I wonder about the human condition. Whether it's really necessary for any of us to have feelings. I realize that many a great novel and poem and epic have been written because we do have feelings. I wonder, though, would we be better off if we didn't have these feelings? We'd be missing out on a lot of great things, I know, but how much more could we achieve as a species if we only had rational, logical thought, devoid of any primitive urges and feelings? There would be less wars, less crime, less poverty, society would ultimately be better off.
What basis do I have for the above statement? It's only a guess. I believe that many of us, including myself, are held back by our emotions or propelled forward into utter stupidity by them. If we could think through all of our problems and situations in life, we wouldn't make nearly as many mistakes as we do now. Of course, it can be argued that one can rationalize their way towards evil (stupid example: grasshoppers destroy the earth, the earth is more beneficial to us than grasshoppers, the only way to solve this problem is if grasshoppers no longer existed, we should kill all grasshoppers; one can imagine where this argument can, and has, led). But, overall, I do think that society would be better off. On the other hand...
Feelings are what make us human, or so I've been told. Maybe "human" wouldn't really exist if we didn't have feelings. Would we be another species if most of us didn't have feelings at all? Would we then really be "homo sapiens" and someone would have to figure out a different terminology for what we are now?
I'm trying to figure out for myself what it means to be really human. I feel like I'm going through latent growth since I'm trying to figure all of this out at 27. But I suppose if I have this down more or less pat by 40, I'll be ok.
There would be less wars, less crime, less poverty, society would ultimately be better off.
I think there are logical reasons for certain wars. I think there are logical reasons to erase certain rogue countries off the face of the earth and the only thing that prevents us from doing these things are feelings of horror of killing on that scale
On the other hand, perhaps those countries would not be rogue if they were more logical? On the other hand, there is a certain logic in North Korea's rogue behavior. They use their rogueness as a form of blackmail.
On a more micro-scale, I'm not sure that ideas like "economic justice" which really has its basis in feelings and compassion would win out logically over ideas like "economic Darwinism" where the strong rose and the weak were crushed into subservience. Just because people lacked feelings does not mean that some would be much smarter and more capable then others. Logic might lead to more poverty, and without compassion (a feeling), nobody would care.
People might exhibit a logical behavior that resembled caring (a feeling) if they determined it was in their enlightened self-interest to not have poverty because for example poverty led to crime. But why would they? Without feelings, people probably would not mind being poor because things like happiness, anger, despair, greed would all be meaningless things that they did not feel. As long as they got enough food to continue existing I guess the would just live in their feeling-less existence. They would not commit crime beyond satisfying their basic survival needs because greed (a feeling) would not exist.
I was formulating in my mind some thing to say about the "There would be less wars, less crime, less poverty, society would ultimately be better off. " idea you can up with from emotion based thinking. Logically, however, I think that Jack touched it when he said "They would not commit crime beyond satisfying their basic survival needs because greed (a feeling) would not exist." That is alot of people fighting for food with no will to share or back down or compassion...
You did bring up an interesting point... what would happen to people and their children if were did lack emotional awareness??? For the answer we may never know.
There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.~- Anais Nin
You make some very good points. You reiterated my "rationalizing through evil" point with a very good example (much better than my grasshopper one). Although, I suppose that I'm envisioning a different kind of non-feeling world.
I don't think that poverty would continue to exist because of a lack of compassion. I believe that people can have morality and ethics without feelings and, vice versa, that people with feelings can be immoral and unethical. I think that if people were able to think clearly without being muddled by emotions, we would be able to have a more prosperous society.
Hmmm...interesting. I guess I just think our emotions drive us to do better and more. To seek out information to help others and fix problems. I think emotions and problems solving are deeply intertwined, even though some people are jerks and screw with everything with unethical evil behaviors, people would know less without the drive to learn and help. I guess this is what the ying/yang perspective come in.
On a side note... do you know about the reply button at the bottom of each comment window when responding individually?
There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.~- Anais Nin
I thought I'd hit the reply button, I guess it didn't work
I agree that emotions can drive us to do better and more and can drive us to help others and problem solve, but I don't think that they're necessary to do these things. If a door doesn't work and I know I can fix it, is it an emotion that drives me to fix it? Or do I fix it because it needs to be fixed and I know I can fix it? Granted not all of life's problems are as simple as that, but it's an example.
I would greatly appreciate hearing other peoples' input on this. Possibly from a philosophy student?
This issue goes back hundreds of years to David Hume vs. Immanuel Kant. Hume would say you can't help others or problem-solve unless you have certain desires/sentiments/emotions. There is no logical connection between a broken door and the belief that you should fix it, according to Hume. Kant replies that anyone sufficiently aware of his place in the world and in touch with his autonomy will see moral duties and then be faced with free choices such as deciding whether to fix the door. If you aren't properly motivated, then Kant says you are irrational. Kant thinks desires get in the way of free choices, while Hume thinks desires are needed in order to make free choices at all. There are a variety of compromise positions which try to get the best of both sides: Hume's connection between desires and choices makes a lot of sense, but Kant's connection to rationality has a certain appeal as well.
This debate is still raging in the philosophy world. My latest ethics class read Simon Blackburn and Christine Korsgaard who are continuing the battle to this very day, still defending Hume and Kant respectively. My personal opinion is that the Humeans are right and the Kantians are unduly influenced by the sternness of Christian virtue-ethics which focuses on sin and duty rather than satisfaction.
That's very interesting. I think I'll have to look into this. Thank you.
what guides our action? (this is a very Humean viewpoint I'm pushing!) Self-preservation is just a particularly powerful one among our many urges, without which we would be totally frozen in nihilistic uncertainty. We'd be like robots waiting for instructions.
As for the definition of 'human' it is hard to say whether feelings are required. There's lots of gray area when you start replacing our fleshy bits with cyborg technology anyways, so maybe its an ill-defined term. Regardless, I think feelings give our lives meaning, and are the ultimate source of all morality.