Animal Emotions

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GE Morton
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Re: Animal Emotions

Post by GE Morton »

snt wrote: June 9th, 2022, 6:49 am
I believe that the way that humans are addressing morality and the idea of 'moral standing' is wrong. It provides people with a completely wrong idea about morality which could result in profound cultural moral issues.
Ah. Perhaps you can inform us of the "right" idea about morality.
What is being asked is actually whether or not humans should neglect morality or not, a morality which is ever present!
?? Are you suggesting morality has some sort of presence or existence independent of human beliefs, theories, and judgments?
When the intent is to achieve quality in morality and a sound moral culture to spur intellectual progress for humanity, it is case to spur the potential for moral consideration and that would demand ingraining people with the right conception of morality, not as a choice between good and bad but as an everlasting quest into 'good'.
There can be no "quest into good," because "goodness" or "the good" is not something independent of persons which can be sought after and found. The term is simply an adjective one applies to something one finds pleasant, satisfying, desirable, and hence is subjective and idiosyncratic.
snt
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Re: Animal Emotions

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GE Morton wrote: June 9th, 2022, 10:49 amAh. Perhaps you can inform us of the "right" idea about morality.
Morality (like love) is eternal in nature and concerns a quest into 'good' which requires a potential to do so.

It isn't the case that certain acts are not immoral for certain people or cultures but simply that a factor is missing that enables moral consideration (an activity in the face of an unknown future) within a certain context. From that perspective, a barbarian can still be held accountable for a lower quality moral state compared with more civilized folks. Also, killing an animal for food is always immoral. The perspective of the animal and it's natural environment is never lost but is merely neglected by a human in a certain context.

Morality isn't about rules (ethics). Morality is about the potential for moral consideration.

Only when the potential for moral consideration is present, someone can be considered responsible in the face of his/her dignity.

Negligence, laziness and barbarianism are possible. An asteroid can strike earth. A moral life is not a given life. A moral life involves an eternal effort on behalf of 'good'. A moral life, according many wise people, requires that one first gives before one receives (see the work of Emmanuel Levinas and his vision Ethics as First Philosophy for an example).

When it is considered that 'good' necessarily precedes human nature, which many profound philosophers have shown, it is possible to overcome the hurdle of subjective laziness and drive people principally to consider the good of others and beyond. In such a situation, moral consideration would become a quality that can be demanded in the face of dignity. This implies that the crafting of a moral culture is possible and a cultural demand can be a very strong demand. Humans would transform almost automatically into ever improving moral beings.

An example that the moral culture theory might be valid is a quote by Henry David Thoreau:

"Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual moral improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized."

Morality is about serving the purpose of life - good - in the best (wisest) way. When humanity is to secure its future and to achieve an optimal path, it would be case that humanity is set to enhance its moral consideration potential with everlasting urgency to be certain that whatever path it has chosen, has been given the right chance to have been the right path.

The problem at hand is not an answer to morality, but an answer to the potential required for moral consideration. (what is required to create a moral culture)

The trend in leadership today is a focus on authenticity and a moral compass. The number one business book of recent years, by an author that is considered the new father of leadership, is named 'True North' and is about a moral compass.

I recently listened to a podcast with as guest Lisa Monaco, a former Counterterrorism Advisor of President Barack Obama. She specifically addresses the significance of a sound moral compass and hints that it might involve more than social and cultural instincts (in the podcast she mentioned a 'sixth sense').

Podcast: https://listennotes.com/podcasts/the-le ... li-5dvNUT/

It is interesting to notice that people who manage other people often seem to hold a special interest in morality. When one is to make choices on behalf of other people as part of an organization, morality is essentially what will determine quality in the choices that are made.

From this perspective, despite that the modern technological society intends to break free from morality (i.e. the idea "A God is dead world in which science tells us our moral intuitions are simply a happenstance of evolutionary utility" that a user on this forum mentioned recently), there seems to be a solid ground and opportunity for morality to revive in the near future.

My suggestion would be to help secure interest for morality in a more robust sense beyond the scope of human ego. It wouldn't be just intended to be kind to other conscious beings, morality can be seen as a form of long-term intelligence that could help stave off disaster and secure progress in ways that could prove to be vital.

When a moral culture is set in motion, like a domino effect, it will prevent evil fundamentally and it will result in a foundation for intellectual progress.

