Abstract

ORSI PORTALO, Rocío. MORAL EMOTIONS AND MORALS. Ideas y Valores [online]. 2006, vol.55, n.131, pp.33-50. ISSN 0120-0062.

My aim in this paper is to explore the ambivalent role played by the so called moral emotions in moral thinking, overall when the concept of responsibility is concerned. In the first part of this paper I show how moral emotions such as guilt and shame can appear in circumstances that are not under the agent’s control, and therefore, to a large extent, not the agent´s responsability. In the second part of this essay, however, I try to show how the absence of moral emotions, or their inadequate development, makes impossible both that an individual can belong to a moral community, and the attribution of moral responsability to the individual.

Keywords : Moral; emotions.