2023.12.2 : View this Review Online | View Recent NDPR Reviews
Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson, Rational Sentimentalism, Oxford University Press, 2023, 230pp., $80.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199256402.
Reviewed by Jonas Olson, Stockholm University
Rational Sentimentalism is the product of a long-standing and productive collaboration between Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson. The book is divided into three parts and nine chapters that span large territories in the philosophy of emotion and value, and related areas. In lieu of a chapter-by-chapter overview, here is an attempt at a brief summary of some of the book’s main messages: In thinking about values and reasons, philosophers have traditionally assumed a kind of hegemony of the moral, neglecting other kinds of values, such as the funny, the disgusting, and the fearsome. These are to be explained in terms of sentiments, i.e., dispositions to emotional responses, such as amusement, disgust, and fear. That is why the theory defended is a kind of sentimentalism. Philosophers’…
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