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The Passions: A Study of Human Nature
A survey of astonishing breadth and penetration. No cognitive neuroscientist should ever conduct an experiment in the domain of the emotions without reading this book, twice. Parashkev Nachev, Institute of Neurology, UCL There is not a slack moment in the whole of this impressive work. With his remarkable facility for making fine distinctions, and his commitment to lucidity, Peter Hacker has subtly characterized those emotions such as pride, shame, envy, jealousy, love or sympathy which make up our all too human nature. This is an important book for philosophers but since most of its illustrative material comes from an astonishing range of British and European literature, it is required reading also for literary scholars, or indeed for anyone with an interest in understanding who and what we are. David Ellis, University of Kent Human beings are all subject to boundless flights of joy and delight, to flashes of anger and fear, to pangs of sadness and grief. We express our emotions in what we do, how we act, and what we say, and we can share our emotions with others and respond sympathetically to their feelings. Emotions are an intrinsic part of the human condition, and any study of human nature must investigate them. In this third volume of a major study in philosophical anthropology which has spanned nearly a decade, one of the most preeminent living philosophers examines and reflects upon the nature of the emotions, advancing the view that novelists, playwrights, and poets – rather than psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists – elaborate the most refined descriptions of their role in human life. In the book’s early chapters, the author analyses the emotions by situating them in relation to other human passions such as affections, appetites, attitudes, and agitations. While presenting a detailed connective analysis of the emotions, Hacker challenges traditional ideas about them and criticizes misconceptions held by philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists. With the help of abundant examples and illustrative quotations from the Western literary canon, later sections investigate, describe, and disentangle the individual emotions – pride, arrogance, and humility; shame, embarrassment, and guilt; envy and jealousy; and anger. The book concludes with an analysis of love, sympathy, and empathy as sources of absolute value and the roots of morality. A masterful contribution, this study of the passions is essential reading for philosophers of mind, psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, students of Western literature, and general readers interested in understanding the nature of the emotions and their place in our lives.
- GenresPhilosophy
480 pages, Paperback
Published December 18, 2017
3 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
P.M.S. Hacker
65 books21 followersPeter Hacker was born in London in 1939. He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at The Queen's College, Oxford from 1960-63, obtaining a Congratulatory First Class degree. He was elected to a graduate studentship at St Antony's College, Oxford, where he remained from 1963-65, writing a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of H.L.A. Hart on the subject of 'Rules and Duties'. In 1965 he was elected to a Junior Research Fellowship at Balliol College. In 1966 he completed his doctorate and was granted the D. Phil.
He became a Tutorial Fellow at St John's College in 1966, a post he held until his retirement in 2006, when he was appointed to an Emeritus Research Fellowship at St John's. He was College Librarian 1986-2006, and Keeper of the College Pictures 1986-1998. In 2010 he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at The Queen's College, Oxford.
He was a visiting lecturer at Makere College, Uganda (1968), a visiting professor at Swarthmore College, Pa., U.S.A (1973), a visiting professor at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, U.S.A. (1974), a Milton C. Scott Visiting Professor, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario (1984). He was elected to a British Academy Research Readership in Humanities 1985-7. In 1986 he was again a visiting professor for a semester at Swarthmore College, Pa., U.S.A. He was elected to a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship (1991-4). From 1992 to 2010 he served as a member of the Rothschild Fellowships Academic Committee, Yad Hanadiv, Jerusalem. He was a visiting fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio, Italy in 2006. He was a visiting research fellow at the University of Bologna for a semester in 2009. In 2013 he was appointed Professor of philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury for three years.
He is an associate editor of Philosophical Investigations, and of Wittgenstein Studies. From 1997 to 2003 he was an associate editor, 20th century philosophers - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. From 1998 to 2003 he was a Trustee of the Wittgenstein papers and Member of the Committee of Editors; since 2003 he has been a member and Secretary of the Advisory Committee of Wittgenstein Editors.
He became a Tutorial Fellow at St John's College in 1966, a post he held until his retirement in 2006, when he was appointed to an Emeritus Research Fellowship at St John's. He was College Librarian 1986-2006, and Keeper of the College Pictures 1986-1998. In 2010 he was elected to an Honorary Fellowship at The Queen's College, Oxford.
