Emotions & Morals, pt. 5b: Reflections -- British Sense Theorists

Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith in their own distinctive ways were attempting to explore what counts as moral and -- although less explicitly or directly in their writings -- what should count as moral.  They did so by seeking to discover how human psychology worked and by giving due attention to the observation that we humans respond to moral matters powerfully and initially with our emotions.  They were engaging in an interdisciplinary study of ethics and psychology in light of Newton's recent findings of natural laws, and they saw a connection between the way that humans worked and what was proper or fitting for them to do or say in certain situations.  The precise basis for their normative claims is open to question, and the mechanics of human moral psychology are still being explored three hundred years later.

As I reflect on the relationship between emotions and morals through these three British sense theorists, an important consideration emerges, which is the nature of an emotion and its power in and over humans.  Hume seems to view emotions, or passions, as equivalent to but distinct from physical sensations, which is why he posits a separate faculty to process their moral content.  Emotions for him are given in the way that perception of an apple on a table is given. Are they really sensations like that?  Smith seems to have recognized that our feelings are not just given; they are malleable.  That is the basis, in fact, for his view of sympathy, or imaginative exchange with another person, and the device of an impartial spectator to evaluate and to question what was the proper passion to feel morally in a particular situation.  Smith's goal was emotional conformity to the impartial spectator's objective moral assessment of propriety and, to a secondary extent, utility.

Among many things that could be said, let me, in conclusion, mention only two. One relates to the passivity or activity of emotions, and the other pertains to the  narrative structure that emotions imply are connected to ethics.

Emotions & Morals, pt. 4: Adam Smith -- British Sense Theorists

Adam Smith is the last of the three major British moral sense theorists that we will examine in this series.  Smith was a friend of David Hume's, whom we discussed last time. Smith, much like Hume before him, saw himself engaged in moral science, the empirical description of how we as humans think about morals, how we make moral judgments, and how we assess the motivations, words, and actions of others.

Emotions & Morals, pt. 3: David Hume -- British Sense Theorists

Francis Hutcheson importantly influenced fellow Scot David Hume, although Hume would argue against Hutcheson's particular view of benevolent affections (see prior post on Hutcheson here). Before analyzing closely some places where Hume's moral theory differs from that of his mentor Hutcheson, what, first, is the main area of agreement between them?

The Transformation of Sir Gawain’s Greenness

As a narrative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight imaginatively creates moral suspense -- real suspense around the strength of bravery, integrity, and virtue.  It does so for a community and individuals who might often seem exemplars of honor:  King Arthur and the knights and ladies of his Round Table.  I find this of interest now years after I first read works like Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, White’s The Once and Future King, and Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, because of the personal and communal transformation that occurs in Sir Gawain.

When I was a lad, I was most impressed by the ability of Arthur and Lancelot and Galahad and the like to defeat their enemies and achieve success.  Sure, I was aware of some shortcomings in the characters.  But it was their larger-than-lifeness that then captured my readerly fancy.  Now as an adult, I appreciate most the depiction of Arthur and Gawain and the like as simultaneously virtuous and flawed characters who, nevertheless, press on with a sense of duty and fidelity to themselves and to their communities.  At least this is my reaction after recently reading Merwin’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and after reflecting on the symbolic transformation of the green belt at its ending.

DFW and the Fundamental Attribution Error

A couple of weeks ago I decided to revisit David Foster Wallace's famous Kenyon College commencement address from May 21, 2005.  It was subsequently revised and published as "This Is Water."  (The audio and various text editions, including a transcription of the original speech and one cleaned up, are easily available on the web.)  Among many things that struck me upon both rereading and listening to the address, one thing jumped out in particular.  And I think it is one key reason that DFW's address went viral back then and is still discussed now.

The Fiction of Sexual Violence, pt. 2: Faulkner

In the first part of this series on the fiction of sexual violence, I briefly explained the twin aspects of "fiction" according to which I will explore this theme.  I began with Toni Morrison's Beloved and a reading of the effects of Ella's experience as a sex slave (quite literally as a slave in the Antebellum South).  And I suggested that we see in her trauma how sexual violence both disables a person's capacity for love (both loving and being loved) and dehumanizes the person in the process.  In Faulkner’s Light in August, the sexual violence between Joe Christmas and Joanna Burden is different.

Moral Ambiguities in Prévost, pt. 2: Autonomy and Empathy

In my previous post on moral ambiguities in Prévost's Manon Lescaut, I observed how, even when characters and stories are explicitly said to be moral examples, the precise nature of the moral instruction may not be clear.  In particular, I asked of the ethical lesson reflected in the Chevalier des Grieux's interactions with others, "Is one to avoid (being duped into) compromising one’s moral judgment because of compassion, or, positively, to pity a libertine and lighten punishment?  Is one to recognize that pity is a virtue but that manipulating it for self-gain and moral license, as Des Grieux does, is a vice?"  In this post, I simply want to mention a couple of ways in which these questions are as alive for us today as they were for Abbé Prévost in the 1700s:  the relationship between autonomy and empathy in moral evaluation.

