Ben-Ze'ev's book The Perceptual System received an excellent review in The Review of Metaphysics, with the reviewer, Jack Onstein, stating that Ben-Ze'ev's view is “the only remotely plausible approach” to the mind–body problem: “Finally, we have a theory of perception and the mind which any scientifically-minded, critical philosopher can live with.”[3] Together with his work on perception, Ben-Ze'ev has pursued related issues in the philosophy of psychology, such as the body–mind problem and memory, and has written on various philosophers, in particular Aristotle and Thomas Reid.

Five years after finishing his Ph.D. thesis, Ben-Ze'ev began to study the emotions, a topic that remains at the center of his research today.

The psychological work that has most influenced his thinking has been The Cognitive Structure of Emotions (1988) by Ortony, Clore and Collins.

Ben-Ze'ev has published many articles in this field, as well as several books: The Subtlety of Emotions (MIT 2000), Love Online: Emotions on the Internet (Cambridge 2004)),[4] In the Name of Love: Romantic Ideology and its Victims (Oxford: 2008; written with Ruhama Goussinsky), and Die Logik der Gefühle: Kritik der emotionalen Intelligenz (Suhrkamp, 2009).

Ben-Ze'ev's major books are The Perceptual System (Peter Lang, 1993); The Subtlety of Emotions (MIT UP, 2000); Love Online: Emotions on the Internet (Cambridge UP, 2004); In The Name of Love: Romantic Ideology and its Victims (with Ruhama Goussinsky, Oxford UP, 2008); Die Logik der Gefühle: Kritik der emotionalen Intelligenz (Suhrkamp, 2009); and The Arc of Love: How Our Romantic Lives Change over Time (University of Chicago Press, 2019).