(May 14, 2015 at 4:26 am)emjay Wrote: I don't know much about the neural basis of reason but I do know a fair amount about emotion and have quite a lot of theories of my own. Emotion is an incredible form of intelligence but it only summarises information and allows for intuition. The same goes for the processes of stereotyping and bias (ie prejudice) - they are both the most natural things in the world to a neural network and serve as a means of making quick judgements based on very little information... judgements that err on the side of caution and could have saved lives in ancestral times. But in these modern days those features of the brain, impressive though they are from an neural network perspective, are not too helpful and need to be overcome with reason if we want to be fair to all. That was the essence of my post.
Another part of my post dealt with what I believe to be an innate aversion to causing senseless harm, whether mental or physical, to other sentient beings, human or animal. By senseless I mean that which has no self-justification or excuse. For instance if you physically or emotionally 'kick someone when they're down', it feels awful and leaves you with a very strong feeling of guilt/shame that is qualitatively different from other forms of guilt and shame, and which stays with you forever. I think that feeling is innate and since it applies to all kinds of hurt, even just an unkind word, I see no reason why that shouldn't be a good basis for your morals - one that comes from within rather than without. I don't mean to say that you can't learn more or benefit from outside sources, such as law and ethics, but just that this is IMO what comes built in, as it were, by nature and which has, also IMO, the strongest emotional appeal precisely because it is innate.
As for your second question I'm afraid the heavy duty logic and formal ethics under discussion is way above my level of understanding. So rather than pick a side in ignorance of the arguments I'll just leave you guys to hammer it out. As I said my post was more about psychology than ethics so I shouldn't really have posted it here in the first place. My apologies.
I wonder if you would say more about how you're defining emotion. I'm used to "feeling" being regarded as distinct from emotion. Has that changed? I would have always said that feeling informs and directs thinking, but I suspect you're saying that emotions are what give rise to feeling.
There is definitely interest in philosophy to account for neurology. It is very relevant. Morality and ethics can't function as an inquiry completely separate from our lived experience. The more neurology can reveal, the more philosophy has to account for. I wonder if you think there is an essential barrier between 3rd person investigation and 1st person phenomenology, or is any barrier merely a function of limiting technology?
