Emotions are intrinsically good and bad

[bennyboy]

You say that satisfaction is a positive emotion which you are implying to be the rational value judgments themselves.  I don't think that is true.  I don't think rational value judgments themselves can be any positive or negative emotion in our lives.  This means that something other than a mindset alone is required to make our lives good and it would be the real positive emotions themselves.  Without these real emotions, then we could only have intentions, make decisions, have certain mindsets and attitudes, but there would be no real emotion there.  Most people just want things to exist and believing they exist doesn't make that happen. 

Lots of behaviors have pleasure rewards. That's how the brain works. But many of those cease very quickly, and are maybe even filled in immediately with negative ones. If I cheat on my wife with a hot secretary, I'll be on cloud 9-- until about 1 minute after the act is completed. Then I will suffer a world of pain and guilt.

My point is that emotions are temporary an transient, and a poor basis on which to judge value in life. It is true that satisfaction is experienced as pleasure-- however it is a unique kind of pleasure, in that it is continually reinforced BASED ON perceived value. See-- the pleasure isn't the value, it's the reward for the value. In fact, I'd even say that a particularly subtle satisfaction does not even need to be thought of as emotional at all. For example, an understanding of the principle of the greater good might involve a decision that hurts oneself, and gives no positive emotion whatsoever-- for example, killing someone to save others. Yet, the person may still see real value there.