A Virtue Epistemology of Emotions : Affective Knowledge of Values

My main research is focusing on the epistemology of emotions, in particular on the epistemological role of emotions in gaining knowledge of values. The project of the thesis is to address the issue of whether, under certain specific circumstances, emotions can constitute a distinctive kind of evaluative knowledge. In this respect, I investigate the possibility to apply Sosa’s virtue epistemologist model of propositional knowledge to emotions vis-à-vis evaluative knowledge. Can apt emotions – emotions which are correct (accurate) because built upon the relevant subject’s competence, skill or virtue (adroit) – be identified with a kind of affective evaluative knowledge, distinct from the traditional cognitive propositional evaluative knowledge?