ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with an outline of the key tenets and methods of phenomenology. A phenomenology of moral emotions apprehends emotions as lived and connects us to our experience of self-givenness, otherness and possibility as the ‘canvas underneath the picture’. In its commitment to understanding ‘the canvas underneath the picture’, phenomenology takes a critical stance by paying attention to taken-for-granted assumptions, ‘classical’ scientific schematizations, as well as habitual and unreflective modes of thought. The moral emotions of shame, guilt and pride disclose our self-givenness. Social psychologists categorize pride, shame and guilt as ‘self-conscious’ moral emotions that disclose one’s psychological state in response to behavior that is internally and externally sanctioned. Trust, loving and humility are emotions of otherness because they are directed toward others. The chapter presents some key differences between the phenomenology of moral emotions and the accounts of moral emotions developed within social psychology and virtue ethics.
