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EMOTIONS
Contents:
Here, we consolidate and make explicit what was implicit in the previous discussions in Philosophy in Practice.
In my understanding, emotions are an automatic psychological response to the gain or loss of values or potential values (note that psychological means based on the subconscious mind, i.e. based on internalised premises). The pleasure-pain mechanism is the basic physiological counterpart of emotions, where we experience physical sensations, i.e. automatic physical responses to the gain or loss of values or potential values.
Just as the pleasure-pain mechanism is our means of knowing about aspects of our physical state of being that are key to our physical existence and well-being, the emotional mechanism is our means of knowing about aspects of our conscious state of being that are key to our conscious existence and well-being. Note that when I say “means of knowing”, I do not mean “means of cognition”; emotions do not necessarily correspond to the facts, but rather, they are facts themselves and serve as the key material for introspection. For example, feeling scared does not necessarily mean there is something to be afraid of objectively, but it does give you the fact that you are feeling fear, which gives you a starting point in exploring and/or validating the causes behind your feeling of fear.
Furthermore, just as the pleasure-pain mechanism is a fuel for our physical existence (e.g. pleasure motivates us toward something while pain motivates us away from it), the emotional mechanism is a fuel for our conscious existence; it is what drives our actions ultimately, i.e. in concrete terms.
Since the emotional mechanism is based on values, and since values are based on our premises ultimately, the emotional mechanism is shaped ultimately by our mental and physical practices. Furthermore, since values can and must be shaped by volition, the emotional mechanism also can and must be shaped by volition. It is key to note that volition here is primarily not our direct willpower toward something, but rather our conscious grasp of reality. The premises we hold are the basis for values and thereby emotions, and moreover, emotions on their own are experienced as irreducible primaries (irreducible in terms of conscious experience) and thus are not subjectable to direct conscious change. Therefore, it is irrational and thus ineffective to try to force emotions; it cannot be done except as a pretense.
Hence, as with life as whole, dealing with emotions effectively requires a rational focus on reality rather than brute willpower alone. Willpower must be directed not toward emotions themselves but toward the cause of emotions, namely our conscious grasp of reality. In other words, willpower must not and realistically cannot be used for shaping emotions directly, but rather, it must be used for reaching clarity of focus and the fullest use of reason. Hence, far from reason and emotion being at odds with each other, reason is the means by which emotion can be brought into harmony with one’s pursuit of life and happiness.
If emotions are based on one’s internalised premises, and if such premises can be flawed, then it stands to reason that there exist emotions that reflect such flawed premises and belief systems. Such emotions may be a sure sign of invalid premises (invalid emotions) or may be a sign of invalid premises if experienced out of context (out-of-context emotions).
Hence, we move on to the first key point, i.e. invalid emotions…
Emotions by their nature reflect our premises but do not reflect their validity; hence, an emotion may be invalid in the sense that it is a response based on invalid premises. How to take such emotions into account? Firstly, it is key to note that an invalid premise does not by itself reveal a moral failure; a perfectly moral person can make honest mistakes and thus reach mistaken premises. Secondly, invalid emotions are often important in revealing invalid premises (as we shall see); since we are not infallible, the ability to experience such emotions is valuable.
How to recognise valid and invalid emotions?
One way is to recognise and validate or invalidate the premises underlying the emotion. Another way is to keep in mind a set of emotions that necessarily arise due to invalid preimises; we shall discuss this set of emotions in the coming subsections. Finally, conflicts in our emotions indicate conflicts in our premises, indicating logical and/or factual inconsistency on some level.
NOTE: Emotion is not the primary target:
It is not primarily emotions we must deal with or overcome, but rather their causes, i.e. the internalised premises that guide our intellectual and psyhological mechanisms. Emotions are important effects of these, but they are ultimately effects and not the fundamental causes of one’s well-being.
NOTE: Reiterating a key point:
Invalid emotions are not to be overcome by sheer force of will but through one’s clarity of focus and one’s use of reason. You cannot make yourself feel differently just by willing it; that is not how emotions work.
A false view of one’s basic efficacy
This is discussed further here: Sources of Inefficacy. To summarise for reference, the emotions of despair and shame arise due to an invalid view of one’s basic efficacy in dealing with reality.
An invalid view of standards
The following section is mostly taken from “Superiority and inferiority” from Judgement in Practice.
