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(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 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 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 of uses the legal dangerous achievements such as flying fighter planes in a war, and uses the legal and penal (刑法的) system to make people afraid to engage in antisocial acts.It can be inferred from the passage that the economic foundation of society is dependent on______.
A.the ability to make money
B.the will to work for pleasure
C.the capacity to enjoy incentives
D.the categorizations of our emotional experiences
正确答案:
C
答案解析:
此题为推理题。第一段最后三句告诉我们:社会的经济支桂将遭受破坏,人们将没有工作动力而动力暗示着人们愉快生活的可能性。据此我们推出:社会的经济基础依赖于人们的动机。故答案选C。A、B二项与原文第一段最后三句不符。D项答非所问。