: Especially recommended is the 'Lecture on "Having" A Poem.'(I'll look for it. Hope it's not too reductive)
(snip)
:This is to say that sometimes the responding individual is best :qualified to interpret feelings. However, what we call feelings---how :we express feelings---have been taught; they have been socially :determined.
How we express a feeling is sometinmes taught. Crying, for example, does not need to be taught, nor is it socially determined. In fact, the repression of such a feeling (as well as others) is more likely to be socially determined
(snip)
:'Outward manifestations' can originate within. Does this include :emotions? A stomach ache could cause a 'bad mood,' a long bout of :stomach problems could cause 'depression.' That is still not to say :that a bad mood creates the bad mood, or that depression causes :depression. Again: feelings are effects of behavior (and behavioral :contact with environments), not causes.
Here is where I have trouble. I believe that feelings are the Cause of much (if not all) behavior. A feeling may be how we experience a particular electro-chemical state. A particular behavior may inhibit or enhance that state. This is not the same thing as saying "a bad mood creates a bad mood" . What I'm suggesting is that feelings are generated by behavior, AND, behavior is generated by feelings.
(snip)
:As I explained above, what is internal may or may not be a function of :behavior (may or may not cause behavior), but the feelings that :accompany behavior are not emitting behavior.
I'm not sure I quite understand...feelings that accompany behavior are manifestations of that behavior.
(Analogy: a photographic image does not create what is photographed, nor is it the photographic process.)
Sure - this seems self-evident as far as photography goes, but as mentioned above, I'm not suggesting that feelings (or emotions) engender feelings.
(final snip)
:Consider Wittgenstein:
Sorry, I have trouble following Wittgenstein. I haven't read him and when I try to interpret a sentence or two it feels like I'm trying to wrench meaning from definitions of meaning while sitting in a dark closet! I'll grant this is my own failing.
Now onto the task.
: The problem as I see it is that by denying the existence of such "internal" functions, we may be attempting to elicit (through reinforcement techniques, laws, etc.) certain "normative" behaviors.
Perhaps I can get to it from another direction. The value we place on certain specific behavior may be either encouraged or discouraged by a culture. A particular behavioral response is not necessarily indicative of a particular feeling. In other words, the same externally manifested behavior in different cultures, does not necessarily indicate similar internal states.
For example, last year there were over a thousand suicides in Japan. According to some investigation (I don't remember the source) upwards of 80% of these had some connection with debt or business failure. The emotional consideration leading to this unhappy occurrence was reported to have been "shame". This is a complex inner state very much dependent on how much importance one places on perceptions (or projections) of the "other". (Another "internal state", difficult to prove but generally accepted, is "denial"). Now there is no question that a good deal of social cohesiveness (conformity) can be achieved by inculcating behavior that, were one to deviate, would produce ridicule, derision, or outrage. The shame that results is an internal emotion in response not to the behavior qua behavior, but to the projected interpretation of what that behavior (perhaps nothing more than an imagined scowl) represents, ie, the feeling of being despised. (In other words, an external state (behavior) is sought by manipulation of an internal state (feelings. For the culture - Behavior and the external are primary. The "internal state", for the Cultural Designer (king or congress) become secondary, important only to the extent they serve the primary purpose of socially accepted behavior.
So what does this have to do with utopian design? Only that smiling faces (or any behavior a particular culture might wish to inculcate or reinforce) is not necessarily an indicator of a particular inner state. This is not to say external conditions aren't important. On the contrary, they are crucial.
:It has been argued that behaviorism is or pretends to be value free, :butthat no value-free science can properly deal with man qua man. What :is wrong in this traditional argument can be seen in the expression :'value judgement.' An inner initiating agent is to judge things as :good or bad. But a much more effective source of values is to be found :in the environmental contingencies. The things people call good are :positive reinforcers, and they reinforce because of the contingencies :of survival under which the species has evolved.(7)
:Darwinistic, but not so dire. The 'contingencies of survival under :which the species has evolved' is exactly what we now control through :verbal and rule-governed behavior. What behavior is chosen to replace, :say, existing behaviors is subject to 'survival value,' obviously, but :this 'value' is in many ways now subject to human determination---and :experiment---due to increased human control over :nature(consider :medicine). Because our survival is always in the future (while our :behavior is selected only by our past*), we can, in all honestly, only :guess---and proceed with caution and flexibility.** This, I believe, :is the promise of behaviorism.
_______________
Quite so, but I feel that "survival value" is a little too general a parameter upon which to base paradigms. There are probably many totalitarian structures that could guarantee ecologically sound survival values. Our main philosophic difference here seems to be one of approach. I pretty much support the values put forth by the Greens (as well as much of what is described at Utopia 2000) while still maintaining socialist ideals. But I seek a grounding in a biological human condition - hence my interest in "fairness genes" and evolutionary psychology. While you might maintain that behavior and externalities are the only thing that we have to go on in assessing "internal" processes, it is, when all is said and done, these "internal" processes which drive the process and are the source of human definition.
bill
