A Reasonable Emotion

[AthenaAwakened]

You know what kept black folk walking in Montgomery for over 13 months? Passion
You know what kept the suffragettes on their hunger strike in Lawton Prison? Passion
You know what kept the auto workers in that plant in Flint during the sit down strike of '36-'37? Passion

Appeals to emotion are what bend the moral universe toward justice.

Emotions, like story, are powerful, necessary components to living in and changing the world. So is logic. there is not inferior or superior between passion and planning, but when either is missing the other doesn't work.

 

[untermensche]

Remove emotion and there is only crude survival.

Emotion is what tells us about beauty and is the genesis of art.

 

[bigfield]

You would think that choices would be made easier if emotion did not conflict with our ability to reason, but Radiolab concludes that this is not the case. They wonder if a "Spock" or "vulcan" like person who is completely logical would actually be beneficial. They bring the question to a neurologist and psychologist named Antoine Bechara. Antoine then tells the story of Eliot who is a completely normal man, but had a tumor in his orbital frontal cortex that was removed. This part of the brain plays a key part in decision-making and emotion.250px-OFC.JPG After it was removed Eliot was still relatively normal but took a long time in making the most simple decisions. He couldn't even decide what color pen to use at work. It would take him half an hour to decide. Eliot eventually visited a neurologist who realized he spoke normally but had no emotion to it. So the neurologist presented him with disturbing images and saw that he had no emotional responses in the brain.

As a result of all of these effects, we can see that Eliot is pathologically indecisive. The answer to the original question of whether it would be beneficial to be completely logical is no. The only way to cut down to a choice is to go with a feeling. The feeling of emotional yeses and nos is what allows us to make a decision. Without emotion we would be stuck. This could be supportive evidence for the evolutionary basis of emotions. If we always got stuck on making simple decisions, it would be an evolutionary disadvantage.

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/meyer769/section16&17/2011/11/emotion-and-choice.html

Often we pit reason against emotion. But what if they are simply halves of a whole? In debate, appeals to emotions are the great taboo of rational discourse, or is it?

What do you think?

Appeals to emotion are not taboo in debate; they are popular, and effective at manipulating the audience's opinion, even if the debate opponent sees right through such a fallacious tactic.

Reason is often pitted against emotion because emotional arguments frequently fail to stand up to critical analysis. An emotional argument convinces its audience because it elicits an emotional response from the audience, not because it is sound. Emotional arguments have the power to convince even when they are blatantly illogical or absent of reason. You can use emotional arguments to motivate people to behave in irrational ways, and you can use emotional arguments when reason isn't expedient enough for your purposes.

An emotional argument will never convince an audience that is emotionally detached for the subject matter, no matter how much righteous anger you feel with respect to the matter. If you do not have a reasoned argument to support your position, then you give them no reason to accept your position.

You know what kept black folk walking in Montgomery for over 13 months? Passion
You know what kept the suffragettes on their hunger strike in Lawton Prison? Passion
You know what kept the auto workers in that plant in Flint during the sit down strike of '36-'37? Passion

Appeals to emotion are what bend the moral universe toward justice.

Emotions, like story, are powerful, necessary components to living in and changing the world. So is logic. there is not inferior or superior between passion and planning, but when either is missing the other doesn't work.

Knowledge and wealth are what bend the moral universe toward justice, just as ignorance and desperation breed fear, hate and destruction. This is made evident by the fact that the most wealthy regions are typically the places with the highest quality of life and best life outcomes.

Passion, on the other hand, fuels fear and hate just as much as it fuels righteous anger. It is a motive force, applied by leaders to get the mob to do what they want. Your example above are righteous but you must be well aware of the long list of evil acts driven by passion, as well.

 

[ronburgundy]

...Choices about what is true or accurate (scientific questions) do not require emotion...

Is this really a choice?

Or does the evidence force us to believe something?

Belief about factual issues is very often a choice. Look at all the people who choose not to believe in things for which they have been exposed to mountains of evidence, such as evolution, the biology of homosexuality, climate change, the impact of poverty on criminality, etc.. For most issues where there is political or religious resistance to scientific ideas, ignorance of the evidence accounts for very little of the variance in who believes these things and who does not. Studkies show that creationists have no less knowledge of evolution than 90% of the people who believe in evolution. The difference is in whether one chooses to believe what the evidence suggests or chooses to believe what their emotions prefer to be true (aka to have "faith").
Keep in mind that almost all believers in evolution, climate change, etc.. have almost no direct experience or evidence to compel them to believe. They only have second hand accounts. They must choose to trust that those accounts are honest and accurate. This doesn't need to be "faith" because there are rational reasons to trust that the worldwide scientific community is structured in a way that makes vast conspiracies to deceive almost impossible to pull off for very long. However, there is no certainty, thus there is being "forced" to believe. We choose to accept the evidence, what counts as evidence, what evidence to accept from whom, and then we choose whether the amount of evidence, which always falls short of certainty, is sufficient to warrant belief.

