Beliefs as emotion

Banno

A standard treatment of belief would have it that there is a statement that sets out what it is that is believed, together with the attribution of the belief to someone: John believes the Earth is flat; John believes that it is true that “the Earth is flat”; The Earth is flat and John believes that, where that is indicative of the statement; and so on.

The belief is not generally considered a relation between the individual and the statement. Relations have characteristics not found in beliefs. Transitivity, for instance: If A is on top of B and B on top of C then A is on top of C; but if A believes that B is honest, and B believes that C is honest, it does not follow that A believes that C is honest. The statement is the object of the belief or it constitutes the belief. Beliefs are referential opaque, subject to substitution-failure.

All pretty standard fare for anglophone philosophy as it pulls apart the details of our everyday notion. Such treatments of belief tend to downplay the place of our feelings, to focus on belief as characteristically an attitude towards a proposition. What that attitude amounts to is left hanging. Some recent work bears on this neglect.

Miriam Schleifer McCormick has made some interesting suggestions, the substance being that we would do well to treat beliefs as an emotion.

The idea sits in a nuanced understanding of emotions as a blending of cognitive and non-cognitive states.

Their essay, linked below, is structured around a rejection of non-doxasticism, the doctrine that certain things we would ordinarily call beliefs are actually not beliefs, becasue they do not meet certain criteria usually or theoretically associated with beliefs. The temptation is to supose that certain examples of trust, faith, delusional beliefs and so on, while prima facie part of how we talk about beliefs, should actually not be classified as beliefs proper, but slotted in to some other heading. I’m not overly concerned with non-doxasticism here, although it might be an interesting topic for discussion.

Rather I’m interested in the idea of a blended state, where a belief is seen as consisting of both cognition and feelings.

And of course if that is the path to be followed, we need to have a reasonably clear map of what it is to be an emotion. For Schleifer McCormick emotions are not just pro- or con-attitudes towards states of affairs, nor are they just feelings. Those theories of emotion that include representation, motivation, and feeling, permit our considering belief to be an emotion. Emotions, and so beliefs, are treated as blending the cognitive and the affective and connotative.

Much of analytic philosophy focuses on the cognitive features of belief. Belief is pictured as being in some way about a proposition or sentence, as being either true or false, as being subject to revision in a way that is dependent on other beliefs as well as on some sort of justification or evidence. Here’s an analysis that broadens this map.

Miriam Schleifer McCormick appeared on Philosopher's Zone a few weeks ago. There is an open access article of theirs on Noûs.

Tom Storm

Rather I’m interested in the idea of a blended state, where a belief is seen as consisting of both cognition and feelings. — Banno

Very interesting. I can't say I have much to add to this, except that I've often thought people are drawn to beliefs that are emotionally satisfying. I recall Steven Pinker stating that we justify beliefs using reason, but we form them based on our affective relationships with the world.

I like sushi

Rather I’m interested in the idea of a blended state, where a belief is seen as consisting of both cognition and feelings. — Banno

This is a fact rather than an idea. Reason and emotion are not discrete entities. This is a hurdle it will probably take several more decades for people to get over in all academic fields and likely a century more before in bleeds into common public knowledge.

In philosophical parlance it might be better to frame this all as 'intentionality'? Or maybe not.

Joshs

Rather I’m interested in the idea of a blended state, where a belief is seen as consisting of both cognition and feelings.
— Banno

This is a fact rather than an idea. Reason and emotion are not discrete entities. This is a hurdle it will probably take several more decades for people to get over in all academic fields and likely a century more before in bleeds into common public knowledge. — I like sushi

If one is to take this fact seriously, then one has to understand what we call affect (including mood, emotion and feeling) and what we consider Reason (including logic, cognition and representation) as inseparable aspects of the same phenomenon, and not as separable states, such as the cognitive and the non-cognitive.

↪Banno

This is an interesting way of helping us see how "belief" really refers to many things, in various combinations. I will definitely read the McCormick piece, thanks.

This is a fact rather than an idea. Reason and emotion are not discrete entities. — I like sushi

Uhh . . . how do we know it's a fact? Even allowing that "entities" probably isn't the best word. Is it falsifiable?

T Clark

Miriam Schleifer McCormick has made some interesting suggestions, the substance being that we would do well to treat beliefs as an emotion.

