Enticing Emotions

You’re required to grieve your friend’s death, permitted to regret spilling the milk, and forbidden to envy your colleague’s enviable publication record. What explains this variability in the demandingness of the norms on emotion? Although the fact that you’ve lost your friend doesn’t change, it’s appropriate for your grief to fade over time. How can emotions fittingly diminish in intensity when their objects’ properties remain constant? This paper provides a principled, unified solution to both puzzles. On the “Enticing Emotions” view, fit-related reasons for emotion are always enticing: they commend and justify emotions without requiring them. By contrast, moral and prudential reasons can require emotions. While the fit-related reasons for emotion are always enticing, moral and prudential reasons explain the variable demandingness of the norms on emotion. And although the fit-related reasons for emotion often remain constant, emotions can fade over time while remaining rationally justified and fitting.