This is the case for many/most beliefs that are held consciously and which we are aware that we believe them while others believe something else. However, there are implicit or non-conscious "beliefs" that are formed in a more bottom-up way where experience and evidence just form the idea in our heads without any opportunity to consciously accept or reject it. For example, kids have an implicit belief that the Earth is flat. Most have never really thought about it until they are asked about it or hear about a "round" Earth. But their everyday experiences and when they look around and look at the horizon, etc., it looks much more like a flat thing than a round one. If you ask them to draw the Earth, they draw it flat (often a 2-D flat disk). Then they are told by others that its like a ball and shown pics from space. They must choose to believe these claims and pics as more valid than their direct observations in order to change their beliefs to a more accurate spherical one. IOW, conscious beliefs are choices, and many of the non-conscious beliefs that arise "naturally" without choice are wrong because they are based upon faulty and incomplete evidence. Switching from those naive "forced" beliefs to more accurate scientific ones is a choice (and one that sadly many choose not to do).

 

[untermensche]

This is made evident by the fact that the most wealthy regions are typically the places with the highest quality of life and best life outcomes.

What is the desire to improve if not a reaction to an emotion?

In this case the bad emotion of seeing something better and not having it reflected in the real world?

 

[ronburgundy]

The article in the OP confuses 2 qualitatively different types of choices that basically map onto the is/ought distinction. Choices about what is true or accurate (scientific questions) do not require emotion. Logical analysis of the available evidence and competing theories/claims is sufficient to determine the most plausible answer. In contrast choices about one ought to do (preferences, morals, policies, etc.) are inherently emotional and cannot be made without some form of what is ultimately an emotional preference between the assumed properties of the various options. The example of choosing a pen in the OP is the latter "ought" kind of choice. No amount of objective knowledge and logic can ever lead to a conclusion about which color pen to choose. Facts and logic can come into play and have an influence, but they are never sufficient for "ought" choices. Emotion, or at least the approach/avoidance system at the core of emotion, is the root of all wants, desires, goals, and preferences. Facts and logic can only tell us how to best achieve a goal and which goals and sub-goals are compatible, but it cannot ever tell us which ultimate goal is better, because that is not an objective quality of goals but nothing other than an emotional preference of beings capable of having preferences.

You sure do type a lot to say fairly little.

It only says little to those who know little about the subject. There is more valid ideas in my one post than in every one of your posts on these boards combined. That's a rather low bar (merely more than nothing), so it isn't really a brag about myself.

 

[untermensche]

....Belief about factual issues is very often a choice. Look at all the people who choose not to believe in things for which they have been exposed to mountains of evidence, such as evolution, the biology of homosexuality, climate change, the impact of poverty on criminality, etc...

Yes but here the choice is made with emotion.

To decide to believe the evidence is a choice made with emotion.

The choice to be scientific is an emotional choice.

 

[bigfield]

This is made evident by the fact that the most wealthy regions are typically the places with the highest quality of life and best life outcomes.

What is the desire to improve if not a reaction to an emotion?

In this case the bad emotion of seeing something better and not having it reflected in the real world?

Almost everyone has the desire to improve. But as history shows, not everyone succeeds in doing so.
Those with access to material wealth and the means to acquire knowledge--which is dependent on wealth--have succeeded, while those without have failed.

 

[untermensche]

What is the desire to improve if not a reaction to an emotion?

In this case the bad emotion of seeing something better and not having it reflected in the real world?

Almost everyone has the desire to improve. But as history shows, not everyone succeeds in doing so.
Those with access to material wealth and the means to acquire knowledge--which is dependent on wealth--have succeeded, while those without have failed.

Choices become available if a society can create or exploit wealth and chooses to allow opportunity.

Moving from a closed monarchy to the more open slave society in the early US was an emotional choice.

Doing away with the slave society was an emotional choice.

 

[Bronzeage]

Almost everyone has the desire to improve. But as history shows, not everyone succeeds in doing so.
Those with access to material wealth and the means to acquire knowledge--which is dependent on wealth--have succeeded, while those without have failed.

Choices become available if a society can create or exploit wealth and chooses to allow opportunity.

Moving from a closed monarchy to the more open slave society in the early US was an emotional choice.

Doing away with the slave society was an emotional choice.

Do you mean there were no logical and reasonable reasons to end slavery?

 

[Jarhyn]

The only way to cut down to a choice is to go with a feeling. The feeling of emotional yeses and nos is what allows us to make a decision. Without emotion we would be stuck.

Computer algorithms make choices without emotion so his conclusions are clearly false. While that man's case is interesting, the decision making part of his brain was also damaged which could be solely responsible for his indecision. Obviously emotions form a foundation for peoples actions but their chances of achieving their goals is enhanced once reason takes over guiding them. Humans without reason would be like every other animal in this world using its instincts simply eat and procreate for a little while longer.

No. They don't. Computers make choices with pure and irresistible emotion. They have no ability to decide not to obey their programming, their circuits get an infusion of electrons, and the transistors are effected by them and change states, and at the end of it all, it is indistinguishable from pure intuition. Computers do not think, they react.

