单选题
Imagine a world in which there was suddenly no emotion—a
world in which human beings could feel no love or happiness, no terror or hate.
Try to imagine the consequences of such a transformation. People might not be
able to stay alive: knowing neither joy nor pleasure, anxiety nor fear, they
would be as likely to repeat acts that hurt them as acts that were beneficial.
They could not learn: they could not benefit from experience because this
emotionless world would lack rewards and punishments. Society would soon
disappear: people would be as likely to harm one another as to provide help and
support. Human relationships would not exist: in a world without friends or
enemies, there could be no marriage, affection among companions, or bonds among
members of groups. Society's economic underpinnings (基础，支柱) would be destroyed:
since earning $10 million would be no more pleasant than earning $10, there
would be no incentive to work. In fact, there would be no incentives of any
kind. For as we will see, incentives imply a capacity to enjoy them.
In such a world, the chances that the human species would survive are
next to zero, because emotions are the basic instrument of our survival and
adaptation. Emotions structure the world for us in important ways. As
individuals, we categorize objects on the basis of our emotions. True we
consider the length, shape, size, or texture, but an object's physical aspects
are less important than what it has done or can do to us—hurt us, surprise us,
anger us or make us joyful. We also use categorizations colored by emotions in
our families, communities, and overall society. Out of our emotional experiences
with objects and events comes a social feeling of agreement that certain things
and actions are "good" and others are "bad", and we apply these categories to
every aspect of our social life—from what foods we eat and what clothes we wear
to how we keep promises and which people our group will accept. In fact, society
exploits our emotional reactions and attitudes, such as loyalty, morality,
pride, shame, guilt, fear and greed, in order to maintain itself. It gives high
rewards to individuals who perform important tasks such as surgery, makes heroes
out of individuals for unusual or dangerous achievements such as flying fighter
planes in a war, and uses the legal and penal system to make people afraid to
engage in antisocial acts.
单选题
The reason why people might not be able to stay alive in a world
without emotion is that
A. they would not be able to tell the texture of objects
B. they would not know what was beneficial and what was harmful to
them
C. they would not be happy with a life without love
D. they would do things that hurt each other's feelings