Speakers conference Moral Emotions
Sabine Roeser
Sabine Roeser is an assistant professor and a research fellow in ethics at the Philosophy Department of Delft University of Technology. She obtained her PhD in 2002 at the Free University, Amsterdam, for her thesis Ethical Intuitions and Emotions: A Philosophical Study. She holds an M.A.-degree in Philosophy (cum laude, 1997) and an M.A.-degree in Political Science (1998), both from the University of Amsterdam. She did her B.A. in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Maastricht (1994). She is currently working on a research project: Emotions and Technological Risks: Emotions as a Normative Guide in Judging the Moral Acceptability of Technological Risks, for which she obtained a so-called VENI-grant (nr. 275-20-007) from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The aim of this research project is to develop a theoretical framework that allows for a normative role of emotions in judging the moral acceptability of technological risks.
Title: Emotional Reflection about Risks
Abstract: In my work I defend the idea that emotions are necessary in order to obtain moral knowledge concerning risks. However, this does not imply that emotions are infallible as a normative guide. Emotions can help us to focus on certain salient aspects, but they can also lead us to overlook other aspects (cf. Slovic et.al. 2002, 2004). For example, engineers might be misled by their emotions: their enthusiasm about a product can lead them to overlook certain risks. The public might be ill-informed and hence only focus on risks and overlook certain benefits. Both parties might be biased, and their emotions might reinforce those biases.
This paper will examine this problem. While Kantians would claim that we should correct our emotions by reason, Humeans would claim that emotions should rule. Instead, in this paper I will develop an alternative approach by using a cognitive theory of emotions. According to such an approach, emotions themselves have critical potential. Reason and emotion should criticize each other, but emotions should also be used to critically examine other emotions (cf. de Sousa 2001), e.g. by trying to understand different perspectives through sympathy and empathy. Engineers should try to understand the perspective of the public and vice versa, and those who benefit from a technology should try to understand the perspective of those who are potential victims of the technology. Altruistic emotions can help to conquer egoistic emotions which are for example evident in the NIMBY-problem.
