I think there is something between the elephant and the rider. Since I’ve been a Christian I’ve been bombarded by talk about the “heart”. I’ve finally figured out what that is, I think. It is not the emotions or moods, it is the set of relatively stable desires and “loves” (as Augustine called them) that we all have, and that change slowly in what we call “sanctification”. And C S Lewis thought that cognitive ideas and unexamined assumptions, that we assume, and things that may not occur to us at all, influence the “heart “ or “chest.”
My sense is that the mistake is actually a bit deeper: almost all contemporary anthropologies/psychologies assume we are “built up” from different things that are naturally wholly distinct. But that’s wrong. Instead, we are naturally (in the old, teleological sense) unified beings, but with different capacities that are mutually interdependent.
I have decided to go with my gut and decide that this post is wrong, because it might contradict the intuition that I am right.
(but seriously, this was super good. I haven't read Haidt's book in like 5 years so I think this really cleared some of the vagueness I had lodged in my mind about his system while also helpfully clarifying and expanding upon it).
I wonder about Brady's view of emotions as pro tempore/higher order reasons for belief.
Firstly, at least for creatures like ourselves, it seems emotions are indispensable for forming evaluative beliefs (e.g. "that sunset is beautiful") because such beliefs involve evaluative concepts (beauty) that can't be acquired without having certain emotional experiences. You can't have the concept of "beautiful" without having ever experienced the relevant emotions (awe, admiration, longing, etc.). Relatedly, without emotion, you can't continue to experience-to participate-in a world shot-through with value. There's not an outright inconsistency between taking emotions both as mere pro tempore reasons for belief as well as indispensable ways of experiencing evaluative reality but there does seem to be a tension.
Similarly, I'm confused on how moral intuitions could only serve as pro tempore reasons. Won't moral intuitions be necessary for detecting certain facts AS morally relevant, that is, as supplying moral reasons? Suppose I have a vague moral intuition that factory farming is wrong but I don't yet see why it is wrong (let's grant that it is). I have now, only pro tempore reasons for the belief "factory farming is wrong". But then I learn more (I read, reflect, discuss with others, etc.) about factory farming, I'm able to point to those facts which make it wrong, e.g. the immense animal pain it involves. Non-moral facts (e.g. "factory farming involves immense animal pain") fix moral facts ("factory farming is wrong"). Won't my moral intuitions be just as necessary here to apprehend that basic explanatory relationship between animal pain and moral wrongness? Isn't Moral intuition not only useful for promoting the search for morally relevant reasons but also necessary for apprehending those reasons at all?
Certainly appreciate where you're coming from, Joshua (as you know!). Honestly, I don't have a full-orbed theory of the epistemology of emotions (I have questions, for example, about whether emotions are central to the formation of at least some moral concepts), but I suspect there's a lot of both/and that will be required. I didn't mean to suggest that emotions are "mere" anything, for what that's worth. And if I did suggest or write that, I hereby recant!
Most importantly with regard to this post, though: Suppose you're right. Then I think it's even worse for Haidt's metaphor. The more one integrates emotions/affect across the cognitive domain, the less plausible the elephant-rider image becomes!
I think there is something between the elephant and the rider. Since I’ve been a Christian I’ve been bombarded by talk about the “heart”. I’ve finally figured out what that is, I think. It is not the emotions or moods, it is the set of relatively stable desires and “loves” (as Augustine called them) that we all have, and that change slowly in what we call “sanctification”. And C S Lewis thought that cognitive ideas and unexamined assumptions, that we assume, and things that may not occur to us at all, influence the “heart “ or “chest.”
My sense is that the mistake is actually a bit deeper: almost all contemporary anthropologies/psychologies assume we are “built up” from different things that are naturally wholly distinct. But that’s wrong. Instead, we are naturally (in the old, teleological sense) unified beings, but with different capacities that are mutually interdependent.
I have decided to go with my gut and decide that this post is wrong, because it might contradict the intuition that I am right.
(but seriously, this was super good. I haven't read Haidt's book in like 5 years so I think this really cleared some of the vagueness I had lodged in my mind about his system while also helpfully clarifying and expanding upon it).
I feel personally attacked by the key example, lol. ;)
I wonder about Brady's view of emotions as pro tempore/higher order reasons for belief.
Firstly, at least for creatures like ourselves, it seems emotions are indispensable for forming evaluative beliefs (e.g. "that sunset is beautiful") because such beliefs involve evaluative concepts (beauty) that can't be acquired without having certain emotional experiences. You can't have the concept of "beautiful" without having ever experienced the relevant emotions (awe, admiration, longing, etc.). Relatedly, without emotion, you can't continue to experience-to participate-in a world shot-through with value. There's not an outright inconsistency between taking emotions both as mere pro tempore reasons for belief as well as indispensable ways of experiencing evaluative reality but there does seem to be a tension.
Similarly, I'm confused on how moral intuitions could only serve as pro tempore reasons. Won't moral intuitions be necessary for detecting certain facts AS morally relevant, that is, as supplying moral reasons? Suppose I have a vague moral intuition that factory farming is wrong but I don't yet see why it is wrong (let's grant that it is). I have now, only pro tempore reasons for the belief "factory farming is wrong". But then I learn more (I read, reflect, discuss with others, etc.) about factory farming, I'm able to point to those facts which make it wrong, e.g. the immense animal pain it involves. Non-moral facts (e.g. "factory farming involves immense animal pain") fix moral facts ("factory farming is wrong"). Won't my moral intuitions be just as necessary here to apprehend that basic explanatory relationship between animal pain and moral wrongness? Isn't Moral intuition not only useful for promoting the search for morally relevant reasons but also necessary for apprehending those reasons at all?
Certainly appreciate where you're coming from, Joshua (as you know!). Honestly, I don't have a full-orbed theory of the epistemology of emotions (I have questions, for example, about whether emotions are central to the formation of at least some moral concepts), but I suspect there's a lot of both/and that will be required. I didn't mean to suggest that emotions are "mere" anything, for what that's worth. And if I did suggest or write that, I hereby recant!
Most importantly with regard to this post, though: Suppose you're right. Then I think it's even worse for Haidt's metaphor. The more one integrates emotions/affect across the cognitive domain, the less plausible the elephant-rider image becomes!