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We invite papers for a special issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology on the topic of expressive acts. The aim of this special issue is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the role that the expression of emotions plays in communication, mutual understanding, and in the rational explanation of action. The literature around expressive acts developed from philosophy of action and philosophy of emotions. The standard view in philosophy of action is that rational action is the result of an intention to act, which in turn is determined by belief/desire pairs. But Rosalind Hursthouse argued in the 1990s that actions motivated by emotions, i.e., emotional or expressive actions, cannot be explained by standard philosophical models of rational action explanation.

Recent research on expressive acts could also help us understand expressive speech acts more specifically. But theories of communicative acts, the products of such activities, and the mental states expressed, have focused mainly on belief-like states and on the expression of propositional content. Nonetheless, expressivists in metaethics have explored alternative accounts of moral language, despite the important challenges expressivism has faced. The expression of emotions through language has been revived in recent decades after Kaplan’s (1999) proposal of use-conditional meanings to account for epithets, pejoratives, and slurs. Recent work on expressives in discourse and on the nature of expressive speech suggest new avenues of inquiry. Moreover, recent developments in social psychology have explored the implicit communication of emotions via written text, emotion recognition, emotion mimicry, and the social role of emotions.

Submissions to the special issue may address questions such as:

• Can actions motivated by emotions be rationally justified? If so, what form of rational justification is appropriate to them?

• How does the rational justification of actions motivated by emotion relate to the rational justification of emotion?

• How does emotion relate to its expression?

• Which emotional behaviors should be classed as actions, and why?

• Can emotions like anger, disgust or contempt be appropriate responses to moral wrongs?

• How do expressive speech acts communicate emotional states?

• How do expressive words encode emotional content (if any do)?

• What is the interpersonal, social, role of emotion expression?

• What is the role of emotion expression in acts of mass communication?

לעוד פרטים – כאן