Emotioners (u)nytte

The article offers a genetic phenomenological account of the basic role that emotions play in prudential rationality. It is suggested that feelings are the original mode of presentation of value, and that this point can make intelligible that emotions in some cases have a substantial utility with regard to the apprehension of practical matters and in others are distorting of practical awareness. It is argued that the problematic nature of some emotions in practical contexts is an unfortunate bi-product of their important functional role of being sources of value reception.