Is the mind subject to anything? I think not, and even feelings are not capable of forcing a reasonable and strong person to do anything. I think that a person who is not deprived of reason a priori cannot have any duty to feelings, because the sense of duty itself is imposed to a greater extent by society, and reasonable person, it seems to me, does not depend on society. So, talking about “debt” in this situation is not entirely appropriate. However, if we do not start from the word “duty” itself, we can try to delve deeper into the question of whether feelings are necessary for someone who has reason, and whether feelings and reason can simultaneously exist in the life of one person?
Hume's position in ethics, based on his empirical theory of reason, is best known for asserting four theses: Reason alone cannot be the motive of the will, but rather "the slave of the passions." Moral differences are not based on reason. Moral differences stem from moral sentiments: the feelings of approval and disapproval felt by viewers who view a character trait or action. Although some virtues and vices are natural, others, including justice, are artificial. what Hume intends to accomplish with each of these theses and how he argues for them.
Feelings are both joy and sorrow, euphoria and depression, disappointment and admiration - and together all this constitutes a person’s happiness, if happiness can, in principle, be somehow interpreted. Should a reasonable person be happy, or does happiness become a vestige when reason appears? It seems to me that he should, because only a person deprived of reason can deprive himself of already rare joys and turn life into a routine and an empty existence. However, there are many examples where a person, having reached a certain level of mental development, simply stopped seeing the meaning in feelings, was afraid of them, or simply did not have the opportunity to enjoy them. This is the power of the mind and the paradox of our existence: a person can force himself not to feel feelings, fearing negative consequences, or he can completely lose the ability to feel, the ability to enjoy life and experience satisfaction from it, without wanting it.
He formulates and defends them in the broader context of his metaethics and his ethics of virtue and vice. Hume's major ethical works are Book 3 of his Treatise of Human Nature, Morals, his Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, and some of his essays. In part, the moral inquiry simply restates the central ideas from the moral section of the Treatise in a more accessible style, but there are important differences. The ethical positions and arguments of the Treatise are outlined below, noting where moral inquiry agrees, after which the differences between the Question and the Treatise are discussed.
This is what happened with the hero of Jack London's novel Martin Eden. Martin started his mental activity thanks to his feelings: his love for the well-mannered and educated Ruth pushed him to persistent mental development: in a year he completely changed his worldview and turned from a sailor, a representative of the working class, into an educated writer, whose works became bestsellers and gained worldwide popularity. However, simultaneously with the development of thinking, feelings of admiration for the “higher” class, for the bourgeoisie, began to disappear, and feelings for Ruth began to gradually fade away; she no longer seemed inaccessible celestial body, and her mental abilities and outlook began to have a completely different color. In other words, Martin became disillusioned and disillusioned with everything. Having achieved money and fame, having achieved a high level of mental and creative development, the hero no longer experienced the same feelings and emotions and even ceased to feel a zeal for life - it seemed to him that he understood and experienced everything, and, therefore, his life in the future would lose all meaning , and, realizing his own helplessness in this situation, found a way out only in suicide.
Questions from Hume's predecessors
Hume inherits several debates about ethics and political philosophy from his predecessors. One is the question of moral epistemology: how do people realize or acquire knowledge or beliefs about moral good and evil, right and wrong, duty and obligation? The ethical theorists and theologians of the day, in various ways, discovered that moral good and evil were revealed: by reason in some of its applications, by divine revelation, by conscience or reflection on one's impulses, or by the moral sense: by emotional responsiveness manifesting itself in approval or disapproval.
However, the true fool is the one who misses the opportunity to feel, voluntarily dooming himself to loneliness and unhappiness. Main character novel by A.S. Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” had the so-called “blues” - a lack of zeal for life, for communication, for feelings, for emotions, but he had the opportunity to add more colors to his existence. If the hero had reciprocated Tatyana’s feelings, if he had decided to accept her feelings and enjoy them, perhaps his life would have had at least some meaning, and perhaps he would not have made those fatal mistakes from which he later escaped . Should Evgeny have taken advantage of Tatyana’s confession, accepted her love and, who knows, perhaps given her reciprocal feelings over time? I think he should have, however, he realized it too late, which became the tragedy of his whole life.
