:up:

I don't think there's any shame in anger, one doesn't become less of a person if one loses one's temper. Ire is as natural to emotions as sneezing is to noses.

If there's a drawback to rage, it is that judgment is hampered and when that happens, as we all know, things begin to spiral out of control.

Is it better to nip it in the bud, or learn to express in a way that's gentlemanly, if you catch my drift. In a way, it's like a nuclear reaction - yes we have atomic weapons that can level entire cities, but we also have relatively safe nuclear power plants.

I don't think there's any shame in anger, one doesn't become less of a person if one loses one's temper. — Agent Smith

But what about blame, the thinking that underlies anger?
Even if one never loses one’s temper or shows anger, the central issue here is whether we can transcend blame. Anger takes many forms, like thinking of others as greedy, selfish, thoughtless, immoral. This is still anger, even with no expression of it.

The blame here is the culpability of the person who caused the harm. Josh's argument is, if we get rid of the notion of blame, then we get rid of the root cause of anger.

But moving past this, is it really philosophically correct to not assign blame for the wrong done?

Josh's argument is, if we get rid of the notion of blame, then we get rid of the root cause of anger. — L'éléphant

Yes, and the idea of ridding ourselves of blame seems to me to be almost impossible to accomplish, even if it's the right thing to do. We struggle to rid ourselves of pride, jealousy and greed - could blame become the 8th deadly sin?

is it really philosophically correct to not assign blame for the wrong done? — L'éléphant

Can you find a way to defend blame in a way that 'redeems' the notion for Joshs?

Can you find a way to defend blame in a way that 'redeems' the notion for Joshs? — Tom Storm

Getting rid of blame is not logically sound. Why? How do we even start to define harm? Someone caused it, but he couldn't be blamed for it because there's no free will? How do we hold people accountable then? A no-blame morality is untenable and unsustainable because it is a one-sided premise whose burden is on the person harmed.

The desert proponents once argued that punishment is a way for us to acknowledge the humanity of a person. Denying him a punishment is denying his accountability for his actions. And denying his accountability is denying his moral agency. So personhood has this component of culpability. You take away this culpability, then we treat him like we treat innocent animals.

blame — L'éléphant

blame — Joshs

Speaking from my own personal experiences, I'd say blame only enters the picture in the presence of a free agency (someone who's free to act as s/he chooses and thus is responsible/culpable).

Let me relate two kinds of incidents in our lives:

1. You've parked your car under a tree. You go do whatever it is that you had to. After a coupla hours, you return only to find that a branch has broken and has smashed your hood & windscreen. You fly off the handle, but there's no one to point a finger at i.e. there's literally no one to blame. If you do, like most of us, still feel the need to blame someone, anyone, you blame yourself for having lacked the sense to foresee the falling branch (it is after all a possibility, no matter how improbable, that you should have thought about). Then there's always your luck you could hold responsible for your troubles. The bottom line is, in such circumstances, it's either you (your idiocy) OR (bad) luck.

2. Someone drives carelessly and rams his/her vehicle into your car. This person is what I would call a free agency (s/he had a choice and still...). In such cases, you blame the person/persons that injured you or damaged your property.

Thus, on the whole, there are 3 blameworthy individuals.
1. Yourself [your stupidity to be precise]
2. Displeased Fortuna [your (bad) luck]
3. Other people [a free agency]

No reason why all 3 shouldn't work in concert to spoil your day, week, month, year, so on.

What's to note, nevertheless, is that if you'd been (more) careful, if you'd thought things through, if you'd been just that much more wiser, you could've easily eliminated the uncontrollable variables in the anger-blame equation (Fortuna & other people) and that empowers you (you're in charge of your life, emotions, etc.), but at the same time, that makes you responsible for any calamity that befalls you (you yourself are to blame for your mishaps, small & big).