The idea sits in a nuanced understanding of emotions as a blending of cognitive and non-cognitive states…

…I’m interested in the idea of a blended state, where a belief is seen as consisting of both cognition and feelings. — Banno

Everything in our minds is a blending of cognitive and non-cognitive states.

T Clark

I recall Steven Pinker stating that we justify beliefs using reason, but we form them based on our affective relationships with the world. — Tom Storm

I sort of agree with this, although rather than affective, I would say intuitive. Of course, intuition is a thorough mixture of thinking and feeling.

↪T Clark

Yes, and the whole belief-forming process, as @Banno reminded us, is different depending on the object of the beliefs; what would lead us to form them; how we decide we must justify them; and much more. To me, this leaves room for saying that some beliefs may be formed strictly by rational process, some may be formed strictly by affective/intuitive relations, and many (most) are some combination.

RogueAI

Very interesting. I can't say I have much to add to this, except that I've often thought people are drawn to beliefs that are emotionally satisfying. I recall Steven Pinker stating that we justify beliefs using reason, but we form them based on our affective relationships with the world. — Tom Storm

I think this is true and it has implications for p-zombies. ChatGPT helped me formulate this:

Premise 1:
Humans form beliefs not solely by reason, but through affective (emotional) relationships with the world.
(Empirical claim supported by cognitive science and philosophers like Pinker.)

Premise 2:
Beliefs play a central causal role in human behavior.
(When I say "it's going to rain," that statement reflects a belief that influences whether I grab an umbrella.)

Premise 3:
A p-zombie is defined as being physically and behaviorally identical to a human, yet lacks any subjective experience (qualia), including affect.

Premise 4:
If beliefs are formed and regulated in part through affect, then a creature without affect cannot genuinely form beliefs.

Conclusion 1:
Therefore, p-zombies cannot genuinely have beliefs.

Conclusion 2:
If p-zombies cannot have beliefs, they cannot be behaviorally identical to humans, whose behavior depends on beliefs.

Final Conclusion:
P-zombies are logically incoherent. There is no possible world where a being is both behaviorally identical to a human and completely lacking in consciousness.

↪RogueAI

This is a good challenge to P-zombies. Notice, though, that an advocate for the possibility of P-zombies would deny Premise 2: "Beliefs play a central causal role in human behavior. (When I say 'it's going to rain,' that statement reflects a belief that influences whether I grab an umbrella.)".

The argument here would go: "What you're calling a belief plays no role whatsoever in human behavior. A 'belief' is epiphenomenal; what causes things to happen is entirely explainable at the level of physics (and brain chemistry). When you say 'It's going to rain," that statement may well reflect a belief, but you're mistaken if you think the belief influences your grabbing an umbrella. Sorry, it's all physical."

I vote for keeping P-zombies to help us understand some of the implications of hardcore physicalism, this being one of them. Personally, I'm committed to beliefs (and reasons) as having an explanatory role, but we can tolerate the zombies as we look into the question. Besides, they're kinda sweet! Like my Roomba.

RogueAI

This is a good challenge to P-zombies. Notice, though, that an advocate for the possibility of P-zombies would deny Premise 2: "Beliefs play a central causal role in human behavior. (When I say 'it's going to rain,' that statement reflects a belief that influences whether I grab an umbrella.)".

The argument here would go: "What you're calling a belief plays no role whatsoever in human behavior. A 'belief' is epiphenomenal; what causes things to happen is entirely explainable at the level of physics (and brain chemistry). When you say 'It's going to rain," that statement may well reflect a belief, but you're mistaken if you think the belief influences your grabbing an umbrella. Sorry, it's all physical." — J

It's like that old saw: who am I going to believe, the eliminative materialists or my own lying mind? It seems like a desperate move to make to rescue p-zombies.

↪RogueAI

And yet it's standard physicalism -- Dennett, the Churchlands. I don't believe P-zombies could exist either, but we ought to allow them in our thought experiments since they show what would have to be true if they existed, and that's worth knowing. Eliminative materialists don't see it as a desperate move at all, just science. We need to understand why.