GE Morton wrote: June 9th, 2022, 10:49 am
What is being asked is actually whether or not humans should neglect morality or not, a morality which is ever present!
?? Are you suggesting morality has some sort of presence or existence independent of human beliefs, theories, and judgments?
Yes, morality concerns an everlasting activity in the face of an unknown future on behalf of the aspect 'good' that precedes human nature.

GE Morton wrote: June 9th, 2022, 10:49 amThere can be no "quest into good," because "goodness" or "the good" is not something independent of persons which can be sought after and found. The term is simply an adjective one applies to something one finds pleasant, satisfying, desirable, and hence is subjective and idiosyncratic.
French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, well known for his moral theoretical vision of Ethics as First Philosophy and his work Totality and Infinity (1961) argued the following:

In shame, we experience our freedom as unjustifiable. In thus being as if lifted out of its concerns, the “I” offers an account to the other, who is thereby treated as if higher than that “I” when considered in its personal sovereignty. For that reason as well, the “I”, singled out and addressed by the other, is chosen or as if “elected” to respond (TI: 245–246, 279). It “transascends” (35, 41) or rises to the other, answering “here I am” (EI: 106).

Levinas argues that the instant of “election” belongs to a temporal order different from that of everyday existence: the moment of enactment of a “good beyond Being


https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

Emmanuel Levinas his work is similar of importance as that of German philosopher Martin Heidegger (Being and Time, 1927).

The moral philosophy of Levinas would imply that a face-to-face meeting involves a 'good beyond Being' which implies that that same good would precede one's own subjective human nature.

Levinas commentator Giuseppe Lissa provides the following description of Levinas’ project Otherwise than Being (his latest work).

She says:

By investigating the depths of consciousness, by comparing its passivity to the process of ageing, Levinas investigates a "reality unknowable, but perhaps interpretable by a thinking that no longer claims to be an exercise in knowledge … because this thinking is engaged in the search for a meaning that precedes all knowledge."

In the film Absent God (1:06:22) Levinas says the following:

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness."

Conclusion: Levina's work concerns a 'good' that precedes human nature and simple logic makes it apparent that by cultural engrained awareness of that fact, morality can be set on a path to everlasting moral enhancement for the purpose of 'ought' intellectual progress to secure the future of humanity.
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Re: Animal Emotions

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If we accept that morality is a quest for good or goodness, as we seem to be doing here, shouldn't we also give careful scrutiny to what "good" is, and what a quest for it might mean? In particular, shouldn't we focus on animals, their "emotions", and what might constitute "good" for them? 🤔🤔🤔
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Re: Animal Emotions

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Pattern-chaser wrote: June 10th, 2022, 7:02 am If we accept that morality is a quest for good or goodness, as we seem to be doing here, shouldn't we also give careful scrutiny to what "good" is, and what a quest for it might mean? In particular, shouldn't we focus on animals, their "emotions", and what might constitute "good" for them? 🤔🤔🤔
The indicated "good" cannot be known. Morality would involve a quest on behalf of "good", a good of which one would need to assume (using philosophical plausibility) that it precedes human nature, which many profound philosophers have shown to be the case (my previous post contains some references).

Yes, moral consideration when it concerns animals would consider their emotions and what might constitute "good' for them, at least from a today's humanly perspective (i.e. within humanity's capacity for moral consideration today).

However, fundamentally morality does not involve the question what is "good" is but instead the potential to quest on behalf of good eternally in the face of an unknown future, i.e. the potential and responsibility to even consider that animals have emotions and a perspective that is ought to be considered outside of one's own subjective good (one's self).

When it concerns an animal, one should envision a child that has just learned that animals have feelings just like a human, and who then is to decide whether or not the animal should be treated with care to prevent harm.

From an outsiders perspective seeking to enhance the good of humanity when it concerns morality, what it comes down to is not more or better moral rules (ethics) but an improvement of the potential for moral consideration within humanity towards the outer world, which would be possible using the crafting of a moral culture, which potential on complete (global) human scale is plausible with the idea that 'good' precedes human nature.
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Re: Animal Emotions

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snt wrote: June 10th, 2022, 5:28 am
Morality (like love) is eternal in nature and concerns a quest into 'good' which requires a potential to do so.
Well, any quest requires a potential --- an ability --- on the part of the questor to engage in it. But any "quest into good" is misconceived and certain to be futile, since "good" is not something to be found. The term is just an adjective we apply to something that we desire or approve of, that satisfies such a desire, or satisfies some standard we've adopted. It is not some sort of entity or state of affairs external to us to be discovered.

