The moralistic fallacy: On the 'appropriateness' of emotions (Ethics, propriety, correctness)

Philosophers often call emotions appropriate or inappropriate. What is mean t by such talk? In one sense, explicated in this paper, to call an emotion appropriate is to say that the emotion is filling: it accurately presents i t object as having certain evaluative features. For instance, envy might be thought appropriate when one's rival has something good which one lacks. B ut someone might grant that a circumstance has these features, yet deny tha t envy is appropriate, on the grounds that it is wrong to be envious. These two senses of 'appropriate' have much less in common than philosophers hav e supposed. Indeed, the distinction between propriety and correctness is cr ucial to understanding the distinctive role of the emotions in ethics. We a rgue here that an emotion can be fitting despite being wrong to feel, and t hat various philosophical arguments are guilty of a systematic error which we term the moralistic fallacy.