Emotional Reasoning in Politics

Political debate can be intellectually dissatisfying. A common philosophical response is to decry allowing emotions to overrule epistemic respect for facts. The contrary response given here invites more careful attention to the role of emotions in reasoned discussion. That role can be captured by analytical distinctions between rationality and reasonableness, fittingness and worthiness, consensus and conciliation. The analysis chastens philosophical expectations that justifiable emotional perceptions yield moral knowledge. Rather than demanding strictly rational resolution, responsible social and political conflicts invite the conciliatory form of normative differences described here.