1. Authenticity: emotions, values and likes
Carolyn Price
The Open University

2. Two kinds of emotional authenticity
Descriptive: an authentic emotional response reveals something about the person’s self – authenticity as sincerity
Normative authenticity as an ethical norm – authenticity as integrity
Focus here is on (1), and on a particular group of emotions: likes- based personal emotions.

3. What are emotions about?
It’s sometimes claimed that our emotions are concerned with the personal significance of the situation – how it impacts on their personal interests or concerns.
This doesn’t seem to be true of moral emotions, intellectual emotions etc.
But it does seem plausible for a large class of emotions – e.g. sadness, anxiety, joy.

4. What is personal significance?
Needs?
Preferences?
Likes?
Desires?
Values?
Evaluative perspective overall?

5. A tentative taxonomy Personal Moral Intellectual/ aesthetic
Needs-based
Likes-based
Values-based
Sadness, joy, anxiety, embarrassment, envy, jealousy, gratitude, love, hate, grief, hope, relief, anger, frustration, disappointment, regret
fear, disgust
Shame, pride,
admiration,
contempt.
Shame, pride, admiration, contempt, remorse, indignation
Curiosity, wonder, awe, ?horror,

6. Likes and dislikes
To like something = to have a settled disposition to experience it as pleasant or enjoyable.
To dislike something = to have a settled disposition to experience it as unpleasant or distressing.
Likes and dislikes are complex affective dispositions – constituted, in part, by emotional dispositions.

7. Likes and needs
Some of our likes reflect our needs – the things we need to thrive (e.g. good social relationships).
But many of them reflect the particular ways in which we’ve learned to satisfy our needs (e.g. playing bridge) – these will depend on our personal history.
But some likes are not rooted in our needs/past experiences – including likes that result from brain injuries/psychological disorders or from some pharmacological intervention.

8. Likes and values Likes and values connect in several ways:
Our values are often grounded in our likes
We generally like our values to be satisfied
We can, sometimes, deliberately cultivate a like
But values and likes are produced in different ways, and reflect different considerations, and so can come apart.

9. Case 1: the inauthentic mourner
Alfie’s sorrow is fabricated or manufactured: it occurs because he wants it to occur.
Alfie is deceived about his motives.
This is a case of self-deceptive manufacture.

10. Case 2: the dutiful actor
Ben’s cheerfulness is fabricated or manufactured: it occurs because he wants it to occur.
Ben is not deceived about his motives.
This is a case of clear-sighted manufacture.

11. Case 3: emotional contagion
Cathy’s anxiety is not fabricated or manufactured: it does not occur because she wants it to occur.
Rather, it is imposed on her by her surroundings.

12. Authenticity and evaluative beliefs
Pugmire (1994): [for many types of emotion] authenticity requires that the response is rooted in an evaluative belief about the situation.
Works for cases of clear-sighted manufacture and emotional contagion.

13. Two objections Self-deceptive manufacture:
Pugmire: Alfie imagines that he has suffered a personal loss, and so feels sad; he then (self-deceptively) takes his fantasy to be a belief.
Alternative: Alfie (self-deceptively) believes that he has suffered a personal loss and so feels sad.
Sudden emotion:
Seeing an old friend, I react with spontaneous joy before I’ve had a chance to form a judgement.

14. Authenticity and values
Taylor (1985): for shame and guilt, authenticity requires that the response reflects the subject’s values.
This account does better, e.g. with cases of sudden emotion.
Plausible for cases of moral emotion and value-based personal emotion.
But not for likes-based personal emotion?

15. Case 4: the bellicose pacifist
Dylan’s elation and triumph are not in accordance with his values.
They are products of his evolutionary past but also his particular temperament and personal history.
Plausibly, they are authentic: they reveal something about his ‘genuine self’.

16. Authenticity and likes
For likes-based emotions, an authentic response is one that is rooted in the subject’s likes.
Alfie’s sorrow, Ben’s joy and Cathy’s anxiety are not rooted in their likes, and are inauthentic.
But my sudden joy and Dylan’s triumph are rooted in our likes, and are authentic.

17. Honest mistakes What if I am honestly mistaken about my likes?
In some cases, authenticity requires only that my response is rooted in an honest and reasonable belief about what my likes are.

18. Are likes an aspect of the self?
Haybron (2008), Baier (1990): our emotional dispositions are an aspect of the self. But what about likes?
Objection: the self that results is unlikely to be a unity
But:
We shouldn’t overestimate scope for conflict or the extent to which evaluative conflict undermines the unity of the self.
Likes and values are both products and determinants of a single psychological history.

19. Likes without histories?
What about likes that are produced by a brain injury or psychological disorder or medication?
These likes are not grounded in the subject’s history.
Nevertheless, where the change is long-term, they can become woven into the subject’s history.
A medically induced like neither distorts nor reveals the subject’s ‘genuine self’ – it becomes part of it.

20. Summary
For likes-based personal emotions, authenticity implies being rooted in the subject’s likes and dislikes – or at least in an honest and reasonable assessment of those.
Our likes and dislikes are ours when they are products of and determinants of our psychological histories or in some cases, it’s enough that they’re only the latter.
For likes-based emotions, an authentic response is one that is true to our history.

21. References
Baier, A. (1990) ‘What emotions are about’ in Philosophical Perspectives, 4, 1-29.
Dilman, İ (1989) ‘False emotions’ in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. 63:
Hamlyn, D.W. (1989) ‘False emotions’ in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. 63:
Haybron, D. (2008) The Pursuit of Unhappiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Helm, B. (2001). Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation and the Nature of Value. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Price. C. (2015) Emotion Polity Press
Pugmire, D (1994) ‘Real emotion’ in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54(1):
Salmela, M. (2005) ‘What is emotional authenticity’ Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 35(3):
Taylor, G. (1985) Pride, Shame and Guilt. Oxford: Oxford University Press

22. Carolyn Price Department of Philosophy Faculty of Arts carolyn
Carolyn Price Department of Philosophy Faculty of Arts