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A Causal Theory of Experiential Fear

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Wayne Davis
Wayne Davis*
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington, DC20057, U.S.A.
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Extract

There is a distinction between being afraid and being afraid that something is the case. Kathy may be afraid that it will rain without being afraid, and may be afraid without being afraid that it will rain. We shall say that the distinction is between experiential and propositional fear. To be afraid is to experience fear, to be in a state of fear. The state takes many forms, such as fright, terror, and dread. To be afraid that something is the case is to have a certain propositional attitude. We may have reasons for fearing, or being fearful, that it is. My goal is to explain what it means to experience fear. I shall argue that experiential fear can be defined in terms of propositional fear. The basic idea is that fear is experienced when an occurrent propositional fear of harm causes involuntary arousal and unhappiness in a direct way. The degree of fear experienced is the extent of involuntary arousal attributable to the subject's propositional fear. We shall see how this definition accounts for the similarities and differences between fear and the related concepts of hope and anxiety.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , September 1988 , pp. 459 - 483
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1988

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References

1 Cf. Gordon, R. M. ‘Fear,’ Philosophical Review 89 (1980) 560-78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Cf. Gordon, ‘Fear,’ 562Google Scholar; Greenspan, P.S. ‘Emotions as Evaluations,’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 62 (1981) 158-69CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 160-3; ‘Emotions, Reasons, and “Self-Involvement,”’ Philosophical Studies 38 (1980) 161-8, esp. 161-2; ‘A Case of Mixed Feelings: Ambivalence and the Logic of Emotion,’ in Rorty, A. O. Explaining Emotions (Berkeley: University of California Press 1980), 221-50Google Scholar, esp. 230-8; and Rorty, ‘Explaining Emotions,’ Journal of Philosophy 75 (1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Explaining Emotions, 103-26, esp. 115. Contrast Rey, G. ‘Functionalism and the Emotions,’ in Rorty, Explaining Emotions, 163-95Google Scholar, esp. 176; and Solomon, R. C. ‘Emotions and Choice,’ in Rorty, Explaining Emotions, 251-82Google Scholar, esp. 257-9.

3 Marks, J. (‘A Theory of Emotion,’ Philosophical Studies 42 [1982)227-42)CrossRefGoogle Scholar argued that emotions require strong desires, but he did not distinguish propositional from experiential emotions.

4 See Davis, W. A. ‘The Two Senses of Desire,’ Philosophical Studies 45 (1984) 181-95CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 187-9.

5 Contrast Arnold, M. B. Emotion and Personality, vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press 1960)Google Scholar, excerpted in The Nature of Emotion (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books 1968), 337-65; ‘Perennial Problems in the Field of Emotion,’ in Feelings and Emotions (New York: Academic Press 1970), 169-85; R. S. Lazarus, Psychological Stress and the Coping Process (New York: McGraw-Hill 1966), excerpted in Arnold, The Nature of Emotion, 249-60; W. Lyons, Emotion (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press 1980), 84; and Solomon, ‘Emotions and Choice,’ 257-8. Cf. Greenspan, ‘Mixed Feelings,’ 247, n. 14.

6 For more on propositional fear and hope, see Davis, W. A. ‘The Varieties of Fear,’ Philosophical Studies 51 (1987) 287-310CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 The passivity of emotions has been stressed by Peters, R. S. (‘The Education of the Emotions,’ in Arnold, Feelings and Emotons, 187-203;Google Scholar see esp. 189-93), and carefully analysed by Gordon, R. (‘The Passivity of Emotions,’ Philosophical Review 95 [1986] 371-92)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Gordon observes that the passivity of emotions does not entail that we have no control over them, nor that we are not responsible for them.

8 Cf. Cannon, W. B. ‘The James-Lange Theory of Emotion: A Critical Examination and an Alternative Theory,’ American journal of Psychology 39 (1927) 106-24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; excerpted in Arnold, The Nature of Emotion, 43-52, 291-301Google Scholar.

9 See Izard, C. E. Human Emotions (New York: Plenum Press 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Ch. 4; and Darwin, C. The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 1965; 1872), 12-17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 See my ‘Varieties of Fear,’ section III.

11 Cf. Darwin, Expression of Emotions, 35-42Google Scholar. See Gordon (‘Fear,’ 571) for the distinction between actions done ‘out of fear’ and those ‘motivated by fear.’ A driver who leisurely applies his brakes because he is afraid he might have a collision at his present speed is not acting out of fear.

