Toward a Theory of Emotional Attachment

Monique Wonderly
Philosophy
UC Riverside

Monique Wonderly’s dissertation identifies what she calls “security-based attachment” as a philosophically neglected, yet is a rich and ubiquitous emotional phenomenon. She develops an account of its nature, functions, and ethics. Wonderly argues that security-based attachment involves a peculiar sense of well-being (felt security) that distinguishes it from related phenomena such as emotion-laden desire and caring. She then suggest that, owing to this sense of well-being, security-based attachment plays integral roles in how we view the world and interact with it: roles in structuring our agency and guiding our moral deliberation and action. Finally, in exploring the dynamic interplay between certain ethical demands and the emotional ties that bind us, she discusses how attachment relationships might be constitutive of, or inimical to, values that define a flourishing moral life.