ABSTRACT

What are emotions? This chapter aims to answer this question. I explain why an account of the nature of emoition is important, and how philosophy seeks to answer this question by first identifying the central elements or components of emotion, and then by coming up with theories that aim to capture or explain emotion understood in this way. After examining some of the ways in which theorizing about emotions is a complex and difficult task, I then explain and critically evaluate the three main theoretical options. I conclude by proposing that each theory is a plausible account of a restricted domain or class of emotional experience, so that the theories should not be regarded as rival explanations of some unitary phenomenon, but should instead be seen as giving a true account of a particular kind or category of emotion.