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What’s Low Mood All About? An Indicative-Imperative Account of Low Mood’s Content

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2025

James Turner Open the ORCID record for James Turner [Opens in a new window]
James Turner*
Affiliation:
Associate Researcher, Hang Seng Centre for Cognitive Studies, Humanities Research Institute, University of Sheffield, Sheffield
*
Email: jrturner1711@gmail.com
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Abstract

Does low mood have intentional content? If so, what is it? Philosophers have tried to answer both questions by appealing to low mood’s phenomenal character. However, appeals to phenomenology have not settled this debate. Thus, I take a different approach: I tackle both questions by examining low mood’s complex functional role in cognition. I argue that if we take this role into account, we have excellent reason to believe that low mood (a) has content, and (b) has the following indicative-imperative content: Good events are, on average, less likely to occur than bad events and limit [the subject’s] resource expenditure!

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Article
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Philosophy of Science , Volume 92 , Issue 4 , October 2025 , pp. 807 - 826
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association

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