“Activism matters.” That is the conclusion from [a] Sunday reflection on the recent Supreme Court decision McDonald v. Chicago. I find the conclusion unconvincing. It’s like saying action matters. The issue is really, what kind of activism that matters?…

Professor Glenn Reynolds concurs on the estimate of Justice Thomas. Looking toward the future, he concludes: “Gun ownership by law-abiding citizens is the new normal, and the Second Amendment is now normal constitutional law. It will stay so, as long as enough Americans care to keep it that way.

If we are not to take the words of scientists seriously, what is the relevance for their being reported? One answer I can think of is that mysticism is replacing objectivity in the sciences. We are still told to trust the scientists, but we are let in on the “secret” that what they are saying aren’t objective; nevertheless, their words are reported with the wish that readers ought likewise to replace their own old-fashioned standard of objectivity in order to get along in the new age scientific revelations.

moral values: a chosen set of values of a fundamental nature, shaping one’s purposes and life course. ( TRM 146c, OPAR 214b)
moral character: a chosen set of principles of a fundamental nature, shaping one’s actions in life. ( TRM 146c, OPAR 214b)
hero: a man who embodies man’s highest potential, as evaluated by a standard of morality. ( TRM 147a)
ideal: a moral value projected mentally as a [background] purpose. ( TRM 146d, 147b-c, 148dd)
moral ambition: a desire for soul-making, for virtue, for self-esteem. ( TRM 149c)

The major source and demonstration of moral values available to a child is Romantic art (particularly Romantic literature). What Romantic art offers him is not moral rules, not an explicit didactic message, but the image of a moral person—i.e., the concretized abstraction of a moral ideal. It offers a concrete, directly perceivable answer to the very abstract question which a child senses, but cannot yet conceptualize: What kind of person is moral, and what kind of life does he lead?

It is not abstract principles that a child learns from Romantic art, but the precondition and the incentive for the later understanding of such principles: the emotional experience of admiration for man’s highest potential, the experience of looking up to a hero—a view of life motivated and dominated by values, a life in which man’s choices are practicable, effective, and crucially important—that is, a moral sense of life.

… Romantic art teaches him to associate [morality] with pleasure—an inspiring pleasure which is own, profoundly personal discovery.

The translation of [a child’s] sense of life into adult, conceptual terms would, if unimpeded, follow the growth of the child’s knowledge—and the two basic elements of his soul, the cognitive and normative, would develop together in serenely harmonious integration. The idea which, at the age of seven, was personified by a cowboy, may become a detective at twelve, and a philosopher at twenty—as the child’s interests progress from comic strips to mystery stories to the great sunlit universe of Romantic literature, art, and music.

But whatever his age, morality is a normative science—i.e., a science that projects a value-goal to be achieved by a series of steps, of choice—and it cannot be practiced without a clear vision of the goal, without a concretized image of the ideal to be reached. If man is to gain and keep a moral stature, he needs an image of the ideal, from the first thinking day of his life to the last.

In the translation of that ideal into conscious, philosophical terms and into his actual practice, a child needs intellectual assistance or, at least, a chance to find his own way. … [TRM 146d-147d]

…

Thus the [adults’] foremost moral obligation toward a child, at this stage of his development, is to help him understand that what he loves is an abstraction [embodied in a concrete, particular literary hero], to help him break through into the conceptual realm … [to develop] his conceptual capacity … [to build] his normative abstractions … [and to stoke] his moral ambition, i.e., his desire for virtue, i.e., his self-esteem. … [TRM 149b]

The importance of this passage toward understanding Phase 2 is that having a concretized image of one’s moral ideal is crucially important for Phase 3 to become practicable. Phase 3 presumes that one has already chosen one’s moral ideal and that the having of its concretized image constitutes the evidence of its existence as one’s purpose.

[…] A technical achievement of Ayn Rand in epistemology is her rejection of this meaning of “meaning” (among others) in her solving the age-old “problem of universals.” […]
 

1.

