Emotional Reason

How to Deliberate about Value

Bennett W. Helm

July 5, 2002

Abstract

Deliberation about personal, non-moral values involves elements ofboth invention and discovery. Thus, we invent our values by freely choos-ing them, where such distinctively human freedom is essential to our defin-ing and taking responsibility for the kinds of persons we are; nonetheless,we also discover our values insofar as we can deliberate about them ratio-nally and arrive at non-arbitrary decisions about what has value in ourlives. Yet these notions of invention and discovery seem inconsistent witheach other, and the possibility of deliberation about value therefore seemsparadoxical. My aim is to argue that this apparent paradox is no paradoxat all. I offer an account of what it is to value something largely in terms ofemotions and desires. By examining the rational interconnections amongemotions and evaluative judgments, I argue for an account both of howjudgments can shape our emotions, thereby shaping our values in a waythat makes intelligible the possibility of inventing our values, and of howour emotions can simultaneously rationally constrain correct deliberation,thereby making intelligible the possibility of discovering our values. Theresult is a rejection of both cognitivist and non-cognitivist accounts ofvalue and deliberation about value.

Personal values are those values that enter into an understanding of whatmakes life worth living, values that, because of they way the help define thekind of person one is, are to a large extent relative to the individual. How isdeliberation about personal values possible?

What makes this issue difficult is that our concept of personal value, or ofimport more generally,1 is pulled in seemingly opposed directions of objectivity

American Philosophical Quarterly, 37, 122.1I shall use import to cover two distinct ways in which something might matter to a

person, ways that are distinguished by their depth. Thus, one might care about doing wellin a sporting event, and be motivated on this ground, say, to train hard for it in advance.Yet such a care is not for most of us a central part of our lives such that our very selveswould be wounded if we failed. On the other hand, a professional athlete might well valueparticipating in a sport in the sense that she makes who she is depend on it, and to someextent organizes her understanding of herself around it. Thus, she may undergo an identitycrisis after a career-ending injury. I will have more to say about this distinction betweencaring and valuing below, though I shall throughout use import neutrally with respect tothem.

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and subjectivity. Thus, what is meaningful in my life is at least in part up tome and is in this sense subjective: I can have a say in creating or inventingthe kind of person it is worth my being. To be able to invent ourselves inthis way is to have a kind of freedom that is distinctly human: a freedom notmerely to control our actions but more fundamentally to govern ourselves; callthis freedom autonomy . Yet there seems also to be an element of objectivityin what is meaningful in our lives in that we can reason about it correctly orincorrectly: insofar as it is not intellectually arbitrary which values we choose,we must be able to think critically about the different paths we might take inlife and articulate why one path is better than another. Consequently, whenwe get this reasoning right, we come to discover what makes our lives valuableand worth living, potentially overcoming delusions or misunderstandings aboutourselves. The problem is that such talk of discovery seems to leave no room forinvention, and vice versa. How can we make sense of the possibility of gettingour values (objectively) right or wrong when we are the ones (subjectively)determining the standards of correctness? This difficulty, which I shall call theapparent paradox of simultaneous invention and discovery, seems to undermineour best attempts at getting clearer on the kind of reasoning at issue here. Myaim in this paper will be to show how we can make sense of deliberation aboutpersonal values as involving both aspects of autonomous invention and rationaldiscovery.

To say that import is simultaneously both invented and discovered is to rejectboth cognitivist and non-cognitivist theories of import. According to a cogni-tivist conception, the import things have is something to be discovered, thereindependent of our attitudes towards it; such attitudes are therefore understoodcognitively, as responsive to such independent import. Non-cognitivists, by con-trast, understand import as existing in the world only as projected there byour attitudes, where we can have a complete understanding of those attitudeswithout appealing to import to explain or justify them. The difference betweencognitivism and non-cognitivism therefore consists in their conceptions of therelative conceptual priority of import and the corresponding attitude. My aimin articulating a conception of import that embodies both elements of rationaldiscovery and autonomous invention is in effect to reject any claim of conceptualpriority of the import or the attitude.

I shall argue that the kind of attitudes that are most relevant for understand-ing import is emotional. Consequently, it will be important to understand theemotions and their connections to deliberation and evaluative judgment. Myargument will proceed in 1 by considering an earlier attempt by Charles Taylorto provide the sort of account I will be advocating and arguing that his accountas it stands is inadequate in large part because it is not well grounded on a the-ory of the rational interconnections between emotion and judgment. In 23I provide this theory by arguing that emotions and judgments are two aspectsof a single perspective constitutive of import, each of which has the potentialto correct the other. In 4 I provide a clearer account than Taylor of how,through self-interpretation, we can exercise judgment to shape our emotionalattitudes, although only in ways that are constrained in turn by those emotions

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themselves, thus making room for the possibility of the simultaneous inventionand discovery. Finally, in 5 I extend this account to deliberation about im-port, arguing for a way of making sense of how a change in ones emotional andjudgmental perspective on import can constitute an improvement.

1 Taylor on Radical Reevaluation

Consider Charles Taylors account of radical reevaluation as a way of takingresponsibility for the kind of person one is.2 According to Taylor, persons areessentially strong evaluatorscreatures that can concern themselves with thequalitative worth of different desires (p. 16), thereby aspiring to be a cer-tain kind of person (p. 19). As such, Taylor thinks, there is the possibilityof our taking responsibility for these aspirations by rethinking our values; thisre-thinking he calls radical reevaluation. The question of how such radical reeval-uation is possible is, of course, precisely the question I have been asking abouthow reasoning about personal values can be a matter of both invention anddiscovery, and Taylors outline of a solution provides clear direction for how togo on.

Taylor claims that the task of radical re-evaluation is largely a task of self-interpretation in which one tries to articulate more clearly ones deepest un-structured [or largely inarticulatecf. p. 38] sense of what is important, whichis as yet inchoate and which I am trying to bring to definition (p. 41). Sucha sense is initially (more or less) inarticulate in that one has not yet spelled itout in judgment; as a result, it is somehow implicit in the kind of experiencesand reactions one has, in particular in ones emotions. In part because thisunstructured sense of import is deeply a part of our identities, Taylor thinks,it can help us determine what our personal values should be. Thus, by engag-ing in self-interpretation, one can come to articulate more fully not only ourexperiences of value themselves but also, digging deeper, the relevant sense ofpersonal values that underlies those experiences.

Taylor claims that by interpreting our experiences of import we can changehow we feel and consequently change our sense of import. This phenomenon isfamiliar from such contexts as when we feel vaguely hungry and run throughseveral options for what we might eat until something strikes us as what wewanted, or when we try to figure out where to go for a vacation, trying toarticulate the kind of trip we desire more fully, and eventually settling on some-thing that strikes us as right. In each case, the articulation of what we wantchanges our desire by making it more determinate. However, since there mayhave been many different things that might have satisfied these desires, such anarticulation is in part a matter of shaping and inventing those desires, possiblyin the light of deliberation. Thus, you might reason that since you have just a

2See, for example, his What Is Human Agency? in Human Agency and Language:Philosophical Papers 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 1544; and hisSources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1989), especially Part I.

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couple hours ago stuffed yourself with a large meal, eating something light isnow appropriate, and so start looking for fruit that will satisfy your craving. Ofcourse, you cant just shape your desire any old way you want: eating a lemonprobably wont satisfy the desire (a fact you can test by eating it and seeingif the craving remains unfulfilled). In this way, your vague hunger constrainshow you interpret and so articulate it, thereby making possible a discovery ofwhat you wanted all along. Consequently, in the process of settling on an ap-ple as what you want, there are elements of both discovery (insofar as you areconstrained) and invention (insofar as you nonetheless shape the desire).

