Yet another philosophical quest to find out what a human mechanism entails towards emotions. Is man born with an emotional mechanism just as he is born with cognitive mechanism? Man through his cognitive faculty and mind determines the complex content to retain in his body and soul. Human mind and system is programmed through values that he/she has chosen over a period of time.
Values are the product either of his thinking based on evasion/acceptance through various experiences. Values are not a constant factor and are almost never uniform through any given set of people. This is simply because they are formulated by default, by subconscious associations, on faith (blind or rational) and some form on social osmosis (complex process) or even blind imitation. Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep-virtue is the act by which one gains and/ or keeps it. The three important values of the objectivist ethics are- reason, purpose ans self esteem with their three corresponding virtues: rationality, productiveness and pride.
To me emotions are a product of man's premises, held consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly most of the times. Man has no choice about his capacity to feel that something is good for him or evil, but what he will consider good or evil, what will give him joy or pain, what he will love or hate, desire and fear, depends on his standard of value.
A quote from Galts' speech to which I agree: " Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy- a joy without penalty and guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work towards your self destruction. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions."
Values are the product either of his thinking based on evasion/acceptance through various experiences. Values are not a constant factor and are almost never uniform through any given set of people. This is simply because they are formulated by default, by subconscious associations, on faith (blind or rational) and some form on social osmosis (complex process) or even blind imitation. Value is that which one acts to gain and/or keep-virtue is the act by which one gains and/ or keeps it. The three important values of the objectivist ethics are- reason, purpose ans self esteem with their three corresponding virtues: rationality, productiveness and pride.
To me emotions are a product of man's premises, held consciously or subconsciously, explicitly or implicitly most of the times. Man has no choice about his capacity to feel that something is good for him or evil, but what he will consider good or evil, what will give him joy or pain, what he will love or hate, desire and fear, depends on his standard of value.
A quote from Galts' speech to which I agree: " Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy- a joy without penalty and guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work towards your self destruction. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions."
3 comments:
the objective ethics of happiness is entirely based on achievement of one's values through means of rational living... more specifically, one achieves values by actions based on reason and not emotion... the state of happiness that is strictly based on emotions is not "real" and most of the time ephemeral...
here is an interesting quote from Atlas:
"Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values." -Atlas Shrugged
@soliloquy-Emotions are nothing but subconscious/conscious reactions based on your values. So I disagree with the statement "state of happiness strictly based on emotions....."
to me, joy and happiness are states of BEING, not concepts realized through effort in realms of the mind...
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