The ethics chart is presented after this section. Only a couple other sections of the ethical model are available to read on the website; the rest are available in Part 1: A Theory.
Five Categories Ethical Theory:
Ethics Section 1-1 -- Perception:
Human perception consists solely of nonconscious impressions and conscious thoughts. Experience is perception -- box 1-1 underlies all ethics, as perception underlies human experience. Perception includes not just external sense perception but also perception of internal thoughts, emotions, and urges.
“All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds, which I shall call impressions and ideas [thoughts]. The difference between these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike our mind and make their way into our thought and consciousness. Those perceptions which enter with most force and violence we may name impressions, and under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions as they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas, I mean the faint images of these in thinking and reasoning” (Hume). The dichotomy between the conscious and nonconscious minds is discussed further in section 1-2.
Ethics:
Positive and negative motivations motivate people via positive and negative emotions respectively. Positive motivation rewards and encourages; negative motivation punishes and discourages. If one’s child folds laundry poorly, positive motivation might involve encouraging the child to do better and thanking them when they do. Negative motivation might involve hitting or insulting them.
Positive motivation is ethical and negative motivation is unethical:
Problems occur.
Both negative and positive motivations motivate problem-solving.
Negative emotions are painful; positive emotions are enjoyable.
Negative motivation inhibits problem-solving; positive motivation does not (see next list).
Therefore, Positive motivation is a superior motivational tool.
I stated that negative motivation inhibits problem-solving. This is because negative motivations:
Encourage ignorance -- to avoid negative emotions caused by awareness of problems
Hinder rationality -- negative emotional states like anger, stress, and panic hinder rationality
Encourage malice -- malice intends to cause suffering, thus creating more problems
Waste willpower -- studies show that negative emotional states sap willpower
Cause reluctance -- negative emotions generate reluctance, which inhibits action
(The Five Counterproductive Side-effects of Negative Motivation (5CO))
The key to happiness is embracing positive motivation and rejecting negative motivation. Each ethical section of this theory explains how to replace negative motivation with positive motivation. One can solve problems without being hurt emotionally by problems.
One does not ever need to be upset by a problem to recognize it is a problem and to solve it.
If negative emotion is so problematic, why does it exist? Negative emotions provide powerful evolutionary tools for solving problems: Disgust avoids disease and trouble; Anger intimidates opponents; Hate destroys evil; Fear avoids danger; Reluctance avoids dispreferable situations. Negative emotions have value. But they cause problems. They are painful. And they are unnecessary.
The evolutionary purpose of negative emotion is further illustrated by human babies. Babies are sometimes extraordinarily happy and sometimes extraordinarily sad. Extraordinary sadness is useful behavior for babies because their only solution to problems is making a fuss -- growing so upset that someone else solves their problems for them. But adults aren’t babies. Instead of acting like babies, adults should respond to problems with solutions. As sentient beings, we have access to problem-solving tools which are more effective than negative motivation.
Our animalistic reaction to danger is fear, and with too little or too much fear an animal is reckless or timid respectively. But one can rise above one’s animal instincts and act logically rather than emotionally, thus eliminating the need for fear at all. The true ethical middle ground between too little and too much fear is not ‘the right amount of fear,’ but a combination of caution and courage (where courage involves disempowering fear, and caution involves overcoming danger).
All emotions are necessarily either positive or negative. (How could a neutral emotion possibly motivate action?) Positive and negative emotions can be paired with one another -- pride and shame, accomplishment and guilt, or love and hate. Opposite emotions each solve the same fundamental problem: Pride and shame both motivate self-improvement; accomplishment and guilt motivate meaningful action; love and hate motivate one to cultivate positive social ties.
This is another reason negative motivation is unnecessary -- every problem solved by a negative emotion can be easily solved by its correlated positive emotion. Negative emotions are not necessary for motivation -- one can treat a situation as urgent without getting frustrated by obstacles or worrying about outcomes.
