Filozofija: Virtue or Having a Soul for Each Emotion
Tomaž Herga, Ph.D.
(professor of philosophy and schizoanalysis, at Erewhon University)
VIRTUE OR HAVING A SOUL FOR EACH EMOTION:
EMOTIONS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF ACTION TENDENCIES
Emotions are essentially “experiencible”: attempting to write about them presupposes that others could have experienced them even though their experiences need not be the same as ours. Therefore, there is something about emotions that cannot be grasped by science, if science describes what is essentially “inexperiencible”. A biologist, for instance, does not have to confront the presupposition that the description of four types of nucleotides (i.e., a state of things that he observes) could become the description in which someone else could recognize their own experience. What is important for science is that states of things can be described, not that they can be described in such a way as to become “experiencible” by virtue of description. A scientist's description presupposes that the state of things is describable so as to allow scientists to find points of convergence amidst large amounts of accumulated descriptions. If many divergent lines of descriptions converge at a certain point, this point becomes a point of scientific consensus in the midst of any scientific disagreement. Scientific consensus, therefore, is not reached by mutual agreement, but rather at a point of convergence of divergent lines. A scientific consensus seems to be at play regarding the philosophy of emotions and their features. According to Elster the features are these:
Cognitive antecedents. Emotions are triggered by beliefs … . Physiological arousal.
Emotions go together with changes in heart rate, electrical skin conductance, bodily
temperature, blood pressure, respiration, and numerous other variables. … Physiological
expressions. Emotions go together with characteristic observable signs, such as bodily
posture, voice pitch, flushing and reddening, smiling or baring the teeth, laughing and
frowning, weeping and crying … . Action tendencies. Emotions are accompanied by
tendencies or urges to perform specific actions. … Intentional objects. Unlike other visceral
phenomena, emotions are about something. … Valence. This is a technical term for the
pain-pleasure dimension of the emotions as we experience them. … (Elster 2007, 147)
We will presuppose that emotions “as such” are not something that we could experience directly: emotions are that in relation to which experiences can be produced. We will also presuppose that the six features, together with the seventh — the qualitative feel (247) — are not merely general characteristics of the emotions, but also the direct expressions of emotions, or the material cause without which emotions could not become the matter of experience. These presuppositions will allow us to diverge from many claims by Elster's theory, bearing in mind the goal of our task: marking the points of convergence of as many different theories as possible. The tendency to trace divergent
lines and mark convergent points may be seen as two sides of one and the same procedure called creativity: it may be possible to show that simply by having the courage to start tracing divergent lines of thought one can succeed in delineating (or marking) the points of convergence. The very fact that scientists circle around something they disagree on, proves on its own that their disagreement points are points of convergence. However, it is one thing to say that scientist disagree on something, whilst it is something completely different to say that thought is scientific (or creative) as long as it diverges and traces ever new divergent lines which, independently of what scientists agree or disagree on, delineate and mark points of convergence.
For instance, while I agree with Elster’s claim about action tendencies being those features by which we can distinguish among regularly observed emotions, I do not agree with him when he says that “[n]ot all emotions have action tendencies” (1999, 283). For Elster pride and humility, “[a]lso relief, regret, disappointment, sadness, grief and most of the aesthetic emotions do not seem to suggest any specific actions. Although small children sometimes want to get on the stage to save the actor from an impending danger, most works of art do not induce any action tendency in readers, listener or viewers” (1999, 283). We will argue that all emotions have action tendencies, even though there are emotions which do not suggest any specific actions.
Let us consider the example of pride. If we want to ascribe action tendency to it, we have to start by asking ourselves what action or activity preceded that experience of pride, and which action or activity was it followed by. Was it reading, listening or viewing? To read, to listen or to view: it is to be active in a very special way; with these verbs we express actions which presuppose other actions: sitting while reading, dancing while listening, or listening while cooking, standing while viewing. My most recent experience of pride was triggered when I was reading certain passages of Elster's great book on emotions; that pride was triggered by my belief that I finally came to understand what I had been trying in vain to understand ever since I started to read his book's topic years ago. I was sitting motionlessly in an uncomfortable chair when my experience of pride was at its most intense. Was there no action tendency? That experience of pride was not an experience of pride in general, and therefore there was no specific action tendency by the specificity of which a particular experience of pride in general would be distinguishable from other particular experiences of some other emotions as general categories. However, that experience of pride was accompanied by more than one action tendency (or an urge, or an impuls, or a virtual action). Whereas none of the action tendencies could be ascribed to pride in general, each one of them was experienced as being a direct expression of pride; furthermore, one among them was experienced as exceptional — not because it would enable me to distinguish betwen pride in general and some other emotion in general, but because it enabled me to single out that experience of pride as different from my other experiences of the same emotion.
