Magda Arnold's Thomistic theory of emotion, the self-ideal, and the moral dimension of appraisal

Abstract

Magda Arnold is recognised as one of the pioneers of modern cognitive approaches to the study of emotion. Indeed, her definition of appraisal is still employed more or less unchanged by many researchers. Somewhat less well known is Arnold's broader theory of emotion, personality, and human development that formed the context for her ideas about appraisal. In this paper, I examine the influence of the psychology of Thomas Aquinas on Arnold's thinking about appraisal, emotion, the self and self-actualisation. I then critique current conceptions of appraisal in the light of her ideas about emotion and the person. I end with a plea to broaden our conception of what constitutes a moral emotion.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Joan Arnold for her very gracious assistance in supplying me with information about her mother's life and for granting me permission to publish quotations from her mother's autobiographical essay. Although any mistakes and distortions are, of course, mine, this paper would not have been possible without her help. I would also like to thank Stephanie Shields for so kindly putting me in touch with Joan Arnold and for her enormous help and encouragement on this project more generally. Many thanks also to Arvid Kappas and Karen Gasper for their insightful comments and fine suggestions.

Notes

I make no apologies for the pun, but must confess that it is not mine. Ralph McInerny uses it as the subtitle of his introduction to Aquinas’ thought (McInerny, 1990) and reports that the epithet “Peeping Thomist” was first applied to Mortimer Adler by Time Magazine.

²In developing my summary of Aquinas’ psychology, I have drawn on various parts of the Summa Theologica (trans. 1977) especially the First Part, “Treatise on Man”, Questions 75 through 84, and the Second Part, Part 1, “Treatise on Human Acts”, “Of the Passions Which are Acts Common to Man and other Animals”, Questions 22, 23, 30 and 40. I have also made use of summaries and commentaries by Dixon (2003), McInerny (1990), Kenny (1993), Fitzpatrick (1987) and Averill's (1976) brief but extremely lucid introduction to Aquinas on mind.

³Aquinas’ work is referred to as the “Thomistic synthesis” because he synthesised Aristotelian thought with the Christian doctrine of the Church Fathers.

⁴Notice how this differs from the determinism of Freud's concept of identification (see Freud, 1922/1959, Chapter VII). Although the “unwittingly” qualification leaves room for unconscious influence, it is clear that, for Arnold, a person's choices in life are made much more consciously than Freud would ever allow.

⁵I thank Arvid Kappas for pointing this out to me.

⁶I thank Arvid Kappas for suggesting I consider these questions.

⁷For an example of this in American history, see Jonathan Edwards’ 1741 sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (Edwards, 1992).