Where Emotions Come From

The text explains that Sartre believed that we choose our emotions, just as we choose every other aspect of our mental lives, and we are thus fully responsible for them. So if "I am sad it is only because I choose to make myself sad." There is no doubt that in some cases this can be true. for instance you can choose to dwell on an idea or thought that makes you sad, or you can choose to think about other things that are pleasing to you. But in many instances the statement that we choose our emotions seems rather ignorant within modern knowledge. It is like telling a depressed person to stop being sad, that they themselves are making everything worse, even though countless studies have proven that depression is often caused by a serious chemical imbalance that people simply cannot control. Similarly, when we are being seriously physically attacked it is almost biological to feel fear or want to fight back, such as been labeled 'the fight or flight' reaction. So yes, there are often times and cases that we can choose how we feel about things but there are also severe cases in which people simply cannot.