Emotion and Fictional Beings

Author(s): Eddy M. Zemach

Source: The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 54, No. 1 (Winter, 1996), pp. 41-48
Published by: Wiley on behalf of The American Society for Aesthetics
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 EDDY M. ZEMACH
Emotion and Fictional Beings
Sam watches a movie where a horrible green
slime seems to slither right at him. Sam shud-
ders, his stomach sinks, he perspiresprofusely
and feels an strong urge to escape; he clutches
the armrestsof his chair so hard his knuckles
turn white. Later he says he was frightened.
Why? My answer is simple: because he was
frightened. Anita feels a clog in her throat and
tears streamdown her cheeks when she reads of
Anna Karenina'ssuicide; she says, "PoorAnna,
I pity her so!" I take that as evidence thatAnita
pities Anna. Now, to fearx, one needs to believe
thatx is endangeringone; to pity x, one needs to
believe that x unduly suffers; I therefore hold
that Sam believes thatthe slime endangershim,
and Anita believes thatAnna is an innocentvic-
tim, taking what we say about fictional beings
(thatwe fear them, pity them, etc.) at face value.
Many aestheticians think that such a simple
accountcannotbe true. Sam and Anita, respec-
tively, know that the slime and Anna do not
exist, hence Sam knows that the slime does not
really endanger him, and Anita knows that
Anna does not really suffer; so how can they
have the beliefs necessary for fear and pity?
Among those who take the above objection as
decisive and thereforehold that Sam and Anita
experienceno emotion, the most sophisticatedis
Kendall Walton. His account is this:' an emo-
tion consists of beliefs that cause one to have
certain sensations (I think that is correct); the
latter Walton calls "quasi-emotion." For in-
stance, the sensation caused by beliefs that the
believeris in dangeris quasi-fear,thatcausedby
believing that a victim deserves help is quasi-
pity, etc. Waltonwould thereforesay that(in the
above examples) Sam and Anita experience
quasi-fear and quasi-pity,but not fear and pity.
However,Sam and Anita play a game of make-
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism54:1 Winter 1996
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believe in which quasi-fear or quasi-pity are
used as props: there is a rule in that game that
these sensations count as fear or pity, just as a
tree stump may count as a bear in some chil-
dren'sgame. The full accountis that Sam
experiencesquasi fear as a resultof realizingthatfic-
tionally the slime threatenshim. This makes it fic-
tional thathis quasi fear is caused by a belief thatthe
slime poses a danger, and hence that he fears the
slime. (p. 245)
Let "Fic(p)"abbreviate"it is fictional thatp,"
"Bp"-"Sam believes that p," "s"- "the slime
threatensSam," and "r"-"Sam is afraid." Let
italicizing be a name-forming device (p is the
state that p), "C(x,y)"-"x causes y," and "q"-
"aquasi-fearof Sam." Walton'sanalysis is then
this:
1. Fic(Bs) Ass.
2. C[Fic(Bs),q] Ass.
3. Fic[C(Bs,q)] 2, importation
4. 0 [C(Bs,q) - r] Def.
5. Fic(r) 3,4
In words:
1. Fictionally,Sam believes that the slime
threatenshim.
2. That belief causes Sam to feel quasi-fear.
3. Fictionally,Sam'sbelief thatthe slime threat-
ens him causes him to feel quasi-fear.
4. Necessarily, if Sam's belief that the slime
threatenshim causes him to feel quasi-fear,
Sam is afraid.
5. Fictionally,Sam is afraid.
That is an ingenious account,but in orderfor it
42
to work, the transitionfrom (2) to (3) must be
sanctioned by importation:If Fic(p) causes q,
then Fic(p causes q). But that rule is invalid.
Since "Fic(p)" is, "in some game, p" suppose
thatI advise Karpovto sacrificea bishopin some
chess game. If he uses my advice he will pay
me, so, I believe that if Karpov will sacrifice a
bishop, I shall make money:
6. B I [Fic(sacrifice) - I make money]
Does
7. Fic rB(sacrifice) - I make money]
(in words: fictionally, if I believe that Karpov
will sacrifice a bishop I shall make money) fol-
low? Not at all. The sacrificeof a bishop is fic-
tional, but my making money is real, not fic-
tional. Furthermore,it is false thatto make that
money I only need to believe that a bishop will
be sacrificed. The importationrule is therefore
invalid.