Hume fights against the moral sense theorists: we gain awareness of moral good and evil by experiencing the pleasure of approval and the anxiety of disapproval when we consider a character trait or action from an imagined sensitive and impartial point. Hume argues against the rationalists that although a reason is necessary in order for to discover the facts of any particular situation and the general social impact of a character trait or practice over time, reason alone is not sufficient to judge that something is virtuous or vicious.
Thus, we can conclude that a reasonable person should live by feelings if he has such an opportunity, because feelings are what constitute a person’s happiness, but is there any point in being consciously unhappy? However, the paradox is that along with reason often comes “apathy,” rejection of the need for feelings, atrophy of emotions, and this is the tragedy of some thinking people.
Thus, a related but more metaphysical controversy will be stated today: what is the source or basis of moral norms? In Hume's era we are talking about what is the basis of moral obligation. Moral rationalists of the period, such as Clarke, argue that moral norms or principles are demands of reason, that is, that the very rationality of right actions is the basis of our duty to perform them. Divine voluntarists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Samuel Pufendorf, argue that a moral obligation or requirement, if not every moral standard, is a product of God's will.
What it means to love and what feelings we have for a loved one are questions that interest everyone. The answers are striking in their diversity. One thing is clear, the feelings experienced for a loved one can be completely different, from the most pleasant and tender to the most terrible and destructive.
The desire to care, protect and give all of oneself is not love as such or feelings, it is rather a consequence of love.
Moral sentiment theorists and Butler see all requirements to pursue good and avoid evil as a consequence of human nature, which is so structured that special feature our consciousness evaluates the rest. Hume wrestles with moral sense theorists on this point: it is because we are the creatures that we are, with the dispositions we have for pain and pleasure, the varieties of familial and friendship interdependence that constitute our lives together, and our approvals and deviations from them, that we are bound by moral requirements in general.
Let's figure out what feelings you may have for your loved one.
Yearning. It's very complicated state of mind. Melancholy - when you spend the day flying by, you think about him and cannot fall asleep until he wishes you pleasant dreams. Melancholy is when you quarreled, and you want to howl because of it. That he is terribly missed.
While experiencing a feeling of melancholy, you may also feel indifference to the world around you, loneliness, grief and sadness,
Closely related to the question of the basis of moral norms is the question of whether moral requirements are natural or conditional. Hobbes and Mandeville regard them as ordinary, and Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Locke and others regard them as natural. Thus he occupies an intermediate position: some virtues are natural, and some are products of convention. Related to these meta-ethical tensions is the dilemma of understanding ethical life either as "ancient", in terms of virtues and vices of character, or as "modern", primarily in terms of principles of duty or natural law. Although even such law-oriented thought a thinker like Hobbes may talk a lot about virtue, ethical writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries prefer a correct or lawful understanding of morality, giving priority to the laws of nature or the principles of duty.
Joy. A very wonderful feeling that you can have for your loved one.
You rejoice at every little thing that happens in your destiny. In the morning you woke up and the first thing you saw was how sweetly he smiled in his sleep. Isn't this a reason for joy?
Anxiety. When you care what happens to him. You worry about his health and mental state. After all, you love him and wish him only the best.
The main exception here is the school of moral sentiments, which advocates analyzing moral life, like the Greek and Hellenistic thinkers, in terms of established character traits - although they too find a place for principles in their ethics. Hume clearly advocates an ethics of character along “ancient” lines. Nevertheless, he insists on the role of duty rules in the area of what he calls artificial virtues.
Hume's predecessors famously took opposing positions on whether human nature was essentially selfish or benevolent, some arguing that man was so dominated by selfish motives that for moral claims to govern us at all they must somehow serve our interests, and others arguing that intact people naturally care about the strength and grief of others, and this is where morality goes. Hume sharply criticizes Hobbes for his insistence on psychological egoism, or something close to it, and for his dark, violent picture of the state of nature.
Trust. The foundation of a strong and reliable relationship for every couple. Trust is a very fragile feeling that can be lost in one second. And sometimes it can be very difficult to earn it. But, loving hearts able to cope with any difficulty.
