Emotion and The Will:
Anscombe on Brentano
by Steve Bayne
The essay is somewhat curious because of
the attention paid to two crucial chapters
in Brentano's groundbreaking work, Psychology
from an Empirical Standpoint, chapters which
largely concern another distinction, one
which contrasts judgment and presentation,
which Brentano sees as being distinct categories
of mental phenomena, and feeling and will,
which Brentano regards as falling under the
same category. While Brentano, exercised
perhaps the greatest single influence on
philosophy of mind since Descartes, he says
very little about volition or action as such.
However, we can say this much: for Brentano
volition is not to be considered an action
preceding another action, which confers upon
this other action its character of voluntariness.
Indeed, Brentano, following Kant, is clear
in maintaining that a volition involves a
desire for something to happen as a result
of the desire itself (PES. p. 257). A volition
may turn out to be a "mere intention"
or what we have called a "resolve,"
something very close to what Davidson sought
to account for in his discussion of "pure
intentions." But that this should turn
out to be the case is doubtful since more
is required of a volition, according to Brentano,
than a desire. Additionally, the agent must
realize that that desire (or love or hate)
brings about the desired object. It is not
this alone that draws Brentano closer to
what we have been calling the "classical
action theorists" and further away from
Anscombe's view; it is also Brentano's conflation
(perhaps a correct one at that) of "striving"
(conativity) and volition, and it is primarily
this that argues against his having identified
volition as desire or knowledge of a desire's
probable consequences. It will be my contention
that intentionality figures in a very significant
way in Brentano's theory of the will. I will
say more about this, but for the moment let
us refresh our memory a bit as to how Brentano
viewed intentionality as criterial of mental
phenomena. Shortly we will pursue another
issue which concerns classification, namely,
that of the viability, in light of Anscombe's
criticisms, of Brentano's claim that will
and emotion
(or feeling) belong to the same category
of mental phenomena. BRENTANO'S CRITERION
OF THE MENTAL
Brentano introduces intentionality this way:
Every mental phenomenon is characterized
by what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages
called the intentional (or mental) inexistence
of an object, and what we might call, though
not wholly unambiguously, reference to a
content, direction toward an object (which
is not to be understood as meaning a thing),
or immanent objectivity.
(Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint.[PES]
ed. L. McAlister, Humanities Press. 1973
[1874]. p. 88.) Precisely because intentionality
characterizes all mental phenomena, something
besides intentionality must be considered
in classifying them, or at least some differentiation
of the intentional nexus itself must be discussed.
What this something else is, according to
Brentano, has to do more with "fundamental
differences in the way phenomena refer to
an object than with any other difference"
(op. cit. p. 197). The primary classification
of mental phenomena will be in terms of the
various "ways phenomena refer to an
object." It will divide the mental into
three primary categories: presentation, judgment,
and emotion - where emotion includes intention,
interest, love etc. A presentation directs
us to an object by way of appearance, while
judgment puts us in a relation of acceptance
or rejection to what is judged. Emotion,
the more vague of the three categories, can
be thought of conveniently as whatever doesn't
belong to the other categories. Crucial to
Anscombe's discussion of Brentano is the
fact that, according to him, just as a judgment
takes an "object" as being true
or false the will (think 'love') takes objects
as being good or bad. "But," one
might ask, "how are we to know when
the intentional relation to an object in
numerically different mental phenomena are
the same?" Brentano tells us (op. cit.
p, 200) that we can only know for sure by
inner experience. The claim he makes, which
Anscombe singles out for extended consideration,
is that feeling and will are to be assimilated
within a single classification, but she will
also criticize Brentano's claim that presentation
(what she calls - unfortunately - "imagination")
and judgment sharply differ. His position,
she avers, is owing to a failure to get clear
on the difference between assertion and predication.
Because Brentano's procedure in evaluating
the relation of feelings and the will is
very close to being that which he makes use
of in discussing the relation of judgment
and presentation, some preliminary comments
on this latter relation will serve to lay
the ground not only for Anscombe's criticism
but also for a correct understanding of Brentano
on the relation of emotion and the will.
