions such as the heat in the room, the train being late, and so on, then, if Jo is in an occurrent, felt M state of irascibility, he will become angry about p. An M state's dispositional role is sometimes more analogous to dispositions such as 'volatile' than 'fragile' though, in the sense that explanations of the realization of its dispositional role do not necessarily depend on the specification of conditions external to it. This is not to say that in some instances there are no special conditions, for if we adopted this view we would be unable to explain why the dispositional role in these instances is not always realized. It is to say that in some instances the special conditions that explain the realization of an M state's dispositional role, such as its level of intensity, or its particular quality, are internal to the state itself. I mention this because, in ascribing a dispositional role to M states, there is perhaps a temptation to view them as dispositionally inert except when harnessed to some external, e.g., contextual, factor. This overlooks instances where internal conditions, such as the M state's level

112

Affective dispositions

of intensity, are sufficient to explain the realization of its disposition to induce an emotion. I shall return to these points later in this chapter. It is instructive here to consider a remark of Rorty's (1980) for, as I shall show, it has a bearing on the dispositional role of M states. She suggests that 'when a person suffers from a hormonal imbalance, his emotions have one target after another' (p. 116). She concedes that 'the state of the person's endocrine system is explanation enough' (p. 117) for this kind of emotion, and that we do not need to 'appeal to beliefs or intentional states' (p. 117). Rorty regards purely neurochemical explanations such as this as posing a challenge to her neo-cognitive view; one solution she offers is to suggest that such explanations are non-standard. 1 I shall critically evaluate Rorty's responses to this challenge in the next chapter. Here I want instead to consider her account of those physiologically caused emotions whose existence she concedes. In the remark quoted, Rorty seems to regard hormonal imbalance as the direct and independently sufficient cause of the emotion; but it is not clear that neurochemical factors such as harmonal imblance can directly cause an emotion in the absence of cognitions of any kind. They can, in conjunction with cognitions such as beliefs. A sudden drop in Anne's oestrogen levels, together with her acquiring the belief that p, say, 'Jo won't be home till late', may cause her to feel depressed about p. However, this is not the sort of case that Rorty seems to have in mind in her remark. Whatever we decide about the capacity of neurochemical factors to be direct, sufficient causes of emotions, and I have suggested that this is dubious, it seems correct to say that the kinds of affective states that are directly caused by purely neurochemical factors are primarily M states, not emotions. Indeed, though M states, like emotions, can also be caused by cognition alone, or by conjunctions cognitive and other factors such as neurochemistry, as I shall argue, it is of crucial importance that they can also be directly caused by neurophysical factors that are unmediated by • • 2 cognition. These points are not meant to imply that emotions cannot have neurochemical first causes - indeed, they often can - but to suggest that Rorty's remark leaves something out, namely a mediating M state. It is an M state that is likely to be the immediate effect of the hormonal imbalance. The M states typically caused by hormonal imbalances, but not mentioned in Rorty's remark, are anxiety, depression and irascibility; and it is the M state itself that disposes the subject to get emotional 'about one target after another'. The role of the endocrinal factors Rorty mentions is like that of psychotropic drugs. Both work, not by directly causing emotions, but by changing the tonic M states in which emotions arise. There is no endogenous or pharmacological 'magic bullet' that can

Lapses in consciousness

113

directly elevate Jo's feelings about a particular object, say, his marriage. So once the implications of Rorty 's remark are filled out, it can be said to refer to affective phenomena that typically will belong to Case A in taking the form of an M state which, in this instance, happens to be neurochemically induced, and the dispositional role of which is realized as the emotion that she describes.

LAPSES IN CONSCIOUSNESS

Another way of analysing the affective phenomena in question is to explain away the M state as a stage during the course of the emotion when its object is unconscious. In evaluating this approach I shall begin with Case B and go on to consider Case A. With respect to Case B we need to ask whether the subsequent state must, in every case, be analysed as the emotion without consciousness of its object. Consider a scenario where a revered friend of Jo's gives him a hostile or condescending stare as they pass in the street. Jo feels depressed about this incident for a while, his thoughts preoccupied with its emotional ramifications. He thinks, with sinking heart, that this person must loathe him, he feels rejected and alienated by the other's coldness, and so on. Jo shortly ceases to dwell on the incident, yet the emotional reaction, though mild and short-lived, puts him in a black mood which persists for the rest of the day. The resulting state might, given certain conditions, be regarded as unconciously about the initiating incident, but this is not necessarily the case. At least, it would be called into question by certain features of the situation, should they be present. It is quite possible that Jo's depression will endure despite the falsification of the attitudes which determined the initial emotional reaction. He may continue to feel depressed despite learning that the hostile stare was in fact directed not at himself but at someone else. The imperviousness of the resulting state to this kind of falsification would call into question its characterization as an emotion with the incident as its unconscious object. We can regard the state as an emotion if, for example, Jo refuses to relinquish his original belief in the light of the new evidence; but it is equally plausible to suppose that Jo does come sincerely to hold the new belief that the stare was directed elsewhere and yet continues to feel depressed. In this case it is difficult to see how the state could continue, even unconciously, to be about the stare. The state's objecthood might be still defended by postulating some contrary, nonepistemic conception of the object that shadows the new belief, e.g., 'it is as if he was staring at me'; but since, as we are supposing, Jo is and

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Affective dispositions

remains totally unconscious of this putative object, and since nothing in his future behaviour need support its existence, then such an argument for the state's having an object is tenuous indeed. Furthermore, in this scenario it is the resulting state which has persistence and intensity, not the emotional reaction which acts merely as a trigger. Once it has taken hold, the depression gains and maintains a momentum of its own. These points conform to our ordinary conception of emotional reactions as capable of inducing disproportionate mood change. Minor upsets can induce massive despair, trivial worries can prompt chronic anxiety, and small pleasures can unleash inordinately high spirits. This does not in itself entail that the 'unconscious object' approach is false , but it does point to an alternative explanation. It suggests that it may be merely the timeliness of the emotional reaction in relation to the subject's latent propensities, for whatever reason, to acquire certain M affective frames of mind, that explains both the status of the emotion as a mere trigger of the M state, and also the independent tenacity of the resulting state. In such instances, we do not need to explain the resulting state in terms of a significant object, nor do we need to explain its persistence, momentum and intensity by appeal to the continuing unconscious operation of such an object. The very idea of 'emotion as trigger' casts doubt on the significance of the object in explaining the subsequent state. It also casts doubt on the generality of the psychologist's conception, noted by Wessman, of mood as 'emotion in subexcitation or decay'. This conception of mood as a kind of emotion-dependent residue, or perhaps as the emotion itself qualified by dwindling interest in, or attention to, its object, no doubt applies to certain instances of Case B; but it overlooks instances such as the one just described where the subsequent state has the form, not of a waning emotion, but of an autonomous, persisting M state. We can plausibly generalize here by saying that the emotions characteristic of Case B commonly generate related M states. Hume suggests that 'passions seldom continue within their first bounds; but extend themselves towards all the contiguous objects ' (p. 314, Book II, Sect. II, 1978). As an observation about emotion objects, this claim is not my concern here. We can usefully adapt it though by saying that emotion types characteristic of Case B have a tendency to spread into undifferentiated affective frames of mind. Depression and anxiety, for example, however emotionally significant or compelling their objects, tend to, as it were, proliferate outwards such as to modify the subject's experience of things in general. Depression about p has an unfortunate habit of blackening experience in general such that conscious effort may be required to maintain a fixed emotional focus on p. This tendency of negative emotions, to borrow Hume's terminology, to 'extend' beyond

Lapses in consciousness

115

the 'bounds' of their objects into the form of a corresponding mood state, is perhaps linked with their tendency to escalate into pathological conditions (Teasdale 1988). The generation of undifferentiated affect is, happily, also a feature of positive emotions. Happiness, elation, or joy about p, if keenly felt, tend to reorientate the subject's M affective frame of mind such as to enliven and brighten experience of things in general. The emotions in Case B can be said to possess or acquire mood dimensions over and above their objecthood. That emotions can have these dimensions is not only an important, if entirely neglected, feature of them, but also suggests that emotions and M states are dispositionally interrelated. Just as M states can dispose the subject towards related emotions, so emotions can dispose the subject towards related M states that, in accordance with the points made earlier, may acquire varying degrees of autonomy from the emotions that generate them. As with Case B, instances of Case A are sometimes characterizable as involving an emotion the object of which is unconscious at some point or points during its course. Jo may be aware of his depression for some time without being aware of its object. Only later does he come to realize what he is depressed about (Pears 1962). Again though, not all instances of Case A can be analysed in this way. It seems clear that Broad, in the illustration quoted earlier, regards 'disordered liver' as the sole and sufficient cause of the initial affective state; similarly, consider an instance in which the initial affective state is caused solely by moodaltering drugs. Since physiological factors such as these provide an adequate explanation of the state, then whatever object{s) the state acquires at t2, it is unparsimonious to backdate their role in the sequence as unconscious objects prior to t2. The etiology of such states gives us good reason for regarding them as M states. The same considerations apply to certain instances of Case A, even where the causes of the initial state are, or are significantly, cognitive. Consider Jim, a personality type disposed towards anxiety attacks. Suppose that, after experiencing free-floating anxiety for some time, he starts thinking anxiously about the interview he is due to attend next week, and when asked about his agitated state, reports that he is anxious about his interview. We cannot simply assume a priori that if Jim becomes anxious about the interview, and if he was already anxious, then the prior anxiety was therefore unconsciously about the interview. It might have been; but, in certain instances, the more cogent explanation of the initial state will show it to be an M state. Suppose that during the course of the day Jim has acquired a collage of affectively significant environmental cues. This accumulation of cues is gradual and diverse, some being received subceptually. One anxiety cue

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Affective dispositions

might be immobilization in a traffic jam; another might be loud noises of which he is unaware because he is attending to something else; yet another might be the amorphous crowd through which he has to negotiate his way; and so on. These cues finally reach a cumulative point at which they push him over the threshold into a state of free-floating anxiety. Though these cues are sufficient in conjunction to explain the initial anxiety, they are not themselves linked with the object that the anxiety subsequently acquires. We cannot regard the collage of anxietytriggering cues as, for example, 'the interview' under a different or looser description.3 There is simply no connection here. It might be argued that perhaps the connection is causal - perhaps these cues cause Jim to think unconsciously about the interview. However, this move is surely ad hoc; it seems implausible to claim that for the cues to cause Jim to feel anxious, they must simultaneously cause him to have unconscious thoughts about some object or other. Another move might be to regard the causes of the initial anxiety as its unconscious object(s), and the interview as another object which happens to be manifest in Jim's awareness; but this is not plausible either. The causes are diverse and numerous. Either we regard just one of them as the unconscious object, in which case there seems to be no non-arbitrary way of deciding which it is, or we regard each cause as an unconscious object, in which case we ascribe to Jim an absurdly overpopulated unconscious. Both moves are undermined by the fact that the causes are also cumulative and therefore insufficient, taken separately, even to cause anxiety. These arguments strongly favour a characterization of the initial anxiety as an M state rather than an emotion with an unconscious object or objects. So far I have outlined various accounts of the phenomena in Cases A and B, one as emotions that are realizations of mere dispositions, another as emotions, the objects of which are, at some stage, unconscious. As I will go on to show, some instances of the phenomena in question would, it seems, be analysed by certain emotion theorists as pure M states. That the phenomena can be subjected to such different interpretations, each with sufficient plausibility to merit consideration, reveals their tremendous imperspicuity. Yet it is precisely this that makes them vulnerable to misrepresentation via certain a priori principles of emotion theory. Against the assimilation of all instances of Case A to emotional realizations of mere dispositions, I argued that, though M state terms do sometimes describe mere dispositions, certain instances of Case A describe the realization of an emotion-inducing disposition which belongs to the M state as a felt, occurrent state. Against the account of Cases A and B as emotions preceded or followed by unconsciousness of their objects, I argued that, in certain instances, those stages of the affective

Causal patterns underlying cases A and B

117

sequence which lack a manifest object are identifiable, not as involving unconscious objects but, again, as felt occurrent M states.

