A Study on Emotion as it Relates to Construction

Bendjhi Villiers

2017

New College House

April 2, 2017

Bendjhi Villiers was a Scientific and Philosophical Study of Mind major and a Philosophy minor from North Miami, Florida. He is the former president of both I.M.P.A.C.T and L.I.F.T. He was involved in the Creative Writers Corps where he held writing workshops at local schools. His passion for writing has also led him to serve on the Emerging Writers Festival Planning Committee.

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I. Introduction:

The aim of this paper is to explore the idea that different cultures have different emotions. However, before this can be explored, an account of what is meant by “emotions” is needed. When one says, they feel “afraid,” they often describe their emotions by referring to their experience of some bodily sensation in response to a stimulus. Sensations under this view are the physiological happening in the body. Such sensation involves palms getting sweaty, heart rate increasing, and butterflies in the stomach. The common-place understanding of emotions uses the words “feeling/sensation” and “emotion” interchangeably. What you feel is often thought to be what emotion you are currently experiencing. Yet, a feeling theory to emotion falls apart too easily to be adopted in this paper. One problem with the feelings theory is the fact that it renders an emotion to be something that just is. Physiological sensations just are the emotion. It does not need to be explained nor does that explanation need to be defined. If someone steals my last piece of cake and I become angry, I can explain my emotion by pointing towards the thing that has made me angry, mainly someone stealing my last piece of cake. Anger here is the right kind of emotion because some wrong has been done to you.

Furthermore, the feeling theory struggles to explain accounts of emotions that have the same psychological arousal. If the emotion is the sensation you experience, “fear” would be the sensation of your heart accelerating, your stomach being in knots, and your palms getting sweaty. Yet, there are times where you can have the same feeling and experience a different emotion. Take an experienced skydiver. Before a jump, they may feel their heart accelerating, stomach being in knots, and palms getting sweaty. Although these are the same sensation as being afraid, the experienced skydiver may say that they are not afraid but rather excited. Several other theories about what emotions are have been proposed by philosophers. These theories have looked to distinguish between the “emotion” itself and the “feeling” accompanied by the emotion. To do this, philosophers have pointed to the fact that emotions have formal objects. The target of our emotions causes an emotion to be brought on. Here, target is concerned with the thing your emotion is about. Take the case of being angered after some stole your last piece of cake: the target in this case would be the fact that someone has stolen your last piece of cake. On the other hand, the formal object involves an evaluation of the target. In the case of the cake thief, the formal object is the evaluation that the cake was of value to you and now someone has taken that valuable thing.

Philosophers such Ira Roseman (1984), Richard Lazarus (2001), and Klaus Scherer (2001) have been in favor of the appraisal approach to emotion, arguing that emotions are responses that come from an appraisal of a situation. Appraisal here is a judgment which an individual makes. Fear would be explained by the way we judge a situation. For example, if you are about to engage in skydiving and judge the situation to be something negative, namely your life being in danger, then you would then feel fear. On the other hand, if you judge skydiving to be something positive, for example if you see it as an enjoyable pastime, then you would experience joy, even if the same bodily sensation is felt under both circumstances. The difference between these two situations is the formal object of the skydiver in the face of the same target. While jumping out of a plane remains the target in both situations, the formal object in the first example is the dangers that come with sky diving, while the pleasures of skydiving is the formal object for the experienced skydiver. For appraisal theories, an emotion can come about even if physiological arousal isn’t present. This account links an emotion to a thought/evaluation.

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Other theorists such as Paul Ekman (1999) go on to attempt to establish a set of basic emotions that all other emotions derive from. This originates in evolutionary theories for emotions, believing that emotions evolved to further our chances of survival. In the case of fear, by evaluating something to be detrimental towards your chances of survival and responding by moving away from the stimulus, you increase your chances of survival. The stimulus is thus the target of your emotion. Still, under appraisal theories, a broad description of what an emotion is cannot be established. Because appraisal theory links emotions with thoughts, in order to have an emotion some evaluation is needed. It would also appear that an agent needs to be conscious of the evaluation they are making; there are, however, instances of emotions that occur before an evaluation can be made. These are examples of instances in which an emotion is said to “sweep” an individual away. Fear of an unknown threat can be an example of this. In these examples, an individual does not have a target to their emotions, nor is there something they can make an appraisal of. Still, in this situation, an individual would say they are afraid. The question here is what do we do in the case of emotions for which a cause cannot be located. Whether the appraisal was made or not, an account of what the emotion is that can explain all instances of emotions is needed.