And you didn't answer my question, i.e., what you think morality is, what that term denotes. How do we recognize morality when we see it --- what are its properties, defining features? On what evidence do you base your claim that it is eternal?
Morality isn't about rules (ethics). Morality is about the potential for moral consideration.
That is not helpful. What is moral consideration, other than considering which moral rules apply in a given situation?
A moral life involves an eternal effort on behalf of 'good'.
Ah. You seem to be following Aristotle in reifying "good." There is no "the good." See above comment regarding the meaning of "good."
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Re: Animal Emotions

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Recent research discovered that air pollution has a significant impact on morality. This might provide an insight into the nature of morality.

"Recent research from the UK compared data for 1.8 million crimes over two years with air pollution data from London’s boroughs and wards. The analysis considered factors such as temperature, humidity and rainfall, days of the week and different seasons. The researchers found that a 10 point raise in the AQI increases the crime rate by 0.9 per cent. Levels of crime in London are therefore higher on the most polluted days. The study found that air pollution influenced crime in London’s wealthiest and poorest neighbourhoods."

https://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute ... and-crime/

A study based on FBI crime data provides more profound evidence.

FBI Study Links Air-Pollution to Violent Crime
If you reduce air pollution, you might see a reduction in crime as well.
https://agsci.source.colostate.edu/expo ... udy-finds/

Polluted air may pollute our morality
Exposure to air pollution, even imagining exposure to air pollution, may lead to unethical behavior, according to new findings. A combination of archival and experimental studies indicates that exposure to air pollution, either physically or mentally, is linked with unethical behavior such as crime and cheating. The experimental findings suggest that this association may be due, at least in part, to increased anxiety.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 151823.htm

Polluted Morality: New Research Shows Air Pollution Increases Unethical Behavior and Crime
https://michiganross.umich.edu/rtia-art ... havior-and

Exposure to air pollution increases violent crime rates, study finds
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-exposure- ... crime.html

When it concerns the potential for morality, it concerns an aspect that requires motivation. While a social environment or culture can provide a strong motivation, from a subjective perspective a major factor is logically one's health (one's long term potential) in one's natural environment. One's subjective good should not be neglected but instead one should seek a win-win situation.
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Re: Animal Emotions

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snt wrote: June 10th, 2022, 5:28 am Morality (like love) is eternal in nature and concerns a quest into 'good' which requires a potential to do so.
GE Morton wrote: June 10th, 2022, 11:39 am But any "quest into good" is misconceived and certain to be futile, since "good" is not something to be found. The term is just an adjective we apply to something that we desire or approve of, that satisfies such a desire, or satisfies some standard we've adopted. It is not some sort of entity or state of affairs external to us to be discovered.
Odd though it may be that we agree, GEM, I cannot but support what you have written here. "Good" is one of our vaguest concepts, meaning nothing more than "something that we desire or approve of", as you say.
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Re: Animal Emotions

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GE Morton wrote: June 10th, 2022, 11:39 am
snt wrote: June 10th, 2022, 5:28 am
Morality (like love) is eternal in nature and concerns a quest into 'good' which requires a potential to do so.
Well, any quest requires a potential --- an ability --- on the part of the questor to engage in it. But any "quest into good" is misconceived and certain to be futile, since "good" is not something to be found. The term is just an adjective we apply to something that we desire or approve of, that satisfies such a desire, or satisfies some standard we've adopted. It is not some sort of entity or state of affairs external to us to be discovered.
While the indicated 'good' that would precede human nature cannot be discovered in the Said (and thus cannot be formalized in ethical rules), philosophical reasoning can make a case for it's plausibility. Some of the references in my previous post show an example.

Levinas commentator Giuseppe Lissa provides the following description of Levinas’ project Otherwise than Being (his latest work):

By investigating the depths of consciousness, by comparing its passivity to the process of ageing, Levinas investigates a "reality unknowable, but perhaps interpretable by a thinking that no longer claims to be an exercise in knowledge … because this thinking is engaged in the search for a meaning that precedes all knowledge."

In the film Absent God (1:06:22) Levinas says the following:

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness."

It concerns philosophical plausibility of a 'good' that precedes human nature.

