Hume contra psychology.
A good while ago I posted some topics about CBT or in general talk therapy/rational emotive behavioural therapy/metacognitive therapy, and even logotherapy contra what Hume had to say about the role of reason being the handmaiden to the passions. Each type of therapy seems to rely on reason being able to address personal issues, shortcomings, perceived deficiencies, and other issues.
It's my general sentiment that Hume, was in some sense wrong about his sentiment towards human rationality and emotions.
Yet, the deeper you look into the issues, all the aforementioned therapies, in some sense have to address the emotions through reasoning. So, in some sense it's almost true of reason being instrumental to the passions; but, the distorted perception of mine is that it's only a one way street or a bottom up or top down alley where one controls the other.
Therefore, I don't think it makes sense to talk about reason being the handmaiden to the passions; but, a more intuitive view would be to say they both work in tandem.
Would that be a more insightful way of putting the Humean saying in context?
It's my general sentiment that Hume, was in some sense wrong about his sentiment towards human rationality and emotions.
Yet, the deeper you look into the issues, all the aforementioned therapies, in some sense have to address the emotions through reasoning. So, in some sense it's almost true of reason being instrumental to the passions; but, the distorted perception of mine is that it's only a one way street or a bottom up or top down alley where one controls the other.
Therefore, I don't think it makes sense to talk about reason being the handmaiden to the passions; but, a more intuitive view would be to say they both work in tandem.
Would that be a more insightful way of putting the Humean saying in context?
Comments (28)
Emotion evolved long ago for purposes of survival. Reason evolved later, and in more specific ways. Passion is always hotter than reason, and can mobilize action on shorter notice. It is easier for a nation to go to ruinous war on waves of passion than it is for a nation to reform its healthcare financing system through focused reason. (At least in this country financial reform has so far proved impossible.)
Animals who have some reason as well as emotion can learn to over-ride emotional urges. When you train a dog to sit still while you stack snacks on its nose and to hold off until it receives a signal, the dog is learning to over-ride its emotions--otherwise it would toss the snack off its nose instantly. Service dogs have to override many emotions and natural urges when 'on duty'. Children must also learn to over-ride their emotional urges as part of their socialization. Parents work very hard to prevent their child's tantrums from getting results.
Hot emotions can swamp reason. Emotions can lead reason to opt rationally for what emotion wants. That's why one can end up buying a more expensive car (or some other object) than one intended: During the time of new car examination in the showroom, one's emotions may decide which model is really good, and the pre-frontal cortex finds itself thinking of reasons why the more expensive car was, indeed, actually a better deal.
Anyone can end up buying more car than they intended, but anyone can go through the Consumer's Report approach and make the decision before you leave the house, checkbook in hand. Care is needed for reason to override emotion.
Reason, on the other hand, can keep emotions under control by conducting the individual's affairs in a manner that minimizes sturm and drang. Keeping one's emotions happy is a way of keeping them under control. This is where therapy comes into play: how does one manage one's life so that one's emotions are reasonably contented?
That emotions have a natural edge is fortunate. That we can love others, and find in others objects of intense love, adoration, attachment, lust, and they the same in us, contributes much to a life worth living. That we can feel (by approximation) other's joys and sorrows is what makes it possible for us to want to help others.
If life is so labyrinthine to keep afloat and near equilibrium.. why do we perpetuate it for others to deal with?
Reason declares that the lit stove is hot relative to the hand.
And that the hand put-upon the stove will be burned.
Passion declares that in that case, I would rather not.
Nothing matters, nothing has value, nothing is worth doing or avoiding by reason alone. But life is passion that urges the spider to spin, birds to fly south, children to climb trees, and philosophers to question. Thus passion gives value to reason that it does not have of itself.
So therapy of the sort mentioned is in the business of pointing out to passion, that perhaps there are more effective ways to get what it cares about that it currently uses. I drink to dull the pain, but drinking causes me pain, and I drink to dull the pain. Reason can suggest that this is an ineffective strategy.
Since philosophers live, they are passionate. And reason is their imaginary dispassionate friend, servant and therapist; the devoted strategist to serve their passionate goals, with no goal of its own.
I think at least in the case of CBT, what really makes it efficacious is the behavioral therapy, challenging misguided beliefs through exposure or some other behavioral method. From the literature I've seen, cognitive therapy is useful but not to the same degree as when including the behavioral component. Although, I think getting to core beliefs that underpin maladaptive behaviors and or ruminative thinking patterns is a necessary step for lasting behavioral change.