Likewise, Taylor claims, an interpretation of our sense of import involveselements of both discovery and invention. In deciding whether to make a careerchange, for example, it is common to lay out the pros and cons on each side, andthen use ones sense of what is more important to guide ones choice. Insofar asthis is deliberation and not guesswork, however, it must involve having some-thing to say about why one made the choice this way: why, to oversimplify, aprofession that involves helping the underprivileged has more going for it thanone that merely pays a lot of money. One can articulate this by saying that it isa nobler life, and in this way, Taylor thinks, one is articulating more fully onesdeepest sense of what is important. To do this is to provide some shape to onesunderstanding of value and so is in part a matter of autonomous choice: inven-tion. Nonetheless, not just any choice is possible here, and mistaken choicesmay leave one feeling unfulfilled: maybe that to which one aspires is instead akind of high culture only the high paying job will enable one to afford. Conse-quently, ones unstructured sense of import can impose constraints on choice ina way that enables one to discover what one really values: it is that to whichour judgments must strive to be faithful (p. 38). Invention and discoveryare simultaneously possible because of the role self-interpretation plays in thisspecial kind of deliberation.

Although there is much that is right about this outline of how we can rea-son about lifes meaning, Taylors account as it stands is incompletemore agesture in the direction of a solution than the solution itself. Many questions re-main. First, exactly what is this deepest unstructured sense of things (p. 42)?Taylor suggests that ones emotions are somehow central, but exactly how is leftunclear.3

Are emotions merely reliable indicators of what has import to us, or do theysomehow (partly?) constitute it? To make sense of the way Taylor wants tounderstand deliberation about import as involving aspects of both inventionand discovery by interpreting ones emotions, it seems that he must have thelatter in mind. But exactly how do emotions constitute a sense of import, andwhat provides the kind of depth Taylors account needs? Second, it is unclearexactly how we could go about interpreting this sense of import. After all, if it isunstructured as Taylor says, what purchase does it provide for interpretation?4

3For a little more detail, however, see Taylors Self-Interpreting Animals, in HumanAgency and Language, pp. 4576.

4It is this idea that our sense of import is unstructured that makes appropriate the analogyto a vague hunger I gave above. Yet it is surely a strain to talk of interpreting ones hunger

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Finally, how exactly are we to understand the relation between our senseof import and our evaluative judgments in a way that allows for simultaneousinvention and discovery? On the one hand, if we are to make sense of oursense of import as constraining judgment in a way that underwrites claims ofdiscovery, that constraint must be not merely causal but rational, providingreasons for judging one way rather than another. We can make sense of such arational constraint if we understand our sense of import to be an experience ofsome already existing item, akin to sense perception, so that judgment has therole of discerning such import more clearly in the face of sometimes conflictingexperiences. This is, of course, a cognitivist conception of import, and as suchit seems to undermine the idea that we simultaneously invent import. On theother hand, we might relax this emphasis on the objectivity of import and socome to see our experiences as constitutive of import, as on a non-cognitivistconception. In such a case, it might seem, we can make sense of judgment asboth interpreting our experiences, thereby articulating what has import to us(as constituted in those experiences), and identifying inconsistencies in thoseexperiences in a way that enables us subsequently to alter our experience. Herewe might understand the result as a kind of discovery that is consistent withthe idea that the import is invented by us. However, the resulting conceptionof the objectivity of import seems to be insufficient, for mere internal coherenceof experience is compatible with the discovery that our evaluative experiencesdistort their objects and so get import wrong. The problem is that makingsense of this stronger notion of discovery seems to force us back to a cognitivistconception of import and so to an unsatisfactory account of invention. How,then, can this oscillation between cognitivist and non-cognitivist conceptions ofimport be avoided?

The solution to these difficulties with Taylors account can be found in amore detailed account of emotions, as a fundamental kind of experience of im-port, and their rational interconnections with judgment. Traditionally, however,our intellectual capacities for deliberation, interpretation, and judgment havebeen understood as always more rational than our (subjective and therefore lessrational) capacities for emotions. Consequently, any other mental state (suchas the emotions) that conflicts with the outcomes of deliberation and judg-ment must ipso facto be irrational. However, I shall argue, this understandingpresents us with a distorted view of what reasoning involves, a conception thatblinds us to the contributions emotions can make to rational deliberation.

2 Emotions and Rational Patterns

What is it for something to have import to a subject? Although it is beyondthe scope of this paper to present detailed arguments for the particular accountof import I advocate and so to defend it against the alternatives, my aim here is

and so of coming to a better understanding of it. As I shall argue in 4, these analogiesultimately fail because our sense of import must itself have structure that rationally constrainsones interpretation of it.

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to provide enough detail to ground my subsequent claims. In the end, perhaps,the best argument for this conception of import is the light it sheds on how wecan deliberate about it.5 Intuitively, at least part of what it is to have importis to be worthy of attention and action. That something is worthy of attentionmeans not merely that it is permissible or a good thing to pay attention toit; rather, it means that paying attention to it is, by and large, required onpain of giving up or at least undermining the idea that it really has import toone. After all, it is hard (though, perhaps, not impossible) to credit someonewith caring about, say, having a clean house even though he never or rarelynotices when it gets dirty. This is not to deny that someone who genuinelycares may in some cases be distracted by other things that are more importantand so not occasionally notice that it is getting dirty. What is required, however,is a consistent pattern of attending to the relevant object: in short, a kind ofvigilance for what happens or might well happen to it. Similarly, that somethingis worthy of action means that acting on its behalf is, other things being equal,required if its continued import is to be intelligible: to care about a clean houserequires not only vigilance for cleanliness but also a preparedness to act so asto maintain it.

The relevant modes of vigilance and preparedness for understanding importare primarily emotional, desiderative, and judgmental, and I shall argue that wecan understand the sense in which objects of import are worthy of attention andaction in terms of the rational interconnections among these modes. Of partic-ular importance are the emotions, which just are feelings of imports of variouskinds; consequently, being vigilant for import means feeling emotions when ap-propriate and not otherwise. To understand this more fully it is necessary firstto establish some vocabulary.

The formal object of an emotion is the kind of import definitive of that emo-tion as the kind of emotion it is. Thus, fear of something is to be distinguishedfrom anger at the same thing insofar as in fear you feel it to be dangerous,whereas in anger you feel it to be offensive; these implicit evaluations of some-thing as dangerous or offensive are what make fear be fear and anger be angerand so are their respective formal objects. The target of an emotion is intu-itively that at which the emotion is directedthat which gets presented in theemotion as having the evaluative property defined by the formal object. In thisway, emotions involve implicit evaluations of their targets as having a kind ofimport. The focus of an emotion is the background object having import towhich the target is related in such a way as to make intelligible the targetshaving the property defined by the formal object. For example, I might beafraid as the neighbor kid throws a ball that comes perilously close to smashinga vase. Here the target of my fear is the ball, which the emotion presents ashaving the formal objectas being dangerous; the focus of my fear is the vase,for it is in virtue of both the import the vase has for me and the relation theball has to it (as potentially smashing it) that the ball is intelligible as a danger.

5For more detailed arguments, see my The Significance of Emotions, American Philo-sophical Quarterly, 31 (1994), pp. 31931.

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Consequently, we can make sense of emotions as being appropriate or not interms of whether the implicit evaluation of its target is warranted. The condi-tions of appropriateness of emotions therefore have two parts. First, the focusmust really have import to the subject: my fear would be inappropriate if thevase is not something I care about. Second, the target must be, or intelligiblyseem to be, appropriately related to the focus: my fear would be inappropriateif the ball had no real potential to damage the vase (because, say, it is made oflight-weight foam rubber). Given these conditions of appropriateness, we canunderstand emotions to be a kind of sensitivity or responsiveness to the importof ones situation: emotions are essentially intentional feelings of import.

