Can Emotions Communicate?

Abstract

In “Reactive Attitudes as Communicative Entities” (2013b), Coleen Macnamara argues that the reactive attitudes—a class of moral emotions that includes indignation, resentment, and gratitude—are essentially communicative entities. She argues that this conclusion follows from the premises that (1) the reactive attitudes aremessages, which (2) have the proper function of eliciting uptake from others. In response, I argue that while the expressions of these emotions may fit this description, the emotions themselves do not. The reactive attitudes neither are messages nor have the proper function of eliciting uptake from others, and thus Macnamara is mistaken to conclude that the reactive attitudes are essentially communicative entities.