Sound Sentiments Integrity in the Emotions [Hardcover]

What does it mean for emotion to be well-constituted? What distinguishes good feeling from (just) feeling good? Is there such a distinction at all? The answer to these questions becomes clearer if we realize that for an emotion to be all it seems, it must be responsible as well as responsive to what it is about. It may be that good feeling depends on feelingtrulyif we are to be really moved, moved in the way that avoids the need for constant, fretful replenishment and reinforcement. To be sound, emotions may need to be capable of genuineness, depth, and other kinds of integrity. And that, in turn, may require certain virtues of mind, such as truthfulness, temperateness, and even courage, that are more familiar at the level of action. The governing aim of this book is to demonstrate that there can be problems of a structural kind with the adequacy of emotions and the emotional life.

Introduction
1. An Anatomy of Emotion
2. Profundity in Emotion
3. The Work of Emotion
4. Narcissism and Emotion
5. Sentiment and Sentimentality
6. Cynicism and Safe Sentiment
7. Conflict: mixed emotions and the divisible heart
8. Sophistication
9. Retrospective

Sound Sentimentsincludes a convincing vindication of the notion of emotional depth. [...] It is subtle, original, invigoratingly opinionated, and [...] stylishly written. It is a fine contribution to the literature on the moral psychology of emotions, and deserves to be widely read. --NotreDame Philosophical Reviews