Emotions

Okay first watch this movie:


EMBED-Wife Cries Over Return of the Jedi - Watch more free videos

Isn't she adorable?  (no she's not my wife and no thats not me).

This just got me thinking about emotions, how little control we have over them, and how much they influence our actions and behavior. 

I'm sure the lady in the movie wouldn't want to be feeling so emotional over every movie that she sees (I'd hate to see her after watching Titanic).  She can't help it.  Emotions simply happen to us, whether we'd like to or not.  Now, normally this isn't too much of a problem, except when they begin to cross moral lines.  I'm happy at a funeral, I'm sad at a birthday, or I fall in love with someone who isn't my significant other (I'm thinking about you Tiger). 

But if we can't control these emotions, then why do we get blamed for them?  I usually say that it doesn't make sense to hold people responsible for acts that they have no control over, but that doesn't mean there isn't any kind of room for moral evaluation here.  Typically, morality comes in three categories of things that we evaluate:  Actions, Consequences, and Agents.  Kantianism evaluates actions, Utilitarianism evaluates consequences, and virtue theory evaluates agents.  Now, not being a product of free will, emotional actions shouldn't play much of a role in Actions or Consequences (unless the act is simply motivated by the emotion rather than the emotion itself... slight distinction.  Cheating is motivated by an emotion, falling in love with someone else is just the emotion itself). 

So what can we say about people's character who have the incorrect emotional response?  Are they insensitive or hypersensitive?  Is that really a character flaw?  I think it is, depending on what the kind of sensitivity that we're talking about. 

Ultimately, I think at the root of ethics, there requires a kind of moral sensitivity that people can have to varying degrees.  Its what makes people care about doing what is right, interested in discovering the reasoning behind moral judgments, and makes morality intrinsically valuable...  Its a kind of "taking pleasure in."  Typically, people call it conscience, righteousness, moral superiority, etc.  But this is something that should be fostered...  Less we be too insensitive that we don't care about ewoks dying, or Anakin never being with his son.

Will the real Nietzsche please stand up?

If you've been following the comments, in my last vegetarian post, my friend Gary brought up Nietzsche.  And no offense to Gary, but I think he has Nietzsche a bit wrong.  So here's my interpretation of Nietzsche, tempered a lot by Robert Solomon's What Nietzsche Really Said.

Nietzsche is a virtue theorist.  He's telling us that there is a particular kind of character that we should be developing, and he calls it the Ubermensch.  Now this is not within reach of everyone, only a few people have what it takes to become this.  So how does one try to achieve this character? 

Unlike Aristotle, Nietzsche doesn't know what the Ubermensch is like, because the Ubermensch is beyond human.  We must transcend our human natures to become more than what we are.  He says that at best we can contrast it with the Last Man and say what he is not.  He is not a follower, he is not a sheep, he is not a person who disappears into the comfort of conformity.  Essentially, the Ubermensch must be authentic, in the existentialist sense.  Someone who will be genuinely themselves, not renting their lives out to a kind-of-life.

But this is not enough to become the Ubermensch.  The Ubermensch is a creator as much as he is a destroyer of old values.  Overcoming the traditional christian, and Aristotelian ethic, the Ubermensch must then forge a new system of virtues.  This system of virtues and values will be a life affirming one, instead of a life denying one.  Life-affirming for Nietzsche is to embrace the Will to Power.  Power, not being literally strength, but an intensification of life. 

Probably the best analog to the Will to Power is art.  Art is an intensification of beauty or expression, and even better, it is the result of a creative re-invention of the world.  Nietzsche wants us to all to become works of art.  But like all works of art, not all of them are going to be great.  There will be lots of mediocre works of art, and none of those will be the Ubermensch.  But the fact that people are trying to be works of art, is better than those who are purely satisfied with what they are. 

Works of art force us to re-evaluate ourselves, and the world that we live in, through the artist's lens.  This is how the Ubermensch is to be viewed, in terms of generating new values.  His is a work of art so masterful, that it creates a new movement in the artworld entirely.  It necessarily means that the Ubermensch is inspirational in character, but not purposefully, otherwise he just becomes another preacher.  But through the strength of his character, people will want to imitate. 

So what would Nietzsche say about eating animals?  Absolutely nothing, just like Aristotle says nothing on the subject.  His ethic is one of character development, not of evaluation of actions.  And even if there was something to be said by Nietzsche about animals, he would tell us to disregard it, because he is not the Ubermensch, and merely following in Nietzsche's footsteps would necessarily mean that you're a sheep, never striving for authenticity.  Perhaps the only thing we can say about Nietzsche and vegetarianism would be this:  If it is a creative re-interpretation of the world for you to eat or not eat meat, then it is good. 

Here's where I'll interject and say that I think its far more sheep like to simply continue eating meat, than to be a vegetarian.  But, only be a vegetarian because of authentic reasons.  Likewise, be a meat-eater for authentic reasons.  If you can authentically say that it doesn't matter how you get your taste buds to tingle with pleasure, then by all means, eat meat (according to Nietzsche).  I can't authentically do that because I care about others' suffering. 

This isn't about Tiger

This is entry isn't about Tiger Woods, or whether his infidelity is our buisness or not....  I think thats a purely a subjective matter.  Some people are interested financially, emotionally, or whatnot in Tiger's life and so they in a sense care.  Clearly some people care, and some people don't...  And whether or not he has a right to privacy on this particular issue is also not easily answered, since he is a public figure and public figures naturally give up some of their privacy rights by the fact that they are public figures (not to say that they have no privacy rights at all.... just some.... what those are exactly, I'm not terribly sure.)

What I want to talk about is infidelity in general.  Clearly, there is something wrong with it.  I think at the very least we can say it is a broken promise, assuming that there was a promise of fidelity, which is pretty common between most monogomous couples.

However, I think most people enter into the promise without a full understanding of the difficulties of monogomy.  Whether humans, or more specifically men, are evolved to be monogomous or to play the field is really rather irrelevant.  People have to make a decision, and this decision is not a genetically determined one (lest there be a gene forcing people to pick up phones and call mistresses or a gene that compells people to engage in a tryst... And some would argue that it is the case, but I'm pretty sure they would be on weak scientific grounds.  And if they are correct, then we might need simply concede everything to genetic determinism.)

So if we acknowledge the difficulty of monogamy, what then?  I think when we recognize the difficulty of what most people are commiting themselves to, then we must be more lenient when they fail.  Few would question the character of an individual who fails to climb Mt. Everest.  But many are quick to pass judgment on people, public figures especially, when they fail in monogamy. 

No doubt, Tiger is morally blameworthy for his actions.  But the real question is how much does this really tarnish his moral character?   The easier it is for us to resist a particular temptation, the more we can rightly judge the person to have a tarnished or vicious character.  It is easy for us to resist killing people, typically, so when one fails to resist, s/he has a particularly tarnished character.