9 - Emotions and behaviour

Summary

In this chapter I want to investigate the nature of the links between emotions and the behaviour1 stemming from them. I propose to do this by discussing the following topics:

1. (1) The behaviour typical of an emotion, which is typical in a much looser sense than an equivalent claim about behaviour being typical of an appetite;

2. (2) The view that behaviour typical of an emotion is linked conceptually to that emotion;

3. (3) The failure of the view in (2): none of the ways in which behaviour is typical of an emotion implies such a conceptual link;

4. (4) The factors, of which there are a number, that militate against being able to specify with any degree of exactitude what behaviour will flow from any particular occurrence of an emotion;

5. (5) The link between emotions and behaviour, which is causal and based on the appetitive aspect of emotions;

6. (6) The link between emotions and behaviour, which besides being causal, is also rational;

7. (7) The conclusion that behaviour does have some part to play as an indicator of the presence of emotions.

Emotional behaviour is typical in a looser sense than behaviour typical of an appetite

In Action, Emotion and Will, Kenny writes that ‘there is, again, no particular form of behaviour which is characteristic of an emotion in the way in which eating is characteristic of hunger’ (p. 48). This observation can readily be seen to be borne out.