In my case as an individual, turning towards mercy in dealings with general humanity [1] was accompanied by the vanishing of intense but nonsinful, non-emotionalistic anger and hatred. With regard to all but fellow rationalists, young children, and the mentally disabled, I might once again choose to be largely unmerciful, which is not the same thing as being unjust, unloving, or cruel (cruelty being unjust on the Christian worldview), and there could be nothing wrong with this. It is likely, though, that this will not happen, and for as long as it does not, mercy does not conflict with other aspects of my personality. The same would be true of the personalities of similar people. Yes, many people only appear to like mercy because it personally appeals to them or benefits them, so they are insincerely, irrationally merciful, but mercy does not require that one give up plenty of other potential characteristics.
Being merciful does not exclude being a firm, intense, or even rationalistically hateful person. It means that one chooses to not punitively treat people as they deserve, or, since just punishments are for governing bodies to enact (though only governments in alignment with divine obligations and penalties are just, not those which act on whims on traditions or emotions), that one would wish to spare people the likes of deserved flogging or fining or execution if they had the power to do so. In order to be legitimate, mercy cannot be chosen emotionalistically or on the basis of any assumptions, such as belief in the false idea that mercy could possibly be morally mandatory (as opposed to just morally good), but even in its purest forms, it can be accompanied by righteous fury or hatred.
All the same, a desire to show mercy could be accompanied only by love, sadness, and hope for the sake of others. To express mercy, someone abstains from imposing or wanting justice to be done to someone (which is not what strikes someone as subjectively good or personally appealing), not in the sense of being opposed to justice, but in that of wanting for people to be spared whatever penalty they truly deserve. Just as justice can be sought with love of the truth and of other people without any hatred of even a legitimate kind beside it, mercy can be sought without any wrath or loathing mingled with it. A commitment to displaying mercy, which is still at its most potent or beneficial in selective cases even though I now, for once, gravitate towards it, can be maintained no matter how one feels, yes, and it is also true that one could desire it in the midst of just love or sadness.
To be merciful, someone who shifts to mercy--which, again, is only valid when done without assumptions or emotionalism--from a prior tendency towards permissible aggression does not have to shed anything else but a lack of mercy. Other feelings like anger or hatred might or might not disappear with this change of habit. They do not have to unless they are the misdirected forms of those feelings rooted in ideological errors or an unwillingness to live in light of the truth (such as choosing to encourage internal anger over amoral deeds or hating someone for their gender or age). However, in such a case, they should be resisted whether or not one pursues mercy since they are themselves illicit. Even in actual injustices, which abstaining from mercy is by nature distinct from because mercy is undeserved, mere intensity, passion, ire, and hatred are not inherently problematic themselves. It is why one has those mental states, how one acts on those things, and what one intends to do irrespective of feelings that would matter. This does not change if one adopts a merciful attitude.
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