This idea moves us towards questioning the emotional categories such as “fear” “anger” and “joy”, which we have adopted. For us to be able to experience the same emotion, under appraisal theory we would need to have the same kind of evaluation, while under the feelings theory we would need to have the same type and intensity of physiological arousal. Evaluations as well as physiological arousal nevertheless vary from individual to individual. When we look at examples of happiness, fear, or sadness across individuals we see differences in physiological arousal and appraisal, yet we treat two instances of happiness or fear as the same. The larger issue here is, despite these differences, emotions are placed in larger categories that try to generalize all instances of that emotion. But how are these categories constructed and what do such categories say about the emotion? Social constitutionalists have attempted to answer this question. In order to move forward, a full account of what an emotion is that combines both evaluation and physiological arousal is needed. While there are several theories that do this, Robert Roberts’ account of what an emotion is will be considered. To argue in favor of Robert Roberts, Paul Griffiths’ objections towards Roberts will also be considered. Once Roberts’ account for what emotions are has been defended we will move towards looking at cultural variation in emotions and exploring if these variations are examples of distinct emotions only found within its home culture, an idea which has been proposed by constructionists1. Both Roberts and Griffiths agree on a need for an account of what an emotion is that is grounded in scientific terms, however the dispute here falls under how social construction is meant to fit into theories of emotions. With Roberts leaving room for social construction, Griffiths urges us to move away from social construction.

II. Construction of Emotions and Concern-based Construal

Robert Roberts calls for us to use conceptual analysis2 when studying and discussing emotions. Under this account the concern about emotions moves away from what happens in the body towards what it means for an individual to experience an emotion. Answering the question

1 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 137)2 Roberts, R. “Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology” (pg. 12)

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of what it means to experience an emotion, is believed to lead us towards what an emotion is. Roberts states “What is an emotion? Is not a question about underlying physical mechanism (whether thought of in terms of distant history or present operation), but about emotions as experienced by human subjects, as structures of meaning and explanation in the course of social life, as entering into our actions and reasoning, as evaluated to be proper or improper, praiseworthy, blameworthy, or morally indifferent, and as bearing on our happiness and maturity and relationships…”3 The structures of explanation and meaning server as a way for individuals to communicate with one another, which shared understanding of concepts. This account asks us to move away from the common understanding of emotions. Instead by looking at what emotions are in themselves or more clearly the composition of the emotion, we are able to accurately point to what an emotion truly is. By understanding how an emotion is experienced, we are able to also explain the things that causes these experiences.

What does it mean to experience an emotion? Roberts first distinguish between the feeling of an emotion and the feeling of sensations. When you are anxious, you can feel your shoulders tightening up and a burning sensation in your stomach without feeling the anxiety. Although these are common sensations associated with anxiety, it is not the same thing as feeling the anxiety. “feeling anxious, is an immediate awareness of being anxious.”4 Knowing that you are anxious, is to experience that emotion. This experiencing of said emotion, allows you to better understand the emotion you are having, as you are able to label it. Where labeling implies a set of knowledge you didn’t previously have. Roberts compares this to knowing that it is snowing outside. If you saw a weather report calling for snow and are aware of your geographic location, you would have reason to infer that it is snowing outside. Yet the feeling how having the snow fall onto you and seeing it with your own eyes is different than the inference you made. By seeing the snow for yourself, you become immediately aware that it is snowing. Immediate awareness is a kind of firsthand experience. This first-hand experience gives you access to knowledge that you previously didn’t have by simply watching the weather report. The same is true of emotion. By having a first-hand experience of an emotion and recognizing what that emotion is, you gain a better understanding of the emotion that you wouldn’t have by simply knowing say the biological or cognitive components of an emotion. Thus, the experience of an emotion is a self-awareness of that emotion.

