The paradox(es) of pitying and fearing fictions

Abstract

The acknowledged paradox in our emotional response to fictional characters and events is that the very beliefs required by a cognitive account of the emotions are excluded by knowledge that the context is fictional. Various proposed solutions have failed to reconcile cognitivism with respect to the emotions with the facts of that response. Those offered include denying cognitivism by excluding the belief on the emotions, denying genuine emotional response in these contexts, or advocating either fictional realism or irrationalism in such response. By specifically examining pity and fear this paper tries to reconcile genuine emotional response to fictional characters and events with a unified cognitive account of the emotions by arguing that instead of excluding belief the existential condition on the beliefs in an emotion can be lifted by the invitation to imagine. At the same time it shows that the richness of that response need not be denied and throws some light on further related paradoxes (for instance by indicating why not all emotions are rationally possible in fictive contexts and that although we can pity fictions we cannot rationally fear them). Then by explaining why, unlike in ordinary contexts we do not act on our emotions in fictive ones, it differentiates the reasons for passivity in fictional and in historical circumstances.