Emotion: The Basics

Michael Brady

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429655883
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Historia y teoría filosóficas

While human beings might be rational animals, they are emotional animals as well. Emotions play a central role in all areas of our lives and if we are to have a proper understanding of human life and activity, we ought to have a good grasp of the emotions. Michael S. Brady structures Emotion: The Basics around two basic, yet fundamental, questions: What are emotions? And what do emotions do? In answering these questions Brady provides insight into a core component of all our lives, covering:

• the nature of emotion;

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• emotion, knowledge, and understanding;

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• emotion and action;

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• emotions and social groups;

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• emotion, morality, and art.

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In this concise and insightful introduction, Brady explains why we are often better off as a result of emotion rather than reason being in the driving seat, as our lives, both individual and social, would be significantly impoverished without the emotions. With a glossary of key terms and suggestions for further reading, Emotion: The Basics is an ideal starting point for anyone seeking a full introduction to the philosophical study of emotion.

The Nature of Emotion

1.1 Introduction

What are emotions? This question might strike us as a little strange. After all, in one sense we know perfectly well what emotions are, since we all have experience of them. We all, to a greater or lesser degree, know something about the nature of fear and anger, envy and pride, joy and delight, disappointment and regret, shame and guilt, jealousy and compassion, and many other kinds of emotion. We usually know when we are in these states, and – through their facial expressions and bodily behaviour – when others are as well. We know what anger and joy and disappointment and guilt feel like. We know the kinds of things they are responses to, and the kinds of things they make us do. By the same token, we are aware of certain general truths or platitudes about emotions: that sometimes you ought to listen to your heart, and that at other times reason should prevail; that sometimes it’s bad to be overcome by emotion, and that at other times being overcome by emotion is a wonderful thing; that our emotions, especially our negative emotions, can make life a misery, but that our lives would be severely impoverished, indeed barely recognisable as human lives, without them. So we have – or nearly all of us have – considerable knowledge of our emotions: of the distinctive kinds of emotion we experience, of the ways in which emotions can help and can hinder our plans and actions, our relationships and careers, in short, our living as human beings.

Why, then, ask questions about or investigate further the nature of emotion? One very good reason for inquiring into the nature of something – a reason that has been at the heart of philosophical thinking since the time of Plato and other Ancient Greek philosophers – is that sometimes such knowledge is very important. Consider, to illustrate, the question at the heart of The Republic, Plato’s most famous work: what is justice? As is often the way in Platonic dialogues, the character of Socrates (based upon the real-life teacher of Plato, and who represents Plato’s own views) asks this question, and in reply receives from the other characters in the book either a list of just actions, such as paying back what one owes, or a ‘definition’ of justice, such as ‘might is right’ (i.e. that justice is what serves the interests of the powerful). Socrates is rightly dissatisfied with both kinds of answer. Citing examples is unhelpful, because this fails to give us the essence of justice – what it is in itself, what all particular instances of just actions and institutions and policies have in common. The latter definition is rejected because, well, it’s clearly a terrible attempt at capturing the essence of justice: might is often far from right, as a moment’s reflection on the actions of the rich and powerful will make apparent.

But it is very important for Plato – and for us – to know about the nature or essence of justice, to know what it is in itself. For how are we to set up just institutions, adjudicate competing claims in a just manner, embody this virtue in our lives and our relationships, teach this virtue to our children and to others, if we have no real idea of what justice is? We can’t rely on particular examples alone, for these would fail to apply to all cases, and we need to extend and apply the concept when we face unfamiliar situations. The idea that it is just to pay one’s debts fails to be of much help if we are worried about the justice of paying our debts to those who oppress and exploit us, or where paying our debts will leave us unable to feed our family, or when the person to whom we owe money will use it for nefarious deeds; and so on. Here knowledge of particular instances will be of little use; we need to have a way of telling what the right or just thing to do in these instances is, and for that – Plato and many other philosophers think – we had better know what justice itself is. And what is true of justice is true of other virtues – those excellences of character that, for the Ancient Greek philosophers, are central to living a good and happy life. How can we pursue wisdom, unless we really know what wisdom is? How can we be courageous, without a firm grasp of the nature of courage? So the Ancient Greeks did not think that knowing the nature or essence of things was a purely intellectual or abstract exercise, of little value beyond satisfying the curiosity of philosophers; instead, knowing the nature of things was vital for living well.