 

[untermensche]

Choices become available if a society can create or exploit wealth and chooses to allow opportunity.

Moving from a closed monarchy to the more open slave society in the early US was an emotional choice.

Doing away with the slave society was an emotional choice.

Do you mean there were no logical and reasonable reasons to end slavery?

What does logic care beyond the ability to make money?

It was a good way to make money. Very logical.

 

[Bronzeage]

Do you mean there were no logical and reasonable reasons to end slavery?

What does logic care beyond the ability to make money?

It was a good way to make money. Very logical.

That is an unwarranted and illogical statement.

Logic is not a person and unable to care. Your statement assumes slavery was profitable, which is not a given.

You have let your emotions interfere with your perceptions of fact and reason.

 

[none]

Just out of curiosity, if human beings evolved to no longer have that part of the brain where emotions are would they be a different species? would it matter if they told the people with emotions they weren't the same species?

 

[untermensche]

What does logic care beyond the ability to make money?

It was a good way to make money. Very logical.

That is an unwarranted and illogical statement.

Logic is not a person and unable to care. Your statement assumes slavery was profitable, which is not a given.

You have let your emotions interfere with your perceptions of fact and reason.

Slavery was very profitable to some.

For them it was completely logical.

 

[ronburgundy]

....Belief about factual issues is very often a choice. Look at all the people who choose not to believe in things for which they have been exposed to mountains of evidence, such as evolution, the biology of homosexuality, climate change, the impact of poverty on criminality, etc...

Yes but here the choice is made with emotion.

To decide to believe the evidence is a choice made with emotion.

The choice to be scientific is an emotional choice.

But you, like the OP, are confusing two qualitatively different types of choices. "Should I try to be accurate in my beliefs, or believe what feels good?" is not a question of fact about what "is" true, but an "ought" question about preferences. Thus, as I said it must be answered with emotion like all ought questions.
That is the same as your "should I use science and evidence?" question.

The factual "is" question is "Does the use science and evidence increase the probability of accurate beliefs?" That is rational question that has an objectively correct answer and for which emotion is not relevant. If one rationally decides that science produces the more valid answers, but their emotions prefer to believe an idea contradicted by science more than believe what is most likely true, then they will ignore the science and believe "on faith". There is a Universe of differences in how emotion is used when you use it to decide you prefer to be correct and thus to use science (i.e., use it for "ought" questions), versus when you use emotion to decide the answer to particular "is" questions. The latter person is using emotion to decide to rely on emotion over science, and then also using their emotions to decide what is true relating to factual "is" questions.

It is analogous to the question "Should I eat substance X or Y?" Non-emotional reasoned thought is what is required to most validly determine what X and Y are and what the consequences of eating them are. Emotions are required to decide which consequences you prefer and thus which one you will eat.
It is unnessisary, invalid, and dangerous to use emotion is both types of decisions. Such a person would be using emotion to decide what consequences they prefer (that's fine and unavoidable), but also using emotion to decide whether X or Y is more likely to create those consequences which makes them more likely to be incorrect about this factual issue and thus less likely to achieve whatever consequences they desire. Their whole decision making process becomes pointless, producing actions that are no more likely to achieve a desired outcome than flipping a coin.

 

[Bronzeage]

That is an unwarranted and illogical statement.

Logic is not a person and unable to care. Your statement assumes slavery was profitable, which is not a given.

You have let your emotions interfere with your perceptions of fact and reason.

Slavery was very profitable to some.

For them it was completely logical.

The profits of the slave economy of the Southern US were mostly illusory. That is a different discussion.

A logical person can deduce from observed facts that making money is one among many priorities, but is seldom critical enough to exclude all others.

 

[Perspicuo]

Emotions are very important to some decisions that were common 10,000 years ago, but not for some newer ones like investment decisions or whether genetically modified food is safe.

And in yet another set of situations, the relation is more complex, as in career choice. Job market changes should be assessed with well-researched information, and yet, no matter what the market says, it will suck if you spend a decade or so of the only life you have on a job you cannot stomach.

I'd say, most choice situations we confront (for the last 70 years) would fall in the latter category.

 

[untermensche]

Slavery was very profitable to some.

For them it was completely logical.

The profits of the slave economy of the Southern US were mostly illusory. That is a different discussion.

A logical person can deduce from observed facts that making money is one among many priorities, but is seldom critical enough to exclude all others.

Jefferson and his ilk lived like kings on those illusory profits.

It is very rational to continue living like a king.

And the other factors to consider are the emotional factors. The empathy for the slave.

 

[bigfield]

The profits of the slave economy of the Southern US were mostly illusory. That is a different discussion.

A logical person can deduce from observed facts that making money is one among many priorities, but is seldom critical enough to exclude all others.

Jefferson and his ilk lived like kings on those illusory profits.

It is very rational to continue living like a king.

And the other factors to consider are the emotional factors. The empathy for the slave.

Industrialisation provided a better economic alternative to slavery.

The landowners and capitalists had as much empathy for the slaves as they did for the working class that replaced them.