I would like to take a moment to establish something that I think we can all agree on—perhaps something that we can look at as a “foundation” for this discussion. From a phenomenological perspective, I think that we can all agree that, whether reason and emotion are dichotomized or not, there would be neither without experience. I find it very difficult to imagine what it would be like to reason about things if there weren’t any, and I do not see why I’d be emotional if there were nothing there to feel about or towards. So I do not think there is any dispute about premising this discussion on the assumption that there has to be at least experience for there to be reason or emotion.
From here, I think we can ask questions about the relationship between our rationality and our feelings. Is there a dichotomy of “…emotion and reason as two separate entities coexisting within the human mind”? Or does one “emerge”, “supervene”, or somehow lead or give rise to the other? We have at least experience, now where do we go from there?
Haus, you’ve said that you “…tend to cleave to the idea that our emotions are a function of ratiocination, at least beyond a very primal level.” So, if I have this correctly, you want to be saying that, while there might be some sort of muttering or murmuring of emotions at a “primal level” of our mind, emotions “are a function” of our reasoning—that they emerge from our, as you say, “ratiocination.” Now, in your fear example you’ve tried to show this by saying that, given the intellectual understanding of the circumstance, you could “reasonably be said to feel fear.” Thus, you wanted to say—again, if I understand you—that the comprehension of the dreadful circumstance gives rise to the fear.
First, by it being “reasonably said to feel fear,” it seems that this works as more of an evaluative claim than it does to establish that emotions are a function of our ratiocination. It seems to me that if I were to be reasonably feeling fear, then what is the case is that I am justified in feeling that particular instance of fear. In the fill in the blank details of your example, it is putting all the elements—phenomena—of the experience in an order that makes sense of the experience in such a way as to rationalize the feeling of fear. Thus, I don’t think your example makes the case that you want it to make, or else you are saying something about when it is reasonable to feel an emotion, and not that emotions are brought about by a reasonable interpretation of a given experience.
Second, even if we suppose, like I think you are saying, that there are cases where feelings emerge from a rational process that were not present in any elements of that process, then I think there are also cases where this is turned around. To again use fear as an example: continue to suppose that there is someone about to hack off someone else’s arm with a machete, but instead of it being our arm, it is the arm of our friend. Given the circumstance, you have the opportunity to warn hir, and this may, in turn, give hir a chance to avoid this terrible fate. So we shout “Watch out!” or “Duck” or something like that. It seems to me that it is not merely our ratiocination that makes us actually call out, but that there has to be an emotive reason which leads to the rational conclusion that, in the circumstances of this particular experience, it is reasonable to call out the warning to our friend. I mean, a merely intellectual understanding of the phenomena will rarely give rise to a warning, and if it does, than it is only a dispassionate warning: kinda’ like the warning on takeout cups of hot coffee or the changing of the terror alert from yellow to amber (or however that works). In this case, with our friend about to loose a limb, I think it is clear that fear and care—emotive elements—for our friend motivate our reason to shout. Thus, the rational process seems here a function of our emotions.
Therefore, there seems be support for both sides of the divide: we can see cases where emotions are a function of ratiocination and cases where ratiocination is a function of emotion. So, this gets us as far as establishing that the relationship between our reason and our emotion is, in some sense, symmetrical: both point to the other.
Third, it is, from many perspectives, difficult not to dichotomize intellect and feelings, reason and emotion. From most angles these two derivatives of our human experience are seen to be mutually exclusive. I mean, by ‘reason’ we are generally referring to that aspect of our mind that is sensible, rational, logical, calculating, etc. But by ‘emotion’ we are generally referring to that part of our mind that feels, intuits, and senses, the part of us that can provoke us to act irrationally, illogically, or without a reasonable motivation.
For instance, once, at a punk-rock show—maybe it was the Jesus Lizard—I watched my friend Jordan punch this acquaintance of ours, Dave, in the face. There wasn’t any perceivable provocation: they weren’t arguing, there wasn’t any conflict between them—Jordan suddenly, and I would say irrationally, hit Dave, and hard too. Now, perhaps to an outside observer, this could be said to be reasonably motivated: there’s lots of beer, it’s loud, it’s hot and smoky, there’s lots of energy and people, and it’s the fuckin’ Jesus Lizard; thus, perhaps it was reasonable that Jordan punched Dave in the face. Hmm…somewhat plausible, I suppose; however, while I can’t exactly speak for Jordan, it seems to me that from his perspective (putting myself in his shoes as best I can) I was sitting there at the table in this environment when within my mind I felt that I had to punch Dave in the face, and, instead of ignoring this irrational feeling, I simply go ahead and sock it to him.
So what I am saying is that there does seem to be a rational motivation for seeing our reason and our emotion as distinct and exclusive of one and other. However, I also think that they are interdependently co-arising, but I’ll save that for another time. |