I think that something similar can be said about emotion. It is very important for us to know what emotions are, in themselves. It is very important for us to know what all of the particular instances of emotion have in common, in virtue of which they count as emotions rather than something else, such as sensations or thoughts or imaginings or muscle-twitches or visceral changes or firings of neurons. This is because knowing what emotions are would also seem essential for the practical business of living that we are all engaged in. Suppose that someone says – as they often do around the time of an election or a referendum – that one should vote with one’s ‘head’ rather than with one’s ‘heart’, that one should appeal to reason in deciding how to vote rather than emotion. But is this really true? Well, to judge the veracity of this we would have to have some idea of what the person or politician means by emotion. Perhaps it’s true if they think that emotions are fleeting impulses or feelings, like twinges or urges. It’s not obvious that important political decisions should be made on these grounds, any more than it’s true that my fleeting impulse to sigh loudly in a boring meeting is a good reason to do so. But what if emotions are not fleeting impulses or feelings? What if they are highly complex, reason-responsive, informationally rich ways of viewing the world, and which often turn out to be more accurate and reliable than ‘rational’ deliberation or reflection when it comes to our decision making? (There is evidence casting doubt upon the reliability of reason alone when making decisions, as we’ll see in later chapters.) The crude claim that one should vote with one’s head rather than one’s heart starts to look decidedly implausible, if this is what emotions are. So the question of how we should make decisions when emotions are involved will depend, to a large extent, on the kinds of things that emotions turn out to be. Without this kind of knowledge, the question of whether we should vote with our head rather than our heart won’t be one that we can answer.

Let us take a different example. Suppose that someone suffers from crippling guilt, and that this is a great cause of misery and suffering for them. As a result, we want to treat their emotional condition and alleviate their suffering. We now face an important question: what is the best way to treat them? And that’s a question that will be difficult to answer unless we have some idea of what guilt is. Is guilt susceptible to modification by reflection and deliberation, or by other forms of cognitive therapy? This might be true, but only if it is the kind of state that is itself cognitive, at least in part. If emotions are simply bodily states, then thinking and reflecting about them will do little to change them – any more than my wishing that I had more hair will be effective in counteracting my baldness. Might a regime of mindful attention, or of physical activity, help to alleviate guilt? This might be true as well, but only if emotions are related in close ways to our capacities for attention, or have bodily components that would be susceptible to bodily changes. So we need to know what emotions are in order to treat them effectively. Here too a first-personal experience of crippling guilt will prove ineffective: this is why the person suffering from guilt seeks professional help in the first place.

To take a third example: suppose that we are, at a governmental level, concerned with important ethical issues, like the treatment of animals used in experimentation. One side of the debate maintains that human suffering takes precedence over animal suffering, precisely because humans are capable of feeling much more in the way of negative emotions – fear, despair, shame, guilt, and the like – than animals. The other side of the debate denies this, and argues instead that animals are capable of experiencing a much wider range of emotions, both positive and negative, than vivisectionists suppose. How can we make progress on this question? It seems difficult to imagine how this could be possible without an understanding of what emotions like fear and anxiety are, and hence whether these are the kinds of experiences that certain non-human animals are capable of having. Once again, we can’t rely upon our own particular experience of emotions to settle the issue – for the issue is, precisely, whether non-human animals are capable of the same kinds of experiences. And without knowing what emotions are at a more general level, we have nothing to say to answer that question.

I could go on, but will leave it to you to think of many more areas where a determination of the nature of emotion is important for our actions and our decisions, the advice we give and take, the policies we enact or overturn. For all of these reasons, we need to get a better understanding of the nature of emotions, what are the distinctive features of emotions themselves, and what characteristic things they enable us to do. This is why a philosophical perspective on the nature of emotion is important – although of course philosophy is not the only game in town, since questions about what emotions are and what emotions do are prominent in fields such as psychology and neuroscience as well, and research in these fields is clearly important for informing us about the nature and role of emotion. Nevertheless, this book will constitute a philosophical perspective, since (i) I’m a philosopher rather than a psychologist or neuroscientist, so have to play to my strengths, and (ii) philosophy might be viewed as the discipline which, more than any other, is concerned with constructing general theories or views about the nature of central aspects of human life and experience: of free will, personal identity, morality, political obligation, consciousness, action, responsibility, and many others. As a result, in what follows I want to present a philosophical account of the nature of emotion: to help us get clearer on the kinds of things that emotions are, the kinds of things that emotions do, and – through this understanding – to illustrate the vitally important role that emotions play in our lives.

At this point another difficult question arises, however. For how do we do philosophy? How do philosophers think about the nature of emotion? How can philosophy help us to understand this part of our experience, or indeed anything at all? In the next section I’ll say a little about this, before looking at more concrete proposals as to what emotions are.

1.2 How to do Philosophy (of Emotion)

Philosophers of emotion are concerned, to a large extent, with constructing and evaluating theories of emotion. Such theories are abstract structures that try to explain or capture the core or central features of emotion. These will be features that all emotions have in common, in virtue of which they count as emotions. Theories of emotion are then assessed in terms of whether they can capture or explain these core features better than their rivals. Most philosophical argument occurs in this latter stage: does Theory A really do better, when it comes to explaining the central features of emotion, than Theory B? This is all a bit abstract, but it isn’t very mysterious as a process. Indeed, it mirrors normal scientific theorizing. For scientific theories are abstract structures that seek to explain or capture certain sets of observable phenomena (e.g. concerning planetary motion). Scientific theories are then assessed in terms of whether they can explain the phenomena better than their rivals. Most scientific discussion occurs in this latter stage: does Scientific Theory A really do better, when it comes to explaining observations of planetary motion, than Scientific Theory B? To clarify things a little more, let us look more closely at the ‘phenomena’ in the case of emotions – namely, those core or central features of emotion that theories of emotion are meant to explain or capture.