In order to experience an emotion, you first need to have an understanding of what an emotion is. Roberts5 outlines an emotion as a concern-based construal. To say an emotion is a concern-based construal, is to say that they are states in which a subject seems to grasp the significance of their situation. This seeks to account for the possibility of formal objects inherent with in the subject. By calling an emotion a concern-based construal, two subjects can have very different evaluation of a situation, as the evaluation of a situation is linked to the subjects understanding of how the situation effects themselves. A construal is a judgment you make about a situation. The judgment you make about the situation is grounded in the beliefs you have about the situation and how that situation may positively or negatively affect your desires. For the construal to lead to an emotion, it must make an impression on the subject. When faced with a bear in the wild, you make a judgment that the bear is dangerous and can cause you harm, because you desire to remain unharmed and believe the bear can cause you harm, fear is brought

3 Roberts, Robert “Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology” (pg. 19)4 Roberts, Robert “Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology” (pg. 319)5 Roberts, Robert “What an emotion is: A sketch”

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out. In comparison, if you were to see the same bear in a zoo, you would not feel fear, because you believe that no harm can be brought to you from the bear. In another example if you were to see a bear in the wild, evaluate it as dangerous, however you don’t have a concern for your safety, fear would not be the emotion that is brought on, as emotions are closely link you your concerns as well as beliefs and desires. During examples in which a formal object cannot be located, a concern-based construal allows an individual to still be afraid, because there is a possibility of their beliefs or desires to be negatively affected, despite the fact that they cannot point to what might cause this.

Roberts pushes this idea further by including elements of conceptual analysis towards his theory. This is an attempt to understand what is meant by words such as “emotions” and “anger”. Conceptual analysis6 brings into the fold an element of active participation when it comes to emotions rather than a belief that emotions are experienced passively. This account separates beliefs and propositions from emotions. While beliefs and propositions may be included in an emotion, they are not fundamental to emotions. Instead we can understand emotions to be mental states. Understanding an emotion as a mental state7, we can begin to understanding variations in emotion found in the emotional categories in which we place emotions. While emotional categories serve as an umbrella for the emotions we understand, such as fear, anger, and happiness, every instance of these emotions are not identical. Let’s say you and your friend are both angry. Under this example it is possible for both you and your friend to have different psychological states as well as different evaluations of a situation; however it is still true that both you and your friend are angry. Commonly declarations of anger are the same. On a communication level, categories allow us to communicate to others the emotions we have despite the differences in our emotions. While we are able to understand the general emotion, someone has through our own experience of that emotion, there is an acknowledgment as to the differences in emotional experiences. This is highlighted in the question, “how do you feel,” when talking to a friend who is communicating their emotion to you. While yes, on some level you understand the emotion they say they have, there is still a difference between your experience of an emotion like anger, and your friend’s anger. This disconnection pushes you away from making assumptions about the emotion as well as the sensation your friend is feeling. Your anger and your friend’s anger are of the same type of emotion, but are different token emotions. Take for example the idea you and your friend both have the same car, say a Toyota Camry. It is true that you and your friend have the same type of car, what makes your car, your car (despite registration), is your experience with your car which is different from your friend’s experience with his car. Experience here accounts for everything that deals with you and your car. Conceptual analysts allow us to try to explain how we can have similar emotions along categorical divisions, although the composition of such emotions vary from individual to individual.

On the surface, this is believed to be a linguistic issue. When one says “I am angry,” he is appealing to a specific type of states that he understands to mean that the emotion of anger is what he is currently experiencing. These states are specific to the individual. Their anger is a combination of their own beliefs and desirers. Yet we still understand what is meant by “angry” although we do not have access to the state that the individual is in. While we can understand the types of beliefs and desires another individual has, the essence of those beliefs and desires are so

6 Roberts, Robert “Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology” (pg. 36)7 Roberts, Robert “Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology” (pg. 61)

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closely linked to the individual, which is to say that everyone internalizes their personal beliefs and desires differently, that the only way to have true access to these beliefs and desires is for to to be the individual in question. Or understanding of another person’s emotions comes from an understanding of our own emotional experience and how that experience is similar to another individual. However, similarity does not equate to identical emotions.

It could be argued that this is a case where we are calling two different things by the same name. It is also commonly believed that they are parts of the same category and to belong to the category you need not experience all aspects of the category. Emotional categories have broadly defined emotions, to make them easier to understand from person to person. The issue here is the fact that this tells us nothing about what the emotion is. By applying broad characterization to emotions, we are able to distinguish emotions such as fear and happiness which have different compositions. However, distinction between emotions such as envy and jealousy is harder to make as we get more general about the category each falls into. Categories tell us about the overall similarities between the objects that fall within the categories but tell us little about the differences between those objects. Paul Griffiths seeks an account of emotions that allows us to account for the difference between emotions that fall within the same category as well as emotions from outside categories, stating we need to have an account of emotions that allows us to “cut the world at its joints.” By knowing where an emotion starts and ends, we are better able to point to exactly what makes each emotion different and through these differences we are able to know truly what each emotion is.

