This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warton.

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Settling down to your regular dose of philosophy bites you're no doubt in a mood of joyful serenity, but is a mood the

same as an emotion like anger, fear, love, hate or envy?

What exactly is an emotion? what connections do emotions have with

morality and with reason.

For passionate analysis of the emotions, we turn to Sabine Doring of the University of Tubingen.

Sabine Doring, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Hello.

The topic we're going to focus on today is emotion.

I wonder if we could just begin by saying what you think an emotion is.

Well that's a difficult question of course and the best way to answer it is to

distinguish emotions from non-emotional states which are sometimes called emotion.

The first thing is to distinguish between emotions and moods because emotions are directed at

something. For instance you are afraid of your neighbor's dog, you envy your neighbor for his big new Masoati or you're in love with a person.

Whereas the mood seems not to be directed in that sense and philosophers say that emotions are intentional therefore and I would

also like to distinguish emotions as our current actual conscious states felt states from long-term dispositions or character traits, as if we say someone

is a jealous husband, but also from things which are more than just long-term dispositions such as love or hatred

which are normally connected with or current emotional states.

So these are emotions or current felt states which are intentional.

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