Emotional Reason

How can we motivate ourselves to do what we think we ought? How can we deliberate about personal values and priorities? Bennett Helm argues that standard philosophical answers to these questions presuppose a sharp distinction between cognition and conation that undermines an adequate understanding of values and their connection to motivation and deliberation. Rejecting this distinction, Helm argues that emotions are fundamental to any account of value and motivation, and he develops a detailed alternative theory both of emotions, desires and evaluative judgements and of their rational interconnections. The result is an innovative theory of practical rationality and of how we can control not only what we do but also what we value and who we are as persons.

• Rejects standard accounts of intentional mental states • Proposes a theory of a rational structure underlying emotions, with consequences for our control over our own values • Clearly and accessibly written

Acknowledgements; 1. Two problems of practical reason; Part I. Felt Evaluations: 2. Emotions and the cognitive-conative divide; 3. Constituting import; 4. Varieties of import: cares, values and preferences; Part II. Practical Reason: 5. Single evaluative perspective; 6. Rational control: freedom of the will and the heart; 7. Deliberation about value; 8. Persons, friendship and moral value; Select bibliography; Index.