[lit-ideas] Re: How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?

I agree with Skipper Mike G here.  No psychological question (considering
psychology to be an empirical science) is a philosophical question. 

But I would submit that all moral questions are philosophical questions, though
not all philosophical questions are moral questions. 

Walter O
MUN



Quoting Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> JL:
> >>... how can we be saddened by and cry over Mercutio's death knowing as we
> do that when he dies no one really dies?"<<
> 
> 
> Again, this is a question for psychology, not philosophy.  Why do people cry
> over abandoned puppies and ignore orphaned children?  That too is a
> psychological question.  Should one come to the aid of an orphaned child? 
> That's a moral question.  Should one come to the aid of abandoned puppies? 
> That too is a moral question.  Do humans take precedence over animals?  That
> too is a moral question.  But why we behave as we do (emotional response is a
> behavior, after all) is a psychological question -- and psychological
> questions can be very interesting indeed, but should not be confused with
> moral questions.  
> 
> 
> >>"I'd reply. Some people cry over Mercutio's death because they have nothing
> better or more fruitful or more moral or more virtuous in their lives to do.
> <<
> 
> Perhaps you're right.  I tend to believe that we become emotionally engaged
> in pretense as a psychological mechanism to relieve tensions brought on by
> our awareness that chance rules our lives and will destroy us by and by.  We
> grieve for ourselves, not Mercutio.  Hopkins said it best:
> 
> "Spring and Fall" 
> 
> To a young child 
>  
> Margaret, are you grieving 
> Over Goldengrove unleaving?  
> Leaves, like the things of man, you  
> With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?  
> Ah! as the heart grows older  
> It will come to such sights colder  
> By and by, nor spare a sigh  
> Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;  
> And yet you will weep know why.  
> Now no matter, child, the name:  
> Sorrow's springs are the same.  
> Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed  
> What heart heard of, ghost guessed:  
> It is the blight man was born for,  
> It is Margaret you mourn for.
> 
>             -- Gerard Manley Hopkins
> 
> Mike Geary
> Memphis
> 



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