From: "Phil Roberts, Jr." 



First off, I want to say this is one of the more interesting conversations I have
had on the net in some time.  Thanks for putting up with me.

malenor wrote:
> 
> "Phil Roberts, Jr."  wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> >
> > I could use a short refresher on 'efficient cause'.
> 
> Those conditions that cause an acorn to grow into an oak tree (the
> final cause). Efficient cause is a cause in our modern sense of the
> term. Aristotle had developed a theory of causes which would make room
> for his theory of teleology (final ends of nature). There was
> theoretically a formal, an efficient, and a final cause to every
> event. The formal cause is idea of the image of Zeus, to be revealed
> by the hands of the sculptor in stone. The efficient cause is the
> sculpting of the stone, and the final cause is the end-product, the
> sculpture of Zeus.
> 

My interpretation of your short tutorial
  1. efficient cause = cause
  2. final cause = effect (or final effect)
  3. formal cause = conscious objective (anticipated effect of a cause)

I have no problem with Plato on this, unless of course he thinks that
formal causes inhere somewhere other than in conscious entities, which
I think he does, come to think of it.

> >
> > Coming from an evolutionary perspective,
> 
> First of all, we must define this faculty of desire (as I did already)
> as that which seeks a causal connection between self and the world.
> One would not say that about emotions in general, but desire in
> particular. It could be that there is a different faculty for each
> emotion, with some relation to causality. But Kant is here focusing on
> desire in particular. Many of those emotions are the result of
> aesthetic judgments.
> 

I use emotion strictly in the sense of that which is capable of 
motivating us to think or behave (e.g., fear, anger, sexual arousal,
pain, pleasure, and our insatiable appetite for self-significating
experience).  The emotion of an aesthetic 
judgement I would take to come more under the heading of a mood,
but I admit that my use of terminology may not be standard.  Nor
is Kant's it would appear. 

> > I would simply say lower
> > and higher emotion, with the lower EMOTIONS (PLURAL rather than
> > singular, i.e., the id is not some evil monster, but more like
> > a bunch of bungling [very shortsighted] idiots)
> > associated with remnants of our prereflective heritage in which
> > survival was not the result of any long range intention or
> > will to survive,
> > but merely the cumulative effect of a bunch of independent mini-wills
> > (have sex now) which were undertaken in a robot like fashion with
> > little if any understanding
> > of the overall objective they were "designed" to achieve (the perpetuation
> > of one's DNA).
> 
> Sounds like you're talking about the various instincts of animals.
> Kant shows that there is not only a lower animal, but also a higher
> animal. This latter is found in Man's desire to seek a long-range
> happiness in the world. 

Prudence.  

> He writes of a possible view of man as being
> just a very clever animal that is particularly adept at producing
> pleasure in itself, even to the extent that he is able to willingly
> put up with certain short-term pains in order to bring about pleasure
> and happiness in the long run. 

Its more than just clever however, in that prudence is almost certainly
an early vestige of morality.   It requires, not merely 
an understanding of the causes and effects of nature, but also an ability
to EMPATHIZE with one's future self, to project one's self via inference
into the sentience of one's future self, while at the same time RELATIVIZING 
the value one attaches to the wants and needs of the immediate self.  Just
expand this process beyond the perimeter of one's own self and, voila!,
you have what looks very much like morality in that there is both an
increase in concern for others and an increased volatility in self-worth
underlying the emotion of guilt.

> This we know as utilitarianism. 

Technically, its prudence, with utilitarianism an attempt to justify 
morality in terms of the sum total of happiness it brings into the world, or
at least that's my understanding. 

Prudence is the current paradigm for practical rationality among 
students of the subject and underlying it is what is referred to
as 'the equal weight criterion': 

   My feelings a year hence should be just as important to me as 
   my feelings next minute, if only I could make an equally sure 
   forecast of them.  Indeed this equal and impartial concern for 
   all parts of one's conscious life is perhaps the most prominent 
   element in the common notion of the _rational_.  (Henry 
   Sidgwick, 'The Methods of Ethics').

   All these theories [of rational self-interest] also claim that, in 
   deciding what would be best for someone, we should give equal 
   weight to all the parts of this person's future.  Later events may be 
   less predictable; and a predictable event should count for less if 
   it is less likely to happen.  But it should not count for less merely
   because, if it happens, it will happen later (Derek Parfit, 'Reasons 
   and Persons').