Sorry for the delayed reply.

> the concept “emotion” categorizes states of consciousness
> whose range covers only human, conscious experiences

Well that is one way to define “emotion”, but it is a rather narrow, poorly-known definition. I can similarly define “vision” as “the ability of humans to perceive their surroundings with their eyes”. However, only I will be aware of this definition and most people will disagree with me on the meaning of “vision” because for some reason, I’ve chosen to exclude animals.

That’s why I prefer the dictionary as a standard for definitions because it reports the most popular usage, which, for clarity’s sake, we should adhere to.

emotion: (noun) 1. an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.

I think it is a fact that mammals can feel the emotions of fear and joy, although you are welcome to disagree. Perhaps this is something to discuss [some other time].

I actually don’t mind using the dictionary to search for how words are used in social discourse. But when I need to understand something really well, I have to define the word myself, based on what I know. And when I need to communicate that understanding, I bring to that context my technical definition.

So, I intend exactly whenever I state that “‘XYZ’ categorizes so-and-so in reality.” This is what “meaning” means. “Meaning” in this context is a one-to-many relationship whose relata are, at one end, the mental integration (in the form of a word), and, at the other end, the existents in reality. It is a relationship between a concept and its referents; it is an epistemological relation between consciousness and reality. “Meaning” in this context is objective.

If I really understand the concept “car,” then my mental integration, referenced either as “voiture” or “xe” or “car” or “Auto” or “αυτοκίνητο” or “차” in my mind, designates the innumerable and varied cars seen everywhere on streets and highways. Cars exist. Similarly, I understand “emotion” to mean a category of those reactive states of consciousness whose range covers only human, conscious experiences. Emotions exist. As cars can be seen, so emotions can be introspected.

I don’t deny that people can categorize existence differently. And as long as we know how they categorize, by means of how they define their terms in certain contexts, there should be no problem in communication. The issue then reduces to how practical or useful are the various classification schemes in furthering cognition and normative guidance. The following analogy is apt: You can carve a turkey any which way you want, but if you want to make more complex dishes from the carvings, it is more efficient to carve at the joints. The principle of fundamentality guides us to carve reality “at the joints” if we want to make further inferences and integrations with our concepts.

2.

> If anyone wishes to show that animals have emotions,
> let him prove it.

Again, emotions are unprovable. You cannot prove that any person is feeling an emotion at any given time. They could be faking it. You cannot even prove to someone else that *you* are feeling an emotion, or that you are even capable of feeling emotion. If you are aware of some kind of device that can reliably detect emotions, I am curious to learn about it.

Also, you can say “if anyone wishes to show that animals can feel hunger or pain, let him prove it.” After all, there is no direct evidence of animals feeling hunger or pain. We can only observe their behavior and infer that they must be feeling something similar to what we feel when we talk about hunger and pain. Will you say that I am anthropomorphizing when I suggest that animals can feel pain?

Just as with emotions, you can choose to define pain as “highly unpleasant sensations felt by humans”.

If your definition specifically excludes animals, then it is impossible to prove you wrong because you are correct *by definition*. That is why I immediately questioned your definition of “emotion”. I think it is exclusive of animals without good reason.

> Where did you find the quotation ascribing to Ayn Rand
> that “emotions are unprovable”?

The bottom half of page 186:

[Google Books Search]

[…]

What Ayn Rand is saying in the interview (p. 186) about emotions being “unprovable” is not the same as what you are saying. From the context, Rand intends to say that emotions as conscious experiences of reality are not evidence for any rational argument. They do not constitute any logical proof. Accordingly, an intellectual needs to understand that man should be guided by rational judgments, not emotions. Why? Because, in the same context, Rand points out that emotions are byproducts of conceptual reasoning.

And so when I say that, if anyone wanting to claim that animals have emotions, that he should prove it; I intend to say that he is free to show that such animals have the conceptual power to byproduce emotions.

