ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the importance of emotion for our practical lives, and in the successful pursuit of our goals and ends. First, I argue that emotions are vital to effective deliberation and decision-making; here I take my lead from ground-breaking work by the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. Second, I show how particular emotions play a very important role in motivating us to do what we have decided to do, especially in the face of temptations to do otherwise. Here I focus on the emotion of remorse. Here, as elsewhere in the book, I’ll argue that emotions have value precisely because they hamper our capacity for (supposedly) rational thinking and reflection.