He was a visiting lecturer at Makere College, Uganda (1968), a visiting professor at Swarthmore College, Pa., U.S.A (1973), a visiting professor at University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, U.S.A. (1974), a Milton C. Scott Visiting Professor, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario (1984). He was elected to a British Academy Research Readership in Humanities 1985-7. In 1986 he was again a visiting professor for a semester at Swarthmore College, Pa., U.S.A. He was elected to a Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship (1991-4). From 1992 to 2010 he served as a member of the Rothschild Fellowships Academic Committee, Yad Hanadiv, Jerusalem. He was a visiting fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio, Italy in 2006. He was a visiting research fellow at the University of Bologna for a semester in 2009. In 2013 he was appointed Professor of philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury for three years.
He is an associate editor of Philosophical Investigations, and of Wittgenstein Studies. From 1997 to 2003 he was an associate editor, 20th century philosophers - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. From 1998 to 2003 he was a Trustee of the Wittgenstein papers and Member of the Committee of Editors; since 2003 he has been a member and Secretary of the Advisory Committee of Wittgenstein Editors.
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September 29, 2021
Hacker makes distinctions between passions, feelings, sentiments, affects, cogitations, temperament-character, moods, agitations, felt desires, appetites, drives, emotions, etc., with a heavy dose of jargon: deontic feelings, adverbial emotions, ideographic versus nomothetic, etc. Given what he refers to as the clearly evident “conceptual confusion and unclarities” in the field of the passions, Hacker stipulates his own meaning for these affective terms. It’s overwhelming.
In his overall schematic (Figure 1.1, page 6, “The passions of the soul and their relation to other feelings”), emotions proper are tucked away, almost as if they were a provincial phenomenon, so the initial question is why does he single out “emotions” in this book as opposed to the other elements of “the passions?” (1)
Generally, Hacker follows the Stoic line: Those who don’t manage their emotions are in bondage to them. It’s a mind-over-matter or moral agent thing. In the management of the emotions, Hacker’s mantra is: “Emotions should be felt for the right reasons, directed to the right objects, expressed on the right occasions, and felt to the right degree.”
There are problems with Hacker’s approach. Both involve the legacy of Plato and the Stoics. The most dangerous emotions are those vastly deep and complex unconscious forces that drive behavior. The mind might think it knows what is going on, but without serious probing and honesty, it’s superficial. (2) We know we are angry, but do we know why we are really angry? We mask or repress what we really feel; or more aptly, we don’t know what we really feel. Like the Stoics, Hacker says we should control the bad emotions and accentuate the good ones, but then we also get those fake people who pretend that they are not angry when they are or that they love others when they don’t. We don’t deal with each other honestly. We get inauthenticity. We get the beatific glow of the parson.
And then there is this easy Hacker word, “right” as in the “right” reason. This too is Plato-Stoic speak. It presumes that there is a single, overarching, objective by which we regulate ourselves. His Good is some standard of Right. Aside from the problem about how that term is defined (e.g., Christian or Islamic fundamentalism), a large chunk of humankind cares nothing about that vis-à-vis their own particular good. Hacker, like Plato, believes the Good self-motivates, but that’s not how this world operates. So, Hacker’s plea for reason means nothing, absolutely nothing, to those who only care about their own good. In personal and political relationships, you get rational types who want to get to “yes” and who face off with the self-only types who see themselves looking at reasonable types as suckers.
Without a theoretical framework to tie it all together, Hacker’s stipulated meanings are arbitrary. (3) Hacker rightfully acknowledges an evolutionarily-derived self-preservation motive force but, like Plato, he leaves it behind. This is a mistake. Self-preservation for all life provides the motive force for acting in and reacting to the world (and to be free to act and defend). This is Schopenhauer’s pain (need/desire; fear/anger), which activates energy. When there’s success in seeking and defending, there is pleasure and energy is quieted (passive, until need or threat-harm arises, which is perpetual). If there’s failure, there’s pain again, either quiet (festering, repressed) or active (fear or anger behavior) energy.
As Spinoza argued, all emotions can be (with some tweaks) derived from desire (for or against), joy (pleasure) or sadness (failure), albeit in variant forms (intensity, nature of object, etc.). (4) These emotions are expressed automatically or by disposition or conscious choice. Though their objects and behavior vary, the self (as with all life) is motivated by the same for and against values. That’s why Hume was on target with his statement that mind serves the passions. Mind serves the emotions – it helps to tell value to achieve itself. But in the end, it’s only another, higher-order emotion (value, need; or fear) that moves the self to modify another emotion. The motive force remains as value and mind-cognition supplements and extends its range (LeDoux). But mind is not itself the ultimate motive force.