CAUSAL PATTERNS UNDERLYING CASES A AND B

I now want to examine various ways in which the dispositional role of the affective states in Cases A and B are realized. Sentences describing the two cases imply that there is, at least, a distribution of causal responsibility between prior and subsequent state. In sentences describing Case A, such as 'if Sam is in a bad mood when he gets in, he 'II be furious with you for that', the conditional is a causal conditional, it ascribes a causal role to the prior M state in explaining certain affective consequences. Case B, as noted earlier, concerns emotions that acquire M affective dimensions beyond their objecthood. Again, the relation is clearly causal. In expressions such as 'her happiness about the news left her in a good mood for the rest of the day', 'the angry exchange put him in a bad mood for some time', and so on, the emotion is being ascribed a causal role in explaining the M state that follows. So in order to clarify the various ways in which the dispositional relations between emotions and M states are realized, we need to examine the causal factors that underlie them. In what follows I shall outline some of these causal patterns, and consider the bearing they have on our concept of affective dispositions. The causal patterns isolated for consideration are necessarily selective, and merely explain some significant ways in which the dispositions of the affective states in question are realized. I shall not consider the role of M state terms in describing mere dispositions. As before, I shall be exclusively concerned with M state terms that describe occurrent, felt M states which possess a dispositional role. Also, at certain points I shall show how these causal patterns reveal further difficulties with the causal view of objecthood, outlined in Chapter 2, that a necessary condition of an emotion's having an object is that some item or, at least, thoughts about an item, have a causal role in producing the emotion. Since the arguments that follow are not affected by the difference between these two versions of the causal view, as in Chapter 2, I shall, for brevity, use the term 'causal object' to refer both to causal objects themselves and, where necessary, to causal thoughts about objects. In certain instances, the causal factors that underlie consecutive affective states can be said to preserve the explanatory adequacy that, as argued in Chapter 1, standard view theorists tend to ascribe to the object. Suppose that at tl Jo is in an M state of depression, itself caused by sleep deprivation, and that at t2 he learns that p - 'he has lost his job' - and he

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feels depressed about p. Given that losing one's job is, ceteris paribus, a compelling object for depression, then the event of p at t2 will typically be independently sufficient to induce depression. If p is independently sufficient, then it is correct to suppose that Jo would have felt depressed about p at t2 irrespective of his prior M state of depression. The M state does not have a necessary causal role in his coming to feel depressed about p. Indeed, that the emotion at t2 is also depression is incidental for, given a different kind of emotionally compelling object at t2, he might have acquired a quite different emotion. A feature of this scenario, as regards the causal view of emotion objects, is that the causal independence of the emotion derives from its having an independently sufficient cause, not from the a priori principle that we can deduce the independence of the emotion from some causal role entailed by its having an object. That the state at t2 has an object is necessary to its being labelled as an emotion, yet its causal independence depends, not on its having a causal object, but on the fact that the object happens, in this instance, to be an independently sufficient cause of its occurrence. {It is equally possible that the state at t2 which has its own nexus of independently sufficient causes is an M state.) Even in the sort of case just described, we can sometimes assign a weak dispositional role to the antecedent M state, say, in enhancing the emotion's intensity. Sometimes it will be true to say that, though Jo's emotion would have occurred anyway, his antecedent M state disposes him to feel that emotion with a greater intensity than he would otherwise have felt. We might perhaps regard this qualitative influence as insufficient for ascribing the M state a dispositional role in the philosophical sense, on the grounds that the conditional statements that define dispositions must predict the occurrence of a change of state. Just as fragility is defined by reference to conditions for the occurrence of x's shattering, so an M state perhaps cannot be assigned a dispositional role unless it is a condition of an emotion's occurring. We can concede this but, at the same time, we should observe that our ordinary language notion of dispositions applies even to the instance above. It makes sense to say that Jo's temper disposed him to feel more angry than he would otherwise have felt, even though it was not a condition of his getting angry. The qualitative influence of M states on emotions explains a feature of emotion often mentioned in emotion theory. It is claimed that an emotion is sometimes judged to be irrational because, though it is warranted by its object, its degree of intensity is unwarranted - is too little or too much.4 Yet, if Bill is more angry about Sarah's losing the message than is justified by her fault, we do not necessarily have to delve into the etiology of Bill's belief system in order to explain this excess, nor do we have to regard it

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as just a queer fact about him. In certain instances the disparity between object and feeling can be explained by the fact that the subject's anger, though it would have occurred anyway, is enhanced by some prior M state of temper he was already in. Similarly, it may be Jo's M state of melancholy that is sufficient to explain why one rejection slip, though disappointing in itself, becomes an object of such raw misery. There need be nothing wrong with Jo's belief system, or with his emotional repertoire and sensibilities. Explanation of the disparity by reference to a prior M state does not make the subsequent emotion any more rational. It merely provides a causal explanation of the intensity of the emotion, and its failing to match the object in this respect.

FORMATIVE FRAMES OF MIND

In the example given of Jo's depression about losing his job, the object conforms to the account of compelling objects given in Chapter 1. I argued there that it is a feature of emotions with compelling objects that they are caused by explanatory epistemic attitudes, that is to say, beliefs or knowledge which are sufficient to explain their occurrence. I also argued that certain emotions are based on non-explanatory epistemic attitudes. In these instances, belief or knowledge has a causal role in producing the emotion, but is not sufficient to explain its occurrence. Bain suggests that: as we pass from the highest order of certainty, through the stages of probability, down to the depths of total uncertainty, we come more and more under the domination of the physical and moral causes that maintain or destroy the cheerful, buoyant, and happy frame of mind. (p. 523, 1875)

We can link Bain's observations with non-explanatory epistemic attitudes by setting up the following scenario. Suppose that Sam, already in an M state of temper, arrives home to learn that p - 'his house mate has friends visiting' - and Sam becomes angry about p. He paces his bedroom cursing his house mate, feeling that he, Sam, has been deprived of a peaceful evening; it occurs to him that he wanted to watch TV and now he cannot because his sitting room is cluttered with strangers; and so on. Now p qualifies as a genuine object on the causal theorists conditions. It seems correct to describe the event of p as having a causal role in Sam's acquiring the knowledge that p, knowledge that, in turn, has a causal role in producing his anger about the fact that p. Yet knowing that p is not an explanatory epistemic attitude. 'Having friends to visit' is not a compelling anger object - it is not intrinsically

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offensive in any natural or moral sense. Hence Sam's knowing that pis not likely to be an independently sufficient cause of his being angry. It seems correct to claim that Sam's anger about p would probably not have occurred either had he not been in a prior M state of temper, or had he not acquired the knowledge that p. Here his prior M state and his subsequent knowledge have a status as independently necessary and jointly sufficient causal conditions of his being angry about p. The respective contributions of M state and subsequent knowledge can also be described in terms of immediate and significant causes, a significant cause being one that explains the efficacy of the immediate cause. 5 The antecedent M state is the significant cause of the anger because it explains the efficacy of the immediate cause - knowing that p - in producing the anger. This causal continuity can be said to apply to any instance of Case A where prior M state and subsequent object are independently necessary and jointly sufficient to cause an emotion. It applies, for example, to certain emotions based on non-epistemic attitudes such as seeing-as. The features of the man - his baggy trousers, sad painted face, and actions may have a necessary causal role in Jo's seeing him as a clown. Yet the aspect perception may be sufficient for him to feel amused only in conjunction with his already being in an M state of joviality. A negative M state such as melancholy may both prevent him from feeling amused, and also have a causal role in producing a corresponding emotional construal of the same clown as wistful and pathetic. Similarly consider Eliot's portrayal of the development of Hetty's feelings: [Dinah] kissed [her] and began to cry with her for grateful joy. But Hetty was simply in that excitable state of mind in which there is no calculating what turn the feelings may take from one moment to another, and for the first time she became irritated under Dinah's caress. She pushed her away impatiently and said with a childish sobbing voice, - 'Don't talk to me so, Dinah. Why do you come to frighten me? ... Why can't you let me be?' (p. 206, 1980)

Clearly Dinah's sympathetic behaviour is not a compelling or therefore independently sufficient cause for 'irritation'. Yet it has a causal role in directing Hetty's negative M state onto her and in transforming it into irritation with her. The dialogue suggests that what disposes Hetty to construe Dinah's act of kindness as somehow burdensome and malicious is her M state in conjunction with Dinah's behaviour. Though Dinah's behaviour has a causal role in producing Hetty's irritation, it is because it is an insufficient cause that it lacks explanatory adequacy. I have defined these instances of Case A as ones where the M state is independently necessary, and sufficient in conjunction with the object, to explain the emotion that ensues. In these instances the dispositional

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relationship between antecedent M state and emotion is clearly more intimate than one of qualitative influence, for the emotion has a considerable causal dependence on, and continuity with, the M state. First, the M state is a necessary condition of the existence of the resulting emotion. Since whatever other subsequent conditons needed to obtain, the subject would not have become emotional at t2 had he not been in a prior M state, then the M state has a necessary role in causing it to be the case that he experiences an emotion. Second, the M state has a necessary role in determining the identity of the emotion as of a particular type. Although Sam's knowing that p ('his house-mate has friends visiting') is an immediate cause of his emotion, it is not the object p, but the prior state of temper that explains why the emotion takes the form of anger in particular. Had Sam been in a state of elation prior top, he might have felt delighted that p. We have, in such instances, to look to the M state for a substantive explanation of the identity of the emotion as of a particular type. Instances where an M state is necessary for the occurrence, and responsible for the identity, of an emotion, highlight the fact that it has a special status not possessed by other contributory conditions, even where they also have a necessary role in producing the emotion. Factors such as Jo's feeling ill, or the temperature of the room, might sometimes be independently necessary causal conditions, in addition to his affective state of temper and the causal object p, of his flying into an angry rage. Yet, to assimilate both these kinds of cause and M states to the class of mere contributory conditions is to overlook crucial differences in the kind of relation they bear to the emotions they have a role in explaining. 'Feeling ill' and 'hot rooms' bear no conceptual relations to rage. By contrast, the M state of temper does bear a conceptual relation to rage because it is an affective state involving a cognitive stance or frame of mind that is identified by a construal of the same or a related kind, i.e., a conceptualization of experience as, in some way, irritating. The event of p merely modifies the frame of mind where it has a causal role in providing a fixed focus for an affective construal that was, prior to the event of p, undifferentiated. In this kind of instance the M state can be said to bear what I shall call a constitutive relation to the emotion. By this I mean that the emotion can be analysed as, in crucial respects, the product of the focusing of the M state - as an affective construal which has acquired a differentiated form . The conceptual links between M state and emotion are highlighted by instances where the M state's dispositional role is realized constitutively, for in such instances the affective conditions that qualify a state as an emotion of a particular type are already in place. They act in conjunction with, but are not caused by, contextual factors, or the object itself. So to

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ascribe a constitutive role to the M state is to transfer the burden of responsibility for explaining the occurrence and identity of the emotion from object to M state. The object is demoted to the status of an immediate condition which, perhaps along with others, merely contributes to the explanation of the realization of the M state's dispositional role. The points above also suggest that the criterion of sufficiency for some emotion objects cannot be established independently of the M state itself. If Jo is in a melancholy M state, then for some clown to be an independently sufficient cause of his feeling amused by it, it has to be amusing enough to override the M state, and what 'enough' amounts to clearly depends on how melancholy Jo is. There is a balance of causation here which governs the status of the object as one of sheer amusement, tempered amusement, or sadness. Similarly, though ordinary depression is usually more or less ready to be tempered or nullified by events that warrant a happier frame of mind, pathological depression, because of its greater strength, and sometimes integral role in the subject's personality, tends to be less susceptible or impervious to the emotional dictates of positive events. Again, the sufficiency of the object has to be measured against the nature and intensity of the M state in the context of which it is presented. This does not invalidate the concept of compelling objects. It merely suggests that when we are considering M state-influenced emotions as opposed to pure emotions, we may have to reassess the point on the affective continuum at which an object can be its compelling, independently sufficient cause.

