Alex Neill, Fiction and the Emotions
- General issue/problem:
- Are emotional responses to fiction rational?
- Why aren't they irrational, given that we know the fiction is not real?
- How are they even possible?
- Are some emotions directed at fiction possible (and rational) and others not? (Yes)
- Impossible: Fear for oneself, jealousy
- Possible: Fear for others, envy, pity
- Why are some possible and others not?
- Problem arises in part due to cognitive theory of emotions
- This theory claims that: Emotional responses are typically founded
on belief
- And belief (it is claimed) is absent in fiction, thus emotions founded
on belief are not appropriately directed at fiction
- Nosferatu example and emotion of fear
- Given that we do not believe that Nosferatu the Vampire (a film
version of Dracula) exists, can't believe that he poses any threat to me
- If believing he poses a threat to me is a necessary element of fear for myself (it is)
- Then I can't be afraid of Nosferatu
- Pity and Joseph Conrad's character (Winnie Verloc) from novel Secret Agent
- Since one does not believe she existed
- One does not believe she underwent any suffering
- So if pity involves believing she did suffer
- We can't feel pity for her
- Whatever else one might be feeling
- The critics say we are feeling something, just not pity
- So--contra Colin Radford (author of previous article in text)--issue is not
rationality of pity aimed at fictional characters, but the possibility of feeling
pity
- So two options:
- Emotions directed at fictional characters exist but are irrational
- Such emotions can not exist (and we must be feeling something else)
- Some people do claim emotions directed at fiction are pretend, not genuine and not real
- Budd: "Not literally true that we pity Desdemona or are horrified at
Oedipus self-blinding, or envious of Orpheus' musical talent, or are
distressed by the death of Anna Karenina, even if there are tears...for
we know these people never existed"
- Ways to explain away the supposed ficitonal emotions
- But how, then, are we to understand the feelings that do appear directed
at fictional characters/events?
- 1. One response is to say the pity we think we feel for the fictional
characters is really pity for real people who are brought to mind by the
fiction
- 2. Another is to say that fiction creates moods (which don't depend on
beliefs in way emotions do) rather than emotions (and we are confusing emotions with moods)
- Unease (a mood, not an emotion) and it does not involve beliefs
- 3. The feelings we have are imaginary or make believe emotions (not real emotions)
Beliefs and fiction
- Neill argues that we can have certain kinds of beliefs about fictional
characters and events
- He rejects the claim that we can't believe that, e.g., they suffer
misfortune
- If we didn't believe (or disbelieved) that, e.g., Harry Potter was
courageous, then we would not have paid enough attention to Rowling's novels or the movies based on them, or we would not have understood them
- But how can we believe Harry Potter was courageous while also believing that he does not exist?
- Neill dispels this mystery with the idea of "believing that it is fictional that"
- When we believe that Harry Potter was courageous or that he suffered due
to the loss of his parents
- We are not believing these things w/o qualification (we don't believe
Potter is courageous)
- We believe that "it is fictional that Potter was courageous and suffered"
- This means, I think, that we believe that--in the story--Potter acts
courageously and suffers; We believe this is (fictionally) true and it is not true that Potter is a
coward (in the story)
- So our emotions about fictional characters are grounded on beliefs about
what is fictionally the case, and so perhaps they do satisfy the cognitive theory
of emotions and we do have proper emotions about fiction.
Pity and beliefs about what happens in fiction
- Question: Can one's belief that it is fictional that Potter (or Anna Karenina
or Winnie Verloc) suffered, make it possible that one pities these characters?
