Hazardous Emotions

Talk at GAP.10, University of Cologne, Germany.

Abstract: I argue that having an emotion can be a moral wrong when it poses a moral hazard to other people. Although many authors assume that emotions are a proper subject of moral evaluation, it has rarely been explicitly argued for. The idea that feeling an emotion could wrong another person faces what I call the “no harm” problem. The problem states that in cases where an emotion is neither expressed nor acted upon in a way that harms or threatens another person, merely having the emotion is not a moral concern and therefore cannot constitute a moral wrong. I adapt an argument from Damian Cox and Michael Levine who make the case that a belief can constitute a moral hazard, a heightened potential for acting immorally towards others. I argue that an emotion can constitute a moral hazard as well by introducing a problematic action readiness that changes the subject’s behavioral dispositions. I conclude that not only the harm or threat posed by acting on an emotion is morally relevant, but that the moral hazard posed by the emotion itself is a moral concern to another person.