12 Schachter, (Emotion, Obesity, and Crime, 45-55)Google Scholar and Mandler, (Mind and Emotion, 96-9)Google Scholar discuss Cannon's conclusions in light of more recent studies, including those by Solomon, R. L. and Wynne, L. C. (‘Avoidance Conditioning in Normal Dogs and in Dogs Deprived of Normal Autonomic Function,’ American Psychologist 5 [1950]264;Google Scholar ‘Traumatic Avoidance Learning: The Principle of Anxiety Conservation and Partial Irreversibility,’ Psychological Review 61 [1954]353-85) showing that sympathectomized dogs will still acquire a conditioned avoidance response, although more slowly than normal. Mandler concedes that visceral arousal is not necessary for the ‘maintenance’ of an emotional response, and suggests that ‘visceral imagery’ may take the place of visceral arousal. But then Mandler should have concluded that visceral arousal is not required for an emotion.

13 Izard, (Human Emotions, 61)Google Scholar suggests that an emotion is experienced in such a case because a ‘reafferent or inner loop is substituted for the usual efferent-afferent (outer) loop via patterned facial muscles,’ or because ‘a “memory” of what it “feels” like to have an (appropriate] expression on the face [substitutes] for the actual expression.’ These are totally unnecessary, ad hoc hypotheses.

14 See Cannon, ‘The James-Lange Theory,’ 46Google Scholar; Schachter, S. and Singer, J. E. ‘Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional States,’ Psychological Review 69 (1962) 379-99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fehr, F. S. and Stern, J. A. ‘Peripheral Physiological Variables and Emotion,’ Psychological Bulletin 74 (1970) 411-24CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Lazarus, R. S. Averill, J. R. and Opton, E. M. Jr. ‘Towards a Cognitive Theory of Emotion,’ in Arnold, Feelings and Emotions, 207-29Google Scholar; Mandler, Mind and Emotion, 127-8Google Scholar; and Strongman, K. T. The Psychology of Emotion (New York: Wiley 1978) 54-9Google Scholar. Of course, some symptoms of involuntary arousal may occur more frequently with fear rather than anger, such as blanching. But such a fact could not be used to define when fear is experienced on any particular occasion.

15 Cf. Stongman, The Psychology of Emotion, 214Google Scholar.

16 Marks, (‘A Theory of Emotion,’ 230-3)Google Scholar and Robinson, J. M. (‘Emotion, Judgment, and Desire,’ Journal of Philosophy 80 [1983) 731-40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see esp. 732-6) argued similarly against Solomon, R. C. (The Passions [Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1976])Google Scholar and Lyons (Emotion), who focused on ‘evaluative beliefs.’ See also Arnold (Emotion and Personality, ‘Perennial Problems in the Field of Emotion’), Lazarus (Psychological Stress), Peters (‘Education of the Emotions’), and Lazarus, Averill, and Opton (‘Towards a Cognitive Theory of Emotion’), who emphasize ‘appraisals,’ beliefs that objects are good or bad for us.

17 This was overlooked by Lyons (Emotion, 57-8) and O. H. Green (‘Emotion and Belief,’ American Philosophical Quarterly Monographs 6 (1972) 24-40; see esp. 28).

18 Cf. Lyons, Emotion, 85ff.

19 This question was raised by the Editor.

20 Schachter, and Singer, ‘Determinants of Emotional States’Google Scholar; Valins, S. ‘The Perception and Labeling of Bodily Changes as Determinants of Emotional Behavior,’ in Black, P. ed., Physiological Correlates of Emotion (New York: Academic Press 1970)Google Scholar

21 One reader argued that the subject in this example is afraid, on the grounds that it would be more felicitous for him to say ‘I feel afraid but there is nothing to be afraid of.’ I think that ‘feel afraid’ is to ‘am afraid’ in this context as ‘feel sick’ is to ‘am sick.’ So the conclusion that the subject is afraid does not follow from the fact that he feels afraid. Indeed, ‘I am afraid, but there is nothing to be afraid of’ sounds self-contradictory or irrational, in marked contrast to the reader’s statement (and in contrast to ‘He is afraid but there is nothing to be afraid of’).

22 The situations of the last two paragraphs are only suggested by the Schachter and Singer study. The actual experiments differed in significant ways. Schachter and Singer themselves fail to distinguish between a subject's labelling an experience as fear and the subject's actually experiencing fear. And the design of their study does not enable discrimination among the following hypotheses: the adrenalin resulted in emotional illusions (the subjects erroneously thought they were experiencing an emotion); the adrenalin facilitated a real emotion (by making it easier for the subjects’ propositional fears to produce involuntary arousal); and the adrenalin intensified a real emotion (by intensifying the arousal). Other problems and possibilities are discussed in R. M. Gordon, ‘Emotion Labelling and Cognition,’ Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 8 (1978) 125-35.