To understand conceptual analysis, I will present the same three cases for anger that Roberts presented8. In the first case, we have Fred and Sam. Fred has tripped Sam, who fells down and hurt his knee; Sam has an angry expression on his face and he gets up and kicks Fred in his shin. In this case the target of the Sam’s anger is Fred tripping him, causing him to hurt his knee, and his retaliation is physical in nature. The second case we find an abbot who is made angry by one of his monks calling him Francis rather than Father. In retaliation, he withholds the monk’s promotion. Just like in the case of Sam and Fred, here there is a target that causes the abbot to be angry and some sort of retaliation is made intelligible (withholding the monk’s promotion). In the last case, a husband does not want to go out for the evening, so he intentionally becomes angry at his wife for not picking up his shirts. Although he does not truly believe that his wife has offended him, he has successfully made himself angry and retaliates by canceling evening plans. In all three of these cases, the individuals are believed to be angry although the anger they feel is different since each situation is different, as well as the actions taken by each individual. Roberts advises us to not be so quick to call all three of these examples cases of anger , although they all appear to be anger. Although a whale looks like a fish, we know that they are not fish due to the fact they suckle their live young when they are born. Although all three of these cases appear to be cases of anger, they all cannot be called precisely anger. In these cases, the makeup of the emotion is different. If we are truly trying to “cut the world at its joints,” the make-up of all cases of anger and all emotions of the same type must be the same. By having an account in which the make-up of each type of emotion is the same across all individuals, we will be left with an explanation of what that emotion is, as the emotion isn’t dependent on the individual. We must be able to explain what makes up each case of anger, and if the makeup of these cases is different then they can be argued to be different emotions.

8 Roberts, Robert “Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology” (pg. 38-39)

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Following Roberts’ conceptual analyst approach, concern-based construal becomes a mental state which brings about the emotion, with the concern-based construal being the emotion. This account shares some similarities with Lisa Feldman Barrett’s (1999) conceptual act model for emotions. The conceptual act model believes that emotions are mental states that are constructed from three psychological states that cannot be reduced to anything else. The first of these states is a system that represent physical states as pleasant or unpleasant with some degree of arousal. The pleasantness or unpleasantness felt can be described as the core effect. The second is a conceptual system for emotion that resides in memory, and the last state is controlled attention that is not necessarily deliberate or intentional but that helps negotiate which conceptual elements are activated and which are suppressed in a given instance of conceptualization9. Like Roberts, Barrett focuses the dialogue surrounding emotions towards what’s happening cognitively. These three psychological states, can server as an explanation to what is occurring cognitively when we make concern-based construals. As concern-based construal involve beliefs and desires, a cognitive account explaining how these elements function together to produce an emotion is needed. Barrett’s conceptual act model can lend insight into what is happening cognitively when an emotion is brought on. The state to be examined closely is the conceptual system as it involves memory, which can account for both beliefs and desires as well as how these beliefs and desired are stored and activated. Also since memory is involved, experience such as cultural teaching can affect an individual conceptual system and thus how an emotion develops. Thus, we can adopt some elements of social construction to emotions. Barrett does distinguish between social construction and psychological construction. The difference between the two types of construction is that “social construction” presents emotions as mental events that are performances of a culture10 and “psychological construction” views emotions as mental states that involve an interplay of basic psychological elements that are a result of evolution.11 The conceptual act model falls in line with psychological construction. The idea here is that concern-based construals are of the same kind of construction, with the conceptual act model serving as those more basic mental states that make up a concern-based construals. Integrating social construction allows us to establish emotional categories that have been agreed on by member of a culture. For example, anger is an emotional category because society has agreed on what characteristics are associated with anger. This point will be important in later parts of the paper.

In this section I have presented an extended account of concern-based contruals. Under these accounts, the mental state known as an emotion is a concern-based control with social constructs making up the emotional categories in which emotions get placed . Concern-based contruals can be divided into three parts that work in conjunction with one. These parts are arousal, conceptual system as well as attention. Under this account, feeling and the emotion are not one and the same. The feeling of an emotion is the physiological arousal one might feel, while the emotion is the construal you make about a situation. To experience an emotion is to become aware of the emotion. For example, if someone steals your car, you can say that you are angry. The feeling of you blood rushing and skin getting hot are physiological sensations of the

9 Barrett, L. “Variety Is the Spice of Life: A Psychological Construction Approach to Understanding Variability in Emotion” (pg. 8)10 Barrett, L. “Variety Is the Spice of Life: A Psychological Construction Approach to Understanding Variability in Emotion” (pg. 4)11 Barrett, L. “Variety Is the Spice of Life: A Psychological Construction Approach to Understanding Variability in Emotion” (pg. 5)

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body. Making an evaluation of the situation as some wrong that has been made towards you brings you to the emotion of anger. Once you become aware that you are angry, then you are said to experience anger. This account of emotion will be used to demonstrate that different cultures can experience different emotions distinct to their culture.