Does (5) follow from(3) and (4)?Onlythrough
this rule: If Fic(p) and 0 (p - q), then Fic(q).
But that rule, too, is not valid: to sacrifice a
bishop is to commit murder;fictionally, Karpov
sacrifices a bishop. Does it follow that, fiction-
ally, he commits murder? Of course not. Fur-
ther: since Waltontakes Fic( p) as an injunction
to imagine that p, the said rule requiresthat in
readingAlice in Wonderlandwe imagine every-
thing. That is absurd.
Suppose that we forego the argumentand ac-
cept (5) as an axiom. Can it explain why Sam
and Anita behave in the way they do? No, be-
cause it is much too easy for "Fic(x)"to be true.
Moving a finger can count in some game as
being Fic(afraid), so how can it explain Sam's
frantic behavior? Fic(fear) and Fic(pity) may
be true of Sam and Anita in virtue of Sam blow-
ing his nose and Anita holding a book.2 Noth-
ing is explained by the suggested axiom that
quasi-emotion is to count as emotion; hence, it
is redundant. Contrastthat with a genuine ex-
planationby referenceto rules of a game: we ex-
plain why Karpov behaves as he does (moves
a piece of wood on a board) by citing rules of
chess; his behavior is guided by its role in the
game. Nothing similartakes place with Sam and
Anita: thereis nothingthatthey do becausetheir
quasi-emotionscount as emotions in a game.
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The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
Waltonmay be awareof thatobjection, for he
says (p. 252) thatwhatcountsas Fic(fear)should
naturallyincline us to count it as Fic(fear). Yet
thatconditionis neverfulfilled! It is well known
that the sensations we have when in a given
emotional state are not specific to that emotion,
so it is implausiblethathaving some such sensa-
tion would incline you to count yourself as fic-
tionally afraidor pitying. Feeling warm all over
(a feeling you also have when in love) does not
incline you to take it as fictionally being in love,
nor do you naturallytake a chest pain as fic-
tional pity. One may stipulatethat this is what
those sensationscount as, but that is irrelevant.
Walton may answer that in addition to the
quasi-emotion,we also have the fictional belief.
Although Sam does not believe that the slime is
about to attack him, it is true that Fic(Sam be-
lieves the slime is aboutto attackhim); that and
the quasi-fear inclines Sam to make the quasi-
fear count as Fic(fear). I reply that having such
Fic( belief ) is again trivial:my sitting may count
as my Fic(believing the slime is aboutto attack
me). Fic(believes that p) may be attributedto
anything at all, so it cannot explain Sam's ap-
parentfear. Further,whatcountshere as Fic(be-
lieving that the slime is aboutto attack)? What
prop Sam uses to standfor thatbelief? Perhaps,
beliefs aboutspots on the screen:their size, vir-
tualmotion, etc. But, while watchingthe movie,
Sam has no beliefs about spots on the screen!
Are these beliefs unconscious? If so, how can
Sam use them as props to generate fictional
beliefs? And is he aware of the rules that are
needed to convert his beliefs about the screen
into fictional beliefs aboutthe slime? All these
objections suggest that Walton'singenious sug-
gestion fails.
Other writers admit that we have genuine
emotional reactions when we encounter fic-
tional beings, but claim that the objects we so
reactto are not fictional; rather,they are real be-
ings that resemble the fictional ones in certain
respects; thus, reading Warand Peace Nat be-
lieves he is in love with Natasha,but the real ob-
ject of his love are real women who resemble
her.3 Thatview, however,is counterintuitive.In
cases of repression and self-denial one may
think one loves a though it is really b that one
loves, but most of us are not so out of touch with
our feelings as not to know who it is that we
love. How was Nat so deluded? If he does not
Zemach Emotionand Fictional Beings
love Natasha,does he think of her? It is prepos-
terous to suggest that when Nat pictures Na-
tasha, calls out her name, etc., he really loves
women who possess her traits:how can Nat love
millions of women he has never met? Perhaps
whatNat loves is not Natashabut her traitsonly.