A superiority or inferiority complex falsely equates superiority or inferiority in one area with superiority or inferiority in another. The judgement of superiority and inferiority is not wrong as such, but their respective complexes are wrong because they are irrational, i.e. non-objective, which means they cloud your judgement and thus your ability to know the reality of your capabilities, your achievements and your potential. In fact, the practice of these complexes results in vices; a practised superiority complex leads to the vice of vanity whereas a practised inferiority complex leads to the vice of humility. The virtue to strive for is the virtue of pride, i.e. moral ambitiousness (a term coined by Ayn Rand to define the virtue of pride). Note that moral ambitiousness derives from the virtue of rationality, i.e. objectivity in one’s approach to life, which means that pride is an extension of rationality. Furthermore, pride being based on objectivity implies that key to the virtue of pride is the feeling of pride where it is valid, i.e. where it is the objective acknowledgement of one’s own achievements and virtues. I have expanded on pride in Pride and Moral Perfection, but just to clarify what I mean by pride as opposed to a superiority or inferiority complex, pride is essentially the pursuit of what is best for you. Hence, having people superior to you in one or more virtuous respects is an advantage to you, a fuel for your pride and not a knock on your pride in any way, since by the example of observably superior virtuousness, you get a directly observable grasp of what is right and possible in the pursuit of the good.
An out-of-context view of value and loss
In my understanding, envy is a distinctive emotion that is not merely a combination of the emotional pain caused by another’s possession or achievement and the desire to have what the other has. Rather, envy is a desire rooted in the emotional pain caused by another’s possession or achievement, i.e. it is the desire primarily to overcome such a pain. On what basis do I make such a distinction? Observe: acting in envy, a person may either try to have or surpass what the other has, but he may also try to diminish or destroy what the other has. The uniting characteristic in both cases is clearly not the desire to merely have what the other has — which we shall call X — but the desire to overcome the pain of seeing the other have X.
To further clarify the above point, we can distinguish envy from the case wherein the other having X is seen as an injustice; here, the pain of seeing the other have X is rooted in anger, and the desire is a desire for justice rather than envy. But note that the desire is not primarily for overcoming the anger but primarily for something positive, i.e. justice. Hence, envy is indeed rooted primarily in overcoming a negative rather than achieving a positive. A positive may be achieved through envy as a by-product, but that is not the focus.
First, some definitions…
Positive:
Something that exists and can be affirmed by knowledge and experience.
Negative:
The negation of something that exists and can be identified with respect to knowledge and experience of that which exists.
Back to the discussion…
Note that the pursuit of values requires an orientation toward the positive as a primary, with the orientation against the negative as being at most derivative to the orientation toward the positive. Why? Because metaphysically, nothing is not something, i.e. the absence of a negation of a thing does not imply the existence of the thing; there may be nothing in reality negating the existence of a city of dwarves on Pluto, but the absence of its negation does not imply its existence. By extension, value (i.e. something) is not primarily the negation of its absence (i.e. nothing). To go further, the standard of value, i.e. life, is the affirmation of existence, which means it is not and cannot primarily be the denial of nothingness, since there is no such thing as “nothingness” and hence there is nothing in it to deny; there is only existence and its affirmation. In other words, life is not primarily the avoidance of death.
To make it clearer, consider: what does it mean to avoid or reject the negative? In concrete terms, it may be: running away from a predator, protecting your eyes from dust in the air, not investing in a questionable business, etc. In every case, you protect something that exists, which means the avoidance or rejection of the negative, i.e. the threat or liability or harm, presupposes a positive, i.e. a potential or asset or benefit. In other words, an orientation against the negative presupposes an orientation toward the positive.
Now, consider the basis of envy, namely the orientation against the “negative” that is the emotional pain caused by another’s possession or achievement. If it is indeed a negative, then does it threaten or harm the values you hold? If it does, then your primary orientation is to protect what you have rather than covet, diminish or destroy what you do not. But such an orientation is not envy. Hence, if the negative part of envy is justified, then identifying it would dissolve the envy.
Furthermore, consider the “desire” aspect of envy. A desire is valid only if it is based on the facts of reality. If the desire for what another has — which we shall call X — is based on the recognition of value, then the pain of the other having X is invalid if X is achievable to you. If X is not achievable to you in the given context, then it cannot be a value in that context, because something you cannot act to gain and/or keep in the given context cannot be a value in the given context; considering such a thing as a value is evidently irrational and immoral, i.e. detached from one’s grasp of reality (thus irrational) and detached from one’s orientation toward pne’s own life in reality (thus immoral).
Furthermore, a key fact of reality for a value-seeking being is that the values of the being are always integrated with respect to a given context (see: “Integrity of values” from The Nature of Value from Ethics). If achieving X violates your values in the given context, then X cannot be a value, since the pursuit of X cannot integrate with the values you actually hold in the given context. In such a case, the desire for X is invalid. For example, if X refers to a certain level of skill in engineering, and if, in your context, striving to achieve such a level of skill in engineering takes away from your time and energy to deal with pursuits more strongly tied to your long-range pursuit of values (e.g. your skill in your own field of work or related fields, your health, your finances, valuable relationships, responsibilities arising from existing values, etc.), then striving to achieve X would be wrong, and thus, X would not be a value to you, as per your context.
Hence, we observe that when we grasp our context of the facts and values, then envy dissolves into more constructive emotions and motivations. Hence, I posit that envy is an emotion that reveals one’s lack of contextual clarity, and gaining the clarity is key to orienting yourself toward values and against irrational and potentially self-destructive goals.
