Taking responsibility for our emotions

Social Philosophy and Policy

Volumn 16, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 294-321

  Sherman, Nancy ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0012632491     PISSN: 02650525     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s026505250000248x     Document Type: Article

References (85)

1. For a helpful summary of positions on moral responsibility, see John Fischer and Mark Ravizza's introduction to their anthology Perspectives on Moral Responsibility (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). It is important to note that the notion of reactive attitudes which Peter Strawson develops in his classic essay "Freedom and Resentment" (reprinted in the above volume) includes the notion of praise and blame for emotional attitudes as well as actions.
2. Lawrence Blum, Friendship, Altruism, and Morality (New York: Routledge, 1980), 160-207. See also Justin Oakley's valuable discussion of this position, in Oakley, Morality and the Emotions (New York: Routledge, 1992), 160-90.
3. Lawrence Blum, Friendship, Altruism, and Morality (New York: Routledge, 1980), 160-207. See also Justin Oakley's valuable discussion of this position, in Oakley, Morality and the Emotions (New York: Routledge, 1992), 160-90.
4. Robert Adams, "Involuntary Sins," The Philosophical Review 94, no. 3 (1985). Adams's account includes an important criterion of "ethical appreciation" in virtue of which we are held accountable for emotions. However, insofar as that ethical appreciation is for data we may be unconscious of (even though we should have been sensitive to it), accountability for moral perception is still not within the province of the voluntary. My view, developed in the last part of this essay, is that there are ways that we can be active and responsible even with regard to our unconscious perceptions and emotions.
5. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1103a31-b21. See Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), ch. 5; and Nancy Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), ch. 2.
6. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1103a31-b21. See Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), ch. 5; and Nancy Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), ch. 2.
7. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1103a31-b21. See Nancy Sherman, The Fabric of Character (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), ch. 5; and Nancy Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), ch. 2.
8. In Making a Necessity of Virtue, ch. 4, I suggest passages where Kant may be able to answer this charge.
9. See Stanley Greenspan's work on this in young children, The Development of the Ego (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1989).
10. See the compelling study of Adam and the story of maternal affective neglect: Sylvia Brody and Miriam G. Siegel, "Clinical History: Adam," in Brody and Siegel, The Evolution of Character (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1992), 299-377.
11. He refers to this notion in D. W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality (New York: Penguin, 1986); see, e.g., 13n., 15, 163.
12. I have heard the following told anecdotally, though I have not been able to track down the reference. Freud was once asked: "What are the three things required for analysis?" He replied: "Courage, courage, courage." It is also noteworthy that in the case of Miss Lucy R., Freud comments that the repression was, on the one hand, "a defensive measure which is at the disposal of the ego," but on the other, "an act of moral cowardice," and he says that "a greater amount of moral courage would have been of advantage to the person concerned." Though we need to bear in mind that these remarks date from the earliest days of psychoanalysis, and that they are made well outside the clinical office, still the thought expresses the expectation that a patient be responsible for working on psychological improvement. Sigmund Freud, "Studies on Hysteria," in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 2 (London: Hogarth Press, 1925), 123.
13. For relevant discussions, see Oakley, Morality and the Emotions, ch. 4; Michael Stocker, "Responsibility Especially for Beliefs," Mind 91 (1982): 398-417; Adams, "Involuntary Sins"; and Edward Sankowski, "Responsibility of Persons for Their Emotions," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (1977): 829-40.
14. For relevant discussions, see Oakley, Morality and the Emotions, ch. 4; Michael Stocker, "Responsibility Especially for Beliefs," Mind 91 (1982): 398-417; Adams, "Involuntary Sins"; and Edward Sankowski, "Responsibility of Persons for Their Emotions," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (1977): 829-40.
15. For relevant discussions, see Oakley, Morality and the Emotions, ch. 4; Michael Stocker, "Responsibility Especially for Beliefs," Mind 91 (1982): 398-417; Adams, "Involuntary Sins"; and Edward Sankowski, "Responsibility of Persons for Their Emotions," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 7 (1977): 829-40.
16. Stocker makes these points in "Responsibility Especially for Beliefs."
17. J. Coke, D. Batson, and K. McDavis, "Empathic Mediation of Helping: A Two Stage Model," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36 (1978): 742-66. See also N. Eisenberg, H. McCreath, and R. Ahn, "Vicarious Emotional Responsiveness and Prosocial Behavior: Their Interrelations in Young Children," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 14 (1988): 298-311.
18. J. Coke, D. Batson, and K. McDavis, "Empathic Mediation of Helping: A Two Stage Model," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36 (1978): 742-66. See also N. Eisenberg, H. McCreath, and R. Ahn, "Vicarious Emotional Responsiveness and Prosocial Behavior: Their Interrelations in Young Children," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 14 (1988): 298-311.
