Work packages

WP1 - Value, valence and polarity: conceptual groundwork

Will provide the necessary theoretical and conceptual tools that will help addressing the empirical issues addressed in the other work packages, and, fostered by the results that we expect to obtain, will put forward a novel proposal that articulates the relationship between valence and value, underscores a deeper structural asymmetry between positive and negative value, and explains the interplay between valence and polarity in language.

WP2 - Valence asymmetries in linguistic interpretation and communication

will address a series of intertwined phenomena that involve antonym pairs exhibiting strong valence effects, such as "good"/"bad" or "generous"/"selfish". We will look, among other, at the asymmetry of negation (viz. inferring more easily that something is bad by being told that it is not good than that it is good by being told that it isn't bad), the asymmetry in scalar inferences (viz. inferring more easily that something is not excellent by being told that it is good, than that it is not horrible by being told that it is bad), and at the evaluative implicatures triggered by thick moral and aesthetic terms. 

WP3 - Asymmetries between the Good and the Evil: a viewpoint from moral psychology

brings together research from psychology and experimental philosophy with moral theory, with the aim of understanding moral condition. In particular, we will address the asymmetries between virtue and vice from the viewpoint of the Density Hypothesis, which suggests that positive information is more uniform while negative information is more diverse, and will bring this to bear on judgment about moral responsibility.

 WP4 - Valence reversals

explores a variety of phenomena in which an event, a statement, or an emotional state, shifts from its habitual valence to the opposite valence. The focus will be on the paradox of negative emotions (viz. how something tragic or horrifying gives rise to positive aesthetic evaluations), but we will also look at slurs reclamation (a derogatory term reappropriated to acquire a positive use) as well as irony.