A QUESTION ABOUT HARETON'S BEING THERE

The following sadly modern scenario of Bronte's captures the movement between M state and emotion, and the interplay of causes governing its nature and patterns of focusing. Her account of Hindley arriving home in a state of 'insane excitement' caused by his being 'rabid drunk' describes an M state, the cause of which is neurochemical. Because Hindley's excitement is known to Ellen, the nurse, to be a 'hazard [to] the lives of any who ... even attract his notice too much', she goes to hide little Hareton: [Hindley] entered, vociferating oaths dreadful to hear . . . 'Oh!' said he .. . 'I see that hideous little villain is not Hareton . . . if it be, he deserves flaying alive for not running to welcome me, and for screaming as if I were a goblin. Unatural cub, come hither! I'll teach thee to impose on a goodhearted, deluded father .. . By God, as if I would rear such a monster! As sure as I'm living, I'll break the brat's neck.' (pp. 114-5, 1%5)

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After this Draconian monologue, Hindley proceeds to dangle Hareton over the stair banister. In the scenario as Bronte elaborates it, it seems clear that, despite the major causal contribution of Hindley's volatile M state of 'insane excitement', poor Hareton becomes an object of his father's wrath. Of particular interest is her reference to 'attract[ing] notice' for it alludes, with irony, to 'the crime of being there' that may incite the emotional focusing of such a state, and hence to a question about whether Hareton's being noticed can be regarded as a cause at all. The account alludes to there being at least an ambiguity about Hareton's causal status. Since his screaming and failing to run and welcome his father indicates fear, we might interpret his actions as having a role in causing Hindley's angry feelings. Though 'fear of a parent' is a morally disturbing object of parental anger, it can be a causal object none the less. However, we can adapt one of the scenarios described in Chapter 2 such that it conforms to Broad's description of 'crossness crystallising into anger', and in which a causal object is not ascribable. Suppose that, whilst in a temper, Jim storms into the office of his secretary, and fumes at her, accusing her, all in the same breath, of being 'lazy, arrogant, ungrateful, and inept', whilst thumping his fist on the desk and shaking his paperwork in her face. In order to avoid causally implicating the secretary in any way we must assume that she has made no mistakes whatsoever. On the contrary, she is in all respects - in manner, appearance, job performance, professional allegiance, etc. impeccable. We should perhaps also assume that she remains blameless that she sits stoical and motionless throughout Jim's diatribe, without a murmur or trembling lip. Stoicism is her best policy for she is, and knows she is, helpless against his determination to be angry with her. Similarly, consider a case where Sam is experiencing an M state of depression which, after a time, targets itself onto his relationship. Nothing about the relationship itself causes him to feel depressed about it. He simply comes to focus blindly on it, construing his partner as indifferent towards himself, the friendship as doomed, and so on. When asked at t2 what the matter is, he reports that he feels depressed about the relationship, and his other verbal and physical behaviour corroborates the report.

APPLICATION OF THE CAUSAL THEORIES OF OBJECTS

One way of characterizing these instances of Case A can be inferred from the causal theorists' conditions of objecthood previously outlined. From these conditions it would seem to follow that if the objects (or thoughts about them) do not have a causal role in the focusing of the M states in

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question, then they are not genuine objects. That causal theorists are liable to analyse my illustrations in this way can be inferred from certain analogies between the role of the M state and their analyses of phenomena to which it stands in a similar relation. Gordon argues that if anger, for example, is not caused by the subject's beliefs about the object but instead 'directly' (p. 30, 1974) by a drug, then, though it may seem to him to have an object, it does not in fact. Similarly, Pears asserts that if amusement were drug-induced 'the real cause [would] not also function as the real object. Consequently, the feeling of amusement, in this contingency, would not really have an object' (p. 111, 1962). The reasoning here is that the status of the drug as the sole and sufficient cause of the affective state, logically deprives the object of any causal role. My scenarios follow a similar pattern, for in them we can identify the M state as, like the drug, either itself independently necessary and sufficient or, at least, as causally responsible, in conjunction with other factors aside from the object, for the focusing that ensues. From our identification of these causes we can infer that the 'object' has no causal role. How, at this point, we characterize these instances of Case A, depends on how we interpret the causal view. A problem with Wilson's view is that it is not clear whether he regards the causal conditions he outlines as conditions simply of objecthood, or also of emotionhood (Aquila 1974). Given the logical connection, generally accepted, between x's being an emotion and its having an object then, from whatever conditions of objecthood we employ, we usually take it as following that, if x fails these conditions, it is not an emotion. Certainly, other causal theorists seem to regard the ascription of an object that fulfils their conditions as necessary to a state's qualifying as emotion. Though, as we saw earlier, Rorty refers to the hormonally induced state she describes, as an 'emotion' with 'targets', her faith in this description seems to waver where in a footnote she says: It is common in such circumstances to deny the attribution, saying of an adrenally charged person, 'Oh, he isn't angry; it's just glands.' Sometimes, at any rate, we shy away from attributing an emotion because the person's condition hasn't got the right sort of causal history. (footnote 20, p. 125, 1980)

Rorty seems to be claiming here that the term 'emotion' would not commonly be attributed to this kind of state because it lacks the right sorts of causal relations for its targets to qualify as genuine objects. Similarly, Gordon claims that since anger is necessarily objectual, then if it lacks 'the right causal structure' (p. 35, 1974), it c.a nnot qualify as anger. If we assume, with Gordon, that anger is necessarily objectual, then since,

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in my elaboration of Broad's account, the 'object' to which Jim's temper attaches has no causal role, it follows that Broad is simply mistaken in labelling the attachment as 'anger' with 'object', for there is no causal relation to justify either title. On this reasoning, since other affective states of this sort, such as the depression in my second scenario, also fail to acquire causal objects, then presumably they too fail to elevate themselves to the status of emotions. So what kinds of state are they? One way causal theorists might characterize them is as states that continue as mere (or pure) M states. Since they do not acquire real, i.e., causal, emotion objects, their behaviour can be explained simply as random, projective ventings of feeling. It follows that if we cannot ascribe causal objects to these instances of Case A, then we cannot characterize them as emotional, i.e., objectual, states that are realizations of the M state's dispositional role. Like the approaches discussed previously, this view leads to a characterization in which no dispositional role need be ascribed. Rorty's remark also alludes to another way of characterizing the phenomena, more radical than as mere M states. It suggests that if hormonal imbalance is the sole cause of the state, then it not only fails to become an objectual, emotion state, but is not any kind of affective state at all; it is 'just glands'.6 Aside from whether Rorty is correct in denying objecthood to such instances, she is, for reasons already given, wrong to deny the existence of any kind of affective state. Even if the adrenally charged state did lack a genuine object, it would not, in virtue of this, be 'just glands', but most likely an M state of temper or anxiety. So our assessments of such instances as 'just glands ' would not necessarily support the radical conclusion. What we may mean is simply that the affective state is caused by glands. The patient who complains to the doctor of anxiety attacks will not be consoled by a diagnosis of the form 'your condition is caused entirely by glandular malfunction; so you see you are not really anxious, you just think you are'. Moreover, it is not clear that our avoidance of emotion attributions here is as common as Rorty asserts. As argued earlier, it is M states themselves, not their particular, e.g., physiochemical, causes, that have an emotion-inducing disposition; and though, in certain instances, objects are not causally implicated in the realization of the M state's dispositional role, this does not invalidate their characterization as emotion objects.

GENERATIVE FRAMES OF MIND

To describe these instances of Case A as ones in which an M state's disposition to induce an emotion is realized, requires that there is some

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realized state satisfying those conditions of objecthood that entitle us to classify it as an emotion. In Chapter 2 I argued that a necessary condition of object possession is that the subject's thought and behaviour be appropriately differentiated with respect to an independently identifiable item; it is not a necessary conditon of object possession that the item have a causal role in producing the emotion. As we move from the compelling to the blind end of the emotion continuum, it can be assigned decreasing causal relevance. The object has a causal role in producing emotions determined by explanatory epistemic attitudes, but need not have a causal role in producing blind emotions. This allows that there are instances of Case A to which we cannot ascribe a causal object, but which do not necessarily have the forms dictated by the causal view, e.g., the form of a pure M state. Since the items in these illustrations of Case A are not causal objects, it follows that they are neither independently nor jointly sufficient to cause the emotions in question. Nevertheless, the M states involved can still be said to realize their disposition to acquire objects, because they acquire a form that satisfies the requisite conditions of objecthood. In the 'temper' scenario, for example, Jim's feelings qualify as 'blind rage with the secretary', for though she is not causally implicated in the focusing of his state, she is its victim or target, the object with respect to which his thought and behaviour becomes differentiated. The objects in these scenarios are appositely labelled as targets, but not for all the causal theorist's reasons. Rorty seems to draw a distinction between targets and genuine, i.e., causal, objects, as does Marshall in his reference to the 'substitute' for the 'real object' that is a mere 'venting' of an 'existing' state (p. 210, 1980). For causal theorists, it is because only causal objects are genuine objects that, in this sort of instance, the ascription of a mere target to the state would preserve its identity as a mere M state. However, as argued in Chapter 2, we can concede that such targets are non-causal, without denying their objecthood. Jim's blind fury is about (with) his secretary, no less than blind adoration is of the loved one. In these instances of Case A, the term 'target' has a useful semantic role in identifying the object as a non-causal product of the differential focusing of the M state. I chose to illustrate these instances by elaborating on Broad's account quoted earlier, because his metaphor of a state 'crystallising' suggests that he regards what he is describing as a targetting of some kind. The metaphor can certainly be interpreted this way. If this is what Broad meant, then the points above suggest that he was neither misguided in describing the state as acquiring an 'object', nor being careless or confused in his terminological transition from 'crossness' to 'anger'. His terminology captures the fact that we label such affective frames of mind

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as 'anger (or ra,%e) with object' when they come to exhibit the requisite differentiation. These emotions also bear a constitutive relation to their antecedent M states, for they are emotional focusings embedded in the undifferentiated affective frames of mind that give rise to them. A state that began as an objectless affective construal acquires an objectual, emotional form via the construal's acquiring a fixed, differential focus on an item, such that it is legitimate to describe the state as coming to be about that item. These M state-constituted ·emotions differ from those previously described only in that the M state's constitutive development into the emotion is not mediated by a causal object. Though the object has no causal role in these instances of Case A, it would be wrong to infer that the ascription of an M state is itself independently necessary and sufficient to explain the emotion. To say that the M state 's dispositional role is realized in the manner just described is to say that the conditions, external and/or internal, that are required to explain the realization of its dispositional role, do not include a causal object. Factors external to the M state need not have a role in explaining the realization of its dispositional role. The realization of the dispositional role of a fit of temper or depression is sometimes adequately explained by reference to internal factors such as the state's level of intensity, a point conveyed in expressions such as 'Anne became furious with the secretary because she was in such a temper that morning'; 'Sam became despondent about his marriage because he had been feeling so depressed'. Intensity can be the crucial variable that decides whether or not an M state's emotion-inducing disposition will be realized. In other instances we need to appeal to conditions external to the M state to explain the realization of its dispositional role. As noted earlier, we might need to include factors such as 'the heat in the room' in our explanation of the constitutive development of Jim's temper into blind rage with the secretary. To appeal to these kinds of cause is compatible with the claim that relevant conditions need not include reference to a causal object though, because factors such as 'hot rooms', like 'degree of intensity', are not themselves objects of the state. They can contribute to the explanation of the realization of the M state's dispositional role, but they are not what it is, or comes to be, about. The same kinds of causal pattern can be said typically to underlie the realization of the dispositional role of the emotions in Case B. It is plausible to assert that when we describe an emotion as 'putting' or 'leaving' the subject in an M state, we typically mean that it at least carries the burden of causal responsibility for explaining the M state that ensues, and that the M state lacks its own independent causal nexus. The role of the emotion here can be said to parallel the constitutive role

