I think part of why people emphasize emotions in discussions about consciousness is because both consciousness and emotions are relevant to moral patiency. If an entity is conscious but has no emotions/preferences (or capacity to suffer/anti-suffer, if this is indeed a different thing), we arguably don’t owe it anything.
I think part of why people emphasize emotions in discussions about consciousness is because both consciousness and emotions are relevant to moral patiency. If an entity is conscious but has no emotions/preferences (or capacity to suffer/anti-suffer, if this is indeed a different thing), we arguably don’t owe it anything.