Emotion

Emotions are normally a reliable guide to our priorities and needs. For example, emotions give us compassion for others, leading us to perform actions that benefit others. However, emotions can also distract us from considering wider issues, leading to decisions that are not ideal.

Emotions are often based on our instinctive drives to satisfy our immediate needs (e.g., fear when at risk of injury). They may therefore mislead us when dealing with problem systems to which our instincts are unsuited, such as those with large scopes or changing behaviour. For example, emotions can tempt us to focus on the well-being of people we care about at the expense of strangers.

Unlike our instincts, our emotions can be influenced by our personal experiences. This is normally beneficial since instincts are based on the circumstances of our ancient ancestors rather than recent events. However, if our experience has been unusual, our emotions can be biased. For example, if most of the dogs you’ve encountered have been vicious, you won’t have positive emotions for dogs in general. In extreme cases, this can result in emotional disorders such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Although many emotions originate from instinctive needs, emotions can also arise from other thinking modes; e.g., conscious reasoning revealing that a catastrophe could occur. However, because reasoning is slower than instinct, we may be inclined to go with our initial emotional response even though it isn't based on the best thinking of which we are capable.

Like the subconscious thinking modes, emotions don't explain why they are the way they are. Usually it’s obvious, but sometimes reasoning may be needed to explain an emotion.[BW] This is especially important when emotions can be misleading, such as when they're based on inappropriate instincts or affected by mental health conditions.

While valid unpleasant emotions often indicate that we need to do something about a problem, this isn't always the case. We can feel bad about something over which we have no control (see rings of responsibility). This is a dangerous situation because we can be tempted to try to make the emotion go away using actions that don't address the problem, such as consuming alcohol or drugs, binge eating, and so on.

Introduced Species

Australia has significant populations of feral horses (‘brumbies’) and introduced toads (‘cane toads’). Both types harm native species and the environment. However, horses are relatable and majestic mammals which engender substantial compassion, so many people oppose measures to limit their population. On the other hand, cane toads have no endearing features, so they have few advocates.

Brumbies, 15 Mar 2007, Wikimedia Commons.

Froggydarb, Bufo marinus from Australia, 11 Jan 2007, Wikimedia Commons.

Imprisonment

It’s appropriate to feel compassion for many prisoners. It would be nice to be able to forgive every wrongdoer and allow them all back into the community. However, emotion can cause us to focus exclusively on the plight of the prisoner and to neglect the possible side-effects of doing what’s best for them alone. Recidivism is common and results in harm to innocent people, sometimes many years later. We need to balance our compassion for the prisoner before us with compassion for possible future victims we can’t see.

Overpopulation

A consequence of the relationship between instinct and emotion is that we can be happy when our instinctive priorities are satisfied even when those instincts are no longer appropriate. Instincts tend to be selfish and they evolved when the human population wasn’t large enough to have much impact on the environment. As a result, we can derive pleasure from large families, longevity, luxury, and so on. However, now that the human population is large enough to be constrained by the planet’s resources, many things that give us pleasure now have adverse consequences for the planet and other people. We need to feel sad about some of the things that make us happy.

Scope

Compassion can limit our consideration of the scopes of a problem us so that it doesn't extend beyond the individual or group of people in the foreground. To get the best overall result, we should consider the problem’s complete element, action, outcome, relationship and time scopes.

Instinct

Because many emotions are based on instinctive needs, most of the related issues that apply to instinct also apply to emotion.

Memory

Emotions can be based on our past experiences. If our memory is inaccurate, emotions that depend on it may be misleading.

Familiarity Bias

Emotions can cause familiarity bias because we feel the strongest emotions for the people, places, etc, with which we’re most familiar. Our emotions tempt us to adopt actions that are best for the familiar at the expense of the unfamiliar.

Self-awareness and Open-mindedness

Like instincts, emotions can suggest a solution to a problem almost instantly, and we may not be consciously aware of the tricks that our emotions can play. When dealing with a problem in which emotion may be unreliable, we need to be aware that it may be misleading us. If necessary, we may need to override it with a slower but smarter thinking mode such as reasoning.

Priorities

Emotion influences our selection of priorities, and our priorities strongly influence our thinking and decision-making. Because emotions are often based on instincts, the relationship between instincts and priorities often applies to emotions too.

Optimisation

Optimisation means determining the best way to achieve an objective. Specifying the objective properly is obviously very important. It’s tempting to adopt an objective of being happy (or avoiding pain, etc); i.e., specifying the objective in terms of emotions. This is normally fine, but may not work well for problems in which emotions can be misleading. Ironically, pursuing happiness may result in unhappiness in such situations.