19. For a related discussion of cognitions that cannot be stopped automatically, see the very insightful discussion of W. Gerrod Parrot and John Sabini, "On the 'Emotional' Qualities of Certain Types of Cognition: A Reply to Arguments for the Independence of Cognition and Affect," Cognitive Therapy and Research 13 (1989): 49-65.
20. The example is from Oakley, Morality and the Emotions, 128.
21. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1114a8-22.
22. See Thomas Nagel, "Moral Luck," in Nagel, Mortal Questions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
23. See Stocker, "Responsibility Especially for Beliefs"; and Oakley's helpful discussion of Stocker's essay in terms of emotions (Morality and the Emotions, 136ff).
24. Stocker, "Responsibility Especially for Beliefs," 411.
25. Alan Sroufe, Emotional Development (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995). Attachment theory is associated with the names of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.
26. Similarly, Stanley Greenspan speaks of this first period of life as one of global "sensory alertness" where the self is an undifferentiated consciousness absorbed primarily in physiological regulation or homeostasis. See Greenspan, The Growth of the Mind (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997), 50; and Greenspan, The Development of the Ego (supra note 6), 6. Some classical psychoanalysts, such as Freud and Margaret Mahler following him, have viewed this early period as essentially asocial or autistic. With the influence of attachment theory as well as the object-relations school of psychoanalysis (represented by such figures as Melanie Klein and W. R. D. Fairbairn), many schools of psychoanalysis now see human social relatedness, and the emergence of emotions expressing it, as present from birth. See Daniel Stern's helpful study of this theme in The Interpersonal World of the Infant (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
27. Similarly, Stanley Greenspan speaks of this first period of life as one of global "sensory alertness" where the self is an undifferentiated consciousness absorbed primarily in physiological regulation or homeostasis. See Greenspan, The Growth of the Mind (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997), 50; and Greenspan, The Development of the Ego (supra note 6), 6. Some classical psychoanalysts, such as Freud and Margaret Mahler following him, have viewed this early period as essentially asocial or autistic. With the influence of attachment theory as well as the object-relations school of psychoanalysis (represented by such figures as Melanie Klein and W. R. D. Fairbairn), many schools of psychoanalysis now see human social relatedness, and the emergence of emotions expressing it, as present from birth. See Daniel Stern's helpful study of this theme in The Interpersonal World of the Infant (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
28. Similarly, Stanley Greenspan speaks of this first period of life as one of global "sensory alertness" where the self is an undifferentiated consciousness absorbed primarily in physiological regulation or homeostasis. See Greenspan, The Growth of the Mind (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1997), 50; and Greenspan, The Development of the Ego (supra note 6), 6. Some classical psychoanalysts, such as Freud and Margaret Mahler following him, have viewed this early period as essentially asocial or autistic. With the influence of attachment theory as well as the object-relations school of psychoanalysis (represented by such figures as Melanie Klein and W. R. D. Fairbairn), many schools of psychoanalysis now see human social relatedness, and the emergence of emotions expressing it, as present from birth. See Daniel Stern's helpful study of this theme in The Interpersonal World of the Infant (New York: Basic Books, 1973).
29. Sroufe, Emotional Development, 74.
30. Ibid., 153.
31. The ability to mask emotions, to decouple what is being felt from its typical manifestation (for example, smiling despite intense displeasure), is a much later developmental milestone observed in preschoolers. See Carol Malatesta, Clayton Culver, Johanna Rich Tesman, and Beth Shepard, "The Development of Emotion Expression during the First Two Years of Life," Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 54 (1989): 7-8 See also Sroufe, Emotional Development, 107, 124-30.
32. The ability to mask emotions, to decouple what is being felt from its typical manifestation (for example, smiling despite intense displeasure), is a much later developmental milestone observed in preschoolers. See Carol Malatesta, Clayton Culver, Johanna Rich Tesman, and Beth Shepard, "The Development of Emotion Expression during the First Two Years of Life," Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 54 (1989): 7-8 See also Sroufe, Emotional Development, 107, 124-30.
33. Margaret Mahler, Fred Pine, and Anni Bergman, The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant (New York: Basic Books, 1975). Leaders in contemporary, psychoanalytically based infant research are Stanley Greenspan (see The Development of the Ego; The Growth of the Mind) and Daniel Stern (see The Interpersonal World of the Infant).
34. Margaret Mahler, Fred Pine, and Anni Bergman, The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant (New York: Basic Books, 1975). Leaders in contemporary, psychoanalytically based infant research are Stanley Greenspan (see The Development of the Ego; The Growth of the Mind) and Daniel Stern (see The Interpersonal World of the Infant).
35. Margaret Mahler, Fred Pine, and Anni Bergman, The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant (New York: Basic Books, 1975). Leaders in contemporary, psychoanalytically based infant research are Stanley Greenspan (see The Development of the Ego; The Growth of the Mind) and Daniel Stern (see The Interpersonal World of the Infant).