NOTE: For a discussion on the nature of anti-values, see: The Nature of Anti-Value from Ethics.
An out-of-context view of potential and threat
Jealousy is similar to envy, except that instead of dealing with values and their loss, it deals with potential values and potential anti-values. The reasoning for the invalidity of jealousy is similar in essence; jealousy is rooted in the desire to overcome a feeling a threat rather than the desire to pursue a potential.
NOTE: For a discussion on the nature of anti-values, see: The Nature of Anti-Value from Ethics.
Dealing with emotions effectively requires grasping and validating the context of the premises underlying them (for the importance of contextual clarity, see: Contextual Clarity from Epistemology). Hence, we shall look now into contextualising emotions, so as to recognise when our emotions are valid and when they are out of context and hence invalid.
In my understanding, regret is the feeling arising from having failed morally, i.e. in terms of some standard of good action. Hence, it stands to reason that regret is only valid if you have indeed failed morally. However, what does it mean to fail morally? Rationality is the fundamental virtue from which every other virtue stems. The basis of rationality is one’s focus on reality to one’s fullest capacity. Hence, the fundamental vice, i.e. irrationality, is based on evasion, which is the conscious refusal to focus on the facts relevant within our context and capacity (“not blindness but the refusal to see”).
Hence, regret is only valid if it stems from the recognition of evasion on your part. It is important to understand what evasion is and is not; after all, rationality is rooted in reality, and thus, perfect rationality is based on standards achievable by a finite, fallible consciousness. Furthermore, cognition is always contextual and always purposeful with respect to one’s hierarchy of values. Hence, it is irrational to expect yourself to be aware beyond the scope your knowledge and awareness, which includes your knowledge and awareness of what is relevant and valuable.
NOTE: By the nature of our awareness of reality, unconscious ignorance or honest mistakes cannot count as evasion. In essence, anything done in non-contradictory accordance to rational principles as applicable with respect to our context and capacity does not count as evasion.
To clarify, valid regret is not based on bad outcomes as such. If you made a choice in full awareness of what you were doing and what for, then, if the result of the choice turned out to be bad in some way, it is not your moral failure and thus is not a cause for valid regret. After all, decisions made with the best possible knowledge and reasoning can still lead to unforeseen outcomes, because we are neither omniscient nor infallible. Note that rationality and morality demand that outcomes, good or bad, must be grasped and learnt from, but taking outcomes as the primary basis for evaluating a decision is irrational, since a decision in practice is based on a finite capacity to project the outcomes of the decision.
NOTE: Like invalid emotions in general, invalid regret can be overcome by grasping and accepting its invalidity. Valid regret, on the other hand, can be overcome by correcting one’s faults and their effects to the best of one’s ability and orienting oneself to virtue.
NOTE: Dangers of invalid regret:
Wishfulness is the feeling arising from hypothetical benefits to oneself. Note that a “benefit” to oneself is anything that serves to positively impact oneself with respect to one’s hierarchy of values (“value” here is used in the broad sense of the word, i.e. “that which one acts to gain and/or keep”). Hence, note that a hypothetical benefit is not necessarily a real benefit but rather an imagined benefit within an imagined context.
A benefit may or may not be a value (in the philosophical sense of the word “value”), but what one regards as beneficial is based on what one regards as valuable, since a benefit is identified with respect to one’s hierarchy of values. Thus, wishfulness is a form of value-orientation that orients you toward certain values by orienting you toward what is beneficial with respect to those values. Hence, wishfulness invalid when the values it orients you toward (in the broader sense of the word “value”) are in fact invalid, i.e. impossible to achieve, non-values or anti-values (in the true philosophical sense of the word “value”).
Why does the validity of value-orientation matter?
Three vital facts about any living being is that (1) the time and energy available to it is finite, (2) values are time-bound and conditional (i.e. not guaranteed) and (3) values (i.e. things worth pursuing and/or necessary to pursue) are ever-present and continuous (see: “Value-seeking is continuous” from The Nature of Value from Ethics). Furthermore, the broader and long-range values of a volitional being are not automatic and not always obvious, i.e. they require the use of reason and rational effort to be discovered and pursued effectively.
These facts imply that if one aims to live as a volitional being, then one must apply one’s time and effort judiciously, which means one must be rigorously rational in one’s pursuit of values, never losing sight of the essentials and the relevant facts. Invalid wishfulness degrades and ultimately destroys such a pursuit of values. Furthermore, since invalid wishfulness equates the “valuable” to either the “impossible” or the “ineffective” (in the case of non-values) or the actively “detrimental” (in the case of anti-values), one’s pursuit of potential is met with a sense of inefficacy and a reduction, degradation or even destruction of one’s concrete experience of values (which is the fuel for one’s value-orientation). Hence, invalid wishfulness eventually leads to the loss of self-motivation, the loss of self-value and the loss of value for one’s life as a whole.
Hence, wish only for what is and can be, never for what could have been.