As I was experiencing that pride I had a tendency to stop reading the book, to put it on the desk (there was an urge to stop the activities of reading and siting, to stop holding the book in my hand, and to break up with my previous intention of reading as many pages as possible — which could be done only by being active in a very special way); I had a tendency to put it down very softly and gently, which is something I always do when the book is very precious to me; I had a tendency to take a walk and to stroll around aimlesly. Than I noticed, that these action tendencies were not extended directly into a series of actual actions even though they emerged between one series of actual actions (reading, sitting) and another series of actual action (underlining, writing notes, repeating),
which were destined to be followed (sooner or later) by another set of activities. Action tendencies were not extended directly in a locomotor behaviour; they were not part of locomotor behavior, they were part of emotional behaviour; they were not performing a function of extending one actual action (viewing an actor on the stage) into another actual action (running on the stage to save an actor from an impending danger): my reading, sitting, writing notes, holding the book in my hands were not extended by action tendencies directly into another series of actual action with which I would put the book down, leave the room I was in, and go for a walk. In this sense action tendencies were intensive and temporal forces, not extensive and spatial forces; they were part of emotional behaviour; not part of locomotor behaviour. They enabled me to experience that pride rather than made me do things, or say things, or actually act, or behave in a pride-specific mode of behaviour.
This, therefore, is a point of divergence from Elster's claim where not all emotions have action tendencies. While conceding Elster's assertion that not all emotions have specific action tendencies, we will refute a part of his theory by claiming that all emotions have action tendencies.
Let us emphasize that points of convergence are not simply agreements between authors, and points of divergence are not simply disagreements: points of divergence are marked with the intention of tracing divergent lines of thought and not arguing against another philosopher. Great philosophers create complex theories, and complex theories are not a matter of agreement or disagreement. Complexity is a matter of objectivity: authors who write independently of each other converge on certain points — this is one aspect of objectivity of various theories. However, there is no objectivity without another aspect which should not be confused with subjective disagreements between authors: in order to be truly objective we have to start by another author's implicit presupposition, and make a step forward not only by making it explicit, but go the extra mile by what we will call the “method of complexification” or “progressive differenciation.”(1)
Points of divergence are implicit presuppositions which, rather than being a matter of subjective disagreements, are vectors of possible divergent lines and their tracing a matter of objective complexity. The subjective dimension
of desire to be objective is that of the question facing every author, namely “whether or not people have some use, however small, to make of the book, in their own work, in their life, and their projects” (Deleuze 2006, 180).
There is another subjective dimension of desire to be objective: a philospher's task is not to satisfy one's ignorance, by making explicit what we know implicitly, instead we have to ask questions “at the frontiers of our knowledge, at the border which separates our knowledge from our ignorance and transforms the one into the other” (2006, 13).
According to Elster “[t]he mediating link between emotion and action is that of an action tendency (or action readiness). We may also think of an action tendency as a temporary preference” (2007, 152). Action tendency of love is to “[a]pproach and touch the other; help the other; please the other” (153). Action tendency of guilt is to “[c]onfess; make repairs; hurt oneself” (153). Action tendency of shame is to “'[s]ink through the floor'; run away; commit suicide” (153) Action tendency of hatred is to “[c]ause the object of hatred to cease to exist” (153). Action tendency of contempt is to “[o]stracize; avoid” (153). The specific action tendency of pity is to “[c]onsole or alleviate the distress of the other” (153).
The function of specification of action tendencies for each of “the major emotions” seems to have two sides. On the one hand, the specification functions as a passage from our implicit knowledge to our explicit knowledge: the act of specifying makes explicit what we implicitly know from experience. This in turn satisfies our ignorance: it does not confront us with the content elements of our experience of which we know nothing or little; it does not move us to the threshold which separates our knowledge from our ignorance and transforms the one into the other — instead it moves us from implicit to explicit knowledge.
On the other hand, by its specification, each action tendency is presented not as the mediating link between emotion and action, but as a specific difference which enables us to distinguish among major emotions. In other words: the specific action tendencies are presented as mediating links among emotions themselves (not among an emotion and action), that is to say, as specific differences which enable us to distinguish among major emotions.
The important point to be made is this: we do not need to know explicitly what distinguishes two emotions, for our implicit knowledge, or what we know from experience, is allready used as the tool with which we distinguish among them. This is why the theory of emotion should not be content with making the implicit knowledge explicit. The most pressing problems of our emotional life are not connected to the lack of our explicit knowledge about the emotions, a “knowing that”, but to the lack of a “knowing how”, the experiential knowledge of how to search for the content elements of our innumerable experiences of emotions.(2)
The theory of emotions should be, perhaps, a demonstration or the search of such a search. It is one thing if I lack the experience of some emotion, for instance the one that Japanese people call amae, but it is a completely different thing if I have n experiences of envy, or of any other emotions, the content elements of which are waiting for scrutiny, without my awareness thereof, or without adequate know-how. If I lack the experience of amae, my lack of experience will prevent me from using explicit knowledge of amae that I could obtain from those Japanese colleagues each of whom has n experiences of amae.
In this sense a theory of emotions should be a species of “knowing how”, of searching for “knowing how”, the
primary task of which is not to explicate what we implicitly do or do not know, but to demonstrate that the content elements of n experiences of an emotion are not those in relation to which emotion could stay the same, but differential elements in relation to which, when they are searched for, an emotion differentiates itself not only from other emotions, but also from itself.
The theory of emotion should be able to demonstrate how searching for the content elements of experience of an
emotion transforms the emotion by making history out of its past experiences. The theory of emotions is in need of accounts on how an emotion differentiates itself by virtue of time (i.e., how it has transformed within an individual’s and generation’s lifespan). This would include accounts on experiences that a person could remember, and that would be recollected once the emotion transformed itself. Without having a reference to heterogenous content elements of experiences which were produced in relation to it, an emotion appears to be a general category which does not change significantly with time, neither within a person’s lifespan, nor generationally.