III.Griffiths’ objection:

While Griffiths does not supply us with a detailed account of what emotions are, he does argue against social construction, stating that social construction in “emotion theory, thinking that a society constructs emotions by providing categories in terms of which its people respond emotionally to objects and situations. But this is a model of emotions themselves only because an emotion is identified with the thought that the eliciting situation presents.”12 The kind of socially constructed emotions that fill a significant category are the ones he calls disclaimed actions. These are essentially fake emotions-behavioral patterns that one produces, under the guidance of cultural rules, for the sake of achieving a goal.

Griffiths first distinguish between two types of social construction: the social role13 and the social concept model14. The social concept model as supported by Solomon (1977, 1984) looks at emotions as a certain judgment about the world. In love, you make a judgment as something being romantic, in fear you judge something to be dangerous. Under the social concept model the “categories into which the world must be classified in order to produce an emotion are cultural rather than natural categories.”15 Natural categories are categories that are true in themselves. Which is to say that regardless of the culture, the objects within natural categories will always be true. For example, the belief that a bear will be able to eat me, would be a belief with a natural object. On the other hand, the belief that a bear is dangerous would be a belief with a cultural object. Although it is true that bears objectively hold some danger towards people, the belief about what that danger is has been culturally constructed, As Solomon puts it “emotions are conceptual constructions, and as go the concepts, so go the emotions as well.”(1984,252)16 Griffiths rejects this model, pointing to the fact the model seems to rule out the possibility that two culture can demand different emotional response to the same situation.17 If two cultures have the same emotional response then they must also share the same understanding of the stimulus behind the emotion. For example, if different cultures have different emotional responses to an infant, then they must have different understandings of what an infant is and are thus responding to a different situation18. Going further, if one culture was to praise fear while another shames fear, the two cultures, under the social concept model would have to have different emotions. This idea is problematic, as the only way for anyone to have the same emotions would if they were doppelgangers with exactly the same concepts.

Another reason to reject the social concept model is the idea that mental states can be constructed. However, Griffiths presents the social concept model as being about how the world

12 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 138)13 s, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 139)14 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 138)15 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (p. 138)16 Solomon, R. 1984 “Getting angry: The Jamesian theory of emotion in anthropology.” 17 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 144)18 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg.144)

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is classified and not how mental states are classified, moving the social concept model to be about the world and not emotional mental states. Griffiths does this by pointing to the fact that social concept model argues that an emotion is a “thought that a situation is of a certain type.”19 Since these “types” are socially constructed, the categories in which the world fits are what I are being social constructed. This idea continues by presenting what it means for something to be socially constructed. In the trivial sense, all things are socially constructed as we have used this term, and the understanding of those terms as presented by our cultures is to target the object in the world. In the stronger cases, things such as members of parliament and licensed dog owners are socially constructed as they only exist along sociolinguistic lines, while things such as electrons and atoms are not, as they exist even if there is no one to talk about them. Griffiths views mental states as the type of things that exist even if no terms for them are present.

For these reason Griffiths believes the social role model to be the stronger of the two models, as it incorporates and furthers all the insights of the social concept mode. The social role model characterizes patterns of behavior found in societies, where “culture models of emotion help to produce the emotional behaviors that conform to those models.”20 These patterns of behavior often have a function for either the individual or the society. Under this idea, emotions are thought to be passions21 rather than actions. People are likely to demonstrate behavior that they have learned is socially appropriate in that situation. However, neither the individual nor society acknowledge that this is what is occurring. Rather the behavior is presented as being natural and inevitable within the situation, since members of the culture have accepted that behavior to the appropriate type of behavior to have depending on the situation. So, the society views the emotions as overtaking you the same way a passion does. This fact is concerning as it presents emotions as acts that can be carried out whenever a particular situation occurs. Under the social role model, an emotion is brought up from an action to reach a particular goal. Regardless of the physiological sensation or the evaluation of the situation, an individual can act in a manner they believe will allow them to benefit the most.