GE Morton wrote: June 10th, 2022, 11:39 amAnd you didn't answer my question, i.e., what you think morality is, what that term denotes. How do we recognize morality when we see it --- what are its properties, defining features? On what evidence do you base your claim that it is eternal?
Morality cannot be seen. Love cannot be seen. One cannot formulate a theory to cause people to love and the same is case for morality. Moral consideration is a potential that requires motivation.

Evidence that morality is eternal is based on the philosophical plausibility of the idea that 'good' must precede human nature. It can also be deduced from the simple fact that morality is to have an 'ought' effect in the face of an unknown future.

Many philosophers argue that morality comes 'from within'. William James in The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life argued the following:

"Abstract rules indeed can help; but they help the less in proportion as our intuitions are more piercing, and our vocation is the stronger for the moral life. For every real dilemma is in literal strictness a unique situation; and the exact combination of ideals realized and ideals disappointed which each decision creates is always a universe without a precedent, and for which no adequate previous rule exists."

A philosopher on this forum replied with the following:
Thomyum2 wrote: January 14th, 2022, 11:23 pmI agree with this - I think that we can be guided by rules and by experience, but ultimately each moral choice is one that we face alone and that we can only make it ourselves. And we each must rely on our own good will and our intuition - in other words to look within ourselves - in order to make it. There is no certainty in it other than that which we find within our own being.
Therefore, for morality to contain meaning in of itself, it would necessarily need to precede human nature.

GE Morton wrote: June 10th, 2022, 11:39 am
Morality isn't about rules (ethics). Morality is about the potential for moral consideration.
That is not helpful. What is moral consideration, other than considering which moral rules apply in a given situation?
The certainty sought (e.g. a predetermined rule to apply) isn't to be found in the Said. It is one's potential in the face of an unknown future that derives it's possibility from a good that precedes it, whereby one is to find confidence in philosophical plausibility to act on behalf of it (i.e. 'to do good').
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Re: Animal Emotions

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snt wrote: June 10th, 2022, 1:07 pm
While the indicated 'good' that would precede human nature cannot be discovered in the Said (and thus cannot be formalized in ethical rules), philosophical reasoning can make a case for it's plausibility. Some of the references in my previous post show an example.
Well, please make that case.
Levinas commentator Giuseppe Lissa provides the following description of Levinas’ project Otherwise than Being (his latest work):

By investigating the depths of consciousness, by comparing its passivity to the process of ageing, Levinas investigates a "reality unknowable, but perhaps interpretable by a thinking that no longer claims to be an exercise in knowledge … because this thinking is engaged in the search for a meaning that precedes all knowledge."
Sorry, but that is incomprehensible gibberish, verbal mumbo-jumbo. "Meaning that precedes knowledge"? "Meaning" of what? What knowledge?
In the film Absent God (1:06:22) Levinas says the following:

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness."
More flapdoodle. The world was not "created," in the sense of being an intentional act of some sentient, purposive creature. It was a natural event. As such it has no "meaning;" that term is completely inapplicable to it.
It concerns philosophical plausibility of a 'good' that precedes human nature.
Again, please define this "good" and let us know how to recognize it when we encounter it.
Morality cannot be seen. Love cannot be seen. One cannot formulate a theory to cause people to love and the same is case for morality. Moral consideration is a potential that requires motivation.
Both can be seen, via the behavioral effects they have on persons affected by them.
Evidence that morality is eternal is based on the philosophical plausibility of the idea that 'good' must precede human nature.
On the contrary, that claim is highly philosophically implausible, given that "good" or "a good" are merely terms applied by humans to things they find desirable, useful, satisfying, etc. "Good" and "goodness" are not things or properties of things; they denote a certain attitude people have toward things. The terms have no application beyond human interest and judgments.
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Re: Animal Emotions

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GE Morton wrote: June 10th, 2022, 8:12 pm
snt wrote: June 10th, 2022, 1:07 pm
While the indicated 'good' that would precede human nature cannot be discovered in the Said (and thus cannot be formalized in ethical rules), philosophical reasoning can make a case for it's plausibility. Some of the references in my previous post show an example.
Well, please make that case.
Levinas says the following:

"in renouncing intentionality as a guiding thread toward the eidos [formal structure] of the psyche … our analysis will follow sensibility in its pre-natural signification to the maternal, where, in proximity [to what is not itself], signification signifies before it gets bent into perseverance in being in the midst of a Nature. (OBBE: 68, emph. added) "

A closer look at the paradox of sensory experience in relation to conscious intentionality is an example that proves that 'good' precedes human nature.