What's to note, nevertheless, is that if you'd been (more) careful, if you'd thought things through, if you'd been just that much more wiser, you could've easily eliminated the uncontrollable variables in the anger-blame equation (Fortuna & other people) and that empowers you (you're in charge of your life, emotions, etc.), but at the same time, that makes you responsible for any calamity that befalls you (you yourself are to blame for your mishaps, small & big). — Agent Smith

I wouldn’t say wholly responsible for any calamity that befalls me, but responsible at least for my part in it. To eliminate blame is to also refrain from self-blame. Mishaps happen, and they make demands on our attention and effort that we didn’t expect and weren’t prepared for. If we could be honest in attributing blame, then we may be just as angry at ourselves as we would be towards others. But even when we blame ourselves, how often do those we love bear the brunt of our self-deprecating anger? And how many cop the anger they supposedly deserve as well as what we should have inflicted on ourselves? Acknowledging our own part in the mishap - our lack of awareness, consideration or care - should eliminate the majority of blame and therefore the anger directed towards others, but it often compounds the anger instead.

Blame is a way of directing our attention and effort towards a determined cause of pain, humility or loss after the event, which is unlikely to reduce future instances. It’s wasted, if you ask me. Better to direct it towards increasing our capacity for awareness, consideration or care in future situations.

Let me ask you this: do you think you personally can get rid of the ALL of the following feelings in response to the actions of others? — Joshs

No, should I want to?

I would argue the cause of blameful rules isnt secondary, it is the primary instigator for the rules and what motivates us recognize that they have been violated. — Joshs

Well, I completely disagree and I can't imagine why you think this.

Do we have rules that protect the rights of employees and employers, rental providers and renters, customers and businesses, rules that protect from harassment, the rules of civility or even the rules of a game, on the basis of blame? If I scream at a co-worker or at a cashier, it's only a problem because I can be blamed? We need to ask whether or not I had a bad day? Did my parents raise me right? Was I being influenced by some biological factor? Or is the problem that as a society we want to protect people from being screamed at regardless of the reason?

Anger and blame can be valuable, I don't condemn them without context. I think that people will disagree, we know this, and we know people are different, thus I think our approach should tolerate difference and handle differences with the utmost grace and respect. When something is unfair or harmful, that's when for things to continue running smoothly, some kind of arbitration is needed.

If we believe that one’s motives can be swayed in irrational directions, then our anger tells us we may be able to away them back into the fold. — Joshs

What's the problem?

I find your characterisations alien, I do not believe people care about the violator as they do the rules. Correction of another's behaviour is one way to ensure the rules are followed but it is not the only way, but our motivation or interest is not about the violator, and if imprisoning them or sending them away is the way to ensure the rules are protected then that's what is done. The employee will be fired, the employer sued, the customer banned and etc.

I wouldn’t say wholly responsible for any calamity that befalls me — Possibility

I took it a little too far. Thanks.

Mishaps happen — Possibility

You mean shit happens! You can say that again.

how often do those we love bear the brunt [...] — Possibility

Too often. :sad:

Acknowledging our own part in the mishap - our lack of awareness, consideration or care - should eliminate the majority of blame and therefore the anger directed towards others, but it often compounds the anger instead — Possibility

Not necessarily, but :ok:

unlikely to reduce future instances — Possibility

Nature's bloodlust!

Better to direct it towards increasing our capacity for awareness, consideration or care in future situations. — Possibility

Sound advice!

Anger and blame can be valuable, I don't condemn them without context. I think that people will disagree, we know this, and we know people are different, thus I think our approach should tolerate difference and handle differences with the utmost grace and respect. When something is unfair or harmful, that's when for things to continue running smoothly, some kind of arbitration is needed. — Judaka

Anger and blame could be valuable only in self-awareness, not in directing towards others. If we believe ourselves righteous in anger towards someone, it’s a sure sign that we don’t understand where they’re coming from. That should give us pause.

Do we really think that attributing blame and directing anger towards someone will repair any damage or prevent future occurrences? Can we predict their response to us that accurately, or are we imposing our assumptions on how they should respond? When something is unfair or harmful, by all means we should take steps to redirect those energies, but I don’t think that can be achieved through blame or anger.

