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Emotions and Wellbeing

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Abstract

In this paper, we consider the question of whether there exists an essential relation between emotions and wellbeing. We distinguish three ways in which emotions and wellbeing might be essentially related: constitutive, causal, and epistemic. We argue that, while there is some room for holding that emotions are constitutive ingredients of an individual’s wellbeing, all the attempts to characterise the causal and epistemic relations in an essentialist way are vulnerable to some important objections. We conclude that the causal and epistemic relation between emotions and wellbeing is much less strong than is commonly thought.

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Notes

  1. Whether these different categories are considered to be genuinely distinct depends on the favoured account of each of them. Thus, moral facts are sometimes taken to be nothing above moral judgements, or, on some accounts, reasons are reducible to motivations.

  2. This is obvious in the case of consequentialism, since most versions of this approach claim that what has to be promoted by an agent is, or at least includes, wellbeing. Wellbeing also plays an important role in virtue ethics, according to which moral behaviour is virtuous behaviour. Indeed, virtue ethicists generally consider the virtues of the agent to be essential to her own wellbeing, thereby blurring the line between morality and prudence. Finally, even deontologists consider that wellbeing is crucial as an incontestable human end. For instance, amongst the imperfect duties, i.e. duties which allow some leeway in their implementation, Kantians include a duty of beneficence, that is, a duty to promote other people’s wellbeing. Wellbeing is, of course, also central in accounts of prudence, which can be conceived of as accounts of what considerations of self-interest require an individual to do.

  3. It is worth emphasising that the thesis of Motivational Egoism is distinct from the thesis of Psychological Egoism, according to which the motivations of human agents are necessarily such as to aim at their own wellbeing. Even so, there are of course interesting connections between the claims. If, as we shall argue, Motivational Egoism proves to be false, then so is Psychological Egoism. Thus, assessing the merits of Motivational Egoism and, more generally, of Emotional Egoism is important to better understand the nature of pro-social and altruistic motivation, as well as the nature of moral motivation.

  4. We assume here that the category of emotion is sufficiently unified to be useful (but see Rorty 1978; Griffiths 1997; as well as Deonna and Teroni 2012).

  5. See Frijda 1986, as well as Deonna and Teroni 2012 (79–80) for the claim that emotions are felt states of action readiness.

  6. For judgements, see Solomon 1976 and Nussbaum 2001; for thoughts, see Greenspan 1988; for construals, see Roberts 2003.

  7. See Deonna and Teroni 2012 for an excellent introduction to emotion theories.

  8. For concepts and non-conceptual contents, see, inter alia, Evans 1982 and Peacocke 1992.

  9. Note that we take fearsomeness to be a property that supervenes on the dangerous.

  10. By ‘reasons’, we mean normative, rather than motivational, reasons (see Smith 1994 for the distinction). In particular, what we have in mind are normative reasons for action, that is, considerations that speak in favour of doing certain things (Scanlon 1998).

  11. These claims are further developed in Tappolet 2014a, b.

  12. The second version of the assumption is compatible with Scanlon’s buck-passing account (Scanlon 1998), according to which having evaluative properties amounts to having natural properties that provide or constitute reasons.

  13. However, see Crisp 2006 for a defence of the former conception of enjoyableness.

  14. For a dissenting view, see Flecther (2013), according to whom Mental State Theories are just enumerative theories of wellbeing.

  15. However, see Heathwood 2005, according to whom the only wellbeing-enhancing objects are the episodes of preference satisfaction themselves.

  16. Typically, these are prospects or states of affairs, but, in principle, nothing prevents them to be concrete entities, like persons or things.

  17. However, see Heathwood 2005 for a defense of the actual preference satisfaction view.

  18. Notice that this is not the only way of characterising the contrast between subjective and objective explanatory theories of wellbeing. According to some authors (e.g. Haybron 2008: 178; Dorsey 2011: 174), a theory of wellbeing counts as subjective if and only if the explanation of why an item is good for an individual makes reference to the individual’s attitudes, most commonly the individual’s preferences or desires.

  19. Whether Perfectionist Theories are genuine theories of wellbeing is a disputed issue. In fact, some authors (e.g. Hurka 1993; Sumner 1996; Haybron 2008) argue, for rather different reasons, that Perfectionist Theories should be seen as accounts of the good life, i.e. the life that is worth choosing, rather than accounts of wellbeing. Without taking a substantive position in this debate, what matters for our purpose is that, as a matter of fact, Perfectionist Theories are often presented and discussed as theories of wellbeing. Indeed, Nussbaum herself, while not interested in offering a precise theory of wellbeing, argues that her Capability approach does provide a useful framework for understanding and evaluating different people’s wellbeing (Nussbaum 2000: 14).

  20. This presentation of the main theories of wellbeing is clearly not exhaustive. Amongst the theories that will not be discussed here, but which are particularly interesting for the purpose of our paper, figure eudemonistic, yet non-perfectionist, theories of wellbeing, such as the one proposed by Haybron 2008. According to Haybron, happiness is one of the constituents of an individual’s wellbeing. Since happiness is conceived as a broadly positive emotional condition, it follows that (at least some) emotions are essential ingredients of wellbeing within Haybron’s account.

  21. Symmetrically, what makes emotions wellbeing-decreasing items, when they are so, is their negative tone or valence.

  22. For a detailed discussion of the accounts of valence, see Colombetti 2005. See also Deonna and Teroni 2012.

  23. This account is often attributed to Lazarus 1991. Lazarus’ overall conception is that positive emotions are those that facilitate the subject’s goals, while negative emotions thwart the subject’s goals (Lazarus 1991: 150).

