Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

We have to face another, and perhaps unpalatable, idea at this point. All of the values we’ve been discussing in the last few chapters might justifiably be described as emotional, or instinctual gut-feelings. We saw, in the previous chapter, that one of the big divides in ethics and morality is the contrast between ‘the passions’ and a more rational approach. Now, I’d suggest, there’s a need to acknowledge that values are very much on the passion side of things — and this probably holds true whether we think of values as innate to the universe, innate to people, or just things that we’ve thought up ourselves. We could introduce the idea that the values we hold come about as a result of evolution. So, what I’ve been describing as ‘value innate to people’ thus far, may in fact be better described as just our instinctual drives — our animal natures. According to your predilections, this may be a better or a worse explanation. It is only when we come to ideologies, meanings and purposes that we see something else going on.

If we return to the sensation, perception, impulse, image, symbol progression, we can see the same notion being played out. Impulse is where we get to as a result of our instinctual drives. Only with image and symbol do we start to apply layers of meaning, and this, in turn, reflects back into how we might respond to further sensations and perceptions. To put it simply, we have a choice of controlling our instinctual drives by constructing meanings, purposes, theories of ethics, morality, justice, law and politics.

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