• '… a wealth of well-presented empirical findings, rich theorising and thought-provoking debate. The book should serve as an excellent summary of the current status of this fascinating and useful area and deserves to be widely read by any who are interested in the relation between cognition and emotion, in particular, perhaps, by those involved in the development of cognitive treatments for emotional disorders.' -The Psychologist
• 'Emotion, Evolution and Rationality does an excellent job at clarifying the confusion surrounding an important area of evolutionary psychology – why emotions have evolved in humans.' -The Psychologist

For thousands of years, many Western thinkers have assumed that emotions are, at best, harmless luxuries, and at worst outright obstacles to intelligent action. In the past decade, however, scientists and philosophers have begun to challenge this 'negative view of emotion'. Neuroscientists, psychologists and researchers in artificial intelligence now agree that emotions are vital to intelligent action. Evolutionary considerations have played a vital role in this shift to a more positive view of emotion.

This book brings together some of the leading thinkers about emotion from a variety of disciplines. In a series of fascinating and challenging essays, they examine the role that evolutionary considerations can play in helping us to understand the role of emotions in rational thought and decision-making. How should we understand the evolutionary role of emotions? And can this explain the relationship between emotions and rationality?

Readership: Psychologists and philosophers interested in emotion

Part I - Neuroscientific Foundations 1. William James and the modern neurobiology of emotion, Antonio Damasio 2. Homologizing human emotions, Andrew Lawrence & Andrew Calder Part II - Emotion, Belief and Appraisal 3. Emotional behaviour and the scope of belief-desire explanation, Finn Spicer 4. Which emotions are basic?, Jesse Prinz 5. Towards a 'Machiavellian' theory of emotional appraisal, Paul Griffiths 6. Unpicking reasonable emotions, Brian Parkinson Part III - Evolution and the Rationality of Emotion 7. Evolution, culture and the irrationality of the emotions, Chandra Sripada & Stephen Stich 8. The role of emotions in ecological and practical rationality, Gianmatteo Mameli 9. The search hypothesis of emotion, Dylan Evans 10. Adaptive illusions: optimism, control and human rationality, Daniel Nettle 11. Emotion versus reason as a genetic conflict, Christopher Badcock Part IV - Philosophical Perspectives 12. Conscience and conflict: Darwin, Freud and the origins of human aggression, Jim Hopkins 13. Emotion, reason and virtue, Peter Goldie

Dylan Evans and Pierre Cruse