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possessed by M states in certain instances of Case A. To say that the subject's emotion about p put or left him in an M state q> is typically to imply that the emotion constitutes q>, by which I mean that q> will have the form of an undifferentiated affective construal, the existence and type identity of which is granted by the emotion. It is Catherine's sorrow about Henry's absence that is the generator of her M state - that explains its existence and its identity as a sorrowful or 'melancholy' state (Austen). Again, to say that the disposition of emotions to induce M states is typically realized constitutively, is compatible with its being realized only under certain conditions. It might be the causal object, Henry, in conjunction with factors such as 'the Abbey', being the context in which Catherine's sorrow is experienced, that explains the realization of its disposition to constitute an M state of melancholy. Yet we should observe that the claim above, that the conditions which explain the realization of an affective disposition do not necessarily include reference to a causal object, also applies to Case B. Sometimes where an emotion has a causal object, then it will be included as one of the factors that explain the realization of the emotion's disposition to induce an M state. It might be true to say that Catherine's M state of melancholy would not have been realized had her sorrow been caused by some object other than Henry, even if other conditions such as 'being at the Abbey' remained the same; but as with M states, a causal object is not necessarily implicated for various reasons. Clearly, where an emotion is blind, then reference to a causal object need not be included in the set of relevant conditions. To reverse a scenario described earlier, no causal object would be implicated in the development of Jim's blind rage with the secretary into general irascibility. Yet even where an emotion can be ascribed a causal object, it does not necessarily have a role amongst the conditions that explain the realization of the emotion's disposition to induce an M state. To explain this claim we need to observe a distinction between causal conditions implicated in the realization of x's dispositional role, and causal conditions that explain the occurrence of x. We can agree that a causal object might explain the occurrence of an emotion, but it does not follow that it has a role in explaining the realization of that emotion's dispositional role. To take a parallel case, it might be nicotine deprivation that causes Jim to get in a temper, but something quite different, e.g. , the temperature in the room, that causes his temper to develop into anger. Similarly, it might be the news that made Anne happy, but the context in which the happiness was felt that triggers the realization of its disposition to an M state of cheerfulness. In this case it would be true to say that had the subject not been in this context, then the disposition of his happiness

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to generate cheerfulness would not have been realized, furthermore that, given this context, then the emotion 's dispositional role would be realized, irrespective of what object happened to cause the emotion. In this kind of instance the object contributes to the explanation of the emotion's occurrence, but not to the explanation of the realization of its dispositional role. Similarly, in the instance described earlier of an emotion that, guided by a latent propensity, triggers an M state, the propensity is a condition external to the emotion that is independently necessary, and sufficient in conjunction with the emotion, to induce the state. Yet the propensity is not the emotion's object, and what the emotion happens to be about (the hostile stare), though a causal object, is non-essential to the explanation of the M state that ensues. It seems true to say that, given the subject's latent propensity, then his emotion will generate an M state, whether or not it has a causal object and, if it has a causal object, irrespective of which particular causal object it has. Again, as with Case A, the conditions via which an emotion's dispositional role is realized can be purely internal. Sometimes factors such as the object, the subject's latent propensities, and the circumstances of the emotion, are irrelevant to the explanation of its constitutive development into an M state, this change being adequately explained by, e.g., its level of felt intensity. We can allow that the factors listed might have caused the requisite level of intensity, but again, it does not follow that such 'conditions of occurrence' are also relevant to the dispositional role of the occurrence. In some instances, level of intensity need be the only crucial explanatory variable, the presence or absence of which decides whether or not the emotion's dispositional role will be realized. For such instances it will be true to say that the emotion will realize an M state just in case it is felt to that extent, irrespective of what caused it to be felt to that extent.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

My aim in this chapter has been to examine certain relationships between emotions and M states. Two kinds of case I outlined for consideration were Case A which describes M states followed by emotions, and Case B, being the reverse case. Before examining these relationships it was firstly necessary to show that Cases A and B concern phenomena to which a substantive relationship of some kind can be ascribed. In defence of this I argued that the phenomena in question could not be analysed, in every instance, as realizations of purely emotional dispositions, as emotions which lose or acquire consciousness of their objects, or as pure M states.

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Having distinguished various uses of the concept of affective dispositions, I suggested that a substantive relationship between emotions and M states derives from the dispositional role they each possess as felt, occurrent, affective states. They have a propensity, realized under certain conditions, to acquire an object or become objectless; and it is typically the realization of this kind of dispositional role that Cases A and B describe. I went on to examine certain causal patterns underlying instances of Cases A and B that explain some significant ways in which the dispositional role of the affective states concerned is realized. In using a causal framework as a means of elucidating these dispositional relations, rather than as a theory of emotion objects, we obtain a more complex but more plausible picture. I proposed that even where emotions have an independently sufficient causal object, antecedent M states can be assigned a disposition to influence their intensity; this qualitative influence has a philosophically interesting bearing on the explanation of affect where it can show why emotions fail to be rational in some respect. A more intimate relation between emotions and M states that I considered applies to those instances in which the disposition is realized constitutively. I defined constitutively realized affective dispositions as ones which have, at least, a necessary role in explaining the occurrence and the identity of the resulting affective state. Constitutive relations between the two modes of affect, I suggested, reveal the sense in which their continuities are both causal and conceptual. I subdivided this constitutive mode of realization into two types, one in which a causal object does feature, and another in which it does not feature, amongst the conditions which explain the realization of the disposition. I went on to demonstrate the symmetry of this distinction by showing how it applies both to Case A and Case B. In order to provide a manageable framework for understanding the dispositional relations between emotions and M states, it was necessary to isolate specific cases and causal patterns. As I have sought to show, certain instances will conform to Cases A and B and involve the causal relations discussed. However, in being selective, the picture presented is inevitably somewhat artificial. In practice, the dispositional relations between the two modes of affect can be said to embrace degrees of causal dependence and continuity, ranging from qualitative influence through to constitution of one mode by another. Also, the dispositional relations between the two modes of affect will often be interactive such that Cases A and B represent phases of an ongoing sequence. Generalizing, we can say that, of the two modes of affect occurring in such a sequence, each can be assigned degrees of causal responsibility for explaining the occurrence, identity, and quality of the mode that follows. As intimated throughout this chapter, the contribution made by M

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states to the explanation of emotions can be aligned with the continuum described in Chapter 1. The arguments presented point to a correlation between the distance of an emotion from the domain of compelling objects, i.e., objects causally sufficient to explain it, and its susceptibility to the influence of a prior M state. It follows that the closer an emotion is to the blind end of the continuum the more vulnerable it is to the modifying or constituting forces of the subject's prevailing M state. M states need not, of course, be implicated in the occurrence of blind emotions; yet in certain instances, their role is central. Blind rage, elation, hate, anxiety, joy, sadness, depression, and so on, sometimes need to be explained as emotional focusings or targettings, constituted by the M affective frames of mind in which they arise. My aim in the next chapter is, amongst other things, to consider some implications for our understanding of affect that can be derived from the dispositional relationships between emotions and M states examined here.

NOTES

1. Rorty goes on to say that 'the best thing to do with this sort of objection is to

accept it gracefully. It is after all true' (p. 117, 1980). In the next chapter I show why she treats neurophysical explanation as an objection to her view. 2. Some endogenous neurophysical factors implicated in the pathogenesis of M states are as follows: REM sleep deprivation has been found to cause irritability and anxiety (Vogel 1975, Agnew et al. 1967, Faber and Havdrova 1981, Fowler et al. 1973). Depression has been linked with slow wave sleep deprivation (Agnew et al. 1967). Other endogenous neurophysical causes of depression are brain damage secondary to alcoholism (Ashton 1987), decreased neuronal metabolism such as blood flow (Mathew et al. 1980), altered brain concentration of certain monoamines, receptor sensitivity and density. Bipolar depressions, for example, have been linked with catecholamine depletion (Stein 1968, Olds 1977). The pathogenesis of both unipolar and bipolar depression is associated with reduced serotonin activity, and low density of serotonin uptake sites (Langer and Briley 1981, Langer 1984). Other endogenous factors are endocrinal changes such as those resulting from disturbances of hypothalmic pituitary functions. Cushing 's disease, Addison 's disease, hyperparathyroidism and hypopituitarism, for example, are causally implicated in depression and elation (Ashton 1987). Exogenous neurophysical factors such as tricyclic anti-depressants, cocaine, hepatitis, influenza, organic solvents, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and agonists such as amphetamine, are alleged to cause the same kinds of affective states because they cause the same changes in central neurotransmitter concentration and synaptic receptivity. Tricyclic anti-depressants, for example, cause euphoria by increasing activity in catecholaminergic brain systems. Conversely, as noted earlier, depression can be caused by drugs that deplete catecholamines or monoamines. Ashton asserts that the 'biochemical changes ... that accompany (and sometimes precede) bipolar affective disorders

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provide strong evidence for the primacy of emotional rather than cognitive factors . All recent investigations point to the primary involvement of limbic rather than cortical pathways in depressive disorders' {p. 296, 1987). There is some evidence that the biochemical basis of depression, where it has one, can itself be genetically inherited. For example, studies of twins reared together and separately, showed a significantly higher concordance on depression ratings for identicals than for fraternals in both conditions. For a review of this kind of research see Deakin {1986). The precise extent to which neurophysical propensities to depression are inherited is not yet known, of course; also the genetic contribution is likely to be greatest for clinical depressions such as manic-depressive psychosis. See Marshall {1980, p. 210), Pears (1962, p. 100). Pitcher (p. 331, 1965), Taylor (p. 393, 1975), Green (p. 40, 1972). Gosling (p. 291, 1962), Rorty, (p. 106, 1980). Gordon arrives at a similarly radical conclusion: Because symptomatic anger that is not about anything is so rare . .. we do not have a contrasting term that enables us to say, 'This is not true anger but at most . . . . ' Were such cases to become common ... they would . .. most likely [acquire] a name that clearly marks the state as a disease. (p. 35, 1974)

We can agree that anger is a necessarily objectual state. But Gordon seems blind to the point that 'symptomatic anger' is an ordinary state for which we have a variety of 'contrasting terms' such as 'temper', 'irascibility', and 'irritability'. His reference to the condition as 'a disease' suggests that he is in the thrall of the objectual view. 7. The account proposed resolves the dilemma which arises in cases where: we do not know whether to say that something is the cause or the object . .. The leader of a country at war learns that yet another position has been lost, through the incompetence of his generals. He goes white and rigid . . . and then bawls at his secretary for standing around doing nothing. Now do we say that the cause of his anger was the incompetence of the generals, but that its object was the secretary? . . . Or do we say that the object of his anger is in fact the generals' incompetence, but that he vents his spleen (whatever exactly that means) on his secretary? {Ellis, p. 203, 1970) On my account we do not have to choose which is the object. Both the 'incompetence of the generals' and 'the secretary' are objects, subject to their both satisfying the proposed conditions of objecthood. The first object is both a causal object and, given that the subject would not have become angry with the secretary had he not been angry with the generals, is also causally implicated in his being angry with the secretary. Whether we want ascribe a causal role to the second object depends on how we view 'standing around doing nothing '.

