Dimensions of Emotional Fit

Emotions are open to various kinds of normative assessment. For example, we can assess emotions for their prudential or moral value. Recently, philosophers have increasingly attended to a distinct form of normative assessment of emotions—fittingness assessment. An emotion is fitting when it is merited by its object. For example, admiration is fitting when it is felt towards the admirable, and shame towards the shameful. This paper defends a hybrid account of emotional fittingness. Emotions are complex, and typically involve various elements. As well as involving representations that can be assessed for accuracy, emotions typically motivate their subjects in characteristically urgent ways. The fittingness of an emotion as a whole is a function of the fittingness of both its representational and motivational aspects.