Emotions are often treated as if they were isolated states of feeling, but it isimportant not to overlook the complex rational connections they have to othermental states. In part, these connections are among the emotions themselves:to experience one emotion is in effect to commit oneself to feeling other emotionswith the same focus in the relevant actual and counterfactual situations becauseof the import of that focus. Thus, if you are hopeful that some end can beachieved, then you normally6 ought also to be afraid when its accomplishmentis threatened, relieved when the threat does not materialize, angry at thosewho intentionally obstruct progress towards it, and satisfied when you finallyachieve it (or disappointed when you fail); moreover it would be inconsistentwith these emotions to be afraid of achieving the goal, grateful towards thosewho sabotage it, etc.7 In this way, emotions normally come in broader patternsof other emotions sharing a common focus.

This talk of emotional commitments needs further explanation in terms ofthe kinds of patterns they normally involve, patterns that I shall now argue areboth rational and projectible. Such a pattern is rational in that belonging to itis partly constitutive of the appropriateness of particular emotions. Thus, myfeeling of fear focussed on the vase as the baseball hurls towards it would beinappropriate unless I would also feel relief if the vase were to emerge unscathed,disappointment, sadness, or grief if it were destroyed, anger at the neighbor kidfor his casual disregard of it, etc. (Precisely why this is so will be discussedshortly.)

In saying that the patterns are rational, I am not claiming that emotionsbelonging to the pattern are merely permitted by the import of their common fo-cus. Rather, other things being equal, the failure to experience emotions that fitinto the pattern when otherwise appropriate is a rational failure. Consequently,being such as to have these emotions in the relevant actual and counterfactualsituations is rationally required, and the resulting pattern of emotions mustbe projectible. This is not to say that one must feel emotions every time they

6I shall throughout carefully distinguish normal, which I use in its normative sense, fromusual, which I use merely to indicate a statistical regularity.

7Notice that such inconsistency is a kind of ambivalence that is particularly unstable pre-cisely because it involves an implicit evaluation of the same focus as both good and bad.Another type of ambivalence involves feeling both good and bad in the same situation, butwhere ones feelings have different foci. Ambivalence of this type need not involve any rationalconflict and indeed might be precisely what is called for by the situation.

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are appropriate in order for their focus to have import; isolated failures to feelparticular emotions, though rationally inappropriate, do not undermine the ra-tional coherence of the broader pattern so long as these failures remain isolated.Nonetheless, particular emotions are beholden to the broader patterns of whichthey are a part in the sense that, by virtue of the projectibility and rationalityof these patterns, there is a rational requirement to feel these emotions in therelevant circumstances and not otherwise.

At this point we can see that there is a two-way conceptual connection be-tween somethings having import and its being the focus of such a projectible,rational pattern of emotions. First, these patterns of emotions depend on im-port. As argued above, it is a necessary condition of the appropriateness ofparticular emotions, as intentional feelings of import, that their focus have im-port. This means in part that the commitment implicit in these emotions isintelligible as rational only in terms of that import: by feeling the focus to haveimport, I am in essence feeling it to be worthy of attention and so as calling forother emotions in the relevant actual and counterfactual situations. Particularemotions, therefore, presuppose import as their proper object.

It may now seem that import is conceptually prior to the projectible, ra-tional patterns of emotions, but that would be to ignore the second conceptualconnection between them. Insofar as something is the focus of such a patternof emotions, the projectibility of that pattern ensures that one will typicallyrespond with the relevant emotions whenever that focus is affected favorably oradversely. In effect, the projectibility of the pattern of emotions is an attune-ment of ones sensibilities to that focus, and this just is the sort of vigilancenormally required for import. Yet these patterns of emotions make intelligiblenot only that one has a disposition to respond to the focus of the pattern; insofaras the pattern itself is rational, one ought to have these subsequent emotions,and so one ought to pay attention to the focus of the pattern, precisely becausethe past pattern of ones emotions rationally commits one to feel these subse-quent emotions when otherwise appropriate. Consequently, the rationality ofthe pattern makes intelligible the idea that the focus of that pattern is worthyof attention. In this way, such a pattern of emotions is presupposed by import,at least insofar as to have import is to be worthy of attention: it is hard to makesense of someone as caring about something if he does not respond emotionallyno matter what when it is affected favorably or adversely.8

Of course, to have import is to be worthy of action as well. This is intelligibleonce again in terms of projectible, rational patterns, though we must extendour conception of these patterns in light of the rational interconnections amongemotions and desires. On the one hand, if something is the focus of a projectible,

8I say that it is hard to make sense of import in such a case because there are otherelements that go into constituting import, such as ones desires and judgment, and these mayenable us to make sense of import even in the face of a failure of emotional response. Doingso, however, requires a special story about why the pattern of emotions is absent so as toexplain away that absence (and its irrationality) while preserving the coherence of the overallpattern. (I have discussed such a case, in which the import defined largely by ones emotionsand that defined largely by ones judgments pull apart, in my Integration and Fragmentationof the Self, Southern Journal of Philosophy, 34 (1996), pp. 4363.)

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rational pattern of emotions, it rationally ought to be a focus of desire as well,both as something one is motivated to pursue or maintain and as the sourceof instrumental reasons for ones pursuit of means to such an end. This isbecause to display a projectible, rational pattern of emotions focussed on avase, for example, is to be committed to the import of that vase. Insofar asto have import is to be worthy of action, such a commitment must thereforebe to have the relevant desires and so act on its behalfsuch as for a displaycase to protect it from dust and errant baseballs. Consequently, a failure tohave the relevant desires focussed on the vase and so be motivated by thesedesires when otherwise appropriate would be a rational failure. Moreover, aconsistent failure to have these desires would mean that one is not prepared toact on its behalf, thereby undermining its import and so the rationality of thepattern of emotions. On the other hand, desire also involves a commitment tofeel the relevant emotions. For to desire something is not merely to be disposedto pursue it as an end; it rather involves the sense that this end is worthy ofpursuit: that it has import. Consequently, if one did not in general feel fearwhen a desired end is threatened, relief when the threat does not pan out, etc.,it would be hard to make sense of that end as having import and so as beingan appropriate object of desire. The upshot of these interconnections betweendesires and emotions is that the projectible, rational pattern in ones emotionsmust include ones desires as well. The projectibility of this pattern, therefore,makes possible not only ones vigilance for import but also ones preparednessto act on its behalf, and the rationality of this pattern makes intelligible itsfocus being not only worthy of attention but also worthy of action.

Nonetheless, different kinds of import demand different kinds of patternsof emotional and desiderative response. Thus, we can distinguish caring fromvaluing in terms of distinctions between reflexive and non-reflexive emotions andbetween second-order and first-order desires.9 Reflexive emotions, althoughtheir targets and foci are typically things in the world, nonetheless involve asense of their foci as a part of the kind of person it is worth being; in this way,the kind of evaluation implicit in their formal objects is not only of their targetsbut also of oneself. Thus, pride, shame, remorse, self-approbation, and somekinds of self-confidence and anxiety are all reflexive emotions because of theirconcern with the kind of person it is worth being. Likewise, second-order desiresinvolve finding the desire for some end to be itself a part of the kind of person it isworth being. For this reason, rational patterns of reflexive emotions and second-order desires involve the kind of depth we associate with valuing. In contrast,caring, which lacks that depth, is partially constituted by rational patterns offirst-order desires and non-reflexive emotions: emotions whose formal objectsinvolve implicit evaluations only of their targets and not of the kind of personone is. These are emotions such as fear, hope, satisfaction, and anger.10

9For a more complete account of the distinction between first- and second-order desires, seeHarry Frankfurts Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person in his The Importanceof What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 1125.

