sentimens

Sentimens is a neologism used in theoretical and speculative contexts to denote a class of evaluative mental states that blend affective feeling with normative appraisal. The term is not widely adopted in mainstream psychology or philosophy, but it appears in discussions that seek to model how individuals experience and justify evaluations of objects, actions, or events.

A sentimen is characterized by two components: a valenced affective attitude (positive or negative) and a normative judgment about the desirability, worth, or rightness of the target. This combination can produce action tendencies that are both emotionally felt and guided by standards or rules.

In usage, sentimens are discussed as a bridge between emotion and judgment, helping to explain how people might feel about something and simultaneously judge what should be done about it. In linguistics and discourse analysis, references to sentimens may appear in analyses of evaluative language and meta-emotional commentary.

Scholarship on sentimens is limited and often debated, with critics arguing that the concept overlaps existing constructs such as sentiment, attitude, mood, and value judgment. Proponents suggest that it highlights the normative dimension of affective states that is sometimes overlooked in standard models.

Because the term remains uncommon, there are few canonical definitions or empirical measurements, and its use is typically confined to theoretical essays or speculative fiction addressing moral psychology or artificial intelligence.