Are Emotions Ethically Significant? :: Philosophy Philosophical Papers

Are Emotions Ethically Significant? Introduction The ethical significance of the emotions is a potentially enormous and difficult topic. Some of the positions that can be maintained include: 1 No moral judgements (either positive or negative) can legitimately be made of emotions. 2 Emotions are subject to moral praise or blame in just the same way (or, analogous to the way) that acts are. 3 Emotions are subject to moral praise or blame, but in a very different way from acts. 4 Emotions are the primary carriers of value, while rationality is purely instrumental ('reason is a value-neutral technique'); therefore moral judgement should properly concern itself only with the emotions, their origins and effects. The issue The issue is ambiguously, and hence interestingly, stated by Brecht in Der Dreigroschenoper. Polly Peachum, who is trying unsuccessfully to resist the emotional and sensual spell of Macheath, sings the soulful "Barbara-Song", including in the first stanza the line "Ja, da muss man kalt und herzlos sein." [Indeed, one must be cold and heartless] (Note "man"; Polly here is trying to state a general truth, not (yet) directly applying it to herself.) Since we (and Macheath) know that he cares little about Polly in the way she would like to be cared for, can we say that Macheath's emotional attentions to her are unethical? Or not? On what basis? Two arguments that there is no ethical significance to the emotions Before proceeding to the analysis, we must consider two possible arguments against the thesis that emotional states are subject to any moral praise or blame at all. If they are not, then that is the end of the discussion, or rather, it is the beginning of a different discussion. I believe these arguments fail, but the reasons why each fails point the way to understanding why and in what way the emotions do have ethical significance. First argument The first argument is this: (a) An act (including failure to act) can be subject to moral praise or blame only to the extent that it directly or indirectly affects (harms or benefits) the agent himself, or a moral patient (up to and including Nature as a whole), or if the agent could reasonably (as a moral agent) have anticipated this effect. (b) However, by this definition the ethical significance of the act lies only in its actual or possible consequences, and in the intentions and beliefs held by or ascribed to the agent concerning them.