Nearly everyone agrees that emotions have certain distinctive features or elements or components, which work together to enable emotions to do a variety of things. We can try to identify such features by reflecting on instances of emotional experience in our own lives, but also by talking to others about their emotions, engaging with emotions as portrayed or discussed in art and literature, and in other ways as well. Consider, to illustrate, a particular example: the emotion of disappointment. Try to remember an instance where you felt this negative emotion, and reflect on what was going on during this experience. Here is an imaginary case: suppose that you have auditioned for a part in the play, a part you have set your heart on getting. You have high expectations: you’ve prepared well, practiced the lines for the audition until you know them inside out, your drama teachers are full of praise for your acting ability, you’ve seen the other candidates at the audition and they are not up to much, and so on. And when the time comes, you ace the audition: you are brilliant, pour everything you have into the role, feel delighted at the smiles and effusive reactions of the judges, and leave with a spring in your step. The next day you receive a text saying that they have given the part to someone else, and you feel a crushing disappointment. We can now ask: What is your disappointment like? What is going on in you, when you feel this way?

One element of your experience is a perceptual one: you read the text, have a visual impression of the words on your phone. Another is evaluative: you think that this is a terrible, awful outcome (‘How could they? I was so great!’). Your body reacts in certain ways: your shoulders slump, you start to cry, you curl up on your bed, your face takes on a particular expression. You feel terrible: your heart feels like it is going to break, there is a dreadful heaviness descending upon you, perhaps an ache or sickness in your gut. You are motivated to do something: to hurl the phone across the room, to scream and stamp your feet, to phone the casting director and say appalling things to them. Your thoughts and attention are engaged: you think again and again about the audition and what you might have done wrong; you think about how you are going to tell your parents or classmates or colleagues or friends; you think about stopping acting altogether – what’s the point? – or instead about trying even harder for the next part; and your attention remains focused on what happened, so that it is hard to concentrate on anything else or get work done.

There will probably be some other things occurring when you experience disappointment like this. But on the whole we can identify six elements that go towards making up your disappointment. There is (i) a perception, (ii) an evaluation, (iii) a bodily change and expression, (iv) a feeling, (v) a motivation to act, and (vi) thinking and attending. These seem to be part and parcel of paradigmatic emotional experience. For all six seem to be present in normal cases of fear, anger, guilt, shame, joy, pride, surprise, disgust, and other standard cases of emotion. (You might want to check this for yourselves: reflect upon a recent instance in which you felt guilty, or angry, or afraid. See how these experiences fit the pattern above: how they all involve these six elements.) Although there might be ‘outliers’ that don’t seem to involve six of these – perhaps boredom or ennui are emotions, or emotion-like, and yet don’t involve much in the way of action-tendencies – central cases of emotion all plausibly do. So emotions involve some kind of perceptual experience – they are responses to what we see and hear, smell and touch; they involve some kind of evaluation or appraisal – when I’m ashamed I judge that my behaviour reflects badly on me, when I’m in love I regard my partner as adorable; they involve bodily reactions – anger involves tensed muscles, a furrowed brow, gritted teeth, muscle tension, increased heart-rate, and the like; they feel a certain way – when experiencing pride we feel uplifted, when experiencing remorse we feel awful; they produce or promote action – we shout with joy, apologize out of guilt, run away out of terror; and they generate thinking – when afraid, we figure out escape strategies; when jealous, we plan our revenge on our rival.

Theories of emotion try, then, to capture or explain emotions, understood as states or traits having these elements, and are to be assessed on the basis of whether they can do so better than their rivals. At this point, however, some puzzlement might reoccur. For what distinguishes different theories of emotion, such that they can be regarded as rivals? Why don’t theories just say that emotions typically or standardly involve all six components, and leave it at that? After all, such a view would certainly tell us something about what emotions are like – they are states or traits with these elements, and so we now have a better understanding of the nature of emotion itself. So where’s the beef between philosophers and psychologists and neuroscientists of different theoretical camps or persuasions, and what motivates them to develop different theories which try to capture all of these elements?

There is a straightforward answer to all of these questions, grounded in the tendency – not just in philosophy, but across many physical and social sciences – to be reductive when it comes to definitions, or to saying what a thing is in itself. Because of this, theories of emotion can be distinguished in virtue of which of these components – perception, evaluation, bodily change, feeling, motivational tendency, thinking activity – they take to be truly essential to the emotion, or to be identified with the emotion, or to constitute what emotions really are. So theories prioritize one of these, and say that emotion really is (for instance) just an action-tendency, or an evaluation, or a feeling, while the other components are traditional accompaniments to emotional experience but aren’t, themselves, part of the emotion. (Compare: although gold is typically beautiful, expensive, a common constituent of wedding rings, and the colour of wealth, these are not essential to what gold is; the essence of gold, what it is in itself, is a soft, malleable metal with atomic number 79, a noble and transition metal.) Philosophical theories are in the business, therefore, of claiming that one component is privileged, and constitutes what emotions really are.

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