Why philosophers still don’t get emotions

Philosophers like to think of themselves as rational*, as ‘rational’ connotes intellectual superiority. An air of intellectual superiority is essential to the pride of philosophers because in other regards they tend to be lacking (e.g. physical stature, social skills, success with women). The philosopher’s egotistic belief that he possesses a magic compass called rationality can render his beliefs impervious to commonsense arguments and everyday observations to the contrary.

Thus it is with the typical philosopher’s beliefs concerning emotions. The philosopher has fallen in love with the narrative that any expression of emotion is tantamount to thought crime. His attitude toward the emotions belongs to a superstitious age where emotions, particularly the violent ones, were seen as some kind of demon-possession. Try to penetrate this backward ideology with a few simple examples which demonstrate that emotions can be rational and you will smacked down with a brick wall.

But I think the tide is slowly turning. Example: Emotions and Moral Skepticism

The author is starting to get it, but is still a long way off. He completely misses the point that emotions are intrinsically action-orientated. Emotions are ways of dealing with the world. They drive us to action which may or may not be pursuant to our goals in a rational sense. More likely the former, as emotions are intentional. We do emotions, they do not ‘do us’ as in the demon-possession understanding. Emotions are ways of taking control of situations, not giving it up**. To argue that emotions are irrational is to claim that all actions inspired by emotion cannot be helpful in obtaining one’s goal. This clearly is not the case.

Take anger for example. Righteous anger was a very successful strategy for the Women’s Liberation movement. You wouldn’t have thousands of Feminazis protesting, burning bras and decrying all men as pigs without the emotion ‘pissed-off’.

Take resentment – this emotion can be useful in maintaining my commitment to throwing off the yolk of wage-slavery and inciting revolution against the capitalist pig-dogs. Hitler used this emotion remarkably well in pursuit of his goals.

What about love and compassion, are these not rational emotions considering that my goal is to help mankind? Only an incompetent philosopher would claim that these emotions do not give rise to actions that are rational in pursuit of the stated goal.

—

*For a collection of assorted rants against this specious concept, see Debunking myths of reason

**It would be interesting to investigate the extent to which a negative view of emotions has been propagated by the elite and the middle classes in order to maintain passivity amongst the populace, making them more amenable to existing societal arrangements. We could investigate the attitude of elites toward the emotions in regard to the Women’s Liberation, anti-colonial, anti-slavery. anti-segregation and union movements.

Feeling guilty? Have a bath

Metaphors of the Mind: Why Loneliness Feels Cold and Sins Feel Dirty:

Further, physical cleansing may actually be effective in mentally getting rid of moral sins. In another study, in which participants who recalled unethical behaviors were either given a chance to cleanse their hands or not, we found that washing hands not only assuaged moral emotions such as guilt and regret but also reduced participants’ willingness to engage in prosocial behaviors such as volunteering Thus physical washing can actually wash away sins. Perhaps this effect is why most world religions practice some form of washing rituals to purify souls. We should be cautious, however, knowing that if our sins are so easily “washed away” we might not be as motivated to engage in actual compensatory behaviors to make up for our mistakes.

Depressed people see the world more accurately

I have heard this notion thrown about by otherwise reputable psychologists. I remain skeptical. It is of course a generalisation, but it is often spoken of as though it were universally true in all situations. It is now part of folk psychology under the heading ‘depressive realism’. I have seen no empirical evidence for the claim, only highly-speculative conclusions drawn from limited observations of people in an artificial laboratory environment.

The answer to the question ‘how ought we see the world’ is only addressed by psychology in particular, quantitatively-measureable situations; not in the general, big-picture sense. (The latter is more a question for philosophy). There is no evidence at all that depressives see the world in general more accurately. The contrary would seem more likely, intuitively and inferentially. By way of inference, consider that depressives’ predictions of meaningful life events may actually be unrealistically optimistic more so than those of non-depressives (see link below).

Now let us consider the interesting case of The Dalai Lama. The DL, as a Buddhist, sees life as suffering – a rather depressing viewpoint. Yet, he seems to be one of the happiest people on earth and most wise. Considering the ‘depressive realism’ hypothesis we are forced to ask the following question: does the DL see the world accurately because he has a depressing view of life, or does he see the world inaccurately because he’s happy? This question is nonsensical because it is based on silly premises (like so many philosophical questions!). The (objective) accuracy of one’s view of the world is not ultimately determined by the happiness or depression of one’s views and moods. You can be naively happy or realistically depressed, and vice-versa.

It is incredible that the some psychologists can draw such profound conclusions from such limited and ambiguous data!

Further reading: Probing the puzzling workings of ‘depressive realism’

Happiness as a choice

In addition to the comments I made on happiness at Happiness Comes From Within, I would like to offer the following quotes and a few comments.

