Teleology important for science

[Bradski]

Even so, the question of how the hate came about hinges upon having reasons for hating someone. Individuals hate other individuals largely because of what others have done to them – acts of will which created the emotion of hate after consideration of those hateful acts. The emotion doesn’t just arise for no reason.

The act which led to the hate may have been wilful but the hate itself is an automatic emotion. You can’t decide to hate someone. Neither can you decide to love someone. We have no direct control over these feelings, although we can obviously decide how we act on them.

And yes, you can consciously perform a ‘loving act’ towards someone but then we are back to altruistic behaviour which is a different matter altogether.

 

[Bradski]

Justice, properly understood, is an intelligible concept; not an emotional percept.

It’s not an either/or choice. It’s both. We all understood the concept well before we could articulate it. We reverse design a lot of concepts such as justice.

We have a feeling that something is right.
We describe the conditions that are relevant.
We call it justice so we can communicate the idea to others.

 

[Bradski]

If love, as an emotion, is strictly defined as “a strong attraction towards someone or something,” the problem is that there is no moral inference to be made with regard to how that someone or something will be or ought to be treated by the one exhibiting the love.

Agreed. None whatsoever.

 

[tonyrey]

Pascal rightly believed "“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of…

You have contradicted yourself, Brad, after conceding that truth cannot be perceived by the senses. How can neural impulses be aware of intangible facts that cannot be located in time and space?

 

[tonyrey]

When Pascal (scientist, philosopher, mathematician, theologian) spoke of the reasons of the heart he was opposing those reasons to the reasons of the head. The reasons of the head are reasons that can be explained with a limited degree of certainty and completeness as a result of following logic to its conclusions. The reasons of the heart are visceral, at the center of our being, and often as not involve the functions of our emotions, our imagination, and our intuitions which are fundamental to our being whether or not we can logically describe them. The reasons of the heart, it may be said, are holistic, whereas the reasons of the head are purely analytical. This is why music will always be more visceral and popular than logic, though we need both to survive and give joy to our lives. And this is why religion will always be more popular and visceral than atheism, because God designed us to desire eternity rather than be resigned to nothingness.

There can be no half-measures when it comes to intellectual activity: either it consists of conscious, abstract reasoning in an intelligible system or mindless, neural impulses in a fortuitous universe…

 

[Peter_Plato]

The act which led to the hate may have been wilful but the hate itself is an automatic emotion. You can’t decide to hate someone. Neither can you decide to love someone. We have no direct control over these feelings, although we can obviously decide how we act on them.

I disagree. We do have direct control over “these feelings,” but it may take some training of the emotions. It may also involve a bit of self-analysis to disabuse ourselves of the incorrect reasons we had for nursing those hateful feelings. I think hating for no good reason becomes vain and dissolves quite quickly if we are honest with ourselves and deliberate in our intentions.

 

[tonyrey]

**Charlemagne III **

Very often people don’t see the wood for the trees. To regard a person as nothing more than a biological machine is clearly a hopelessly inadequate explanation. It amounts to regarding ourselves as freaks of nature which exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever! That is why teleology is important for science because science doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Physical events are only one aspect of reality…

 

[levinas12]

… freaks of nature which exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever! …

Many people say that they can live with this thought … they tell us “just submerge yourself in everyday pursuits” … yet I don’t think this strategy works … think of the open grave, the yawning and devouring abyss, in Hitchcock’s film Vertigo … or the broken pulley falling down and down into the darkness of the well (Ecclesiastes) … try as we might, we cannot escape anxiety about death (which, by the way, is driving this entire discussion) …

 

[o_mlly]

It’s not an either/or choice. It’s both. We all understood the concept well before we could articulate it.

Emotion, intellection and will are separate faculties that determine one’s choice. As rational beings, we are not driven to act solely by our emotions and as emotional beings we are not always driven to act solely by our intellect. But the intellect, as our higher faculty, ultimately judges the emotion and informs the will. The moral man regulates his emotions with his intellect. The Catholic seeks to regulate his will with God’s will.

Emotions are spontaneous and dependent on our present disposition, both physical and mental.

When the “feeling” enters our consciousness we are moved to act. The moral man hesitates and throws the “feeling” to the intellect for reflection. The intellect holds universal principles and applies them to the present concrete situation to test this “feeling’s” urge to act as morally good or bad. The intellect informs the will and the choice is made. If the “feeling” passes the intellect’s moral review one acts in accordance with one’s initial emotion. If not, one stifles the emotion and acts otherwise.

Examine your own experience shared in #796 of “An atheist’s best argument.”