Griffiths objects to the social role model and social constructionist as a whole along two lines. The first is the fact that social constructionists fail to get at the essence of what an emotion is, and the second is a tendency for social constitutionalist to not put emotions into categories. These objections are centered on the claim made by Rom Harre, “there can be little doubt that even if there are some universal emotions, the bulk of mankind live within systems of thought and feeling that bear little but superficial resemblances to one another.”22 Griffith views this as a mistake in interpreting variations in psychological traits across cultures, showing that the trait is a cultural trait23. Griffith’s points to the fact that even if you were to ultrahypocognize (that is, about one particular individual within the culture) some emotional phenomenon within a culture, the phenomenon would still remain despite the fact that social constructionist would say that the phenomenon would disappear if it was wholly dependent on the culture’s idea of the emotion. Just like elements of biology, emotions can be classified at various levels of generalization, however philosophers of social construction like Harre, reject the idea there is an essence of an emotion that can reidentified across cultures and time24. The essence of an emotion here is a 19 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 145)20 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 149)21 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 139)22 Harre, R. “Emotion talk across times” p. 1223 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 160)24 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg.161)

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single line of similarity that is found in all occurrences of an emotion, regardless of time and culture.

In order to argue against this “essence” of an emotion, Griffiths pushes social constructionists to present claims against the cause of an emotion rather than the output or behavioral components of an emotions that are found in models like the social role model. The only argument which Griffith claims asserts no universal causes to emotions is presented by Armon-Jones.25 However, the feeling theory, where Armon-Jones does not get at the essence of an emotion that remains constant across cultures, includes behavioral syndromes, natural structures, and sets of beliefs and desires. Beliefs and desires are of a special case as they are presented in propositional attitude theories. What Griffiths states is a failure to realize the general abstraction that comes about in propositional attitude theories. In all cultures, fear is a “a set of attitudes that amounts to the belief that one is in danger and the desire to avoid that danger. Envy in all cultures is some set of attitudes that amount to ‘wishing to have what someone else has and which is important for the subject’s self-definition.” 26 Propositional attitude theories truly allow use to predict how an emotion will look in a different culture when factoring in cultural difference, but it does not deny the fact that emotions have a universal composition to them.

Another objection which Griffiths presents towards social construction is the fact that social construction makes it difficult to put emotions into any category. “If most of the interesting features of a particular emotion depend on some cultural model that plays a role in its construction, then emotions of that sort may have to be classified in terms of their descent from a common cultural origin.”27 For example, teenage love in western culture may have roots that go back to the middle ages. This suggest that emotions of different times and cultures can be grouped together on the basis of resemblance among them.28 Griffith continues on to show how the categories of emotions created by social constructionists lead to trouble when considering inappropriate emotions. Griffiths first distinguishes between two type of inappropriate emotions. In the first case an inappropriate emotion occurs due to an individual having false beliefs while in the other the individual has the right beliefs but still acts strangely. The first case is less interesting as the social constructionist can say that the emotion is an inappropriate emotion with the wrong cultural belief. In the second case, Armon-James argues that this is a case in which an inappropriate response was learned in childhood and persisted though adulthood resulting in an inappropriate emotional response29. However, Griffith points to the fact that if Armon-James’ explanation is correct than the individual with an inappropriate emotion would produce an emotion that could not be identified by members of their culture, as they would have developed different emotions.

IV. Response to Griffiths: A difference in explanatory power

Griffiths’ rejections of social constructions falls under a need to establish universalities across emotions. These universalities grounded in the causes of an emotion allow us to get to the essence of an emotion. A rejection of the claims surrounding the objections proposed by 25 “Emotion feeling is constituted by those attitude appropriate to the emotion…”fear feeling” would not remind unchanged [across cultures], but rather would be qualitatively different to the extent that the attitudes consecutive of the emotion feeling are specifically culture. – (1986b, 66; see also 1986a 40-41)26 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 164)27 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 165)28 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 165)29 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 166)

