Philosophy, et cetera 2008-06-14

Emotion and Reflective Equilibrium

Another passage from Frazer's 'Two Enlightenments' paper raises the interesting question whether emotion is properly subservient to reason or a partner on equal footing in our mental economy:Although Rawls sometimes seems to see the quest for reflective equilibrium as basically a cognitive process involving the weighing of pre-philosophical beliefs against philosophical theories, the sentimentalist conception of reflection involves a holistic attempt to reach an equilibrium on which the faculties of reason, feeling and imagination can all settle in harmony.This may reinforce the thought that there's something fundamentally flawed about a conception of rational warrant that we wouldn't want to live by (because it contradicts preferences that stem from love, for example).To relate this to the vexing problem of 'Moral Roots and Alienating Aspirations', I guess the sentimentalist will be more rooted by the emotions he starts with (though they may ...

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