And it is not only non-cognitivists who would believe that it would make a moral difference if humans did not experience certain emotions. For example, suppose that I were a cognitivist hedonist, act Utilitarian. I believe that one ought always to perform the act that produces the greatest balance of pleasure over pain, and I believe that that moral principle is true independently of my or anyone else’s commitment to it. For me, it would make a great deal of difference what sorts of emotions human beings experienced in different circumstances, since the amount of pain or pleasure that anyone feels as a result of my actions will depend, at least in part, on their emotional attachments. Or suppose that I am a cognitivist virtue theorist of the following variety: I believe that I ought to live my life in such a way that I live a good and meaningful life, and I believe that a corresponding normative principle applies to everyone else. They too ought to live their lives in such a way...

I agree that the idea of being held responsible for our emotions ispuzzling. It seems that in order to be responsible for X, it has tohave been up to me whether to X. Actions seem to be good candidates forresponsibility, since they seem to be something over which I havecontrol– when someone annoys me, I can choose whether to utter somecaustic remark or instead bite my tongue. But what about my feelingannoyed in the first place– do I have any choice about that? And ifnot, then can I really be held responsible for this emotional reaction? Aristotle is very helpful on this point. While it is true that on theparticular occasion on which you feel the emotion, you can’t help butfeel it, you are nonetheless responsible for your emotion since youwere responsible for becoming the sort of person who feels this sort ofemotion. Being susceptible to bad emotional responses (i.e., having a badcharacter) is, on Aristotle’s view, like being sick. "For neither does a sick person recover his health [simply by...

This might be a question that is best answered by professional psychologists rather than philosophers, but it does raise interesting questions about the nature of love. Several philosophers (e.g., Solomon, Scruton, Nozick) have suggested that when one person loves another, the lover’s sense of her own identity becomes merged with that of the beloved. The fact that a loss of a beloved evokes a feeling in the lover that is naturally described as “emptiness” seems to support this idea. Not only is the beloved no longer there; a part of the lover is no longer there. There is a hole in the identity of the lover, until the lover reconstructs her identity around other things that she loves or comes to love.

Energized as I am by a good night’s sleep and sweet dreams, I’ll givethis question a shot. (I’m hoping also that the inadequacy of myresponse will inspire Alan Soble, who knows far more about these mattersthan I, to answer the question!) Plato drew a distinction (in Republic IV) between feelings like pain, pleasure, hunger, lust, and thirst, andmental states like anger. Anger, he said, was answerable to reason inat least two ways. First, in order to be angry, I must have certainviews about what the world is like. For example, I am angry that myfriend revealed my deep, dark secrets. My anger presupposes my beliefthat my friend did reveal my deep, dark secrets. Second, Platobelieved, in order to be angry, Ihave to have certain views about how the world should be. Myanger is caused not only by my belief that my friend revealed my deep, dark secrets, butalso by my belief that my friend should not have done so. Feelingslike pain, pleasure, hunger, lust, and thirst, Plato thought, are notlike that: I...