Care-based Emotions

Abstract

In the last chapter I developed what I believe to be a plausible definition of what it means to care about something, an argument for the claim that what we genuinely care about is thereby of value, and a definition of relations between objects of our care and particular situations in the world as secondary values. Towards the end of Chapter 4 and also towards the end of the previous chapter I already provided a sketch of what I believe to be the most adequate model describing the relation between emotions and values: emotions are felt physical reactions to appraisals of secondary values. In this chapter I want to put the pieces of the puzzle together: emotions, that is felt physical reactions to appraisals of secondary values, can be explained as felt desires or felt desire satisfactions that result directly from our caring about certain objects and perceptions of particular relations between these cared-for objects and the world.