RogueAI

↪J

"but we ought to allow them in our thought experiments since they show what would have to be true if they existed"

I started a thread here about that awhile back. I keep trying to picture my pzombie equivalent getting shitfaced after a stressful day and not being able to. I get wasted because it feels good. But that motivation isn't available to my pzombie counterpart, so why on Earth would he do it? Also, let's suppose there's a possible world Earth populated by pzombies. Consciousness just never happened in this world. Woudn't the vocabulary of pzombieEarth be radically reduced? How and why would pzombies have words for consciousness? Or any emotions? I suppose their vocabulary would reflect mental states that have obvious physical analogues, like screaming during intense pain, but what about mental states that don't get physically expressed, like boredom or contemplation or mild enjoyment? Why would they have words for any of that?

ETA: Also, would pzombie world have tortures?

I keep trying to picture my pzombie equivalent getting shitfaced after a stressful day and not being able to. I get wasted because it feels good. But that motivation isn't available to my pzombie counterpart, so why on Earth would he do it? — RogueAI

Let's imagine something more on the lines of Roomba. We could, I suppose, install a program in a Roomba-like robot that would respond to "hard day" (vacuuming!) by "drinking some oil" to loosen the tired ball-bearings. Or whatever, I'm not going take much time on the details. Point is, the robot would still not be feeling anything, but a sort of evolutionary reason has been given to them for engaging in the things that would make them feel good if they had that ability. As it stands, all that happens is that Roomba is better able to do their job; all the action is at the physical level.

You see, it forces the question, Why does getting wasted make you feel good? The argument here would be that the good feeling of being wasted is quite ancillary to the real work being done, namely some kind of resetting of brain activity so as to better cope with life . . . not sure what actually does happen, chemically, but we agree that something does. Mother Evolutionary Nature has cleverly tricked you into thinking that her point is for you to feel better -- ha! As if! The same thing would happen if there was no (conscious) you!

In short, I think we still haven't eliminated P-zombies on purely logical grounds. The story I just told is no more absurd than the one about how my beliefs don't really do the heavy lifting I think they do. There is nothing so implausible that a P-zombie couldn't partake, I'm betting. The only way to get rid of P-zombies is to get rid of the physicalist premise on which they're based.

Hanover

↪Banno

The examples of these blended beliefs given in the article are:

"The following examples point to states which are difficult to characterize given the standard view: Anna, who suffers from [1] Capgras syndrome, believes her husband is an impostor even though she has no evidence for it and much against it; she also fails to take the kind of actions one would expect with such a belief such as running away or calling the authorities. [2] Balthasar believes the glass skywalk is safe and yet trembles as he tries to walk on it. [3] Charu believes that their lover will keep their promise to not betray them again even though past evidence indicates that they will, and [4] David believes that the God as described in the Bible exists, though he is aware of the evidence suggesting that such a God does not exist and claims his reasons for believing are not based in evidence."

Breaking then down:

1 appears to be a delusion coupled with irrationality, suggesting general confusion. It's not clear really what she "believes." Perhaps she doubts her delusion. Don't all beliefs contain doubt? We often do speak of the reliability of our beliefs, some more doubtable than others (particularly Descartes).

2 could be considered the same as 1 to the extent he doubts his belief as evidenced by his conduct. On the other hand, I'm not sure this one has much to do with belief. That is, his fear is just an emotional reaction. A person fearing heights doesn't stand away from the rail because he thinks he'll fall. It's just that heights scarec him. Stage fright isn't a belief you'll die. It's just misplaced fear.

3 is hope. It's what makes us take chances, to gamble, to chase dreams. It's the belief that belief makes things possible. Tracht gut vet zein gut as they say (and by they, I mean me). Of course, in the example given, it might be foolish belief.

4 sounds Kierkegaardian as a leap of faith, or perhaps James' pragmatic will to believe. The will to believe is an explicit combination of desire and belief and really forms the basis of his theory as to certain matters.

And Hume explicitly stated that reason is the slave to the passions. As in, "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." Which i take to mean emotions set things in motion and we use reason to justify them. This would mean that our reason based beliefs had to start with some emotion.

I suppose my greater point is that I think McCormick is correct in her observation, but what's she's saying is fairly obvious generally and something historically recognized. That it is being treated as a revelation might speak to the rigidity of certain anglo analytic systems, where emotion had been extracted from the hyper logical methodology.

As in, we in the regular world knew all along our beliefs were messy.

Banno

I recall Steven Pinker stating that we justify beliefs using reason, but we form them based on our affective relationships with the world. — Tom Storm

Yeah, pretty much. The belief is prior to the argument. But are we amenable to rational persuasion with regard to our beliefs? And to what extent? Should a mental state that is not amenable to persuasion based on evidence or justification properly be called a belief? That's the direction this discussion might go.

