Some objections to the understanding of Emotion

I my earlier post on Emotions, A commenter wrote in the combox that Emotion could creep in and cause immense frustration and often, depression. I have often myself undergone distress at certain scathing remarks made by people. The same remarks have driven me to offer a repartee but I have stopped short of it and held my cool. This is because, while we feel jealousy or hatred or anger, there are different degrees of it. A little bit of anger is called irritation. A little more is called rage or wrath.


The point is, the disposition of our soul, the values and the level of our virtue allows us either to choose forgiveness or let us go with emotion just as the horse riders allows himself to be guided by the horse rather than guiding it. If I allow reason to prevail (I ought to love or I ought to forgive), my emotion can be subjected to reason. This is not easy stuff. No amount of explanation of suffering or love can actually give someone the courage to act it. This is after all, grace.


But the combox made an interesting comment. I am afraid there is a misunderstanding of the role of reason. Reason is objective. As I mentioned in my earlier Post, the man at the drowning episode would fear for his own life while seeing someone drown but reason would say: Jump, he will lose his life.


Now one commenter mentioned what if like an emotion, even reason goes the other way saying, “The man dying is not your kin” This is a disorder of the will. Each person has equal dignity in the eyes of God. While I am more inclined to give a chocolate to a friend and more inclined to offer help to a friend. In the case of life and death, my inclinations and preferences have no say. Reason has to prevail.


Inclinations and passions again are what we love more than others. Again it is an emotion and the man’s will is pointing to emotion than Reason. What the commenter is trying to say is in the case of a kin, the man would have jumped much more easily than in the case of a stranger. This means that his will would point to emotion and because he loves his kin, he would jump. This is the same as a mother running into a burning house for her kid. We usually don’t see others doing it and when we do see them, we say, "you are a hero". It is simply because he has shown heroic virtue. “Don’t jump, he is not your kin” is emotion biasing reason. Life has the highest dignity and it has to be protected.


The second case the commenter mentions is, ‘this is a dangerous situation’ Now, fear is different from Prudence. Fear is an emotion, Prudence is a virtue. If someone is manhandling a lady and I have a general fear of intervening, this is could deter me from helping the lady. This is fear and reason says, “Help her” and emotion says. “Don’t get yourself involved”. Again we let emotion bias our reason[ing].


The third case the commenter mentions is, ‘Don’t try to do a superhero act’ Prudence is a virtue. If a switch is faulty, there is a fear of being electrocuted. Prudence is right reason in action. You are not going to tinker with the switch not because you lack the right implements for implement can be bought. It is not that you lack time for time can be created but that you lack knowledge and skill.


Prudence would demand that you call an electrician instead of going ahead and endangering your life. The same is the case when you know for certain that you do not know to swim and jumping in would be losing two lives. Here it is not fear (or subsequently cowardice) that stops you but Prudence, right reason in action. Prudence is the golden mean between cowardice and heroism. No prudence could make you late for a meeting when you stop on the road to watch a fight and extreme cautiousness could often make you a coward for not willing to even voice your opinion or support a group fearing Punishment


“This is not my kin” is a form of selfishness and lacks the full appreciation of Human Life. Emotion has not actually gotten better of emotion as much as a lack of knowledge of value of Human Life.


“It is a dangerous Situation” is fear that clouds a man’s reasoning. The will requires to be disposed to courage but is inclined to fear and hence disposed to cowardice. Again, it clouds reason and makes us reason erroneously justifying, that the situation is dangerous.


‘Don’t try a superhero act’ this is Prudence, different from the emotion of fear if he has judged that he is incapable of doing something by himself. But you will observe the will is still disposed to reason and not fear. It is disposed to the right reason in action. Prudence allows one to avoid being foolhardy in the case of jumping in the water without the knowledge of swimming and avoids cowardice by not fleeing the scene due to the knowledge of the value of Human Life. Reason still prevails when Prudence is applied