Robert Zaborowski

The aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of the category of moral “luck”. In current debate most often only specific cases of moral “luck” are taken into account. Such restrictions, however, involving a fragmentary picture of moral "luck", are introduced without any rationale for them. In this paper I look for a formal comprehensiveness of the category of moral “luck”. I consider three factors each of which is developed in two scenarios. These are (i) whether the agent’s action is nasty or nice, (ii) whether the agent’s intention is confirmed or contradicted by her action, and (iii) whether the agent’s action is preceded by her intention or the lack thereof. I explore eight scenarios which are a mark of the intricacy of the category of moral “luck” otherwise ignored in the literature. After an assessment of their structure I arrive at new distinctions. The upshot is a rather complex set of correlations between several cases of moral “luck” with a variety of kinds and shades.

It is characteristic that in consideration of the issues related to feeling, one encounters a problem of its definition; it is not only about determining the essence of feeling itself but first it must be explained how we understand and use the word ’feeling’. We could give examples from Polish, German, French, English and Latin as well as Ancient Greek to look into the issue of determining ’feeling’ as a language category. Feeling is described by words that are not cognates in these languages; also, the terms function in ways that overlap only partially, so they are only partial counterparts. Does it mean that the very essence of feeling is different or appears as something different to the speakers of the many languages? Or is it that some languages create the word ’feeling’ more skillfully than others, some rendering it more aptly than others? Or maybe giving a name to feeling exceeds the capacity of language? Does the lack of the equivalent of the Polish word uczucie in the Greek language mean, as is often presupposed, that feeling was beyond the ancient philosophers’, psychologists’ or poets’ perception?

In discussions concerning affectivity several points of view, often opposed, are admitted. However, the common point of current standpoints is a belief that affectivity is a homogeneous family of phenomena. This belief leads to problems because the collected data are determined by a kind of accepted approach. In order to achieve a better consideration of these data and to avoid an exclusion of this or that position, another perspective is proposed. Following Max Scheler, we can adopt a hierarchical view of feelings. The distinction between what seems to be different, opposed or even contradictory appears as the result of a distinction of levels of the same general phenomena: affectivity. Scheler is not the only philosopher to sustain a hierarchical conception of feelings. We can refer to Th. Ribot, Plato or R. Ingarden and N. Hartmann. In this, however, a hierarchical conception of feelings results from a more general perspective: a hierarchical conception of psychic reality. Besides a hierarchy of feelings, a second perspective should be added: all feelings are divided into genera and, on the other hand, each genus is divided into species. Genera of feelings are to be understood as modi of experienced relatedness of the ego to the object of feeling, the levels of which are to be understood as units of functions similar in the degree to which a subject of feelings is involved in an act of feeling.

In this article I first analyze the meaning of mixed feelings and what this expression refers to. I argue that what the term mixed feelings is commonly taken to mean are not mixed feelings because there is no mixture, and also because the same object and the same time condition of what is supposed to be mixed is not satisfied. I then pass on to a case of genuine mixed feelings. Genuinely mixed feelings are feelings composed of simple or basic feelings as well as occurrences of compounds and sets of feelings. I then discuss three categories adjacent to mixed feelings: layered feelings, metaemotions, and moods. Layered feelings are not mixed but superposed one over another, metaemotions have a mixed phenomenology, and moods are an affective mixture par excellence. In conclusion, I suggest that wrong labelling coincides with a category mistake which hampers further progress in the philosophy of affectivity.

It seems obvious that various feelings are memorized, forgotten, and recollected to various degrees. Some of them are forgotten. Some of those forgotten can be recollected, while others are lost forever. For example, short and long-lasting feelings and shallow and deep feelings are memorized and remembered in different ways. In this paper I analyse from a conceptual point of view several categories of memory-of-feelings and offer a comprehensive map of them. In the end, the richness of categories in the realm of memory is interpreted as a proof of the intricacy of affectivity.

Although considered often outdated or useless, Plato’s views on affectivity in general and on emotions in particular offer a great deal of observations recurring in subsequent theories of emotions. Without putting forward a claim about the character of these similarities – either influential or purely anticipating or simply coincidental – some examples are provided to illustrate them. If examples referred to are relevant to the current discussion, then Plato’s views are wrongly taken as valid only for historical research, or worse, neglected completely. They should rather be considered helpful in disentangling aporias inherent to the debate over affectivity. A paper discusses the issue of taxonomy of feelings as well as the place of affectivity within mental states in Plato's work.

Current research in affectivity is often dominated by perspectives on the feeling/thinking dichotomy. In the paper first I reconstruct Collingwood’s position on this point as it is presented in his Religion and Philosophy, The Principles of Art, and New Leviathan, and then compare it shortly with Bergson’s view. In total five of Collingwood’s different readings of the feeling/thought relation are brought to light. Finally, I opt for a view that takes feeling and thought to be complementary and inseparable, and I try to explain why and how they are better treated in this way.

In this paper I adopt Aquinas’ explanation of passivity and activity by means of acts remaining in the agent and acts passing over into external matter. I use it to propose a divide between immanent-type and transcendent-type acts. I then touch upon a grammatical distinction between three kinds of verbs. To argue for the activity and passivity of affectivity I refer to the group that includes acts of transcendent-type and whose verbs in both voices possess affective meaning. In the end I focus on cases in which an act of affective f-ing is mirrored in its object as being affectively f-ed.

The article examines some aspects of Scheler’s view on affectivity, especially his hierarchical approach which is useful in solving difficulties in analysis of affectivity and helps to avoid downwards as well as upwards reductionism in considering intricacy of emotions. After presenting how Scheler delineates the four levels of feelings, critical observations are made as to points which should be developed or refined so that Scheler’s model could more broadly contribute to current debate over emotions and advancement of the theory of affectivity.

In approaching the future, i.e. in planning projects and decision-making, the role of both affective and non-affective factors is considerable. But given that affectivity is not a homogeneous realm and that it is difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the affective and non-affective elements of a description, anticipation can be hardly described as purely affective, and, on the other, it is necessary to consider what kind or level of the hierarchical realm of affectivity is involved in the anticipation move. In the paper several distinction are made in order to elucidate the role of affectivity in anticipating a person’s approach to the future.