First emotions: “Emotions kick in … frustration and annoyance …”
Then intellect: Deliberation …
Berate the worker - effects
Instruct the worker - effects
Then* will*: “Choice of action …”

You report that you chose to instruct the worker. Your intellect blocked your initial negative emotions (frustration and annoyance) impelling you to berate and moved you to consider the positive effects of instructing.

NB: As an act, instructing another is good in itself, but maligned by an intention of mere self-aggrandizement. Although not specified, I trust you had “her sake” intentions as well.

We reverse design a lot of concepts such as justice.

“Design” is an act of intellect.

We have a feeling that something is right.

Emotion brings to consciousness an idea.

We describe the conditions that are relevant.

Intellect reflects, clarifies and defines the idea into a concept.

We call it justice so we can communicate the idea to others.

We can now articulate the concept.

 

[goout]

Emotion, intellection and will are separate faculties that determine one’s choice. As rational beings, we are not driven to act solely by our emotions and as emotional beings we are not always driven to act by our intellect. But the intellect, as our higher faculty, ultimately judges the emotion and informs the will.

Emotions are spontaneous and dependent on our present disposition, both physical and mental.

When the “feeling” enters our consciousness we are moved to act. The moral man hesitates and throws the “feeling” to the intellect for reflection. The intellect holds universal principles and applies them to the present concrete situation to test this “feeling’s” urge to act as morally good or bad. The intellect informs the will and the choice is made. If the “feeling” passes the intellect’s moral review one acts in accordance with one’s initial emotion. If not, one stifles the emotion and acts otherwise.

Examine your own experience shared in #796 of “An atheist’s best argument.”

First emotions: “Emotions kick in … frustration and annoyance …”
Then intellect: Deliberation …
Berate the worker - effects
Instruct the worker - effects
Then* will*: “Choice of action …”

You report that you chose to instruct the worker. Your intellect blocked your initial negative emotions (frustration and annoyance) impelling you to berate and moved you to consider the positive effects of instructing.

NB: As an act, instructing another is good in itself, but maligned by an intention of mere self-aggrandizement. Although not specified, I trust you had “her sake” intentions as well.

“Design” is an act of intellect.

Emotion brings to consciousness an idea.
Intellect reflects, clarifies and defines the idea into a concept.
We can now articulate the concept.

More importantly, justice is a thing in itself. (the rationalists will now ask me to put it in a test tube and burn it for analysis :whacky
Justice is between people, not an invention of personal intellect or emotions.
Intellect and emotions are purely personal to an individual.
They can cooperate in justice or not cooperate. Justice is a communal thing.

In the Christian veiwpoint, justice will be, whether we cooperate in justice by use of our personal attributes or not. There is an end in view, toward which we act in hope.
Justice objectively looks like something and is ordered to a specific end.
Justice is not subject to a person or group of persons, and their emotions.

 

[o_mlly]

More importantly, justice is a thing in itself. (the rationalists will now ask me to put it in a test tube and burn it for analysis :whacky

Justice is a human virtue; cardinal in its domain.

Justice is between people, not an invention of personal intellect or emotions.
Intellect and emotions are purely personal to an individual.

Justice also regulates the creature’s relation to his Creator. This aspect of justice is called religion.

They can cooperate in justice or not cooperate. Justice is a communal thing.

Justice regulates one’s relation to another (commutative), one’s relation to the community (contributive) and the community’s to the individual (distributive).

In the Christian veiwpoint, justice will be, whether we cooperate in justice by use of our personal attributes or not. There is an end in view, toward which we act in hope.
Justice objectively looks like something and is ordered to a specific end.
Justice is not subject to a person or group of persons, and their emotions.

Justice as a human virtue is discoverable by reason but can never be fully understood by reason. Charity, on the other hand, as God’s gift is an infused virtue and like faith and hope, our knowledge of these virtues is certain.

 

[o_mlly]

… An unanswered but interesting question - what principle of operation belongs to the human person after death but before bodily resurrection?

For example, I am assuming that the saints can intercede for us - and, to do so, they must able to “see” us, to be “aware” of what’s happening in our world. But how do they “perceive” us when they don’t have their bodies?

I think that God has to supernaturally intervene here. This cannot happen naturally.
…

So thought Cardinal Lepicier. Some faculties of the soul whose operation was materially dependent (imagination, memory, sense-knowledge) after death becomes infused knowledge. He writes:
Whatever knowledge we acquire in the present state is in some way proportioned to the phantasms of the body which are as it were the instruments of our knowledge. But, after death, this knowledge will be infused in us immediately by God, under the form of purely intellectual species which, spiritual as they are, will be for us the means of knowing the things of this world.
books.google.com/books/about/The_Unseen_World.html?id=wkJPDQEACAAJ

An excerpt from Chapter II. Part 2:
ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/DEPSOULS.htm

 

[goout]

Justice is a human virtue; cardinal in its domain.