But who can love a list of traits? Indeed, it is
due to her traits that he loves Natasha, but, as
with real people, it is the person that Nat loves,
not her traits. The same is true of Sam and the
slime: what Sam fears is the slime (he points at
it: that is what he fears!), not some real monster
that resembles it. First, no such monstersexist;
but even if there were some in jungles, Sam has
no reason to fear them!4
Unlike the above-mentioned writers, Colin
Radford5admitsthatwe do emotionallyreactto
nonexistent beings, but contends that our reac-
tion is thereforeirrational:Sam knows that the
slime does not exist and hence that he is in no
danger;since nonethelesshe is afraid,he is irra-
tional. Nat is also irrationalsince he knows that
Natashais an imaginarybeing and yet he falls in
love with her. The aesthetician therefore has
a dilemma:either hold that we are rationaland
concludethatwe do not emotionallyreactto fic-
tional beings, or else acceptthatwe do emotion-
ally reactto nonexistentsand then conclude that
we are irrational.
I reject both horns of the dilemma: fictional
beings do move us, I say, which implies that we
hold the relevant beliefs about them (that they
are in danger, that they endanger us, etc.), yet
having those beliefs is perfectly rational. How
can thatbe?
II
An artwork,I maintain, makes statementsthat
are true at some possible worlds;a world where
all the statements expressed and implied by a
given work are true I call a target-worldof that
work.6 Merely possible worlds do not exist:
only the real world exists; thus, the world in
which AnnaKareninaoccurs (note:not "exists";
only things in the real world exist, and Anna
does not occurin the realworld) is a nonexistent.
Yetthe statement'Anna threw herself underthe
train"is true at that world. A world that does
not exist may yet be imaginedor envisaged, and
through envisaging such worlds, we may be
moved by events that occur in them.
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43
I attribute truth-value to token-sentences,
maintainingthat a token-sentenceis true if and
only if the statementit expresses is true in the
world(s) in which it is intendedto be evaluated.7
Thus most tokens of 'Anna Karenina loved
Vronski,"being intended for evaluation in the
target-worldsof Anna Karenina,are true, while
for that reason most tokens of 'Anna Karenina
marriedVronski"arefalse. Those who coin to-
kens of these sentences mean them to be evalu-
ated in the target-worlds of Tolstoy's Anna
Karenina,and in these worldsAnnaloved Vron-
ski but did not marry him. Statements about
nonexistentsare true or false, since their tokens
are true or false in intendedworlds (usually,the
target-worldsof some artwork).
Otto hates lago; he hates lago because he be-
lieves that Jago is a villain, and that belief is
strictly true, for in the target worlds of Othello,
where Otto means his token-belief to be evalu-
ated, lago is a villain. Hating a villain and pity-
ing an innocent victim is not irrational;on the
contrary, that is the proper reaction to have.
lago's nonexistencedoes not lessen his villainy,
and Anna's innocence is not compromised by
her fictionality. Since the sentence "lago is a
villain" is true, lago should be hated; what bet-
ter reason is there for hating someone than his
being a villain? The view, that strictly speaking
Jago is not a villain, is based on the error that
nonexistentshave no properties. But if lago has
no properties, how can we make any sense of
Othello? If we discoverthat AR, the atomic re-
actor we were aboutto build, is unsafe, and we
decide not to build it, the sentence 'AR is un-
safe" is true, though AR does not exist. If it is
false, there is no reason not to build AR! If you
prevent a murder, the event you prevented,
which does not exist, is a murder. If it is not a
murder,why preventit?8Thus, Otto'sbelief that
Jago is a villain is true, and Otto should hate
Jago. Not to react emotionally to a loathsome
person such as Jagois a flaw of character.
III
If Sam is afraidof the slime, why does he not es-
cape? If Anita pities Anna, why does she not try
to help her? One reason is that for rational
adults,emotion is nevera cause of action;rather,
it gives one a reasonto act in a certainway. Rea-
sons are weighed againstotherreasons:they are
44
defeasible, so emotion need not lead to action.
A given emotion makes a certain course of ac-
tion seem appropriateto those who experience
the emotion. For instance, love makes you con-
sider a certain gift, which otherwise you would
have considered excessive, appropriate;anger
makes you see attackinga person you perceive
as an offenderan eminentlyjustified action, etc.
But rationalagents do not embarkupon a course
of action, no matter how justified, unless they
have a reason to believe that their action has a
chance of bringingaboutthe desired result, and
unless they believe that other considerationsdo
not annulthe initial justification for that action.
