Emotional Intentionality and the Attitude‐content Distinction

Abstract

AbstractTypical emotions share important features with paradigmatic intentional states and therefore might admit of distinctions made in theory of intentionality. One such distinction is between attitude and content, where we can specify the content of an intentional state separately from its attitude, and therefore, the same content can be taken up by different intentional attitudes. According to some philosophers, emotions do not admit of this distinction, although there has been no sustained argument for this claim. In this article, I argue that the way values figure in emotional experience qualifies the content of emotional experience such that the attitude‐content distinction cannot be applied.