10For a more careful distinction along these lines between caring and valuing, and its rel-evance for understanding what it is to be a person, see my Freedom of the Heart, Pacific

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Emotions11 are not alone in constituting import, for deliberation and judg-ment must also be central. This is because we can, for example, deliberate aboutwhat constitutes such vaguely specified ends as a good vacation or a good life,and arrive at judgments that shape the imports things have for us, where suchdeliberation must be intelligible as a matter of simultaneous discovery and in-vention. To decide that one values something is to confer on its object the statusof having import, which means that it ought also to be the focus of a projectible,rational pattern of emotions. The failure to exhibit at least large parts of thesepatterns of emotions therefore undermines the idea that the object really hasimport, thereby undermining ones judgment of its worth. Consequently, delib-eration succeeds only if it is able to bring ones emotions along with it, and soones emotions impose a kind of constraint on correct deliberation.

This, of course, is much too quick. If emotion is to impose constraintson correct deliberation, these constraints must be imposed rationally and notarbitrarily. At this point one might object that evaluative judgments are theprimary way in which we make evaluations, for it is by making judgments that wearticulate evaluations and so make them explicit to ourselves in a way that allowsus to think self-consciously about their justification. So, the objection concludes,the evaluations made explicit in judgment are intrinsically more rational or morefundamental than those implicit in emotion, and the considerations I have justoffered are simply irrelevant to understanding how we can deliberate aboutvalue.

Although deliberative judgments surely have a central role in constitutingimport, we might think the objection overstates that role by assuming thatevaluative judgments are always rationally prior to emotions insofar as in anycase of conflict between them it is the emotion that ought to be brought in line.This assumption needs careful reexamination in light of a careful articulationof the rational connections among emotions and evaluative judgments. It is tothis that I turn in 3.

3 Single Perspective on Import

When emotion and judgment coincide, a subject will have a single, unifiedperspective on the world. Thus, at dusk you may see a large brown dog chargingthrough the trees directly at you and respond simultaneously with the thoughtthat it is a vicious Rottweiler and with fear of it, and it is this joint responsethat constitutes your overall perspective on your circumstances. Of course, thisperspective might be mistaken, and we can rationally assess both the judgment(as right or wrong) and the emotion (as appropriate or not) in terms of whetherthe perspective they afford reveals the world as it is. Consequently, to reviseyour judgment so as to arrive at a clearer perspective on the world will normally

Philosophical Quarterly, 77 (1996), pp. 7187.11Because my concern in the rest of this paper is with import rather than motivation, for

simplicity of expression I shall for the most part speak merely of emotions, thereby intendingboth emotions and desires.

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involve corresponding changes in your emotion. Thus, as the dog rushes at you,you hear the owner, whom you had met earlier, of the friendly, toothless Bernesemountain dog yelling, Stay! In hearing this sound, you make the inference andcome to perceive the brown blur more accurately, a more accurate perceptionthat simultaneously undermines both your former belief and your fear. Toachieve the clarity of perspective the inference makes possible is to rule outalternative inconsistent perspectives, such as that provided by ones fear. Hence,to make the inference in this case just is to change your emotion as well as yourbelief.

Ones emotions and judgments can, of course, come apart and so present onewith inconsistent perspectives on the world. In such cases, we ordinarily thinkof the emotion as being at fault. Thus, if, upon realizing that the dog mustbe the friendly Bernese, your emotion does not change, then it would seem theemotion is inappropriate because it conflicts with your considered judgment.Judgment in this case has a kind of rational priority in part because of itsstability and coherence with other things you believe, a coherence that enablesyou to perceive the situation differently and in a way that achieves a measureof confirmation in a more careful scrutiny of your circumstances.

Not all cases of rational conflict between emotions and beliefs need to be likethis, however. When an inexperienced camper camps alone for the first time, therustling noises coming from the nearby undergrowth may cause him to be afraid.Although he may try to calm himself by telling himself that it is probably justa harmless rabbit bedding down for the night, his fear may persist: the noisescontinue, and he continues to feel them as vaguely threatening, a threat thatis ultimately confirmed by a loud noise followed by the high-pitched squealof a small animal in pain. Because of this rational conflict with a persistentemotion, it may well look like this belief, isolated as it is from other judgments,is much more akin to wishful thinking than a considered judgment. It seemsplausible, therefore, that the best way to resolve this conflict, even before thefinal confirmation, is to give up (at least by withholding) on the belief. In sucha case, the emotion may well turn out to be more rationally appropriate and soto correct the belief in the minimal sense that it provides a reason to reconsiderthat belief in order to achieve a new clarity of perspective.12 In the examplesjust provided, the conflicts between emotions and judgments concern largelynon-evaluative facts, namely whether some animal may well intend to injureme; it is not in dispute that such injury would be bad. As I shall now argue, asimilar moral applies when we turn to conflicts over the imports things have forus: emotion and judgment are each rationally responsive to the same thing, and

12One might object that in this example the wishful thinking is not a genuine belief insofaras it can be quickly doubted and shown up as irrational by the emotion, so that the case isnot one of the emotion correcting a belief. There is some truth to this, though it only servesto reinforce my point. First, just because it is wishful thinking does not mean it does notfunction as a belief in the relevant ways: as a cause of behavior, as a premise in an inference,etc. Second, doubt that one has the belief here must be based on ones having the emotionadoubt that is well grounded only in light of the rationality of the emotion, thus confirmingmy claim in the text.

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each can correct the other in cases of rational conflict. This understanding ofemotion and judgment is possible only because import is an object about whichwe can be right or wrong in a sense that makes the possibility of discoveryintelligible. This is clear in the case of emotions, as already argued in 2:particular emotions might be rationally inappropriate insofar as they respond tothings which, by failing to be the focus of a broader pattern of emotions, do notreally have import to us. The same is true of evaluative judgments: merely tojudgeeven sincerelythat something is important does not mean that it reallyis so. In such cases, ones evaluative judgments may misrepresent the importsthings have for one. Nonetheless, the moral in the case of evaluative conflicts isnot exactly the same as that for non-evaluative conflicts. The two kinds of casediffer in that import is itself constituted in part by ones projectible, rationalpatterns of emotions and desires. Because these patterns are subject to rationalcriticism by evaluative judgment, to investigate the rational interconnectionsamong emotions and evaluative judgments is in part to articulate more fullyrational patterns constitutive of the imports things have for one.

Consider the following example. Cassie pays much attention to her personalappearance. Thus, she keeps up with the latest trends, eagerly buying currentfashions and scorning those who are out of style, and she is fastidious about thecondition of her clothes, often getting upset when the dry cleaner does not cleanor press them just so. In short, she invests considerable time and emotionalenergy in her appearancea pattern of emotions and desires that constitutethe import it has for her. Eventually, however, Cassie begins to think and readsystematically about ethics, becomes a confirmed utilitarian, and is articulateabout the reasons why. Moreover, she realizes that the money, time, and energyshe has been spending on fashion is excessive and ought to be used insteadto promote worthy causes, such as helping the needy. She therefore resolvesto eliminate or at least to reduce these excesses by, for example, buying newclothes only when the old ones are genuinely worn out: fashion and appearance,she judges, are not very important in the larger scheme of things. In spite of thisresolve, however, Cassie continues to feel emotions consistent with her earlierpattern of concern, and becomes increasingly dissatisfied with her appearanceand even annoyed at her newfound principles, even as she intellectually rejectsthese emotions as groundless.