To demonstrate that profound “molecular mutations” are underway in different areas of our life — this perhaps should be considered as the virtue of theory of emotions, its profound solidarity with human condition: “We do not have the same relations to reading, writing, images, space, sex, the body, the night, the sun, pain, as we only had ten years ago” (Guattari 1995, 47). To search for content elements of experiences is to search for such mutations of our commonness to the theory of which each human soul can contribute without any theoretical action tendency to generalize anything, but by simply reporting chronologically on what emotional mutation a person has undergone.
My three year old son has no explicit knowledge of emotions he experiences; nevertheless, for each of these emotions he has a series of corresponding experiences, and an unfinished process called history, which enables him to distinguish among them, to use them. Because he knows them from experience, he spontaneously distinguishes among them by using his implicit or experiential knowledge. Out of respect for my dislike of being bit or hit by him, even when he recognizes my connection to the cause of his anger, he recently managed to block the action tendency specific for anger — to “[c]ause the object of emotion to suffer” (Elster 2007, 153). Instead of extending this action tendency into action, he used it as a direct expression of his anger: in place of biting or hitting
me, he expressed his anger by telling me and warning me that he is only a step away from doing that which he knows I do not like him to do to me; with an interesting and convincing tone of voice he directly expressed a mixture of threat and regret as if he was trying to tell me that even though the realization of the threat would be regrettable he would nevertheless be compelled to do it unless I changed my behaviour. In this sense action tendency, instead of being a general feature of some of the “major emotions”, is a direct expression which causes emotion to be “experiencible”: only if action tendency does not extend itself into action, the emotion can become a matter of what we call experience (or emotional behaviour), rather than a matter of action (and locomotor behaviour). In place of acting on anger, my son experienced anger, and entrusted me with some of the content
elements of that experience. If action tendency is the mediating link between emotion and action, it is important to emphasize that this mediation can be either a function of extension of emotion into action, or, on the contrary, the function of blocking actual action, and, by virtue of this potential of action tendency, of experiencing emotion in place of executing action. It is also important to notice that whereas emotion can be expressed directly, its content cannot be experienced directly: the content of experience of emotion is much richer than mere direct expression of emotion because the elements of the former are trans-historical, heterogenous and open to interpretation, while the elements of the latter are immediate, homogenized and open merely to recognition. While expressing my anger directly, my experience of anger is a set of elements which swarms with associations, feelings, unarticulated thoughts and reminiscences.
Let us take the opportunity, and take a step towards a theoretical distinction between the notions of virtue and vice. The first important step in this direction is to distinguish between action tendencies and a series of actual actions. As Elster puts it, action tendencies — or the mediating link between emotion and action — are urges, impulses, “virtual actions” (1999, 281). Action tendencies, as defined by Frijda “are ''states of readiness to execute a given kind of action. … Action tendencies have the character of urges or impulses.'' They are ''virtual actions'' as Thomas Aquinas said with respect to the destructive urge in envy. The immediate impulse of the envious person is to destruct the object of his or her envy or, possibly, destroy its owner. (281–282)” Here, perhaps, we should stop for a moment, to consider the terms “virtual” and “actual”.
Even though Elster uses the term “virtual actions” in quotation marks, I propose using the term literally, not metaphorically: if that which is virtual can in principle be actualized, than “virtual” is no less real than “actual”, for each actual state of things embodies at least one potentiality (or capacity, or tendency) without which it would not be defined as it is. Fo instance, a knife has the capacity to cut; this capacity is virtual potentiality even when nobody uses the knife for cutting; even though the knife in my drawer is not cutting anything right now, that is to say, even though its capacity is not actualized right now, the knife's virtual capacity is no less real than its actual properties (the handle, the blade, the sharpness or bluntness of the blade, the color etc.).
Virtual potentialities are not properties of actual state of things; we should not confuse that with which an actual state of things embodies something with what is embodied in the actual state of things: we should not confuse the
properties of actual state of things with its virtual capacities and tendencies. A knife as an actual state of things has to have certain actual propeties (the blade and the sharpness of the blade) in order to be able to embody a certain virtual capacity or potentiality (to cut) which can be actualized when the conditions for its actualization are met: the actualization of capacity to cut is a result of interaction between the knife, the hand and the bread.
Each state of things therefore has actual properties with which it embodies some virtual potentiality which can become actualized under the condition that it interacts with other states of things with which it forms an assemblage. Furthermore, even though capacities and tendencies are both virtual potentialities of some actual state of things, we should not confuse them niether with actual properties, nor with each other.
To exemplify this let us consider one of the most common compounds found on Earth. Water is a state of things: an arrangment of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. When water is actualized in its liquid form, it has the capacity to become either ice or gass — the resulting solid or gassy form is dependent on one (or two)
of its properties, that is, tempretature (and pressure).
However, even though water has both virtual capacities embodied in its liquid form, these are not to be confused with its tendencies: above 0°C (32°F) water has no tendency to become ice, and below 100 °C (212°F) water has no tendency to become gass. The tendency which water actualizes in liquid form is to flow downwards; this same
tendency is virtual potentiality which water embodies without actualizing it in its solid or gassy form.
The knife, on the other hand, has the capacity to cut; it has no tendency to cut.
