Abstract

In this paper, I argue that Nietzsche thinks emotional experience is constructed. To say that my experience of a particular emotion—for example, compassion—is constructed is to say that any instance of compassion I experience is something of my own making. Specifically, it is a feeling-state fabricated by my mind as it (automatically and unwittingly) interprets the phenomenally experienced bodily feelings to which I find myself subject in a particular circumstance. In other words, any compassion I experience is the result of my mind having constructed such a feeling. What’s more, since Nietzsche thinks the process by which my mind interprets these bodily feelings will always involve the deployment of socially available emotion concepts and emotion narratives, he will think not only that emotions are constructed, but that they are constructed via social artifacts. Recognizing that our emotional lives are shaped by the emotion concepts and narratives we utilize to make sense of them suggests that enlarging our emotional vocabulary and familiarizing ourselves with new emotional narratives can be profoundly transformative. It also highlights the possibility of reflective intervention into our emotional and perceptual lives, potentially opening up new ways of feeling and seeing.