Here Cassie faces a conflict between her emotions (and the coherent, pro-jectible pattern they form) and her judgments (and the pattern of inferencesshe has come to endorse). In the face of this conflict, what can we say about theimport her appearance now has for her? If we focus narrowly on this patternof emotions, it seems clear that she still does care about her appearance, yetif we focus narrowly on her judgments and patterns of inference, it seems clearthat she does not (at least to the same extent). Nonetheless, her judgments alsoseem to have rational priority: her considered view is that fashion should notmatter to her, that it does not have import to her. Insofar as this is her con-sidered view, it seems that her judgments have corrected her emotions, whichnow ought to fall in line; their failure to do so merely exhibits the irrationalityof these emotions.

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Part of what makes these judgments intelligible as articulating her consideredview is her ability to justify them in light of a broader evaluative framework.Equally important, however, is the way in which this evaluative framework asa whole generally resonates with her emotions insofar as it provides her withan evaluative perspective on the world that both is consistent with, and is thatin terms of which she can make sense of, those emotions, perhaps with theexception of a few isolated domains such as fashion. To see this, assume theopposite: that Cassies intellectual assent to utilitarianism does not generallyresonate with her emotions, as when she is forced to make choices betweenloyalty and devotion to her loved ones and helping others selflessly. For herassent to utilitarianism to represent her considered judgment, the perspective itprovides must be able in general to rule out alternative, inconsistent evaluativeperspectives and so make the best sense of her overall sensitivity to import. Yetthe conflict with her emotions, given their consistency and breadth, is precisely aconflict with an inconsistent evaluative perspective, thus bringing into questionthe idea that her judgments represent her considered view and so the idea thatthere is a clear fact of the matter about what she really values. In such acase, judgment is not rationally prior to emotion and, we might say, Cassiesemotions have corrected her judgment in the minimal sense that, so long asthe alternative evaluative perspective they provide persists, she has reason toreconsider.13 This example of emotions in this sense correcting judgments isnot isolated. Our value judgments can be distorted by peer or other societalpressures, as was the case for Huck Finn judging that he ought to turn Jimin. In such cases one is blind in judgment to the imports ones emotions bothconstitute and reveal. Moreover, the conflicts between emotions and judgmentscan occur not merely over whether something has value or not but also over howto balance ones various values against each other in particular cases. In short,judgments (whether evaluative or not) and emotions are tightly interconnectedinsofar as they are located within, and assessable in terms of, the same rationalframework such that each can correct the other. This means that, when thingsgo right, it is not that two separate faculties of judgment and emotion merelyhappen to converge on a single object; rather, judgments and emotions provideus with a single, unified perspective on the world. Because of these rationalinterconnections, changes in ones perspective as the result of changes in eitherones emotions or judgments ought to bring the other along with it; If this doesnot happen, the idea that ones perspective really has changed is undermined,and ones perspective may be fragmented as a result.

This means that evaluative judgments and emotions that share a commonfocus are a part of the same projectible, rational pattern that simultaneouslyboth is defined by their mutual commitment to the import of their commonfocus and constitutes that import. The projectibility of this pattern, as definedby these mutual commitments, means that emotions and evaluative judgmentsmust normally be rationally responsive to each other on pain of undermining

13For further examples of evaluative conflicts between patterns of emotions and judgments,see my Integration and Fragmentation of the Self.

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the coherence of the pattern, thereby fragmenting ones evaluative perspective.By undermining this pattern, such fragmentation therefore undermines the ideathat there is a clear fact of the matter about what has import to one. Con-sequently, as we have just seen, deliberation and judgment on their own donot guarantee success in achieving a new clarity of evaluative perspective andso changing that import. Ones emotions may be resistant to new evaluativeperspectives one may try to achieve through deliberation, and such resistance,so long as it is systematic and provides one with an inconsistent evaluativeperspective, provides one with reason to reconsider.

4 Self-Interpretation and Change of Import

My claim in 2 was that to have import is to be worthy of attention and actionin the sense of both warranting and calling for ones attention and action, and Ithere cashed this out in terms of emotion and desire: to have import is in partto be a suitable focus of emotions and desires generally. Rational patterns ofemotion and desire, therefore, provide one with part of an evaluative perspectiveon the world constitutive of import. We have just seen in 3 that this perspectivemust include ones evaluative judgments as well insofar as it is by articulating,criticizing, and revising that perspective that one can achieve clarity in whathas import to one. Import, then, is constituted by these projectible, rationalpatterns in ones emotions, desires, and evaluative judgments. For what makessomething be worthy of attention and action is nothing other than the wayin which these various mental states hang together in rational patterns. Thatis precisely what is meant in calling these patterns rational: it is in part thepatterns themselves that determine the appropriateness of the various elementsof that pattern by constituting import.

This background theory of the rational structure of emotions and evalua-tive judgments enables us to make sense of how self-interpretation is possibleand so of Taylors appeal to it in order to resolve the apparent paradox of si-multaneous invention and discovery. For when there is some lack of clarity inthe patterns of ones emotions, whether in the precise target or focus of onesemotions or in emotional depth, we can as Taylor suggests articulate throughself-interpretation more precisely what we are feeling, thereby delineating moreclearly the pattern as a whole and so shaping what has import to us; here thereis a kind of autonomous invention. Yet we cannot articulate these emotions anyway we please, for our articulations are rationally constrained by the emotionswe come to have and so by the broader rational structure of this pattern ofemotions; here there is a kind of discovery. Consequently, successful interpreta-tion not merely changes what we feel but does so in a way that amounts to adiscovery of what we were feeling all along.14 This needs further explanation.

14It is this broader rational structure of emotions that makes intelligible the idea of self-interpretation in a way that does not apply to the apparently analogous phenomenon describedin 1 of articulating a vague hunger. For in the case of hunger the notion of self-interpretationdoes not get a grip precisely because the hunger is just a vague, unstructured sense of wanting

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4.1 Indeterminacy in Focus

Consider first an example of unclarity in the focus of emotion. Ed finds himselfincreasingly interested in and excited about going to volunteer every weekendat a local homeless shelter, but is puzzled as to the source of his excitementfor this: is it a newfound concern for helping others, or is it a growing love forLisa, one of the other volunteers? The question here is about the focus of hisemotion: what is the background object the import of which makes volunteeringintelligible as something to get excited about? Insofar as rationality is a canon ofinterpretation for the mental, the answer must identify the projectible, rationalpattern of other emotions with the same focus, a pattern to which his excitementis beholden as a necessary condition of its appropriateness.

Determining the focus of his excitement depends in part on what emotionsEd has felt in the past. On the one hand, has his past excitement been a kind ofhopefulness that has become disappointment when Lisa has not shown up? If hedid feel bad in these cases, that would suggest that the focus is Lisa. (It mightbe, however, that he felt bad for other reasons, and it was just coincidence thatthose were the times she didnt show up; that would undermine this suggestion.)On the other hand, has he felt excited about similar opportunities to help othersin contexts in which Lisa is not present? This might indicate that the focus ofhis excitement is helping others. (Again, however, we can ask about whether thepresence or absence of excitement in these other cases can be explained away byother factors.) These are further questions for interpretation, and in each casethey are questions of exactly what the relevant patterns in his past emotionsare and how these patterns are connected to his present excitement.