23 I am assuming that John is not worried about being informed that his wife died (at least not yet). However, John would certainly be experiencing fear if the telephone rang and he experienced arousal and unhappiness because of the fear that he would receive bad news about his wife. He would then see a danger of being hurt by the news.

24 See Peters, ‘Education of the Emotions,’ 188Google Scholar; ‘Motivation, Emotion, and the Conceptual Schemes of Common Sense,’ in Mischel, T. ed., Human Action (New York: Academic Press 1969), 135-65Google Scholar, esp. 153; and Lyons, Emotion, 59-60, 77-8, 99-101Google Scholar.

25 Contrast Lyons, Emotion, 57-8.

26 Of course, it takes time to climb a mountain, and there may be moments in a generally enjoyable climb when the climber is not only nervous but scared stiff. Indeed, the climber may evaluate as best those climbs during which he was most scared. My point is only that we cannot describe the climber as happy at those moments when he is genuinely afraid.

27 See Davis, W. A. ‘A Theory of Happiness.’ American Philosophical Quarterly 18 (1981) 111-20Google Scholar, esp. 111.

28 In ‘A Theory of Happiness’

29 Of course, anything that subtracts from happiness may be said to add to unhappiness, and anything that adds to happiness may be said to subtract from unhappiness. To avoid confusion, I refer everything to happiness.

30 Cf. Lyons, Emotion, 94, 101Google Scholar.

31 Cf. the discussion of ‘ambivalence’ in Greenspan, ‘Mixed Feelings.’

32 Cf. Marks, (‘A Theory of Emotion,’ 230)Google Scholar, who argued that ‘the emotion’ should be identified with the intentional state itself rather than with some effect of the intentional state. To anticipate a possible objection, fears do not cause fear if D2 is correct. Nevertheless, fear does result from fears in the same noncausal way that killing someone may result from pulling a trigger.

33 D2 is vague on certain temporal details. Suppose that a propositional fear occurs to S, which results normally in a state of involuntary arousal and unhappiness. This state of arousal and unhappiness persists until t, at which time the propositional fear is no longer occurrent. Is S experiencing fear at t? (This question is due to Kent Bach.) Suppose S is still in the state of arousal and unhappiness at t’, by which time the subject no longer even has the propositional fear. Is S experiencing fear at t’? I think the answer to the first question is ‘Yes,’ and to the second ‘No.’ A more explicit version of D2 should therefore go as follows: S is experiencing fear at t iff S is in a state of involuntary arousal and unhappiness at t as a direct result of the occurrence of a propositional fear that something will be harmed, which fear S retains at t. Having noted this point, we will continue to work with the simple formulation of D2.

34 Cf. Schachter, S. and Wheeler, L. ‘Epinephrine, Chlorpromazine, and Amusement,’ Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 65 (1962) 121-8CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Singer, J. E. ‘Sympathetic Activation, Drugs, and Fright,’ Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 56 (1963) 612-15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Latane, B. and Schachter, S. ‘Adrenalin and Avoidance Learning,’ Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 65 (1962) 369-72Google Scholar; and Schachter, Emotion, Obesity and Crime, Chs. II-III.

35 Greenspan describes several such cases in ‘Emotions as Evaluations.’

36 This is consistent with the findings of Hohmann, G. W. (‘Some Effects of Spinal Cord Lesions on Experienced Feelings,’ Psychophysiology 3 [1966] 143-56)Google Scholar, who studied patients with varying degrees of spinal chord injury. The higher the spinal lesion, the less the visceral innervation, and the greater the reported loss of emotionality. The study is discussed in Mandler, (Mind and Emotion, 98-9)Google Scholar.

37 Contrast Mandler, (Mind and Emotion, 98-9)Google Scholar and Schachter, (Emotion, Obesity, and Crime, 25)Google Scholar.

38 I discuss reactive fear more fully in ‘The Varieties of Fear.’

39 This objection was raised by the Editor.

40 On the various senses of ‘afraid of,’ see also my ‘Varieties of Fear,’ 288.

41 I would like to thank Daniel N. Robinson, Adrian Piper, Kent Bach, various readers, and especially the Editor, for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. And as usual, I am indebted to Robert Audi and Robert Gordon.