36. Allan Schore offers a comprehensive review of the literature across fields, on this topic and other themes in affect development; see Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origins of Self (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994). On visual dialoguing, see especially, ibid., 71-82;
37. Allan Schore offers a comprehensive review of the literature across fields, on this topic and other themes in affect development; see Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origins of Self (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994). On visual dialoguing, see especially, ibid., 71-82;
38. and Greenspan, The Growth of the Mind, 50.
39. Schore, Affect Regulation, 85-91; Daniel Stern, "Mother and Infant at Play: The Dyadic Interaction Involving Facial, Vocal, and Gaze Behavior," in Michael Lewis and Leonard A. Rosenblum, eds., The Effect of the Infant on Its Caregiver (New York: Wiley, 1974), 187-213.
40. Schore, Affect Regulation, 85-91; Daniel Stern, "Mother and Infant at Play: The Dyadic Interaction Involving Facial, Vocal, and Gaze Behavior," in Michael Lewis and Leonard A. Rosenblum, eds., The Effect of the Infant on Its Caregiver (New York: Wiley, 1974), 187-213.
41. Malatesta, Culver, Tesman, and Shepard, "The Development of Emotion Expression"; Schore, Affect Regulation, 89.
42. T. B. Brazelton and B. G. Cramer, The Earliest Relationship (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1990), as quoted by Schore, Affect Regulation, 85.
43. T. B. Brazelton and B. G. Cramer, The Earliest Relationship (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1990), as quoted by Schore, Affect Regulation, 85.
44. Stern, The Interpersonal World of the Infant, 150.
45. Alan Fogel, Developing Through Relationships (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
46. Stanley Greenspan, Infancy and Early Childhood (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1992), 11-12, 70, 96.
47. George Butterworth, "The Ontogeny and Phylogeny of Joint Visual Attention," in Andrew Whiten, ed., Natural Theories of Mind (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1991).
48. There are neurobiological implications of the modulation of affect in synchronized parental interactions. Numerous studies indicate that these interactions directly influence the experience-dependent growth of brain areas prospectively involved in self-regulation of emotion. In particular, Allan Schore has argued that early object relational experiences "directly influence the emergence of a frontolimbic system in the right hemisphere" responsible for autoregulation of positive and negative emotions. Thus, while initially the parent acts as a child's auxiliary cortex, through socio-emotional interactions the child develops his own capacities for emotional regulation, mediated in transformed neurological structures. See Schore, Affect Regulation, 89-130.
49. Mahler et al., The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant, 78.
50. Ibid., 77.
51. M. D. Kimmert, J. J. Campos, F. J. Sorce, R. N. Emde, and M. J. Svejda, "Social Referencing: Emotional Expressions as Behavior Regulators," in Emotion: Theory, Research, and Experience, vol. 2: Emotions in Early Development, ed. Robert Plutchik and Henry Kellerman (Orlando: Academic Press, 1983).
52. K. Oatley and J. M. Jenkins, "Human Emotions: Function and Dysfunction," Annual Review of Psychology 43 (1992): 55-85.
53. On face reading, see Carroll E. Izard, The Face of Emotion (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971).
54. Greenspan, The Development of the Ego, 36.
55. T. B. Brazelton, B. Koslowski, and M. Main, "The Origins of Reciprocity: The Early Mother-Infant Interaction," in Lewis and Rosenblum, eds., The Effect of the Infant on Its Caregiver (supra note 26), 70.
56. Schore, Affect Regulation, 99-114.
57. D. W. Winnicott, "Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena," in Winnicott, Playing and Reality.
58. This period also corresponds to the Freudian anal period, marked by sphincter (muscular) control, and the ambivalence centered around wanting to control bowels, like an adult, and yet enjoying the old ways of being warm in one's own mess and then pampered with clean diapers in an intimate exchange.
59. Mahler et al., The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant, 77-79.
60. See Anna Freud's classic work, The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense (Madison CT-International Universities Press, 1993).
