Publication

Book	Philosophy of Suffering
Editor	, Corns Jennifer; , Bain David; , Brady Michael
Publisher	Routledge, New York
Page(s)	103 - 122
ISBN	0815361785
Title of proceedings	Philosophy of Suffering

URL	https://www.routledge.com/Philosophy-of-Suffering-Metaphysics-Value-and-Normativity-1st-Edition/Bain-Brady-Corns/p/book/9780815361787
Type of Open Access	Green OA Embargo (Freely available via Repository after an embargo)

Bodily (dis)pleasures and emotions share the striking property of being valenced, i.e. they are positive or negative. What is valence? How do bodily (dis)pleasures and emotions relate to one another? This chapter assesses the prospects of two popular theses regarding the relation between bodily (dis)pleasures and emotions in light of what we can reasonably think about valence. According to the first thesis, the valence of bodily (dis)pleasures is explanatory prior vis-à-vis the valence of emotions. According to the second, emotions contain bodily (dis)pleasures. I argue that bodily (dis)pleasures are intentional states whose valence is to be understood in terms of evaluative experience, and bring to light the similarities and dissimilarities between their intentional structure and that of emotions. On this backdrop, I offer reasons to conclude that we should adopt neither of the two theses.