This is not to say negative emotions are inappropriate, immoral, or wrong to experience. Negative emotions are natural, and are difficult to deny and overcome. Unlike negative motivations, negative emotions are not unethical. This is because motivating oneself with negative emotion is a choice while experiencing negative emotion is not. It is human to experience negative emotions.
While one cannot choose the emotions one experiences, one can work to alter the necessary conditions for experiencing emotions. All emotions are conditional: If certain conditions are fulfilled, one experiences the emotion. One can disempower negative emotions by deciding there are no appropriate conditions for them.
Additionally, one can avoid setting unnecessary conditions for happiness. People often place conditions on their own happiness, saying ‘I will be happy once goals X, Y, and Z are fulfilled;’ people place conditions on love, blocking positive emotion and compassionate behavior; people make their enjoyment of competitions conditional on winning; etc.
Emotions make one want to justify and enact certain behaviors. Expressing emotions feels good; it takes willpower not to express oneself.
Repressing negative emotions is ineffective as it fails to address the underlying problems. To overcome negative emotions one must effectively reason against and resist the mental habits which justify and enact counterproductive behaviors. Ethics provide effective methods for arguing against, resisting, and working through negative emotions.
The sole necessary precondition for happiness is having the right ethics and state of mind. The Dalai Lama’s Beyond Religion elaborates on this point: “Much more important than money, possessions, or status is our inner, or mental state of being. Members of a poor family will be happy if there is affection, kindness, and trust between them. Their rich neighbors may live in luxury, but if suspicion or resentment besets their minds they will have no genuine happiness. This is a matter of common sense. Ultimately, the mental level is key…
“There is no necessary or direct link between enjoying good physical health and being happy. After all, isn’t it possible for someone with a healthy, strong body to be unhappy? In fact, it is quite common. And isn’t it equally possibly for someone in poor, even very poor health, nonetheless to be happy? I am sure it is. Does the physical frailty of, say, very old people necessarily entail unhappiness? Certainly not. So although physical health certainly contributes to human happiness, it is not its ultimate source. Instead, the real source of happiness once again involves our state of mind, outlook, and motivation, and our level of warmheartednes toward others…
“With the strength and mental stability derived from inner peace, we can endure all kinds of adversity. The role of our minds in determining our happiness can be easily illustrated. Imagine two people diagnosed with the same terminal illness -- say, an advanced form of untreatable cancer. One of them responds to this news with anger and self-pity, obsessively focusing on the unfairness of the situation, while the other responds with calm acceptance. In both cases, the material condition in terms of physical health and suffering is the same. But the first person incurs additional psychological and emotional pain while the person with the calm mind is better equipped to carry on with life and continue to experience the things that bring joy -- family, perhaps, or dedication to certain causes, or reading. The only difference between the two is in their state of mind” (Lama).
Negative motivations also lead to counterproductive struggles. To list just a few examples: Timidity seeks to eliminate all risk; malice seeks to harm others; insecurity seeks to craft an inauthentic personality intended to impress others; and blind faith seeks to prevent one from accepting physical evidence.
Overcoming negative motivation frees one from chasing these phantoms. One becomes not just happier but free to focus on real problems.
There are always things to be upset about, both in one’s personal life and the outside world. It is one’s own choice whether or not to feed negative emotions.
There are underreactions and overreactions to each ethical dilemma. The core underreaction is Problem-Solving vs. Problem-Avoiding; the core overreaction is Positive Motivation vs. Negative Motivation.
Problem-avoiding avoids negative emotion; negative motivation feeds negative emotion. With problem-avoiding, one does not solve the problem; with negative motivation, one punishes oneself to solve the problem. Both are caused by negative emotions -- negative emotions make problems aversive, causing avoidant underreaction; negative emotions also encourage negative motivation, causing counterproductive overreaction.
Problem-avoiding solves emotional problems by ignoring physical problems. Negative motivation solves physical problems by creating emotional problems. Ethical reactions solve both physical and emotional problems. They utilize positive motivation, which both solves problems and generates positive emotions.