Even though water has the tendency to flow downwards, it also has the tendency to flow away from an area with high pressure. Water also has the tendency to follow solute; water movement from soil to root of a plant is largely due to osmotic potential where the solute concentration in the root is higher than the solute concentration in the soil. Water flows from its high concentration to its low concentration — beacuse of this virtual tendency (or potentiality) which is embodied in actually liquid water, the water can flow upwards if certain conditions are met. Due to the water's tendency to flow from an area of high pressure it is imporant that it evaporates at the leaves of the plant, thereby decreasing pressure; away from the leaves there is a higher pressure gradient; it is precisely this difference in pressure gradient that drives the water up, to the lower pressure, thus actualizing the virtual tendency of the liquid water to flow away from the high pressure in roots: in plants, or in between roots and soil water actualizes the virtual tendency to flow from its high concentration (in the soil) to its low concentration (in the root), together with its tendency to move away from high pressure — these two tendencies, because of which water can flow upwards, are actualized precisely in place of its virtual tendency to flow downwards.
The virtual tendencies are no less real than actual movements: there are no actual movements without forces (differences in pressure, differences in osmotic potential etc.) with which virtual tendencies and capacities are actualized. There is, therefore, no need for us to put the term “virtual” in quotation marks, or to use it metaphorically: even though liquid water has the actual tendency to flow downards, this tendency is virtual potentiality embodied in liquid water in all the plants which need the actualization of the other tendencies — the virtual tendency of liquid water to move away from high pressure, and its virtual tendency to move to areas of high
concentration solute — in order to maintain the right pressure (turgor pressure) which keeps plants erect. What is virtual in the river is actual in the tree and vice versa: this is why that which is “virtual” is equally real as that which is “actual”.
Action tendencies are virtual actions which can be theoreticaly distinguished from actual actions. A child who wants to get on stage (to save the actor from an impending danger) may either engage in a series of actual actions needed to get on stage, or in a series of action tendencies or virtual actions which are not needed to actually get on stage, but to get an actual experience of emotion triggered by the belief related to the actor and the impending danger while sitting and viewing the performance on stage. We could say that virtue is that which prevents the child's action tendencies from getting extended directly into actual actions needed to get on stage to save the actor from an impending danger, and which would enable him to actualy experience a corresponding emotion. This is not our definition of virtue, but our first step and an attempt at approaching it: we call virtue each series of actual actions which prevent a set of (virtual) action tendencies from getting extended directly into a corresponding series of actual actions. On the other hand, vice is each series of actual actions which prompts the action tendencies to become extended directly into another series of actual actions.
In this respect, let us take love and the action tendencies Elster ascribes to love for example: to approach and touch the other; help the other; please the other. Suppose Jim loves Jenny. If the action tendencies of Jim's love are to be directly extended into a series of actual acts of love, this can only be done in such a way that it makes sense, at least for Jim. In order to be directly extended, action tendencies have to be combined in such a way that Jim exhausts their virtuality as soon as he executes their combination.When Jim approaches Jenny, this actual act by itself is not yet a combination of actual acts of love, it is not yet an execution of the combination of actual acts of
love, and, therefore, it is not yet an exhaustion of the virtualities of love—by merely approaching her, without making this approach an element of the combination of actual acts of love, he may be suspending the execution of the combination, and the exhaustion of virtuality of love's action tendencies: instead of directly extending them into actual acts of love, he is discretely intensifying them, not by actualy executing their combination, but by dividing and subdividing each one of them into virtual contents (thoughts, feelings, questions, reminiscences, ideas, visions, daydreams, dreams, physiological arousals and expressions) of possible experience of love. In place of exhaustion of the specific virtualities of love, these virtualities divide, subdivide and fork into nonspecific virtualities
many of which can only be actualized in the experience of an emotion, not by the execution of each one of them in combination with other actual actions. Instead of being exhausted by being executed in combination, the virtuality of love is being forked even to the point of infinitesimal divisions (or infinitesimal small acts of love) which can be experienced as unexecutable (sometimes halucinatory) satisfactions which cannot be extended into any kind of actual acts.
We have to bare in mind that not all action tendencies are executable, and that, even when some of them are executable, the corresponding emotion can only be experienced if they are not executed: the action tendencies of shame, for instance — to sink through the floor, run away — may not be executable in any given situation;another action tendency of shame — to commit suicide — may be executed, perhaps, only under the condition that “experience of shame” equals “actualization of capacity” by which human beings are distinguished from animals, that is to say, by the capacity to experience radical freedom, the autonomy of which is unconditional.
Without introducing the notion of freedom into the theory of emotions we risk to confuse emotional action tendencies with emotions themselves: this is why the goal of our task will be to show that even though emotions go together with action tendencies, emotions are not tendencies to be extended in actual actions, and executed by actual actions. Instead they are capacitites to be experienced (or actualized) in place of actual actions. There are therefore innumerable nonspecific virtual action tendencies into which the specific action tendency (of love) to approach the other fork, as though into what is possible and merely possible, that is to say, experiencible and intensifiable without being extendable into, and executable by, actual action.
Thus Jim may experience an action tendency to eat Jenny up:
“You are so cute I want to eat you up!”
He may experience love in relation to her only, and only, if the action tendency "to fight for a cause" is experienced in relation to her — this cause may be love itself as far as the execution of the combination of love-specific action tendencies does not cause the experience of love:
“You cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it” (Chesterton 2008, 16).
