The Paradox of the Future: Is it Rational to Feel Emotions for Future Generations?
According to some, there is a problem concerning the emotions we feel toward fictional entities such as Anna Karenina, Werther and the like. We feel pity, fear, and sadness toward them, but how is that possible? "We are saddened, but how can we be? What are we sad about? How can we feel genuinely an...
| Publicado en: | Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy Vol. 43; no. 1; pp. 75 - 85 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Mar2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=175567061&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 175567061 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 01677411 NM2 jtl: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy issn: 01677411 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar2024 vid: 43 iid: 1 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 175567061 10.1007/s11245-023-09963-w ppf: 75 ppct: 10 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 547KB tig: atl: The Paradox of the Future: Is it Rational to Feel Emotions for Future Generations? aug: au: Barbero, Carola affil: https://ror.org/048tbm396 University of Turin, Department of Philosophy and Education Sciences, Turin, Italy su: Emotions Fictional characters Sympathy Sadness Paradox sug: subj: Emotions Fictional characters Sympathy Sadness Paradox keyword: Existence Future generations Object theory Paradox of fiction ab: According to some, there is a problem concerning the emotions we feel toward fictional entities such as Anna Karenina, Werther and the like. We feel pity, fear, and sadness toward them, but how is that possible? "We are saddened, but how can we be? What are we sad about? How can we feel genuinely and involuntarily sad, and weep, as we do know that no one has suffered or died?" (Radford, in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1975). This is the paradox of fiction which is based on the assumption that emotions, to be genuine and rational, should be directed toward existent beings. But if beliefs about existence are necessary for us to be rationally moved by something, and such beliefs are lacking when we are moved by fiction (because we do not believe fictional characters and events to be real), then our capacity for an emotional response to fiction is irrational. Consequently, our emotional attitude toward future generations should be considered as irrational as well. But is this really the case? Are there good arguments to consider future and fictional entities as similar from this point of view? Or would it be better to distinguish the two? Is there such a thing as a paradox of the future? If so, how does it relate to the more famous paradox of fiction? pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy is a copyright of Springer, 2024. All Rights Reserved. item: Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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