RE: Emotions are intrinsically good and bad
October 3, 2017 at 5:26 pm
(This post was last modified: October 3, 2017 at 5:27 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
(October 3, 2017 at 2:28 pm)bennyboy Wrote:(October 3, 2017 at 11:12 am)Transcended Dimensions Wrote: In addition, our positive and negative emotions are objectively positive and negative experiences
It's like you don't have access to a dictionary.
No he's right there. Experientiality=ontologically subjective but it's not necessarily epistemically subjective so there's no contradiction.
My quibble with TD is the fact that emotions are extremely over-specific and they're mere concepts and labels for very specific experiences that we deem worthy of naming "emotions".
Good feelings that we don't have a label for, that we haven't found a name for, that aren't an "emotion"... are still good. The same with bad feelings. They're still bad even when we are unable to categorize them into specific negative emotions.
The whole emotions=intrisically good and bad thing should be scrapped in favor of "subjective experience is intrinsically good and bad."
Everyone's subjective experience (their ontological subjectivity) is episemically objectively good or bad relative to them. What feels good for one person is good for them, but not necessarily good for someone else.
Emotions aren't broad enough in scope to cover the totality of all all meaningful experientiality.
Furthermore TD makes a huge error when he pretends like he believes emotions themselves are enough to get you to objective value but then he makes a total non-sequitur by assuming that a variety of moderately "positive emotions" for longer periods of time is objectively better than one positive emotion experienced for less time but experienced much more intensely. He repeatedly fails to acknowledge that "emotions are intrinsically good and bad" doesn't entail "duration and variety matters more than intensity". He has absolutely no way to judge that a few hours of ecstasy isn't better than years of feeling sort of a bit relaxed sometimes and sort of a bit joyous other times. But he pretends that he does.
Also, if he only counts emotions as being objectively good and bad... then does this mean that if someone has a positive or negative experience that doesn't fit outright into a specific emotion and it's more a sort of vague mood that is yet to have a label.... does this mean that somehow 'doesn't count'?
He's on the right track but he makes huge flaws. Flaws that I've made in the past so it's easy to spot.
Meanwhile people who think that subjective experience can't be objectively good or bad because it's "subjective" are failing to spot their own equivocations.