There are ghosts that don't attack you - those are the ones not driven mad by the dream...something...or those who have chosen to stay.

Please, no.

Just no.

The ghosts of the Knights of the Nine and the Akaviri swordsmen come to mind - although the latter had to be freed from a skeletal body first before they regained their senses.

Not literally

And on the flipside, we have Barilzar, who tries to kill you, but only because he had to prevent anyone from recovering his Mazed Band, given its dangers.

Exactly!

well, when you become a Lich all feelings die along with the body, you remember who you are and retain all memories from before but you have no feelings, no empathy or anything, you'll simply be a cold wandering skeleton that really doesnt care about anything but studiyng magic and becoming more powerful.
and besides that you pull your soul out from your body and place it in a jar or crystal or whatever you choosed as a soulholder.

i would guess that makes Liches True Neutral or something, since they would only kill you if you annoy them or they see you as a threat to their plans.

It seems that most liches were only concerned with power and knowledge before becoming undead.

mostly, that why they go trough with the ritual of endless night, to prolong their life so they can keep on studying.

Your soul does return to your body after it has lichified. The item is just there for a bit, and if destroyed or taken away from you during the lichification process, then ya you will die. After you achieve lichdon, the item is just a plain item again.

And they do not seem emotionless; they do have feelings of strong conviction, as seen from the two liches of MW.

The word you are looking for is Phylactery. Sometimes I wonder if TES got rid of the permanency of it just to piss off D+Ders.

As for emotion, Logren Benirus was a conniving bastard bent on revenge, not very positive emotions, but emotions nontheless.

then beth have change Lichdom since most of my knowledge about them comes from RPG's and the few books of the supernatural/undead creatures i have found.

Read The Path of Trancendence, its pretty much a lich how to guide.

And forget all material that is not TES when dealing with TES; you will only make bad assumptions if you do. Most information about the various things of TES can be found from in game books and dialog.

From the few we can interact with, I'd stay that most emotions go and leave only behind the purpose for which you became a lich - since the most common reason for becoming a lich is to have time for study and increase of magical power, they're the most common personality trait.

Revenge and ambitions are also quite common, duty is rarer. But there's one thing to consider : as a lich is technically immortal, most of them don't feel any need to hurry their plans - they'd rather spend yet another century to hone and polish them to perfection than take the slightest chance. With the pesky mortals that keeps changing things around, it means constant tampering and adjustement - and further delay. That's why those plans seldom comes to fruition : there's alway some new development to take into account.