He may experience an action tendency "to become a tear in her eye", "to run down her cheeks", "to die on her lips— these action tendencies are infinitesimal satisfactions the experience of which takes places precisely there where "to approach", "touch", "please", "help" the other is not enough to experience love precisely because love may be about infinitesimaly small satisfactions, and not about finite executable actions:
“If I were a tear in your eye, I would run down your cheeks and die on your lips. If you were a tear in my eye, I
would never cry in fear of losing you.” (3)
After everything has been said and done (at the end of a day), that is, executed, love can be experienced through what one does not want to do (or execute):
“Love is when you don't want to go to sleep because reality is better than a dream.” (4)
To be together with Jenny, and execute all specific action tendencies of love, may not be enaugh for Jim to experience love at its most intense, for he may intensify his experience through an unexecutable and non-specific action tendency to become the one to whom God would grant a wish, to become the one who is praying for the impossible way of being together with her, to become the one who can experience love in a kind of a slow motion of time, so that love, instead of being a matter of worldy action, is actualy becoming experienced as the divine time-movement:
“If I had God grant me a single wish, I'd pray that the world would move a little bit slower, so that we'd have a little more time together.” (5)
On the other hand, the virtuality of love-specific action tendencies can be exhausted in a matter of seconds. Jim can identify himself as a lover by means of combining specific action tendencies of love so that they make sense in no time, and get extended directly into a series of actual actions or acts of love: Jim loves Jenny so far as the series of actual actions executed in order to approach her is directly extended into (or combined with) another series of actual actions by executing the acts needed to touch her; Jim loves Jenny so far as a series of actual actions, which are executed in such a way that they result in either approaching her or touching her (or both), is directly extended by (or combined with) the execution of a series of actual actions which result in either helping her or pleasing her (or both). This combination makes sense (at least to Jim): it is at work when Jim has sex with Jenny, when he goes for a walk with her, when he talks to her on the phone, when he goes on holiday with her etc.
Since each series of actual actions is divisible, and can only be executed by divisions, subdivisions, all the way to the infinitesimally small acts (minute gestures, postures, facial expressions, arousals), the actualization of which is the function of direct extension of virtual action tendencies, we can say that their actualization depends on the situation wherein they are executed: the givens of a situation may indicate that action tendencies of love can only be directly extended in such a way that, though being specific to love, their execution will make them indistinguishable from the specific action tendencies of guilt (to confess, make repairs, hurt oneself). In order to make a confession one has to approach the other; confessing some wrong can be a perfectly functional way of getting closer to the other, of trying to touch the other and be touched; one way to make repairs, to make up for some wrong is to approach the other, touch the other, help the other, please the other; one way of hurting oneself is to try to please the other, or help the other, or touch the other, or approach the other.
The execution of the same series of actions can be divided into smaller acts in so many different ways that in two
successive moments of an action (i.e. from one small act to another small act) one finds oneself in two far removed and mutually exclusive situations—that of love and that of guilt.
In this precise sense the execution of specific action tendencies which pertain to love is a function of direct extension of the action tendencies which are specific to guilt, and vice versa. Thus one cannot execute some act of
love in one moment without experiencing guilt in the next moment, or vice versa—one can only experience love after one executes the action tendencies of guilt. Consequentially, people often cannot experience love (without guilt), for every time they execute the action tendencies of love, they experience guilt in their place; through experiencing guilt they approach the other, touch the other, help the other, please the other.
Conversely, some people cannot experience guilt (without love), for every time they execute the action tendencies of guilt, they experience a kind of love which can be experienced when one makes repairs, confesses, hurts oneself.
These practical deadlocks and practical impossibilities constitute the peculiarities of our everyday emotional life: how many times a week, or even a day, do we have to start a fight, wanting the other to confess some wrong he or she has ostensibly done in order to enable each other to experience a small bite of love (though combined with elements of pity, forgiveness, regret) right there, where the acts of confessing guilt are to be executed? And how many times do we approach each other, touch each other, help each other, please each other, only to establish the kind of contact and closeness which are followed by an experience of guilt, the elements of which are thoughts about the wrong ways of approaching the other, the wrong ways of touching the other, the wrong ways of helping the other, the wrong ways of pleasing the other, which go together with the elements of disappointment, anger and so forth?
Our attempt at creating a theoretical distinction between (emotional) action tendencies and acutal actions marks another point of divergence from Elster. This is partially due to our quite different conception of what theory is, or rather, of what we want to study. As opposed to Elster’s focus of study, which “is the social relevance of the emotions” (1999, 74), we are interested in studying the social relevance of the theory of emotions. As we progress we will elaborate what theory means to us. For the time being, let us quote the argumentation from which we diverge:
Emotional action tendencies do not merely induce a desire to act. They also induce a desire to act
sooner rather than later. To put this idea in context, let me distinguish between the impatience and
urgency. I define impatience as a preference for early reward over later reward, that is, some degree
of time discounting. As I noted … emotions may cause an agent to attach less importance to
temporally remote consequences of present action. I define urgency, another effect of emotion, as a
preference for early action over later action. (155)
Even though common sense is quite convincing in suggesting us that emotions cause our impatient actions (or that our preference for early reward over later reward is an effect of our emotions), and that emotions cause us to prefer early action over later action in cases of urgency, common sense convictions should be put to the test. This has been done for the first time, so it seems, by William James:
Common sense says we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and
run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this
order of sequence is incorrect, that the one mental state is not immediately induced by the other,
that the bodily manifestations must first be interposed between, and that the more rational
statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble,
and not that we cry, strike, or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be.
