Is emotion a weakness?

Question

And I don't mean 'showing' it, but having it.

Doesn't having emotion predispose you to making irrational desisions? Like punching a wall out of 'anger', or not getting a prenuptial out of 'love', Cutting yourself out of 'sadness', things like that?

Answer 1

Emotion is an evolutionary byproduct. Natural selection is interested in the survival and reproductive success of an animal within its particular environment. Though some shadowy emotive features show up in other animals, homo sapiens is by far and away the prince of the passions. This comes along with our astounding cognitive capacity. As great as our brains are, the amount of information that needs to be processed for our survival would have our body temperatures running a damn sight hotter if we didn't have the cognitive shortcuts provided to us by emotions.

Emotions are an evolutionary short-cut, a means of enhancing the efficiency of our psychical processes. They are hard-wired into the average human brain and have been selected by millions of generations of trial and error.

Now, as for their being a weakness for us in our post-modern world...an argument could be made that they are in some ways. One way to look at emotions is to see them as a remnant, an unnecessary leftover; like body hair, coccyxs, or male nipples. They were helpful to our primitive societies, but now are out of place and out of their league.

Another detriment of the emotions that we have is that we are stuck with them, we can't change them, but they were programmed to deal with problems we faced tens of thousands of years ago, not in the 21st century. The speed of technology has outpaced biological evolution as an Achilles passing a tortoise, leaving us stuck with anachronistic emotional responses to modern problems. Is it safe to have people controlled by animal responses while they have their finger on the nuclear button? Yikes.

Answer 2

You can't really separate emotion from the mind. It's just how the brain works. It's like how our brains tend to put things into categories -- it can help us (a couch is for sitting because it looks like a chair) or hurt us (a person must be violent because of his race).

Emotions have plenty of useful functions, such as: motivation (including love), quick decision making (deciding to turn down a job because the people there rubbed you the wrong way), altruism (helping others because it feels good), and social judgment (realizing that you should probably not make jokes at a funeral because people will get upset).

Answer 3

Emotion is a strength when used in the correct fashion. Having a predisposition and acting in an irrational manner is a sign of immaturity, having low self control and self esteem.
Good intentioned emotions will always get you into-the-good of things.

Answer 4

No,but emotive-ness IS.

This is not really appreciated,so thanks for ur question.
Emotiveness works against human betterment;it works
against any help the you or others might give to your
fellows.
For everyone seriously interested in philosophic
history and knowledge,the above is quite vital.
And one of the best reasons and examples i can give,is
the excellent and hardly-emotive work of the late 20th
century scholar Sir karl Popper,et al.He worked tirelessly
to show that if someone does some constant work avoiding
the intrusions-of-emotive-ness,then usually some knowledge
and insight follow.

Answer 5

i suppose it depends on the emotional state people have. Some wear their 'hearts on their sleeves', whilst others are more reserved with showing such raw emotion.

By having emotions, you will at some point show them.

I believe it's a strength and not a weakness.

Answer 6

Emotion is not a weakness -- it is a complementary energy to our thoughts. Our thoughts and feelings occur simultaneously. To have a thought without an emotion is to have an empty process that has no more value than a body void of spirit.

No. Emotions are not weaknesses. They are a requirement for our very existence.

Answer 7

If you look at it that way, all humans are hazards by having emotions. But is impossible to get rid of these emotions because we are born with them and animals have it too. Of course, the greatest way to attack a warrior is not shooting him but attacking his heart (emotions). Psychologists say it's healthy to have emotions otherwise we'd be sociopaths. Emotions make us do stupid things, like argue or hit somebody but it also leads to great things. Like helping children who are being tortured, it touches us to the very core of our heart. Emotion is a double-edged sword.

Answer 8

All humans have emotions and become emotional in certain situations, that is human nature. But self control is extremely important, and it needs to be practiced more often.