Emotions as Cognitive Functions: The Similar Views of Meeker and Jaggar

On Wednesday, April 3, Ms. Joy Meeker came to DePauw University to give a lecture entitled Facing Discomfort: Engaging Justice. After listening to Ms. Meeker’s stance on emotion as it relates to conflict in our society, many parallels could be derived from our study of Alison Jaggar’s Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology. Much like Jaggar, Meeker disagrees with the positivist view that emotions are an uncontrollable venting of feelings; rather, she believes that emotions should be considered and cognitively processed because it is an unavoidable factor in our thinking processes. Both Meeker and Jaggar agree that it is dangerous to rely on the social constructs that our society has created in regards to emotion. Meeker then proceeds to look at emotion through a positional lens and relate it to a more complete understanding of other viewpoints throughout the conflict resolution process.

Ms. Meeker began her lecture by stating her disagreement with the positivist view of emotions through a story. She said that when attending college, a teacher once related the ideal decision-maker to Spock from Star Trek, because he was emotionless and impartial. However, Meeker disagreed with this view: she instead believed that emotions can and should be considered when making a decision in relation to a conflict because they are unavoidable in the human thinking process.

According to Meeker, the non-cognitive, “dumb view,” of emotion states that feelings are both natural and dichotomous. This relates to Jaggar’s take on the positivist view, which includes a stereotype that women are naturally more emotional, and thus less objective. Jaggar explains that the positivist view is that dispassionate knowledge leads to a separation of power, and therefore a gender hierarchy based on this stereotype of emotional women. Meeker and Jaggar agree that we should not rely on the stereotypical constructs that society has created.

Much like Jaggar’s view on “outlaw emotions,” or those that go against societies norms, Meeker looked at emotions through a positional lens where different understandings are central. She stated that conflict and emotion travel together, so our interpretation of our feelings throughout conflict is essential in the decision-making process because it would give us a more complete understanding of the opposing views.

In conclusion, I believe that Meeker and Jaggar had very similar views on the role of emotions in our society. Unlike the positivist view, they agree that emotions can be cognitively processed. Much like Jaggar, Meeker states that emotions are undoubtedly part of the thinking process in relation to conflict management. One of the problems with the traditional view on emotion is that they are natural and create dichotomy/stereotypes in our society. Meeker and Jaggar agree that it is dangerous to rely on the social constructs of our society. We should instead subtract the stereotype that women are more emotional and therefore less objective and knowledgeable, consider our emotions because they are unavoidable, and be aware of our emotional orientation in regards to societal norms. This positional/awareness lens presented by Meeker would give us a more complete understanding of other points of view and allow us to achieve a better grasp of conflict resolution.

Works Cited

1.     Meeker, Joy. "Facing Discomfort: Engaging Justice." Lecture, Facing Discomfort: Engaging Justice from DePauw University, Greencastle, April 3, 2013.

2.     Jaggar, Alison. "Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology." DePauw Moodle. https://moodle.depauw.edu/file.php/1844/readings/jaggar_love_knowledge.pdf (accessed April 8, 2013).