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Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom, and Cognition
How can science be brought to connect with experience? This book addresses two of the most challenging problems facing contemporary neurobiology and cognitive first, understanding how we unconsciously execute habitual actions as a result of neurological and cognitive processes that are not formal actions of conscious judgment but part of a habitual nexus of systematic self-organization; second, creating an ethics adequate to our present awareness that there is no such thing as a transcendental self, a stable subject, or a soul. In earlier modes of cognitive science, cognition was conceptualized according to a model of representation and abstract reasoning. In the realm of ethics, this corresponded to the philosophical tenet that to do what is ethical is to do what corresponds to an abstract set of rules. By contrast to this computationalism, the author places central emphasis on what he terms "enaction"―cognition as the ability to negotiate embodied, everyday living in a world that is inseparable from our sensory-motor capacities. Apart from his researches in cognitive science, the bodies of thought that enable Varela to make this link are phenomenology and two representatives of what he calls the "wisdom traditions": Confucian ethics and Buddhist epistemology. From the Confucian tradition, he draws upon the Mencius to propose an ethics of praxis, one in which ethical action is conceived as a project of being rather than as a system of judgment, less a matter of rules that are universally applicable than a goal of expertise, sagehood. The Buddhist contribution to his project encompasses "the embodiment of the void" and the "pragmatics of a virtual self." How does a belief system that does not posit a unitary self or subject conceive the living of an "I"? In summation, the author proposes an ethics founded on "savoir faire" that is a practice of transformation based on a constant recognition of the "virtual" nature of ourselves in the actual operations of our mental lives.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
9 people are currently reading
610 people want to read
About the author
Francisco J. Varela
39 books147 followersFrancisco Varela was a biologist, philosopher, and neuroscientist who, together with his teacher Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of *autopoiesis to biology*, for bringing phenomenology and first-person approaches to biology and neuroscience, and for co-founding the Mind and Life Institute to promote dialog between science and Buddhism.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 reviews
July 23, 2015
I am so happy to have discovered Varela. He's my favorite thinker at the moment. In this little book, he's making the case that ethics can emerge from self-generating (autopoeitic) systems. Varela was invited to give 3 lectures in Italy in the early 1990s. You can read each lecture easily in one sitting, so this book is a great synopsis of Varela's thinking.
1. In the first lecture, he points out that most of Western ethics has been concerned with deliberate decisions rather than the spontaneous coping with the lived situations in which we spend most of our lives. So his goals are to better understand this other aspect of ethical know-how and how it develops in human beings.
Varela gives a nutshell explanation of his theory of cognition: We perceive the world only through the perceptually-guided actions of our bodies, and from repeated patterns of these actions cognitive structures emerge. In this "enactive" cognition, reality is not a pre-given determinant, but depends on the perceiver. Varela is careful to point out that he's not saying people create reality, but simply that what counts as a relevant world to a person is inseparable from that person's cognitive structure.
Varela cites the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson to explain how embodied action gives rise to "high level" cognitive thinking. They've written a couple of great books on how we think in metaphors and how this comes about as a result of our having bodies that move about in the world and can grasp and manipulate things.
He concludes the first lecture by quoting John Dewey, who first distinguished "know-how" from "know-what." Know-how is built up by habit; it's knowing how to do all the things we do without really thinking about it. Know-what is knowledge about things; it's more abstract judgment.
2. In the second lecture, Varela notes that while this ethical know-how has been neglected in Western ethics, we can learn a lot from Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, which have traditions of virtuous action as something learned through lived practice and gradually extended into new situations. In all three traditions, ethical behavior is pragmatic and grows progressively, rather than being the prescriptive application of pre-set rules.
What's important to distinguish whether an action is ethical or not, is whether it was done self-consciously or spontaneously without intention. This leads Varela into a discussion on whether or not there is a united "self." He traces the recent developments in Western science that have lead to the possibility that there is no central, cognizing subject.
