1 Responding emotionally to fictions Stephen Davies, Philosophy, University of Auckland Important note: This is a final draft and differs from the definitive version, which is published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 67 (2009): 269-284. I have been assured by the University of Auckland's research office that if they have made this publicly available then it does not violate the publisher's copyright rules. Responding emotionally to fictions It is widely held that there is a paradox in the fact that we respond emotionally to characters, situations, or events that we know to be fictional, or in other words, when they do not exist. To take a familiar example: 1a To feel fear, a person has to believe that something threatens to harm him. 2a Charles, a filmgoer, does not believe that the killer slime that seemingly looks toward him can actually harm him, since (he knows) the slime does not exist. 3a Yet Charles fears the slime. Or to use an equally well-known illustration: 1b To feel pity, a person has to believe that another person or creature suffers or is in a pitiable situation. 2b Diana, a reader of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, does not believe that Anna suffers, since (she knows) Anna does not exist. 3b Yet Diana pities Anna. Call these the Charles and Diana accounts of the paradox. In this paper I consider the paradox of our emotional responses to fictions. I am interested in the paradox's solution, of course, though a great deal has been achieved by others toward this end. Unlike most writers on the topic, however, I am as much concerned with the manner in which differences between types of fictions and the various relations appropriate to them bear on how the paradox should be conceived and addressed. For instance, I will suggest that the Charles and Diana accounts I presented as