Home
philosophy
Moral Emotions

Moral Emotions

Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart

by Anthony J. Steinbock

Series: Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

Imprint: Northwestern University Press

354 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in

Paperback
9780810129566
Published: March 2014

$34.95

BUY

Hardcover
9780810129559
Published: March 2014

$89.95

BUY

eBook
9780810167544
Published: March 2014

$34.95

BUY

Description
Authors
Praise

Winner, 2015 CSCP Symposium Book Award

Moral Emotions builds upon the philosophical theory of persons begun in Phenomenology and Mysticism and marks a new stage of phenomenology. Author Anthony J. Steinbock finds personhood analyzing key emotions, called moral emotions. Moral Emotions offers a systematic account of the moral emotions, described here as pride, shame, and guilt as emotions of self-givenness; repentance, hope, and despair as emotions of possibility; and trusting, loving, and humility as emotions of otherness.

The author argues these reveal basic structures of interpersonal experience. By exhibiting their own kind of cognition and evidence, the moral emotions not only help to clarify the meaning of person, they reveal novel concepts of freedom, critique, and normativity. As such, they are able to engage our contemporary social imaginaries at the impasse of modernity and postmodernity.

ANTHONY J. STEINBOCK is a professor of philosophy and the director of the Phenomenology Research Center at Southern Illinois University. He is the editor of Northwestern University Press’s Studies in Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy series and the editor in chief of Continental Philosophy Review; his previous books include Phenomenology and Mysticism: The Verticality of Religious Experience (2007) and Home and Beyond: Generative Phenomenology After Husserl (Northwestern, 1995).

"[Moral Emotions] develops a theory of the human person that offers a richer understanding of people as interpersonal, and argues for a role for emotions in civic life and political discourses. Steinbock’s phenomenological descriptions are compelling, and his argument is very clear and accessible." —CHOICE

"Moral Emotions is an important work on human personhood, phenomenology of the emotions, and the social imaginary...a unique, detailed phenomenological account of the emotions." —Faith and Philosophy