Annette Claire Baier

(1929 - 2012)

This chapter talks about losing friends, either through death, physical distance, increasing sourness, or quarrel. Friendship usually begins in shared beliefs, interests, and tastes, but, if it is to last, it requires some sympathetic sharing of the friend's interests. However, friendship can have a dramatic ending in a charge of treachery. The self-disclosure that is typical of friendship makes friends vulnerable to each's special knowledge of the other, which can lead to charges of betrayal when the knowledge has been misused.

This chapter discusses Richard Rorty's arguments that challenge the profession of philosophy and examines activities that clarify what philosophers do. Rorty claims that philosophers are neither scientists of the mind nor discerners of eternal moral truths. However, philosophers may help in addressing two unconnected grave dangers facing humanity: climate change and terrorism. To respond to the dangers, philosophers put aside blinkered thinking and exercise moral imagination. Philosophers may not be useful in physical challenges, but they are vital for intractable problems, such as prevention of suicidal massacres or resentments towards inequality.

This chapter describes alienating affection as a kind of theft, in which the responsibility for the transfer is shared between the thief and the one whose affection is at issue. Instead of entering and taking the silver, a burglar stays outside with a magnet and attracts the loot out an open window without any breaking and entering. Like the burglar, a person has the tendency to unknowingly develop affections to another, which at times are not reciprocated with the same passion. If a person alienates affection, uncomfortable confrontations are expected since such victims feel more hurt than indignation.

This chapter talks about the legally recognized rights of past and future generations. It clarifies whether persons who protect the rights of future or past generations can be properly regarded as spokesmen or claimants of the rights in the present. The rights of past persons that are claimed by their recognized spokesmen are considered person-specific rights that will allow the practice of legally valid powers, while the rights in the present claimed for future persons will be general human rights.

This chapter discusses a person's understanding of his own feelings or the feelings of others. It focuses on René Descartes' contrast between consciousness of external objects and consciousness of a person's own thoughts and emotions, as well as Sigmund Freud's analogy, where he compares the consciousness of mental processes to the imperfect sense perception of the external world. The chapter concludes with an investigation of the difference between emotional and cognitive processes, recognizing the occurrence of ‘hot cognition’ and ‘frozen affect’ in identifying feelings.

This chapter discusses the philosophy behind the physical parts that create a human. It begins by describing the features of the face, responding to why the forehead, eyes, eyebrows, nose, ears, cheeks, mouth, and chin are found together. After faces, hands mostly express emotion, such as how restless hands show nervousness or clenched hands demonstrate anger. The chapter concludes with the uses of the shoulder and joints, followed by the significance of the navel as a human's distinction from all other animals.

This chapter explains the notion of love in moral reasoning or sentiments. It discusses Thomas Hobbes' theory on morality, which implies that a striking feature of modern moral philosophy is the avoidance of the concept of love. Hobbes outlines an impersonal morality that governs relationships between persons who see each other as strangers or having no natural concern in each other's interests. The ‘core morality’ influences associations between indifferent adult strangers, which can be supplemented, but not replaced by special duties to children, friends, or loved ones.

This chapter considers the proper place for hope in human life. It explains the conceptual truth that when people hope, people hope for good outcomes and possibilities in the uncertain future. Hope may accompany trust when there is a chance of more good things than trust alone can assure. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the proper placement of hope and trust, which has to be done cautiously in order to avoid understating the sturdiness of healthy trust and overstating the supportive strength of hope.

This chapter focuses on David Wiggins' theory on the ‘deontological core’ of morality that prohibits humanity to commit acts of murder, wounding, injury, plunder, or pillage. However, with the person's ability to prevent aversive acts and be repulsed by the notion of violence, people also have the capacity to abandon the core of morality and permit the harming of others. The chapter concludes with a description of events where people demonstrated deadly force, such as the invasion of nations and killing of neighboring countries, occurrences of genocide, and primitive human sacrifices.

This chapter considers the concept of intellectual self-image through the narration of Annette C. Baier's life. The narration begins with Baier's childhood in New Zealand, where she grew up with her intelligent father, devoted mother, and three sisters. After completing her university studies in Otago University, Baier traveled by ship to Britain to study at Oxford. Baier finished her days in Oxford and devoted herself to teaching philosophy in several universities. The chapter concludes with Baier's words, implying that the short narration of her life is not for the sake of vanity but for the virtue of honesty.

This chapter discusses the facts about the mind, which describes how a person's intellect is different from others. It describes David Hume's theory on consciousness, which implies that consciousness gives a lively conception of the identity of a person that it is impossible for anything to go beyond consciousness. Humes explains that the ability to transform mere ideas of other people's joys and sorrows into sympathetic feelings by supposing that the excess liveliness of self-perception spills over into ideas of others' experiences, inspire mere ideas of feelings into fellow feelings.

This chapter analyses good moral quality in finding the basis for a person's mental attitude on a particular occasion or succession of similar occasions. It discusses what makes an attitude to mutual vulnerability virtuous or morally welcome that it contributes to the climate of trust within which a person lives. According to David Hume's _A Treatise of Human Nature_, as long as people are not in a moral ‘state of nature,’ there will be normal conditions in which good habits of the heart can survive and be cultivated. Even when normal conditions fail, the broken habits of a person may still be restorable.

This chapter describes the idea that emotions are reactions to a person's perceived matter of importance, whether good or ill. According to David Hume, passions are categorized into pleasant and unpleasant emotions. Pleasant emotions show relief and joy, while unpleasant emotions display boredom, grief, and guilt. Hume notes that uncertainty and mixture of contrary passions from simultaneous different causes can intensify an emotion. One example is a man who gets news on both the loss of a lawsuit and birth of his son, which results in an alternation of extreme joy with extreme distress.

This chapter focuses on honesty, which comprises of authenticity in the virtue of speakers and uprightness in matters of property. In David Hume's _A Treatise of Human Nature_, Hume provided a genuine sketch of honesty and avoided deceit in his general portrayal of morality. Alongside honesty, Humes gave insights on dishonesty demonstrated by a liar, a cheat, and a thief. The chapter concludes with the vital role of language to mislead, explaining how language enables people to tell tales, to entertain, or to cover up truths that the automatically truthful body language has not given away.