Avoiding the Emotion–Thought Conundrum

Abstract

If I am overjoyed that my daughter will act the lead in her high school play next month, then I must believe that she will. The so-called 'object' of my rejoicing in this case is both future and propositional. I use these terms because if you ask what I am gleeful about, my answer will contain a future tensed declarative sentence. My daughter's performance is not yet taking place, nor has it already occurred. So, on the fairly safe assumption that backwards causality is impossible, we must deny that the object of my joyful mood is a cause of my mood. XWhat then should we say brings about my pleasure? The next candidate in line is my belief that my offspring will play Hedda Gabler. This is a more plausible general position anyway. Even in those circumstances where a present or past item is available to engender my emotion toward the item, how could I get stirred up about it if I am totally uncognizant of it? Thus we might as well assert that the 'causal link' between our affective attitudes and their propositional or non-propositional objects always 'passes through thought or perception'., Our difficulty then is to explain how a link as intimate as that between our object-directed emotion and our matching cognitive state may also be causal. I shall propose a method of sidestepping this problem altogether. But for readers who have not yet agonized over the conundrum, I should formulate it more precisely. First we might notice that many standard effects outlast their causes. A forest will keep on blazing long after nothing remains of the lighted cigarette which started the conflagration. By comparison, suppose I stop believing that my daughter will portray Hedda Gabler -perhaps because I hear the production has been cancelled. I think no more of the matter. Then it is logically impossible for me to continue exulting that my daughter will act the lead. Emotion is not temporally independent of thought in the way that most effects are from their causes. Another contrast dovetails with this one. Take any event or state which indisputably results from others: we do not contradict ourselves if we imagine that it begins in their absence. There is no absurdity in supposing the woods spontaneously burst into flame, without the accompaniment of smouldering cigarettes, sparks, lightning-or the presence of oxygen. But could I be completely ignorant of my offspring's theatrical endeavours, having not so much as wondered if she will be in a play, and yet suddenly