Moral Ambiguities in Prévost, pt. 1: Examples

When we say that someone is a moral example, what exactly do we mean?  How skilled are we at discerning the supposed moral virtue to be emulated?  These are questions that I was prompted to consider recently while reading some European fiction and that I think are of abiding relevance. 

In the Foreward to his delightful novel Manon Lescaut (rev. 1753; orig. 1731), Abbé Prévost describes “the subject of the picture I will present” as “an ambiguous character, a mixture of virtues and vices, a perpetual contrast between good impulses and bad actions.”  Prévost envisions the narrative “as an aid to moral instruction.” Specifically, one “will see, in Des Grieux’s conduct, a terrible example of the power of passions…” (Manon Lescaut, 3, although Prévost’s sincerity here is questionable given the text’s history of censorship).  What remains narratively ambiguous is the nature, or content, of the moral instruction supposedly intended.  Is it traditional or unusual?  Without resolving that question, it seems to me that in seeking empathy from other characters Des Grieux highlights how feelings influence, and usually soften, moral judgment.

Nietzsche and Foucault on Domination

Michel Foucault is justifiably regarded as a Nietzschean thinker.  In Madness and Civilization, Foucault adapts Friedrich Nietzsche’s genealogical method of inquiry and extends Nietzsche’s idea that “in all events a will to power is operating” (“Second Essay:  ‘Guilt,’ ‘Bad Conscience,’ and the Like,” in Genealogy of Morals, 514). Influenced by Nietzsche, Foucault interprets the history of madness in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries as attempts to control or dominate others, especially when society’s morals are perceived to be violated or threatened. 

Making Sense of Wilson, pt. 9: Universal Impulse

In a prior post in which I reflected on James Q. Wilson's book The Moral Sense, I drew attention to the universal impulse in moral sentiment that he identifies:  "The most remarkable change in the moral history of mankind has been the rise -- and occasionally the application -- of the view that all people, and not just one’s own kind, are entitled to fair treatment" (191).  Because it is so remarkable, and because it has such sweeping implications, it is worth probing further this topic about the development of universalism in moral thinking and practice.

We can begin by focusing on a question that Prof. Wilson himself poses:  "How can we explain the great expansion of the boundaries within which the moral sense operates?  How, in particular, can we explain why we believe that moral rules ought to have universal applicability?  This aspiration toward the universal is the chief feature of the moral history of mankind" (194).  Indeed.

Professor Wilson suggests that the long development of consensual marriage, particularly in northwestern Europe, helps to provide a key, but not the only, component of an explanation.

The link between the two, consensual marriage and universal moral applicability, may not be immediately apparent.  The tie, however, is the parallel development in northwestern Europe of individualism.  What is the connection?

Making Sense of Wilson, pt. 4: Self-Control

While in middle school, I had to stay after classes had ended for tutorials in English grammar.  I cannot recall now if that was because I incorrectly wrote my homework or quizzes, or if it was because I asked questions that the teacher could not answer fully before having to move on through the lesson.  I do remember one week when all I did after school was practice how to distinguish an adjectival from an adverbial prepositional phrase.  Once I got that down, something clicked.  Grammar became not only an interest but also more closely aligned with the way I thought -- or how I thought about how I thought.  This tendency only increased when I began to learn foreign languages, which in turn enhanced my understanding of English grammar.

Among other things, I was drawn by grammar to the conventional nature of language.  I am not sure whether I was taught or simply caught prescriptivism, the notion that grammar does not merely reflect language usage but specifies what it should be.  Proper grammar is how people ought to employ language.  Inasmuch as there was an obligatory element to grammar, there was a moral dimension to it for me:  This is not only how others ought to speak and write, which is how we got the grammar rules I was learning, but also how I myself ought to speak and write.

What is more, if I could speak and write in such a fashion, other people, because of our shared convention, would understand me and trust me not only to communicate but also as a communicator.  Well-executed grammar would say something about me, about my person, about my character.  Not splitting my infinitives could suggest that I would likely not divide my loyalty.  Faithfulness in small things would augur faithfulness in larger things.  If I were trustworthy in my communication by following shared conventions, I would be trustworthy in the rest of my life by adhering to that shared life.

To be sure, I may not have been able to articulate all of this explicitly at the time, but I can safely say now that this was to a significant degree how I thought and felt then.  This understanding is similar to thoughts that appear in a previous post on the usefulness of grammar in the workplace.  A main point of that post, of the person quoted in it, and of my remarks above relates to the third of James Q. Wilson's moral sensibilities:  self-control.

In this continuation of my series of posts on Prof. Wilson's book The Moral Sense, I offer mostly a descriptive recapitulation of his main ideas, because I find myself agreeing generally with him.  For those who wish to become familiar with his ideas but who do not have time or inclination to read the book itself, such a recap may be useful.  In this vein, I touch briefly below on (i) what self-control is and why it is moral, (ii) some historical perspective, and (iii) addiction and morality.  Lastly (iv) I offer some additional reflections.