3. In the third lecture, Varela looks at how emergent (self-organizing) properties of the brain give rise to what feels like a self, even though it is not something that can be located or pinned down. He makes the point that brain science now recognizes that signals do NOT move in one direction through an input-computation-output system. The brain, rather, consists of a series of reciprocally interconnected regions that signal back and forth. As ensembles of neurons signal back and forth, they gradually become coherent. It seems to be this coherent oscillation across large areas of the brain that correlates with a conscious state.
The stunning conclusion is that lots of simple agents (neurons, in this case) with simple properties can be brought together, even haphazardly, and give rise WITHOUT central supervision, to a seemingly purposeful and integrated whole.
After an extended discussion of this perspective in artificial intelligence, Varela gets back to ethics and makes his main proposition: That "ethical know-how is the progressive, firsthand acquaintance with the virtuality of self."
He argues that we need to learn to embody this "empty" self to practice ethical expertise. Drawing from both western psychoanalysis and eastern teaching traditions, Varela argues that as we become more practiced, a sense of warmth and inclusiveness begins to appear naturally. This kind of compassionate concern has to be cultivated and embodied through disciplined practice at letting go of ego-centered habits.
Varela closes by calling his lectures "a plea for a re-enchantment of wisdom, understood as non-intentional action." The pragmatics of this transformation "demands nothing less than a moment-to-moment awareness of the virtual nature of our selves."
1. In the first lecture, he points out that most of Western ethics has been concerned with deliberate decisions rather than the spontaneous coping with the lived situations in which we spend most of our lives. So his goals are to better understand this other aspect of ethical know-how and how it develops in human beings.
Varela gives a nutshell explanation of his theory of cognition: We perceive the world only through the perceptually-guided actions of our bodies, and from repeated patterns of these actions cognitive structures emerge. In this "enactive" cognition, reality is not a pre-given determinant, but depends on the perceiver. Varela is careful to point out that he's not saying people create reality, but simply that what counts as a relevant world to a person is inseparable from that person's cognitive structure.
Varela cites the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson to explain how embodied action gives rise to "high level" cognitive thinking. They've written a couple of great books on how we think in metaphors and how this comes about as a result of our having bodies that move about in the world and can grasp and manipulate things.
He concludes the first lecture by quoting John Dewey, who first distinguished "know-how" from "know-what." Know-how is built up by habit; it's knowing how to do all the things we do without really thinking about it. Know-what is knowledge about things; it's more abstract judgment.
2. In the second lecture, Varela notes that while this ethical know-how has been neglected in Western ethics, we can learn a lot from Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, which have traditions of virtuous action as something learned through lived practice and gradually extended into new situations. In all three traditions, ethical behavior is pragmatic and grows progressively, rather than being the prescriptive application of pre-set rules.
What's important to distinguish whether an action is ethical or not, is whether it was done self-consciously or spontaneously without intention. This leads Varela into a discussion on whether or not there is a united "self." He traces the recent developments in Western science that have lead to the possibility that there is no central, cognizing subject.
3. In the third lecture, Varela looks at how emergent (self-organizing) properties of the brain give rise to what feels like a self, even though it is not something that can be located or pinned down. He makes the point that brain science now recognizes that signals do NOT move in one direction through an input-computation-output system. The brain, rather, consists of a series of reciprocally interconnected regions that signal back and forth. As ensembles of neurons signal back and forth, they gradually become coherent. It seems to be this coherent oscillation across large areas of the brain that correlates with a conscious state.
The stunning conclusion is that lots of simple agents (neurons, in this case) with simple properties can be brought together, even haphazardly, and give rise WITHOUT central supervision, to a seemingly purposeful and integrated whole.
After an extended discussion of this perspective in artificial intelligence, Varela gets back to ethics and makes his main proposition: That "ethical know-how is the progressive, firsthand acquaintance with the virtuality of self."
He argues that we need to learn to embody this "empty" self to practice ethical expertise. Drawing from both western psychoanalysis and eastern teaching traditions, Varela argues that as we become more practiced, a sense of warmth and inclusiveness begins to appear naturally. This kind of compassionate concern has to be cultivated and embodied through disciplined practice at letting go of ego-centered habits.