- Objection one: Beliefs about what is fictional are not actual beliefs
- We do not actually believe that anyone undergoes any
suffering/misfortune at all
- These are hypothetical, insincere, provisional beliefs
- Neill rejects this: We actually do believe that (it is fictionally the case) that
Harry Potter is courageous
- Beliefs about what is fictionally the case are real beliefs
- Nothing fictional about these beliefs; it is their content that
concerns the fictional
- We have real beliefs about fictional matters
- It is true that I believe that (it is fictional that) Snape killed
Dumbledore, and it is rational for me to believe this (this means, this is how it goes in the story)
- Objection two: For pity there must be actual suffering:
- The problem is not that our beliefs are not actual, but that we do not
believe that anything actual suffers
- We only believe that something fictional suffers
- In order to pity, we must believe that suffering/misfortune is actual
and experienced by someone or something that actually exists
- In support of this objection is the claim that beliefs about what is fictional
lack casual power to move us
- This just seems false experientially
- "Mere recognitions of what is fictionally the case" is not enough to
explain why we feel any emotion towards fiction
- Neill replies
- No reason to think that recognition of what is fictionally the case is
any less causally efficacious with respect to emotion that recognition of
what is actually the case
- Recognize it is fictional that Potter suffers and
recognize it is actual that the refugees suffer--both can move us
- It is our imaginative ability to adopt a perspective (seeing things from
the point of view of another) that explains the generation of (some)
emotional responses
- Actual suffering is not needed, only the possibility of imaginatively entering the point of view of someone who is conceived of as suffering
- Belief that Guatemalan refugees suffer can lead to emotional response
if I can see what it must be like to be in their position, so see things (to
some extent) from their point of view
- This kind of imaginative attitude can be adopted toward fictional
characters
- Many works of fiction require that we adopt such an imaginative
attitude
- Reader who doesn't see the world through Tom Sawyer's eyes
will have understood the novel in only a very limited sense
- Thus why some people cry more in response to fiction than others might be
explained by their superior imaginative engagement with the fiction?
- Of course one can be moved w/o crying
- Some emotions result from seeing things from another's point of view, but others do not:
- Neighbor's rabid dog charging me, slavering at the jaws, I only take
my point of view
- When watch a horror movie and shriek and jump out of your seat, one
is not interested in the perspective of the monster on the screen
- Not all emotions come from adopting another's perspective
- Important general point: Should not treat all emotions as the same type and give them the same
account
Why fear for oneself and jealousy directed at a ficitonal characters not possible
- Neill argues that some emotions (e.g., pity) can be based on beliefs
about what is fictional and others cannot (e.g., fear for oneself)
- Why fear for oneself can't be based on what is fictional
- Central to fear for oneself is a belief that one is threatened or in
danger from the object of the fear
- Can't coherently believe that one is actually threatened by something
I know to be fictional
- Only monsters who can threaten me are actual monsters
- Can't coherently believe that it is fictionally the case that I am
threatened by something that I know to be fictional
- The only people Nosferatu can threaten are fictional people
- If belief that it is fictional that I am threatened, means belief that there is a story in which I
am threatened, then I could believe this, but that is not what one
believes when one is afraid while watching Nosferatu
- Because one doesn't believe it is either actually or fictionally true that
I am threatened by Nosferatu, I don't have the sort of desire that goes
with fear for oneself (to escape his clutches, warn my friends and
family)
- Compare with Christopher getting his guns ready before a
battle on TV
- So not afraid of any fictional character
- Nor can one be jealous of fictional characters
- Central to jealousy is belief that the person of whom one is jealous has
designs on something that is rightfully yours/mine
- Can't coherently have this belief and also believe the person is fictional
- "Ontological gap" between fictional characters and ourselves
precludes rivalry, as well as being threatened by them or escaping
from them
- Fictional characters have a kind of being that is different from
both actual beings and other nonactual beings that are not
fictional
- Both fear and jealousy (and perhaps other emotions) depend on seeing oneself
as in a certain relation to object of that emotion and this relation can't
exist when inhabitants are of different ontological worlds
- And pity does not, but depends on imaginatively placing oneself in victim's shoes?
- I can't be threaten by or fear Lord Voldemorte just as he can't
threaten or fear me
- How Neill explains fear in response to fiction
- In most (if not all cases) were we might think we fear a fictional character or
event, response will turn out to be (on reflection)
- Fear of an actual counterpart of what is represented in fiction
- Spielberg's Poltergeist may make us afraid of real ghosts (that
may be lurking in our closets), or make one afraid that there are
real ghosts
- Not fear, but shock and alarm (which feel like fear)
- Fear for others or with others (as opposed to fear for oneself)
- These types of fear come from imaginatively putting ourselves
in another's position
More worries about the idea that pity can be based on beliefs about what is fictionally the case
- Does pity aimed at fiction involve characteristic feelings of pity?
- Pity characteristically involves physiological/phenomenological features
- Things happen in our bodies and our experience has a certain feeling to it
- Are these possible when the pity is based on beliefs about fiction?
- Yes: We can be moved to bodily feeling and sensation by what we know to be
fictionally the case
- Shed real tears (not fake ones or one like those caused by smoke)
- Get a lump in our throats
- These feelings/sensations do not depend on a belief that the situation is
actual
- Does pity at real events feel the same as pity aimed at fiction?
