Thoughts Precede Emotions

he first thing to understand about emotions

is that they are not objective responses to the outside world, but rather objective responses to our internal premises – i.e. standardized responses to subjective stimuli.

To picture this in reality

, think of our two good friends Bob and Doug sitting on a couch watching a hockey game, where Canada is playing the United States.

Bob the Canadian cheers every time

Canada scores a goal; Doug the American cheers every time the United States scores a goal.

Here we have an example of an objective

event occurring – a hockey puck bouncing into a net – which causes one man elation, and the other despair.

Clearly, these emotional responses cannot be directly caused by the movement of the puck, since the same action is producing opposite emotional results.

Now, earlier I defined “love” as our involuntary response to virtue – here I would like to append a qualifier, which is that love is our involuntary response to virtue

if we are virtuous

Bob is a fan of Team Canada, and so he cheers on that team – if we are a fan of Team Virtue, we cheer on

that

team. If we are a fan of Team-Not-So-Much-With-The-Virtue, we will cheer on the team with darker jerseys instead.

Now, emotions are distinct from sensations, insofar as sensations are neurobiological stimuli that occur independent of our thoughts.

“Happiness” is an

emotion

; physical pain is a

sensation

. While Bob and Doug might have opposite emotional reactions to the movement of a puck, they would not have opposite sensations if that puck happened to hit them in the face at high speed – both would feel blinding agony.

Similarly, what is called

“runner’s high,” or the euphoria that results from the release of endorphins during strenuous exercise, is a

sensation

, as is the giddy joy that results from taking heroin.

Since physical sensations do not depend upon our thoughts, philosophy can do very little to aid us in controlling or managing them. No syllogism can eliminate a toothache – the alleviation of physical pain is a medical matter; philosophy is for the soul.

Thus we shall focus in this section on the thoughts that precede emotions, so that we can better understand how to change our thoughts – and thus change our emotions.