Introduction

An individual's present emotions are coloured by his or her past. Emotions have a history. The individual pasts of most South Africans have been very diverse and very complex. Understanding the fundamental role of infant history will not only help South Africans to harmonise, but will also help teachers in schools to comprehend and guide learners’ holistic development.

The shadow of the object

Reflecting once again on her grief experiences on the death of her mother, Nussbaum recognises crucial links to emotions experienced in her past, especially during infancy. These infant emotions are still loitering in the background. They provide current emotions with a particular content and cognitive particularity. A new object of an emotion thus carries traces of previous objects. ‘For new objects of love and anger and fear bear the traces of earlier objects; one's emotions towards them are frequently therefore also, in both intensity and configuration, emotions toward one's own past’.1 All human emotions carry evidence of a past history. This history is simultaneously individual, socially constructed and generally human. Nussbaum thus holds that once we understand emotions developmentally, we will be able to complete the description of the neo-Stoic view. Hence, we will be better equipped to comprehend the validity of some arguments against the cognitive view of emotions. If we integrate the developmental account with her neo-Stoic theory, we will consequently be able to oppose these anti-cognitive arguments.

To understand adult emotions, we need to understand their history in infancy and childhood. Then we will be able to understand the responsiveness of the emotions, as well as their recurrent lack of responsiveness. The responsiveness of emotions refers to the appropriateness of the emotions to the life of an imperfect being in a world where there are major accidents. It also refers to the relation of the emotions to the development of practical reason and a sense of self. The frequent lack of responsiveness refers to the inflexibility of the emotions before current objects, as they cast past images upon them. These features of emotions lead Nussbaum to argue that, if one plans to evaluate the emotions normatively, the developmental dimension needs to be investigated. In doing so, one has to ask the following three questions: Firstly, which features of a normal child's history make its emotions inherently problematic from the ethical point of view, and the point of view of practical rationality?