The beguiling serpent : a re-evaluation of emotions and values

160 Pages·2000·36.453 MB·English

by  Hunter Lewis

The
BEQUILINQ
SERPENT
A Re-evaluation of Emotions
and Values
by
Hunter Lewis
Comment on earlier work
by Hunter Lewis:
"Helps students ... in actual human decision
making."
-HARVEY COX, professor of divinity, Harvard
University, author of Many Mansions and The
Secular City
"Helps to make sense of. .. the diversity of
values in our society."
-PATRICIA H. WERHANE, Senior Fellow, Olsson
Center for Applied Ethics, The Darden School,
University of Virginia
"Lucid writing lets the reader share. .. insights
on an intimate, one-to-one basis."
-SAMUEL L. HAYES III, Jacob Schiff Professor of
Investment Banking, Harvard Business School
"Enormously worthwhile ... provides a unique
way of organizing our thinking about values."
-ADELE SIMMONS, president, MacArthur
Foundation
"Brilliant work on what is by far the most
important topic in modern politics, philosophy,
economics, and psychology-namely, values."
-KEN WILBUR, editor, New Science Library, and
author of Transformation of Consciousness
"Stimulating. .. an eye opener."
-DOROTHY R. and HOMER A. THOMPSON,
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, New
Jersey

The Beguiling
Serpent
A Re-evaluation of
Emotions and Values

The Beguiling
Serpent
A Re-evaluation of
Emotions and Values
Hunter Lewis
Axios Press
Axios Press
PO Box 118
Mount Jackson, VA 22842
888·542·9467 [email protected]
THE BEGUILING SERPENT; A RE-EVALUATION OF
EMOTIONS AND VALUES © 2000, 2002 by Axios
Institute. All rights reserved. Printed in the United
States of America. No part of this book may be used
or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission except in the case of brief quota
tions used in critical articles and reviews.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-101201
ISBN: 096619084X
A word about this book's title:
The emotional portion of the human brain has
sometimes been described, not accurately but
picturesquely, as the reptilian brain. On this level,
the serpent of the title is simply a metaphor for
our emotions.
This serpent, however, is beguiling, which
refers to the story of the Garden of Eden as told
in the King James translation of the Bible. The
encounter with the serpent in the first book of
the Bible is portrayed as the first value judgment
that human beings make, indeed a value judg
ment that opens up the entire realm of "good and
evil" for people to sort out. In the context of
Genesis, of course, "good and evil" have specific
religious connotations involving the concept of
sin. By contrast, this book is concerned with the
interplay of emotion with all our value judg
ments, not only value judgments about good and
evil, but also about good and bad, just and
unjust, beautiful and ugly, and innumerable
variations and gradations including all the smaller
value judgments that each of us must make on a
daily basis.

Contents
Introduction xxix
Part One: Emotions 1
1. Basic Emotions 3
2. Shifting Emotions 12
3. The Fifth Emotion 22
Part Two: Emotions and Values 33
4. Conundrums of Choice 35
5. A Further Word on Emotional Values 46
6. Emotions, Values, and Actions 52
7. The Wheel of the Mind 58
Part Three: Emotions, Values,
and Therapies 63
8. Indirect Emotional Therapies 65
9. Direct Therapies 91
10. Integrating the Two 108
Notes 123
Bibliography 131
Index 135