CHAPTER FIVE

EXPLAINING AFFECTIVE LIFE

INTRODUCTION: THE PRESUMPTION OF BASIC RATIONALITY

In this chapter I want to consider some implications that my arguments have for the 'presumption of basic rationality' (Greenspan, p. 163, 1981} in contemporary emotion theory, specifically the standard view and neocognitivism. During the course of this discussion I shall consolidate some of the main points made previously. Before describing the presumption of basic rationality we need to outline the concept of rationality at issue. 1 The kind of rationality I shall be discussing is cognitive rationality, which can be clarified by contrasting it with strategic rationality. The assessment of an emotion's strategic rationality focuses on the value of its consequences for our goals and interests. Fear of real dangers is strategically rational because, in assisting survival, it protects our interests. The assessment of an emotion's cognitive rationality, by contrast, concerns its relation to the cognitions that enter into its explanation. Fear of x is cognitively rational if we can ascribe to the subject an attitude, such as the belief that x is dangerous, in view of which the emotion can be assessed as reasonable. Assessments of strategic rationality concern the utility of an emotion in view of its consequences; assessments of cognitive rationality concern the reasonableness of an emotion in relation to its attitudinal origins. In distinguishing their position from the standard view, neocognitivists tend to shift between the view that emotions require the ascription of a different kind of cognitive rationality, and the view that they have strategic rationality. As I shall not be concerned here with strategic rationality, I shall ignore these difficulties. It is sufficient for my purposes to show that, despite their equivocations, neo-cognitivists regard emotions as having some kind of basic, cognitive rationality. Henceforward I shall use the term 'rationality' to refer to cognitive rationality. The notion of basic rationality can be clarified by outlining the

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ascriptions of what I shall call actual rationality and actual irrationality in which basic rationality is presupposed. An emotion, e.g., fear, is actually rational if the following two conditions obtain: it is based on an attitude that warrants it, such as the belief that x is dangerous, a warranting attitude being one that provides a good reason for the emotion; the emotion-warranting attitude is itself warranted, either because it is true, or because the subject has good reasons for holding it. Even if Jo had been misinformed by a trusted authority about the dangers of x, since this kind of testimony gives him good reasons for holding his belief, his fear still qualifies as actually rational. The objects of emotions that enjoy this dual warrant, I shall call 'proper objects'. De Sousa (1987) applies the notion of basic rationality to action as follows. An action x, though it may be actually irrational under some description, is basically rational if we can ascribe to the subject the 'desire to x' for, in the light of just this desire, then 'doing x' is minimally rational. In explaining the action by appeal to the desire we provide a 'true description [under which] it can properly ... be said to be . .. rational' (p. 160, 1987). The relation between emotions and cognitive attitudes enables us to apply the notion of basic rationality in a similar way. Following de Sousa, I shall focus on particular attitudes within a subject's attitude set, not the set as a whole (viz. 'all things considered', Davidson, p. 39, 1980). Though Jo's fear of x would be actually irrational if his belief that x is dangerous is not warranted, the fear retains its basic rationality if we can, at least, ascribe to him the belief that x is dangerous, for it minimally warrants the fear, i.e. provides the narrow context in which it can be deemed reasonable. So basic rationality can be defined as a minimal condition of an emotion's being cognitively rational, and as presupposed in its assessment as actually rational or irrational. A fortiori, a state which lacks basic rationality is one that is not assessable as actually rational or irrational. It is, strictly speaking, arational. For example, causal relations between purely physical processes such as those involved in digestion lack basic rationality, that is to say, are arational. From this preliminary discussion we can obtain a more precise definition of the presumption of basic rationality in emotion theory. It can be defined as the view that, for all types t that are members of the class of emotions E, and, at least, for paradigm instances

can be ascribed basic, cognitive rationality, that is to say, can be linked to a cognitive attitude on the basis of which it can be assessed as minimally reasonable. I have applied this view to paradigm, rather than all, instances of q> since, as a weaker view, it is more plausible, and any problems with it consequently more interesting. The commitment to basic rationality is not explicit in the standard view. I have linked the two firstly because, as I go on to show, this

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commitment is clearly expressed in broader statements of the cognitive tradition of which the standard view is a central and crucial part. Second, as should be clear, ascriptions of basic rationality follow logically from the standard view in that the epistemic attitudes which an emotion ascription is held to entail also provide a basis for the emotion which secures its basic rationality. Thus, Jo's anger about his stolen car is actually rational if the belief it entails, i.e., 'my car has been stolen', is warranted by some information, and actually irrational if it is unwarranted. Even if the anger is actually irrational, it is still basically rational since the belief entailed provides a narrow context in which the emotion can be assessed as reasonable. It is plausible to suggest that the presumption of basic rationality is not made explicit in the standard view primarily because it is taken for granted; and that the reason why it is articulated by neo-cognitivists is because they take themselves to be offering an account of emotional rationality which, in deviating from the standard view, begins to require further justification. Though some neo-cognitivists, notably Rorty {1980), allow that emotions can be based on epistemic attitudes, as we saw in Chapter 1, neo-cognitivists distinguish themselves from the standard view by their rejection of the centrality of epistemic attitudes in the analysis of emotion. The role of basic rationality in neo-cognitivism is more complex because neo-cognitivists interpret the 'reconciliation of the emotions and rationality more broadly, without reconstructing the intentional component of an emotion as a judgement in propositional form' (Rorty, p. 5, 1980). Consequently they have to extend the notion of cognitive rationality to accommodate the non truth-valuational nature of the attitudes they use to characterize certain emotions. A concept that features commonly in neo-cognitivist accounts, and that helps to explain their extended notion of cognitive rationality, is 'appropriateness',2 'An emotion is appropriate if and only if the evoking object ... wa"ants the emotion (de Sousa, p.133, 1980). Support by some (adequate) reasons is enough for appropriateness; so contrary emotions might both be appropriate and hence ... basically rational' (Greenspan, p. 236, 1980a). These claims can plausibly be interpreted as connecting appropriateness with a notion of reasonableness which is not confined to specifically epistemic, truth-valuational attitudes. As argued in Chapter 1, the non-epistemic attitudes which neo-cognitivists ascribe to emotions can show them to be reasonable. So, for example, joy inspired by hearing a piece of music as a triumphal celebration can be called appropriate in this sense, because it is based on an aspect perception which shows it to be reasonable. It is reasonable because the aspect perception, though not truth-valuational, is of a kind that we regard as warranting responses such as joy.

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Granted that such emotions are reasonable, they can be said to qualify as rational; moreover, since the assessment looks backwards to attitudinal determinants, not forward to consequences, the rationality ascribed is specifically cognitive. This extended notion of cognitive rationality assumes the same kind of relation between actual and basic rationality as the epistemic rationality of the standard view. For neo-cognitivists, an emotion is basically rational if we can, at least, ascribe to it a warranting attitude, say, an aspect perception, in view of which it is minimally reasonable; and it is actually rational if the attitude is itself warranted as, at least, a viable interpretation of the object. It might be thought that the neo-cognitivist's notion of rationality is ultimately defeated by those anomalous emotions in which they show special interest. Phobic fear need involve no determining beliefs, in which case it lacks basic, epistemic rationality; but as neo-cognitivists themselves emphasize, it need not involve any determining attitudes, in which case it is not clear that it can be ascribed any kind of basic rationality. Yet, rather than abandoning the presumption of basic rationality at this point, neo-cognitivists extend it still further by claiming that anomalous emotions also typically have basic rationality which can be secured historically. According to de Sousa: an emotion can be assessed for its intrinsic rationality - a kind of correctness or incorrectness - in terms of the resemblance between a presenting situation and a paradigm [or learning] scenario (p. 201, 1987). The minimal rationality of[anomalous] emotions must be sought in terms of the scenario unconsciously evoked. (p. 146, 1980)

His view seems to be that where an emotion is anomalous, it will typically be possible to trace a (paradigm) object by which it was originally warranted, and that is 'relevantly similar' (p. 188, 1987) to the object it subsequently acquires (see also Baier, 1987). Thus the 'minimal appropriateness' (p. 188, 1987) and basic rationality of anomalous emotions is preserved by the relevant similarity between their presenting objects and the paradigm objects via which they were originally learnt. It is not entirely clear that minimal rationality can survive in this kind of historical explanation. However, my concern here is not to assess the validity of such explanations. For my purposes it is sufficient to show that they are endorsed by neo-cognitivists. The commitment to basic rationality in Rorty's (1980) historical account is less explicit than de Sousa's; yet it can certainly be interpreted this way. She claims that, for anomalous emotions, it is typically possible to trace a psychosomatic, sometimes early, event that is its 'significant cause' (p. 106, 1980). This, she claims, either is, or later falls under a description in which it is, an intentional state which is linked in an

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explanatory way with the anomalous emotion. Rorty seems to regard this explanatory link as both causal and, in some sense, cognitively rational. The historical account that links the anomalous emotion with its significant cause provides the emotion's 'rationale' (p. 104) by explaining the 'coherent appropriateness of the formation of .. . [the] intentional system' (p. 104) on which it is based. In tracing these intentional relations we adopt a 'modified version of the principle of charity' (p. 104) which 'presupposes . .. that we have a certain gravitational attraction towards truth ' (p. 111 ). The account provides an explanation of 'why a reasonable person might, in a perfectly reasonable way, have developed an intentional set that, as it happens, generates wildly askew interpretations and reactions' (p. 111 ). These remarks indicate that Rorty extends basic rationality to anomalous emotions, for they suggest that the formative intentional state which is etiologically linked with the subsequent anomalous emotion shows it to be (minimally) reasonable. Her account, like de Sousa's, can be said to extend the notion of basic rationality contained in the standard view, to accommodate non-epistemic emotions and the exigencies of individual histories and attitude formation . The arguments presented in previous chapters allow that some emotion instances can be explained as basically rational. Instances determined by epistemic attitudes imply the ascription of basic, and sometimes actual, rationality; instances determined by non-epistemic attitudes, as suggested above, can be deemed rational in the neo-cognitivist's extended sense ; and the basic rationality of some blind emotions can, no doubt, be adequately explained using the historical account. However, the arguments presented so far challenge the presumption that basic rationality is a central feature of affect. Before pursuing this claim we need to articulate some of the motivations behind this presumption, henceforward, for brevity, called the rationality principle.

MOTIVATIONS FOR THE RATIONALITY PRINCIPLE

One intellectual motive behind the rationality principle is corrective. It aims to counterbalance earlier influential theories of affect as primitive, non-cognitive states such as instincts (Shand 1914) or purely visceral processes Qames 1884, 1890), and as dysfunctional phenomena disruptive of higher mental life (Watson 1929, Young 1961). The corrective aim is to show that affect has a legitimate role in higher mental life. This aim is supported by focusing theoretical attention on the rational constraints that govern affective states. There is also a moral impetus behind the rationality principle. According to some, emotions can, in certain

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instances, be regarded as morally desirable.3 The ascription of cognitive rationality would seem to be presupposed in certain expositions of this view, namely, those in which the moral status of the emotion derives from its guidance by, and exhibition of, moral understanding or cognizance of rights, and the acts that support or violate them (see, for example, Taylor 1975). It is important to articulate these motives because they help to explain the influence of the rationality principle in current theories; also because, as suggested earlier, the imperspicuity of affect renders it vulnerable to characterizations that support extrinsic theoretical interests. Affect has few starkly incontrovertible features capable of standing ground against what, at a given time, we want it to be. As imperspicuous and, at the same time, an 'emotive issue', it tends to be a good mirror of prevailing intellectual and moral values. This is not to deprive current theories of their insights, but to alert us to their tendency to marginalize counterexamples. The rationality principle exemplifies this tendency where affective states that provide the central arena of philosophical interest are those that conform most clearly to the principle; whereas those that fit less well, such as M states and dispositionally related emotions are, by the logic of the objectual view or of the causal theory of objects, excluded in various ways. The intellectual and moral motivations behind the rationality principle are conveyed in Tanner's illuminating invectives: [affect] in the void of unfocussed emotion .. . (p. 141) existing prior to any object fitting or unfitting, and therefore always ready to latch onto the first even faintly plausible candidate [is a] disorderliness of[ the] emotional life . . . (p. 138}, [a] disease of the feelings .. . (p. 140} An inner life which is self-generating . . . is corrupting and dangerous. (p. 144, 1976-7}

M states and dispositionally related emotions are viewed as posing a threat to the intellectual and moral desiderata for civilized affective life because they are deemed to have those features - corruption, disorder and disease - that were traditionally ascribed to affect in general, and that violate the rationality principle upon which the desiderata depends.4 Anger arising out of 'the void' of the 'unfocused', 'self-generating' 'inner life' clearly stands to lose its rational and moral credibility. The following remark by Browning can be read as voicing the rationalists response to the problem posed by these phenomena: 'cases of a mood latching on to an approximate object we feel .. . is pathological. The kinds of emotions with which we should normally be concerned in aesthetics and morals [are] emotions .. . grounded in . .. object[s]' (p. 267, 1959). Browning's remark is interesting because his use of the terms 'pathological' and 'should normally' slides between prescription and description in a manner

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redolent of the tendency noted earlier towards self-fulfilling theories of affect. 5 By 'grounded in objects' he can be taken as meaning 'having a proper object'. That we 'should' be concerned with these alone is unashamedly prescriptive; but 'should' makes an insidious bid for fact here in its attachment to 'normally', the conjunction implying that our intellectual and moral desiderata are secured because the instances that support them are fortuitously paradigmatic. Similarly, 'pathological', like Tanner's 'disease', condenses a spectrum of descriptive and prescriptive connotations - atypical, abnormal, unhealthy, harmful, deviant, undesirable - into a single term. It is important to distinguish these connotations since nothing follows from the desirability or otherwise of M states and dispositionally related emotions about the extent of their occurrence. Even if they are somehow undesirable, this is no licence for marginalizing them. Indeed, if, as Tanner and Browning fear, they are the bane of civilized affective life, then surely only by recognizing them could we hope to transcend or control their allegedly 'corrupting' and 'dangerous' influence. It is not even clear that they are, in general, harmful, except perhaps to the rationality principle. So we need to evaluate the principle with respect to the analyses presented so far . I shall begin with M states and then consider dispositionally related emotions. Some of the points that have been raised, in particular those in connection with the moral role of affect, and the concept of the good in affect, will be considered in the light of the conclusions reached.

