Fiction, Emotion, and Recalcitrance

This paper investigates the normative asymmetry between recalcitrant emotions – emotions that conflict with our judgments – and emotional responses to fiction. While the former generate normative tension, the latter do not, but given their structural similarities, this asymmetry is surprising. We argue that the difference arises from the compartmentalization of emotion within imaginative contexts. Drawing on the concept of a cancellation context, we propose that the norm of emotional correctness is suspended when emotions remain compartmentalized. This framework accounts for both the permissibility of fiction-directed emotions (as compared to recalcitrant emotions) and their occasional spillover into real-world normativity.