ABSTRACT
Emotions are practical knowledge par excellence. As such, they are indispensable, at least for our kind of agency. To put all of this in a simple slogan: emotions are our way of getting our act together. This chapter begins with a discussion of how collective emotions works in the individual case. It examines how collective emotions carry over to joint action. It argues that in spite of some important differences between these cases, in order for us to get our joint act together, we need to know what matters to us. The basic intuition can be explained with a Humean insight. Not all emotions are passions of the "violent" sort, such as a pang of fear or a sudden surge of anger. Calm emotions are not a quick and dirty jump to a conclusion that bypasses careful consideration. Rather, they operate in a way that is compatible with–and indeed essential to–any form of practical reasoning.
