Ethics

TOK

How can emotion be an obstacle to knowledge?

In terms of:

Perception

Reason

Language

Emotion is perceived by many as an obstacle rather than a tool to gain knowledge. When people were overcome with emotion, it is usually viewed as a negative thing. Although emotion can be a tool to knowledge, it is indeed an obstacle to it in many ways.

A good and common example would be in terms of perception. As humans, we tend to have emotional tendencies towards many things and when there’s emotions involved, it usually results in some form of bias. Opinions are formulated and often when people feel strongly about an issue and they have firm opinions on it, they will refuse to look at the topic in a different point of view or perspective. Looking at things from different perspectives can help increase someone’s knowledge and understanding about a topic. Therefore, if someone refuses to try and look at something through another perspective because of emotions, then emotion becomes a hindrance from gaining knowledge.

Another example of how emotion can be an obstacle to knowledge is in terms of language. Once emotional language is used such as “sensational”, “tragic”, “breath-taking” then the objectivity of an article for example is lost. Once emotional bias is shown through writing, the information will seem less reliable and more one-sided and therefore, a piece of informative writing will become more subjective rather than objective.

Lastly, we’ve all experienced the way emotions can stop our ability to reason or listen to reasoning. It could be as simple as two friends having a fight over something that one of them did. Because