Adriana Warmbier

The article addresses the issue of misunderstanding in the description of the nature of emotional phenomena, misunderstanding which stems from treating intellectual cognition and pre­‐reflective affective appraisal as components of emotion in the sense of separate parts, whereas they are in fact two inseparably connected aspects of emotion. Since emotional experience constitutes an integral whole to such an internally profound degree that, as phenomenologically oriented researchers suggest, one cannot separate lived emotion from its expression and from the subject experiencing it, we are faced with the question how emotional experience — occurring at the level of pre­‐reflective experience of the world — influences the formation of various levels of self­‐awareness. Some of these levels of self­‐awareness may be more fundamental than others and they may also affect one another. I attempt to answer this question by comparing two different conceptions of the minimal “self ” as it appears in affective experience: Antonio Damasio’s neurobiologicalconcept of the “proto­‐self ” and Maurice Merleau­‐Ponty’s phenomenological account of theminimal self.

This paper addresses the claim that we have a moral obligation, where a choice can be made, to bring to birth the ‘best’ child possible. Savulescu has termed this demand the Principle of Procreative Beneficence. Thus far, a number of critical arguments have been put forward to discredit this Principle. Some focus mainly on the consequences which would follow from establishment of such an obligation, others appeal to the philosophical assumptions on which this principle is based. After a short presentation of the state of the debate over the principles of reproductive decisions, I formulate two counter-arguments which aim to demonstrate that in so far as we identify the claim that parents have some reasons to produce the best children possible and the more radical claim that they are morally obliged to attempt to do this, as biomedical decisions guidance they have little prospect of success in providing the best life possible for their children. To elucidate this problem, I turn to the ancient idea of the “good life” and to the virtue ethics with its fundamental concepts of practical wisdom and eudaimonia, which, as I argue, may provide us with a deeper understanding of what the “good life” consists in and with an explanation of what truly determines the quality of individual and one’s self-fulfillment.

W artykule rozważana jest Spinozjańska koncepcja afektywności w kontekście pytania o pierwotne przedrefleksyjne formy świadomości siebie oraz problemu samopoznania. Autorka przedstawia ideę _conatus _oraz jej związek z emocjami, ukazując potencjał heurystyczny Spinozjańskiego ujęcia sfery bierności. Rozważania skupione są wokół problematycznej kwestii, czy bierność daje nam jedynie niejasną wiedzę o nas samych, będąc niepożądanym stanem, czy też sposób, w jaki afekt zostaje przeżyty i postrzeżony może mieć znaczenie dla samoświadomości, stanowiąc jej pierwotną przedrefleksyjną formę. Nawiązując do hermeneutyki podmiotowości, autorka wskazuje, że struktura fundamentalnej dążności do zachowania swojego istnienia ujawnia się w porządku refleksyjnym jako doświadczenie swoistego wysiłku będące warunkiem samoświadomości. Prezentowane analizy dotyczące Spinozjańskiej koncepcji wpisanej w ludzką naturę dążności do zachowania i powiększenia swojej mocy (_conatus_), której działanie ujawnia się między innymi w przeżywaniu afektów, wskazują także na niemałe trudności interpretacyjne. Spinoza nie wydaje się dostatecznie wyjaśniać stosunku zachodzącego między pragnieniem, stanowiącym wyraz życia, i nadawanym mu znaczeniem należącym do porządku mowy.

The paper considers the problem of various different forms of pre‑cognitive affective appraisal and their role in the process of gaining self-knowledge. According to the phenomenological approach, if we are to understand our inner states (our emotional experiences), these cannot be extracted from the context within which they arise. Emotions not only refer to the inner states of the subject, but also to the outer world to which they are a form of response. Brentano, Husserl and Scheler claimed that emotions are directed towards values. It is to this essential feature of emotional experience that I would like to turn. I shall therefore re-examine Sartre’s views concerning affectivity (i.e. the capacity to reveal evaluatively significant qualities of one’s environment), as well as the dual-aspect theory of (reflective and non-reflective) consciousness. The main argument of this paper is that a plausible account of the essential role of affectivity in the emotions may be provided on the basis of a phenomenological theory of pre-reflective consciousness and its relation to reflexivity. I will focus on three different claims about pre-reflective (affective) consciousness. According to the first of these, a large part of cognition is of a prelinguistic (pre-reflective) nature; I argue that the evaluative content of emotion is not only conceptually determined, but may also take a non-conceptual form (as affective appraisal). The second claim refers to the notion of affect, which ought to be distinguished from (unintentional) bodily sensations. The third conceives of the relation between pre-reflective (affective) consciousness and reflective consciousness (propositional attitudes) as normative (rather than causal). I aim to demonstrate that a plausible view of emotional affectivity must appeal to a phenomenological account of the pre-reflective aspect of consciousness.

In the paper, the author asks whether what we have all heard over and over again of the “end of man” means the real end of man or, on the contrary, it has given rise to profound and necessary reevaluation of self-transparent subjectivity. The debate on the notion of selfhood has not been closed yet. The author analyses two different approaches to the problem. One pertains to the “self” that is taken as a monad. The other refers to dialogical theory of selfhood which, as she tries to explain, one may regard as a way of overcoming the essential problem with the constitution of ourselves. According to this, the author claims that it is necessary to reconsider the claims of modern philosophy. She suggests that many of the objections that have been made against subjectivity derive from narrow view of philosophy in the 17th century.

In this article I discuss one of the most significant areas of bioethical interest, which is the problem of moral enhancement. Since I claim that the crucial issue in the current debate on human bioenhancement is the problem of agency, I bring out and examine the conditions of possibility of self-understanding, acting subjects attributing responsible authorship for their actions to themselves. I shall argue that the very idea of moral enhancement, properly understood, fails to justify the claims that enhancing the “biological” factor that plays a part in the process of making moral choices, whether through biomedical or genetic interventions, will actually increase the probability of having “morally better future motives”.