- Neill agrees with critics that in general feelings/sensations exp in response to fiction tend
to be rather different from those that may issue from beliefs about what
is actual
- Hume says they feel less firm and solid and lie on us with less weight
- Neill argues the difference can't simply be one of intensity
- What one can feel for or about a fictional character can be more
intense than one's feelings about actual events/people, e.g., starving
Ethiopians
- Problem of "tragic pleasure" (enjoying suffering of others and pitying it are not
compatible)
- Since we enjoy watching fictional characters suffer, we are not pitying them, for pity requires that we are distressed (and enjoying distress is not possible)
- If we really pitied fictional characters we would not enjoy watching them suffer (but we do, so therefore we are not pitying them)
- Fictional pity is something we enjoy and seek out
- But real pity must involve distress
- If one takes pleasure in someone's suffering that is not pity
- If we take pleasure in Oedipus gouging out his eyes when he
finds out that Jocasta hanged herself, then we are not feeling
pity toward Oedipus
- Thus an emotion that seems like pity in response to fiction is not real
pity, if it involves pleasure (because pleasure and distress are not compatible)
- Neill's response
- First: We don't always respond with pleasure to fictional suffering
- Sometimes what is depicted makes us close the book or leave
the theater
- Even if we continue to read or watch, it could be because we
feel that we ought to endure the story, much as we ought to
suffer through Amnesty International's reports on torture-and
we are not getting pleasure in these cases
- Second: But sometimes experience of distressing fiction does involve
pleasure
- How can we both be distressed at what is happening and feel
pleasure in it?
- Reply: Distress and pleasure may be aimed at different objects
(different aspects)
- We may be distressed by what is happening (depicted) in the
work
- But feel pleasure at the manner of depiction
- If the object of pleasure really is the suffering depicted, then our
response would not be pity
- Distress is an intrinsic part of emotions like pity
- But no more reason to think we take pleasure in fictional suffering
than in actual suffering
- Though there are cases of enjoying others suffering (enjoying real people suffering)
- But presumably this is not going on in our response to fiction
- Problem: Pity and the desire to help
- Central part of pity is a desire to help the person whose suffering one is pitying
- A desire to help is a necessary condition of pity
- But we do not desire to come to the aid of fictional characters
- Christopher picking up his light-saber or toy gun just before the battle scenes
- We can't coherently have this desire, for we can't help them as there is an ontological gap between fiction and reality and we know this
- Nothing we could possibly do could count as helping them
- We don't desire to leap up onto stage and prevent out favorite character from being killed
- *Explains why those who write into soap-operas offering sympathy and advice have got something fundamentally wrong
- Neill Reply:
- Pity need not involve a desire to help the person one is pitying
- Examples:
- Pity for persons of the past or for mountain climbers trapped under an avalanche
- Since we know we can't help them, this desire to help plays no role in our emotional response (pity)
- We might have a desire that we have the ability to help them
- And this desire is not there in our response to fiction?
- Only if one is able to help them and one has no overriding reasons not to help does pity require a desire to aid
- With fictional characters we are not able to help and thus we can pity them w/o a desire to help them.
Pity and the desire that suffering end
- Pity involves having desires for suffering to end, but we do not have such desires toward fiction and so pity is not possible toward fiction
- Problem: Pity involves a desire for others' misfortune to end, but with the
alleged pity aimed at fictional characters, we do not have a desire that their
suffering end, because we know that the suffering is fictional, so we are not
really pitying them
- Reply: We do desire (fictionally) that a character's suffering come to an end
- Sit tense on edge of seats hoping heroine will get free of her bonds
before the circular saw slices her up
- Problem: But if we encountered the fiction where the suffering did cease,
we would not like it but be disappointed.
- Suppose when the 6th Harry Potter movie comes out that Dumbledore
survives and is not killed by Snape
- Likely to be disappointed or outraged at the audacity of the director
to change the plot
- So if we want the suffering in the story to end or not exist, then we must want the fiction to be written differently but we don't want that
- We don't want the author to have written a different story
- Seems like we have conflicting desires with respect to suffering of fictional
characters
- Reply:
- One: Neill suggests that desires may not conflict; we want
(fictionally) Dumbledore to survive. Our being upset at the movie
where he survives is not because we want him to die, but because we
want the film director to be faithful to the Rowling book (Harry Potter
and the Half Blood Prince)
- Being upset at the "happy ending" does not show we desire the
characters to continue to suffer
- But even if we do have conflicting desires, that does not show that we
don't pity fictional characters, because we can have conflicting
desires about actual suffering:
- Want a person whose spouse has died to stop suffering and still
believe he/she needs to in order to recover from the loss
- So we may want a fictional character's suffering to end and
also want it not to end for some other reason (it makes for a
good story?)
