[lit-ideas] Re: How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Mike Geary <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:53:33 -0330
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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