Emotion causes an action to seem prima facie
justified to one, butjustification is defeasible.
That a justification is defeated does not indi-
cate that there was none to start with; quite the
contrary. A rightcan be waived and a justifica-
tion defeated; defeasiblity is essential to justi-
fication. Anna Karenina is truly miserable, so
Anita'spity for her is appropriate.Thatpity does
justify Anita's helping Anna, but thatjustifica-
tion is defeated by the fact that Anna does not
exist. It could be defeated by other circum-
stances as well, e.g., had Anna lived too far
away for Anita to come to her aid. Anita has a
good reason to help Anna (she needs help),but a
betterreasonto do nothing. Events in other star
systems, in the past, and in otherpossible worlds
should not lead to action, not because they do
not constitute a primafacie justification for ac-
tion, but since the prima facie justification of
that action is defeated. Again: It is true that
Anna Kareninadeserves to be helped. Karenin,
Anna's husband, and Vronski, her lover, are
truly contemptible because they could have
helped Anna but did not. Anita, on the other
hand, cannot help Anna. Anita exists, Anna
does not exist, and in reality,the twain shallnever
meet.
Sam's fear justifies his taking certain action,
say, escape. Should he escape? That depends
on whetherthe justification is overriddenor not.
It is overridden,for example, if Sam has a duty
to stay despite the danger,or if runningonly ex-
acerbates the danger. The justification for es-
caping is also defeated if Sam knows that, al-
though the slime is dangerous, it does not
endanger him. One reason for that can be that
the slime does not exist; in that case running
away is silly. To be afraidis to see one's state as
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primafacie justifying escape, but if the justifi-
cation of flight is defeated, then, for rational
people, no flight ensues.
The justificationis genuine. Annaneeds help,
and Jagoshouldbe stopped;unless thatis so the
stories in question make no sense. What Jago
does is wrong, which implies that he should not
be allowed to do it. However, we are exempt
from acting on that obligation, since Jago is not
real, and there is nothing in reality we can do to
stop him in Othello's target-worlds;so we just
sit back, let ourselves be engulfed, as Aristotle
noted, by fear and pity, and since we can do
nothing about it, enjoy the complexities of the
enfolding action.
Whethera person is in a remote place in real-
ity or in anotherpossible world, makes no dif-
ferencefor most practicalmatters. The only dif-
ference that I see in practice between the two
cases has to do with a moral issue: real persons
have some moral claims on us that unrealones
do not. What I mean is this: being dramaticis
a major aesthetic virtue, but, necessarily, all
drama involves suffering and violence. Disas-
ters and calamities appeal to us, strife and con-
flict have a high aesthetic value; the problem
with enjoying outright is the moral aspect in-
volved: it seems morallywrong to enjoy the suf-
fering of others, even if we can do nothing to
help them. (Yet that did not stop people from
flocking to watchgladiatorfights and public ex-
ecutions.) With fiction, that moral objection is
muted, since we know that the subjects have
neverexisted, so we let ourselveswatchtheirtri-
als and tribulationswith relativeequanimityand
enjoy the dramaof it.
The fact thatStalincan cause no moreharm-
he is dead-is a reason against trying to stop
him but not a good reason against hating him;
thata personyou love dies is not, in and of itself,
a reasonto stop loving him. Similarly,Nat's true
belief thatNatashais charmingjustifies his love
for her, which gives him a primafacie justifica-
tion to courther,butthatjustificationis defeated
by his true belief that Natasha is not in the real
world.
IV
Otto believes that lago is a villain and does not
believe that Jago is not a villain. Sam, on the
other hand, believes that the slime endangers
Zemach Emotionand Fictional Beings
him but also believes the slime does not endan-
ger him at all. Does that mean that Sam is irra-
tional? Can rational people have contradictory
beliefs? There is a good reason to think they
cannot: avoiding contradictionis a mark of ra-
tionality. Rational people decide on actions in
light of their beliefs: if I believe that it will rain,
I do A, and if I believe that it will not rain, I do
not do A. So what should I do if I believe that it
will rain and thatit will not rain? No action can
be indicated. Yet, obviously, we all hold some
contradictorybeliefs; e.g., we may believe that
p, and that q, failing to see that in fact "p" im-
plies "not-q."
