Sometimes I look at what I want based on my emotions, then see if there’s anything nearby that ethics allows. Sometimes I use ethics to see what’s permissible, then use my emotions to decide if I’m satisfied with any of them. Both strategies have their place. Shrug.
Yeah, I don’t think anger is the emotion most often associated with the emotional distress one would experience if they see someone they consider their partner having romantic or sexual interactions with another person. I don’t think most people in the rationalist community who seem to be more comfortable in monogamous relationships would agree with that statement, and this IMO is an uncharitable interpretation of what goes on in their heads.
In a recent community study of jealousy 15% of both men and women reported that they had, at some time, been subjected to physical violence at the hands of a jealous partner (Mullen & Martin 1994). The role played by jealousy in both initiating domestic violence and in attempts by perpetrators to justify their violence cannot be overstated. [...]
Gibbens (1958) in his study of 195 homicide cases reported that jealousy was the prime motivation in 22% of the killings. In Wolfgang’s (1958) study of 588 homicides and in West’s (1968) study, jealousy was the third most common motivation. In a more detailed study of homicide in Detroit, jealousy emerged as the leading cause of domestic killing while among the male killers the violence emerged both in response to apprehended infidelity and to desertion.
I think suspecting anger is a reasonable prior to have, and especially if you weight by what emotion / reaction is most dangerous (especially in a man), I stand by the idea that worrying first about anger is reasonable. (Maybe I should adjust for rationalists being n standard deviations less violent than the general population? Though we do have our Ziz people. At any rate, I didn’t say who I was comparing to, and intended the general population of monogamists.)
That aside, the point is that, from what I can tell, it doesn’t look like I have any hardcoded negative reaction due to jealousy (i.e. one that isn’t rationally explained by other context), or if I do it’s too small for me to detect it. I haven’t gone as far as witnessing sex acts by my partner, so I can’t completely rule out some primal reaction… but, well, I’ll note that “Exhibitionism/Voyeurism” is historically one of my favorite categories on Literotica, and it is plausible that my net reaction would be positive.
It seems like you police your emotions, and dislike feeling emotions that seems ‘unreasonable’ to you. This is interesting. I think ymeskhout accepts and seems to endorse all emotions he feels, and I try to do similar. I think that is genuinely a better way of doing things than the opposite.
Let’s think about another sense of the term “jealousy”. (Or maybe “envy” is the right word; some people draw a distinction between the two, and I’m not sure if people agree on what the distinction is.) I mean the scenario where something good happens to one of your friends, and you have a negative emotional reaction to this.
If that means you punish your friends anytime they do well (“crabs in a bucket” syndrome), that seems absolutely awful; I certainly would not want my friends to do that to me, and therefore I shouldn’t do that to them. Still, it seems that something resembling it is a reaction some people have. Is there anything potentially legitimate in it? Why, yes:
If there is some allegedly fair judge or other process that’s supposed to hand out windfalls, and your friend gets much more than you do despite you thinking you’re entitled to the same, then it may be that the judge is unfair and someone is lying to you. Then it makes sense to get mad—at the judge. It only makes sense to get mad at your friend if your friend is in cahoots with the judge, or is otherwise contributing to the unfairness of the process.
To my mind, if your emotions seem to propel you in a dangerous or unethical direction, then usually there’s something adjacent to it or a version of it that’s safe and good, and if you discover that, and imagine the variations on situations, you often find that the “good” reaction is emotionally satisfying. (I went through the above reasoning sometime during high school, and since then I think I’ve had appropriate reactions to any windfalls my friends have received.) Whereas if you act badly on those emotions before figuring that out, in retrospect it’s childish and stupid and regrettable. So if my emotions push me in a direction I know is bad, I would tend to hold them in abeyance, avoid acting on them, until I understand the situation better.
Oh, and on a general note, I don’t assign ethical valence to having emotions, only to the actions you take. Yes, that includes e.g. wanting to murder someone; as long as you don’t act on it, there’s nothing immoral or unethical about having the emotion. (It seems to be received wisdom that feeling guilt or otherwise punishing yourself for emotions is counterproductive.) Better to think through “These are the situations in which killing someone is appropriate (e.g. self-defense), those are the ones where it’s not”, and be done with it.
I’m not sure exactly what qualifies as “policing” my emotions. But the above probably has enough to decide that.
Sometimes I look at what I want based on my emotions, then see if there’s anything nearby that ethics allows. Sometimes I use ethics to see what’s permissible, then use my emotions to decide if I’m satisfied with any of them. Both strategies have their place. Shrug.
That take surprises me. Erm… After a bit of googling:
I think suspecting anger is a reasonable prior to have, and especially if you weight by what emotion / reaction is most dangerous (especially in a man), I stand by the idea that worrying first about anger is reasonable. (Maybe I should adjust for rationalists being n standard deviations less violent than the general population? Though we do have our Ziz people. At any rate, I didn’t say who I was comparing to, and intended the general population of monogamists.)
That aside, the point is that, from what I can tell, it doesn’t look like I have any hardcoded negative reaction due to jealousy (i.e. one that isn’t rationally explained by other context), or if I do it’s too small for me to detect it. I haven’t gone as far as witnessing sex acts by my partner, so I can’t completely rule out some primal reaction… but, well, I’ll note that “Exhibitionism/Voyeurism” is historically one of my favorite categories on Literotica, and it is plausible that my net reaction would be positive.
Let’s think about another sense of the term “jealousy”. (Or maybe “envy” is the right word; some people draw a distinction between the two, and I’m not sure if people agree on what the distinction is.) I mean the scenario where something good happens to one of your friends, and you have a negative emotional reaction to this.
If that means you punish your friends anytime they do well (“crabs in a bucket” syndrome), that seems absolutely awful; I certainly would not want my friends to do that to me, and therefore I shouldn’t do that to them. Still, it seems that something resembling it is a reaction some people have. Is there anything potentially legitimate in it? Why, yes:
If there is some allegedly fair judge or other process that’s supposed to hand out windfalls, and your friend gets much more than you do despite you thinking you’re entitled to the same, then it may be that the judge is unfair and someone is lying to you. Then it makes sense to get mad—at the judge. It only makes sense to get mad at your friend if your friend is in cahoots with the judge, or is otherwise contributing to the unfairness of the process.
To my mind, if your emotions seem to propel you in a dangerous or unethical direction, then usually there’s something adjacent to it or a version of it that’s safe and good, and if you discover that, and imagine the variations on situations, you often find that the “good” reaction is emotionally satisfying. (I went through the above reasoning sometime during high school, and since then I think I’ve had appropriate reactions to any windfalls my friends have received.) Whereas if you act badly on those emotions before figuring that out, in retrospect it’s childish and stupid and regrettable. So if my emotions push me in a direction I know is bad, I would tend to hold them in abeyance, avoid acting on them, until I understand the situation better.
Oh, and on a general note, I don’t assign ethical valence to having emotions, only to the actions you take. Yes, that includes e.g. wanting to murder someone; as long as you don’t act on it, there’s nothing immoral or unethical about having the emotion. (It seems to be received wisdom that feeling guilt or otherwise punishing yourself for emotions is counterproductive.) Better to think through “These are the situations in which killing someone is appropriate (e.g. self-defense), those are the ones where it’s not”, and be done with it.
I’m not sure exactly what qualifies as “policing” my emotions. But the above probably has enough to decide that.