"Yet Levinas does exploit a difficulty that beset Husserl’s early phenomenology of time-consciousness, one that would argue in favor of Levinas’ 1974 conception of “diachrony”, or the interruption that he equates with transcendence-in-immanence. This was the paradox of sensation in relation to intentionality that Husserl identified in Appendix 12 of his lectures on internal time consciousness (Hua 10: 130–133).[34]

In his 1965 essay, “Intentionality and Sensation” (DEH: 135–150), Levinas focused on the gap (i.e., diachrony) between bodily sensation entering intentionality and sensation as pre-conscious bodily processes. He recalled the paradox that the sensuous origins of intentionality lay outside intentionality’s field or reach, in the body, even as the ongoing alterations of sensation forge our feeling of ongoing temporal progression. To be explicitly experienced, sensation thus had to intentionalize. Yet much of its prior, bodily existence eludes our consciousness.

Levinas compared this dual, conscious-preconscious status of sensibility to his idea of a pre-intentional “receptivity of an ‘other’ penetrating into the ‘same’, [in sum, to our intersubjective] life and not [to] ‘thought’” (DEH: 144). As already broached by Husserl, this sensuous “other” will support Levinas’ 1974 arguments for the affective interruptions of the even flow of time-consciousness, and his claim that intersubjective affects overflow the framework of all representational consciousness.
"

A phenomenon between intentionality and sensation. Levinas and Husserl
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40883394
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... nd_Husserl
https://www.scribd.com/doc/224260714/Le ... -Sensation

GE Morton wrote: June 10th, 2022, 8:12 pm
Levinas commentator Giuseppe Lissa provides the following description of Levinas’ project Otherwise than Being (his latest work):

By investigating the depths of consciousness, by comparing its passivity to the process of ageing, Levinas investigates a "reality unknowable, but perhaps interpretable by a thinking that no longer claims to be an exercise in knowledge … because this thinking is engaged in the search for a meaning that precedes all knowledge."
Sorry, but that is incomprehensible gibberish, verbal mumbo-jumbo. "Meaning that precedes knowledge"? "Meaning" of what? What knowledge?
Levinas addresses it in his concept The duality of Saying and Said.

It involves the idea of a meaning that precedes knowledge and a meaning that is not a meaning of.

Levinas' vision is Ethics as First Philosophy which would imply that at the root of the world (physical reality out of which knowledge is possible) lays morality (an eternal quest into good).

GE Morton wrote: June 10th, 2022, 8:12 pm
In the film Absent God (1:06:22) Levinas says the following:

"The creation of the world itself should get its meaning starting from goodness."
More flapdoodle. The world was not "created," in the sense of being an intentional act of some sentient, purposive creature. It was a natural event. As such it has no "meaning;" that term is completely inapplicable to it.
The indicated meaning is not a creature or the product of an intentional act. It is a meaning of a pure form that precedes intentionality, which the sensory experience paradox clearly shows to be the case.

GE Morton wrote: June 10th, 2022, 8:12 pm
It concerns philosophical plausibility of a 'good' that precedes human nature.
Again, please define this "good" and let us know how to recognize it when we encounter it.
Undefinable yet undeniable. One can recognize it in one's potential to do good. A potential for moral consideration.

GE Morton wrote: June 10th, 2022, 8:12 pm
Evidence that morality is eternal is based on the philosophical plausibility of the idea that 'good' must precede human nature.
On the contrary, that claim is highly philosophically implausible, given that "good" or "a good" are merely terms applied by humans to things they find desirable, useful, satisfying, etc. "Good" and "goodness" are not things or properties of things; they denote a certain attitude people have toward things. The terms have no application beyond human interest and judgments.
The idea of good provides evidence of a good that must precede reason and knowledge. A value judgement does not involve a choice but an activity in the face of an unknown future which is done on behalf of a 'good' that cannot be said and yet cannot be denied.
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Re: Animal Emotions

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snt wrote: June 11th, 2022, 9:34 am Levinas says the following...
OK, but what does snt say? 👍🙂
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Re: Animal Emotions

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snt wrote: June 11th, 2022, 9:34 am
Levinas says the following:

"in renouncing intentionality as a guiding thread toward the eidos [formal structure] of the psyche … our analysis will follow sensibility in its pre-natural signification to the maternal, where, in proximity [to what is not itself], signification signifies before it gets bent into perseverance in being in the midst of a Nature. (OBBE: 68, emph. added) "
Er, snt, you don't "make the case" by citing more gibberish. "Formal structure of the psyche," "pre-natural signification of the maternal," "signification before it gets bent into perseverence," "in the midst of a Nature," are all vacuous terms which denote nothing and describe nothing observable, confirmable, or even coherent.
A closer look at the paradox of sensory experience in relation to conscious intentionality is an example that proves that 'good' precedes human nature.
Egads. "Sensory experience in relation to conscious intentionality" proves that "good precedes human nature"? Really? can you draw out that proof? I'd love to see the steps in that deduction.
GE Morton wrote: June 10th, 2022, 8:12 pm
Levinas commentator Giuseppe Lissa provides the following description of Levinas’ project Otherwise than Being (his latest work):

By investigating the depths of consciousness, by comparing its passivity to the process of ageing, Levinas investigates a "reality unknowable, but perhaps interpretable by a thinking that no longer claims to be an exercise in knowledge … because this thinking is engaged in the search for a meaning that precedes all knowledge."
Sorry, but that is incomprehensible gibberish, verbal mumbo-jumbo. "Meaning that precedes knowledge"? "Meaning" of what? What knowledge?
Levinas addresses it in his concept The duality of Saying and Said.

It involves the idea of a meaning that precedes knowledge and a meaning that is not a meaning of.
Well, you're just repeating yourself. A "meaning that is not a meaning of"?

Snt, please go a dictionary and learn the meaning of "meaning." Then try to re-build your arguments using terms with their dictionary meanings and consisting of propositions with determinable truth values.
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Re: Animal Emotions

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GE Morton wrote: June 11th, 2022, 1:13 pm Er, snt, you don't "make the case" by citing more gibberish. "Formal structure of the psyche," "pre-natural signification of the maternal," "signification before it gets bent into perseverence," "in the midst of a Nature," are all vacuous terms which denote nothing and describe nothing observable, confirmable, or even coherent.
That 'gibberish' is attached to (a conclusory product of) a philosophical work of which it is considered that it is one of the major works in the history of Western philosophy. That does not prove anything by itself but the accusation that it is fleeting gibberish is not justified.

The sought after philosophical plausibility of the citation is to be found in his profound work. Scholars have dedicated to his work, for example professor Adriaan Peperzak (University of Chicago) who is specialized in the history of Levinas. The professor provides a quick insight in the history of Levinas in the PDF To the Other: Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas.

"Lithuanian-born French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas is renowned for his powerful critique of the preeminence of ontology (the philosophical study of being) in the history of Western philosophy, particularly in the work of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976).

Some commentators have called Levinas’ work an ethics of ethics, others a meta-ethics, while still others have urged that his thought can accommodate many ethical theories, from intuitionism to rationalism. However that may be, his work is in ongoing, critical dialogue with three philosophers: Husserl, Heidegger, and Hegel. Given these targets—as well as philosophical interlocutors like Maurice Merleau-Ponty—Levinas’ philosophy begins from an enlarged conception of lived embodiment and a powerful extension of Husserl’s technique of suspending conceptualization to reveal experience as it comes to light. He is also indebted to Heidegger for his hermeneutics of being-in-the-world.
"
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

Episode 145: Emmanuel Levinas: Why Be Ethical?
https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2016/ ... 1-levinas/

GE Morton wrote: June 11th, 2022, 1:13 pm
A closer look at the paradox of sensory experience in relation to conscious intentionality is an example that proves that 'good' precedes human nature.
Egads. "Sensory experience in relation to conscious intentionality" proves that "good precedes human nature"? Really? can you draw out that proof? I'd love to see the steps in that deduction.
The sensory experience paradox indeed shows that 'good' must precede human nature, which (for the purpose of the discussion, i.e. on topic) has implications with regard the nature of morality as well as its potential for 'ought' intellectual progress and for securing the future of humanity.

As Levinas writes "sensation had to intentionalize to be experienced" and yet, much of its pre-intentional existences eludes consciousness.

Sensation precedes intentionality (conscious attention). The only way that that can be explained when humans are not to be a meaningless puppet in a predetermined simulation, is that sensation involves an a priori value judgement which requires the concept 'good', which would therefore underlay (precede) sensation.