(James 1884, 190)
The order of causation that James proposed may be incorrect, but the order of sequence he proposed is correct:
1) I perceive a bear; 2) my body trembles; 3) I am afraid.
What can we learn from Elster and James? If, according to Elster, a mental order of causation exists, then the correct order of sequence proposed by James should not be confused with the order of causation: my fear in front of the bear is caused neither by the bear nor by the perception of the bear and the trembling of my body. When my sense commune tries to convince me that the perceptible object of my fear has some properties because of which it is the cause of my fear (i.e. the properties that make the perceived bear dangerous), or that my emotion is an effect caused by its object, I nevertheless know that, so far as my emotion is a mental state, it is caused by the order to which mental states belong, and wherein mental states are not inexperiencible properties of the objects of
perception. However, even though an emotion belongs to the order of causation constituted by mental states with which it is connected, and even though an emotion is not an effect of perception (or its object, the bear) and its corresponding bodily manifestation (trembling), an emotion is a reaction to perception and bodily manifestation. Our feeling sorry for losing our fortune is not an effect of the situation and the perceptible state of things to which our crying corresponds — instead, it is a reaction to the situation and the bodily manfiestation of crying; our insulted feelings are not an effect of the perceived series of actual actions of our rival which would cause (together with the perceived series of our actual acts of striking the rival and together with other possible givens of the situation) our feelings of insult — to be insulted is to react to the situation and its corresponding actual actions. Emotions are not caused by the order of sequence to which they belong: they are not caused by perception and the perceived states of things which constitute the external and internal environments of the body: emotions are not effects; they are reactions which constitute the order of causation of their own.
Thus we preserve the order of sequence that James proposed: the actual activities (of the external environments of the body) that constitute perception come first—they determine our sensory-motor behaviour (i.e. a set of actual activities of the internal environments of the body) into which perception is directly extended; the actual activities of sensory-motor behaviour constitutes a set of “molecular” movements of the body (trembling in front of the bear) which come second, and which can be extended directly into actual actions constitutive of our loco-motor behaviour (or a set of “molar” movements of the body: avoiding or running away from the bear); what comes third is an emotional reaction to either one or both of the two types of behaviour: fear can be a reaction to the set of “molecular” movements (trembling) of my body, or to the set of “molar” movements (running away, avoiding) of my body, or a reaction to both types of movements which go together with other actual acitivites in a given situation.
By preserving this order of sequence we nevertheles discard the idea that seems to be implied by James, namely that the order of sequence is identical to the order of causation, and that, therefore, we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble. We discard the idea that “feeling sorry” is “effect of crying”, and that crying causes us to feel sorry; we discard the idea that “feeling angry” is “effect of striking”, and that striking causes anger, and so forth. By discarding this idea we do not eo ipso refuse James's well known thesis which goes against what he calls “our natural way of thinking” (189), namely, “that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression” (189).
James's thesis explicitly presupposes the identity of mental affection (or emotion) and bodily changes (or bodily manifestation): “My thesis, on the contrary, is that the bodily changes follow directly the PERCEPTION of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS the emotion” (190–191).
To do justice to James we have to add the following: he does not say that “feeling sorry” is “crying”, “feeling angry” is “striking”, he does not say that the actual activities which are needed to extract tears from the glands, and which can be felt as crying, constitute “the state of the organism” which would be identical to “feeling sorry”; he also does not say that “I feel that I am crying” is identical to “I feel sorry.” He states the identity of “emotion” and “bodily changes”, the identity which makes the “feeling of bodily changes” inseparable and indistinguishable from “the feeling of the emotion.” We should really read the supposedly natural way of thinking, which James opposes, very carefully: he opposes the idea that “mental perception of some fact” has the capacity to excite “the mental affection called emotion.”
Whereas physical perception necessarily excites our sensory-motor movements (or a set of “molecular” actual activities of the external and internal environments of the body), as Gibson has shown by demonstrating the distinction between stimulation and stimulus information, (6) mental perception, according to James, is essentially a different kind of perception. It is not of the same species, it does not belong to the same order of causation, for it is determined not by the necessity to excite, but by the necessity to not excite. It seems to be determined as our capacity to be affected (or excited), and not as our capacity to affect (or excite): mental perception is a capacity to feel (or to be excited), not a tendency to excite (or to cause feelings and other mental states).
Mental perception of a certain belief, for instance, is a capacity to feel that we believe, and a capacity to feel what we believe, and to feel how we believe, it is a capacity to feel the intensity of a belief, it is a capacity to feel the differences in intensity of the same belief in different situations, and to feel the difference in the intensity of different beliefs in the same situation. Furthermore, mental perception is our capacity to feel the order of causation constituted by mental states to which it belongs: we can feel that certain mental states, such as beliefs, are (regularly) followed by another type of mental states, such as emotions, or, that certain thoughts are (regularly) followed by certain feelings, or vice versa, and that certain sequence of ideas corresponds to certain arrangement of the givens of situation we are in, and that the assemblage of the sequence of ideas and an arrangement of the givens of situation is (regularly) accompanied by certain reminiscence; we can feel that there is a difference between reminiscence and recollection, between thinking, contemplating, recognizing, imagining, believing and hallucinating, between qualitative feel of one emotion and qualitative feel of another emotion, between the pleasantness and unpleasantness of emotions, feelings, thoughts, moods, and so on; we can feel that certain belief changed or transformed itself, or lost its power under the impact of its connection with certain emotion.
