The Indispensable Emotions

Sunday, November 26, 2006
First Aired:
Tuesday, July 26, 2005

What Is It

如果没有情感,我们会是什么样子?历史上许多哲学家都认为情绪只会影响我们的判断和行动。像“他只是感情用事”或“她的判断被感情蒙蔽了”这样的短语是谴责的,而不是赞扬的。尽管如此,一些哲学家认为,情绪有其自身的智能,情绪对我们的道德生活是不可或缺的。加入约翰和肯以及他们的嘉宾玛莎·努斯鲍姆,《Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions,as they explore the role of emotions in well lived lives and well-ordered societies.

Listening Notes

Usually when we think about the mind, we divide it into thoughts and feelings. Where do emotions fit in? What are the emotions good for? Hume thought morality was based on them while Kant wanted to banish them from moral thought. Ken introduces Martha Nussbaum, professor at the University of Chicago. What is special about the emotions? Nussbaum thinks emotions involve an appraisal about what is good for your own wellbeing. Ken says that emotions have intentional content, that is, they are about something.

Nussbaum says that our emotions play a big part in figuring out how to live a well-lived life. The Stoics thought that anger damaged society, so they denied emotions as much as possible. Ken thinks that emotions display our vulnerabilities. Nussbaum says that there are many kinds of non-verbalizable thought, such as pictures. How does anger cloud our thought? Ken says that beliefs can be true or false, but emotions, like anger, seem to be appropriate or inappropriate rather than true or false.

How do we decide whether an emotion is appropriate? Nussbuam says that it is a part of growing up and deciding how we should live. How do we decide what to care about? Should intuitions serve as our primary guide in decision making about right and wrong? Are emotions rooted in the older part of the human brain? Nussbaum thinks that certain emotions, such as compassion, requires higher brain functions.

  • Roving Philosophical Report(Seek to 04:27): Amy Standen interviews Linda Wetzel, professor at Georgetown University, about emotions and the android Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
  • Sixty Second Philosopher伊恩·肖尔斯很快地讨论了斯宾诺莎的观点,从情感、伦理到对上帝的看法。

Transcript