This is a fact rather than an idea. — I like sushi

Everything in our minds is a blending of cognitive and non-cognitive states. — T Clark

As

↪J

says, how do we know? Let's aim not to make pronouncements but to map out the territory - what part of belief is cognitive, what is connotative, and how do they relate?

...we consider Reason (including logic, cognition and representation) as inseparable aspects of the same phenomenon, and not as separable states — Joshs

The obverse and reverse sides of a coin are inseparable, but that does not prevent us considering them separately as required. we might map how they relate and how they differ. We take the blanket statements and map out the where or how.

frank

But are we amenable to rational persuasion with regard to our beliefs? And to what extent? Should a mental state that is not amenable to persuasion based on evidence or justification properly called a belief? That's the direction this discussion might go. — Banno

If Bob has an irrational fear of snakes, does he believe snakes are dangerous?

Banno

↪Hanover

Thanks for this reply.

You ask if all beliefs contain doubt. The obvious counterexample is the hinge beliefs @Sam26 has urged on us, and with which I mostly agree. Do we say that, because these are undoubted, they are not genuine beliefs? Or do we separate the cognitive view that such hinges are indubitable from the connotative view that nevertheless, I might be wrong...

So if someone does not doubt that 2+2 is 4, do we discount this as a belief becasue it is indubitable?

How do we represent that Balthasar agrees the glass skywalk is safe but refuses to walk on it? If we say that since he holds that "the skywalk is safe", that he believes the skywalk is safe? Or do we say instead that because he will not act on what he holds to be true, that he doesn't really believe?

Charu's decision, let us supose, is against the odds - a bookmaker would say the lover will stray again. But Charu wants the bookmaker to be wrong, and so apparently acts irrational. Except that there is no possibility of the bookmaker being wrong if Charu does not trust her lover. Given her desire to stay with her lover, the decision to trust is rational.

David's belief is not to be subjected to doubt. What are we to say here - again, that it's not a proper belief becasue it is indubitable? Or is it, as is so often supposed, the very epitome of belief precisely becasue it is undoubted despite the evidence?

Plenty of material here, plenty to consider.

Banno

If Bob has an irrational fear of snakes, does he believe snakes are dangerous? — frank

If his fear is irrational - he refuses to touch a Child's Python, perhaps - despite knowing that he will not be hurt - then isn't he is afraid, but does not believe the snake to be dangerous?

frank

↪Banno

When he's panicking, he definitely thinks the snake is dangerous.

Other times, he may know the fear is irrational. He may even be a little baffled that this fear can take over in spite of his rational mind's insight.

RogueAI

You see, it forces the question, Why does getting wasted make you feel good? The argument here would be that the good feeling of being wasted is quite ancillary to the real work being done, namely some kind of resetting of brain activity so as to better cope with life . . . not sure what actually does happen, chemically, but we agree that something does. Mother Evolutionary Nature has cleverly tricked you into thinking that her point is for you to feel better -- ha! As if! The same thing would happen if there was no (conscious) you! — J

So under that logic, when someone’s being tortured, the screaming, the begging, the sheer mental agony—that’s all just “ancillary”? The real story is just neurons firing and behavior patterns playing out? That’s absurd. You're telling me the conscious experience of extreme suffering isn’t actually doing any of the work—that it's just along for the ride while the “real” causal machinery is physical brain activity? Come on. If you actually believed that, you'd have to say the same torture could happen to a philosophical zombie with no inner life, and it would be just as tragic. But you don’t believe that. Nobody does. The experience is the point. The suffering is not a side effect—it's the core reality. It's why the torture victim breaks.

I'm not claiming that that's your position, you're just telling the eliminative materialist side of the story. It's not a compelling story.

T Clark

sushi
Everything in our minds is a blending of cognitive and non-cognitive states.
— T Clark
As ↪J says, how do we know? Let's aim not to make pronouncements but to map out the territory - what part of — Banno

This is from a review of a book from 2007 by Antonio Damasio, a well known neuroscientist. It’s from Vanderbilt University, but I can’t find a specific source or an author for it.

