Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation, and the Nature of Value

by Bennett W. Helm

• ISBN13: 9780521039116
• ISBN10: 0521039118
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-08-20
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

How can we motivate ourselves to do what we think we ought? How can we deliberate about personal values and priorities? Bennett Helm argues that standard philosophical answers to these questions presuppose a sharp distinction between cognition and conation that undermines an adequate understanding of values and their connection to motivation and deliberation. Rejecting this distinction, Helm argues that emotions are fundamental to any account of value and motivation, and he develops a detailed alternative theory both of emotions, desires and evaluative judgements and of their rational interconnections. The result is an innovative theory of practical rationality and of how we can control not only what we do but also what we value and who we are as persons.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Two problems of practical reason

Felt Evaluations

Emotions and the cognitive-conative divide

Constituting import

Varieties of import: cares, values and preferences

Practical Reason

Single evaluative perspective

Rational control: freedom of the will and the heart

Deliberation about value

Persons, friendship and moral value

Select Bibliography

Index

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