I know I'm cheating a bit, posting this blog after I've already done the readings on Hume, but I don't think that I'm really grasping Hume all that well, so can't really answer the questions involved in this assignment as well as I could if I understood Hume well. So I'm going to go ahead and pretend that I have never read Hume and answer accordingly.
That our emotional state is influenced by that of those around us. Certainly true, sympathy seems to be a very powerful force. But does this always apply? No, I don't think so. With myself I am generally a very sympathetic person (or empathetic would seem to also be a good word for this situation), I'm very sensitive to what others feel, especially if I am very close to that person emotionally. There are times, however, that the emotions of others don't influence me so directly, but really confuse me, like when I come home and I can tell that my roomates have been fighting. I wasn't there for the fight and their not fighting now, but I can sense it and instead of feeling like "well their angry, and I feel angry too" I'm more likely to feel confused and wary and hide in my room until everything blows over. And I often feel my own emotions stubbornly in the face of the emotions of others. I know that Hume means that the emotions of others influence me but they don't necessarily determine my own emotions.
"The second is that our feelings about our own situation are influenced by how we see our situation in comparison to that of others," very true. Seeing other people so happy when I'm unhappy makes me even more so, or if I'm in a good mood and someone else isn't they kind of bring me down.
"The third is that we like pleasure and try to avoid discomfort or pain." This is also generally true, it is natural to do so. But, again not always the case. There is a difference between seeking overall pleasure and seeking instant gratification. We don't always stive for the pleasure of the moment but face pain or discomfort in order to acheive a more rewarding pleasure. Take school for instance. Nobody wants to get up early to go to class (it's pretty sad when you get to college and suddenly 9 a.m. is too early) more class, possibly with homework in between class, work, and stay up until 3 a.m. doing their homework (which may or may not get finished by this time) and then repeat the next day. College isn't easy so why do we put ourselves through constant stress and sleep deprivation (pain or discomfort) when we could just goof off and do whatever we want with our time (instant gratification)? We do this in order to get an education so that we can get a good paying job so that we can be financially secure and hopefully happy (longterm rewarding pleasure)
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I agree with you on the confusion part regarding people's emotions. For me it just makes me nervous when people fight, but I think it also has to do with what you said about being close to that person. If I walk by two people fighting/arguing and I don't know either of them, I'll probably just forget about it/won't care about it. But if the two people were my friends, I would probably think about it at least once the rest of the day.
I think Hume is exactly right about how we compare our own situations with other people, and the outcome of that is usually called perspective. For example, I look at my friend who went to Iraq last year and no matter how hard my classes were, when we wrote letters back and forth, I realized how much harder her life was at that time versus my life.
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