One may remove this difficulty by denying
thatbelief is closed undermodusponens, thatis,
by denyingthat(Bp & Bp-q) implies Bq. If we
do not attributeto one all thatfollows from one's
beliefs, having contradictory beliefs does not
imply believing everything, that is, B(p&not-p)
would not imply B(q). Then one may be said to
believe a contradictionwithoutthatrequiringus
to say that he believes every proposition what-
soever.9
I cannotacceptthis. Modusponens is the hall-
mark of rationality;a belief system that is not
closed under modus ponens is not rational. If
Jane believes that she has 10 dollars, and that
10>5, then we insist that if she is rational, she
also believes that she has more than 5 dollars.
Whatsanctionsthatconclusionis modusponens,
and thereforethe rule (Bp & Bp-q) - Bq is
valid. To disallow it is to forego all rationality.
Does this imply thatwe are rationallyperfect,
knowing, e.g., all the truths of arithmetic? No.
My solution is that systems of belief are closed
under modus ponens, but (as I argue else-
where)10 a person has more than one such sys-
tem, more than one belief dossier (the latter
term is due to Grice). To use modusponens all
the premises must be mutually accessible; they
must all be in one dossier. If they are not, if
when one premiseoccurs to you the otherselude
you, deduction cannot take place. (As in rele-
vance logic, inference is valid only from identi-
cally indexed premises.) Modusponens across
epistemic dossiers is invalid just as it is invalid
across persons: if I believe that p, and you be-
lieve that p-q, none of us need believe that q;
that is not irrationality.That holds for conjunc-
tion, too: (Bp & Bq) imply Bp&q only if both
are in the same dossier. If they are not, one may
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45
hold that p, and that q, but not that p&q. Thus,
thoughI believe Peano'saxioms, I do not believe
all the truths of arithmetic,for if the results of
these axioms are lodged in distinct files, no fur-
ther deductionensues.
Joe owns a few shares;when the marketgoes
up he is glad, since he has shares;when the mar-
ket goes down he is glad since he practicallyhas
no shares. Does Joe believe thathe bothhas and
does not have shares? No; the belief that he
owns sharesand the belief thathe has almostno
sharesare lodged in distinctdossiers. Such dou-
ble-think is very common; our beliefs are not
entirely integrated,and we are better off for it.
Usually, one dossier is dominant, and a person
mostly acts on the beliefs in it, yet since the
human mind is not a perfectly unified system,
other dossiers have their field day, too. When
Sam sees the slime his dominantbelief dossier
contains the belief that he is not in danger,and
hence it motivateshis staying in the theater,but
the thrill comes from the fact that another
dossiercontains a belief thathe is in danger,and
the fear and panic it calls forth are acutely felt,
tasted, and enjoyed for their aesthetic quality.
Research in neurology, psychiatry, toxicology,
studies of hypnosis, and linguistics all indicate
thata personhas more thanone belief processor.
Cases of corpuscallosumcommissurotomy,dis-
sociation, aphasias, psychoanalytic studies of
hysteria,dreams,and grammarof primarypro-
cesses also point to the fact that the mind is
modular, having many semi-independentcen-
ters of belief acquisition whose methods differ
and whose outputsmay be mutuallyincompati-
ble.11 Were we unitary souls ratherthan com-
plex beings with more thanone system of belief,
we could not haveused distinctbelief centersfor
aesthetic profit.
In the following, I shall name a belief whose
content is that p, "b[p]." Now, if Joe has both
b[p] and b[q], I claim that he has the belief
b[p&q] as well, only if b[p] and b[q] are in the
same dossier in his mind. Similarly,if b[p] and
b[p-q] are not lodged in one dossier,Joe need
not have b[q]; etc. Like sheep, beliefs procreate
only if put in the same enclosure.