Varela closes by calling his lectures "a plea for a re-enchantment of wisdom, understood as non-intentional action." The pragmatics of this transformation "demands nothing less than a moment-to-moment awareness of the virtual nature of our selves."
May 15, 2018
Fantastic book. Varela presents unique ideas of the notion of the self while delving into the definition of ethics. Far from being a philosophical essay full of musings, this book combines ideas from several schools of thought to put forth the author's thoughts on what it means to live an ethical life on a day-to-day basis.
February 19, 2022
Me dejó pensando mucho. Encarnaba alguna de mis inquietudes como la del yo múltiple, por ejemplo.
September 7, 2015
Varela at his most accessible. A carefully-worked flow from setting the question of ethics as "what it is good to be" to its expertise as coming from ones full participation in a community and finally, from the wisdom traditions, continually transforming "ethical know-how" through a "progressive, first-hand acquaintance with the (emptiness) of self."
December 25, 2017
I'm so glad to have discovered Varela!
Don't let the size of the book deceive you. Varela touches upon, and conveys so much in this tiny book that one reading is simply not enough to take it all in. This book has fundamentally changed the way I look at ethical expertise and the sense of self.
Don't let the size of the book deceive you. Varela touches upon, and conveys so much in this tiny book that one reading is simply not enough to take it all in. This book has fundamentally changed the way I look at ethical expertise and the sense of self.
August 18, 2021
Very accesible, i very much like Varela and recommend Gilbert Simondon too.
August 5, 2023
(THIS ENDED UP BEING A VERY PERSONAL RANT Im SORRY TO VARELA)
I like Varela.
The book is written in three lectures; the first critiques the West's fallibility of moral absoluteness, the second uses 4E cog sci to suggest that action emerges from sensorimotor patterns and that there is no tangible self, and the third hinges onto Buddhist notions of egohood (or lack of it).
He challenges the Western tradition of a critical morality that is based on prescriptive principles (this may be my favorite point of the book) by claiming that it is too narrow of a self-philosophy, and even more-so not truly concerned with ethics, as much as with egotistically driven ideas of selfhood...(aka I apply these self-help principles because I am good, aka I am good because I how else could I validate myself). Such moral philosophy has focused so much on what is the right thing to do that it's abandoned the vitality of situatedness for embodied cognitive agents.
We want to do good not out of obligation to do good, not out of fear of being 'bad.' Such goodness is found in the immediacy of action rather than rational deliberation...Agree, I believe that rational-deliberation is less true of a person than their spontaneous reactions that emerge out of practiced behaviors. So this is what he understands as the difference between know-how and know-what, between spontaneous coping and slow, rational judgment (made me think of the Dual Process Theory in cogsci).
By using insights from 4E cognitive science (embodied, enacted, embedded, and extended), he investigates what it is to be wise, claiming that to be wise is to be ethical. He claims that "who we are" is constituted by these micro-worlds -- which I understood as statistical regularities of our past behaviors/actions/enacted cognition. When the microworlds break down, then reflection and analysis are most prominent.
In the second lecture, he mentions a couple of philosophers and cognitive scientists to talk about human action, and what action is ethical behavior. I liked the section about Mencius -- he suggested that a virtuous action can only be one that occurs in the moment of action (as a result of a long process of cultivation). The truly ethical doesn't arise from obedience to rules, but one that stems from an intelligence that is open and highly aware to the textures of every given situation (HOW COMPUTATIONALLY TASKING is THAT).
In the third lecture is where I start to take issue. I am tired OF MIXING Western and Eastern Ontologies and mushing them together as a grand unified theory of Self-Help/Consciousness. LOOK, the philosophy of the west is clearly stuck (and a bit fucked right now), but IT HAS TO SOLVE ITS PROBLEMS THROUGH ITS WAYS. Sometimes an attempt at bridging different cultural epistemologies will end up adding more confusion at the expense of cutting the complexities of all cultures involved. Eastern and Western philosophies of Selfhood FUNDAMENTALLY CLASH. I think the metaphysics of the Self are very FUN, and worthy of exploring, but I'd like to push back against the whole "Ego-death/Self is an Illusion/Selflessness is Enlightenment" narratives. There is no such thing as Selfless action, the actions we practice and over again (such as sports for a state of flow) are actions we practice because WE identify WITH THEM.