Where happiness comes from

No man is happy unless he believes he is.– Publilius Syrus (85 BC- 43BC, Roman writer)

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them. — Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910, Russian novelist, philosopher)

Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don’t set any condition. — Arthur Rubinstein

Happiness is not dependent upon circumstances but upon attitudes; it is not so much environmental as mental. — (William A. Ward)

A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him. — Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-, Russian novelist)

Happiness lies in the consciousness we have of it. — George Sand (1804-1876, French novelist)

How we ‘magically’ transform the world with happiness

The world of those who are happy is different from the world of those who are not. — Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951, Austrian philosopher)

When I have been unhappy, I have heard an opera… and it seemed the shrieking of winds; when I am happy, a sparrow’s chirp is delicious to me. But it is not the chirp that makes me happy, but I that make it sweet. — John Ruskin (1819-1900, British critic, social theorist)

Cultivating happiness

Real happiness is not dependent on external things. The pond is fed from within. The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions. You must cultivate your mind if you wish to achieve enduring happiness. — William Lyon Phelps

Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds. — Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844-1911, American writer)

Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast. — Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993, American Christian reformed pastor, speaker, author)

A few comments of my own

* Happiness is not found by looking for it outside of yourself (material possessions, love, etc.)
* Happiness is not obtained through finding it within yourself (self-development) or throwing off attachments to the world (Stoicism, etc.)
* It is not a matter of calculus where you weigh up your recent history of pleasurable and painful experiences and then determine ‘objectively’ whether you are happy or not
* You can choose to believe the above or you can choose to posit a condition for happiness that ‘lies outside of the individual or is within the individual in such a way that it is not there by virtue of the individual themself’ (Kierkegaard)
* The biggest obstacle to happiness is a self which does not want to identify with it, i.e. pride in being unhappy
* Happiness is found not by looking for it, but by thinking you have already found it
* It is a matter of reflecting on a whole life and the entire universe and making a choice
* Happiness is obtained by choosing it, by choosing to perceive the world with happiness

Final thoughts

There are men who are happy without knowing it. — Marquis De Vauvenargues (1715-1747, French moralist)

Passionate apathy

I have never seen such passion put into a humourous web site about apathy, brilliant!

Chuurch of apathy

The meaning of life is to be found in emotions

The late Robert Solomon, following Nietzsche, says emotions are engagements with the world. Emotions are intentional and – despite the myths of pop psychology – more often than not, rational.

A synonym sometimes used for the emotions are the passions. The passions have been the whipping boy of philosophy for centuries, but they are key to the meaning of life. Personally, I have nothing but contempt for philosophers who unthinkingly follow the herd in maligning the passions and instead use abstract principles far removed from human existential reality in order to pretentiously tell us what the good life ought to consist of.

The passions are about creativity and being genuinely devoted to causes and other people. To be passionate is to care.

The meaning of life is to care

Heidegger writes beautifully on this, but unfortunately I don’t have any quotes on hand – I’ll better organise my sources soon.

He says, to care is to be a shepherd.

Anxiety is a distressing emotion which is an intricate part of caring. We all experience anxiety, but I think we have wrongly come to see it as a mental illness. Indeed, there are anxiety disorders which are destructive, but anxiety is not something bad in itself. It reminds us, or at least it should remind us, that we care.

When we care about something that something becomes one of life’s meanings for us. It ought to be no surprise that many people find meaning in compassion, caring for others. Others, such Australian Aboriginals, find meaning in caring for the land.

To care is to have meaning in one’s life and to care is to be human.

Happiness Comes From Within

I was planning to blog my own content on happiness until I came across this post: Happiness Comes From Within

I will make some comments on the blogger’s various interpretations and evaluations.

The philosopher seems to have a Cartesian (dualistic) view of mind and world and this leads to some unnecessarily complicated and incorrect explanations.

1. Happiness is not a product of our minds, rather it is a product of our experience of the world. Our experience of the world is the world. To clarify, what we perceive as the world is our world from a first-person point of view. Throwing ‘mind’ into the equation is redundant.

We can simply choose to be happy or unhappy at any moment, but cultivating character will make it easier, i.e. habitual.

2. ‘events filtered through our own values and desires’ make up experience, but experience also includes thoughts, reflections, expectations, emotions and moods. Happiness cannot come only from within if events are part of the experience that leads to happiness.

3. While the expression ‘happiness comes from within’ is not technically correct, it is true that people can choose to be happy.

It is not action (or in this case, reaction) that leads to happiness rather it is experience, with the essential element of thinking you are happy. The author is contradicting himself in assuming that a change in environmental conditions through action will be responsible for happiness.

4. The author understands ‘choice’ in this instance as a decision to take some action which may or may not ’cause’ happiness. We can take any action and afterward be happy or unhappy, it does not depend on the consequence of the action necessarily, it depends on our choice to see the world in a particular way.

5. This is too hypothetical for me to bother to comment.

6. I agree that a natural (appetite from our genes) reaction to unhappiness can be altered with practice (nurture), but I disagree that ’situations’ cause unhappiness. Though, what exactly is unhappiness but another emotion like anger, sadness or melancholy?

7. I agree that we can adjust our ‘personality’ towards one that is conducive to a happy life, but I don’t know how hard it would be for each individual; it depends on nature and nurture (rather, nature through nurture – but this is a technical point).

A person starving to death can be happy or unhappy. This may seem impossible, but it is true. Granted though, the odds are that a typical individual will not be happy. Look for example at martyrs who have died for religious causes, some have been fanatically delighted at the prospect of death.

8. Happiness does not come from anything but our choice to experience the world with happiness.