A Husserlian Account of the Affective Cognition of Value

Abstract

We seem to have some knowledge of the value the things around us have. And some of our knowledge of value seems to be acquired through affective experiences, i.e., by our emotions. In this paper, I will give an account of the relationship between emotions and knowledge of values, largely based on Edmund Husserl’s theory of perception of value (Wertnehmung). First, I will give a pro tanto justification of the idea that affective cognition of value exists. Then, I will briefly introduce two different accounts of affective cognition of value from early phenomenology: one account supported by Husserl, the other by Max Scheler (among others). By comparing these two accounts, I will argue that the Husserlian account is more promising of the two. It deals with emotions in analogy with sense perception. Thus, it can be regarded as one form of a perceptual account of emotion, which is quite popular in the contemporary philosophy of emotion. I will argue for the plausibility of the perceptual account of emotion in general, and then, at the end of the chapter, I will argue that my own, Husserl-inspired version of the perceptual account is a valid way of explaining our cognition of values.