61. Stanley Greenspan, The Essential Partnership (New York: Viking, 1989), 156.
62. Ibid. For further discussion of verbalization as a form of emotional control, see Petra Hesse and Dante Cicchetti, "Perspectives on an Integrated Theory of Emotional Development," in Emotional Development, ed. Dante Cicchetti and Petra Hesse (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1982), 33-36; see also Judy Dunn and Jane Brown, "Relationships, Talk about Feelings, and the Development of Affect Regulation in Early Childhood," in Judy Garber and Kenneth Dodge, eds., The Development of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
63. Ibid. For further discussion of verbalization as a form of emotional control, see Petra Hesse and Dante Cicchetti, "Perspectives on an Integrated Theory of Emotional Development," in Emotional Development, ed. Dante Cicchetti and Petra Hesse (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1982), 33-36; see also Judy Dunn and Jane Brown, "Relationships, Talk about Feelings, and the Development of Affect Regulation in Early Childhood," in Judy Garber and Kenneth Dodge, eds., The Development of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
64. Ibid. For further discussion of verbalization as a form of emotional control, see Petra Hesse and Dante Cicchetti, "Perspectives on an Integrated Theory of Emotional Development," in Emotional Development, ed. Dante Cicchetti and Petra Hesse (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc., 1982), 33-36; see also Judy Dunn and Jane Brown, "Relationships, Talk about Feelings, and the Development of Affect Regulation in Early Childhood," in Judy Garber and Kenneth Dodge, eds., The Development of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
65. There are, of course, child analyses that center around play, but I focus on the "talking therapy" of adult analysis.
66. Indeed, it was Freud's view that psychoanalytic theory revealed the structure of the "normal" psyche, with its various agencies and stages of growth. ("Depth psychology" was Freud's term for a psychology that recognized the dynamic influence of the unconscious in mental life.)
67. "Psychoanalysis promotes autonomy by virtue of its expansion of the analysand's ability to recognize these intrapsychic conflicts and to utilize the signal function [i.e., anxiety or depressive feeling] generated by dysphoric affect to activate self-observing capacities rather than automatically resort to regression and defense." Steven Levy and Lawrence Inderbitzin, "Neutrality, Interpretation, and Therapeutic Intent," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 40 (1992): 989-1011.
68. Leading contemporary proponents of ego psychology are Charles Brenner, Psychoanalytic Technique and Psychic Conflict (Madison, CT: International Universities Press 1976); and Jacob Arlow, "The Dynamics of Interpretation," Psychoanalytic Quarterly 56 (1987): 68-87. A classic formulation of ego psychology, from the 1930s, is that of Heinz Hartmann, Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1995).
69. Leading contemporary proponents of ego psychology are Charles Brenner, Psychoanalytic Technique and Psychic Conflict (Madison, CT: International Universities Press 1976); and Jacob Arlow, "The Dynamics of Interpretation," Psychoanalytic Quarterly 56 (1987): 68-87. A classic formulation of ego psychology, from the 1930s, is that of Heinz Hartmann, Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1995).
70. Leading contemporary proponents of ego psychology are Charles Brenner, Psychoanalytic Technique and Psychic Conflict (Madison, CT: International Universities Press 1976); and Jacob Arlow, "The Dynamics of Interpretation," Psychoanalytic Quarterly 56 (1987): 68-87. A classic formulation of ego psychology, from the 1930s, is that of Heinz Hartmann, Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1995).
71. Arnold Rothstein, "Sadomasochism as a Compromise Formation," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 39 (1991): 363-75.
72. Self-psychology is associated with Heinz Kohut and his works, The Analysis of the Self (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1971), and The Restoration of the Self (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1977).
73. Self-psychology is associated with Heinz Kohut and his works, The Analysis of the Self (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1971), and The Restoration of the Self (Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1977).
74. For the here-and-now transference, see Merton Gill, "The Analysis of the Transference," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 27 (supplement, 1979): 263-88; and Paul Gray, "Psychoanalytic Technique and the Ego's Capacity for Viewing Intrapsychic Activity," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 21 (1973): 474-94.
75. For the here-and-now transference, see Merton Gill, "The Analysis of the Transference," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 27 (supplement, 1979): 263-88; and Paul Gray, "Psychoanalytic Technique and the Ego's Capacity for Viewing Intrapsychic Activity," Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 21 (1973): 474-94.
76. For further discussion of neutrality, see my "The Moral Perspective and the Psychoanalytic Quest," in The Journal of the Academy of Psychoanalysis 23 (1995): 223-40; see also Levy and Inderbitzin, "Neutrality, Interpretation, and Therapeutic Intent."
77. For further discussion of neutrality, see my "The Moral Perspective and the Psychoanalytic Quest," in The Journal of the Academy of Psychoanalysis 23 (1995): 223-40; see also Levy and Inderbitzin, "Neutrality, Interpretation, and Therapeutic Intent."
78. Freud, The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense.
79. Roy Shaffer, The Analytic Attitude (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 241-46.
80. This is now the dominant view of emotions in cognitive psychology. See R. S. Lazarus, Emotion and Adaptation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
81. Sherman, Making a Necessity of Virtue, ch. 2.
82. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, ch. 13.
83. I develop this notion of psychoanalysis as extending the ancient model of character development in "The Moral Perspective and the Psychoanalytic Quest."
84. And perhaps his modern-day counterparts in cognitive therapy.
85. Strawson, "Freedom and Resentment," in Fischer and Ravizza, eds., Perspectives on Moral Responsibility.