Take section 5-4, concerning fear and risk. One inappropriate response to risk is recklessness; another is timidity. Recklessness is an underreaction and timidity is an overreaction. The appropriate responses to risk are caution and courage, which avoid risk (physical problems) without experiencing fear (emotional problems).
The core ethical underreaction is dismissiveness, or problem-avoidance. Ignorance is bliss. People find distractions to keep them from thinking about problems because problems trigger negative emotions. It’s easier and more enjoyable to not be aware of problems than to be aware of them; that is, until problems force one into awareness. The first step to solving any problem is admitting the problem exists.
Pretending that problems are not problems is not a way to overcome negative emotions. Arguments against negative emotions are not arguments for ignorance. Ignoring problems leads to negative consequences. Ignoring others’ negative emotions is uncompassionate. And repressing negative emotions is ineffective. What does work is learning healthy ways to address negative emotions, working to solve problems, and motivating oneself positively.
Emotions and Ethics
“Suffering is dependent on causes and conditions. This means one can prevent these causes to overcome suffering. Suffering is neither permanent nor inescapable. [Buddha] taught that our outlook impacts our experience and that our experiences of suffering and happiness are not thrust upon us by others but are a product of the ignorance and afflictions in our mind… We do not preserve and promote the Buddhist tradition for its sake alone; rather, we preserve the teachings of the Buddha because they relieve suffering and promote happiness.” -- The Dalai Lama, Buddhism. According to Zen Buddhism, “Nirvana is here and now, and all you have to do is wake up and see for yourself.”
Toltec mythology teaches that the emotions of fear, wanting, and hatred lead only to irrationality, judgment, disappointment, and regret. “For thousands of years we have been searching for happiness. Happiness is the lost paradise… There is really no reason to suffer. The only reason you suffer is because you choose to suffer. If you look at your life you will find many excuses to suffer, but a good reason to suffer you will never find. The same is true for happiness. Happiness is a choice, and so is suffering…
“Religions say that hell is a place of punishment, a place of fear, pain, and suffering, a place where the fire burns you. Whenever we feel the emotions of anger, jealousy, envy, or hate, we experience a fire burning within us. We are living in a dream of hell. If you consider hell as a state of mind, then hell is all around us. Life can put us into a deeper hell. But only if we allow this to happen.” -- Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements. (Toltec wisdom.)
Marcus Aurelius, a stoic, says -- “You have power over your mind -- not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” “The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts… The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” “How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.” “Here is a rule to remember in your future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not, ‘This is misfortune,’ but, ‘to bear this worthily is good fortune.’”
Hinduism singles out fear, rage, and jealousy as primary sources of evil, and exalts contentment and unconditional love as virtues.
The idea that motivational/emotional choices are the heart of ethics is not original. Here is (some of) the history of ethics’ association with emotional responses explained by Professor Robert C. Solomon in “The Passions: Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions.” “[Confucian and Aristotelian ethics both] focus not on the consequence of action, and focus not on the rationality of the action, but rather focus on the kind of person who would do such a thing. So the cultivation of character is at the core of ethics. And the cultivation of character includes in particular the cultivation of the right kinds of emotional responses…
“[The Stoics advocated against emotions in the form of emotional attachment.] Buddhism also looks at emotions as, in a way, mistaken. And they don’t say ‘get rid of all emotions,’ but certainly ‘get rid of all emotions which are agitations, which interfere with your sense of tranquility or sense of peace-existence.’ And so the idea in Buddhism too is that emotions are a form of intelligence; they are a way of seeing the world; but they are mistaken…”
“The idea is that for these philosophers emotions really lie at the heart of ethics itself. So the history of ethics, I want to suggest, is really the history of emotions, attitudes toward emotions, and cultivation of different kinds of emotions for appropriate periods” (Solomon).
Overcoming negative emotions is extraordinarily difficult as they are deeply habituated in one’s mind. Yet it is possible. By developing positive motivations and overcoming negative motivations, one becomes more knowledgeable, rational, organized, able, and happy.