EMOTION (MORAL ASPECT)

Throughout human history, two opposing attitudes toward man's emotional life can be distinguished, the Stoic and the hedonist. The Stoic ideal of the rational man has no place for emotion. The perfect man is "apathetic," indifferent alike to pleasure and pain. For the hedonist, on the contrary, pleasure and pain are the ultimate principles of action. The wise man pursues pleasure as the supreme human value and avoids pain as the ultimate evil. The Christian outlook on emotion is between these two extremes. Christ the perfect man was angry (Mk 3.5) and wept on hearing of the death of Lazarus (Jn11.33–34).

Use and Misuse of Emotion. Although it is primarily the human will that moves a human being to act, the will is facilitated by the sensitive inclination of the flesh toward what is willed. The role of the emotions is therefore an important and even a necessary one. Without them a man would be relatively inert and slow to move himself to activities needed for change, growth, evolution, or improvement. It is only through the agency of the emotions that a man can tap the reservoirs of his physical powers and energies to enable him to face the crises of life, to defend himself against harm, and to perform with fidelity and thoroughness actions that are necessary to his well-being. But on the other hand, when the emotions get out of control they can lead a man to the gravest disorders and excesses.

Morality. The fact of the baneful consequences of uncontrolled passion no doubt accounts for the suspicion and distrust with which the emotions have been regarded by some, but the necessity of emotions to human life is so manifest that it seems absurd to judge them to be per se evil. In themselves they are morally neutral, neither good nor bad, and they become one or the other only insofar as they influence a man in the direction of good or evil. They are good when, with respect to their quality and intensity, they are appropriate to the objects that arouse them, and they are evil when they are inappropriate, the objects in either case being the objects as they appear in the light of reason judging according to the norms of moral law.

This supposes, however, that the activity of the emotions is in some way subject to the control of man's deliberate will, because nothing that does not proceed, either directly or indirectly, from the deliberate will can rightly be considered to have moral quality. Different instances of emotional activity, however, are differently related to reason and to will, and this may alter considerably the moral character of the emotion itself and of what is done under its influence. Moralists therefore distinguish antecedent and consequent emotion.

Emotion is said to be antecedent if it arises independently of any stimulation or encouragement on the part of the will. It is thus not a voluntary insurgence of the sense appetite, but one that is set off spontaneously on a sub volitional level. It is called antecedent because it arises prior to any act of the will causing or approving it. It anticipates the will act. Since emotion of this kind is not subject to voluntary control, it cannot be accounted voluntary. The man thus impassioned is not responsible for his emotion until it is possible for the will to assume control of it. At the moment when the will deliberately accepts or consents to the emotion, it becomes voluntary and hence ceases to be an antecedent emotion. This also happens when the will, without actually consenting to the emotion, nevertheless neglects to subdue it, in spite of the fact that it could and should do so.

Not all sudden outbursts of emotion can rightly be classified as antecedent. There are cases in which an individual could and should foresee and make suitable provision against events likely to occasion emotional disturbance. If one voluntarily neglects to do this, then the resulting emotion is not antecedent, but is, on the contrary, indirectly voluntary inasmuch as it is a foreseen consequence of the failure to take the measures necessary to forestall it.

It is difficult to determine concretely when one could and should foresee a sudden movement of undesirable emotion and make provision against its occurrence. The majority of medieval theologians inclined to rigorism in this matter and appear to have held that movements of undesirable emotion are always venially sinful, because there is always an element of negligence in the failure to foresee and prevent them, and because the sense appetite shares in some degree in the freedom of the will.

Later theologians took the more benign view that certain sudden movements of emotion are completely beyond the possibility of human control. These they held to be totally devoid of morality. They classified the different movements of sensuality in the following manner:(1) motus primo-primi, emotions that are completely beyond the possibility of human control, either because they arise too suddenly or because they are due simply to a bodily condition, and these were held to be amoral in character; (2) motus secundo-primi, emotions that are not deliberately willed, but are in some way subject to a man's control and so involve some culpable negligence and are consequently venially sinful; (3) motus secundi, disordered emotions that are deliberately willed.

