Background on emotions, Nash, DeLancey c1 and c2

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Background
Here is a very rough lay of some of the land.

	Features	Example	Issues
Feeling Theory	Emotions are just feelings	No one has held this theory in many decades; a few seem to hold it now for moods	It is unable to explain the relation of emotion to action
Strong cognitivism	An emotion is a judgment, a combination of beliefs and desires, or some other collection of cognitive mental states	Early Solomon, Joel Marks	Cannot explain fast emotions, unconcious emotions, emotions in other nonhuman organisms
Hybrid cognitivism	An emotion is as strong cognitivism defines it, except that it also requires some kind of bodily agitation (other than that which explains the relevant cognitive states)	Lyons	The bodily agitation seems an epiphenomenon
(Neo-)Jamesianism	An emotion is the perception of a body state	William James, Antonio Damasio	Some doubt body states are sufficiently distinct to distinguish between emotions; cannot explain post- functional actions
Affect Program Theory	Some emotions (the basic emotions) are pancultural, inherited syndromes of coordinated bodily responses, including changes in cognition but also relational action programs, expressive behaviors, autonomic changes, and other changes	In philosophy: Paul Griffiths, Craig DeLancey	Cognitivists claim it cannot account for the complex cognitive roles of emotions

Nash

• Nash begins by assuming that we need a (strong) cognitive theory of emotions. Recall that this means that we distinguish emotions, and perhaps even identify them, by their cognitive content (e.g., by relevant beliefs).
• The hybrid theory is a cognitive theory with the added claim that emotions require also some significant kind of bodily alteration -- such as autonomic changes. Since cognitivists typically assume that the bodily changes (other than brain changes constituting cognitive states) are insufficient to distinguish an emotion, most hybrid theorists will still claim it is cognitive content that distinguishes different emotions.
• It seems, however, that two people could have the same cognitive content, but one have an emotion, and the other not. Many strong cognitivists will deny this, but some will grant that it is true. Either we need to emend strong cognitivism if this is true, or we need to reject it.
• The Ray and Pat thought experiment is meant to illustrate such a case.
• Nash propose a new strong cognitive theory, which adds the concepts of focus of attention and overevaluation
  • An emotion includes a special dispositional state E which causes increased attention to various cognitive states (such as the kind that would normally cause E). Thus, Pat becomes focussed on escape and ignores other beliefs and desires he may have.
  • This can lead to an overevaluation of some feature of a situation. By focussing on dangers, for example, I can conclude the situation is more dangerous than it is.
• Nash then states a very strong cognitivism: "I deny... that bodily changes constitute being emotionally upset or perturbed, or are even necessary to such a state" (497). Note here that "bodily changes" must mean changes other than those constituting a change in beliefs or desires.
• Caveat: there is a lot of armchair neuropsychology here. Strong cognitivism is infested with armchair neuropsychology. Can you find some examples?

Passionate Engines chapter 1 The main point here is to get a working characterization of affects and emotions.

• Affects will be understood as motivational states that are
  • Characterized functionally
  • Not bivalent or well characterized by a single dimension like "positive"
  • Occurent (not dispositions)
  • Physical, measurable states
• How shall we distinguish affects? A number of criteria have typically been used.
  • Physiological state: many philosophers and psychologists deny that physiological states of any affects are unique to that affect. I believe this is an open question, and some might be. But it must be granted that at present we cannot use these to distinguish affects.
  • Conscious experience: some strong cognitive theories of emotions require affects to be conscious. Much evidence, such as the mere exposure effect, is inconsistent with this claim.
  • Associated actions: for the basic emotions, such as fear or anger, the actions that we associate with them are excellent indicators of the presence of the emotion. I will later argue that the actions in a sense constitute the emotion. So, I take it that action is the best distinguishing feature of emotion that we have.
• The Affect Program Theory. I endorse a version of the affect program theory, that holds that at least fear, anger, disgust, joy, and sadness are syndromes that are coordinated collections of cognitive and bodily changes. I add to this theory the claim that the affect program is essentially an action program. A basic emotion is now defined as an emotion for which there is an affect program.

Passionate Engines chapter 2 The concern of this chapter is to attack strong cognitive theories of emotions.

• I distinguish two kinds of cognitivism: reductive (an emotion = some cognitive state) and doxastic (which include hybrid theories and only require that certain beliefs are necessary).
• There are at least six reasons to reject strong cognitivism.
  1. Confusion of cognition with affect
  2. Inexplicability of direct neural stimulation and of abnormal cases
  3. Homology
  4. Early development of emotions
  5. Neuroanatomical differentiation
  6. Displacement
• As an alternative, I propose weak cognitivism: in humans, the occurence of a basic emotion is often caused by or has as its content some complex cognitive state.