excuse my spiel. Varela then goes on to talk about Unitary vs Non-unitary Cognitive Selves, suggesting that homunculus metaphors evade the concept of "the immediate present" in which the cognitive subject actually lives...Oh please....the cognitive subject always extends (whether the self is illusionary or not, THE SENSE OF an "I" is OMNIPRESENT). You cannot be in the "immediate present" without your notions of the past, and we shouldn't even be giving that advice. What did Jung say? Something about if you don't bring your unconscious to your conscious awareness, then it'll be fate determining your life..
I think the reason why Varela chooses Buddhist ideals (boddhisattva) is because he is concerned with the dangers of identifying with a Fixed & Rigid sense of selfhood. And that is a suuuper legitimate concern! But jumping to the other end of "there is no self" seems like another dangerous step to me. Maybe there is no "central" homuncular self, and maybe the sense of self is inescapably transitory and everchanging, but that doesn't diminish the idea that a SENSE of WHO WE ARE (and that that "who" is significant) is important for our wellbeing and life endeavours and committing to wisdom.
In the West, if the "I" is dead then there is an easy plight into nihilism as reifying its absence leads to a sort of abyss (or more so Confusion). We can keep our sense of self and the realization that the self is not an emblem of neural networks. I don't think we ought to let go of either, at least for now, at least when considering the history of self-constitution in the West.
I like convergence of philosophies but sometimes we have to ask ourselves "what do we want" and "what will get us there" and I'm not sure the New-Age exotic-ification of the East is the answer. Each culture of thought needs its own respective soteriology.
I like Varela.
The book is written in three lectures; the first critiques the West's fallibility of moral absoluteness, the second uses 4E cog sci to suggest that action emerges from sensorimotor patterns and that there is no tangible self, and the third hinges onto Buddhist notions of egohood (or lack of it).
He challenges the Western tradition of a critical morality that is based on prescriptive principles (this may be my favorite point of the book) by claiming that it is too narrow of a self-philosophy, and even more-so not truly concerned with ethics, as much as with egotistically driven ideas of selfhood...(aka I apply these self-help principles because I am good, aka I am good because I how else could I validate myself). Such moral philosophy has focused so much on what is the right thing to do that it's abandoned the vitality of situatedness for embodied cognitive agents.
We want to do good not out of obligation to do good, not out of fear of being 'bad.' Such goodness is found in the immediacy of action rather than rational deliberation...Agree, I believe that rational-deliberation is less true of a person than their spontaneous reactions that emerge out of practiced behaviors. So this is what he understands as the difference between know-how and know-what, between spontaneous coping and slow, rational judgment (made me think of the Dual Process Theory in cogsci).
By using insights from 4E cognitive science (embodied, enacted, embedded, and extended), he investigates what it is to be wise, claiming that to be wise is to be ethical. He claims that "who we are" is constituted by these micro-worlds -- which I understood as statistical regularities of our past behaviors/actions/enacted cognition. When the microworlds break down, then reflection and analysis are most prominent.
In the second lecture, he mentions a couple of philosophers and cognitive scientists to talk about human action, and what action is ethical behavior. I liked the section about Mencius -- he suggested that a virtuous action can only be one that occurs in the moment of action (as a result of a long process of cultivation). The truly ethical doesn't arise from obedience to rules, but one that stems from an intelligence that is open and highly aware to the textures of every given situation (HOW COMPUTATIONALLY TASKING is THAT).