In his discussions of 2nd-order emotions – the self-reflexive emotions (of shame, embarrassment, guilt, and pride) Hacker says that only humans have this self-reflexive capacity, not animals. He focuses on the fact of these emotions, but doesn’t explain why we have them. We have (and feel) these emotions because evolution has designed us to merge with the group for that’s how we survived. Risking ostracization is risking our own preservation. These self-reflexive emotions keep us merged with our group. This, to me, is the meaning of 2nd-order emotions. We are good herd animals that way. Animals, Hacker also says, don’t love. He sees it as some noble human dignity sort of thing, not as attachment to those who nurture and protect the self (or serve as a mate) and make it feel part of the herd. In other words, love is animal-like. Seen in these ways through an evolutionary lens, our essential continuity with other (or even, all of) life is clear.
(1) The “landscape” (Hacker’s term) for this book is laid out in Chapter 1, “The Place of the Emotions among the Passions.” “Soul” is an odd word to employ for a quite exact, even fussy, treatment of affective terms. Also, his focus is on particular emotions – pride, arrogance, humility; shame, embarrassment, and guilt; envy, jealousy; anger; love; friendship; sympathy and empathy seem arbitrary. Why these? Why not others (e.g., fear)?
(2) In part, one wonders if the problem involves a view of ourselves (or our group), as perfect beings, or nearly so, but definitely not animal, so that we have no choice but to repress the imperfections and baser impulses that pervade our “souls.” The following suggests Hackers’ discomfort with our brute nature: “It is a brute fact about Homo sapiens that members of the species typically have a very powerful sexual drive…the brute sexual urge is animal – an appetite similar to other natural appetites of hunger and thirst.”
(3) As this link indicates, “emotion” is a troubled concept. The author proposes that we start all over with a clean slate and begin with “emotion.” Though it lacks precision, it has a hefty amount of everyday currency regarding affective life. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
(4) Comparisons are made (e.g. Darwin) about the similarities between animal and human emotions. By adding “language independent” emotions of babies to the mix, Hacker extends the concept (comparison with animals) and these too can be seen as derivations of motivating pain (fear, rage, frustration, distress, etc.) and quieting pleasure (happy, excitement, affection, contentment, etc.) states.
In his overall schematic (Figure 1.1, page 6, “The passions of the soul and their relation to other feelings”), emotions proper are tucked away, almost as if they were a provincial phenomenon, so the initial question is why does he single out “emotions” in this book as opposed to the other elements of “the passions?” (1)
Generally, Hacker follows the Stoic line: Those who don’t manage their emotions are in bondage to them. It’s a mind-over-matter or moral agent thing. In the management of the emotions, Hacker’s mantra is: “Emotions should be felt for the right reasons, directed to the right objects, expressed on the right occasions, and felt to the right degree.”
There are problems with Hacker’s approach. Both involve the legacy of Plato and the Stoics. The most dangerous emotions are those vastly deep and complex unconscious forces that drive behavior. The mind might think it knows what is going on, but without serious probing and honesty, it’s superficial. (2) We know we are angry, but do we know why we are really angry? We mask or repress what we really feel; or more aptly, we don’t know what we really feel. Like the Stoics, Hacker says we should control the bad emotions and accentuate the good ones, but then we also get those fake people who pretend that they are not angry when they are or that they love others when they don’t. We don’t deal with each other honestly. We get inauthenticity. We get the beatific glow of the parson.
And then there is this easy Hacker word, “right” as in the “right” reason. This too is Plato-Stoic speak. It presumes that there is a single, overarching, objective by which we regulate ourselves. His Good is some standard of Right. Aside from the problem about how that term is defined (e.g., Christian or Islamic fundamentalism), a large chunk of humankind cares nothing about that vis-à-vis their own particular good. Hacker, like Plato, believes the Good self-motivates, but that’s not how this world operates. So, Hacker’s plea for reason means nothing, absolutely nothing, to those who only care about their own good. In personal and political relationships, you get rational types who want to get to “yes” and who face off with the self-only types who see themselves looking at reasonable types as suckers.
Without a theoretical framework to tie it all together, Hacker’s stipulated meanings are arbitrary. (3) Hacker rightfully acknowledges an evolutionarily-derived self-preservation motive force but, like Plato, he leaves it behind. This is a mistake. Self-preservation for all life provides the motive force for acting in and reacting to the world (and to be free to act and defend). This is Schopenhauer’s pain (need/desire; fear/anger), which activates energy. When there’s success in seeking and defending, there is pleasure and energy is quieted (passive, until need or threat-harm arises, which is perpetual). If there’s failure, there’s pain again, either quiet (festering, repressed) or active (fear or anger behavior) energy.
