Emotions Don’t Have Intrinsic Moral Quality

emotions

Image via Wikipedia

Emotions are how we interpret the world around us.  They are not linked to morality.  Please don’t take them to the pulpit.  If you do, I will still be polite, although breathing through a mask.

That’s all I’m going to write for today.  Please tell me what your thoughts are.

Keep on folks.

22 thoughts on “Emotions Don’t Have Intrinsic Moral Quality

  1. This is awesome. Short and to the point. “Emotions are how we interpret the world. They are not linked to morality.” I wish I would have heard that years and years ago….it would have alleviated some of the deep and lasting guilt I feel any time I feel anything negative. I have always worried that emotions like anger are a moral failing on my part… In fact, until now, I have never really considered otherwise. Hmmm…

    Like

    • Nancy,

      Thanks for posting. I too feel a moral “failing” when I exhibit my emotions. My mother, my brother, and other family members just keep telling me to suck it up and be strong. I used to feel strong but don’t find that feeling around too much these days. Thanks for your post.

      Like

  2. Yes, I think emotions may not have moral quality but can certainly be driven by a moral dynamic. So in some instances I don’t know how we can isolate them as exclusive of each other, because each generates the other as in the passion of the anti/pro abortion debate and its emotional morality or moral driven emotions. Hmmm. Am I sounding like Edith Bunker here? .

    Like

  3. This is, I know, silly, but maybe it will make sense to someone. I read this blog late last night and all I could think was “Oh, golly, what did one of us – I? – say that caused such a short, to the point, almost disciplinary piece of writing?” I read over a lot of responses and several of your recent blogs and went to bed really wanting to get back up and write, “Why does this bother me so much?”

    This morning, having read the responses so far, I know. I take the blame for everything. Always have. Never had a reason to. Just lived in a home where emotion (on the part of my father) was linked to violence (a moral wrong?!)…and it was always my fault. Hmmmmm.

    p.s. Sarah, I’ve liked your responses the last couple of times. I could relate well to both. Glad you wrote them.

    Like

  4. Thank you, Sana. I don’t know how or when I quit beating myself up for feeling sad or anxious or scared. But it’s made a tremendous difference for me to know I don’t always have to be “brave” or “strong.” It’s wonderful.

    Like

  5. That is one thing that I had to learn and apply to myself. Forget about how you’re supposed to feel about something. Instead, concentrate on how you actually feel and deal with that.

    Like

  6. well everyone today i am happy this is my emotion of the day very rare but im happy then being me i love to question everything today i am happy because i am content my emotions were a bit out of controll earlyer i was crying because i was so happy so you could interpret it two ways im either sad or happy and i shall interpret them as happy this feeling i have not felt for a long long time

    Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s