In the third lecture is where I start to take issue. I am tired OF MIXING Western and Eastern Ontologies and mushing them together as a grand unified theory of Self-Help/Consciousness. LOOK, the philosophy of the west is clearly stuck (and a bit fucked right now), but IT HAS TO SOLVE ITS PROBLEMS THROUGH ITS WAYS. Sometimes an attempt at bridging different cultural epistemologies will end up adding more confusion at the expense of cutting the complexities of all cultures involved. Eastern and Western philosophies of Selfhood FUNDAMENTALLY CLASH. I think the metaphysics of the Self are very FUN, and worthy of exploring, but I'd like to push back against the whole "Ego-death/Self is an Illusion/Selflessness is Enlightenment" narratives. There is no such thing as Selfless action, the actions we practice and over again (such as sports for a state of flow) are actions we practice because WE identify WITH THEM.
excuse my spiel. Varela then goes on to talk about Unitary vs Non-unitary Cognitive Selves, suggesting that homunculus metaphors evade the concept of "the immediate present" in which the cognitive subject actually lives...Oh please....the cognitive subject always extends (whether the self is illusionary or not, THE SENSE OF an "I" is OMNIPRESENT). You cannot be in the "immediate present" without your notions of the past, and we shouldn't even be giving that advice. What did Jung say? Something about if you don't bring your unconscious to your conscious awareness, then it'll be fate determining your life..
I think the reason why Varela chooses Buddhist ideals (boddhisattva) is because he is concerned with the dangers of identifying with a Fixed & Rigid sense of selfhood. And that is a suuuper legitimate concern! But jumping to the other end of "there is no self" seems like another dangerous step to me. Maybe there is no "central" homuncular self, and maybe the sense of self is inescapably transitory and everchanging, but that doesn't diminish the idea that a SENSE of WHO WE ARE (and that that "who" is significant) is important for our wellbeing and life endeavours and committing to wisdom.
In the West, if the "I" is dead then there is an easy plight into nihilism as reifying its absence leads to a sort of abyss (or more so Confusion). We can keep our sense of self and the realization that the self is not an emblem of neural networks. I don't think we ought to let go of either, at least for now, at least when considering the history of self-constitution in the West.
I like convergence of philosophies but sometimes we have to ask ourselves "what do we want" and "what will get us there" and I'm not sure the New-Age exotic-ification of the East is the answer. Each culture of thought needs its own respective soteriology.
February 19, 2018
Varela is a philosopher, neuroscientist trying to create an ethics rooted in present somatic awareness given there is no tangible self or central executive function running the show that is us.
The Core Proposition: Ethical know-how is the progressive, firsthand acquaintance with the virtuality of self.
If you hated that sentence, then don’t read this book cuz it’s just more of that. If you’re interested in three lectures given to academics blending neuroscience with Buddhism’s ideas on emptiness, then it’s worth the read. Since the volume is only 70-pages, and Varel did a lot of collaboration with H.H. Dali Lama (himself), you may find free copies on the intertubals or even videos of Varela lecturing on the topic.
The Core Proposition: Ethical know-how is the progressive, firsthand acquaintance with the virtuality of self.
If you hated that sentence, then don’t read this book cuz it’s just more of that. If you’re interested in three lectures given to academics blending neuroscience with Buddhism’s ideas on emptiness, then it’s worth the read. Since the volume is only 70-pages, and Varel did a lot of collaboration with H.H. Dali Lama (himself), you may find free copies on the intertubals or even videos of Varela lecturing on the topic.
August 19, 2020
In the beginning of the book Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom, and Cognition,1
Francisco Varela informs the reader that there is a debate going on concerning ethics and
whether we (scientists, philosophers, investigators, society, etc) are closer in understanding
morality in terms of wisdom or rather, reason.
Through the examination of western and non-western traditions of ethical experience, Varela is able to argue in support of wisdom (spontaneous skilled behaviors) being closer to morality in contrast to reason (deliberate rational judgement), in relation to our moment to moment decision making and behaviors as the performing and enacting of ethical practice.
All in all, I recommend especially one to reread.
Francisco Varela informs the reader that there is a debate going on concerning ethics and
whether we (scientists, philosophers, investigators, society, etc) are closer in understanding
morality in terms of wisdom or rather, reason.
Through the examination of western and non-western traditions of ethical experience, Varela is able to argue in support of wisdom (spontaneous skilled behaviors) being closer to morality in contrast to reason (deliberate rational judgement), in relation to our moment to moment decision making and behaviors as the performing and enacting of ethical practice.
All in all, I recommend especially one to reread.
