The Paradox of Tragedy, or Why (Almost) All Emotions Can Be Enjoyed

Abstract We regularly intentionally expose ourselves to fictions we take to be likely to elicit in us emotions we generally find unpleasant when prompted by actual states of affairs. This is the so-called “paradox of tragedy.” We contribute to solving the paradox of tragedy by denying that, when fiction-directed, most of these emotions are in themselves unpleasant. We first provide strong evidence that these emotions, such as fear, sadness, or pity, are often enjoyed when fiction-directed. We then advance an explanation of what makes these fiction-directed emotions often not unpleasant, while their reality-directed counterparts are generally so. In the last section, we advance an explanation of what makes fiction-directed emotions often enjoyable, and argue that a complete solution to the paradox of tragedy should be pluralist.