BASIC RATIONALITY AND M STATES

The rationality principle gains credibility where its exponents focus on those kinds of affect, i.e., objectual, emotion states, that best illustrate the principle. The strongest argument for this selective interest, namely the objectual view, I argued in Chapter 2, is untenable. It is not the case that the concept of affect is of a necessarily objectual state. I proposed an object continuum representing degrees of independence from the concept of an object exhibited by different affective types. Points on the continuum which I discussed were the paradigmatically objectual domain, occupied by types such as anguish, fear and dread; the middle position domain (happiness, exuberance, depression, sadness, temper, anxiety, euphoria, elation, joy, high spirits, distress); the paradigmatically objectless domain (melancholy, cheerfulness, dolefulness, contentment, listlessness, sullenness); and the necessarily objectless domain (peacefulness, ennui, joviality, mellowness, ebullience, vivacity, buoyancy). That all but necessarily objectual types have objectless or M

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state instances suggests that a significant proportion of our affective life falls outside the rationalist's domain of inquiry, and that our understanding of affect is distorted by the centrality given to emotion. M states limit the scope of the rationality principle because typically they lack basic rationality. In Chapter 3 I argued that M states qualify as cognitive insofar as they are thought-dependent - are patterns of conceptualization characterizable as modes of construing experience; they are not, however, governed by the the inference rules that guide ratiocination and practical reasoning. The items subsumed within the purview of M experience are indiscriminate, undifferentiated and lack logical connections. It might be thought that the ascription of affective construals to M states provides a narrow context in which they can be assessed as basically rational. Can we not say that an M state of depression is reasonable in view of the subject's construal of things in general as gloomy? If an affective state is basically rational, then it must be so in virtue of something other than itself. Determining attitudes can establish basic rationality because they are independent of the state for which they provide reasons. The affect-construal relation, as defined earlier, is constitutive though - for the subject to construe matters thus is just for him to feel the affective state that the construal identifies. Since basic rationality is not established simply by describing the state itself, the construal, as constitutive, cannot secure the state's basic rationality. As we have seen, an affective state can be ascribed basic rationality only if it is based on attitudes that show it to be (minimally) reasonable. M states can meet this condition. In Chapter 3 I allowed that M states are sometimes supported by specifically warranting reasons; accordingly, we sometimes describe M states as 'unreasonable', 'inappropriate' or 'irrational'. I suggested, however, that such states are not central instances of M states since their status as genuinely objectless is unclear. I also suggested that references to M states as 'inappropriate', when made, often concern, not the state's cognitive structure, but the context in which it happens to be felt. M states can be said typically to lack basic rationality firstly because, as argued in Chapter 3, they are commonly not supported by reasons, a point reflected in the fact that no M state term depends for its intelligibility on instances involving supporting reasons. Second, even where reasons for M states are cited, they are commonly used in their merely causal sense. This falls short of basic rationality since it lacks the extra normative conception of the cause as a justifying reason for the state. Also, as noted in Chapter 4, M state causes, insofar as we manage to discern them, often turn out to be complex, cumulative and disparate. Those events which we take to have contributed to the occurrence of our

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M states often include happenings (e.g., being pushed, meeting someone), intentional states such as beliefs, physiological states, and numerous other predisposing affective states. It seems implausible to view the state as (even minimally) rational in the light of such events; taken together they are too heterogenous, whilst, taken individually, we can reasonably suppose that they are insufficient even to cause the state. Can we perhaps secure basic rationality for M states historically? As objectless, M states, by definition, lack ostensible objects which can be etiologically linked with a historical, warranting object. Certainly, historical emotion objects do not invariably lead to the formation of ostensible ones. Perhaps the proper object of Jo's anxiety - his mother's clumsiness when he was a child - results simply in later experiences of free-floating anxiety. Yet this sort of case does not establish the basic rationality of M states since here we would want to say that the state has an unconscious object and, as such, is an emotion. Furthermore, though the unconscious object of this state might reveal it to be basically rational, this does not secure basic rationality for free-floating affective states in general since, as argued in Chapter 2, they commonly do not fulfil those conditions which entitle us to assign unconscious objects to them. Earlier I stated that basic rationality is presupposed in ascriptions of actual rationality and irrationality, and that phenomena which lack basic rationality are, strictly speaking, arational. M states, I have argued, typically lack basic rationality; from this it follows that typically they are arational affective states. The arationality of M states is reflected in our conception of the ordinary gamut of moods - 'the fit of melancholy', 'the wave of cheerfulness or exuberance', 'the descending cloud of depression, or ennui' - as, like sensations, states which the subject 'simply has'.

NEUROPHYSIOLOGY

A crucial feature of M states which supports their arational status is that, as noted previously, they can be caused solely by neurophysical processes.6 Rorty, who regards this kind of causation as raising an 'objection' (p.116) to her neo-cognitive view, replies as follows: From the fact that the best explanation of a person's emotional state may sometimes be that he suffers glandular malfunction, it does not follow that, under standard conditions, explanations of emotions can be given without any appeal to beliefs or intentional states. (p. 117, 1980)

My concern about this remark is that the dismissal of purely neuro-

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physical (and, by implication, non-rational) explanations of emotions as non-standard, serves to marginalize the role of such explanations in affect in general. Yet it is not clear that neurophysical explanations can be marginalized for M states or for dispositionally related emotions. Against Rorty's claim we need to set certain conceptual and empirical points. It is important to stress that the arguments that follow do not depend upon the existence of affective states with purely neurophysical causes. As we have seen in this and previous chapters, the mere invocation of 'beliefs [ and] intentional states' (Rorty, op. cit.) as causal components of the explanation of an affective state , contrary to the implication of Rorty's remark, does not ipso facto secure the state's basic rationality. So even if it were true that the causes of affective states always have some intentional components and are never purely neurophysical this would go no way towards establishing the rationality principle. I shall argue though that neurophysical processes can be dominant or sole causes of affect. My aim is not to suggest that either of these are the standard, typical case, but that both are common enough to command a central role in our understanding of affect. The region of the brain currently regarded as the seat of affect is the limbic system, in particular the hippocampus. Limbic projections link this system with other subcortical and cortical regions. Though the limbic system is often described as 'the emotional brain', evidence suggests that it is capable of generating M states alone. As Maclean observes: 'Neuronal discharges in or near the limbic cortex of the temporal lobe may trigger a broad spectrum of vivid, affective feelings [ such as] fear, terror, sadness .. . As I have emphasized [these] affects are usually freefloating' (p. 20, 1980). It seems reasonable to suppose that cyclothymic M states, for example, are often neurophysically caused. At least, it is implausible to suppose that events in the external environment are capable of exhibiting the kind of positive and negative periodicity that could explain them. Certainly, some such instances may be explained by appeal to cyclothymic habits of cognition involving shifts between autonomous schemata (Beck 1967). However, of relevance here is that tests of Beck's theory show that, although the cognitions he postulates feature as constituents of the affects studied, they do not also have a causal role as commonly as the theory requires.7 So shifts between cognitive modes, as constituents of affect, are compatible with the modes themselves being neurophysically caused; and it is plausible to suppose that Beck's theory is limited in predictive power because it underestimates the scope of neurophysical causation. The relationship between cyclothymic mood swing and patterns of hormonal change, for example, suggests a direct causal connection between neurophysical processes and affective cognition that is not mediated by a

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cognitive cause. At least, hormonal fluctuations provide a sufficient causal explanation of this kind of mood change. 8 Also, with respect to M states in general, we are typically unaware of the causal role of neurophysical factors because they are not processes to which we can have direct mental access. Consequently we tend to appeal to external events for explanations of our M states, in particular, to lay theories about the kinds of events likely to cause them, and which, according to research on lay judgements about the causes of mood, are frequently inaccurate. 9 So the extent of neurophysical causation of M states is likely to be concealed by our ordinary judgements about them. Whilst the actual scope of such causation is ultimately an empirical question, the points above give us good reason for questioning Rorty's implied dismissal of it as non-standard. It is important to follow through Rorty's defence of her view because it illustrates the rationalist's tendency to redescribe the neurophysical objection in a way that is theory-preserving, and that serves to conceal its real force. Rorty (1980) goes on to subsume it within 'the mind-body problem' (p. 116) by describing it as a physicalist objection to intentionalist explanations which she then diffuses in tf,e standard anti-reductionist way: 'the physicalist and the intentionalist accounts of anomalous emotions are perfectly compatible . . . They appear to be at odds only when both theories get reductionally ambitious' (p. 118). Here the neurophysiological account is applied to the brain substrate, i.e., the same state under a different description, that realizes those intentional attitudes with which the rationalist is concerned. However, to suppose that this is a reply to the neurophysical objection is to confuse issues about brain state reduction with antecedent causal explanation. Certainly an issue arises about the reducibility of affective states, qua mental states, to physical brain states; but the sense in which the neurophysical objection is relevant and poses a threat to the rationality principle has to do, not with reductionism, but with antecedent causal explanation. As the thesis that the antecedent causes of an affective state can be purely neurophysical, it is, contrary to Rorty's claim, not 'perfectly compatible' with the rationalist's causal explanation of the state in terms of 'beliefs and intentional states' (op. cit. 1980) precisely because neurophysical processes such as hormonal changes are not beliefs or any other kind of intentional attitude under different descriptions, any more than digestive processes are. Neurophysical causal explanations in terms of such processes are incompatible with rationalist causal explanations for to cite a neurochemical e.g., hormonal, change as the sole cause of x, is to cite something that is not the substrate of an intentional attitude, and therefore not something that can be said to bear a basically rational relation to x. 10

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M states such as neurochemically-induced elation or depression are arational at two levels: they involve modes of cognition that are undetermined by attitudes to which we can ascribe basic rationality; also their sole and sufficient causes are neurophysical. Since neurophysical processes can be sole and sufficient causes of an affective state, then we cannot diffuse the neurophysical objection by sliding such processes under the state as its physical substrate. The only defence for the rationalist against this kind of causal explanation of affect is to echo Rorty's highly questionable assertion that it is non-standard. 11 Neurophysical processes can have a significant role in, or be the first causes of, emotions, where they cause those M affective cognitions that themselves guide and organize emotional responses. It is pure M states with purely physiological causes that signify the closest interface between 'the cognitive' and 'the physical' for in such cases non-cognitive processes directly produce styles of cognition. They can be said to demonstrate most clearly how the quality of affect is rooted in our nature as biological beings, and its infusion, via the dispositional role of M states, into other aspects of affective life. Also, it is because neurophysical causal explanations such as these are not simply underlabouring with the same states as the rationalist that they are genuinely informative, for they are not translatable into intentional levels of description but, at the same time, are necessary for the improvement of our understanding of affect. They can, for example, explain why rationalist accounts, and the therapies premised on them, (e.g. Neo-Freudian, Rational-Emotive, and ThoughtStopping therapies) are likely to fail in a given instance. 12

EMOTION AND THE RATIONALITY PRINCIPLE

So far I have argued that the arationality of M states limits the scope of the rationality principle. I want now to consider the applicability of the rationality principle to emotions. Having warned us against the corrupting influence of affect unharnessed to a proper object, Tanner evidently succumbs to his fears by noting that: 'Anglo-American philosophers have ... neglected to observe that the connexions between the emotional lives of almost everyone and the objects that those emotions have, when they have them, are loose to an extreme degree' (p. 138, 1976-7). The arguments presented here do, I think, support Tanner's claim about the 'looseness' of the emotion-object relation, and also offer a substantive framework for explaining why this is so. As we saw in Chapter 1, there is a diverse population of emotion instances that do not conform to the standard view. Some instances are

