The logical affective basis of morality
Johnstone, A. (University of Oregon)
This paper takes its point of departure in philosopher David Hume’s insight that moral judgments cannot be validly deduced from statements of fact. It asks what other type of statement, if any, might play such a foundational role for morality. It examines and rejects in turn various possible candidates–other moral injunctions and judgments, feelings of sympathy, acts of empathy, the negative emotions of contempt, anger, and disgust, feelings of pleasure or pain. It concludes that only if something rightfully elicits respect or a judgment of preciousness is a moral obligation entailed, one to protect and foster that thing.
The paper then considers whether the individual human qualifies as just such a precious being. To this end, it sketches how another person is experienced: as an animate being in the flesh, spontaneously active and creative, never fully predictable; as a complex sentient being housing an unfathomable depth of feelings, some of which on occasion one may echo or may echo one’s own feelings; as a conscious being, whose gaze converts one into an observed observer; as a creative thinking being whose thoughts and knowledge inevitably extend beyond one’s own; a corporeal and spiritual being who at any age is of powerful aesthetic interest. When one adopts an open aesthetic or phenomenological attitude, a person may be experienced with varying degrees of awe and marvel as something precious, something towards which one has moral obligations.
While it is not excluded that beings other than humans may be deemed to merit respect, It is suggested that the preciousness of each individual considered in conjunction with empirical findings as to the needs, dispositions, and potentialities of persons generally, is adequate to provide a satisfactory system of social morality.
This paper takes its point of departure in philosopher David Hume’s insight that moral judgments cannot be validly deduced from statements of fact. It asks what other type of statement, if any, might play such a foundational role for morality. It examines and rejects in turn various possible candidates–other moral injunctions and judgments, feelings of sympathy, acts of empathy, the negative emotions of contempt, anger, and disgust, feelings of pleasure or pain. It concludes that only if something rightfully elicits respect or a judgment of preciousness is a moral obligation entailed, one to protect and foster that thing.
The paper then considers whether the individual human qualifies as just such a precious being. To this end, it sketches how another person is experienced: as an animate being in the flesh, spontaneously active and creative, never fully predictable; as a complex sentient being housing an unfathomable depth of feelings, some of which on occasion one may echo or may echo one’s own feelings; as a conscious being, whose gaze converts one into an observed observer; as a creative thinking being whose thoughts and knowledge inevitably extend beyond one’s own; a corporeal and spiritual being who at any age is of powerful aesthetic interest. When one adopts an open aesthetic or phenomenological attitude, a person may be experienced with varying degrees of awe and marvel as something precious, something towards which one has moral obligations.
While it is not excluded that beings other than humans may be deemed to merit respect, It is suggested that the preciousness of each individual considered in conjunction with empirical findings as to the needs, dispositions, and potentialities of persons generally, is adequate to provide a satisfactory system of social morality.
Mere actual meaning and the affective root of social bond, with the example of social smile
Mathelet, S.L. (University of Quebec at Montreal)
Phenomenological tradition long considered mere actual meanings as irrelevant. For Schutz (CP VI), who abandoned the program of “pure” phenomenology for a phenomenology of the social world, meaning is obtain only when a polythetical glance synthetises mere temporal features from the flux of experience into an a-temporal unity. Meaning can further be grasped by intentional consciousness and coin meaningful action.
In this paper, we will sketch Aron Gurwitsch’s (1936-37) alternative for meaning constitution within actuality. It follows a rejection of Husserl’s noematic point theory, which, according to Gurwitsch, raises a problem of segregation of the elements of experience, or relevance, and begs for a reintroduction of an “inherentist” standpoint regarding objects of primordial experience. Therefore, Gurwitsch moves to a coherentist standpoint where “functional meaning” relies on actual feelings made of mutually qualifying relative intensities of sensations. Consequently, an agent can be “propelled” from one mere perception to another, enacting a pattern of behavior, while their unity remains unperceived. These feelings are the very basis of sign relations and schemes of relevance.
In a second part, we will insist that actual meanings, staying on the level of actuality as patterns of movements and behaviors, are suitable explanations for feelings and affects that enacts meaningful behavior without necessarily having an object. We will take the “social smile” as an example. Research from developmental psychology shows that it appears before instrumental action and the use of language and abstract thought. This type of smile is functional as it ties the social bond. Researches also shows that smiling improves both consumer satisfaction and sales results, notwithstanding the object of purchase. Gurwitsch provides a phenomenological explanation of how it constitutes an actual meaning impacting on schemes of action.