- We do desire that things should be otherwise in the case of fictional
characters
- Though we do not desire that Dumbledore survive (because we don't
believe he ever existed), we believe that he fictionally existed and
desire that fictionally things should have gone differently
- Is this the desire that Rowling had written the book differently?
- No
- So then what is the content of this desire?
- If we are distressed at his dying (fictionally), then we feel pity
- Real pity, not fictional pity
- The pity is real, the desire is real, the belief is real only the
content is fictional
- Problem: Does pity involve wanting the story to be written differently?
- Pity involves wanting things to be
fictionally different, but then it seems we want the fictional story to have been
written differently (but we don't).
- We value works of fiction because they can cause these powerful
emotions (pity for characters)
- But this emotion has us wanting things to be different fictionally
- Is this wanting the author to have made the story so it didn't evoke that
emotion (pity)?
- No: this is not what we want.
- So this looks like we have irrational and inconsistent beliefs/desires
- Reply: These desires don't conflict because they focus on different
aspects of the fiction
- I'm not convinced he makes his case here; seems to me we are
focusing on the same thing; what happens to Dumbledore
- We can pity a fictional character, desire that fictionally things be
different for him/her, and not have any desire about the fictional work
of which she is a part
- But then to desire that things be different (fictionally) for
Dumbledore is not the same as wishing things had gone
differently in the novel. And this was the analysis of belief that
fictionally x was the case.....
- Iced buns example:
- We can desire X and not desire everything x involves
- Even though necessary for losing weight that I
stop eating iced buns, my desire to lose weight is not in effect a desire
to stop eating iced buns; I may desire to lose weight, w/o having any
desires with regard to iced buns
- Sure, if one is unaware of this connection.
- Also one might have a desire to lose weight, and thus a
general desire to stop eating iced buns, but also a
specific desire to eat this iced bun now. This is not
irrational or inconsistent
- If one knows that there is a necessary connection between two
desires, one of which one has, then if one does not desire the
other one it would seem that our desires are not rational.
- So this would seem to suggest pity for fictional characters does
involve inconsistent desires
- But consider the iced bun example above
- When pity Dumbledore and wish he had not been killed, am focusing
on particular aspect of the Half-Blood Prince (story Rowling tells)
- In focusing on this, I don't have desires about other aspects of the
novel, e.g., plot structure, language
- I would have thought that you are focusing on one important
part of the plot that Snape kills Dumbledore
- Adopt different stance toward novel (as a work of art), feelings likely to
change; won't have particular desires about Dumbledore
- Explanation for why our emotional responses to fiction are typically
(though not invariably) of shorter duration, less intense than emotional
responses to similar actual characters and events
- Do you think this claim is true, that these emotions are typically shorter and less intense?
- Attention to a work of fiction involves a variety of attitudes or stances to
work and focus shifts between aspects
- Watching a performance of Lear, emotionally respond to the
characters
- Lights go up, start thinking about the play as a whole and as
work of art and am moved by Shakespeare's art
- When reading a supermarket novel, you may get involved in the plot and
characters, and then when you put down the book, you may may think that what
focused your attention for last few hours was not worth it
- Emotional responses to fictional characters tend to be less intense and of
shorter duration not because don't really care about these characters, but
because these characters we care about are part of something else that also
demands and gets our attention (other aspects of the work of fiction,
including it as a whole).
- But emotional response to real characters and life is also part of a
greater world that demands and gets our attention.
- Conclusion
- Emotions like pity can be genuinely directed at both fiction and
reality
- Beliefs about what is fictionally the case can lead to necessary
features of pity: certain feelings, sensations, attitude of distress and
desires
- We can feel pity for fictional characters
- Sometimes we may take pleasure in their misfortune (schadenfreude)
- We can envy and admire fictional characters
- Fear for and with them
- Not fear them! Or be jealous of them
- Why can we envy fictional characters, but not be jealous of them?
- But emotions are very different from each other and can't assume one
analysis works for all emotions.