In his book, Descartes’ Error Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Antonio Damasio discusses the connection between feelings, reason and the body. His hypothesis is that the three are completely interconnected and that it is impossible to discuss the functions of one without realizing that the other two play a role. This is an important idea as for centuries, scientists considered the body to be a separate entity from the brain.

So the answer to your question about how we know about the interaction of emotion and thinking is that it is a subject of studyby neuroscientist. and psychologists.

Banno

↪T Clark

There's no conceptual work to do here?

But what of the issues raised in

↪Hanover

and

↪Banno

?

And in the cited articles? Or the SEP articles on belief and emotion?

T Clark

There's no conceptual work to do here? — Banno

I’m not sure what you mean by “conceptual work.” If you mean I think all of the aspects of the question being studied by Damasio and others have been addressed, that’s certainly not true.

But what of the issues raised in ↪Hanover and ↪Banno? — Banno

You and he are talking about completely different aspects of emotion and reason than I am. From where I stand, the issues I was discussing are much more fundamental. I looked at the abstract of the article you linked.

hypericin

I keep trying to picture my pzombie equivalent getting shitfaced after a stressful day and not being able to. I get wasted because it feels good. — RogueAI

Think of an AI simulating human behavior. This ai would get shitfaced, because humans get shitfaced and it's been trained to do what humans do. Somewhere internally to the AI there is a decision being made, the neutral network takes in all data and internal states, and this time "get shitfaced" comes on top with the highest weight. So the AI goes to the liquor cabinet and starts doing whisky shots. All without the slightest affective state.

we are driven by affective states, but why is this necessary? It's not for AI, it's not for amoeba, and presumably it's not for p zombies.

Banno

You and he are talking about completely different aspects of emotion and reason than I am. — T Clark

Yep. That'll be 'cause we're on the topic. And read more than just the abstract.

hypericin

The following examples point to states which are difficult to characterize given the standard view: Anna, who suffers from Capgras syndrome, believes her husband is an impostor even though she has no evidence for it and much against it; she also fails to take the kind of actions one would expect with such a belief such as running away or calling the authorities. Balthasar believes the glass skywalk is safe and yet trembles as he tries to walk on it. Charu believes that their lover will keep their promise to not betray them again even though past evidence indicates that they will, and David believes that the God as described in the Bible exists, though he is aware of the evidence suggesting that such a God does not exist and claims his reasons for believing are not based in evidence.

To me the natural conclusion from examples like these is that we have propositional attitudes and we have affective attitudes, and these do not always coincide. To say that beliefs are emotions just muddies the water. We just don't always feel the way they think, humans are built such that these are autonomous enough to disagree sometimes.

"Belief" sometimes refers to propositional attitudes, and sometimes propositional and affective attitudes together. But that's is nothing essential, it's just how we use language. Beyond mere language use, affective attitudes are not propositional attitudes, as these examples clearly indicate.

Banno

↪hypericin

Checking if I've understood... are you suggesting that belief is a propositional attitude, and that we also have affective attitudes, and that these are unrelated?

RogueAI

Think of an AI simulating human behavior. This ai would get shitfaced, because humans get shitfaced and it's been trained to do what humans do. Somewhere internally to the AI there is a decision being made, the neutral network takes in all data and internal states, and this time "get shitfaced" comes on top with the highest weight. So the AI goes to the liquor cabinet and starts doing whisky shots. All without the slightest affective state.

we are driven by affective states, but why is this necessary? It's not for AI, it's not for amoeba, and presumably it's not for p zombies. — hypericin

That's true, but remember pzombies are supposed to be identical to us except for lacking subjective experience. Humans aren't ai's.

Would a rational AI, one with a programmed “drive” for self-preservation, ever choose to do something totally reckless—like snort fentanyl—knowing it could likely die from it? No. Not unless it was explicitly programmed with some bizarre override to ignore its self-preservation "instinct". But if that’s the case, you’ve stopped modeling a rational agent and started writing sci-fi code. That’s not a human—it’s a toy robot with bad instructions.

hypericin

unrelated — Banno

That is too strong. Nothing in the same brain is unrelated. Affective and propositional attitudes inform one another, and they coincide with one another more often than not. Rather than"unrelated" I would say "distinct".

Banno

That is too strong. — hypericin

Yeah, agreed.

So can we always seperate out the affective and cognitive aspects of a belief? Is there a method, rule or algorithm that does this for us? I'm thinking not.

Beliefs as emotion

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