Chapter Five—
5. Emotions
Emotions and Values
Throughout the preceding discussion, I have stressed that his ability to reason is man's essential attribute —the
attribute which explains the greatest number of his other characteristics.
This fact is often obscured by the widespread confusion about the nature and role of emotions in man's life. One
frequently hears the statement, "Man is not merely a rational being, he is also an emotional being"—which implies
some sort of dichotomy, as if, in effect, man possessed a dual nature, with one part in opposition to the other. In
fact, however, the content of man's emotions is the product of his rational faculty; his emotions are a derivative and
a consequence, which, like all of man's other psychological characteristics, cannot be understood without reference
to the conceptual power of his consciousness.
As man's tool of survival, reason has two basic functions: cognition and evaluation. The process of cognition
consists of discovering what things are, of identifying their nature, their attributes and properties. The process of
evaluation consists of man discovering the relationship of things to himself, of identifying what is beneficial to him
and what is harmful, what should be sought and what should be avoided.
"A 'value' is that which one acts to gain and/or keep."^1 It is that which one regards as conducive to one's welfare. A
value is the object of an action. Since man must act in order to live, and since reality confronts him with many
possible goals, many alternative courses of action, he cannot escape the necessity of selecting values and making
value-judgments.