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determined by non-epistemic attitudes such as aspect perceptions, whilst others are undetermined. Since neither of these groups are determined by epistemic attitudes, they will lack basic rationality of an epistemic kind. Also it turned out that many affective types are not correlated with any particular point on the continuum. Certainly, the conceptual dependence on reasons of types such as gratitude and pride prevents them from having blind instances. However, types such as happiness, depression, sadness, fear, dread, anxiety, love, hate,joy, rage, elation, euphoria, fury, misery, nervousness, and so on, turned out to be equally distributed along the continuum. If we regard the standard view as a theory of affect, then M states, as phenomena which it neither discusses, nor has the conceptual apparatus to explain, show the theory to be inadequate. It is inadequate even if we limit it to a theory of emotions for, as argued in Chapter 1, it offers a general account of emotion that is based on features possessed by emotion instances at only one point on the continuum - the compelling domain. The preoccupation of the standard view with this domain would render it deeply inadequate even if there was a group of emotion types belonging to this domain for which it might serve as a correct, if limited, theory. Yet its credibility is further strained by the fact that, in Chapter 1, we found no emotion types, only instances, which are determined by epistemic attitudes. The most we can concede is that that certain types, shame and regret perhaps, tend more often to be belief or knowledgebased than others. We also found no correlation between a type's being necessarily objectual and its being determined by epistemic attitudes. Love and jealousy, for example, are necessarily objectual, but not, I argued, even paradigmatically determined by epistemic attitudes. It is the distribution of emotions along this continuum, when linked with the continuum described in Chapter 2, and with subsequent conclusions, that raises difficulties for the neo-cognitivist's extended rationality principle. As we have seen, neo-cognitivists preserve a rational relation between emotion and object by explaining anomalous emotions as etiologically linked with historical objects that show them to be reasonable. Certainly some anomalous emotions, e.g., blind emotions that conflict with the subject's knowledge, are best explained historically. Phobic fears of particular objects can often be traced to early psychosomatic traumas concerning a similar or symbolically connected object. However, it is not clear that anomalous emotions can typically be explained in this way. In Chapter 4 I argued that there is a positive relationship between the capacity of M states to explain emotion instances, and the proximity of such instances to the blind end of the affective continuum; furthermore that M states can have degrees of influence on the occurrence and identity

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of emotion instances. The role of M states such as depression, happiness, temper, anxiety, joviality, melancholy, elation, cheerfulness, dread, etc., in causing emotions suggests that we cannot always use a historical account to explain anomalous emotions; nor can M state causation be marginalized as atypical because, as also argued, it is contained in the concept of M states as dispositions to emotion, a relation acknowledged, as we have seen, even by Tanner and Browning, who see it as the bane of civilized affective life. The tendency is there, embedded in the concept and actual behaviour of M states. Earlier I argued that M states typically lack basic rationality. This, together with their dispositional role, suggests that they can erode the basic rationality of related emotions; in certain instances, the arationality of the M state carries over to the emotion which is the realization of its dispositional role. The emotion's arationality is clear where the antecendent M state is itself neurophysically caused. As noted earlier, neurophysical processes can be the first causes of, or have a significant causal role in, the M affective cognitions that guide emotional responses. The purest cases of arational emotions are those blind instances which, as described in Chapter 4, are constituted by M states, themselves caused solely by neurophysical factors . Jo's contentment about his hospitalization or his anxiety about his work, are arational emotions if they are blind focusings of an M state, and their arationality is reinforced where the sole causes of the M state are neurophysical. Morphine would be a typical first cause of Jo's contentment. It might be objected that we call emotions irrational rather than arational, even when we know that they are significantly influenced by the subject's prevailing M state. Though we can see that Hindley's rage with his son stems from his M state, itself caused by alcohol, would we not still tend to call it 'irrational'? One reason why we do so is because we treat the emotion as belonging to a different conceptual scheme from the M state. Whatever we say about an M state, once it becomes an emotion, there is, for reasons I will discuss shortly, a tendency to treat it is a member of the domain of things assessable by reference to some standard of rationality. Yet, in the light of the points made earlier, this is not a strictly legitimate move because the emotions which M states typically induce are equally distributed along the affective continuum, and so do not even paradigmatically involve the determining attitudes upon which ascriptions of basic rationality, and hence irrationality, depend. M depression, for example, does not automatically qualify as 'irrational' when it becomes an emotion for it is not a state the concept of which depends for its intelligibility on ascriptions of determining attitudes that can show it to be basically rational. Some instances of depression can be basically rational, and hence actually rational or irrational, but to connect the concept

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of depression with a paradigm of basically rational instances is illegitimate as there is no such paradigm for depression. We need to examine why we are inclined to place emotions in the kind of conceptual scheme that permits ascriptions of 'irrationality'. Our conception of M states is of experiences that we 'simply have'; since they do not require rational or moral justification, we do not prescribe that they ought to be rational or moral; whereas our conception of emotion is entwined with rational and moral assumptions for a number of reasons. In regarding ourselves as ideally rational and moral beings, we want our emotions to have the evidential and justificatory structure of actually rational states. Unlike M states, there is no emotion type for which this paragon is conceptually ruled out, even if, for many emotions, it is not typically achieved. This conceptual possibility gives a lever or intelligible use to prescription with respect to emotion in general. So, though the rational and moral framework converges with features of emotions themselves towards the compelling end of the affective continuum, it also takes on a separate prescriptive, ideological role in our judgements about emotion in general, irrespective of their actual status, as a standard to which emoter and observers aspire. In this sense, to call a blind emotion 'irrational', despite its M state foundations, is to prescribe that it be rational; to call it 'arational' would be to abandon this scheme of things and to excuse it from the strictures of rational and moral culpability. Furthermore, there are normative constraints on emotions because, as objectual states, they connect us with aspects of our external environment and, in particular, our interpersonal world. A subject's M state is, in a sense, a matter for himself, but when it takes on a person as its object, it becomes answerable to that person in complex ways. So there are various factors which explain our tendency to ascribe irrationality to emotions in general. Having described some ways in which M states undermine the basic rationality of emotions, I want now to consider their influence upon the moral standing of emotions. SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT MORAL CULPABILITY

Taylor argues that certain emotions, say, anger about the bombing of a children's hospital, or pity fo r someone who is suffering, can be judged as morally desirable. Conversely, failure to feel emotions such as these can be judged as morally reprehensible: 'Once we have identified what is conceptually involved in individual emotions it can be shown that a deficiency of this or that emotional reaction . . . may be traced to some moral failing' (p. 390, 1975). This view is correct, I believe. We surely want to say that, for example, to feel no remorse about the gratuitous suffering one has knowingly and deliberately caused, is a moral failing .

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All the same, M states can undermine the moral status of emotions in various ways. On the moral maxim that one ought to feel pleased about the good fortunes of significant others, Jo's pleasure about his daughter's recovery from illness can be deemed a morally desirable response. Yet the emotion need not bear a 'proper' relation to its object; it might instead be caused by Jo's prevailing M state of abundant cheerfulness or high spirits. In this sort of case it seems correct to say that the deviant causal role of the M state in producing the emotion undermines its standing as a morally correct response. On the maxim above, Jo's failure to feel pleased about his daughter's recovery would be morally reprehensible. Conversely, since it is wrong to get angry with innocent people, then Hindley's being angry with Hareton is prima facie morally reprehensible. Nevertheless, again, it can be M states that prohibit morally appropriate emotions and incite morally inappropriate emotions such as these. This raises the question of whether M states exempt subjects from moral culpability. Granted that judgements of moral culpability presuppose some freedom to act, then the answer hinges on whether subjects can be assigned control over, and responsibility for, their feelings . On hearing of Rex's fall, Gwendolen musters 'a correct look of anxiety such as elated mortals try to superinduce; [but] her elated spirits made her features less manageable than usual .. . and the smiles broke forth'. We can agree with Gascoigne that her anxiety is not 'deep' {Eliot, pp. 108-9, 1967). If we also regard her insufficiency of feeling as morally reprehensible, and even here it is not absolutely clear that we would, then it is partly because we believe that she could have controlled her M state of elation if she really desired. Certainly, M states can be malleable; at least, mild M states are frames of mind that we can sometimes 'snap out of or 'think away'. Another reason why we might condemn Gwendolen relates to a perverse discrepancy in our attitudes to affect, which is that we are less willing to give positive affect a mitigating role that negative affect. We tend to view elation and so on, like wealth, as a bonus of some kind which persons ought to renounce gracefully, when necessary. This discrepancy is an interesting feature of our attitudes to affect, but it is not grounded in any real differences in the control subjects have over positive and negative states. It is quite arbitrary to suppose that it is any easier to relinquish the euphoria caused by, e.g., winning a million pounds than it is to relinquish the misery caused by losing it. Despite the malleability of some M states, and the discrepancy just described, it seems clear that subjects often lack direct voluntary control over their M states. M states are notoriously intransigent frames of mind

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into which persons often become mentally locked. Where a morally inappropriate emotion or emotional deficit is caused by an M state, it is not dear, therefore, that the subject can be viewed as morally culpable. Suppose, for example, that, during his daughter 's recovery, Jo is in the grip of an antipathetic M state of deep depression. Since, in this case, Jo's negative frame of mind prohibits the morally desired response of pleasure by incapacitating his repertoire of positive emotions, then he cannot obviously be held responsible for failing to feel pleased. We might still regard the subject as responsible for acquiring the M state. Perhaps he could have avoided getting even 'hopelessly' M depressed or bad-tempered if he knew what situational, cognitive, or physical factors caused the state, and if he could have avoided exposure to such causes. Yet, direct control over M state causes is often limited too. Situational and cognitive causes are often beyond our direct control because, as noted previously, they are often cumulative, complex and, in part {sometimes entirely) subceptual, and so are not the kinds of cause which we can grasp well enough to avoid. Endogenous neurophysical causes of M states, such as hormonal imbalance, are also usually beyond our control, a point reflected in our legal tolerance of endogenously caused crimes of passion. In the case of exogenous physical causes such as drugs, subjects lose responsibility for the resulting M state in proportion to their addiction, for it reduces their freedom to act on their knowledge of the causal relationship between substance and state. As an alcoholic, Hindley could plausibly use 'diminished responsibility' in his defence. The points above suggest that where subjects lack control over the causes of the M states that incite or prohibit their emotions, and I have suggested that this is often the case, they cannot sensibly be regarded as morally culpable. Where the first cause of a person's emotion or emotional deficit is, for example, an endogenous, neurochemical one, it seems wrong and harmful to describe it as a moral failing. Generalizing, we can say that the influence of M states on emotions prevents us from assessing the subject in the same moral terms, not because M states alter the force of the relevant moral maxims, but because they reduce the subject's control over his feelings , and hence his capacity to adhere to such maxims. These points add a dimension to the sense in which emotions can be passive. They also warn us against simply deducing the moral culpability of emotional deficits and excesses of various kinds from the features of the situation in which they occur, or should have occurred. RATIONALIZATION

I have described some ways in which M states can undermine the basic rationality and moral standing of emotions. Though it is the basic

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rationality of emotions that M states undermine, I mentioned some ideological reasons for our inclination to label them as 'irrational' all the same. M states also have a bearing on emotions with seeming rationality. Earlier I argued that the rational and moral framework which describes certain emotions has a crucial role in lay theorizing about emotion in general. I mentioned lay theorizing in connection with M states by suggesting that it can mask the extent of neurophysically caused M states. Lay theorizing is also illuminating when applied to emotions because, for reasons given, it has an additional ideological role in masking their actual nature; in particular, it can provide rationalizations for M stateconstituted emotions that lend them seeming rationality and moral appropriateness. Before showing this, I want to describe some connections between lay theorizing and emotional rationalization. Psychologists have begun to investigate the role of lay theorizing in affect (note 9). Yet, because they focus mainly on mood states, they tend to underestimate its normative aspect. When Jo theorizes about the causes of his M state of elation, peacefulness or melancholy, he does not need to provide rational or moral justification for the state. By contrast, when he experiences an emotion of blind rage, dread, anxiety or elation, he may well be motivated to look not just for any cause that would typically explain it but, where possible, one that places it in its most rational and moral light. When presented with anomolous emotions we often postulate reasons which serve to both explain and vindicate them. Emotional rationalization is not confined to the first person. It is not Countess Rostoff herself, but her family that 'arranges matters so as to give her emotional life an air of appro~riateness'; and the arrangements may serve their needs better than hers. 3 Whether we want to impose, or succeed in imposing, a rationale on our emotions, depends upon the particular case. Sometimes the blindness of an emotion cannot be explained away. Jo has to acknowledge that his adoration of Sarah is blind when he has forced upon him those features of the situation - her massive indifference to him, or even non-existence, the futility of his obsession, and its deleterious effects on his health and work - that show his adoration to be unsupportable by even the feeblest reasons. This catalogue of reasons against having the emotion need not prevent it from continuing to have Sarah as its object. It merely makes a mockery of Jo's attempts at rationalization. At this point he is likely to abandon such moves and instead appeal to notions such as 'domination by forces beyond his control'; and if he wrestles with his obsession he does not raciocinate, but simply 'tries to prevent himself'. Arthur seeks to cure himself of Hetty by galloping to Norburne where 'he should keep out of her way altogether' (Eliot, p. 173, 1980). Not all emotion instances defy rationalization though. Viable and also

