The Analogy between Emotions and Judgements

Abstract

How are emotions related to values? In this first chapter I want to tackle this question from Franz Brentano’s point of view. Like many proponents of the perceptual theory of emotions today, Brentano claims that we gain evaluative knowledge by having correct emotions. Unlike today’s proponents of the perceptual theory of emotions, he accounts for this by an analogy between emotions and judgements. Perhaps, one might think, he should in this case be classed rather with those philosophers who take emotions to be value judgements, but this conclusion would be hasty, for Brentano does not think that emotions are judgments — they are like judgements in important respects. I think it is, however, correct to say that Brentano does not develop a perceptual theory of emotions, either. Rather, he takes both judgements and emotions to be affirming or rejecting reactions to objects that are presented to us perceptually. Furthermore, he takes it that just as correct judgements reveal what is true, correct emotions reveal what is good. Given that the latter claim is very close to central tenets of today’s proponents of the perceptual theory of emotions, and given that Brentano’s account of it does not seem to have received very much attention in the contemporary debate, I think it is a good starting point to our enquiry into the nature of the relation between emotions and values.