is Human instinct more on the emotional side or the mental side?

Question

is it more on the destructive or more on the constructive?

Answer 1

Instinct as distinct from volition is a subconscious mental activity, which requires emotions-- but does not reduce to them. Emotions give rise to feelings in which we intuit the emotions themselves. What moves the body, by virtue of sub-conscious mental phenomenon (and not purely metabolic operations) is the instinct which interacts with emotions, and acts on the basis of what co-ordination between faculty and object takes place.


To your second question, since I regard instinct as an automatic process -- no doubt, of the mind in some capacity -- it entirely depends on the situation. Whether someone acts 'on a hunch' and defers all rational decision-making to taste may not be destructive at all. In fact, there is nothing but passion in the end that will bring rational calculus to action (cf. Hume). And since we cannot strictly control what emotions arise due to any deliberation, will requires instinct.

Answer 2

I believe it's just instinct and nothing more. Instinct is without thought and emotion and at times it can be more destructive than constructive and that's when I believe the emotional and mental state sets in.

Answer 3

You have provided a dichotomy of concepts that are fully instantiated in one place; the brain. You may use reduction to study the system, but that does not mean it works that way.

Answer 4

emotional.
constructive. instinct is designed to help the body survive, not die

Answer 5

Destructive.
Nothing good ever happens in this world.

Answer 6

huh?