 A major aim of Kierkegaard’s writings as a philosopher (or “dialectician” as he usually describes himself) is to offer analyses of emotion concepts (which are at the same time virtue concepts) that can function in a regulative or criteriological way. That is, they specify the conceptual shape of these emotions when they are authentically Christian. The analyses are written in a richly literary way (for besides being a “dialectician,” Kierkegaard is, as he says, a “poet”), and this is important for Kierkegaard’s regulative purpose, since he aims not just to inform people about the logic of religious emotions, but to move them to see the world in their terms and to take action in their terms. Examples of such emotion-regulative discourse are the following: Works of Love about the virtue of love; “The Expectancy of Faith”, “Patience in Expectancy”, and “The Expectancy of an Eternal Salvation”, all about the virtue of hope and found in Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses; “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift Is from Above” and “One Who Prays Aright Struggles in Prayer and Is Victorious — in That God Is Victorious” about the virtue of gratitude and also in Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses; “On the Occasion of a Confession: Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing” about contrition and found in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits; and the discourses in Part Three of the same book, which are all about joy. These are just a few of many examples of religious emotion-regulative thought in Kierkegaard’s writings.