From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Tue Jun 10 2003 - 14:01:30 BST
Hi Nic, (and a note to DMB)
You said:
> Emotions could be described as an instinctive blanket response to a specific problem . For
instance you might have a negative emotional response to spiders because evolution has shown that
some spiders are dangerous and so instilled a fear of all spiders . However when we have become more
intellectually evolved we learn to discriminate between which spiders are dangerous and which are
not . And so the emotional response becomes redundant and even counterproductive .
I think that our understandings of emotion need to be much more refined than this. Consider shame
(which I imagine most people would accept was an emotion). There is clearly a biological component
(changed physiology, blushing etc). There is also clearly a social component (it is the expected
disapproval of others which provokes the shame after all; ie the transgressing of social codes). Yet
it also seems to me that, in this complex of reactions, there is room for a fourth level input - one
can decide to reject the social codes (think of the sexual revolution); one can decide *not* to feel
the shame, one might even feel ashamed of feeling ashamed. The important thing for me is that, in
that last instance, where the decision is made to reject a social code, that decision cannot be
fully described without recourse to the emotional make up of the individual concerned, ie, to
describe a decision (a value preference) one must account for what is valued - and that is a
discernment of emotions. In other words, our emotions are how we determine what we value, and they
will do so for as long as we preserve our biological nature. (From Oatley and Jenkins,
'Understanding emotions': "An emotion is usually caused by a person consciously or unconsciously
evaluating an event as relevant to a concern (a goal) that is important...") What I find interesting
is how we refine our emotional repertoire, how we progress along the path of emotional intelligence,
ie wisdom. That's why I developed my 'eudaimonic' thesis.
Hence I view emotions as playing a role at the fourth level, so to say the emotional response is
redundant as we become more intellectual is to perpetuate an intellectualist fallacy - one which DMB
thinks is no longer prevalent in our society, but I disagree with him about that.
Sam
"Phaedrus is fascinated too by the description of the motive of 'duty toward self' which is an
almost exact translation of the Sanskrit word 'dharma', sometimes described as the 'one' of the
Hindus. Can the 'dharma' of the Hindus and the 'virtue' of the Ancient Greeks be identical?" - The
Eudaimonic MoQ says yes. "Lightning hits!"
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