I’m a hedonistic utilitarian, and I think that even voluntary suffering is be intrinsically bad, as long as it’s still suffering at that point. Here the reasons I explain the phenomena that you note in your question. My answers are partially overlapping but some of the solutions you suggest.
- I personally mostly listen/watch/read media that deals with negative emotions. When I do this I sometimes have a twinge of the negative emotion, but I don’t think I would really describe it is negatively valenced. Sometimes it may involve a bit of negative valence, which may be outweighed from the aesthetic appreciation that I get from it.
It seems like ‘negative emotions’ can sometimes not have negative valence in this way even though they retain their other features. I think this is similar to how ‘pain’ from exercise can sometimes have a neutral or even positive valence (at least that’s how I characterize it). It seems like the secondary resistance to emotions can be generating some or all of the negative valence associated with them.
- Similarly, for an emotion like grief, I think it’s either the case that I don’t experience it as really negatively valenced or I’m getting immediate counterbalancing positive emotions from it (like a sense of meaning and connection).
- Sometimes negative events can be cathartic, meaning that they provide relief from the negative emotion. I often find crying to do this and crying sort of feels good for this reason (or at least it feels much less bad than the alternative in that situation).
- I think sometimes I also irrationally pursue negatively balanced emotions. For example, by ruminating. Not sure that I have anything insightful to say about why this happens.
It seems to be hard to figure out exactly which of these is happening in a given situation.
I’m a hedonistic utilitarian, and I think that even voluntary suffering is be intrinsically bad, as long as it’s still suffering at that point. Here the reasons I explain the phenomena that you note in your question. My answers are partially overlapping but some of the solutions you suggest.
- I personally mostly listen/watch/read media that deals with negative emotions. When I do this I sometimes have a twinge of the negative emotion, but I don’t think I would really describe it is negatively valenced. Sometimes it may involve a bit of negative valence, which may be outweighed from the aesthetic appreciation that I get from it.
It seems like ‘negative emotions’ can sometimes not have negative valence in this way even though they retain their other features. I think this is similar to how ‘pain’ from exercise can sometimes have a neutral or even positive valence (at least that’s how I characterize it). It seems like the secondary resistance to emotions can be generating some or all of the negative valence associated with them.
- Similarly, for an emotion like grief, I think it’s either the case that I don’t experience it as really negatively valenced or I’m getting immediate counterbalancing positive emotions from it (like a sense of meaning and connection).
- Sometimes negative events can be cathartic, meaning that they provide relief from the negative emotion. I often find crying to do this and crying sort of feels good for this reason (or at least it feels much less bad than the alternative in that situation).
- I think sometimes I also irrationally pursue negatively balanced emotions. For example, by ruminating. Not sure that I have anything insightful to say about why this happens.
It seems to be hard to figure out exactly which of these is happening in a given situation.