PRESENTATION AND JUDGMENT
Brentano maintains that an object must be
brought before the mind before it can serve
as subject of a judgment. To a degree this
presages what Gareth Evans, citing Russell's
Problems of Philosophy (p. 58), calls "Russell's
Principle" viz. "that a subject
cannot make a judgement about something unless
he knows which object his judgement is about"
(Varieties of Reference. Oxford. 1982. p.
89). This bringing to the attention of the
mind is what Brentano calls "presentation."
Judgment, while differing from presentation,
presupposes it. Something similar might be
said of desire, although desire differs categorically
from judgment. It is important to keep in
mind what approach is being rejected in the
attempt to classify mental phenomena on the
basis of the character of their intentional
relations ("relation" here being
a term of mere convenience). What is being
excluded is categorization based on consideration
of the content of those mental phenomena.
Describing contents and states in terms of
their relations is not a new idea, even for
Brentano. Brentano entertains Alexander Bain's
suggestion that the right way to go about
characterizing mental phenomena is in terms
of their consequences (op. cit. p. 203).
Brentano's reply to this suggestion is that
it is the nature of the states having the
consequences of which Bain speaks that constitutes
the basis for explaining them, and that even
if some classification on the basis of consequences
were possible there would be no resulting
account of the differences between categories
of mental phenomena. However, an appeal to
content is not logically incompatible with
taking content cashable in currency of relations.
What is important to get clear about is that
other appeals to relations other than those
which rely on the character of the intentional
"relation" are often, if not always,
covert appeals to "content." Intentionality
belongs to the "nature" of a mental
state but not as part of what has traditionally
been considered (e. g. Twardowski) its content.
When materialists like David Lewis argue
that "the definitive characteristic
of any (sort of) experience as such is its
causal role, its syndrome of most typical
causes and effects,"
(Philosophical Papers vol. 1. 1983. p. 100)
what they are suggesting is that the "basis"
to which Brentano alludes is in fact purely
material and that the "mental"
sense of 'content' relates to cause and effect
relations in ways largely consistent with
Bain's original proposal. Plausible, even
though there may be some sleight of hand
in Lewis's use of 'typical'. Bain's view
as well as Lewis's functionalism are variations
on the thematic primacy of "content,"
despite its seeming elimination in terms
of causal relations. Nevertheless, Brentano
has some rather persuasive arguments in support
of the belief that no difference between
presentation and judgment is possible on
the basis of their differing content alone.
We now turn to these arguments. First suppose
someone acquainted with existent red trees
asks, "Do you believe there are red
trees?" Not being acquainted with any
myself and being unfamiliar with the variety
of trees there are, I withhold judgment.
In this case there is no judgment on my part,
only presentation. In the case of my interlocutor,
however, there is both judgment and presentation.
In my case what I entertain without judgment
is the idea of red trees; what my interlocutor
judges is that red trees exist. But the important
thing is that both of us have before us the
same idea, the same "content,"
thus presentation and judgment cannot be
distinguished on the basis of a difference
in the complexity of their respective contents.
The reader must keep in mind that this particular
argument is devised under the assumption
that the difference being alleged is one
of difference in contents, a matter of their
complexity or connectivity - in particular,
that is, a presentation is understood as
lacking a connection between characteristics
that judgments possess. The main point here
is that many presentations, like all judgments,
can be combinations of constituent ideas
or presentations, and thus complexity, alone,
will not allow for the alleged distinction
between judgments and presentations. Although
Anscombe is primarily interested in Brentano's
bringing together emotion (feeling) and will
under a single category, the discussion is
difficult to follow and it will expedite
an understanding of her arguments if we take
a brief look at what Brentano has to say
about love and hate in making the case for
distinguishing presentation and judgment.
We now proceed to a second argument for distinguishing
presentation and judgment.
LOVE AND HATE
What presentations present are objects, and
it is from these objects alone that the basis
for asserting of any two presentations that
they are contradictory derives. Contrariety
in other words is not a characteristic of
presentations unless their objects are contradictory.
It is the contrariety of warm and cold that
makes their presentations contradictory,
not some contrariety in the acts of presentations
themselves. If we add love to presentation,
however, then we have the basis for a new
sort of contrariety, one independent of objects
- for identical objects can be both loved
and hated. Most important for our discussion
is that judgment shares with love (and hate)
this feature; that is, if we add affirmation
and denial to presentations, as we did love
and hate, then we emerge with a new concept
of contrariety which owes its reality to
something besides presentations alone. In
addition to the contrast between judgment
and presentation with respect to contrariety
there is a further difference exposed by
attending to a similarity between judgment
and love (and hate). This has to do with
the fact that before adding love and hate
to presentations the only sense in which
we can compare presentations with respect
to their intensity is in terms of something
like vivacity; but if we add love and hate
to presentations 'intensity' acquires a new
use in describing them, for now we can speak
of the act component as intense and not just
of the object component as being vivacious;
we can speak of degree of vehemence for example,
noting as we do that acts not presentations
can be "vehement." Once again,
judgment parallels love and hate in this
regard, for if we add to presentations affirmation
(denial) we are then able to speak of degrees
of certainty, whereas presentations, themselves,
are not describable as certain to any degree.
There is, however, a further application
of the argument of more direct relevance
to Anscombe's discussion of Brentano. Presentations
can be "bad," but only because
- according to Brentano - lovers of the objects
of such presentations would sin in so doing;
similarly, judgments only because to affirm
them would be to err. This is of some importance
for understanding Anscombe's take on Brentano,
because we see that the badness of a presentation
depends on the sinfulness of loving its object.
For Anscombe, by contrast (Intention Sec.
40. p. 76) the goodness of desire belongs
primarily to the object of such a desire.
For Brentano, it is neither act nor object
which is taken to be good
(or bad). Rather what is taken to be good
belongs to the "way in which a mental
act refers to a content" (p.
240). This first relation is echoed, albeit
imperfectly, by subsequent thinkers, such
as C. Broad and Ewing, who locate goodness
not in a property but, rather, the 'fittingness'
of a fact (for an interesting discussion
of this view see Everett Hall's What is Value.
chpt. I. Humanities Press. 1952). Brentano's
effort is subtle but unmistakable, namely,
to link ethical predicates to the reality
of the intentional "relation,"
which just is the way an act refers to content,
making it mental in the first place. This
should remind us of Kant's idea that the
only thing good in itself is a good will.
Although we shall not pursue the matter,
it is worth noting that there is an interesting,
but less striking, parallel, also, between
what Brentano is saying about the good and
what Frege said about the "sense"
of an expression. Sense for Frege is not
an object, it is the *way* in which a word
refers to an object, much like 'good' describes
one way in which a mental act refers to a
content. It is essential to Brentano's position
that being good and being loved in some way
become identified (PES. 247). The reason
should be clear: a good action is good owing
at least in part to the will of the agent
whose motive is love (without sin). In the
absence of will no object, nor presentation,
is good; as far as judgments are concerned
'affirmation', not 'good' expresses the appropriate
felicity. Indeed, 'good' belongs essentially
to the will, and so is not simple and unanalyzable
but requires for its description some reference
to desire or love. Much of our attention
has been devoted to ways one might argue
for a distinction between representations
and judgments, but most turned out to be
based on erroneous comparisons. So how is
it that Brentano comes to accept the distinction?
Love and hate are not governed by such laws
as relate presentations on the basis of cause
and effect relations, but rather by such
principles as that we like those who like
those we love. Analogously judgments operate
according to principles of logic, principles
that are disanalogous to those governing
presentations, inasmuch as they are not causal.
Briefly stated, Brentano's procedure for
distinguishing presentation and judgment
is done in connection with love and hate
- and therefore the emotions. It is to show
that for every significant difference between
presentation and love, for example, there
is a property analogous to the one belonging
to love but which belongs to judgment and
not presentation. From this he concludes
that presentation and judgment must differ.
(PES. pp. 222-225) We are now in a position
to discuss the claim Brentano makes that
feeling and will belong to the same category
- neither judgment nor presentation - and
Anscombe's denial of this assertion.
THE FEELING/EMOTION 'CONTINUUM'
In Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint
Brentano remarked:
Consider the following series, for example:
sadness - yearning for the absent good -
hope that it will be ours - the desire to
bring it about - the courage to make the
attempt - the decision to act. The one extreme
is a feeling, the other an act of will; and
they may seem to be quite remote from one
another. But if we attend to the intermediate
members and compare only the adjacent ones,
we find the closest connections and almost
imperceptible transitions throughout. - If
we wished to classify them as feelings or
strivings, to which of the two basic classes
should we assign each case? - We say,"I
feel yearning," "I feel hope,"
I feel a desire to bring this about for myself,"I
feel courageous enough to attempt this,"
- the only thing which no one would say is
that he feels a decision.(PES. pp. 236-37).
Brentano is especially concerned to point
out that the elements of this series possess
a certain inhomogeneity. "Act of will"
appears to refer to an act of mind, a decision,
and differs from the rest in in not being
able to serve as an object of feeling. This
suggests that a possible categorical difference
between feeling and the will is to be located
at this element of the series, a position
he rejects. Anscombe (op. cit. p. 100) treats
the last element of the series as an act
of will involving the body, not a mental
act such as making a decision. By adding
an element to the series, strictly speaking,
she is no longer talking about Brentano's
original "continuum." This has
the result of creating confusion from which
the reader never entirely escapes, as she
begins her discussion by distinguishing emotion
from will as sharply as soap from washing,
a contrast between a non-action (soap) and
a bodily action
(washing), whereas the contrast Brentano
would have us attend to is that between one
state (soap) and another (water, say) or,
at best approximation to Anscombe's understanding,
between a state (soap) and another state
(resolve to wash, say). Keep in mind as we
proceed to discuss the difference between
emotion and will that while Anscombe alleges
that for Brentano, unlike emotions, bodily
sensations do not rely on presentations,
but such is not the case (PES. p. 82). Such
discrepancies are made all the more significant
by Brentano's having indicated that the members
of the series constituting the continuum
are all states (PES. p. 247). We next briefly
consider a long but highly instructive quote
from Anscombe dealing with the very passage
above. Here she attempts to restate Brentano's
claim using a contrast between two carefully
contrived examples. In illustration, imagine
a young person standing outside the door
of someone alarming, whom he is summoning
up the courage to beard. He has just nerved
himself to walk in, he has arrived at the
state of 'Mut'. Now consider the *next* thing,
before he actually pushes the door open and
steps forward. If we can insert something
psychological, something inner, in there
at all - something which belongs in the *development*
which is to culminate in action, won't it
be *almost* the same as the 'Mut' itself,
only *more committed* to the action? To see
that we might do so, consider that he might
summon up the 'Mut' and then realize that
the action was impossible
- he perceives that the swing door is locked.
He physically can't push it open. Now if
that's what happens, he hasn't even tried
to do it. In just the same situation, in
which however he doesn't notice the metal
tongue of the door in position, given that
little extra, the act of will itself, he
won't indeed push the door open (for he can't)
but he will have tried. So there is a difference
between this last term and the 'Mut', but
how small! And aren't they obviously the
same in kind? If there is that last term
there at all, it clearly belongs to the same
class as the 'Mut', and hence in the same
class all the rest. And so we have will assimilated
to emotion. ("Will and Emotion."
in Collected Papers vol.
1. Oxford. pp. 100-01. Let us begin by noting
that contrary to what Brentano believes,
and apparently Anscombe as well, the series
described is not continuous in the mathematical
sense. Every element of Brentano's has an
immediate predecessor and strictly speaking
a continuous series in the mathematical sense
has the property that none of its elements
has an immediate predecessor or successor.
One difficulty with the two scenarios portrayed
by Anscombe is that the first introduces
a judgment
("then realizes that the action was
impossible"), terminating the series
by breaking its continuity at the point of
'Mut' (courage). Now the contrast Anscombe
draws arises from a comparison of the series
which introduces trying and the original
series but only up to the point of 'Mut'.
Trying in the second scenario follows the
last element of what was Brentano's original
series, the decision to act, but may precede
the ensuing action which involves certain
basic actions, such as clasping the door
knob before making the effort to turn it.
In the case of the second scenario it is
unclear whether the last element of the series
is a decision to act or a bodily action.