Phenomenological tradition long considered mere actual meanings as irrelevant. For Schutz (CP VI), who abandoned the program of “pure” phenomenology for a phenomenology of the social world, meaning is obtain only when a polythetical glance synthetises mere temporal features from the flux of experience into an a-temporal unity. Meaning can further be grasped by intentional consciousness and coin meaningful action.
In this paper, we will sketch Aron Gurwitsch’s (1936-37) alternative for meaning constitution within actuality. It follows a rejection of Husserl’s noematic point theory, which, according to Gurwitsch, raises a problem of segregation of the elements of experience, or relevance, and begs for a reintroduction of an “inherentist” standpoint regarding objects of primordial experience. Therefore, Gurwitsch moves to a coherentist standpoint where “functional meaning” relies on actual feelings made of mutually qualifying relative intensities of sensations. Consequently, an agent can be “propelled” from one mere perception to another, enacting a pattern of behavior, while their unity remains unperceived. These feelings are the very basis of sign relations and schemes of relevance.
In a second part, we will insist that actual meanings, staying on the level of actuality as patterns of movements and behaviors, are suitable explanations for feelings and affects that enacts meaningful behavior without necessarily having an object. We will take the “social smile” as an example. Research from developmental psychology shows that it appears before instrumental action and the use of language and abstract thought. This type of smile is functional as it ties the social bond. Researches also shows that smiling improves both consumer satisfaction and sales results, notwithstanding the object of purchase. Gurwitsch provides a phenomenological explanation of how it constitutes an actual meaning impacting on schemes of action.
Imitation and intuition: An empathic method for psychology
Churchill, S.D. (University of Dallas)
If phenomenology is really going to return "to the matters themselves" of everyday life, and if a phenomenological method for the fields of psychology and psychiatry is to attain more than a disinterested Cartesian stance toward its subject matter, then we cannot content ourselves with being a mind that inspects its data, an ethereal cogito cut off from the Eros of the body. The mistake of the rationalists was to think that a 'pure reason' would be capable of speaking truth about the lifeworld. Empiricists, on the other hand, stress the passivity of perception, and in the development of scientific method prefer to bracket 'subjective' impressions. Phenomenology, in suggesting that the body is one's point of view on the world and thereby "the psychic object par excellence" (Sartre 1943/1956, p. 347), invites us to become more attuned to the logos of the body. This means becoming more sensitive to the lived body as both subject matter and method of psychology.
What is this 'empathy' by which I invest myself in other peoples' gestures, and they inhabit mine? If my body is indeed my point of view on the world, then it will be in my body that the other's body becomes known to me. And since my own body is first lived and only subsequently known, it requires a phenomenological reduction to turn our gaze toward the body itself as the means which delivers the world over to us. As Wilhelm Reich observed, the other's ""expressive movements involuntarily bring about an imitation in our own organism"" (1933/1972, p. 362). We thereby sense in and through our own bodies the intentions and affects that animate the other.
It is to this phenomenon of imitation that I will turn my attention, in order to develop a sense of the body's role in the understanding of others. Methodologically, this becomes the basis for my reflections concerning imitation as a procedure for access to the psychological expressions of others.
If phenomenology is really going to return "to the matters themselves" of everyday life, and if a phenomenological method for the fields of psychology and psychiatry is to attain more than a disinterested Cartesian stance toward its subject matter, then we cannot content ourselves with being a mind that inspects its data, an ethereal cogito cut off from the Eros of the body. The mistake of the rationalists was to think that a 'pure reason' would be capable of speaking truth about the lifeworld. Empiricists, on the other hand, stress the passivity of perception, and in the development of scientific method prefer to bracket 'subjective' impressions. Phenomenology, in suggesting that the body is one's point of view on the world and thereby "the psychic object par excellence" (Sartre 1943/1956, p. 347), invites us to become more attuned to the logos of the body. This means becoming more sensitive to the lived body as both subject matter and method of psychology.
What is this 'empathy' by which I invest myself in other peoples' gestures, and they inhabit mine? If my body is indeed my point of view on the world, then it will be in my body that the other's body becomes known to me. And since my own body is first lived and only subsequently known, it requires a phenomenological reduction to turn our gaze toward the body itself as the means which delivers the world over to us. As Wilhelm Reich observed, the other's ""expressive movements involuntarily bring about an imitation in our own organism"" (1933/1972, p. 362). We thereby sense in and through our own bodies the intentions and affects that animate the other.
It is to this phenomenon of imitation that I will turn my attention, in order to develop a sense of the body's role in the understanding of others. Methodologically, this becomes the basis for my reflections concerning imitation as a procedure for access to the psychological expressions of others.