Emotions can happen at the same time as beliefs, and can cause them as well as be caused by them. That said, everyone knows that emotions are not beliefs. This fact has some consequences which I have found useful to list and explain in detail.
- They are physiological, not rational
- They cannot be justified, only expected
- They cannot be true, only proper
- They have causes, not reasons
They are physiological, not rational
The main difference between emotions and beliefs is that emotions are never caused by your reasoning processes, but by your animal instincts. Accordingly, it is possible for things such as hunger, tiredness, hormones and medications to affect your emotions. This is useful to keep in mind.
They cannot be justified, only expected
It is a common teaching that a belief, if properly caused, can be called knowledge; this is called the justification of the belief. But since emotions are not beliefs, they cannot be justified in that sense. Your emotions can never be called knowledge, although you can know that you felt them. Since they are not even caused by your rational processes, they are certainly not derived as conclusions from your surroundings; they can only be caused by your body’s instincts in an expected or an unexpected way.
They cannot be true, only proper
Beliefs can be true or false, but emotions cannot. We believe, of course, that some emotions are appropriate in some circumstances, such as grief when someone dies. This is a combination of the emotions being expected in the former sense – due to human instinct – and “cultural expectations”, i.e., social norms that require some emotions at some times. Still, properly speaking, the emotions are not true or false; unlike beliefs, they do not represent anything to you, so they cannot be accurate or inaccurate.
They have causes, not reasons
Philosophers usually distinguish between reasons, which only beliefs can have, and causes, which emotions (and other events) can also have. Laypeople tend to ignore this distinction, but it is useful, especially when you are feeling strong emotions. Your beliefs about the past have reasons, which are your memories of the past. They should, accordingly, continue to be believed as long as the reason remains, i.e., as long as the memory remains. Your emotions, by contrast, were caused by events in the past, but the events are not still reasons for them. It is perfectly right, and probably advisable, to stop feeling them as soon as possible.
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