Virtue Friday: Sense or sensibility

Sense meaning, having sense or being a matter for rational consideration. Sensibility meaning a feeling or what we now mean by "sense", which confusingly, is not what it used to mean.

The old sense of "sense" still lingers alongside the current sense: When we say something makes sense, we mean it's logical and not irrational. But when we say "I have a sense that" we mean something personal that cannot be explained, "something that can only be felt".

So which of these is the material of conscience?

In describing conscience in the sense that both believers and non-believers share, Hogan writes:

Although it often vague and indefinable, it [conscience] is rightly regarded with reverence. Indeed, the language of conscience unites people of all faiths and none. This is because in modern Western society at any rate, conscience refers to deeply held moral convictions of the person. It puts us in touch with that dimension of ourselves which seeks to do the good. Conscience refers to an inner sense of what is right or wrong in the person's intentions and activity.

I think that is contradictory and ill-defined. Here are two sentences from that quote:

1. .... conscience refers to deeply held moral convictions of the person. 
2. Conscience refers to an inner sense of what is right or wrong in the person's intentions and activity. 

So which one is it?

A conviction is a firmly held belief. A sense is either a feeling or it is something like eyesight only a sort of "inner eyesight".

Going at these one at a time, the crucial difference is the implicit claim that feelings and senses can't be wrong. We can be mistaken about what we sense but that has a different moral aspect to it than having a belief that is wrong. A belief is something I am responsible for.

A sense comes to me and I don't know how. Describe the smell of coffee or nausea. It can't be done without circularly referring back to the thing we are trying to describe. The coffee smell is the smell that is like the smell of coffee. What is nausea? It's the feeling you get before you throw up. Okay but describe it? You can't, nausea is the feeling you get when you are feeling nauseous.

Beliefs and an "inner sense" are two different things and it's hard to see how conscience can be like both of them. This confusion runs through Hogan's book from the beginning to the end.

Convictions


"Conviction", meaning a firmly held belief is a good word not used often enough. (Although Hogan's "deeply held moral convictions" is either a redundancy or a  sign that she doesn't know what the word means.) In any case, I like word because it goes to virtue.

A belief has to be maintained. It is not a matter of belief that this post exists. Anyone looking at it will not puzzle about whether or not it is an illusion. But if I erased it tomorrow or it disappeared because of some glitch in the software, we might wonder if it had existed. Logging on, we might say, "Maybe I just imagined it."

As time goes went on, to believe that this now non-existent post had once existed will take an effort. It's not just a matter of telling myself to believe it I have to continually remind myself of it otherwise I'll just forget about it. Try it with something trivial. Say to yourself, "I'll never forget the license plate on that bus." It's not just that you'll forget the number you'll forget that you didn't want to forget it.

I don't have convictions about things that don't matter to me. When I say I have a conviction part of the implication is that this is a belief I have built my life around.

Can feelings be a matter of virtue?

Yes they can and here there is fascinating overlap with Sense and Sensibility. Marianne's (somewhat justified) feeling of moral superiority stems from her developed sensibilities as compared to the less developed sensibilities of some some others.

If a belief has to be maintained, feelings have to be developed.

Think of musical notes. To an untrained ear, two notes are just different notes. Some people are not even be able to say for certain which is higher; they can only say that two notes are different.

If I take the time to train my ear, I will develop that ability. I may even get to the point where I can specify the interval between two notes and say, "That's a major third," or "That's a diminished fifth." And that is true of all our senses. I can teach myself to distinguish different wines, to recognize faces by touch. In theory anyway. We also recognize that there is a limit to my potential and that some people will just be more sensitive than others.

But, whatever my sensibility, I could develop it if I chose.

We can even do this with sensibilities that are not physical senses but that we understand in ways that are analogous to physical senses.  I can understand poetry but I also can learn to feel poetry. That is to learn to see a beauty in poetry that is not a matter of my agreeing or disagreeing with the literal meaning of the words but rather with my sense of how they mean. Again, I think of Marianne Dashwood.

So we have two models for conscience. One is driven by convictions and another is based on feelings. Which is right? I don't know yet. It's one of the things I hope to figure out as I go along.


I thought I believed

It's interesting that we have an expression like "I thought I believed." It gets five million hits on Google.

"I used to think I believed," gets 27 million hits.