GE Morton wrote: June 11th, 2022, 1:13 pmWell, you're just repeating yourself. A "meaning that is not a meaning of"?

Snt, please go a dictionary and learn the meaning of "meaning." Then try to re-build your arguments using terms with their dictionary meanings and consisting of propositions with determinable truth values.
While it might be said that a close adherence to empirical reality (the practice of science) is moral, perhaps considerable as one of the highest moral endeavours, for what other than empirical reality can be said to have been an 'intended good'?

Yet, when it concerns philosophy and a potential intention to enhance morality, the fundamental questions, the why of morality, are important, and as my argument has indicated, the idea that 'good' precedes human nature enables to overcome subjective laziness to drive people to consider the good of others and beyond, i.e. to enhance the potential for moral consideration, which is important for intellectual progress (long term intelligence potential).
snt
Posts: 110
Joined: June 2nd, 2022, 4:43 am

Re: Animal Emotions

Post by snt »

Pattern-chaser wrote: June 11th, 2022, 11:39 am
snt wrote: June 11th, 2022, 9:34 am Levinas says the following...
OK, but what does snt say? 👍🙂
My contribution is merely as that of an outsider. The fact observed is that many profound philosophers have made a case for the idea that 'good' must precede human nature. Some have created profound works for it that is seriously studied by scholars today. One of the hosts of the podcast Partially Examined Mind (Seth Paskin) studied Heidegger in Freiburg, Germany and later dedicated to Emmanuel Levinas.

An implication of the idea that 'good' must precede human nature is that morality involves an eternal quest on behalf of good in the face of an unknown future and that morality is ever present.

Killing an animal for food is always immoral because the perspective of the animal and its environment are never lost. A human can merely decide to neglect the well-being/perspective of an animal and only a potential for moral consideration and subsequently a responsibility in the face of dignity can prevent it.

My quote of philosopher Henry David Thoreau provides an indication that the idea is valid from a humanly social evolution perspective.

"Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual moral improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized."

My argumentative contribution in this topic is that the idea that 'good' precedes human nature enables to overcome subjective laziness to drive people to consider the good of others and beyond, i.e. to enhance the potential for moral consideration, which is important for 'ought' intellectual progress (long term intelligence potential).

Morality from my perspective can be considered as a light that can grow indefinitely from the inside out. Intellectual strength in the face of an unknown future (resilience) would require enhancement of that light (morality's potential).

Today's businesses are struggling to become 'good' companies. It is on top of the priorities but many fail. It is seen that the cutting edge of business science is discovering the power of a moral culture as a critical factor to succeed.

Some examples:

"Deep purpose organizations are deeply committed to both positive commercial and positive social outcomes. Their leaders adopt a mindset of practical idealism. Deep purpose companies thoroughly embed their purpose in their strategy, processes, communications, human resources practices, operational decision-making, and culture."
https://hbr.org/2022/03/the-messy-but-e ... of-purpose

"Good strategy has traditionally been seen as the key to business success. More recently, purpose has become an essential element of doing business. But something else is missing: culture, or the essential elements of how an organization and its employees behave, as well as its governing beliefs and principles.

What teams need is a guiding frame to be effective and energized when the unexpected invariably happens. In a recent conversation I had with business leaders struggling with the challenging state of the environment, we concluded that being guided by our purpose and some key principles — a way to describe culture — and then doing our best was going to work better than hoping we had a clairvoyant strategy we could predictably execute.
"
https://hbr.org/2022/06/does-your-compa ... nd-purpose
GE Morton
Posts: 4696
Joined: February 1st, 2017, 1:06 am

Re: Animal Emotions

Post by GE Morton »

snt wrote: June 12th, 2022, 12:54 pm
My contribution is merely as that of an outsider. The fact observed is that many profound philosophers have made a case for the idea that 'good' must precede human nature.
Such a claim is meaningless until you define what "the good" is, in terms that allow anyone to recognize it when they see it, just as with "the moon," or "the Taj Mahal." Until that is done there is no case to be made.
Some have created profound works for it that is seriously studied by scholars today. One of the hosts of the podcast Partially Examined Mind (Seth Paskin) studied Heidegger in Freiburg, Germany and later dedicated to Emmanuel Levinas.
Those works are considered "profound" only by fellow wanderers in that phenomenological swamp. For most others they are incoherent and imcomprehensible gibberish.
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