In this case, however, Eds interest, whether it is in Lisa or in volunteering,is only recently beginning to grow, and there may be indeterminacy in how tounderstand the relevant patterns of emotions; hence multiple interpretationsmay be possible. In trying to answer these questions, Ed himself is able to acertain extent to invent himself through self -interpretation. For to arrive at asingle understanding of himself and what has import for him requires makinginterpretive decisions whose effect is to delineate patterns of emotions whereantecedently there were no clear lines to be drawn, thereby changing his under-standing not only of his current excitement but also of his past emotions. Thisis important because these patterns commit him to feel other emotions withthe same focus, thereby imposing rational pressure to sustain the projectibilityof the patterns. By making these interpretive decisions and delineating thesepatterns more precisely, Ed is not only making the pattern in his past emotionsmore determinate; he is undertaking commitments that shape the future courseof his emotions, thus providing a new direction to his sensitivity to import as awhole.

Of course, Ed cannot just make any old decision about what he cares about.

something to eat, so that although an articulation here can help make determinate the objectof ones hunger, it does not really make sense to say that this is a matter of discoveringwhat one wanted all along. For this reason, Taylors description of emotions as similarlyunstructured must be false if this sort of interpretation of emotions is to be possible.

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Self-interpretation like any interpretation must be constrained by its object; asTaylor says, the articulation of import must be faithful to something, andwe can now understand this something to be in part the rational patternsin ones emotions generally. By being held accountable to these patterns, sucharticulation of import runs the risk of getting it wrong. It may be that the sub-sequent emotions one feels are not consistent with the patterns of emotions onehas delineated in self-interpretation, and this failure of the pattern to projectinto the future indicates that ones interpretation is inadequate. Thus we canunderstand successful interpretation as a kind of discovery of what has importto one.15 Nonetheless, it is not true, in cases in which ones subsequent emotionsare consistent with the pattern as one interprets it to be, that one has merelydiscovered the pattern that was there all along, for that would be to ignorethe rational interconnections among emotions and judgments and so the waysin which self-interpretation can shape ones subsequent emotions. We shouldnot conceive the role of judgment as that of offering up an interpretation assomething like a prediction that can be shown to be right or wrong as onessubsequent emotions take their course. Having decided to interpret oneself oneway, there may be considerable work both in casting about to reinterpret sub-sequent apparently anomalous emotions in a way that is consistent with theinterpretation, and in exerting effort on behalf of ones judgment so as to getones emotions to conform.16 To interpret the pattern of emotions in this way isto arrive at an understanding of ones perspective on import, and because thisunderstanding is (barring self-deception) to some degree well-grounded in onesemotions themselves, it exerts rational pressure on ones subsequent emotionsto conform, albeit rational pressure that is defeasible. When this pressure issuccessful, it institutes a new evaluative perspective that can properly be un-derstood as a kind of invention, for antecedent to the interpretive judgment,there was no clear fact of the matter about what the focus of ones emotionswas.

Consequently, invention and discovery are both possible here because of themutual readjustments emotion and judgment each must make as responsive torational pressure from the other.

15One might object that because such discovery is merely a matter of coherence, it isnot a very interesting notion of discovery and therefore cannot be that which underlies ourdeliberation about import. This is right: we need to be able to articulate a conception ofhow a change in import can be an improvement even when it results in no net increase incoherence. This issue will be addressed in 5 by arguing that the articulation of import must beaccountable not only to the rational patterns in ones emotions but also to a correct elucidationof the relevant evaluative concepts in terms of which such improvement is intelligible.

16For more on how one can exert this kind of effort, see my Freedom of the Heart.Moreover, as I shall argue in 5, the mere identification of the unclarity in ones emotions canitself irrevocably change ones subsequent emotions.

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4.2 Indeterminacy in Depth

Consider now another example, in which the indeterminacy involved lies withthe depth of ones emotions. Fran, a mother who, having decided that shewants to resume her career now that her children are in secondary school, hasrecently gone back to work full time and is now faced with a readjustment of herrelationships with her husband and children. As her commitments at work beginto encroach on her previous commitments to her family, she begins to feel badabout missing important events in their lives. In part the question she facesin feeling this way concerns whether the relevant emotions are non-reflexiveemotions like frustration or disappointment, or reflexive emotions like shameor guilt: is her absence at these events merely an unfortunate consequence ofconflicting cares and concerns, or is it, more deeply, a failure to be the kind ofperson to which she aspires? In this case neither the target of her emotions (hermissing important events in the lives of her family) nor their foci (her familyand her work) are in question; rather it is the depth of the emotions themselvesand so whether the relevant import is that of caring or valuing.

As before, this question must be answered in terms of the broader, rationalpattern of other emotions into which this negative emotion fits. Does Fran feelmere satisfaction or a deeper self-approbation when she is there for her family?If she has to leave work and rush to get to her sons school play in time, doesshe feel fear or hope turning into relief or satisfaction? or does she feel anxietyor self-assurance turning into self-affirming relief or self-approbation? Thesequestions may not yet have determinate answers insofar as there may not yetbe a clear pattern of rationally connected emotions to resolve the matter oneway or the other, and hence no antecedent fact of the matter about the depthof import here. Given this indeterminacy, Fran may decide to delineate therelevant patterns in terms of non-reflexive emotions: although she cares aboutmissing these important events in her childrens lives, her bad feelings are merelycaused by a regrettable conflict given her circumstances rather than a failing ofherself as a person.

Once again, this decision is a matter of simultaneous invention and discov-ery. It is a discovery insofar as the evaluative judgment it involves must be heldaccountable to the subsequent emotions Fran comes to feel and the resultingrational patterns that constitute the import things really have for her. It is aninvention insofar as by making this judgment Fran is coming to articulate moreclearly the kind of import at issue in her feelings, thus making determinate thebroader rational patterns of emotions she has felt, thereby committing herself to,and exerting rational pressure on, her subsequent emotions, which are beholdento these patterns. It is only out of these mutual readjustments of emotion andevaluative judgment, each rationally accountable to the other, that a single eval-uative perspective and the import it constitutes can be simultaneously inventedand discovered.

Consequently, an articulation of import by self-interpretation can be faith-ful to the patterns in ones emotions only because these patterns are rationallystructured; insofar as interpretation is to be possible at all, its object cannot

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be what Taylor calls ones unstructured sense of import. Moreover, it is alsoonly because of this structure of rationality in emotion that self-interpretivejudgments are intelligible as shaping the subsequent course of emotion: by ar-ticulating in judgment the patterns in ones emotions, one thereby delineatesmore precisely what those patterns actually are; since ones emotions are be-holden to these patterns, this delineation of past patterns ipso facto imposesrational pressure on ones subsequent emotions to conform.

5 Deliberation and Rational Improvement of Im-port

This account of the way in which self-interpretation can affect patterns of emo-tions and so what has import to us is not by itself an account of how we canreason about what is meaningful or valuable in our lives. For according to theaccount so far, self-interpretation enables us to identify and resolve indetermina-cies in what has import simply by achieving increased coherence in the rationalpatterns of emotions, desires, and judgments. Yet there may be multiple waysto do this, and only some or one of these ways may count as an improvement.The problem is that nothing has been said about the standards according towhich improvement is intelligible, and so the account of the discovery of importis inadequate as it stands. Moreover, the discussion so far can seem quite limitedby focussing merely on how to resolve antecedent indeterminacy in the importthings have to us, whereas deliberation about import can obviously proceed evenwhen there is no current indeterminacy. This section aims to overcome theselimitations by expanding the account of simultaneous invention and discoveryfrom 4 to include deliberation proper so as to achieve an account that under-writes a conception of ourselves as able autonomously but nonetheless rationallyand non-arbitrarily to decide what shape our lives should take.

