The Bases of Affective Experiences

The point about valence just made will become clearer when we now talk about a subject of special importance for the particular object. A characteristic feature of affective experiences is that they rely for parts of their intentionality on other mental states such as bodily sensations, perceptions, judgments, memories, imaginings etc. These mental states provide affective experiences with their particular or intentional object (Herzberg 2012).

[Emotions] differ from perceptions in that they cannot be seen as independent ways of accessing the objects that exemplify these properties. For instance, while the injustice of Jonas’s remark is perceived by Mary through her in-dignation, the remark itself is not. Mary must access it by some other means (perception, memory, belief, etc.) [...] she hears the remark and feels it is unjust. The evaluative apprehension [...] is grounded in such non-evaluative bases [...] there is no such comparable distinction between two psychological levels exemplifying causal and epistemic relations within the field of percep-tion proper. (Deonna and Teroni 2012, p. 69)

Where perceptions get their inputs from organs and transducers, emotions get theirs from their cognitive bases. (Oliver-Skuse 2016, p. 28)

Such mental states are usefully called the base of a feeling (Mulligan 1998; Deonna and Teroni 2012, 2015; Bain 2013; Oliver-Skuse 2016). Affective experiences are flexible in that they can take different kinds of states (or sets of those) with different kinds of contents (e.g. propositional/non-propositional, conceptual/nonconceptual, iconic/non-iconic, conscious/unconscious) as their bases.¹¹⁵

This explains how affective experiences can be so rich in the kinds of intentional objects they admit.

115Relatedly, Prinz notes that, for instance, fear “is triggered when the auditory system detects a loud sudden noise, or when the visual system detects a looming object, or when we proprioceptively detect a sudden loss of support” (Prinz 2004a, p. 55).

As a consequence, there might be affective experiences that are not clearly related to the contents of other attendant conscious states because their base is likely (as yet) uncon-scious (Weiss 2016, pp. 37 sqq.). This is presumably what explains the observed double dissociations in section 4.2 (see also “blindfright” cases Scarantino 2010, pp. 734 sqq.).

Ultimately, however, there really are no affective experienceswithout other mental states.

Well, of course not: There are no feelings withoutat least some causes that might serve as their base. However, as illustrated by the double dissociation, this does not entail that affective experiences are reducible to these other mental states, i.e. the bases that supply their particular object.

Now, if Rita is afraid of an approaching bear, her fear relies on the multi-modal percep-tual experiences of the bear in order to representthe bear as frightening. The feeling will so to say “encode”, “localize” or “embed” the badness of the bear in the determinate form of fearsomeness within the content of Rita’s multi-modal experience of the bear.

Note that the base will not only provide the feeling withjust a particular object but that the base itself will represent its intentional object under a determinate aspectual shape (this is what I mentioned in footnote 111). So Rita’s visual experience will not only represent an approaching bear simpliciter but it will represent the bear as approach-ing quickly, approachapproach-ing over a specific path in the forest, beapproach-ing massive, havapproach-ing sharp, flashing teeth, having brown fur etc. The feeling, in turn, will modify or complement this content of the base with its feeling-specific property.

Depending on the kind of the base and on the content of the base, Rita’s feeling will appear justified or unjustified (Deonna and Teroni 2012; Echeverri 2017). That Rita is afraid of an approaching bear is in principle neutral between the approaching bear being the dreadful beast just described or a little bear cub in the zoo. While being afraid of the former seems like an eminently justified reaction, being afraid of a cute bear cub might be less so.

In fact, it appears plausible that the base and its content do not only help decide whether a feeling is justified or not but that it helps decide whether such assessments make sense in the first place. Is Jake justified in feeling pain upon cutting his finger? Is he justified to feel pleasure upon the relaxation of his neck? Is it justified to feel pain in one’s phantom limb? I am not sure whether these questions have yes/no answers. It seems not implausible that in the case of bodily feelings, i.e. where bodily sensations are the bases, the feeling will appear as not properly assessable in terms of justification, i.e. they are beyond justification (for considerations to the contrary see e.g. Siegel 2013; Mart´ınez

2015). Before a base of a feeling can lend justification to a feeling, it must endow the feeling with the ability to be justified in the first place. And not all bases seem to do that.¹¹⁶

