Abstract

Michael Stocker believes that philosophers idealize reason and demonize emotion, and that this is a bad thing. Valuing Emotions was written with Elizabeth Hegeman, a psychoanalyst and anthropologist who collaborated on four of the book’s ten major chapters, but four of Stocker’s previously published papers are also incorporated in the book. Its central theme is that emotions are more positively important than contemporary ethicists customarily grant: having proper emotions is a crucial part of being a good person and living a good life, and is also crucial for evaluative knowledge. The book develops no overarching theory of the emotions, however, consisting instead of a number of relatively distinct and diverse sections.