Deliberation about import requires the use of a distinctive vocabulary ofworth, for it is only in terms of such a vocabulary that we can articulate thereasons justifying our having (or changing) certain values. Part of the questionfor deliberation, however, concerns what vocabulary it is most appropriate touse, for uncertainty about what to value is in part uncertainty about whatevaluative vocabulary is relevant and how to apply it. Indeed, this is preciselythe question when we consider our fundamental values and try to justify themin the face of alternatives.

We can justify the application of a certain vocabulary by elucidating itbyarticulating its rational, inferential connections with a broader vocabulary soas to make good sense of its subject matter.17 Such an elucidation need notinvolve an analysisan articulation in other vocabulary of precisely the role aparticular concept has in our inferential economy; nonetheless, it does require

17Cf. John McDowells Projection and Truth in Ethics, in Stephen Darwall, Allan Gib-bard, and Peter Railton (eds.),Moral Discourse and Practice: Some Philosophical Approaches(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 21525, at p. 220; and David Wiggins A Sen-sible Subjectivism, also in Darwall, et al., pp. 22744.

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being able to say in particular cases both why the concept applies (in light ofour experiences and, perhaps, other bits of reasoning) and what inferences itlicenses. Doing so may reveal inconsistencies or confusions in our understandingof particular concepts, and part of the task of elucidating concepts is to refinethis understanding or even, in extreme cases, to come to see a concept as un-tenable and so one we should reject. In the case at hand, such a refinement willbe both a refinement in our understanding of import and, because the perspec-tive such an understanding provides is constitutive of what has import to us, arefinement of import itself. The question is: how in detail does this elucidationwork, and what is the source of the standards of refinement at issue?18 To an-swer this question, consider the following example. George has been brought upin a culture in which men are expected to be strong and dominant, especiallyin their relationships with women. As a result, he comes to identify himselfwith, and so value, a certain machismo by virtue of the patterns he displaysin his reflexive emotions and judgments. Thus, he is shamed by any display ofweakness of his own or even of his friends, proud of himself for standing up toothers and not taking any shit, and he frequently makes judgments like: onlya wimp would do that! However, as he tries to convince his younger brotherto be a man, he is forced to justify the value of machismo and finds himselfwith astonishingly little to say. Although he may have the sense that its valuelies in a certain kind of strength and self-confidence, grounded in courage andvirility, exactly what kind of strength, self-confidence, courage, and virility areat issue here, and how do these justify the value of machismo? At this pointthe elucidation of concepts is a necessary part of articulating its import.

The elucidation of machismo and related concepts must involve in part anexamination of particular cases and an articulation of what it is about thesecases that give them import. In this context, where it is the value of machismothat is in question, the answer cannot simply be that something has importbecause it is macho; rather, the answer must partially elucidate the concept ofmachismo by identifying in other language what makes a particular case be aninstance of machismo in a way that manifests its value: as, for example, properself-respect and courage in the face of harassment or as self-confident virilityand social ease that enable him to use women for his own ends. (Of course, itmay be a non-trivial accomplishment to do this, one that may be possible onlythrough conversations with others he loves and respects.) Although, it need

18McDowell and Wiggins, of course, are concerned to provide an alternative to cognitivistand non-cognitivist accounts of values by showing how an elucidation of concepts that resultsin an improvement of ones evaluative perspective can take place at least partially internal tothe perceptions of its participants (Wiggins, p. 232; cf. McDowell, p. 220). By doing so, theyhope to dispel the idea that there is a vicious circularity in such elucidationin essence, thecircularity identified above as the apparent paradox of simultaneous invention and discovery.Their tack is largely to argue for the intelligibility of a middle path between cognitivismand non-cognitivism. However, this can seem merely to amount to an unmotivated denial of avicious circle unless it is supported by a clear account of the rational interconnections betweenan elucidation of concepts and ones evaluative sensibilities that makes such a middle pathwork. This is what the present section aims to do.

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not be that the result of such an examination of many different cases will bean analysis of the concept of machismo, we can nonetheless gain some clarityon that concept by roughly locating its place simultaneously in a rationally in-terconnected scheme of concepts and as the focus of other patterns of emotionsthat partially overlap with that of machismo by virtue of these rational inter-connections. Moreover, such a reidentification of the machismo in a particularcase enables us, through self-interpretation, to see this instance of machismo asthe object of emotions that belong as well to other patterns focussed on courageand self-respect more generally.

Part of the point of elucidating these concepts is that it can reveal hithertounnoticed complexity in concepts that previously were run together, complex-ity that might prove important for the purpose of understanding the value ofmachismo. Thus, having identified a case of machismo as, say, self-confidentvirility in using women for ones own ends, it becomes possible to ask how muchof it can be understood as worthy of admiration, as the focus of broader patternsof emotions.

Here again, self-interpretation is required to answer this question. However,the interpretation in this case may not be straightforward insofar as the distinc-tion between virility and the use of women may simply be blurred in his conceptof machismo. Before he articulated the case in this way, the focus of his admi-ration was simply machismo; insofar as George would not then have understoodthere to be any difference between virility and the use of women, it would nothave made sense to him for someone to press the question of whether what isworthy of admiration in this case is the virility rather than the use of women. Sothere was antecedently no indeterminacy in the focus of his emotion. Now, how-ever, having begun to elucidate the concept of machismo and so having at leastbegun in his own mind to make the distinction between virility and the use ofwomen, the question can be pressed. By making this distinction, George has ineffect made possible a kind of indeterminacy in his emotions that was not therebefore: the past pattern in his emotions underdetermines whether he shouldnow interpret them as focussed on the self-confident virility and social ease oron the use of women, or both. He is now faced with an interpretive decisionthat might enable him to refine his emotional sensitivity in new ways; in effect,this is also to make possible a refinement in his understanding of machismo and,consequently, its import.

How is he to decide among these possibilities for the focus of his admirationand so for how to elucidate the concept of machismo? Assume George concludesthat the use of women for ones own ends is a matter of exploitation and sorecasts the matter as one of virility versus exploitation. (The grounds for thisconclusion will be discussed below.) His decision is now easy: there is nothingadmirable in exploiting women, for exploitation is an improper or unjust use ofsomething. Consequently, George attempts to refine his conception of machismoand what is admirable about it in a way that enables him to interpret hisemotions, and here he may end up attributing a degree of confusion to his pastemotions. Thus, he may conclude that, although he didnt realize it at thetime, his emotions focussed on machismo were in some cases confused responses

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to a kind of virility now manifest as exploitation. As such, these emotionswere inappropriate because they were not properly responsive to the importexploitation has, even though they seemed at the time to fit into a pattern ofemotions partially constitutive of the import of machismo. Moreover, he cannow understand his current admiration simultaneously as focussed on virility(but dissociated from exploitation) and as an improved continuation of thepattern of emotions he felt all along. As such, he has apparently achieved anew perspective on import that commits him to feel subsequent emotions inaccordance with this refined pattern, thereby imposing rational pressure onthese emotions to fall in line (cf. 3).

Whether this is the correct way to refine his understanding of machismodepends in part on whether the concept of exploitation is properly deployed inboth denotation and inference. This is not something George can just decidefor himself, since concepts must be intelligible to others and capable of with-standing criticism from them.19 In addition, because this revised conceptual un-derstanding makes possible new evaluative judgments and self-interpretations,its adequacy depends as well on whether those judgments present him with animproved perspective on import. As was argued in 3, such a perspective isin part an emotional perspective, and the rationality of these judgments is un-dermined by a consistent failure to feel the required emotions precisely becausethese conflicting emotions constitute a continuing evaluative perspective incon-sistent with that provided by his judgments. Given such a persistent conflictwith his emotions, George has reason to reconsider not only the content of thesejudgments but also the conception of machismo they involve, potentially forcingfurther revision of his elucidation of machismo. In this way, his conception ofmachismo and its import is subject to rational constraint not only from thecriticisms of others but also from his own emotional experiences.