Note that the base does not have to be itself subject to justification assessments in order to make the feeling that it serves as a base assessable. For instance, many consider visual experiences to be not assessable in terms of justification. At the same time, the beliefs they give rise to are considered to be so assessable. It is fairly common practice to apply similar considerations to emotional feelings: Rita’s fear of a bearcan be justified. And whether it is justified depends on the contents of her perceptual experiences that are beyond justification.¹¹⁷

Note further that while some bases and feelings might not appear to be assessable in terms of justification, that does not mean that they do not have correctness-, accuracy-or truth-conditions (accuracy-or other conditions of satisfaction) (cf. Bain 2013). Pain in one’s phantom limb is a problem not only because it is pain but because it is illusory pain.

There is no “real” bodily basis for it: there is a representation of bodily events (as painful) where there are no bodily events. Similarly, “pain” in someone with pain asymbolia is a problem not because it fails to represent bodily events — in fact, it doesn’t — but because it fails tocorrectly represent these bodily eventsas painful. Thus, feelings are evaluable in terms of their correctness although they might not always be evaluable in terms of justification. This they appear to have in common with perceptual experiences about which most agree that they are never subject to justification (but see Siegel 2017).

Another significant relationship between the base and the feeling is what I call “base property mirroring”. The idea behind it is that an affective experience will come to mirror certain dynamical, intentional and phenomenal properties of its base. Take Rita’s fear of the bear. Her visual experience of the bear will, given good eyesight, be crystal clear. On the other hand, if Rita needs glasses to correct her vision and is not wearing them, her visual experience will be not so crystal clear. Consequently, the aspectual shape of the content will be different, one determinate and one more blurry. The ensuing fear based on these experiences will perhaps vary in some aspects as well. In one case it

116My conjecture is that whether a base is justification-endowing or not has to do with whether the content of the base is in principle publicly accessible or not. If the bear is not a hallucination, then everybody in Rita’s entourage can see for themselves whether being afraid is a good idea. On the other hand, it is difficult to access the contents of someone else’s bodily sensations. This implies that whether some kind of base is justification-endowing or not is not set in stone but subject to change.

If, for instance, the contents of the bodily sensations of others would be made (reliably) accessible by some technological innovation, then bodily sensations might as well become justification-endowing.

117Alternatively it might depend on states thatare rationally assessable such as beliefs or judgments.

will be perhaps fear of a massive approaching bear with sharp teeth while in the other case it will be fear of a massive approaching bear (but she can’t see the sharp teeth) or even fear of a massive approaching figure, without identifying it as a bear.¹¹⁸ In any case, it seems that the content of perceptual experiences is gradable and this will have a phenomenal impact on feelings based on them. Contrast this with Linda’s relief upon reading in a newspaper that the US-Democrats got a majority in the House of Representatives. Upon entertaining the thought thatthe US-Democrats got a majority in the House of Representatives she is relieved. This thought does not seem to be content-gradeable in anything like the way as Rita’s visual experience of the bear or Linda’s visual experience of the graphemes in the newspaper, for that matter.

Of course, there are also deep open questions when it comes to the base. For now, I want to flag the most significant: What is the relationship between base and feeling? Of that, there are, of course, different conceptions. And these conceptions might plausibly vary with the kind of feeling. In the case of pain, the connection seems very tight—

perhaps constitutively blended, at least phenomenally and in normal conditions (see the double dissociation). In general, one can adopt a causal understanding: the base is what causes the feeling (e.g. James 1884; Goldstein 2002). One can adopt a non-causal interactive Componentialism: the base and the feeling co-occur (and appear related or bound together in experience) (Herzberg 2012). One can adopt Blenderism: the feeling and the base are constitutively unified or fused in one blended state (Goldie 2002; Fulkerson 2019; Mitchell 2019; for the same point about intuitions see Chudnoff 2011b and section 3.4.2.¹¹⁹

Note that the different views are not necessarily mutually exclusive but can be com-plementary: For instance, it seems plausible that sometimes the feeling is caused by something to which it will also appear related or bound. One can distinguish here at least between causal base and phenomenal base. In the mentioned case, the causal and phenomenal base coincide. However, on other occasions, where the feeling is caused by

118Perhaps the approaching bear even fails to elicit fear in poor Rita due to her poor eyesight.