I agree emotion and reasoning seem clearly intertwined, I actually find it hard to think of an emotion or feeling I've had that's not underpinned by some beliefs I've had about the encounter or situation. There is a difference between two things, though - there are feelings/emotions about situations and then there are 'passions' - in the sense of impulsive drives and other immediate gratification, immediate novelty seeking, or other non-rational motivator of behavior which isn't in line with longer-term goals. I think it's clear passions have a strong influence on reasoning, suppressing your ability for self control, instigating rationalization process and that it's incredibly difficult to stave off that influence by sheer will-power, unless it's boosted or still at high level. I think we are constrained by passions but not necessarily slaves to them which implies no autonomy no ability to fight their influence.
This is a misunderstanding of what Hume means by passion. Will is passion, not a part of reason. Whatever has power, whatever motivates, is a form of emotion, a passion. Thus my passion for wine might be in conflict with a passion to avoid a hangover and I might call the latter 'will-power' because it counters the immediate prospect of pleasure with a later prospect of suffering.
So, you have said it yourself, that reason can inform the passions through none other than reason alone, that some goal is undesirable rather than another. The gist here is how do the passions get shaped or formed into something else through reason.
Hence, reason can work in tandem with the passions to achieve a better outcome than something like them operating in isolation from another. I find the separation of the two or talking about reason as opposed to the passions or the will, to be quite confusing. Hence, maybe a better terminology would be 'volition', where both are working in tandem to produce some desired result.
Yes, I do agree to some degree. I think there are higher order volition's, which seems like the apt term to use; such, as 'love' or 'envy' or 'jealousy'.
No I haven't, I have explicitly denied it.
Reason can say "If you don't want a hangover more than you do want to get drunk, then do not drink lots of wine. But passion is what makes things desirable and undesirable. So reason never tells you what to do, unless you add in your passions. You have to want to avoid a burned hand before reason can tell you not to touch the hot stove.
Yes,
Quoting unenlightened
True.
Quoting unenlightened
So, if we add in the passions to the discussion, then isn't this talk about 'volitions' and not reason and passions operating in seemingly isolation as per this discussion?
Quoting unenlightened
Yeah, so that's a volition, no?
We are passionate; we give a damn, we want to do, to have, to be all kinds of stuff, and we use our noddles to get it - ie reason. And there are lots of words we can use, and there is not some separate reasoner who is without passion, which is why I called it the philosopher's imaginary friend. Of course, in general, people want to avoid burning their hands, and so we say it is 'reasonable' and that there is a 'good reason' not to touch the stove. This is loose talk. One might even say that our passion not to get burned acts as a fact upon which pure reason operates. And you can call that volition if you wish, the normal interaction of reason and passion. Remember, that this all relates to the general project of Hume's to disentangle morality from actuality - ought from is. Remember too, that it is passion and thus morality that is in pole position.
Please elaborate. What do you mean here?
If we apply, as you say, the philosopher's imaginary friend (which I think is a useful term), then does this not entail a higher-order want/desire/passion to do what is good or moral or ethical?
I'm not sure what it means to be 'higher order'. First, my example of wanting intoxication and not wanting the hangover; that's short term v longer term, probably not a higher order. But suppose I want to do good. Let's say I want to help my fellow philosophers to a clearer understanding, that I believe I have. So I do my best to explain and responded so on. Let's pretend that this is not as it happens, a need to be seen as clever or anything, I just want to be helpful. Well that's jolly nice and I don't have any conflict about it - why is that 'higher order' than wanting an ice-cream and having an ice-cream?
I think the idea of higher order comes from a conflict; I'd like to think, and I'd like you to think, that I am that kindly person who wants to help, but actually I just want to look good. So then behind this high minded kindliness, I'm in a conflict between wanting to look like a kindly fellow, and being an arrogant idler who is fed up with post's endless confusions... Now I know which is the higher order - it's the one I want to appear to have.
Well, I started a separate thread about that here.
Quoting unenlightened
Well, surely the longer term goal is of a higher order or of greater importance than the short term goal of getting drunk? If I we're to posit that I have no higher-order volitions, then concepts such as 'acting in good faith', would be redundant or acting with a sense of sincerity. Even extending this concept of higher-order volitions outward to the realm of behaviour, then we can talk about having something in mind when we act, such as being a silly stoic who wants to preserve her indifference towards some matter or subject.