> I have
> called it just another form of hedonism. This lower and higher animal
> are still elements within us and not to be repressed or neglected in a
> philosophy of morals. Hedonism is not a bad thing. We come to
> understand these parts of our being through transcendental reflection
> on our faculties and their various representations.
> 

They urge us irrespective of the context.  In certain contexts, they
just are what they are.  However, in some contexts (e.g.,
where there is unnecessary injury to the self as a whole) the 
behavior which eminates may be imprudent, and irrational 
by the current paradigm for rationalty, and in some 
contexts (e.g., where there is unnecessary injury to 
others) immoral, or irrational (actually less rational for reasons
I won't go into) according to my own standard in
which rationality = objectivity.  In my scheme, prudence is more 
rational than unguided lower emotion, and morality is more ratonal
than prudence, not that any one cares, really.   :)


> >   "Sex is nature's way of getting us to behave AS IF we wanted to
> >    have lots and lots of offspring"  (Robert Wright).
> 
> And religion is man's way of getting us to behave AS IF there is a God
> and an eternal hereafter.
> 

And thus keeping us from feelings of worthlessness when we begin to 
view ourselves as the insignificant ants we trutly are, and which is 
the dominant motivational factor in man, at least to the extent that 
my own mind is not atypical.

> >
> > I would say that the higher emotions are the result of the fact that
> > our capacity to reason makes us increasingly more aware of reality from
> > an increasinly more objective perspective which increasingly makes
> > us more susceptible to feelings of worthlessness in that an
> > objective assessment of one's worth requires EVIDENCE that one
> > warrants that worth.
> 
> These are facts pretty much taken for granted by Kant. It is mostly
> Objectivists who bring up obvious ideas and try to make them sound
> profoundly original. And your focus seems to be external, or perhaps a
> little of both external and internal. 

Internal guided by as much relevant scientific knowledge as possible.
Actually, my theory is the result of three nervous breakdowns by the 
time I was twenty-one and
my persistent attempt to understand the phenomenon from an evolutionary
perspective.  This, and my belief that introspective data is every bit
as reliable as physical data in formulating a scientific hypothesis 
so long as one limits that data to only those regions of the mind 
that are intersubjectively reproducible.  

'Rehabilitating Introspection'  
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/rehabint.htm

> But Kant is focused on
> reflecting internally, on that which we can control and brings
> objectivity and necessity. In this way we can know what to symbolize
> externally. To constantly look for external evidence of self-worth is
> the method of the narcissist. 

Perhaps.  But I believe its what we are all doing nonetheless.  Its
what makes the world go around.  If it weren't for the need to maximize
self-worth we would all be laying about in the grass whenever we weren't
filling our bellies or screwing our mates.  It has everything to do with
why I'm sitting at this keyboard right now.  

> The only relevant external evidence to
> seek would be those things that symbolize our growth as moral beings
> in conformity with the Ideas of pure reason and the CI.
> 

My own view is that it results when we construe ourselves as epistemically
rational (not stupid), strategically rational (capable of effecting our
will) and valuatively rational (not totally caught up in our own little
wants and needs).  I think it is a much more multifaceted dynamic than
your characterization would lead us to believe.

> > To counter this,
> > nature has instilled in us a lust for self-significating experience
> > (e.g., needs for love, purpose, meaning, moral integrity, power, wealth
> > etc.) to try to constrain our valuative objectivity as much as possible
> > due to the fact that organisms that think they're the hottest thing on
> > the planet are far more likely to survive and reproduce.
> 
> Kant would say then, that giving man a rational faculty is the worst
> thing nature could have done, if seeking self-significating experience
> is his instinctive goal. All nature would have to do is give an animal
> a constant sex drive rather than a seasonal one. This requires no
> self-worth whatsoever, and really, no consciousness of self either.
> 

Unless, of course, the benefits of the increase in understanding (the ability
to survive) outweigh the detriments of the reduced resolve to do so (an
increase in the valuing of others and a decrease in the valuing of one's
self).  This is at the core of the paper I suggested might be of interest
to folks in these hier hills: 

  'Why We Turned Out Like Captain Kirk Instead of Mr. Spock:
   The Mechanics of Genetic Indeterminism'
   http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/dada/90/
   (a little more crass self-promotion   :-)   )



pr