James's notion of mental perception as distinct from physical perception, and his thesis that a mental state cannot be immediately induced by another mental state are of utmost importance for the relevance of the theory of emotions, especially from the point of view of its connection to the ideas of virtue and vice.
The sublime beauty of his thesis is to be found in that it suggests the idea of the existence of an order of causation, or, rather, of the subsistence of the order of causation the elements of which are not induced (excited, stimulated or caused) by one another.
The elements, or mental states, constitute an order of causality to which they belong in such a way, that each element is causally connected by either being followed or preceded by another element regularly, or often, or with enough probability, or with certainty, or with the kind of necessity which can only be properly grasped as the product of chance, that is, chance-necessity or contingency (clinamen). This is the kind of causality, indeed a Democritean vision of causality that does not allow us to conclude that the elements of its order cause each other or excite or stimulate or induce each other.
If such an order of causation is thinkable, it does not allow us to accept Elster's thesis that emotions have cognitive
antecedents or mental states (beliefs, thoughts) by which they are induced directly or triggered immediately (or excited). Moreover, it does not allow us to accept Elster's thesis that emotions are causes of actual actions, and that emotional action tendencies cause actions with which we prefer early reward over later reward (impatience), and early action over later action (urgency).
Indeed, so far as Elster does not tell us from where beliefs get the power to induce emotions, from where a mental state gets the power to directly excite (or stimulate or cause or trigger) another mental state, to ascribe such a power to certain mental state — a power without a conceivable origin, or a cause without genealogical chain of its constitution — we are tempted to accept Elster's idea of the mental order of causation as an invitation to enter the Anaximandrian vision of the world: even though a belief is a cognitive mental state which is by nature different from emotional mental state, an emotion is triggered directly by belief — in the same sense, within the Anaximandrian vision of the order of causation, the first animal sprang directly from the mud of the sea floor, even though it was by nature different from the sea floor, for it was clothed in a species of shell with which it was separated from the mud of the floor. James's thesis involves the idea that between two entities of the same order of causation the third entity of a different order — the order of clinamen, rather than the order of dira necessitas — must be interposed: in place of “a species of shell” by which an emotion is separated from its cognitive antecedent (as the fish was separated from the mud of the sea floor), a chain of bodily changes must be interposed, and this interposition prevents us to perceive an emotion as that which springs from, or is induced by, an entity of completely different nature. We will return to the notion of mental perception later, for its conceptual development may be crucial for our
understanding of how the mental order suggested by James is thinkable.
As for the emotions, there is a danger of confusing emotional action tendency with the emotion itself. According to what neuroscientists have discovered, action tendency belongs to a set of physiological processes which go together with another set of physiological processes, namely processes of inhibition: whenever we react emotionally both sets of processes are at work — the one which prompts us to execute the actual actions into which emotional action tendencies get extended directly, and the other which blocks the execution, or sometimes inhibits even the sensory-motor schemata needed for the execution of any kind of actual action.(7) Therefore, we confront more than one danger. On the one hand, it would be incorrect to endow an emotion with only one type of
tendency, whether it be a set of physiological processes which prompt us to actually act rather sooner than latter (this is what Elster seems to do), or a set of physiological processes which inhibitactual action. On the other hand, it might be incorrect to say that emotions are tendencies, for they may be capacities. Without doubt, it would be incorrect to confuse capacities and tendencies. It seems to us that even though Elster includes the neurological distinction between processes of inhibition and action tendency in his book he does not make a theoretical distinction between capacities and tendencies. For him an emotion is the tendency to act, emotion causes actual action, even accelerates it, for an emotion causes us to act sooner rather than later in the cases of urgency, and makes us prefer early reward over later reward in the cases of impatience.
In this sense actual actions are effects of emotions: I feel sorry, I cry — I cry, because I feel sorry; I feel angry, I strike — I strike, because I feel angry; I am afraid, I tremble — I tremble, because I am afraid. This is not only the
order of sequence, but also the order of causation that James tried to warn us against.
If we accept this order of sequence and, in turn, confuse it with the order of causation, we conceive an action tendency of emotion as what is destined to become an actual action the virtuality of which will be quickly exhausted to the point of being caught into moments the duration of which is the smallest perceptible duration possible. As though action tendencies would not be simultaneous with the processes of inhibition, and as though the processes of inhibition would be powerless when an emotion is actualized, emotions are supposed to be tendencies to act sooner rather than later, to accelerate the passage from “feeling” (sorry) to “crying”.
Even more, they seem to perform the function of annihilation of this passage, making it a matter of a fraction of a moment, and a matter of subordinating time to spatial movement, so that in the last instance the passage is but a spatial identity without a temporality or movement derived from time (for nothing can be moved by time alone when moments of time have no perceptible duration, no form of emotion can be experienced in a fraction of a millisecond). Thus the action tendency of my anger annihilates the passage, and its inhibitory dimension, which separates “anger” from “striking”, for it prompts me to strike rather sooner than later; the action tendency of my fear annihilates the passage and its inhibitory dimension which separates “fear” from “trembling”, for it prompts me to tremble rather sooner than later.