Justice also regulates the creature’s relation to his Creator. This aspect of justice is called religion.

Justice regulates one’s relation to another (commutative), one’s relation to the community (contributive) and the community’s to the individual (distributive).

Justice as a human virtue is discoverable by reason but can never be fully understood by reason. Charity, on the other hand, as God’s gift is an infused virtue and like faith and hope, our knowledge of these virtues is certain.

All very good.
Just to be clear I was not specifically addressing justice solely as the human practice of a virtue.
But more along the lines of social justice like so:

I. RESPECT FOR THE HUMAN PERSON

1929 Social justice can be obtained only in respecting the transcendent dignity of man. The person represents the ultimate end of society, which is ordered to him:
(emotions are a far cry from the explication of justice)

What is at stake is the dignity of the human person, whose defense and promotion have been entrusted to us by the Creator, and to whom the men and women at every moment of history are strictly and responsibly in debt.35
1930 Respect for the human person entails respect for the rights that flow from his dignity as a creature. These rights are prior to society and must be recognized by it. They are the basis of the moral legitimacy of every authority: by flouting them, or refusing to recognize them in its positive legislation, a society undermines its own moral legitimacy.36 If it does not respect them, authority can rely only on force or violence to obtain obedience from its subjects. It is the Church’s role to remind men of good will of these rights and to distinguish them from unwarranted or false claims.

Mankind is established in a state of original justice (CCC 374-379) and it will be reestablished, by God, even with the varying emotional states of individuals, and despite varying degrees of virtue present in humanity.

The Last Judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures

 

[Bradski]

Emotion, intellection and will are separate faculties that determine one’s choice. As rational beings, we are not driven to act solely by our emotions and as emotional beings we are not always driven to act solely by our intellect. But the intellect, as our higher faculty, ultimately judges the emotion and informs the will. The moral man regulates his emotions with his intellect. The Catholic seeks to regulate his will with God’s will.

Emotions are spontaneous and dependent on our present disposition, both physical and mental.

When the “feeling” enters our consciousness we are moved to act. The moral man hesitates and throws the “feeling” to the intellect for reflection. The intellect holds universal principles and applies them to the present concrete situation to test this “feeling’s” urge to act as morally good or bad. The intellect informs the will and the choice is made. If the “feeling” passes the intellect’s moral review one acts in accordance with one’s initial emotion. If not, one stifles the emotion and acts otherwise.

Examine your own experience shared in #796 of “An atheist’s best argument.”

First emotions: “Emotions kick in … frustration and annoyance …”
Then intellect: Deliberation …
Berate the worker - effects
Instruct the worker - effects
Then* will*: “Choice of action …”

You report that you chose to instruct the worker. Your intellect blocked your initial negative emotions (frustration and annoyance) impelling you to berate and moved you to consider the positive effects of instructing.

NB: As an act, instructing another is good in itself, but maligned by an intention of mere self-aggrandizement. Although not specified, I trust you had “her sake” intentions as well.

“Design” is an act of intellect.

Emotion brings to consciousness an idea.
Intellect reflects, clarifies and defines the idea into a concept.
We can now articulate the concept.

If you agree with what I say, then why not just say so. I can’t see the point in paraphrasing what I have already said. Seems like a waste of bandwidth.

 

[o_mlly]

If you agree with what I say, then why not just say so. I can’t see the point in paraphrasing what I have already said. Seems like a waste of bandwidth.

I have never heard you speak but I have read what you write and don’t agree with you. To wit:

The act which led to the hate may have been wilful but the hate itself is an automatic emotion. You can’t decide to hate someone. Neither can you decide to love someone. We have no direct control over these feelings, although we can obviously decide how we act on them. …

In my post, I show the movement of mental acts – emotion, intellect and will – which culminate in the will deciding both one’s attitude and action:

• One does decide (wills) to hate or love another.
• The intellect can habituate (directly control) emotions suppressing those that lead to evil acts and intensifying those that lead to good acts.
• Emotions need and ought not be “automatic” after one reaches the age of reason.

When one’s intellect controls emotions then one no longer performs the intermediate step of deliberation but simply chooses the good and acts accordingly. Catholics call this the state of habitual or sanctifying grace.

Your workplace example shows how one just begins the path of engaging one’s intellect to subjugate bad emotions. When one suppresses feeling “frustrated and annoyed” at another, they’ve progressed. When one acts without deliberation for the sake of another instead of oneself they have arrived.

 

[levinas12]

So thought Cardinal Lepicier. Some faculties of the soul whose operation was materially dependent (imagination, memory, sense-knowledge) after death becomes infused knowledge.