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blind emotion instances are frequently rationalizable. 14 It is these that link up with the dispositional role of M states, for M states can provide deviant causal routes to emotions that are masked by lay theoretical rationalizations which lend them seeming rationality. Rationalization is not explainable solely by reference to M states. Subjects whose blind emotions have historical proper objects no doubt frequently rationalize their present objects; and emotions that are merely actually irrational can be rationalized so as to seem actually rational. Yet we cannot underestimate the role of M states in rationalization precisely because of their conceptual role as dispositions to emotion. Consider the following scenarios: Jo's M state of anxiety becomes targetted on a committee meeting. He suddenly finds himself inexplicably anxious about the prospect of attending. Alternatively suppose him to be sunk in an M state of melancholy which acquires a focus on the Beethoven piece to which he is listening. Or suppose his M state of elation to have targetted itself onto his lunch date with Bill. He finds himself looking forward to it with animation, though he cannot fathom why, as he does not particularly like Bill. In each case we can assume that the emotion object is non-causal. Yet Jo can, and for some of these cases, may be motivated to, rationalize the emotion by linking it with knowledge, belief or interpretation that lends it seeming actual rationality - 'I'm anxious about the meeting because I know Jones will be there, and I feel that he is critical of me'; 'the music makes me feel sad because I know it is an expression of Beethoven's frustration about his deafness'; 'I'm pleased about meeting Bill because I need a proper lunch break and he is such a fund of amusing stories', etc. Similarly, where an M state is the significant cause of an emotion, the subject can elaborate on the immediate causal object by introducing further knowledge, beliefs or interpretations which place the emotion in a rational light. Sam is already in an M state of temper, but sudden anger with Sarah is triggered by her dropping a pan that crashes loudly on the tiles. Sam rationalizes the emotion by constructing the immediate cause as an offense - 'you know I'm feeling fragile today [e.g. sensitive to loud noises] so you might have been more careful. You have no consideration for my feelings'; pathetic maybe, but successful if it gets an apology. These explanations provide rationales for the emotions they concern, and using the moral maxim that carelessness can be negligent, the 'anger' rationalization also attempts some moral justification. Some of these illustrations, especially those requiring moral rationalization, can be regarded as involving self-deception. Sam's rationalization of his indignation about Sarah's pan-dropping as a morally acceptable response to an inconsiderate act, can certainly be interpreted as selfdeception. The subject may 'know in his heart' that his emotion is not

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really or properly grounded in the reasons he cites, yet he persists in deceiving himself because he wants to regard himself, and present himself to others, as a person of justified sentiment; but we need to clarify the role of self-deception here. Standard view theorists and neo-cognitivists tend to regard emotional self-deception as either about the object ( the subject's emotion is really about A, but he deceives himself into thinking it is about B), or as about one's real reasons (the subject deceives himself into thinking that his reasons for his emotion are other than they really are). These analyses are correct for some emotion instances. But the first notion of self-deception tends to presuppose the ascription of an object A against which B can be measured as an object of deception. This notion does not apply to M state-constituted emotions, for, as noted earlier, where an M state constitutes an emotion about B, it overrules the assignment of other, e.g., historical, objects (A) to the emotion. So, though in such cases the subject may be deceived, he is not deceived about the object (B) of his emotion. With respect to the second notion, since not all emotions entail reasons, to say that I am deceived about the reasons for my emotion is not necessarily to say that I am deceived about what my reasons really are. I can be right in regarding my anger as directed at you, and yet deceived about its having reasons at all; and I can be deceived in thinking, in retrospect, that I had merely been deceived about its real reasons. It is also important to stress that not all emotional rationalizations are analysable as involving self-deception. Indeed, if they were, then much of the lay theorizing about emotion that lends it such rationales would have to be viewed as self-deception, and this is not plausible. The subject may simply be ignorant of the actual causes of his emotion. Just as we tend to be unaware of the neurophysical causes of our M states, so we also tend to be unaware of the causal role of our M states in our emotions. In addition, the experience of emotion is surrounded by a pattern of expectations that are externally orientated. Our expectations about emotion causes are framed largely by those of which we are most easily aware, namely, external causes condensed into a single object, and these expectations are interwoven with our normative conception of 'proper object'. Consequently when Jo finds himself inexplicably anxious, happy or angry about p, he will tend to fall back on such expectations, in particular, to look to the object as a source of explanation and justification. Thus Jo may appeal to his rationalization of his happiness about meeting Bill for lunch simply as the best explanation for it. The rationalization here has more to do with mental inaccessibility to causes, than with self-deception. The rationalizations in these illustrations involve combinations of epistemic and interpretive explanation. Though Jo's sadness about the

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music is constituted by his M state of melancholy, he rationalizes it by appeal to his knowledge of historical facts concerning Beethoven's deafness and its connection with the meaning of the work. In the anxiety scenario, a fact is brought into focus - Jones' being at the meeting - that is overlaid with interpretation. 'Feeling that Jones is critical' may be a transient aspect conception of Jones highlighted by the anxiety itself and self-conceptions stemming from it, such as vulnerability and social uncertainty. Jo's happiness about the lunch date seems largely interpretive in involving, at most, a lenient view of his work schedule, and a charitable reconstruction of Bill's conversational abilities. The virtue of knowledge in emotional rationalization is that its attachment to an emotion lends it a firmer basis. Its disadvantage is that it is restricted in use. There is only so much emotionally relevant knowledge that can be put into service. Though belief and interpretation provide a weaker basis than knowledge, they have the advantage of possessing more latitude. There are a variety of beliefs to which the subject can appeal in positing a rational, and where necessary, morally appropriate, relation of his emotion to its object. When Sarah chastises Sam for his 'petulant whining about his fragility' he can retreat to the protestation that 'he thought (believed) she realized he was poorly', a view that at least excuses his indignant moralizing about her lack of consideration; and with interpretation the subject has more latitude still. In particular, such emotions can bolster themselves by revival. The blind hatred or unwarranted resentment that arises from an M state of sullenness may surround itself with past grievances that float to the memory surface. When thus revived,Jo has merely to 'decide' that he has not really, after all, or 'in his heart', forgiven the other these offenses, and the emotion acquires a rationale - 'I hate you (resent you) because ... '; and where fact and memory fail, he can always fabricate. I have suggested that the arationality of M state-influenced emotions is often masked by rationalizations, themselves guided by partly normative lay expectations about emotion causes. For blind emotions, an entire structure of attitudes can be imposed that lends them seeming actual rationality. Though, for emotions with compelling objects, the attitudinal structure will already be in place, the subject may still be motivated to rationalize its intensity. So we can substantiate Tanner's claim, quoted earlier, by saying that the dispositional role o'f M states plays a large part in explaining why the emotion-object relation can be 'loose to an extreme degree'. Also it is partly in consequence of the varying degrees of M state influence, that the relation is commonly more or less loose that the emotion's rationale and proportions do not hook up with the object in an appropriate or wholly appropriate way.

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The points above suggest that the scope of rationalization in affective life is significantly broadened by the dispositional role of M states. This view can be supported by considering some problems with Pears' (1962) arguments against 'the progressive extension of the concept of rationalization' (p. 110). He suggests that: It might have been the case that when a person said that he was amused about something, it could be demonstrated quite often . . . that something else that happened to him previously was the kind of thing that was sufficient to cause his amusement and that the thing about which he said he was amused was not ... the reasons that people gave for their amusement would be regarded as rationalizations far more often than they are now. (p. 109}

Pears regards the common occurrence of rationalized amusement as 'an inconceivability' (p. 108) that would 'upset our conceptual scheme' (p. 109) if realized. He appears to be claiming that amusement is not 'often' rationalized because it is conceptually dependent upon instances where its object is the sufficient cause of the reasons subjects provide. Yet, whatever the conceptual dependencies of amusement, this view ignores the common occurrence of amusement as a product of a neurophysical and M state causal chain. Alcohol and cannabis, for example, commonly induce M states of merriment that, in turn, generate paroxysmal mirth about inconsequential items normally insufficient to command a smile. Though Pears' remarks concern amusement, he suggests that its being rationalized 'often' is inconceivable because 'rationalization . . . is logically dependent on the concept of a true reason' (p. 110), a claim that can be taken, and emotion theorists would, I think, take, as applying to . . emotion m genera 11S . We can agree that rationalization is logically dependent on true reasons, but this does not establish a dependence on true reasons for emotion in general for , as already argued, a significant proportion of them are not logically dependent on reasons at all. Nothing follows from the dependence of rationalization on true reasons about the dependence of the emotions to which such rationalizations are applied, on true reasons. That emotions can be rationalized does not entail that their intelligibility derives from paradigm instances involving true reasons. The concepts of depression, happiness, elation, anxiety and sadness, instances of which are distributed equally along the emotion continuum, would not lose their intelligibility if they were rationalized in every instance, though we may say that, in practice, they are rationalized often

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enough; and it is absurd to regard this incidence of rationalization as 'inconceivable'. We might profitably look at these emotions the other way by viewing their rationalized instances as, not so much deviations from, but aspirations to, the conceptual scheme of true reasons. It is important to distinguish the conceptual dependencies of rationalization from emotions, for it is the conflation of the two that sustains the conception of rationalized emotions as atypical and logically derivative. In the light of the points made earlier about the ideological role of lay theorizing, it can be said that what is primarily 'upset' by the eventuality to which Pears alludes is our rational and moral desiderata for emotion, and if it upsets our 'conceptual scheme', it does so only insofar as the scheme reflects these desiderata. The scope of M state-influenced, rationalized emotions is supported by certain features of emotions. Earlier I described the role of M states in producing seemingly 'irrational' emotions. A feature of the emotions just described is that their rationalizations are structured by attitudes which lend them seeming actual rationality, and sometimes moral appropriateness. Where the subject presents his emotion to himself and others as warranted, say, by his knowledge of Beethoven, his guest's being an entertaining fellow, or the pan-dropper's lack of consideration, it is not manifestly different from an actually rational emotion. This suggests that the scope of rationalization is concealed by the capacity of rationalized emotions to masquerade as actually rational, and so should warn us against assuming that we can infer the rationality and moral standing of emotions from their attitudinal structure. Yet, adherence to the standard view, for example, encourages us to take emotions with seeming actual rationality at face value. Standard view theorists exploit not only the epistemic end of the affective continuum, but also lay theorizing where, insofar as they share the same desiderata for emotion, they converge on the same explanations. Thus if Jo asserts that he is q>, e.g., miserable, angry, delighted or anxious, because he believes that p, and if the belief provides a warranting reason for (j), and is itself warranted, then this is all the standard view theorist needs or wants to know. No logical space is created for the possibility that (j) is a blind realization of an M state's dispositional role, for which the belief serves as a rationalization. Such a possibility cannot be accommodated since it would be to concede that the relation between emotion and belief is contingent, and not the entailment relation which the standard view requires. Hence it can make no provision for distinguishing blind, rationalized emotions from actually rational ones. In principle, causal theorists would be more discriminating since it follows from the causal theory that for q> to be actually rational, the belief cited by Jo must not only be warranted, and constitute a

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warranting reason for