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Griffiths lies in the understanding in the aims of the explanations of emotions proposed by both Griffiths and Roberts. Griffiths’ objections are surrounded by a need to move away from folk psychology explanations for emotions, in favor of a “naturalistic” account for emotions. He argues that folk psychology does little to articulate what an emotion is. Griffith states, “The research surveyed in this book suggests that the general concept of emotions has no role in any future psychology.”30While Griffiths agrees that emotions, just like the concept of “spirituality,” play an important role in social situations, understanding these emotions as social constructions doesn’t say what the emotions is; instead the aim should be to look at science for an explanation. It matters not if Griffiths himself is able to explain what an emotion is. The focus should be instead on scientists to keep working towards explaining what emotions are. Understanding Griffith in this light helps us understand his objection that social categories are like superlunary categories. Yes, it would be wrong to assume that social categories provide us with a direct explanation to what emotions are; however, Roberts does not intend to use social categories as a means to point to what emotions are. For Roberts, explanation of what an emotion is is of the same “naturalistic” account that Griffiths argues we should adopt. Remember, as mentioned earlier in the previous sections of this paper, an emotion, as is understood by Roberts, as a mental state known as a concern-based construal in which there are potential elements allowed in psychological constructionist thought. Instead Roberts moves to incorporate social construction when explaining emotions in order to show the variety of emotions an individual can have as well as a means to categorize these differences. The question isn’t whether emotions are socially constructed, but rather how are the categories into which emotions fall constructed?

Before continuing it is important to note here that both Roberts and Griffith seem to be using the term “emotions” in two different ways. When Griffith makes reference to the term emotions he is directly speaking to a colloquial use of the term. This isn’t about what the emotions are but rather what people typically think an emotion to be, for example, the commonplace “I am sad,” removed from philosophical analysis. This understand of emotions is wrong for Griffiths. Instead we should understand emotion as “a putative psychological category of motivational state that exhibit passivity. The extension of a concept is determined by our current theory of the causal homeostatic mechanism that guarantee the projectability of the category to which it refers.” 31 This is to say, our understanding of emotions is closely tied to scientific theories which can be applied to all cases. All of this is intended to establish emotions as affect programs that lead to a set of basic programs that account for emotions such as joy, fear, and anger. Again, the words joy, fear and anger are not to be understood from its traditional vernacular use. As to what these affect programs are and how they functions, Griffith makes no attempt to clarify, for this is not his goal and should be the goal of science to one day provide us with explanation.

On the other hand, Roberts’ purpose is not to convince us that science should be what we use to explain what an emotion is. Roberts aims at providing a theory of emotion that is already supported and rooted in scientific concepts which lends itself to understanding the roles emotions play in our lives. When Roberts uses the term “emotions.” he is referring to emotions as a specific thing, namely a concern-based construal, which is rooted in beliefs and desires. Roberts goes on establish the difference between what an emotion is and the experience of the emotion. This is needed, as it can show that social categories themselves are not the emotion but rather

30 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 247)31 Griffiths, P. “What Emotions Really Are” (pg. 246)

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can be a way to categorize and communicate our experience of an emotion. For if an experience of an emotion is a realization that you are having the emotions, there must be some way in which we can understand that emotion. Just knowing what an emotion is doesn’t provide us with that understanding. This understanding can be found around sociolinguistic concepts which give us access to explain phenomena around us such as emotions. To see how this is possible we will consider variations in emotions across cultures.

The issue behind culturally constructed emotional categories at first appears to be a linguistic issue in distinguishing an emotion using different words. For example, when someone from the United States utters that he/she is sad, their sadness is closely related to a sense of loss while in Russia when someone says that they are “grustnyy” which is the Russian word for sad, their sadness is linked to a feeling of physical harm. The issue here is both cultures are believed to have the same reference to sadness, although they have different make-ups. The common place belief for this disconnect is that they are using the same word to label different emotions. One might say that the Russian idea of sadness isn’t truly sadness but rather an emotion such as a less intense version of anger, due to the fact that you have experienced physical harm. Yet the Russian would still insist that they are feeling sadness and not anger, as anger has a separate set of categories found with in their culture. They are not just calling their emotion the wrong name. They truly feel sad when experiencing physical harm. Their sadness appears to have the same physiological components as the United States idea of sadness, and since biologically they have the same capacities to experience sadness in the same manner as individuals in the States, they can argue that their sadness is correct. This paradox is also found in Turkey. When an individual from Turkey states that they are feeling “kizginlik,” they are conveying the idea that they are experiences an emotion that is a combination of anger and fear. What they are experiencing however, is neither anger nor fear but a combination of the two. Although there are terms and concepts in Turkey that mean anger and fear, “kizginlik” is still used as a way to decide an emotion in Turkish culture that isn’t anger or fear. “Metagu” in Ifaluk when translated into English means fear/anxiety. What these case show, is that cultures can affect the conceptual system that we use to come to an emotion. Which is to say that cultures can be what guides us towards specific emotions. This leads us to suggest that the emotions which we are able to come to are determined by the culture we live in, giving different cultures a set of emotions that are unique to that particular culture.