  24. Thanks to a referee for suggesting this possibility.

  25. Symmetrically, emotions belong to the class of wellbeing-decreasing items to the extent that they figure amongst the objects of an individual’s negative preferences or aversions.

  26. Symmetrically, some emotions may figure within the list of non-instrumentally bad items for the individual when they preclude the full realisation of the individual’s excellence.

  27. The question of how negative emotions, such as fear and anger, can contribute to an individual’s wellbeing is especially interesting. For reasons of space, however, we cannot discuss this point in more detail here.

  28. As one of the referees has reminded us, one may argue that Frijda only makes the claim that that emotions typically come with such motivations. As it should be clear, however, Clore’s arguments also threaten this weaker claim.

  29. For example, anger increases the probability of revenge, but it does not automatically dispose us to seek vengeance.

  30. See Smith 1994 (116), for the claim that desires involves goals. Smith defends a dispositional account of desires according to which, roughly, to desire that p is to be disposed to do what you believed will result in p.

  31. Again, as a referee has suggested to us, it might be argued that Clore only makes the claim that emotions typically involve a desire. While we shall not consider it explicitly, we believe that our argument works against this weaker claim too. In particular, below we attempt to show that some typical instances of fear for others do not involve egoistic desires.

  32. As one referee has pointed out, it might be argued that, in such situations, the subject is as least typically tempted to avoid looking at the movie, which seems more intentional and closely related to the sort of intentional motivations accompanying other cases of fear. We agree that Charles’s fear may involve such a motivation, and that Charles may indeed close his eyes for a moment. The question remains, however, whether a motivation of this kind is necessarily involved in cases of fear at fictional entities.

  33. We called this the thesis of Motivational Welfarism to indicate that, from a motivational point of view, the only thing that matters is the promotion of someone’s welfare.

  34. One may argue that this claim sits ill with the thesis that emotions constitute wellbeing, for one can wonder how something may at the same time inform us about x and constitute x. However, it can be replied that, while emotions do not inform us about our wellbeing via their content, they can nonetheless inform us about our wellbeing through their phenomenology. The experience of an emotion is thus, at the same time, the reason why emotions are good for us, when they are so, and a source of information about it. Thanks to a referee for raising this point.

  35. In this passage, Griffiths argues that his account is consistent with an evolutionary account of affect programs, so he might be interpreted as merely claiming that emotions promote the individuals’ reproductive fitness. However, it has to be noted that danger, noxious stimuli, challenges and novel stimuli, to mention the examples that Griffiths gives, are generally taken to be relevant for the individuals’ wellbeing.

  36. In what follows, we will ignore the qualification ‘essentially’, whenever the context is unambiguous.

  37. Once again, when talking about prudential reasons, we are talking about normative prudential reasons, i.e. considerations that speak in favour of doing or refraining from doing something for the sake of the individual’s wellbeing.

  38. As suggested above, there is a trivial sense in which fear for others may provide us with information about our wellbeing. If experiencing fear decreases our wellbeing, then, by experiencing fear for others, we may have an indication that our life is not going well at the moment. However, we are interested here in a non-trivial sense in which fear for others may provide us information about our wellbeing, which makes reference to the emotion’s formal object, rather than to its phenomenology.

  39. Our claim relies on the idea that an individual’s preferences may not be goals of the individual. I might, for instance, prefer that there be peace in the world in the year 3000, and yet not adopt this as a goal in any recognisable sense.

  40. Once again, this claim should be interpreted in a non-trivial sense. See p. 15 for this.

  41. A different way of formulating the thesis of Epistemic Egoism consists in saying that emotions have the (evolutionary) function of informing us of our prudential reasons to act or not to act in certain ways. This formulation is different from the one considered in this paper, in that it is compatible with the possibility that emotions may not actually inform us of our prudential reasons. The reason is that, although emotions might have been selected for as mechanisms providing relevant information for our wellbeing, changes in environmental conditions make them unsuitable for necessarily fulfilling their evolutionary function now, even when they are appropriately experienced. However, we think that the objection against Cosmides and Tooby’s argument, which we have discussed in the previous section, helps us to equally dispose of this alternative characterisation of the thesis of Epistemic Egoism. To briefly rehearse our objection in a way that applies to the present context, while it may be true that emotions have been selected for as fitness-maximising mechanisms, this does not necessarily entail that, ipso facto, they have been selected for as wellbeing-mechanisms.

  42. A perfectionist defender of Epistemic Welfarism may argue that awe does contribute to an individual’s wellbeing insofar as it favours the individual’s flourishing, e.g. by developing a healthy conception of the individual within the large scheme of things. The question of whether awe can be relevant for wellbeing also within non-perfectionist accounts of wellbeing remains more controversial. We thank a referee for drawing our attention to this possible reply.

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Acknowledgments

This paper was presented at the 5th International Summer School in Affective Sciences, in Geneva 2013. We are grateful to the participants and in particular to David Amadio, Florian Cova, Julien Deonna, Kristján Kristjánsson, David Pizzaro, Fabrice Teroni, as well as to the two anonymous referees for their helpful comments.

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  1. Université de Montréal, 2910 Édouard-Montpetit, Montréal, Canada

    Christine Tappolet

  2. Université du Québec à Montréal, 455 René-Lévesque East, Montréal, Canada

    Mauro Rossi

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  1. Christine Tappolet
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  2. Mauro Rossi
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Correspondence to Christine Tappolet.

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Tappolet, C., Rossi, M. Emotions and Wellbeing. Topoi 34, 461–474 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-013-9234-3

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