Since the important difference involves the
addition of trying, we must consider whether
trying precedes the action or not. In the
case of Brentano's original series it would
make no sense to insert trying between 'Mut'
and the decision to act. One does not first
make the effort to act and then decide to
act; and yet this is where the trying present
in Anscombe's second scenario is to be placed,
if, as she says, "the difference between
this last term and the 'Mut'" is so
slight. To be sure, the trying precedes the
bodily action, but it is also made to precede
the decision, unless of course the decision
is more like 'Mut' than is the trying. Indeed,
this may be the case, but it is something
Anscombe fails to take into account. If trying
follows the last element of Brentano's original
series and we merely tack trying onto the
original series' last element, Anscombe's
intent is stymied since the comparison will
be between decision and trying rather than
between trying and 'Mut'. What she attempts
is to describe an unfolding series of circumstances
coinciding with Brentano's purported continuum
but which can go either of two ways: one
where there is no actual trying, and one
where there is. The difference that trying
makes is so small that adding it to the series
following 'Mut' ("nerving") merely
adds to the series making up the continuum
but which insofar as it
(trying) is an act of will becomes "assimilated
to emotion." Notwithstanding Anscombe's
exclamation of the smallness of the difference
between the two scenarios she describes,
there is in fact quite a significant difference.
In the first case, where the lock is seen
to be in place, there is no basic action
forthcoming; the intention to open the door
is cancelled and the prospective agent doesn't
even try to open the door. But in the second
case, not only is there a similarity to the
previous case, prior to the prospective agent's
seeing that the door is locked, there is
the additional fact that the agent tried,
that is, actually moved his hand in an effort
to open the door. Yet, this leaves less certain
whether or not the difference "belongs
to the same class" as 'Mut'("nerving"
or "courage"). Might not the agent
in this second case try without bodily action
(i. e., "basic action") of any
sort? Let us ask: "Does such
*trying* "belong to the same class"
as 'Mut'? This is unlikely but if this can
be successfully maintained, and I shall argue
in due course that it can, then Anscombe's
primary objection can be sustained. That
is, Brentano's assertion to the contrary
notwithstanding the difference between emotions
and the will turns out to be categorical
and intuitively sound. DECIDING TO TRY AND
DECIDING TO DO
So far, we have concentrated on the two cases
Anscombe has constructed in an effort to
"insert" an element into Brentano's
original continuum between 'Mut' (nerving,
or courage) and the decision to act (or,
perhaps, the act itself). In one case, the
agent fails to see that the door is locked
and so does not, as in the first case, withhold
his action in light of this realization;
but there is another case Anscombe might
have considered but did not, one which suggests
the possibility of another element between
'Mut' and either the deciding to act or trying
to act. Suppose that the agent sees that
the door is latched and yet unlike the agent
in the first scenario Anscombe describes
does not withhold trying to open it. In such
a case there is no deciding to do, only a
deciding to try to do. If, perchance, he
succeeds, his deciding to try will occupy
a place in the continuum between 'Mut' and
the action. But now the following question
arises: Is the decision to try as much like
'Mut' as the decision to act? Any answer
will be controversial but the right answer
seems to be yes. When I decide to open a
window I do not decide to try to open the
window, although should I try and fail I
might retrospectively describe the effort
as following a decision to try. But now the
context has changed, calling forth different
semantical features. What I now want to suggest
is this: a volitional act has a beginning
that entails no change has taken place. This
is the first occasion where we part company
with Bradley. If we consider a nonvolitional
agent - air pressure for example - then it
is clear that
The air pressure began to raise my arm
entails
My arm began to move.
But if we consider a volitional agent in
a minimally contrasting sentence, we see
that from
I began to raise my arm
we cannot infer
My arm began to move
One lesson to be learned to be learned from
this linguistic data is that if trying is
included in the act itself then part of any
such action will lack a public criterion
for its ascription. If I have not succeeded
in moving my arm whether I tried can only
be determined with certainty by the agent.
I do not say: "I think I tried but I
cannot be sure"; I do say: "I think
he tried but I cannot be sure." Now
that we have established that there is a
clear difference between deciding to do and
deciding to try let's return to Brentano's
resemblance continuum. Brentano's argument
relies on the idea that because there is
a resemblance continuum from emotion ('Mut')
to deciding to act emotion and will belong
within the same category of mental phenomena.