3.

> When a package-deal is used, however, the effect is
> the loss of an objective meaning. [See the remark’s
> context here, at Section 3.]

The term “objective meaning” seems irrational. What something means is entirely up to what people think it means. Nothing has objective meaning because all meanings are agreed-upon. The fact that we do not agree on the meaning of “emotion” is evidence of this. Meanings of words, terms, expressions, labels, definitions, etc. exist only in people’s minds, thus meanings are subjective. (They do not exist outside of a mind that understands and accepts those meanings.) Unless, of course, you mean something different by “meaning”.

A confusion I see in your note [Section 2] is the distinction between emotion and perception. Other mammals perceive much the way we humans perceive, being mammals ourselves. They have eyes; so do we. Thus, vision applies to all animals with eyes. Mammals, birds, presumably other phyla of animals also perceive pain and hunger and thirst. These interoceptions are not emotions.

Significantly, I read from your reply that you adopted a nominalist conception of meaning, specifically a social-subjectivist conception. “Meaning” for you is a relationship between a word and its agreed-upon definition.

A technical achievement of Ayn Rand in epistemology is her rejection of this meaning of “meaning” (among others) in her solving the age-old “problem of universals.” My summary of it is given above [Section 1]; for more details, see ITOE pp. 40, 78, 90, 94, 103, 178. Another summary of ITOE’s meanings of “meaning” is also recorded here.

> Emotions are humanistic. What brutes experience may
> be said to be similar to a primitive form of emotion,
> but it is not emotion.

I would like evidence of that.

> Emotions are products of ideas; without them, we don’t
> emote.

I think dogs have emotions, as well as chimps. Yet you claim what they feel aren’t really emotions because emotions require an “intellectual estimate”. Again, I would like evidence of the claim that for an emotion to be felt, one has to first intellectually estimate something.

> Watch enough ~America’s Funniest Videos~, and you
> will see that toddlers begin with no fear of anything:
> they will put crickets in their mouths; they will swing
> snakes like ropes; they will crawl into the path of black
> cats.

That is not evidence that emotions require an intellect. That is evidence that toddlers are emotionally underdeveloped. Emotional development and intellectual development are not necessarily correlated. They can follow independent paths.

> Let’s suppose embarrassment is the emotion from
> seeing ineptitude in oneself in a public setting.
> I would feel embarrassed if, thinking myself to be
> refined in sartorial elegance, I showed up on a date
> with mismatched socks.

Yes, the above emotion is indeed triggered by higher-level thought processes. But that does not mean that such emotions can *only* be triggered by higher-level thought processes. Proof: If a man points a loaded gun at you, your intellect will cause you to feel fear, whereas a child or a chimp will not feel fear in the same situation. The intellect is required to evoke fear in that particular case, but that doesn’t mean that it is required to feel fear in all cases.

We engage our reasoning mind before we feel embarrassment. But how do we know that there is no other way to feel embarrassment?

Can you prove that a given animal is not feeling an emotion? Even Ayn Rand said “Emotions are unprovable”.

All I have said is that the concept “emotion” categorizes states of consciousness whose range covers only human, conscious experiences of the reactive sort to objects. The evidence of its cause is introspectively available to anyone who chooses to analyze it. Do animals have reactive conscious experiences to objects? Of course they do, but I would not anthropomorphize this as emotion. It is not I who is overgeneralizing on the nature of emotion or its cause here. If anyone wishes to show that animals have emotions, let him prove it.

Where did you find the quotation ascribing to Ayn Rand that “emotions are unprovable”? I have never read nor heard anything of the sort. Please send me a citation. As far as I know, Rand stated that no emotion is causeless (TRM 16-17), that the fault of the decline of men in a culture is their being taught otherwise (Ibid. 16), that emotions are not tools of cognition (FTNI 55), and that the short-cut acceptance of truth on the basis of emotion is faith (Ibid. 128).