One reason why a person should have more
thanone belief dossieris economy.Beliefs come
in droves: when one is called to mind a host of
otherstrail it, and it is wasteful to have each be-
lief call all others to mind. So if the belief b[p]
46
is not accessed when the belief b[q] comes to
mind, one may fail to see an argumentfrom q to
r for which b[p] is a needed premise. Another
reasonfor havingmultipledossiers is thatnot all
truthsare good for us to believe. I think Freud
was rightto hold thatwe have a belief-detecting
mechanismthatspots beliefs which, given one's
extantbeliefs, are harmfulto one, and putsthem
in a differentdossier. Furthermore,if the censor
detects thatb[q] is harmfulto me, given my hav-
ing b[p], it can put b[p] and b[p-q] in different
doxastic dossiers so as to preventtheir generat-
ing b[q]. Then, thoughI have b[p] and b[p-q]
separately,I do not have b[p&(p-q)]. The lat-
ter belief would indeed cause (by modus po-
nens) the belief b[q], but I avoid having it with-
out giving up either b[p] or b[p-q] if those
beliefs are in distinct dossiers.
Self-deception is a glaringexample of that
strategy:Janeholds b[p], a belief abouther hus-
band's behavior; she also is rationalenough to
hold b[p-q], when "q"is the proposition that
her husband has a lover, yet she does not hold
b[q], i.e., Jane deceives herself. How is this
done? An internal mechanism deems b[q] too
stressful for Jane to hold, so it puts b[p] and
b[p-q] in distinct dossiers. Thatstrategyis not
irrational;if the choice is between Jane'sbreak-
ing down and herbeliefs lacking deductivecom-
pleteness, it may be rationalto sacrifice the lat-
ter. It may be rationalto hold logical acumenin
check.
The two beliefs b[p] and b[not-p]may be due
to two reliable belief-forming devices. If S can
ill-afford to discard either device, S may keep
both beliefs, separately.It is rationalto adoptan
epistemic stratagem that usually leads to true
beliefs at the cost of acquiring some false be-
liefs, too. It is rationalto keep incompatiblebe-
liefs if the loss of either one of them is greater
than the harmdone by keeping them apart. One
may hold a falsity as a precaution (e.g., set a
watch to runfast) or to affect the result(e.g., not
lose hope).
Thousands of years of hard-gained experi-
ence taught us to trust our eyes and believe vi-
sual data. We have an epistemic rule that what
we see is in our vicinity; if it bodes ill we think
we musttend to it, in fight or in flight. Thatrule
leads to many false beliefs; for example, the
stars we see are not in our immediate vicinity,
and some of them ceased to exist long ago. Is it
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rational,then, to discardthatrule? No, for most
of the things we see are near us, and our life de-
pends on promptreactionto them. If I deliber-
ate whetherwhat I see is or is not in the vicinity,
by the time deliberationends, it may be too late
to act. The belief that seen events occur in the
neighborhoodis therefore set deep and is very
hard to dislodge, even though it conflicts with
other beliefs. Generally, we learn best about
things thatarerelevantto us; it is a featureof our
survival-orientedlearning strategy. So, if you
have informationaboutsomething, you may as-
sume that it is relevantto you. Thatbelief too is
usually,but not always, true.
Sam, who sees the green slime on the screen,
has informationaboutit, and hence he acquires
the belief thatthe slime is in front of him. Con-
sequently,he is afraid. By reading a novel one
gets to know in greatdetail the worldit portrays,
and thus also the belief thatthe describedevents
take place in one's proximity,thatone is present
in that world, whetherin one's own personaor
in the persona of one of the protagonists. Be-
lieving one is in that world, it is rationalfor one
to react to it emotionally:love one protagonist,
hate and fear another. To avoid contradictions,
however, these beliefs are placed in a dossier
other than the one where one has one's beliefs
aboutthe real world.
Some emotions aboutnonexistentsare caused
by true beliefs: Anna is indeed innocent, so she
should be pitied, and lago is a villain, so it is
right to hate him. But not all these beliefs are
true: Sam's belief that the slime is about to at-
tack him in realityand Otto'sbelief thathe him-
self is Othello are false. Usually, in such cases,
one also holds the true opposite beliefs: Sam
also believes that the slime poses no danger to
him, and Otto believes that he is not Othello.
But these true beliefs do not expunge their op-
posites. Sam holds the true belief b[p] and the
false belief b[not-p], but not the absurdbelief
b[p&not-p].
