Abstract

This chapter argues at length for a central positive aspect of the view of emotions as _feelings-towards-values_, namely that the content of emotional experience—understood along the lines of _face value content_ from Chapter 1—is evaluative (hereafter the ECV). It first defends the ‘content-dependency’ claim, namely the idea that emotions are not self-standing relations to their particular objects. It then goes on to argue that emotional experiences, at least in paradigm cases, represent determinate higher-order thick evaluative properties of their objects (e.g. the _beautiful, admirable, amusing, disgusting, dangerous_). It is then shown how in virtue of having evaluative content emotional experiences have a kind of content that can satisfy the roles outlined for _face value content_ in Chapter 1. The ECV is then defended against several objections and shown to be preferable to certain non-evaluative views.