Rationality contra emotions...

picture taken on a walk November 11, 2006.

I want to translate the comments I got to this posting (very quickly done):

“The Norwegian professor in theology Svein Aage Christoffersen writes about animal-ethics in the article ‘Do we have a common basis of valuation for animals and is this shown in how animals are held today?’:

‘Empathy, the ability to enter into, and take into oneself, what other people are exposed to is an important side in what it is to be a human being. That’s true that many are on guard when it comes to feelings in relation to animals. Our treatment of animals shall be based on facts, not emotions. That is a fear I can’t understand. When it comes to relations human beings between we know that some in fact are lacking empathy, without ability to bond/attach to other human beings with emotional ties/bonds. These people are often called a little drastically for psychopaths.

I can’t understand why psychopaths shall be models for treatment of animals.

This of course doesn’t mean that we can manage only with emotions but without facts. Of course it isn’t like that human beings between either, even if we are tied up with emotional ties. But it means that we can’t manage with facts alone. If we are acting only from facts without feelings, then we are practically without ability to differ between evilness and goodness.’

In the book about ethics ‘Action and ability to judge’ he says that the emotions have a hermeneutic meaning. They make it possible for us in understanding what is going on around us. Through our feelings we are engaged and involved in the world we live in [we react on it, we can enjoy it, really be alive]. Our feelings/emotions give us access to the world and community/fellowship with other people. Without feelings/emotions we will be without/lack ability to apprehend/understand and perceive what a life together with other people brings with it and how other perceive and experience the situation we share with them [the one without this ability is emotionally disabled!!?? Maybe emotionally disabled to different degrees, more or less?].

A person aware of what responsibility is is a person with responsibility-FEELING!”

According to the commentator Zigmunt Bauman means in his book “Auschwitz and the modern society” (or is the title in English “Modernity and The Holocaust”? See also here about this book) that

“...the Holocaust was the result of a fundamentalist fixation on reason/common sense. A sort of fundamentalist rationality. Holocaust is according to him a too far driven rationalisation. Bauman means that these rational and bureaucratic methods are used even more than ever. With this he want to say that today’s society still has potential for creating an even more ghastly future annihilation than holocaust. Bauman means that instead of seeing the Holocaust as an abnormal occurrence we should apprehend it a ‘normal’ aspect of the formal rational modern society. This means that the Holocaust is a product of the modernity and not the result of an undermined modernity.

In accordance with the critical theory’s rhetoric this could be interpreted as the culmination/climax of the irrational rationality which is characteristic for the barbaric civilisation, but Bauman pleads for another view.”

In summary:

“...he sees the Holocaust stamped by the instrumental rationality’s first and foremost distinctive mark, i.e. effectiveness, ability to predict, quantification and inhuman technology. Thus the Holocaust wasn’t a result of irrationality or for-modern barbarism, but instead a logical product of the modern rational [no emotions here!] bureaucracy.

Bauman didn’t see the rationality as neutral, as it lacked moral and was driven only by strive for effectiveness. This means that the rationality isn’t only a tool but also a goal. Baumann saw this as something negative and alarming, because such a fundamentalist fixation to reason/commons sense gets fatal results in form of a self-inflicted annihilation of common sense. However this indicates, in contrast to Baumann’s comprehension, that Holocaust as a symbol for the instrumental rationality is characterized by an irrational rationality and dehumanisation.”

Addition: Made the translation above from I got the comments and till I should see a series on TV, which means I did it in a little more than one hour, so it was really a swift translation with all what that means!!

Konrad Stettbacher talked about feelings as "Watchers of Life" ("livets väktare" in Swedish) in his book, and that we ought to protect them in children [and in ourselves and probably develop them in ourselves!!??]

But as the commentator also wrote:

“In addition to feelings we also need common sense (virtues, principles, knowledge) to be able to ponder upon ethical choices /…/ We can’t say something is right or wrong (just) because ‘we feel it is like that’."

Thanks for the comments!!! I needed this right now! It is in communication things happens?? When we awake thoughts, emotions, reflections, reactions in each other?? And try to communicate this??