City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center 2009 Anger Et Cetera: Understanding the Emotions in Ethics Damien DuPont The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/4109 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] ANGER ET CETERA: UNDERSTANDING THE EMOTIONS IN ETHICS By Damien Alexander DuPont A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2009 ii Copyright © 2009 Damien Alexander DuPont , PhD All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Professor David Rosenthal Date Chair of Examining Committee Professor Iakovos Vasiliou Date Executive Officer Professor Stefan Baumrin, Dissertation Advisor Professor Nickolas Pappas Professor William Earle Professor Alex Orenstein Supervision Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract Anger Et Cetera: Understanding the Emotions in Ethics By Damien Alexander DuPont Adviser: Professor Stefan Baumrin “His scrupulous wrestle with the impalpable can be quite comic, but his basic point is serious: out of the books of others we sift a book of our own, wherein we read the lessons we need to hear” – John Updike This dissertation argues in part that because the ethical theory of sentimentalism is based on the mistaken belief that emotions are non-cognitive, sentimentalism cannot account for the fact of the influence of cognition in morality and moral action. Therefore sentimentalism is of little use in ethics. This work is done by going back to examine Western thinking on the emotions from its dawn in Homer’s writing through to contemporary philosophy and neurophysiology on the emotions. Following the development of the way emotions were thought of and how they related to ethics allows the identification of an intellectual forked path brought about by Stoic thinking on emotions and morality and calcified by the work of René Descartes on the emotions. I identify three ‘Cartesian errors’ that have made their way through to David Hume’s thought and from there to contemporary thinking on the emotions. The first Cartesian error is the belief that ‘mind’ or ‘mental activity’ is pure cognition and that ‘body’ is an unthinking machine responsive only to pleasure and pain and having nothing to do with cognition. The second Cartesian error is the irreparable separation of emotion from cognition which forces a theory into an untenable, ad hoc distinction between calm and violent passions in order to imbue some emotions with intelligence. The third Cartesian error is being unable to coherently v explain how the mind and the body could have duplex communication between ‘mind’ and ‘body’. I then explain how the two contemporary camps, both ‘cognitivists’ and ‘physicalists’ about emotions are compromised by the Cartesian errors. Finally, I show how experience, common sense and contemporary empirical findings in neurophysiology recommend to us a pluralist view of the emotions that avoids the Cartesian errors and fully embraces both their physiological basis and their accompanying ‘cognitivity’, as well as a fruitful cognitive ethical theory that is something of a middle ground between the sentimentalism of Shaftesbury and Hume and the rationalist positions of thinkers such as Socrates and Berkeley. This theory, which will be worked out in more detail in the future, is a synthesis of the findings of Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, psychologist Richard Lazarus and contemporary psychophysiology. vi PREFACE My work is based on three assumptions. First, anyone who thinks recollected emotions cannot be as painful as the first time they were experienced has never been deeply hurt. Second, perception provokes emotions and vice versa. Third, emotions can motivate action, so if either perception or emotions are ever brought about by higher mental activity, then action is at least sometimes brought about by higher mental activity. I conclude that because all these things are true, at least sometimes morality and action in moral situations is brought about by higher mental activity. Experience and common sense tell me that my observation of my thoughts and the world around me is impossible without some degree of my judgment or consideration and that my thoughts about myself and the world around me constantly provoke emotional responses of various degrees. Some of these trigger what might be called canned responses but others require a considerable number of feedback loops between my judgment, memory and perception to decide on the appropriate response. But even the least considered, most mechanical emotional act is already deeply implicated in this loop. This is only hard to see because of how deeply engrained the “split” between mind and body really is. That should better explain what I mean by ‘perception’ and ‘brought about by’. Explaining ‘higher mental activity’ will be of necessity quite inexact. Of necessity both because I am not a philosopher of mind or cognitive scientist and because even those well versed in those important subjects have a great deal of difficulty in explaining it. So I will be very basic in my terms and try my best to be brief in my treatment. For now let me say that ‘higher mental activity’ means at least the attentive cognitive functioning of a vii conscious social being, that which allows it to successfully navigate its physical and social environment to its benefit; whatever mental activity allows for well adapted, goal- oriented behavior in social animals. To my mind these include memory, empathy, emotion, abstraction and judgment. The point of all this is to make three points in ethics. Any form of ethical theory such as sentimentalism that is underpinned by the thought that emotions are non- cognitive cannot rightly claim to be internalists about ethical motivation. Perhaps more interestingly, no such form of sentimentalism can account for the fact of the cognitive influence in morality and moral action and therefore has little to recommend it. And finally, experience, common sense and contemporary empirical findings in neurophysiology recommend to us a ‘cognitive’ ethical theory that is something of a middle ground between the sentimentalism of Shaftesbury and Hume and the rationalist positions of thinkers such as Socrates and Berkeley. A note on the title of this dissertation: I believe that the emotion of anger cannot be fruitfully explained either by non-cognitive moral theories or so called ‘cognitivist’ or ‘physiological’ theories of emotion and I repeatedly turn to it to reveal the underlying causes of why these theories cannot accommodate it. As I return repeatedly to the emotion anger it is right that I offer a brief description of how I understand it. Anger is an evolutionarily adaptive response to various stresses in one’s environment. For this to be true means both that 1) anger elicits a variety of physiological changes that generally ready the body for action and 2) It appeals to – what appears to be – an innate sense of the importance of ‘keeping up appearances’ shared with us by various pack animals. Anger , as I understand it, does its work by taking in a lot of data, quickly, and suggesting and strongly motivating useful – viii though often risky – actions. It is able to do this by both being able to ‘bypass’ the prefrontal cortex but also by being attached to it and to one’s memories, which would included the proprieties inculcated by one’s socialization and educational level. The work of this dissertation is to show that the components necessary for a fruitful ethical theory that accepts all of the above are largely available in a synthesis of the findings of Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, psychologist Richard Lazarus and contemporary psychophysiology. To do this requires a lot of contextualization for the older sources, which accounts for much of the length of this dissertation. I’ve endeavored to push off much of this into Appendices, but in several cases I found it impossible to move off as much as I would have liked. I’ve tried to summarize at the beginnings of sections so that the reader may skip through what she needs to while still gathering the overall scope of the project. ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work is dedicated to the memory of my father, René Dupont and to my mother Mary and my sisters Catherine and Christine. My father was a good man with a gentle and kind heart whose life was unfortunately also defined by his struggle with his very poor temper. Its effect on our family is the main reason I took up the topic of the role of emotions in moral judgment. Still, I would not have had the background or skills with which to design and implement this project if not for my esteemed advisor, Professor Stefan Baumrin. Mom, I have some idea of both how good and bad life with dad was for you. I wrote this book to help myself better understand his motivations and I hope we can have many long conversations on the topic. I think it will help us both to understand him, and more importantly, each other. Catherine and Christine, we three went through a good bit in our childhood responding to anger. As a result we each created our own unique emotional world and we each benefit and suffer from these worlds. Perhaps there’s something in here for each of you too.