THE EMOTIVITY OF THE SUBJECT AND THE EXPERIENCE OF VALUE

Emotivity and Conscious Efficacy

Since in our analysis not all the elements of the relation between the emotivity and efficacy of man have been sufficiently attended to we will now examine them in some detail. We know that emotivity in man is a source of spontaneous

subjectifications and interiorizations different from the subjectification and interiorization performed by consciousness. In a way the emotionalization of consciousness is a limiting phenomenon when excessive emotion damages

consciousness and the ability to have a normal experience. Man then lives engrossed in his emotion, his excitement, or his passion, and though the condition is

undoubtedly subjective, his "subjectivity" brings only negative results so far as efficacy, self-determination, and the transcendence of the acting person are

concerned. Thus the limiting case of spontaneous subjectification by emotion may be said to be the

separation of human subjectivity from conscious efficacy. Such are the situations when man loses his ability to act consciously and hence also to be responsible, the situations when in his acting there is no real acting but only a special sort of happening - something happens in and with him, ;something that he neither determines nor fulfills. Neither can he be fully responsible for what is taking place, though we may well ask what is his responsibility for the development of the situation in which he can no longer have responsibilities.

Apart from these extreme cases, when emotivity may be said to have destroyed the efficacy of the person, there are still many situations in which efficacy is only partly limited. The degree of these limitations differs and depends on the intensity of the emotion involved. To speak of the "intensity of emotions" is a simplification that in itself appears permissible but does not express the whole complexity of the actual facts; if we say the degree of the limitation of conscious efficacy - also of

responsibility - depends on the intensity of emotion, then we appear to be opposing emotivity to efficacy, as if they were but two contrary forces. The actual difference between them is, however, far more complex so that even the idea of psychical force cannot be understood in a way similar to a physical force; for the force of emotion mainly derives from the experience of value. Thus, it is in this domain that there are special opportunities and possibilities for creative integration.

The Expressiveness of Human Experience is Emotional

Asserting that the intensity of emotion "mainly derives from the experience of value"

we touch on what appears to be the most remarkable in human emotivity and what distinguishes it from the purely somatic reactivity. Admittedly, the somatic ability to react to stimuli, in particular when they relate to human instincts, has from an objective point of view the traits of reference to values, but in this sphere there can be no actual experience of value; perhaps the reason is that somatic dynamisms as such are not directly connected with consciousness, while the link - and in its turn the experience of the body - is established by means of sensations. The same is not the case with emotions, which are intrinsically accessible to consciousness and indeed have a specific ability, as it were, to attract consciousness. Thus we not only become aware of our emotions but also our consciousness and in particular our experience derive from them a special vividness. The vividness of human experience seems to have an emotional rather than a conscious nature. We may even say it is to emotion in the normal course of experience - that is, apart from extreme or nearly extreme situations - that man owes that special "value" of his experiences which

consists in their subjective vividness; this circumstance retains its significance also with regard to the cognitive aspects of these experiences.

The Content of Emotions Refers to Values

Our interest, however, is concentrated on the experience of value rather than on the value of experience. The present considerations have been prepared by earlier analyses, in particular the analysis of sensitivity. Both the emotional stirring and the emotions of the human being always relate to a value and are born out of this relation. This is true when we are angry and it is equally true when we love, mourn, rejoice, or hate. The reference in all these cases is to a value, and the whole emotion may be said to consist of this reference. Nevertheless, it is neither cognitive nor appetitive; the emotional stirring as well as emotions themselves point to values, but as such they have no cognition or desire of values. We may only say emotions are an indication - but only in the special experiential way - of values that exist apart from emotions, outside the subject having that emotional experience. If parallel to this indication or demonstration of values there is some cognition of them, then it results from sensations and feelings, which constitute what is like an "emotive condition" or

"emotive reflex." The more thoroughly consciousness is penetrated by this reflex, the fuller and more complete becomes the experience of value. The emotionalization of consciousness, however, hinders this experience and sometimes may even prevent it. Furthermore, any emotion - also excitements and passions - directs its emotive content beyond itself to a definite value and thereby it provides an opportunity for the experience of value, and for the experiential cogniti6n of value.⁷¹

The Source of the Spontaneous Experience of Value

An emotion, when stirred, spreads out and, becoming rooted in the subject, spontaneously sets off reference to value. The very spontaneity of this reference appears to be in its own way valuable; it represents a specific "psychical value" or something "valuable for the psyche," because the psyche on the basis of its own proper emotive dynamism manifests a natural inclination. Spontaneity - and also the spontaneous experience of value - are well suited to the needs of the human psyche, not so much perhaps because they would be easy to come by or the value would be, so to speak, given and ready-made, but because of the specific emotional fulfillment that is brought by such an experience. Emotional fulfillment is simultaneously a special kind of fulfillment of the subjectivity itself of the human ego; it generates a feeling of being entirely contained within oneself and at the same time in an intimate nearness to the object, that is, to the value with which the contact is spontaneously established.

Relieving of Tensions between Spontaneity and Self-Determination

A tension between emotivity and efficacy - mentioned previously -that engages two of man's forces or powers develops because of a twofold reference to value. Efficacy and with it also personal self-determination are formed through choice and decision, and these presuppose a dynamic relation to truth in the will itself. In this way,

however, a new transcendent factor is introduced into the spontaneous experience of value and to the related experience of striving to attain the emotional fulfillment of one's own subjectivity. This factor directs the person toward his fulfillment in the action not through emotional spontaneity alone but by means of the transcendent relation to truth and the related obligation and responsibility. In the traditional

approach this dynamic factor in personal life was defined as the intellect, a definition often reflected in everyday speech and opinions, which oppose emotion to reason, the latter being then' used in a broader sense than to denote the ability of

intellectual cognition..

The intellect has precedence over emotion, over the emotive spontaneity of the human being, and denotes the power and the ability to be guided in choice and decision by the truth itself about good. This ability is decisive for that authentic spiritual power which determines the guidelines of human acting. The power itself, even if among its properties there is a demand for a certain detachment - the distance that lends truth - from spontaneously experienced values, is never

manifested by a denial of these values, by their rejection in the name of some sort of

"pure transcendence," a rejection that was apparently postulated by the Stoics and by Kant. On the contrary, the authentic subordination to truth as the principle controlling the choices and decisions made by the free human will demands an intimate interrelation between transcendence and integration in the domain of emotions. Indeed, we know from what was said before that transcendence and integration are two complementary aspects that explain the complexity of man's acting. Especially in what concerns the emotivity of the human being it seems that only such an interpretation of the existing complexity and not a simplifying reduction is important and may become relevant to theoretical and practical issues concerning the human being.