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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
Is Core Affect A Natural Kind?, Brandie Martinez Bedard
Is Core Affect A Natural Kind?, Brandie Martinez Bedard
Philosophy Theses
In the scientific study of the emotions the goal is to find natural kinds. That is, to find categories about which interesting scientific generalizations and predictions can be formed. Core affect is dimensional approach to the emotions which claims that emotions emerge from the more basic psychological processes of valence (pleasant/unpleasant) and arousal (activation/deactivation). Lisa Feldman Barrett (2006b) has recently argued that the discrete emotion approach has failed to find natural kinds and thus should be dismissed as a failed paradigm. She offers core affect as an alternative theory that will better capture natural kinds in emotionally salient phenomena. In …
Engaging Capital Emotions, Douglas A. Berman, Stephanos Bibas
Engaging Capital Emotions, Douglas A. Berman, Stephanos Bibas
All Faculty Scholarship
The Supreme Court, in Kennedy v. Louisiana, is about to decide whether the Eighth Amendment forbids capital punishment for child rape. Commentators are aghast, viewing this as a vengeful recrudescence of emotion clouding sober, rational criminal justice policy. To their minds, emotion is distracting. To ours, however, emotion is central to understand the death penalty. Descriptively, emotions help to explain many features of our death-penalty jurisprudence. Normatively, emotions are central to why we punish, and denying or squelching them risks prompting vigilantism and other unhealthy outlets for this normal human reaction. The emotional case for the death penalty for child …