Still one such as Griffiths can still point to the fact although cultures can affect our conceptual and belief systems leading to different emotional categories being established, these categories themselves are not emotions. Leaning towards affect programs, all things we believe to be emotions specific to cultures are just varying combinations of affect programs we all have. Take for example “kizginlik.” “Kizginlik” could be understood as the affects programs for fear and anger blending together in a specific manner leading to Turks socially labeling this mixture of affect programs as kizginlik, mistaking kizginlik to be a new emotion that only Turks experience. This lean towards affect programs is an attempt to make emotional theories universal, which under scientific principles would make the theory stronger and more valid. What is needed to be questioned is whether affects programs must be limited to programs accounting for emotions such as fear, joy, anger, sadness, trust, and disgust. The possibility of “kizginlik” and “metagu” being affect programs must also be considered. Roberts does accept the idea the “metagu” and fear are the same emotion, stating “metagu and fear are the same

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emotion, partially differentially evaluated and with a partially different object range.”32 However, if Roberts believes emotions to be concern-based construals rather than having different evaluations, it would give us reason to believe that there is a different emotion. Still, if emotions are able to give us “structures of meaning and explanation in the course of social life,” than “metagu” still servers this purpose as it allows individuals within that culture to communicate with one another the state which they are in. Perhaps there is a need to move towards understanding the explanatory roles in which emotions play within cultures. While neither Roberts nor Griffiths wants to reduce emotions to cultural explanations for everyday life, emotions do seem to play this role. For even Roberts would not claim that all emotions are concern-based consruals.33 Culturally specific emotional explanations may fall under the realm of emotions which are not concern-based contruals. If that is the case, then their role within the cultures to explain specific states individuals are in must take precedence. Just as Griffiths ends his exploration of what an emotion is, we cannot reject the social role in which emotions play within a specific culture. While these roles may be distinct to a culture, an explanation as to what an emotion actually is can only be developed through science with the belief that scientists will eventually truly present us with a explanation of what an emotion is independent of all outside beliefs.

With both Griffiths and Roberts having two different aims in using the term “emotion,” it would be wrong to quickly reject Griffith’s objections to social construction. Roberts would not argue against the idea that we need to look at the cause of emotions, nor would he reject the claim that there needed to be an essence to an emotion that can be traced across all examples of that emotion. However, Roberts would not agree that socially constructed categories are emotions. While Griffiths states that emotions are a sort of affect program which science will one day outline the neural components that make it up, Roberts’ claim to what an emotion is can be viewed as an attempt to outline what that neural/cognitive component is. While Griffiths may object to Roberts’ understanding of what an emotion is, as it may not be scientific enough, Griffiths would have to accept that Roberts is not understanding emotions in the sense of folk psychology and is thus doing the type of work towards understanding emotions which Griffith urges to move towards. From this point of view, Griffiths’ push towards an account of an emotions is justified; still the question that begs to be answered is whether we can get to what an emotion is without social constructed categories. If science is able to come to a point where we can say with certainty what an emotion is, to whom would that account of an emotion be presented without concepts? This is to say that while social construction doesn’t point to what an emotion is, it is needed so as to maintain the explanatory power behind emotions, for even if we are able to know what an emotion is, it does us no good if there isn’t already a set of expected concepts to present emotions to individuals within cultures.

References

Barrett, Lisa Feldman. “Variety Is the Spice of Life: A Psychological Construction Approach to Understanding Variability in Emotion.” Cognition & Emotion 23.7 (2009): 1284–1306.

32 Roberts, Robert “Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology” (pg. 198)33 Roberts, Robert “Emotions: An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology” (pg. 313)

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Ekman, Paul. Handbook of Cognition and Emotion (Sussex, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 1999)

Griffiths, Paul E. What emotions really are: the Problem of Psychological Categories

University of Chicago Press (1997)

Roberts, Robert C. “What an emotion is: A sketch.” Philosophical Review 97 (April):183-209

(1988)

Roberts, Robert C. Emotions : An Essay in Aid of Moral Psychology.

Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Taylor, Charles. Philosophical Papers. Vol. 1, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985.

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