Justification of an ethics of emotions within the framework of Solomon's cognitive theory of emotions

Robert C. Solomon is one of the most important representatives of contemporary philosophy of emotion. Solomon, who argued that emotions are cognitively based, criticized the negative and prejudiced views attributed to emotions in philosophy while putting forward the cognitivist theory of emotions. Although Solomon based his own grounding of emotion on cognitivist elements, in time he accepted the idea that emotions also include affective elements and shaped his future project of ethics of emotion. With this project, Solomon focuses on the relationship between emotions and ethics in the context of the good life, arguing that emotions should be part of ethics. With emotions we structure our self and our life. The life we structure with emotions is not independent from our social life and the social identity we structure within this life. According to Solomon, one must adapt not only to one's own life but also to the lives of others. According to Solomon, who grounds the ethics of emotion project with the concept of "emotional integrity", this concept encompasses the entirety of human emotional life as it includes all cognitive processes as well as feelings. A good and happy life, including emotional integrity, is a life that includes problems and conflicts, but in which people are able to manage these conflicts wisely. In this thesis, before grounding Solomon's cognitive emotion theory, the traditional views of emotion that form the background for his theory are included. Thus, the criteria by which Solomon analyzed his own theory of emotion were examined. Based on the ethics of emotion project in question, an evaluation was made on Solomon's concepts of good and virtuous life. In this respect, it is aimed to discuss the possibility of an ethics of emotions by examining the ethical and political structures of emotions.