As Spinoza argued, all emotions can be (with some tweaks) derived from desire (for or against), joy (pleasure) or sadness (failure), albeit in variant forms (intensity, nature of object, etc.). (4) These emotions are expressed automatically or by disposition or conscious choice. Though their objects and behavior vary, the self (as with all life) is motivated by the same for and against values. That’s why Hume was on target with his statement that mind serves the passions. Mind serves the emotions – it helps to tell value to achieve itself. But in the end, it’s only another, higher-order emotion (value, need; or fear) that moves the self to modify another emotion. The motive force remains as value and mind-cognition supplements and extends its range (LeDoux). But mind is not itself the ultimate motive force.
In his discussions of 2nd-order emotions – the self-reflexive emotions (of shame, embarrassment, guilt, and pride) Hacker says that only humans have this self-reflexive capacity, not animals. He focuses on the fact of these emotions, but doesn’t explain why we have them. We have (and feel) these emotions because evolution has designed us to merge with the group for that’s how we survived. Risking ostracization is risking our own preservation. These self-reflexive emotions keep us merged with our group. This, to me, is the meaning of 2nd-order emotions. We are good herd animals that way. Animals, Hacker also says, don’t love. He sees it as some noble human dignity sort of thing, not as attachment to those who nurture and protect the self (or serve as a mate) and make it feel part of the herd. In other words, love is animal-like. Seen in these ways through an evolutionary lens, our essential continuity with other (or even, all of) life is clear.
(1) The “landscape” (Hacker’s term) for this book is laid out in Chapter 1, “The Place of the Emotions among the Passions.” “Soul” is an odd word to employ for a quite exact, even fussy, treatment of affective terms. Also, his focus is on particular emotions – pride, arrogance, humility; shame, embarrassment, and guilt; envy, jealousy; anger; love; friendship; sympathy and empathy seem arbitrary. Why these? Why not others (e.g., fear)?
(2) In part, one wonders if the problem involves a view of ourselves (or our group), as perfect beings, or nearly so, but definitely not animal, so that we have no choice but to repress the imperfections and baser impulses that pervade our “souls.” The following suggests Hackers’ discomfort with our brute nature: “It is a brute fact about Homo sapiens that members of the species typically have a very powerful sexual drive…the brute sexual urge is animal – an appetite similar to other natural appetites of hunger and thirst.”
(3) As this link indicates, “emotion” is a troubled concept. The author proposes that we start all over with a clean slate and begin with “emotion.” Though it lacks precision, it has a hefty amount of everyday currency regarding affective life. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
(4) Comparisons are made (e.g. Darwin) about the similarities between animal and human emotions. By adding “language independent” emotions of babies to the mix, Hacker extends the concept (comparison with animals) and these too can be seen as derivations of motivating pain (fear, rage, frustration, distress, etc.) and quieting pleasure (happy, excitement, affection, contentment, etc.) states.
May 18, 2018
I write this after my first reading and this does not pretend to be academical. I was eager to read the chapter 4, as my understanding of emotions relies on Damasio and others' ideas of the somatic marker that the author seems limited. Indeed, as the author purports, Damasio's understanding of 'emotions' is reduced to a certain set of bodily responses, leaving out a big number of what the author would better call 'passions' that would include what Damasio would call 'feelings'. I concur with the author in that James, Damasio and other's theory of emotions and feelings may have limitations. However, unlike the author, I consider that these authors' attempt to bring empirical science and embodiment to the analysis of passions is a remarkable contribution to understanding embodied aspects of the self.
Overall the book thoroughly reviews theories of passions (to use a broader concept) and would be useful for anyone wanting having comprehensive understanding of passions that heavily relies on analysis of language. This would not be an issue, should the stylistic choices of the author make him call on all described theories <> rather than purporting their advantages and limitations and letting an informed reader to decide about correctness, and less informed ones with less bias.
Overall the book thoroughly reviews theories of passions (to use a broader concept) and would be useful for anyone wanting having comprehensive understanding of passions that heavily relies on analysis of language. This would not be an issue, should the stylistic choices of the author make him call on all described theories <> rather than purporting their advantages and limitations and letting an informed reader to decide about correctness, and less informed ones with less bias.
June 6, 2025
It was a thorough taxonomy and description of several (groups of) emotions. I would have preferred references to research instead of to literature, but maybe that’s me. I was not convinced that he gave a useful taxonomy; multiple taxonomies could be equally correct, and it was unclear why we should adopt his. There were also some misreadings of Adam Smith, which gets my goat. And some sexism when describing maternal love. Evolutionary psychology is not the “research” (pseudoscience) I was looking for. Slips into the twentieth century philosopher tendency to analyze words instead of concepts or phenomena. But the theory of emotions as containing their own manifestations was clever.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews