16 May 2011
As a renowned neurobiologist, Antonio Damasio wrote Looking for Spinoza with the sole wish to explore the human brain and its handling of emotions and feelings. The book, part factual evidence and part reflective journal, explores the main ideas of the Dutch philosopher, Benedict de Spinoza. Spinoza is known for his discussion of God as a solely philosophical idea which caused a large amount of controversy which led to Spinoza being removed from the Jewish faith (Jacobs). Spinoza’s discussion of emotions centres on the idea of ‘affects’ in conjunction with the human body: “the affections of the body whereby the body's power of acting is increased or diminished … together with the ideas of these affections.” (Schmitter). In turn, his thinking states that the mind is limited by the body which reacts to these affects and therefore, the mind is forced to emote. Antonio Damasio has made his name by explaining the importance of emotions and feelings: “Logic might tell you what will follow from different actions, but you need your emotions to make you care about the consequences.” (Papineau). The implication behind this is that when Spinoza claims that emotions are an undeniable part of human existence, and Damasio highlights their importance to making moral decisions, then a lack of emotions can lead to criminal or unjust behaviour. The purpose of this essay is to analyse Antonio Damasio’s work, Looking for Spinoza with regard to Spinoza’s ideas of emotions and feelings in terms of criminal behaviour: emotions play a very real part in our decision making process; they allow us to evaluate the consequences of our actions and conduct ourselves accordingly – a process which is missing from the minds of criminals. Without our emotions, we could be living in a very different world.
Before continuing, it seems prudent to offer some definitions for the particular terms that are relevant to the discussion. Firstly, Damasio offers his readers a definition of both emotions and feelings: feelings, he states are “always hidden, like all mental images necessarily are, unseen to anyone other than their rightful owner, the most private property of the organism in whose brain they occur.” (Damasio 28) By this, he means that feelings are things that happen internally – for example, it is perfectly possible to be in love with someone without the whole world knowing about it. Generally, we internalise our feelings to avoid sharing them with others. Feelings are, arguably, what we think of as the driving force behind our actions as we feel angry or happy or sad, but these are actually what are referred to in the work as ‘emotions.’ He goes on to define emotions as being “actions or movements... visible to others as they occur in the face, in the voice, in specific behaviours.” (Damasio 28). This means that emotions are more visible to the world because they cause us to react, largely because they are brought on by affects. He further clarifies the distinction between the two terms by asserting that “Emotions play out in the theatre of the body. Feelings play out in the theatre of the mind.” (Demasio 28). The term ‘affects’ is coined by Spinoza and in effect, it refers to the daily events that we encounter throughout life. It is a term which is largely quite self-explanatory as it implies that upon encountering an ‘affect’, it affects our emotions and our behaviour, in turn. It is clear then, that when a person is fundamentally unable to feel the standard human set of emotions, then their actions and behaviour becomes tainted by this because they are unable to care about the consequences. This is where acts of criminality begin.
Damasio is known for his argument that emotions are a fundamentally crucial aspect of a healthy human life. His book, Descartes’ Error argued that Descartes was incorrect in stating that emotions cause people to make bad decisions and that a mind solely used for logic would be a far more efficient way of life. Quite the contrary then that Damasio now argues that actually emotions help improve the rationality of the mind and promote a healthier decision-making process. However, unlike his previous work, in Looking for Spinoza, Damasio is discussing how the two concepts of ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions’ are interlinked although still two entirely separate entities. The central message to this work is the importance of emotions and their impact on everyday life. The argument made in this paper focuses on this and their role within the evaluation of the potential consequences of our actions. The lack of emotional involvement in criminal decisions is palpable, as argued by Damasio when he states: “Decisions made in these emotion-impoverished circumstances led to erratic or downright negative results, especially so in terms of future consequences.” (Damasio 145). Damasio’s discussion of this clearly highlights the negative effect of a lack of emotions when making important decisions. This can be argued for everyday occurrences, but even more so for the criminal mind: without emotions, one cannot feel guilt; without guilt, one cannot feel sorry for one’s actions.
Damasio’s writing in Looking for Spinoza is a complicated and rare specimen: he is, traditionally, a scientist and yet his fascination with a philosopher (Spinoza) is palpable and clearly has quite an impressive impact upon his thinking. Understandably, Spinoza’s discussion of emotions and feelings do, today, fit in very neatly with the quantitative view of their effect on our behaviour. We are all driven by different motives but each one of them is an emotive one and Spinoza theorised it, but Damasio has confirmed it through his discussion in the book, as well as his ‘somatic markers’ theory. Looking for Spinoza is, in itself, a strange book which both addresses scientific and philosophical theory whilst gently musing about how they impact upon everyday life. However, for all its hybridity, Looking for Spinoza still keeps its head with the dismissal of feelings under any scientific scrutiny: “I started musing about how the brain managed to create the mind, I accepted the established advice that feelings were out of the scientific picture.” (Damasio 4). He goes on to ponder how one can study the brain’s various abilities (to make us move, to make us aware of our surrounding environment etc.) but that it is so difficult to study how the brain makes us emote and react, as a result. He adds that “I also leave feelings, the next phase of emotion-to-feeling cycle, out of the definition of emotion itself.” (Damasio 54). This confirms that Damasio took ‘emotions’ and ‘feelings’ as being two entirely different concepts.
However, with the dismissal of ‘feelings’ comes the immediate emphasis which is placed on ‘emotions:’ their ability to shape our behaviour and to display themselves to the world around us. Damasio argues the vital importance of emotions in the decisiveness of our actions. He views emotions as being a double-edged sword due to their ability to shape our reactions and also be a part of the reaction itself: “Those actions, as an ensemble, produce the emotion sadness.” (Damasio 68). This is relevant to our discussion because it suggests that emotions help us to shape our decisions but that as a result of those decisions, we also feel other emotions. So then, it begs the question of whether a criminal mind, unable to emote and evaluate the potential consequences of its actions, would ever be able to feel the guilt that society desires of them, at all? It is clear then that emotions are required to help us act in a non-criminal manner: both, prior to the event and afterwards.
Spinoza’s ideas take on a more dynamic feel than those of his peers as he argues that an organism can “grow without losing its form” whereas the universe can “vary in infinite ways without any change in the individual as a whole.” (Schoeman 120). In terms of Damasio’s discussion of emotions and feelings, this is quite a crucial point; the universe is changeable but it changes to the individual rather than the individual changing to it. This means then, that the individual only ever adapts to its own environment when affects cause the individual to emote and behave accordingly. In this sense, Damasio’s argument that emotions help us to concede to society’s expectations and rules, becomes somewhat debunked due to the idea that the environment can alter a person’s actions anyway. However, it is important to remember that a ‘good’ person, who is capable of emotions, will endeavour to take the correct route regardless of the situation. Spinoza’s discussion builds upon previous theories of essentialism and he has done so whilst allowing room for evolution (Schoeman 12) which means that the individual is no longer held accountable for his own actions, but rather it is vital that we review the causes or the ‘affects’ or his actions. With regard to criminality, this is particularly prevalent when asking why a person carried out particular actions towards a particular person or for a particular end.
There have been countless theories concerning why certain members of society adopt a criminal lifestyle and why others do not. These theories have ranged from physiological ones which suggest that criminals’ eyes are closer together, right up to the suggestion that criminals have different brains to non-criminals. However, one thing that is certain is that career criminals do not have as pro-active a conscience as non-criminals. This is demonstrated through their conscious decision to repeatedly break the law and cause problems for other people. Damasio’s discussion of feelings and emotions can throw some new light over the discussion of how psychopaths think and operate. Psychopaths are defined as being “agents who lack normal feelings of guilt and other moral motives based on empathy” (Hatzimoysis 113). On this basis, it is fair to say that whilst the majority of the population behave according to social norms and the feelings of guilt and the fear of the consequences of their actions, psychopaths do not because they are unable to perceive these same emotional reactions (i.e. ‘emotional’ because it affects the individuals behaviour). Whilst many have dismissed emotions as being whimsical and as not having a direct effect on behaviour, Damasio takes on board Spinoza’s ideas of ‘affects’ and draws the opposite conclusion, saying that in practice, emotions are as important in our decision making as any other factor: “A failure of emotional empathy – with one’s own future self, in effect – apparently yields elements of practical irrationality.” (Hatzimoysis 113). The implication of this is that those of us without emotions – for example, psychopaths – are unable to follow the rules of society because they are not emotionally invested in them for their own or anyone else’s interest.
Damasio does, in fact, discuss the concept of emotionless psychopaths in other areas of his work. It again links with his discussion of Spinoza by referring to ‘affects’ and their influence over our actions. He discusses the idea of ‘somatic markers’ which, basically, refer to affects which to be associated with (or rather, ‘mark’) particular stimuli and responses (Cooke et al. 96). This is quite a behaviourist view of human actions: we respond in such a way that our brains are trained to think through positive or negative reinforcement. In Looking for Spinoza, Damasio discusses how our behaviour is dictated by our emotional responses to certain ‘affects’ or events. The overall message here seems clear that Damasio is arguing that for those who do not have emotional responses, their actions are driven purely by their desire to gain wealth, in whatever format. And so, in psychopaths, these somatic markers do not stop them from behaving in a particular way and therefore their behaviour is not under control. In 1994, along with other neurobiologists, Damasio carried out a card game study with psychopaths which was designed to assess their ability to make a coherent decision: the card game involved making the decision of playing a move that would give a larger pay out but that also held a larger risk of losing, or playing a move which gave a smaller pay out but also had smaller risks attached. Non-psychopath players quickly adapted their game to the option which held less risk after experiencing the failure of the riskier option; psychopathic players continued to take the bigger risk, despite their experiences of losing (Cooke et al. 96). The suggestion here is that psychopaths are unable to read situations and make predictions of the outcome based on their prior experience and instead are driven by quite base desires such as sex and money. Therefore, psychopaths are far more likely to follow the high-risk route of criminality rather than the low-risk route of law-abiding behaviour as criminality can lead to bigger pay outs.
In this sense, it is clear how vitally important emotions and feelings are in terms of ‘somatic markers’ which help us to define ourselves, our behaviour and also to make good, moral choices. In Looking for Spinoza, Damasio states that whilst somatic markers are important, “The emotional signal is not a substitute for proper reasoning.” (Damasio 148). This again, is very true: people with abnormally working brains such as psychopaths (or even those on the autistic spectrum) need to be educated in such a way that they are able to understand emotions, even if they do not feel them or fully understand their own. Psychopaths and other criminals must be told why their actions are wrong and they must have the consequences explained to them before they are able to make a morally informed decision. Equally, people on the autistic spectrum, particularly children, must manually learn how to interact socially and adhere to social ‘norms’, rather than it being a regular aspect of their development. It is the same principle: those without somatic markers need to learn how to react correctly. When viewing a child with Asperger’s Syndrome in a lesson, their behaviour is often criticised because they speak out of turn without realising that it is wrong. From this, it is easy to see how behaviours can develop into an adult making decisions of ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and failing to do so correctly. In this sense, “Damasio is already advancing an interesting theory of mind, where there is a supervenience relation between the mental and the physical. This may even lean (and possibly unintentionally) towards Spinoza’s notion of mind; where it is the idea of the physical object.” (NoumenalRealm). The theory of mind, of course, being what enables us to empathise and understand consequences and emotions.
Emotions are not strictly a human condition: Damasio discusses how even “some simply organisms show primitive emotions” (Cattell 149). The suggestion here is that even the most basic, cellular organism is designed to recognise signs of danger: “The events I am describing in a brainless creature already contain the essence of the process of emotion that we humans have – detection of the presence of an object or event that recommends avoidance and evasion or endorsement and approach.” (Damasio 41). The implication of this is that emotions are not a learned behaviour but rather an inbuilt design of life. Although, it is important to recognise that Damasio’s referencing of the term ‘emotion’ is not quite in its fullest, most human sense here in this example. With regards to criminality, the suggestion here is that those who are unable to fully compute emotions are extremely primitive and in terms of society, that is a fair statement: we are socialised to behave within social norms and those of us who are unable to do so, are extradited from mainstream society and culture, often having to rely upon criminality to survive. Emotions clearly make the difference in human life, when compared with the animalistic drive to survive which fuels the criminal mind instead.
The conclusions that can be drawn from Antonio Damasio’s Looking for Spinoza are numerous, especially with regard to criminality. The central discursive point is the differentiation between the two terms: ‘feelings’ and ‘emotions.’ Spinoza, as a philosopher, discussed feelings in a much greater depth than Damasio but then the latter is a scientist and so his loyalties will lie with the quantifiable data. Damasio is quick to dismiss feelings as being relevant to the human psyche and defines them as being internal, as opposed to emotions which have an immediate and palpable effect on our actions. These emotions are what guide our decision making process and are what helps us to evaluate the consequences of our actions before it is too late. This definition has a direct effect on our understanding of criminality too. Criminals are much more likely to rely upon their feelings (i.e. the desire to acquire greater wealth) rather than their emotions (i.e. the guilt they will feel after committing a crime). This was even more so the case for psychopaths who are fundamentally incapable of understanding or interpreting emotions. Damasio and his peers examined this in greater detail during their ‘somatic markers’ case study which demonstrated the psychopathic inability to adapt their behaviour to greater benefit their well-being and by default, the well-being of others. The implications of this are that emotions play a crucial part in our recognition of choosing between good and bad behaviours, and that our ability to partake in criminal activity is largely down to our ability to read emotions, calculate the risk and predict the consequences. Ultimately, Looking for Spinoza is a notable look at the human condition and what makes us tick. It explores the relevance of emotions (something which is traditionally dismissed as being unimportant in our practical day to day lives) and it recognises the importance of our emotional understanding and its effect on our conduct: it is clear, then, that emotions are the fundamental difference between those who are correctly functioning members of society and those who emotionlessly interact with the world through crime and disregard for the consequences.
References
“Spinoza on the Emotions.” Amy Schmitter. Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy. 2010. Web. 18 May 2011.
“Spinoza.” Rabbi Louis Jacobs. MyJewishLearning.com. n.d. Web. 18 May 2011.
Cattell, N.R. An introduction to mind, consciousness and language. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006. Print.
Cooke, David J., For the, Adelle E. and Hare, Robert D. Psychopathy: theory, research, and implications for society. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995. Print.
Damasio, Antonio. Looking for Spinoza: joy, sorrow, and the feeling brain. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2003. Print.
Hatzimoysis, Anthony. Philosophy and the Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print.
NoumenalRealm [Michael Pereira]. Re. “Looking for Spinoza: Damasio’s exploration of feeling, and Spinoza.” Sinistre and Destre’s Noumenal Realm. Wordpress, 22 March 2008. Web. 18 May 2011.
Papineau, David. “Looking for Spinoza: joy, sorrow and the feeling brain by Antonio Damasio.” The Independent. 21 June 2003. Web.
Schoeman, Ferdinand David. Responsibility, character, and the emotions: new essays in moral psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Print.