Jealousy is the reason for the breakup of loving couples. But this feeling is inherent in every person in different quantities. It is necessary to fight it when emotions and feelings of jealousy literally prevent you from living to the fullest. And a very small drop of jealousy can only make a relationship more piquant.
Nevertheless, Hume resists Hutcheson's view that all moral principles can be reduced to our benevolence, partly because he doubts that benevolence can sufficiently overcome our perfectly normal habit. According to Hume's observation, we are both selfish and humane. We have greed, as well as "restricted generosity" - dispositions of kindness and generosity that are more powerfully directed towards relatives and friends and less aroused by strangers.
Although for Hume the state of humanity in the absence of organized society is not a war of all against all, nor is it the lawful and highly cooperative realm that Locke imagines. This is a hypothetical condition in which we would care for and cooperate with our friends, but in cases where self-interest and preferences of friends over strangers make greater cooperation impossible. Hume's empirical thesis that we are fundamentally loving, parochial as well as selfish beings lies at the heart of his political philosophy.
In fact, the list of feelings experienced for a loved one is huge. It will be very difficult to list it in one article. Moreover, each person has his own special ability to feel. Each of us has our own limit of feelings and emotions.
When you love, you can simultaneously feel: love and hatred, joy and anger, euphoria and melancholy, sadness and disappointment, gratitude, lightness, trust, or vice versa, Jealousy and fear of losing a loved one, peace or suspicion.
He objects to the doctrine that a subject must passively obey his government no matter how tyrannical he is, and to the Lockean doctrine that citizens have a natural right to revolution when their rulers violate their treaty obligations to the people. He famously criticizes the view that all political obligations arise from an implicit contract that binds subsequent generations who were not party to the original explicit agreement. Hume argues that the duty to obey one government has an independent origin, which is the same as the duty of obligation: both were invented so that people could live successfully together.
As you can see, the list is varied, although not all feelings are represented. Many people can live their entire lives and, for example, never experience feelings of jealousy or disappointment in a loved one.
It can be argued that there are feelings experienced for a loved one about which we still know nothing, since no one has had to experience it.
In his opinion, people could create a society without government, ordered by the usual rules of ownership, transfer of property by agreement and promise. We impose government on such a pre-civil society when it becomes large and prosperous, and only then do we need to use political power to enforce these rules of justice in order to preserve social cooperation, so the duty of allegiance to government, independent of the duty to keep promises, provides the necessary confidence that promises of various kinds will be kept.
It is also very difficult to describe feelings. Using a sea of words to express this or that feeling is stupid. The best way to communicate your feelings is to simply name it at the exact moment you feel it.
With age, it becomes more and more difficult for a person to describe his feelings. Whereas small children are simply professionals at this, they do not use loud phrases, but simply sincerely talk about their feelings.
In a long-established civil society, any ruler or type of government ends up in place and successfully maintains order and justice, is legitimate, and is a liability. However, there are some legitimate appeals to victims of tyranny: the people can rightfully overthrow any government that is so zealous as not to provide the goods for which governments are formed. In his political essays, Hume certainly defends a constitution that protects the liberties of the people, but the justification he offers is not individual natural rights or contractual obligations, but the greater good society.
Feelings - they contain limitless energy. When experiencing a feeling of love, a person is capable of the most incredible things. A fragile woman, experiencing a feeling of jealousy, is capable of immobilizing a huge man with one blow.
We can safely say that feelings are not subject to reason. They are so strong that a person loses the ability to think and reflect. He is completely at the mercy of his feelings. A person capable of feeling is also capable of changing under the influence of feelings and emotions.
According to Hume's theory of mind, passions are impressions, not ideas. Direct passions, which include desire, aversion, hope, fear, grief and joy, are those that "arise immediately from good or evil, from pain or pleasure" that we experience or think in perspective, however it also groups with them certain instincts of unknown origin, such as bodily appetites and desires, that good comes to those we love and harm those we hate, from pain and pleasure, but produce them.
Indirect passions, especially pride, humility, love and hatred, are generated in a more complex way, but are still associated with the thought or experience of pain or pleasure. Intentional actions are driven by direct passion. Of the indirect passions, Hume says that pride, humility, love and hatred do not cause direct action; it is not clear whether he considers this to be true in all indirect passions.