necessity of feeling

emotion might constitute a baser motivation. it may be influenced by internal and external processes, but it is the root of justification. it is an end to itself. something might be unpleasant because it is painful, but there is no reason that pain itself is unpleasant; this unpleasantness is just an inherent property that it has (usually).

when I cross the street, I do not typically fear the vehicles. even if I never knew the emotion that is fear of death, I would look both ways before crossing the street. I know intellectually that cars are extremely dangerous, and it is my preference to not be run over by a car. so, I take measures to reduce the likelihood of this. I maintain that even if I was incapable of fear whatsoever, my preference to continue living would remain.

perhaps it is the case that while emotion may be a base motivation, it is not the only base motivation. or, perhaps a reasonable set of preferences might be bootstrapped from a minimal set of emotions. for instance, if I lack fear, pain, or sadness, I may still desire to live because the alternative is less interesting. if I lack curiosity, I may still desire to learn in order to develop skills out of a desire to help others, stemming from feelings of compassion. to reiterate, however, I also raise the possibility of gaining and losing preferences through a mechanism unrelated to emotion.

in any case, there is a pervasive notion that people must feel the correct way in a given situation in order to behave correctly. one must not only correct what they have done wrong; they must feel shameful about it. it is not sufficient to directly query and resolve the feelings of others; one must be empathetic to them. one must not only address an injustice; one must be angry about it.

I do not wish to promote an equally discompassionate attitude that emotions are trifling and not worth consideration. the idea that emotions are subordinate to reason is nonsensical; reason is subordinate to facts and conditions of reality, emotions being a category thereof. an impulse to minimize the importance of emotion stems from the desire to render people into useful cogs with no preferences of their own.

however, the ‘proper’ functioning of emotion has little bearing on the ability to have reasonable preferences. despite the assumption that one who is not nervous about something does not care about the risk, it is often useful for fear to be absent. it would only be a hinderance for me to fret every time I cross the street. instead, I coolly and attentively observe my surroundings.

of course, what I would define as “reasonable preferences” would perhaps be much broader than the normative conception. the fixation on having the proper form of emotion would of course also stem from desire to constrain behavior: the intent is that our base motivations must be our controller buttons, and they must reliably operate to stimulate our behavior.

there are many decisions that are considered unacceptable to make that harm no one and pose a risk comparable to many things which are considered acceptable. or, perhaps they pose a high level of risk, but the one who makes these decisions deems it satisfactory. the presence of fear and shame is expected, but their presence does nothing to help the person doing these things. instead, what may work better is to exercise a certain level of care and take precautions.