If we take the continuum argument as fundamental
then the decision to try and the decision
to act cannot be shown to belong to the same
mental category since no continuum includes
both. But deciding to try and deciding to
do resemble one another more than either
resembles 'Mut'. The resemblance continuum
including deciding to try may be indistinguishable
from the resemblance continuum including
deciding to do, even though no continuum
includes both and here I mean that no one
decides to try if he has already decided
to do and vice versa. But this indistinguishability
provides the basis for maintaining that deciding
to try, like deciding to do, belongs to the
same category as emotion, and so belongs
to the same category. But we have already
established that deciding to try and deciding
to do cannot be shown to belong to the same
category, as long. The continuum leads us,
therefore, to a paradox of sorts, and Brentano's
argument in the form it takes must be rejected.
One possible objection to this line of reasoning
is that having distinguished the causal continuum
and the resemblance continuum deciding to
try and deciding to do are excluded from
occurring together only in the physical continuum
- not the resemblance continuum. I will postpone,
for now, further consideration of these and
related matters.
BODILY SENSATIONS
If, as Brentano maintains, mental phenomena
come either as judgments, presentatations,
or feelings, then there is some question
as to where bodily sensations fit into the
picture, especially since emotions are feelings
of a sort. Anscombe believes bodily feelings
must be distinguished from emotions somehow.
Before proceeding to examine why she doesn't
believe Brentano can make this distinction
in a non-question begging way two points
need to be made. In the first place there
have been some very good philosophers who
have rejected the idea that ultimately there
is any categorical distinction at all between
these two, no more at least than Brentano
would admit between sadness and courage.
One such philosopher was Spinoza who accepted
pain, pleasure and desire as primary emotions
on the basis of which the others could be
derived
(Ethics III. xi). The notion that a pain
in the foot belongs in the same general category
as courage might sound quite natural to a
radical mind-body identity theorist like
Spinoza. But this is certainly less true
of those who reject the thesis that "minds"
are just bodily states. Anscombe's insistence
on the distinction may attest her inclination
towards dualism despite the anti-Cartesian
views she inherited from Wittgenstein. I
will attempt no decision on this matter.
I will now turn to the relation of sensations
and emotions. Just as affirmation and negation
are involved in judgment, so too, in the
case of emotion affirmation (e. g. in loving)
and denial (e. g. in hating) come into play.
Concentrating, momentarily on negativity
with respect to feelings and emotions, we
say that one "finds bad," or regrets
that someone is ill - the case of feeling;
similarly, there is negativity of the will
insofar as it may incline us to *avoid* illness;
and while this is a similarity between emotion
(regret) and will - something suggesting,
contrary to Anscombe that the emotions and
will are to be assimilated - she claims such
facts actually to be of the utmost significance
in drawing the distinction between bodily
feelings and emotions. This is so because
there are feelings that must be distinct
from emotions, feelings which cannot be assimilated
to the will, given that love is related conceptually
to our taking something to be good or evil.
A bodily sensation involves no such relation
to good or evil and so must be regarded as
distinct from emotion. One way of describing
the point Anscombe makes (op. cit. 104) is
to say that if we have to make use of the
notions of good and evil in distinguishing
emotions and bodily sensations, then we cannot
appeal to emotions in distinguishing good
and evil. There are, however, a number of
questions that require answering before we
accept the conclusion she draws from this.
One such question is this: Don't we make
use of the fact that propositions are true
or false in order to distinguish them from
other entities, such as names and, yet, make
use of the idea of a *proposition's* corresponding
to the facts in order to *explain* what we
mean by truth rather than simply distinguishing
truth from falsity? Isn't something quite
analogous involved in explaining and not
merely distinguishing good and evil? It is
important to keep in mind that whether truth
is correspondence is the right theory of
truth is not the issue, only whether it is
question begging on condition that we distinguish
propositions from other things in the way
suggested. A more fitting description of
what Anscombe appears to be saying is that
according to Brentano to distinguish bodily
feelings and emotions we need the ideas of
good and evil, but to explain good and evil
we presuppose the notion of the emotions.
