Aristotle
Aristotle (384-322 BC): Emotions (feelings)
There are no clear statement on how emotions differ with/relate to vices
and virtues. There are 3 types of emotional mental processes:
-
Faculties (capacities, predispositions): Potentialities of experiencing
Passions.
-
Formed habits (disposition, character): Repeated experience of Passions,
related to the developing knowledge and social pressure.
-
Passions: States accompanied by pain and pleasure. Come in 'antagonistic
pairs':
-
Anger <-> Placability
-
Love <-> Fear
-
Shame <-> Shamelessness
-
Benevolence <-> Churchlishness
-
Pity <-> Resentment
-
Envy <-> Emulation <-> Contempt
Anger : "an impulse attended with pain to avenge openly an undeserved
slight openly manifested towards ourselves or our friends". Aristotle also
distinguishes appropriate and inappropriate anger :'Anyone can be angry,
That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree,
at the right time, for the right reason, and in the right way, this is
not easy" (Nicomachean Ethics).
Placability=Gentleness : "Settling or quiescence of anger" -
arising from lapse of time, mood induction or pity.
Love=Friendliness : "wishing a person all the things you consider
good, not for your sake, but for his, and readiness, so far as in you lies,
to bring them about".
Hate=Enmity : Opposite of Love - not necessarily painful (unlike
anger) - may be directed to a class of objects rather than individuals
(unlike anger).
Fear : " kind of pain or perturbation arising from the idea
of impending evil hurtful to life or at least painful".
Confidence : Opposite of Fear - kind of hope.
Shame : "kind of pain or perturbation in reference to evils
past, present, or future that are thought to tend to discredit".
Shamelessness : Opposite of Shame.
Benevolence : state "which leads one to render service to another
in time of need, not to repay past services or obtain future rewards, but
solely for his benefit".
Pity=Compassion : "kind of pain at the sight of great and undeserved
misfortune in another, such as we deem liable to befall ourselved or any
of our friends or relatives, and especially when it appears imminent" -
Require a sense of liability and beleif in the existence of human virtues.
Resentment=Indignation : Correlative with Pity - Pain at the
sight of unmerited prosperity.
Envy=Malice : Pain, like Resentment, but not related to merit
- Directed to individuals close in age, social status...
Emulation : " kind of pain at the sight of good which we value
and might acquire, when possessed by another naturally resembling ourselves,
not because he possesses them, but because we do not".
Contempt : Opposite of Emulation.
For More Information
Author: Jean-Marc Fellous
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