Imagine a world in which there was suddenly no emotion — a world in

which human beings could feel no love or happiness, no terror or hate.

Try to imagine the consequences of such a transformation.

People might not be able to stay alive: knowing neither joy nor

pleasure, anxiety nor fear, they would be as likely to repeat acts that

hurt them as acts that were beneficial. They could not learn: they

could not benefit from experience because this emotionless world would

lack rewards and punishments. Society would soon disappear: people

would be as likely to harm one another as to provide help and support.

Human relationships would not exist: in a world without friends or

enemies, there co uld be no marriage, affection among companions, or

bonds among members of groups. Society’s economic underpinnings would

be destroyed: since earning $10 million would be no more pleasant than

earning $ 10, there would be no incentive to work. In fact, there would

be no incentives of any kind. For as we will see, incentives imply a

capacity to enjoy them.

In such a world, the chances that the human species would survive are

next to zero, because emotions are the basic instrument of our survival

and adaptation. Emotions structure the world for us in important ways.

As individuals, we categorize objects on the basis of our emotions.

True we consider the length, shape, size, or texture, but an object’s

physical aspects are less important than what it has done or can do to

us — hurt us, surprise us, anger us or make us joyful. We also use

categorizations colored by emotions in our families, communities, and

overall society.

Out of our emotional experiences with objects and events comes a social

feeling of agreement that certain things and actions are “good” and

others are “bad”, and we apply these categories to every aspect of

our social life — from what foods we eat and what clothes we wear to

how we keep promises and which people our group will accept.

In fact, society exploits our emotional reactions and attitudes, such

as loyalty, morality, pride, shame, guilt, fear and greed, in order to

maintain itself. It gives high rewards to individuals who perform

important tasks such as surgery, makes heroes out of individuals for

unusual or dangerous achievements such as flying fighter planes in a

war, and uses the legal penal system to make people afraid to engage in

anti-social acts.