Neither expression means the same thing as "I used to believe". We don't use it the same way. There is a sense of failure. It can work two ways. 1. I am disappointed that I once thought that way. 2. Or it can be a confession, as in  I tried to be believer but I failed.

I thought I felt?

Well, sort of. Why did you jump? Because I thought I felt something crawling up my back. We felt something but identified the cause incorrectly.

But we never say I thought it was a very moving speech while I was listening to it but later decided I wasn't moved. No, we don't say that. We might say, the first time I heard his speech I was moved but now when I listen to the recording I wonder why.

The virtue of feeling is a matter of being responsive to something. The virtue of belief is almost opposite to that. It is the ability to remain constant. Margaret continued to believe in her marriage even though she was excited by Stephen's flirting.


So is conscience a matter of sensibility or sense? I still don't know.

Back to conscience

Now what happens to conscience with moral laws? This was supposed to be a conversation about conscience and all I have been talking about is laws and authorities. Where does conscience fit into this?

Beats me. In fact, it seems like conscience has no part in the discussion, so far anyway.

And I guess that is the first huge mistake it seems to me that Linda Hogan makes. Most of the time conscience isn't necessary. Most of the time we simply make moral judgments or don't even have to think about moral issues to do what is right.

The second big thing is that she seems to think that conscience is primarily about deciding what is or is not wrong as opposed to actually behaving in the correct way.

Suppose B is standing on the bus and notices that a woman standing near him is standing close to a pole and occasionally drifts into it such that her breast touches the pole. So B thinks, "I could casually reach over and hold the pole as if I was steadying myself so that when she next moves closer to it her breast will touch my hand."

Now does B have any doubt whether what he is doing is right? Maybe. It could be that B knows it would be wrong but decides to do it anyway because he doesn't think he will get caught. It is also possible that B thinks it is only wrong if he gets caught.

B1 is the guy most likely to be affected by an appeal from his conscience. His inner voice might say, "What am I doing?"

Conscience will have little purchase in the second case. B2 might be susceptible to worrying about shame if the woman were to loudly say, "Get your hands off me." But he isn't susceptible to any inner voice telling him what he is doing is wrong. He might think, "This sort of thing is inevitable on a crowded bus, so I am not harming anyone by helping the situation along a little."

B2 might change his mind after the fact if the woman is visibly upset at having her privacy invaded (perhaps she is just a teenager or is emotionally vulnerable for some reason at the time). In that case, we can imagine B2 saying to himself, "I thought it wouldn't do any harm." In that case, we might say that B2 operates on a more complex moral principle. Rather than believing it is wrong to invade a woman's privacy, he believes it is only wrong if someone gets hurt. Before the incident, he didn't think it would cause her any emotional distress. Upon seeing that his assumption was incorrect, he is filled with guilt. (It may be that the woman's reaction is such that only he and she know she is upset.)

But what seems clear to me is that conscience can't work without moral laws. It is only because we have come to accept certain moral laws as binding, as having authority over us, that our conscience can work. In both these cases, the feeling of guilt when B1 or B2's conscience speaks to him is possible because he holds a moral law as binding on him. It's not so much that conscience tells him how to interpret the moral law; it's that conscience reminds him that the moral law applies.

Conscience and (Catholic) authority

Here is the quote (it's from the Introduction and is on page 2):

The Catholic approach to conscience is deeply ambiguous. On the one hand conscience is regarded as the most fundamental and directly personal way the individual apprehends moral goodness and truth. The church's constant but little publicized teaching is that conscience must always be obeyed. However, there is also an expectation that the judgments of conscience will be in agreement with church teaching. As a result there is an immediate and inevitable tension between conscience and other moral authorities in Catholicism.

Now, Hogan's axe grinding is already self-evident. Even someone who reads no more than this will have no trouble seeing that she means to conclude that individual Catholics should be free to ignore church teachings. It won't come as a terrible surprise that the particular teachings she wants them to be able to ignore are teachings about sexuality.

And, yes, my eyes glaze over too. Not to mention that Catholics seem to have little trouble ignoring church teachings on sexuality so it is hard to figure out why they need Hogan's help to do things they are already doing.

Any non-Catholic who comes by here might also wonder why they should even care? No reason actually. That said, I do think I can make an interesting point of this even if Hogan can't.