On Fri, 5 Jan 1996, John Woods wrote:
> With regard to the idea just below, I want to put a slightly different
> twist on it (see further below):
>
> >> punching my friend + grieving = learning not to punch him
> >
> > This event fits the "Affective Learning Cycle" nicely. An
> >*event* is followed by *feelings* related to the event, followed by a
> >"what happened" question that helps one marry the feelings with the
> >event, followed by *learnings* about the event, followed by
> >*applications* of those learnings in similar events. The cycle repeats.
> >
> > Event. Feelings. What Happened? Learnings. Applications.
> >
> > In this case:
> > Event: I punched my friend.
> > Feelings: grieving, loss, fear, regret
> > What Happened: I felt bad feelings when I punched my friend.
> > Learnings: When I punch my friend I feel badly.
> > Applications: I will not punch my friend.
>
> [...snip...] ...if we are aware of the pain we are causing
> another, we cannot avoid feeling bad about that. We will identify with
> that pain in some way ourselves. I would say that, from a holistic
> perspective, this is our bodies letting us know that to hurt another is to
> hurt ourselves. In other words, it is part of our biological endowment to
> feel bad when we do damage to our world....] It is also part of our
>
> [...One might argue that many people hurt others and don't feel bad. That
> happens because they have dehumanized that other person or they have some
> distorted set of values that say this is what they have to do to survive.
> But at some level I don't think normal people can avoid feeling bad about
> such acts. And I would say again that this is a manifestation of our
> nature--that we are indeed one with each other, whether we are conscious
> of this or not. There is a wisdom in our bodies that we may become
> conscious of and learn from. It's pretty amazing.
>
> John Woods
> jwoods@execpc.com
Is "feeling bad" after hurting someone the same as guilt? (1) If so, is
guilt a construction? (2) If not, is "feeling bad" about hurting
someone really biological?
(1) Some years ago I read the personal philosophy of the late philosopher
Walter Kaufmann (the Nietzsche scholar). As I recall, he did not accept
guilt. (The following is probably not part of his case against guilt;
can't quite remember.) Why have guilt? It can restrict our ability to
make thoughtful decisions and take the resulting actions. Can we not
recognize that the harm we inflict on someone else might not be in our own
interest and therefore not be repeated? Or, cannot we be influenced not to
harm others by adhering to an ethical or religious regime?
(2) Regarding whether bad feelings (guilt?) is a biological item, have we
not seen children strike a playmate without subsequent guilt? Is not
guilt, and how we are to react to a our own bad act, learned as children
from their parents and teachers and reimposed on adults by, for example,
legal systems that reward a defendant's public display of remorse (akin to
acknowleging one's own guilt), and by societies that otherwise promote
guilt by punishing people, verbally or in other ways, who act in a way that
might not benefit those societies?
If there is a biological component that makes us react a certain way to a
certain event, shouldn't we at least question that reaction as to whether
it is one we desire, and if not, consider how we can reorient that
reaction?
How does this apply to a learning organization? By assuming we do, or
ought to, feel bad after certain acts, rather than learning why the acts
themselves are bad, we may be screening out an avenue of intellectual
learning which, afterwards, may provide knowledge by which a more
appropriate feeling-type response may be developed.
-- Don Clarke clarke@dadpa.usbm.gov