Anscombe has not shown that one cannot use
x to identify y and then use y to explain
x. But even if we assume that the reasoning
behind her claim is that Brentano is committed
to circularity it is essential to her argument
that Brentano must make use of good and evil
in distinguishing emotions and bodily feelings.
In fact such is not the case. According to
Brentano (PES. p. 267) love depends on judgment,
and while bodily sensations involve presentation
they do not involve judgment. So contra Anscombe,
Brentano doesn't need the notions of good
and evil to distinguish emotion and bodily
sensation. Anscombe makes a further point
in commenting on Brentano that relates to
issues we have touched upon already in our
dealings with classical action theory, and
James in particular. Anscombe suggests, as
we have already noted, that Brentano seems
embarrassed by his own admission that will
is not a feeling (op. cit. 105). She goes
on to point out, correctly, that had he spoken
of willful actions such as opening a door
instead of actions that follow having to
muster up courage etc. then Brentano's continuum
of feelings and emotions would not be available.
That this is an objection, and if so what
its force may be is not entirely clear, but
there are a number of things Brentano might
say in his own defense. Brentano will speak
of feeling hope, not just hope; or he will
speak of feeling courageous enough to do
something and not just being courageous enough
to do something. The point in other words
is that courage is an emotion but the feeling
of courage is something different even though
both the feeling of courage and courage are
emotions. In case of many if not all emotions
there is this distinction: the emotion and
the feeling of that emotion. However, it
makes no sense to speak feeling a decision,
a fact that, as we have seen, does not escape
Brentano's attention. But this in and of
itself is insufficient to establish that
the will and emotion don't belong to the
same class of mental phenomena; besides we
have already seen reason to suspect Brentano's
continuum argument to be flawed. Consider,
also, however that our consciousness of anger
and our being angry are not easily distinguished;
but a decision and our consciousness of that
decision are markedly different. This ties
in with Anscombe's other point that had Brentano
selected an action such as opening a window
his continuum would not have been in evidence.
Brentano, however, was no doubt well aware
of this and his choice of actions was guided
by a need to lay out a case where we are
aware of the action associated, somehow,
with our own will. Similarly, James elected
to use getting out of bed on a cold morning
as his paradigm, owing to our consciousness
in such a case of the presence of the will.
Anscombe is not the only one to detect embarrassment
in Brentano. In one of the probing examinations
of Brentano's ethics offered in English Everett
Hall calls attention to an apparent problem
in Brentano. But Hall's interest is not so
much in the admitted distinction between
feeling and the will, but rather in the distinction
between feeling and judgment. These difficulties
are related inasmuch as if it should be as
Brentano argues that feeling and the will
belong in the same category then any difference
between will and judgment will be as problematic
as a difference between judgment and feeling.
Recall much of Brentano's argument for distinguishing
presentation and judgement depends on analogies
between feeling and judgment. All the more
reason to be concerned with any striking
differences between feeling and judgment.
On the face of it this is at least as dangerous
to Brentano as is posed by the cause of his
embarrassment over the distinction between
feeling and the will. Indeed, Hall's criticisms
are more than the brief mention afforded
by Anscombe and they are well worth considering
in some detail. Here in part is what he says.
Actually Brentano does point out a distinction
between feelings and judgments that is of
semantical significance, but it is obviously
a source of embarrassment, which he wishes
not to emphasize but to play down. The objects
of any two right assertions equally exist,
but the objects of any two right loves need
not be equally good - one may be better than
the other. Brentano sees that this difference
is not psychological as it would be if, e.
g. it were a difference in the intensities
of the feelings involved. Brentano's solution
seems obviously ad hoc Feelings embrace a
peculiar species of phenomenon not to be
found in either ideas or judgments, namely,
choice or preference. And in terms of right
preferences that Brentano that Brentano defines
'better'. My basic criticism of this is simple.