V
Thereremains,however,one problemaboutthe
rationalityof emotionalreactionthatis basedon
false beliefs, for some of those beliefs seem nec-
essarily false. It is true, in the movie's target-
worlds, thatthe slime feeds on humanflesh; but
Zemach Emotionand Fictional Beings
I think that the statement that the slime has
come to the real world and is now threatening
Sam is not only false but also impossible. It is
impossible for a denizen of one world to leave
its world and visit another. The slime can cross
the interworldchasm and show up in reality no
more thanthe numberfive can become the num-
ber six. But if it is necessarily false that the
slime attacksSam, and that Nat meets Natasha,
and that Anita helps Anna, because these sce-
narios call for interworldtravel,then Sam, Nat,
and Anita are irrational,for they wish for, and
believe, what is impossible. That means that
some emotional reactions to fictional beings
are, after all, irrational.
Some philosophers, most notably Planti-
nga,'2 do not share my misgivings aboutinter-
world commerce;they talk as if Anna-in-Wihas
possibilities of her own. I think that this is ab-
surd. Only things (Napoleon, Anna Karenina,
etc.) have possibilities, not their possibilities,
i.e., their occurrencesin worlds (Napoleon-in-
reality,Anna-in-Wi,etc.). Consideran analogy:
Jane ages; she is ten years old in 1953 and sixty
years old in 2003. Her 1953-temporal-partcan-
not age, however:that is not because it remains
foreveryoung, but because temporalpartsexpli-
cate what aging is, so they cannothave temporal
properties of their own. Likewise, intraworld
beings have no possibilities of their own, for
they explicate what it is for things to have possi-
bilities. The ability of a thing to be otherthan it
is in reality is its occurrence in many possible
worlds;thus, an occurrenceof it in a world can-
not occur in yet another world: possibilities
have no possibilities.
My answerto the question aboutSam's ratio-
nality is that, appearancesto the contrary,the
above scenariosdo not call for interworldtravel
and hence are, after all, quite possible. In usual
(not Lewis's) possible world semantics,individ-
uals occur in many worlds, so real individuals
such as Nat and Sam inhabit not only the real
world but also countless otherworlds, and given
my semanticsas outlined above,the same is true
of nonexistentindividuals. Natasha,too, inhab-
its many worlds other than the target-worldsof
Warand Peace, and the slime inhabits worlds
other than the worlds that satisfy the horror
movie that Sam is watching. Now Nat does not
inhabit any of War and Peace's target-worlds
(he is neithermentionednor implied in the text
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47
of Warand Peace), so he cannot meet Natasha
there, but Natasha occurs in other worlds too,
for she has possibilities that are not realized in
the Warand Peace target-worlds. For example,
in the Warand Peace target-worldsshe is en-
gaged to Prince Andreibut does not marryhim,
yet she could have married him. So, in other
worlds, she does marryhim. In some such non-
target possible worlds Nat and Natashado both
occur, in some of them they meet, and in some
of those they, yes, fall in love. So Nat does not
wish for the logically impossible: it is possible
that he meets Natasha.The same is true of Sam
and the slime: the slime need not come to the
real world to attackSam, for there is a possible
world where both it and Sam occur and where
it does-how horrible-attack Sam. Similarly,
Anita does, in some possible world, manage to
comfort Anna Karenina and save her from
death. There is even a world where all of the
above meet and party merrily:they need no in-
terworldtravelfor that.
VI
Some medical researcherswere braveenoughto
test their hypotheses on themselves: to investi-
gate an illness, to observe its course and find
how to cure it, they had themselves infected
with the malady and then took the would-be
cure. In letting art into our lives we do some-
thing similar: we examine worlds in which the
events describedin artworkstake place and let
these eventsmove us. Thus, an artworkis an ex-
perimentaldevice: we use it to learn aboutour-
selves by emotionally reacting to what it de-
scribes.
By emotionally respondingto the events that
satisfy a given work of art we do severalthings
at a time. First, we supplythe work with a run-
ning interpretation.A workis betterunderstood
if what it talks aboutis present, so we show the
semanticvalue of the workby producing,on the
spot, some of the things, i.e., the emotions, it is
about.Second, we test the work'sveracity,hence
its significance to us; you believe the artist that
a given situationhas emotionalqualityF if upon
watching that situation you feel that emotion
yourself. Third, empathy(co-feeling) is needed
for the very existence of human society; learn-
ing at first hand what people feel in a given sit-
uation is a basic componentin one's social edu-
48
cation. Fourth, it enriches our lives; the new
emotions we experiencedue to envisaging a new
kind of situation through art is an adventure,a
valuablenovelty.Thus, art is importantfor what
Flauberthas called L'educationsentimentaleof
a person.
