ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the cognitive dimension of the emotions led to a reconsideration of the role of emotions in morality. There are three important misconceptions about the emotions which, taken together, have resulted in the exclusion of emotions from understanding of the moral self and have profoundly affected our understanding of the role of emotions in morality. These are the beliefs that emotions are: non-cognitive; causally determined; and passive. If one wants to challenge that premise and maintain that the emotions are in fact cognitive, two alternatives present themselves. First, one can accept the ocular metaphor and claim that the emotions have a component which is a candidate for knowledge within this model. The moral education of the emotions involves in particular the cultivation of the illuminating dimension of the emotions, in contrast to the concealing and distorting dimensions of emotions.
