Can feelings have a rational basis? Would it be better or worse could be justified? Are emotions and feelings essential? Is 'emotional intelligence' an oxymoron?
Although there is officially no right or wrong answer to this question, I personally believe that feelings do have a rational basis. I believe that emotions and feelings are essential to society and humanity as a whole. Without feelings such as love, families would be much more separate (that is if their were even able to form), and therefore more vulnerable. Feelings of guilt prevent us from doing damaging things to society, such as murder. As we humans are a social species, having mechanisms that bring us together and create at least some form of trust between us is very important for our survival. Emotions such as fear serve an evolutionary basis as well, fear keeps us from getting into unnecessary danger and getting ourselves injured or killed, for example. I believe that emotions and feelings have a rational basis, simply because we need them to survive as a species. As for emotional intelligence, I think that it is not an oxymoron, and is actually quite an important skill to have, as we are a social species, so it is a good thing to be able to identify emotions and feelings in others and to be able to better understand and communicate with them.
Can there be 'correct' or 'appropriate' emotional responses? Is it 'correct to be horrified by accounts of torture?
In my opinion it depends on the situation. To me, if I had to make a criteria for a 'correct' or 'appropriate' emotional response, I would start looking at the logical evolutionary basis of it. To me, a fear of the dark, is a perfectly rational and correct thing, even when most of the time the fears come to naught, because a fear of the dark has a basis in evolution (to protect from predators at night). For example, to have feelings of grief at the death of a loved one, is a 'correct' and 'appropriate' response due to humans being a social species and bonding to one another. If people felt nothing about their close friends and family dying, it would result in a more 'psychopathic' species, where people regularly betray one another and have conflict, as they wouldn't have attachment or the grief that comes with it, and therefore they couldn't care less about others. Now you may be asking, what if you could have the bond between individuals without the grief at loss of it. My argument is, is that with a genuine bond, it hurts to lose that bond, because you value that person. Moving on to the the 'torture question', I think it is a bit of a gray area. I personally abhor it, and see it as an awful practice, directly conflicting with my perhaps more liberal point of view. My view on torture is not a universal view, as many people are fine with torture. Even though torture isn't considered a necessary interrogation method by most people, there is a sort of appeal to the anger emotion in us, that wants us to make our enemies suffer for whatever crime they have committed. The death penalty also shares this factor. In my values, torture is a great evil, no matter what your end goal is, but I recognize that there is no sort of universal value on torture. However, I think that most people in the world would dislike it, and almost no one, if given the opportunity, would carry out this act, unless in extreme distress such as grief combined with anger.
Is emotion an essential ingredient of scientific or artistic knowledge? Can there be creativity without emotion?
I believe that emotion is a major driver in the motivation to explore scientific and artistic knowledge, and is a catalyst for creativity. In science, we want to find out more about our world. Questions such as, 'how did the universe get from the beginning to now?' originate from our curiosity to learn, our wish to understand and perhaps better control the world around us. In art, artists express the world through their eyes and mind, providing their own unique perspective. Without emotion, art would be missing a piece of itself, part of what makes individual artists so different and unique from another. As for creativity, I think emotion, while not necessarily being part of it itself, is at least a driver in it. When Apple uses its creativity to make a new iPhone, the emotions/feelings that drive the people behind it could be fear (of losing revenue and/or their jobs), the desire to create something new that people want (if the new iPhone is successful, this can turn into joy), and want (they desire money, so they can get things that their family needs or wants, or get things that they themselves want, or they desire recognition/fame of their technical skill that took part in making the product). In short, yes, I do think that emotion is an essential part of all of these ideas.
Although there is officially no right or wrong answer to this question, I personally believe that feelings do have a rational basis. I believe that emotions and feelings are essential to society and humanity as a whole. Without feelings such as love, families would be much more separate (that is if their were even able to form), and therefore more vulnerable. Feelings of guilt prevent us from doing damaging things to society, such as murder. As we humans are a social species, having mechanisms that bring us together and create at least some form of trust between us is very important for our survival. Emotions such as fear serve an evolutionary basis as well, fear keeps us from getting into unnecessary danger and getting ourselves injured or killed, for example. I believe that emotions and feelings have a rational basis, simply because we need them to survive as a species. As for emotional intelligence, I think that it is not an oxymoron, and is actually quite an important skill to have, as we are a social species, so it is a good thing to be able to identify emotions and feelings in others and to be able to better understand and communicate with them.
Can there be 'correct' or 'appropriate' emotional responses? Is it 'correct to be horrified by accounts of torture?
In my opinion it depends on the situation. To me, if I had to make a criteria for a 'correct' or 'appropriate' emotional response, I would start looking at the logical evolutionary basis of it. To me, a fear of the dark, is a perfectly rational and correct thing, even when most of the time the fears come to naught, because a fear of the dark has a basis in evolution (to protect from predators at night). For example, to have feelings of grief at the death of a loved one, is a 'correct' and 'appropriate' response due to humans being a social species and bonding to one another. If people felt nothing about their close friends and family dying, it would result in a more 'psychopathic' species, where people regularly betray one another and have conflict, as they wouldn't have attachment or the grief that comes with it, and therefore they couldn't care less about others. Now you may be asking, what if you could have the bond between individuals without the grief at loss of it. My argument is, is that with a genuine bond, it hurts to lose that bond, because you value that person. Moving on to the the 'torture question', I think it is a bit of a gray area. I personally abhor it, and see it as an awful practice, directly conflicting with my perhaps more liberal point of view. My view on torture is not a universal view, as many people are fine with torture. Even though torture isn't considered a necessary interrogation method by most people, there is a sort of appeal to the anger emotion in us, that wants us to make our enemies suffer for whatever crime they have committed. The death penalty also shares this factor. In my values, torture is a great evil, no matter what your end goal is, but I recognize that there is no sort of universal value on torture. However, I think that most people in the world would dislike it, and almost no one, if given the opportunity, would carry out this act, unless in extreme distress such as grief combined with anger.
Is emotion an essential ingredient of scientific or artistic knowledge? Can there be creativity without emotion?
I believe that emotion is a major driver in the motivation to explore scientific and artistic knowledge, and is a catalyst for creativity. In science, we want to find out more about our world. Questions such as, 'how did the universe get from the beginning to now?' originate from our curiosity to learn, our wish to understand and perhaps better control the world around us. In art, artists express the world through their eyes and mind, providing their own unique perspective. Without emotion, art would be missing a piece of itself, part of what makes individual artists so different and unique from another. As for creativity, I think emotion, while not necessarily being part of it itself, is at least a driver in it. When Apple uses its creativity to make a new iPhone, the emotions/feelings that drive the people behind it could be fear (of losing revenue and/or their jobs), the desire to create something new that people want (if the new iPhone is successful, this can turn into joy), and want (they desire money, so they can get things that their family needs or wants, or get things that they themselves want, or they desire recognition/fame of their technical skill that took part in making the product). In short, yes, I do think that emotion is an essential part of all of these ideas.
