The Epistemic Role of Emotions in Value Sensitivity: A Phenomenological Analysis

This paper presents a phenomenological account of central epistemic roles
that emotions can play in the context of value sensitivity. I specify signifi-
cant ways emotions are given in lived experience as possible sources of va-
lue apprehension. Thereby, an explanandum or experienced framework for
the ongoing debate on the relation between emotion and value awareness is
explicated. Through a phenomenological analysis, the paper explicates and
illustrates three central epistemic functions that emotions can have in being
sources of evaluative information, as seen from the point of view of lived
experience: A) Emotions are constitutively related to presentations of value;
B) Emotions tend to prompt specific value attention; and C) Emotional
openness can play a crucial role in directly grasping determinate value. Fur-
ther, based on the analyses of A), B), and C), the phenomenological investi-
gation makes intelligible what can go wrong when emotions distort our eva-
luative outlook and argues that it can be analyzed as a result of the central
attention-shaping functions of emotions as they present themselves in lived
experience.