Consequent emotion is voluntary, whether indirectly, as when the will neglects to subdue it, or directly, as happens when the emotion itself is the object of direct desire either for its own sake or as a means to something else. The will can and does on occasion deliberately incite, nourish, encourage, or strengthen emotion, either for the sake of the pleasure to be derived from it, or because it is seen as a means necessary to the accomplishment of something the will wants.

Influence of Emotion upon Responsibility. The moralist is concerned not only with the voluntariness and imputability of an emotional state itself, but also with the bearing emotion may have upon the morality of actions that are performed under its influence. The common position of Catholic moralists on this matter can best be set forth in the following separate conclusions:

(1) Antecedent passion increases the voluntariness of an action proceeding from it, but at the same time diminishes the freedom of that action. It increases the voluntariness of the action because its momentum carries the will with it, so that one performs the action more willingly under its impulse than if such impulse were lacking. But it diminishes the freedom of the action because on the one hand it beclouds the vision of the mind and on the other it weakens the control of the will over the other powers, and this to an extent that may limit materially the possibility of deliberate choice. Since it lessens freedom, it diminishes responsibility also, for one is responsible for what he does to the extent in which he acts freely.

(2) The extent to which antecedent emotion diminishes responsibility will depend upon its violence. If it is of such force or vehemence that it deprives one altogether of the use of reason, then no real freedom remains and the action that occurs cannot be morally blameworthy. In such a case one is, for the time being, in so disturbed a mental state that he is incapable of moral action. Less violent passion, leaving some use of reason, will not totally abolish responsibility, but will diminish it in proportion to the force of the emotional impulse.

(3) Consequent passion, however strong it may be, lessens neither the voluntariness nor the freedom of an action. The reason is that emotion of this kind is itself voluntary, whether directly or indirectly, and in willingly and freely stimulating it or allowing it to exist, one takes upon himself responsibility for the actions to which he can reasonably foresee that it will lead. It might happen, of course, that one's emotion, though voluntary, might reach an unexpected pitch of intensity and thus result in an action more far-reaching than was foreseen. In this case the emotion itself would be partly antecedent and partly consequent. Up to the point to which the person foresees and intends the emotion to reach, it is consequent and voluntary, but the unforeseen excess of emotion would be antecedent and involuntary, and responsibility for actions committed because of it would be accordingly diminished.

Emotion and Virtue. Since the human sensitive appetite has its own act and is, in a sense, rational, because of its intimate association with reason and will, it can be the subject of such virtues as temperance and fortitude. The role of such moral virtue is not to destroy or eliminate emotion, but to make the sensitive appetite readily responsive to the dictates of reason. Because of the wounds of original sin, the process of acquiring moral virtue in the sensitive appetite is painful; however, constant effort wears down its resistance, and the continued control of reason leaves its imprint on the appetite. This imprint when fully developed becomes moral virtue. Moral education is an extrinsic help toward this end, but the most important help comes directly from God when He gives grace for the task. Because the whole man, including his sensitivity, has been redeemed, God gives sufficient grace for its control. Indeed, Christian tradition testifies to the infusion at Baptism of the moral virtues of temperance and fortitude.

See Also: concupiscence; virtue.

Bibliography: r. e. brennan, Thomistic Psychology (New York 1954). j. maritain, Moral Philosophy (New York 1964). t.v. moore, The Driving Forces of Human Nature and Their Adjustment (New York 1948). p. o'brien, Emotions and Morals (New York 1950). w. farrell, "Man's Emotional Life," Cross and Crown 6 (1954) 178–198. r. allers, "Cognitive Aspect of Emotion," Thomist 4 (1942) 589–648. p. lumbreras, "De sensualitatis peccato," Divus Thomas 32 (1929) 225–240.

[j. cahill]