December 8, 2017
For such a thin book (it's three essays) there is so much in here. WARNING: it discusses seemingly incongruent topics such as Buddhism / Taoism and AI / Cognitive Psychology in the same sentence, but the links are deep and powerful (and the core of the whole argument). What is more, despite having been published in 1991, this is, if anything, even more relevant today with the resurgence of AI and Deep Learning.
In summary, this is a quick, deep, and rewarding read.
In summary, this is a quick, deep, and rewarding read.
April 18, 2020
Well written, connects many seemingly unrelated ideas together (ethics, chaos theory, buddhism, AI and phenomenology).
It's easy to see how his personal life revolved around this topics, which makes it easier for him to draw analogies among them.
I would have liked to have a more in-depth description of his arguments, although this book was interesting enough to spark my interest in reading his other more detailed works.
It's easy to see how his personal life revolved around this topics, which makes it easier for him to draw analogies among them.
I would have liked to have a more in-depth description of his arguments, although this book was interesting enough to spark my interest in reading his other more detailed works.
December 13, 2018
Couldn't quite finish and didn't quite understand. BUT, definitely gave me a taste for further readings in Systems Cognitivism or Extended Mind Buddhism or Nueroconfucianism whatever the fuck these people are writing about. What came through in spurts were interesting thoughts about the cognitive self and ethical expertise.
October 23, 2021
It's a bit heavy on the jargon and the copy I read had underlines everywhere so that made it tough to read at points. I also think Why Buddhism is True explains these concepts a bit simpler and clearer, but this certainly isn't bad. It's a short read of good concepts and worth reading, but not a ton here to chew on for me, honestly.
August 21, 2018
Thought-provoking. It’s presented as a three-part lecture so it feels as if he’s talking to you from the front of the classroom. Varela was a pioneering neuroscientist, and I really appreciate how he connects eastern philosophy with neuroscience and our everyday experience/knowing.
December 10, 2021
I absolutely loved the first two lectures. With the last one I got a bit confused (I'm guessing because of my limited knowledge in cognition and Buddhism). Still, great book for those who want to explore embodied cognition and ethics and how that connects to Eastern philosophy.
October 31, 2022
"Que obra alguno, divino de pequeño, / que no soy y que sabe, por los sidos / dioses que fui, ordenarme asá el ensueño."
August 1, 2024
Francisco Varela’s ‘Ethical Know-How’ brings Eastern philosophy and contemporary cognitive science to bear on ethics. In a sentence, Varela sees the ideal moral individual as one who embodies compassion or selflessness unreflectively as an instance of immediate coping with one’s situation, rather than as the deliberate ‘acting out’ of maxims or rules.
Varela begins by discussing the enactivist approach to cognition, according to which perception is not the representation of a pre-existing reality from received sense-data, but rather is oriented towards guiding our action in the world. Put simply, we don’t see the world so as to form a mental representation of it, but so as to act in it. Varela cites an interesting experiment to elaborate on the enactivist view of perception (p. 13-14). Two groups of kittens were raised in the dark and exposed to light only in controlled conditions. The first were allowed to move around normally, and the second were attached to the first in a carriage and basket. Both groups had the same visual experience, but the second group was entirely passive. What happened was, when the kittens were released after a few weeks, the first group behaved normally while the second acted as if they were blind. Learning to see, concludes Varela, is not simply about extracting visual data: it is about learning to perform perceptually-guided action. Perception and action are intertwined – what he calls sensorimotor coupling. Cognitive structures then emerge out of patterns in our sensorimotor engagement with the world. We develop concepts and categories by which to understand our world in terms of our sensorimotor engagements with it.
What is the relevance of this for ethics? Much Western ethics is dogged by the descriptive-prescriptive dichotomy – according to which it is the job of perception (and science) to describe a pre-existent reality, while it is the job of ethics to prescribe how we should act (and change reality). But if perception and action are not so easily divorced, the description-prescription dichotomy is not so clear-cut.
In Varela’s recount of Mencius’ ethics, he writes that ‘For the truly virtuous then, moral judgement that results in immediate and spontaneous moral action is not different from true description [of the situation].’ Specifically, the virtuous agent extends knowledge/behaviour from situations in which she is familiar to new ones. In perceiving the new situation as akin to previously-encountered ones, the agent can act spontaneously without deliberation. To offer up a crude example – we may be familiar with seeing someone we know in duress, to whom we offer our help. This may then extend towards others outside of our immediate circle if we exercise sufficient awareness or sensitivity.
Motivation is key here: an agent who acts identically to the ‘truly virtuous’, but only so as to bolster an image of herself as ‘good’ is a pale counterfeit of goodness. Someone who relies on explicitly following rules is like a ‘beginner’ at a skill – they too fall short of the ideal. Mencius describes the ideally virtuous as one who acts through benevolence and rightness, rather than one who puts into action benevolence and rightness.
Towards the end of the book, Varela addresses the dangers of morality when taken up as a self-improvement exercise, in that it threatens to fuel the ego it is supposed to extinguish and prompt a ‘holier-than-thou’ mentality. He insists that insights or experiences of moral understanding should be part of a process of ‘letting-go’, rather than accomplishments to cling to.
Varela begins by discussing the enactivist approach to cognition, according to which perception is not the representation of a pre-existing reality from received sense-data, but rather is oriented towards guiding our action in the world. Put simply, we don’t see the world so as to form a mental representation of it, but so as to act in it. Varela cites an interesting experiment to elaborate on the enactivist view of perception (p. 13-14). Two groups of kittens were raised in the dark and exposed to light only in controlled conditions. The first were allowed to move around normally, and the second were attached to the first in a carriage and basket. Both groups had the same visual experience, but the second group was entirely passive. What happened was, when the kittens were released after a few weeks, the first group behaved normally while the second acted as if they were blind. Learning to see, concludes Varela, is not simply about extracting visual data: it is about learning to perform perceptually-guided action. Perception and action are intertwined – what he calls sensorimotor coupling. Cognitive structures then emerge out of patterns in our sensorimotor engagement with the world. We develop concepts and categories by which to understand our world in terms of our sensorimotor engagements with it.
What is the relevance of this for ethics? Much Western ethics is dogged by the descriptive-prescriptive dichotomy – according to which it is the job of perception (and science) to describe a pre-existent reality, while it is the job of ethics to prescribe how we should act (and change reality). But if perception and action are not so easily divorced, the description-prescription dichotomy is not so clear-cut.
In Varela’s recount of Mencius’ ethics, he writes that ‘For the truly virtuous then, moral judgement that results in immediate and spontaneous moral action is not different from true description [of the situation].’ Specifically, the virtuous agent extends knowledge/behaviour from situations in which she is familiar to new ones. In perceiving the new situation as akin to previously-encountered ones, the agent can act spontaneously without deliberation. To offer up a crude example – we may be familiar with seeing someone we know in duress, to whom we offer our help. This may then extend towards others outside of our immediate circle if we exercise sufficient awareness or sensitivity.
Motivation is key here: an agent who acts identically to the ‘truly virtuous’, but only so as to bolster an image of herself as ‘good’ is a pale counterfeit of goodness. Someone who relies on explicitly following rules is like a ‘beginner’ at a skill – they too fall short of the ideal. Mencius describes the ideally virtuous as one who acts through benevolence and rightness, rather than one who puts into action benevolence and rightness.
Towards the end of the book, Varela addresses the dangers of morality when taken up as a self-improvement exercise, in that it threatens to fuel the ego it is supposed to extinguish and prompt a ‘holier-than-thou’ mentality. He insists that insights or experiences of moral understanding should be part of a process of ‘letting-go’, rather than accomplishments to cling to.
June 9, 2008
Amazing!
January 13, 2013
Nice lectures on becoming virtuous ;)
-- And as far as what is actually 'virtuous', take what you know to be correct, and extend it.
-- And as far as what is actually 'virtuous', take what you know to be correct, and extend it.
December 12, 2016
This book connects cognitive scientific theories of mind and self with the Buddhist views of self. It's great.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 21 reviews