Quoting unenlightened
Well, you keep on reducing the scope of our volitions to trite and mundane things, like not wanting alcohol. Take for example a drug addict. They have the want to be gratified at the expense of money and health. Then if they had no higher-order volitions, such as to get better or quit their addiction, then they would be forever stuck in their destructive behaviour.
Quoting unenlightened
Well, yes, all of us are walking contradictions to some degree, perhaps exempt being the Buddhist monks or other spiritual people. I just think that the idea of having higher-order volitions as useful and makes sense.
Quoting unenlightened
Oh, Posty is just always confused. That's his nature. Sorry!
Tomorrow. Now it's time for some wine.
Oh, OK.
:cool:
Thanks for the clarification. I really find it interesting he doesn't distinguish between kinds of desire. I think there's a meaningful distinction between longer-term, thought out, value consistent desires and shorter-term, impulse driven desires. It's true they share components between themselves, but there there are differences. Future oriented desires are typically for abstract objects (e.g. to be a painter, sculptor, architect, millionaire, healer, monk, job, how to play guitar) and so typically involve some means-end reasoning process and cognitive energy to actualize. Present oriented desires are usually for particular objects or particular experiences (I want that cake, that toy, lets ride that coaster. Let me browse this site) and trigger habitual, automatic behavior. They don't involve much means-end reasoning and typically are independent of deeply held values (e.g. value health, but cake in front of you or value philosophy and browse philosophy forum because internet access and why not...).
We're not completely slaves to the immediate scene, impulse triggers. We have self control for a reason and I think its significance as a concept comes from the reality of this distinction.
I think it's interesting you identify love, envy, jealousy -- i.e. emotions as higher order volitions. I would've taken higher order volition to mean a desire derived from a deeply held value. Say spirituality is a value for me, then desires to meditate, pray, fast would be higher order volitions. The motivation doesn't necessarily comes from pleasure or some other basic non-rational motivator, but it comes from a desire for self consistency.
EDIT:
I'm wrong.. its hierarchical desiring. I'm not sure it's exactly the same with respect to its nature as a first order desire though.. Typically they hold less behavioral power, are almost always derived from a value-consistency motivator and rely on inhibitory mechanism? E.g I'm thinking of the case from wiki - of a drug addict desiring not to desire drugs. Say the person acts on his desire not to act desire drugs, he uses his self control to stop his impulse. It seems more like a meta-cognitive override capacity?
They can be. Not necessarily so.
Quoting aporiap
I agree, and think you're right.
Quoting aporiap
I don't know what you mean by that. Self consistency?
By self consistency I mean that one's values-beliefs and actions are not in contradiction with each other, they are logically consistent.
Yes, but having higher order volition's means that some inconsistency will eventually arise. No?
Or that at present there is an inconsistency and the higher order volition is generated to correct the first order desire. e.g. I value healthy living but I desire heroin. So now I desire that my desire for heroin reduces or is no more. I then take action to change my first order desire. Eventually, the first desire will dissipate and you are brought back to consistency.
Yes, but I don't want to create the impression that desires are battling for attention in the back of ones mind or ones unconscious. Higher order volition's just attain a greater significance than first order volition's. How that comes to be is a mystery to me still... Any thoughts?
Hmm, yea I think maybe it's because they're more in line with values. I can't really pinpoint why values hold the significance they do as opposed to say some passing desired object. I've always thought values partly form the self concept, they are some of what you most identify with so you are naturally inclined to be drawn to identify with desires that reflect them.
I think vales are a different subject, although values are pretty close to higher order volition's. The difference it would seem is that values are static, where higher order volitions are more inclined to be dynamic. Or in other words, values obtain from higher order volitions, I think.
Right, I wasn't saying values were higher order volitions, I'm saying higher order volitions are determined by values. What makes you desire not to desire heroin is the fact that you value healthy living.
Yea im finding it hard to conceptualize what exactly a value is and what distinguishes it from desire in particular. I think maybe they are different types of objects entirely, desire a mental action where as value a mental object - an abstract concept (spirituality, critical thinking, healthiness, cleanliness) that acts as a grounding for guiding principles of action. It's a grounding because it's value is intrinsic. I hope that makes sense
Yeah, that makes sense to me, at least. I get what you're saying that values are mental objects that have attained a status of significance to a person, possibly through higher-order volitions. But, the term 'mental object' bugs me, and seems redundant. Can a higher-order volition itself become a value? I think so...