EDDY M. ZEMACH
Departmentof Philosophy
The HebrewUniversityof Jerusalem
Jersusalem,Israel91905
INTERNET: MSEDDY@PLUTO.MSCC.HUJI.AC.IL
1. Kendall Walton, Mimesis as Make-Believe (Harvard
UniversityPress, 1990), pp. 240-289.
2. Waltonsays (p. 251) thatfictionally detesting lago may
be generated by quasi-hate, but that is trivial: Fic(detests
lago) may be generatedby anything whatsoever!
3. See Michael Weston,"HowCan We Be Moved By The
Fate Of Anna Karenina?,"Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society SupplementaryVolume49 (1975): 81-93. Barrie
Paskins ("On Being Moved By Anna Karenina and Anna
Karenina,"Philosophy 52 [1977]: 344-347) concurs: we
feel "pityfor those people if any who are in the same bind as
the character."William Charlton,in "Feelings for the Ficti-
tious," British Journal of Aesthetics 24 (1984): 206-216
says: "The analysis of 'We feel for Anna' which I am pro-
posing here is not that we categorically pity hypothetical
persons; it is that we hypothetically desire to benefit real
persons. Our state of mind is expressible by, 'If any of my
friends has a husbandlike Kareninor a lover like Vronski,
would that I might be able to help her."'Also see Don Man-
nison, "OnBeing Moved by Fiction,"Philosophy60 (1985):
71-87.
4. Bijoy H. Boruah, in his Fiction and Emotion:A Study
in Aesthetics and the Philosophyof Mind (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1988), claims that the emotion we experience is
real but our putativebeliefs aboutfictional beings are insin-
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism
cere, not genuine beliefs. But if Anita does not sincerely be-
lieve that Anna Kareninais a victim she cannot pity Anna;
her feeling is then also insincere. I can pity you only if I
think you are really hurt;if I fake believing you are hurtmy
show of pity is a fake, too.
5. Colin Radford,"How Can We Be Moved By The Fate
of Anna Karenina?,"Proceedingsof the AristotelianSociety
SupplementaryVolume49 (1975): 67-80, and several later
publications.
6. Thus, in all target-worldsof Anna Karenina,Anna her-
self (not someone else who is similar to her!) has all the
propertiesthat the said work imputesto her.For details, see
my "Existence and Nonexistents," Erkenntnis 39 (1993):
145-166.
7. In modal talk the subjunctivemood indicates that the
sentence is to be evaluatedin a world otherthanthe realone;
in storiesthatis contextuallyunderstood.Thatis the case for
most token sentences. Thus, distinct tokens of "theking is a
fool" have differenttruthvalues, for it is contextuallyunder-
stood at whatindexes (time, place, world) it is meantto hold.
8. For more on the propertiesof nonexistentssee my "Ex-
istence and Nonexistents."
9. In Philosophical Explanations (Harvard University
Press, 1981), pp. 172-178, 197-227, RobertNozick shows
that knowledge is not deductively closed either: Kp and
K(p-*q) do not imply Kq. JonathanDancy (Introductionto
ContemporaryEpistemology [Oxford: Blackwell, 1985])
agrees but says (p. 11) that deductive closure of Justified
Belief is more acceptable.That is clearly wrong:if I have 20
beliefs, each of which is 90% justified, their conclusion is
only 10.9%justified, i.e., hardlyjustified at all.
10. In "TransparentBelief," AustralasianJournalof Phi-
losophy 60 (1982): 55-65.
11. An ample bibliographyof studiesof the modularityof
the conscious mind, from connectionism to psychiatry,can
take a whole volume. For a good but outdatedbibliography
on the split-brainissue see CharlesE. Marks,Commissuro-
tomy,Consciousness,and Unityof Mind (MIT Press, 1980).
I discussed the multi-centerednessof the mind in "Uncon-
scious Mind or Conscious Minds?,"MidwestStudiesin Phi-
losophy 10 (1986): 120-148.
12. Alvin Plantinga, The Nature of Necessity (Oxford:
ClarendonPress, 1974).