119Depending on how one fixes the relation between feelings and bases, complications for the common practice to take the justification-conferring relation between base and feeling to be similar to the one between base and beliefs (cf. Echeverri 2017). If the base and the affective experience is in fact inextricably tied together in a Goldie-style blend, then the relationship between feelings and the mental states that are their bases is of a markedly different sort than the relationship between beliefs and the mental states that are their bases. It might well be that in such a case the connection is so tight that either the feeling must lie outside of the realm of justification or the base must be inside of it. Alternatively, one could posit qualitatively different rational status for different aspects of the contents of the (blended) emotional state (cf. Mitchell 2019).

something but appears related, or is bound to something else, the causal and phenom-enal base can come apart. Just consider the last time you were “hangry” or when you fell victim to someone else’s “hangriness”, i.e. someone got angry at you (because you were a readily identifiable particular object) due to his or her hunger (the cause for the irritability). Now, what’s the base here? The exteroceptive experience of you? Is this the phenomenal base? The hunger? Is this the causal base? Perhaps it makes the most sense to say that both are the bases.

Taking a staunch stance on the non-correspondence between causal and phenomenal base, Peter Carruthers points out:

Affect can be transparently accessible by virtue of being globally broadcast.

But it doesn’t get tied to the representations involved in the cognitive ap-praisals that produce it, in such a way that affective representations and representations of those properties are unified together for purposes of global broadcast. On the contrary, affect from different sources tends to combine to form a single evaluation of whatever happens to be the object of attention, or to be the most relevant among objects of current attention. [...] Most of the objects or events that we react to affectively are highly complex, with many different properties that are potentially evaluatively relevant. [...] With time and learning, of course, we may develop theories about the properties of ob-jects and people that influence us the most, and sometimes these theories may be correct. But there is no reason to think that the sources of affect are, as such, transparently accessible. I grant that in most cases [...] one can know the object of one’s affective state. But the phrase “object of one’s affective state” here needs to be read as involving a particular thing or event [...] One knows that one likes this person or that one is disgusted at that action, but there will be many different perceptually-embedded judgments occurring while one attends to an object or event, and many different aspects of it may be part of the content of the resulting perceptual state. One has no introspective access to which subset of these aspects provides the fine-grained propositional object of one’s affective state. [...] Although perception of the stimulus will give rise to numerous perceptual judgments [...] the resulting affect isn’t bound to any one, nor any subset, of these in particular (despite being caused by one or more in particular). (Carruthers 2011, pp. 146-147, 150)

Of course, one could try to adjudicate what thereal base here is, settling for either the causal or the componential view. Having said that, adopting pluralism seems viable as well (cf. Prinz 2014; Fulkerson 2019). Finally, one can adopt nihilism: the feeling and the base are not actually related in any significant way. In each case, one will have to distinguish between how things phenomenally appear and how things metaphysically and aetiologically relate (Herzberg 2012).

Let me briefly remind you of the phenomenal features of affective experiences before I sum up the intentional features: affective experiences are phenomenally valenced, arous-ing and motivational—and gradeable in that (sections 4.3.1 and 4.3.2). Now, here is a summary of the intentional features. The intentionality of feelings has two parts: a particular object and a formal object where the feeling represents the former as bearing the latter. In this context, the formal object refers to feeling-specific properties such as the painfulness of pain, fearsomeness of fear, funniness of amusement etc. (section 4.4.2) Representing something to be painful or amusing constitutes an evaluation which is phe-nomenally grounded in thevalence of affective experiences (see section 4.3.1 and 4.4.3).

Concerning their particular objects, affective experiences can be in principle about all kinds of things, ranging from bodily events and parts over objects in the physical and imaginary realm (including fictions and propositions themselves), states of affairs in past, present and future over to propositional contents (section 4.4.1). To accommodate this broad range of intentional objects feelings rely on a division of representational labour with other mental states such as bodily sensations, perceptions, judgments, memories, imaginings etc. Thisbase of a feeling is a mental state (or a set of states) that supplies a feeling with its particular object: the feeling does not access the particular object directly but through other mental states (this section).