Attending With Feeling: The Normative Structure of Emotional Attention

Abstract

In assessing an emotional episode, we can ask whether the intentional object of the emotion is that which the subject ought to be paying attending to. If the intentional object is not that which the subject should be paying attention to, what should be the target of normative assessment? Although emotions have been accused of drawing us into inappropriate fixations, the source of such attentional misdirection remains unclear. I argue against accounts that locate attentional inappropriateness in the mere tokening of thoughts that go on to elicit emotions, on the grounds that thoughts provide reasons to emote only insofar as an agent is sensitive to them. I also challenge the view that emotions can be epistemically faulty for failing to track the most important features of a situation, contending that emotions lack a salience‐tracking function. Instead, drawing on Wu's account of attention as guidance in action, I argue that the normative assessment of affective attention should target the diachronic emotional sensibilities that constitute one's attunement to certain evaluative aspects over others. Norms of attention might thus call, first and foremost, for the refinement of these sensibilities.