Dorothea Debus (University of York)

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April 13 MON — 11.00-13.00

Aula Direzione del Dipartimento (Via Festa del Perdono 7, Milano)

Shaping Our (Mental) Lives: On the Possibility and Value of Emotion Regulation

Abstract. The present paper is part of a wider project which explores the ways in which subjects take an active part in shaping their own mental lives and the mental lives of others. Here I consider the specific case of our active involvement with our own and others' emotional experiences. The recent empirical literature subsumes relevant phenomena under the title of 'emotion regulation', and drawing on relevant empirical work, in the present context I consider the phenomenon of emotion regulation from a philosophical perspective. I firstly consider the question how emotion regulation is possible, and address that question by determining some of the conditions that need to be met in order for a subject to be able to regulate emotions. I secondly address some axiological issues related to the topic of emotion regulation; that is, I ask why and how emotion regulation might be of value. In addressing these two sets of questions, the present paper in turn hopes to contribute to our understanding of how, more generally, subjects do take an active part in, and thus shape, their own and others' (mental) lives, and why and how different ways of doing so might be more or less valuable.