As before, however, we should not understand such a failure of emotionalresponse (or criticism from others) to leave him with nothing to say on behalf ofhis judgments and his changed understanding of the relevant concepts. Recal-citrance in his emotions may simply be the result of habits of feeling ingrainedalong with his earlier misunderstanding, and often considerable effort and perse-verance is required to overcome this source of irrationality. Through judgment,George can bring these conceptual resources to bear on his evaluative perspec-tive so as to articulate his reasons for a refinement of that perspective. As heself-consciously forces himself to see particular situations in line with these rea-sons, he thereby imposes rational pressure on his emotions to conform preciselybecause the evaluative perspective at issue is simultaneously both judgmental

19There is, however, some room for disagreement even among reasonable people about howto elucidate the concept of exploitation and apply it to particular cases: just which uses ofsomething are improper or unjust? Here we might say that such uses involve a kind of insen-sitivity to the object by way of failing to show it proper respect given the kind of thing it is.Such respect and the correlative insensitivity, however, involve a kind of evaluative perspectivethat cannot be understood apart from ones emotions. Exactly how the emotions are involvedin this elucidation, and so exactly how we can reason about the value of exploitation, are thesort of questions addressed with reference to machismo. Obviously, these questions can ramifywidely throughout ones understanding of the relevant concepts.

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and emotional. As in the case of Cassie (cf. 3), whether this is so depends onwhether his judgments can be understood as articulating his considered view.That in turn depends on whether those judgments and the broader pattern ofjudgment and inference of which they are a part, resonate with his emotions gen-erally, including the broader patterns of emotions (patterns focussed on objects,like courage, honor, and exploitation) that partially overlap with the pattern ofemotions focussed on machismo.20 As a result, a persons evaluative judgmentsrationally constrain his emotions and are simultaneously rationally constrainedby those emotions and by the criticisms of others. The result of mutual read-justments of his conceptual understanding, his judgments, and his emotions,may be a change in his evaluative perspective constitutive of import, and sucha change can properly be understood as an improvement because of the reasonshe is able to articulate. Thus, in light of the elucidation of concepts, he can nowexplain why his previous understanding of machismo was confused insofar as itfailed to distinguish a sensitive and self-confident virility and social ease from ex-ploitation; he can therefore explain why, in light of that confusion, his previousperspective on import was inferior. As such, the mutual rational constraintsamong emotions and evaluative judgments make intelligible the possibility ofrational discoverya more robust kind of discovery than that articulated in4. For it is a discovery not only of what really has import to him but alsoof the concepts in terms of which that reality is more properly described.21

Consequently, the appeal to machismo as the object of his understanding (andprevious misunderstanding) is an appeal to an evaluatively thick property: anevaluative property that both is intelligible as an object of discovery and is thatby virtue of which he can regulate his evaluative sensibilities.

Nonetheless, such discovery is intelligible only as internal to an evaluativeperspective, for the evaluatively thick properties thus discovered are themselvesconstituted by the projectible, rational pattern of emotions, desires, and judg-ments. Consequently, although an evaluatively thick property is ontologicallyand rationally prior to particular exercises of our evaluative sensibilities andso is that in terms of which we can assess those exercises for correctness andthereby regulate them, it is not ontologically prior to that sensibility in general.Insofar as the concepts in terms of which the discovery of import is made arenot fixed, George can refine them through the process of elucidation just de-scribed so as to reveal and overcome a misunderstanding that was not merely aresult of failing to grasp a concept everyone else understood all along.22 Such

20Notice that this can be Georges considered view and so form an evaluative perspectiveconstitutive of import even if he finds himself consistently needing to fight against a deeplyingrained sexism, and so even if the result is an increase, perhaps even for the long term, inthe conflicts among his evaluative judgments and his emotions (and so a decrease in his overallrational coherence).

21I say more properly described to indicate that what one has discovered is an improve-ment of ones concepts, thus leaving open the possibility (or even inevitability) of furtherrefinement and improvement.

22Indeed, such a refinement can result in further changes in his conceptual understanding ofmachismo, separating off, for example, self-serving puffery and bluster from genuine courage;

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refinement may require all of Georges creativity and originality as he confrontsand tries to resolve the resulting indeterminacies in his overall evaluative per-spective, through attempts to shape his emotions. In this way, we can makesense of these evaluatively thick properties as autonomously invented as well.

Neither import as an evaluatively thick property nor our evaluative sensibil-ities is rationally prior to the other, even though each rationally constrains theother. This means that although our deliberation about import must be circular,it is not viciously circular, thus avoiding the apparent paradox of simultaneousinvention and discovery.

6 Conclusion

In summary, deliberation can have two kinds of effects on our patterns of emo-tions and on import. First, by elucidating concepts so as to understand whathas import and why, we can reveal relevant complexities in them to which wewere not previously attuned. Such complexities may well give rise to an inde-terminacy in the focus of the relevant patterns of emotions, an indeterminacythat was not antecedently there and that makes possible a refinement in thesepatterns of emotion and so in what has import. Second, we can deploy thesenewly elucidated concepts in deciding how to resolve the resulting indetermi-nacy. Such a decision in turn institutes a new pattern of commitments thatrationally constrains our future emotions. It is in part because of the elucida-tion and deployment of concepts that this process of shaping our emotions isproperly understood as deliberation.

Nonetheless, in each of these stages, we are involved in part in self-interpretationin an attempt to understand ourselves and what has import. The way in whichwe elucidate our concepts and deploy them, in creating indeterminacy and ar-riving at decisions about how to resolve it, must ultimately be answerable tohow much sense it is able to make of import and our emotional responses to it.Insofar as our emotions do not cohere with the pattern of commitments as wehave understood it, we have reason to rethink these conclusions of deliberation.Such deliberation takes place, therefore, partially from within our emotionalsensibilities.

The resulting picture of deliberation about import understands it as a mat-ter of simultaneous autonomous invention and rational discovery in a way thatcannot happily fit into either a cognitivist or a non-cognitivist understandingof import. It is not non-cognitivist insofar as there are substantive rationalconstraints on correct deliberation about importconstraints that go beyondconstraints of coherence. For through deliberation we can come to discoverevaluatively thick properties and so reject the idea that our emotional sensi-bilities merely project the import things have for us; this central insight ofcognitivism is something a non-cognitivist cannot understand. Nonetheless, the

as this process continues it might no longer be clear what is left of the original concept ofmachismo, and the result may be a new concept.

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account is not cognitivist insofar as import does not have a status as ontologi-cally prior to our evaluative responses to it. Instead, our evaluative perspectiveon the worldboth emotional and judgmentalis constitutive of import, andby changing this perspective we thereby change what has import for us. This isa kind of autonomous invention, and it is this central insight of non-cognitivismthat a cognitivist cannot understand. By virtue of this simultaneous inventionand discovery inherent in our deliberations about import, we can make non-arbitrary decisions about (and so discover) who we are, and do so in a way thatis consistent with our having a kind of freedom to shape (or invent) our valuesand so have a say in what makes life worth living.23

23Thanks to Leon Galis, Michael Murray, and participants in Simon Blackburns 1997 NEHSummer Seminar, Objectivity and Emotion in Practical Reasoning, for helpful discussionof earlier drafts of this article, as well as to the National Endowment for the Humanities,the Franklin & Marshall College Hackman Scholars Program, and the American Council ofLearned Societies for their generous support.

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