Brentano does not really connect his account
of comparative value with that of absolute
value; he does not define 'better than' in
terms of 'good' or conversely. (What is Value
Humanities Press. 1952 p. 104-105) for every
significant difference between presentation
and love, for example, there is a property
analogous to the one belonging to love but
which belongs to judgment and not presentation
Alexander Shand (MIND 1894) once made the
point that we are made *aware of* (that is
we "feel") the will only when we
encounter some sort of resistance. This is
sufficient to explain James's paradigm of
willful action, as well as Brentano's (nerving).
It is also relevant to the case we encountered
above allowing us to distinguish deciding
to try and deciding to do. We anticipate
an "effort" of will when we act
on a decision to try but not always when
we decide to do. Furthermore, the conditions
required for experiencing an act of will
as such are not one and the same with those
of experiencing shame (an emotion), for example.
The "continuum" leading from feeling
to will is presented, then, only under conditions
where resistance to a certain action makes
available awareness of the will's presence;
and such conditions are manifest only in
cases where the continuum is in evidence,
not in cases such as shutting a window, which
as Anscombe notes does not require any courage
or nerving (typically). Here is a rare occasion
where James and Brentano can be seen to be
on the same side with respect to the experiencing
of our own will. It would be consistent for
Brentano to hold that a voluntary action
is one performed with a certain intention
and that there is a continuum in going from
a resolve (or "mere intention")
to what Bradley called an "incomplete
volition" and finally to a completed
action. Moreover, in neither case would Brentano
be subject to Anscombe's criticism
(p. 105) based as it is on understanding
his theory as one where the voluntariness
of an action is to be located in the decision
which precedes it. No more is voluntariness
inherited from the decision which precedes
it than the courage of an action depends
on the courage of the decision which precedes
it. Similarity does obtain between the fact
that we are made aware of the voluntariness
of the action by attending to overcoming
obstacles to the action and the fact that
that feeling courage, not having courage,
depends on overcoming fear. Rather, advantage
can be taken of our now familiar locution
'with the intention that', so that any action
done "with a (certain) intention"
would be voluntary with respect to that intention.
In this way intentionality becomes not only
the hallmark of mental phenomena but a feature
of all voluntary physical actions. It is
productive to speculate that emotions, such
as anger, may promote (cause) an action,
such as knocking over the coffee cup, and
that such an action becomes a true act of
will only when the feature of intentionality
is what results from the motive. It becomes
a matter of necessity that an emotion can
never serve as an intention. One would never
say, "I did it with the intention of
anger." And it appears we can extend
our judgment to saying that an intention
is never a motive. We conclude our discussion
with an imaginary exchange between Anscombe
and Brentano, one that seems to favor Brentano
on the matter of the relation of decision
and the voluntariness of an action.
BRENTANO: The willfulness of the act is in
the decision preceding the act.
ANSCOMBE: This cannot be since I may ask
of the action following the decision whether
it was voluntary. I may, for example, decide
to go into the pool headfirst. But at that
very moment you push me headfirst into the
pool. Here I can ask: "Was going into
the pool headfirst a voluntary action?"
The answer being no, the decision is insufficient
for the voluntariness of my going headfirst
into the pool.
BRENTANO: The decision to act is itself an
act of will. Whether the action following
the decision to act is voluntary is something
we needn't decide; but even if we should
decide that the decision is necessary for
the action to be voluntary we need not make
the stronger claim that it is sufficient.
What is one to say about this hypothetical
exchange? We must distinguish a volition
from an act of will. We do do this much in
the same way as we would go about distinguishing
the difference between saying something is
actual and saying it is possible. A volition
entails and is entailed by some attempt at
a basic action. A volition entails trying;
an act of will, which may be a decision to
act, need not. To do something I must begin
to do something; but when I begin to do something
and nothing is done there is an act of will
but no volition. Volition is what distinguishes
an voluntary action from a mere act of will.
Decision, an act of will, does not entail
volition. To say a volition is an act of
will is like saying the actual is possible.
When actuality is added to an act of will
it is a volition in Bradley's sense. An act
of will remains a "resolve" or,
perhaps, a "pure intention" only
when no change follows from the act of will.
An action's voluntariness cannot be located
in a *preceding decision*; for if it could,
once the decision had passed either the subsequent
action would not be willful, or, if it were,
an action would be considered voluntary when
without some act of will it would not have
occurred, an unnecessary supposition. BACK
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