From this point of view a set of actual actions which resulted in a certain social act can be “explained” by emotions. Moreover, if actual actions are effects of emotions, then a certain social phenomenon, which resulted from a set of actual actions which had been caused by emotions, could in turn have been caused by beliefs by which the emotions had been caused. Let us take Elster's explanation of an act of expressing the interest in serving in the army as an example:
After September 11, 2001, for instance, the number of young American men who expressed an
interest in serving in the army increased by 50 percent, but there was no marked increase in actual
enlistment. These facts are consistent with the hypothesis that the initial surge of interest was due to
emotion, which then abated during the several months required for the enrollment process. There
was almost no increase in the interest in serving among young women, a fact that has no obvious
explanation. (2007, 156)
This line of thinking, or this way of “explaining” social behavior sounds convincing, the only problem being that it presupposes an order of causation which is itself in need of explanation: if the presupposition that beliefs induce emotions is incorrect (James's thesis), and if the presupposition that emotions are tendencies which induce actual action sooner rather than later is incorrect (our thesis), then we should approach social phenomena in order to improve our theory, and not to explain social phenomena. While social phenomena are in no need of being explained, our theories are in need of being correct.
Furthermore, an alternative to Elster's hypothesis should be tested: a hypothesis that an act of expressing an interest was executed so massively because young men did not have the time needed for the experience of emotion to become actualized. Perhaps there was no time, immediately after the event, for the emotion, with which young men would react to the destruction of September 11, to become a matter of experience. When the experience of emotion finally became a matter of actualization in the following months, when emotion finally became possible in the temporal interval between what was the situation “before” the event, and what were its givens “after” the event, it was, perhaps, precisely the emotional experience that inhibited the actual actions needed for the enlistment.
This does not mean that emotional action tendency to serve in the army abated by sheer passage of time, as Elster suggests, but that its direct extension into actual enlistment was prevented by the processes of inhibition (which need not be considered as being merely biological, but also sociological). In place where experience could actualize emotional reaction, young men reacted by extending emotional action tendency directly into actual action of expressing the interest. To actually act in place of possible emotional experience is to suppress the actualization of the experience of emotion completely — to delay it for months or years, or forever.
If there was almost no increase in the interest in serving among young women, this could be, according to the alternative hypothesis, due to the circumstances which allowed women to actualize the experience of emotions, to intensify the corresponding action tendency, instead of extending it directly into actual act of expressing an interest for serving in the army. Again, this does not mean that women did not have the emotional action tendency to serve in the army: the degree of emotional intensity may had been even higher than that of men, which could be precisely the reason why it did not get extended directly into actual expression of interest. Women, perhaps, were in better position to experience the consequences of inhibitory processes, compared to men who were more exposed, perhaps, to the execution of action tendency in place of possible emotional experience. Only if both hypotheses would be tested by researchers who would go among the people who did and did not express an interest in serving, and only if a longitudinal empirical investigation, stretching through years, would record millions of reports of what people were intimately experiencing, and what precisely were the trans-historical content elements of their experiences — only then a theory could set itself its proper aim, not to explain social behavior, but a much more modest aim, to be objective, merely objective and, by the same token, socially relevant.
The split constituted by inhibitory tendencies and action tendencies seems to be crucial for the relevance of the theory of emotions, especially from the point of view of our attempt at introducing the thesis which involves the idea of virtue and vice. The fable of Abraham and his son Isaac is exemplary in this respect, for the virtuality of Abraham's action tendency to slay his son becomes really actualized precisely in the moment when the execution of the combination of actual actions of slaying is inhibited, and when Abraham's action tendency does not get extended directly into actual action of slaying with which he would exhaust the virtuality of the action tendency.
Neither love nor any other emotion by itself is virtue: it was for the love of God that Abraham experienced the action tendency “to slay my own son”; and it was the inhibition of this execution that enabled Abraham to experience love in the form of virtue. It was love in its form of virtue (i.e., faith) that put Abraham on trial: “I am convinced that God is love” (Kierkegaard 2006, 28).
Conversely, no emotion is by itself vice.
What we can learn from the reports of Spitz (1951), is perhaps that the worst that can happen to a human child, is not to experience “vicious emotions,” but to not experience any emotion at all—the most unpleasant and painful emotion is better than emotional deprivation or indifference. (8)
Because of huge childhood amnesia adults are often unable to recognize the daily blows of disappointment, humiliation and despair that a young child experiences because of his utter helplessness, being at complete mercy of the caregivers who feed, care for and watch over the child. The time gap between crying and feeding is only one of the miseries to be endured; there are certain fears that “emerge regardless of the actual parenting that the child receives: fear of starvation, fear of being poisoned, fear of being choked, fear of being chopped to pieces, fear of being drained and the fear of castration” (Leader 1997, 98). These extremely unpleasant childhood emotions represent a basic set of terrors, but insofar as they emerge regardless of the actual parenting they are better than emotional deprivation or indifference which leads to anaclitic depression and severe emotional and intellectual retardation, and even to marasmus and death (Spitz 1951).
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