Emotions, Reasons, and Norms

Abstract

: A tension between acting morally and acting rationally is apparent in analyses of moral emotions that ascribe an inherent subjectivity to ethical thinking, leading thence to irresolvable differences between rational agents. This paper offers an account of emotional worthiness that shows how, even if moral reasons fall short of philosophical criteria of rationality, we can still accord reasonableness to them and recognize that the deliberative weight of social norms is sufficient to address the moral limitations of strategic rationality. The familiar dichotomy between reasoned and emotional responses to things is pretty clearly too sharp. After all, fear is a fitting response when one perceives a threat: the particular threat is a reason for the fear. Although it would not be irrational to feel nothing, the fearful response has a cognitive rationale absent from fear of something obviously harmless. Indeed, even fitting fears are subject to thoughtful criticism, as when one who accepts military norms suggests that fear of the enemy is not worthy of a soldier. Since such norms are themselves open to criticism, however, judgments of emotional worthiness may generate disputes that have no clear resolution, leading to a tension between norm-conformity and a philosophical understanding of rationality that has been identified by the anthropologist Michael Tomasello, among others. This discussion explicates and relaxes that tension. The problem is clear for moral emotions—such as sympathy and respect. They motivate us to care about others’ well-being in ways that may seem to collide with the philosophical criterion of rationality. According to this criterion, rational people