Response to Berker, Na’aman, and Yao

_Rational Sentimentalism_ marks our aspiration to develop a form of sentimentalism that is responsive to reasons and reasoning about emotional response. This paper is a response to Berker, Na’aman, and Yao’s critical engagement with our book on the themes of naturalism, sentimental values, the scope of our theory, and moralism. We defend our view against the charge of naturalistic fallacy and justify the relatively narrow scope of our theory, which focuses on sentimental values such as the funny, the shameful, and the guilt-worthy. These issues turn on our claim that a relatively small number of emotions are psychological kinds, whose concerns are deep and wide in moral psychology. Moreover, these natural emotions appraise their objects in distinctive ways that can only be adequately understood in response-dependent terms. We here explicate these claims and defend them against the challenges offered by our critics.