During the last three decades, emotions have become a critical topic in several branches of the contemporary philosophical debate, ranging from metaethics and value epistemology to philosophical psychology and normative ethics. Emotions are supposed to play a crucial role in our life, with a strong impact on our first-person experience and our social interactions, on our choices and values but also our implicit attitudes and unintentional behavior. Thinking of emotions, philosophers have focused on affective phenomena as diverse as disgust with the smell of rotten meat, awe for a magnificent musical composition, fear of snakes, hope for the future of a cherished friend, and embarrassment over a slight deviation from a social norm. It is indeed a theoretical challenge to account for the full spectrum of what ordinarily falls under the term “emotion” and to identify its place in the broader affective domain, to the extent that the very unity of the category is disputed. [read more]