Thank you for this interesting cite. “Infused” knowledge reminds me of “infused” virtues (the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity which cannot be acquired on our own but requires a supernatural action by God).

 

[Bradski]

I have never heard you speak but I have read what you write and don’t agree with you. To wit:

In my post, I show the movement of mental acts – emotion, intellect and will – which culminate in the will deciding both one’s attitude and action:

• One does decide (wills) to hate or love another.
• The intellect can habituate (directly control) emotions suppressing those that lead to evil acts and intensifying those that lead to good acts.
• Emotions need and ought not be “automatic” after one reaches the age of reason.

And there’s me thinking that emotions are unbidden. Without premeditation. Spontaneous in other words. Which is exact how you described them earlier.

That you can control your emotions is interesting. Try hating your neighbour for a few minutes. Try to feel jealousy for a while. Try not to feel love for your children today. Have a go at not feeling annoyed when the car breaks down in the rush hour rain.

You can control your responses to all your emotions but you can’t control the emotions themselves.

 

[o_mlly]

And there’s me thinking that emotions are unbidden. Without premeditation. Spontaneous in other words. Which is exact how you described them earlier.

One does not create a habit in a moment. One’s emotional “muscle” needs exercise. Go to the gym and try to bench your own weight. Couldn’t do it? Well, just kick the bench, curse the weights, don’t do any other exercises and come back next week. Still couldn’t do it? You get the point.

That you can control your emotions is interesting. Try hating your neighbour for a few minutes. Try to feel jealousy for a while. Try not to feel love for your children today. Have a go at not feeling annoyed when the car breaks down in the rush hour rain.

Try praying instead of hating. Try laughing instead of moaning at your minor misfortunes.

You can control your responses to all your emotions but you can’t control the emotions themselves.

Do you still feel like crying when your hungry? Do you still want to bully others in the playground or on the internet? Do you still lust at the opposite sex? Do you still envy others their good fortune? If so read 1 Corinthians 13:11.

 

[goout]

I believe the original assertion was that certain qualities like justice are explainable by, or consist of, emotions.

ARTICLE 5
THE MORALITY OF THE PASSIONS

1762 The human person is ordered to beatitude by his deliberate acts: the passions or feelings he experiences can dispose him to it and contribute to it.

I. PASSIONS

1763 The term “passions” belongs to the Christian patrimony. Feelings or passions are emotions or movements of the sensitive appetite that incline us to act or not to act in regard to something felt or imagined to be good or evil.

1764 The passions are natural components of the human psyche; they form the passageway and ensure the connection between the life of the senses and the life of the mind. Our Lord called man’s heart the source from which the passions spring.40

1765 There are many passions. The most fundamental passion is love, aroused by the attraction of the good. Love causes a desire for the absent good and the hope of obtaining it; this movement finds completion in the pleasure and joy of the good possessed. The apprehension of evil causes hatred, aversion, and fear of the impending evil; this movement ends in sadness at some present evil, or in the anger that resists it.

1766 "To love is to will the good of another."41 All other affections have their source in this first movement of the human heart toward the good. Only the good can be loved.42 Passions "are evil if love is evil and good if it is good."43

II. PASSIONS AND MORAL LIFE

1767 In themselves passions are neither good nor evil. They are morally qualified only to the extent that they effectively engage reason and will. Passions are said to be voluntary, "either because they are commanded by the will or because the will does not place obstacles in their way."44 It belongs to the perfection of the moral or human good that the passions be governed by reason.

45

1768 Strong feelings are not decisive for the morality or the holiness of persons; they are simply the inexhaustible reservoir of images and affections in which the moral life is expressed. Passions are morally good when they contribute to a good action, evil in the opposite case. The upright will orders the movements of the senses it appropriates to the good and to beatitude; an evil will succumbs to disordered passions and exacerbates them. Emotions and feelings can be taken up into the virtues or perverted by the vices.

 

[tonyrey]

…freaks of nature which exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever! …

In practice not even the most inveterate atheist lives as if life is absurd, valueless, purposeless and meaningless. Both Camus and Sartre became humanists as if their own species should have more rights and privileges than other forms of life!

On the other hand even the most devout and ardent believer is not immune to uncertainty about what happens to us when we die. Even Our Lord was tempted on the Cross to think His Father had forsaken Him. Yet at such times we can demonstrate what we are really worth because He gives us the opportunity to overcome our fear and doubt. We know we are no longer alone in a hostile universe but following His example when faced with death. “Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!” Surely that must be the supreme gift we have received in the inscrutable darkness of eternity given that even the most hardened sceptic cannot be absolutely certain that life is “a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing”…