Arbitration is about judgement required to settle a dispute - it’s not about attributing blame, but rather redirecting attention and effort towards seeing that damages are repaired and/or recurrences of unfairness or harm are prevented.

I worry that we may have in our minds differing images of context for anger and blame, at the very least, I can agree that anger and blame are not always high-quality, reliable tools for arbitration. They can be inappropriate and unhelpful. If your argument is that anger and blame are never useful then we disagree. Blame and anger communicate a stern warning, that some behaviour or decision was inappropriate and sometimes there can be some opportunity to rectify things, apologise and correct. Anger can be handled in a measured way and it can be communicated respectfully.

I don't like to talk too much about this kind of subject without context, it is very context dependant. Anger is not always a bad emotion, sometimes people get angry because they care, or it can be used to emphasise a point. Sometimes, anger is a performance, it fulfils some other objective, like showing how you feel. And how it's communicated matters a lot.

I worry that we may have in our minds differing images of context for anger and blame, at the very least, I can agree that anger and blame are not always high-quality, reliable tools for arbitration. They can be inappropriate and unhelpful. If your argument is that anger and blame are never useful then we disagree. Blame and anger communicate a stern warning, that some behaviour or decision was inappropriate and sometimes there can be some opportunity to rectify things, apologise and correct. Anger can be handled in a measured way and it can be communicated respectfully.

I don't like to talk too much about this kind of subject without context, it is very context dependant. Anger is not always a bad emotion, sometimes people get angry because they care, or it can be used to emphasise a point. Sometimes, anger is a performance, it fulfils some other objective, like showing how you feel. And how it's communicated matters a lot. — Judaka

It seems that you’re reluctant to put aside anger as a useful ‘tool’ for interaction. I do get that, and I’m certainly not saying that anger is a ‘bad’ emotion, because I don’t think those kinds of judgements are useful at all. But I do think it’s inefficient, and often ineffective, as a ‘tool’ for any interaction.

I don’t accept that people get angry simply because they care - there’s more to it than that. I think we get angry because our connection makes us afraid (of pain, loss or humility) and we’re not willing to accept that fear. I also think that if we need to use anger to emphasise a point, then there’s a communication issue somewhere. Likewise, if anger is our go-to method for expressing how we feel, then I think there’s a need to improve awareness, connection or collaboration in how we interact. This is what I mean by anger being useful in self-awareness.

Anger is a warning sign that the interaction is flawed. Feeling it is not the issue - using it as a ‘tool’ on someone else is. Communicating a perceived inappropriateness of behaviour doesn’t require an expression of anger on my part, unless I’m actively refusing to accept any part in the interaction. When I communicate respectfully, it isn’t the anger that I need to communicate, but my awareness and ongoing connection regarding the flawed interaction - along with my willingness to collaborate in repairing it. Blame and anger just make this more difficult, because they keep my attention and effort directed towards what I cannot change, ie. the past, other people’s behaviour or decisions, etc.

The subject of interaction between people is too complex to talk about so generally and without context, don't you agree? But I can agree that anger is generally inefficient or ineffective as a tool for interaction.
Though was this thread talking about anger as a tool for interaction or for a tool for analysis? For instance, seeing an issue like the Israeli-Palestine conflict or the Russian-Ukrainian conflict through the lens of anger and blame? What is the better way?

Blame is a way of directing our attention and effort towards a determined cause of pain, humility or loss after the event, which is unlikely to reduce future instances. It’s wasted, if you ask me. Better to direct it towards increasing our capacity for awareness, consideration or care in future situations — Possibility

Blame is a way of directing our attention and effort towards a determined cause of pain, humility or loss after the event, which is unlikely to reduce future instances. It’s wasted, if you ask me. Better to direct it towards increasing our capacity for awareness, consideration or care in future situations. — Possibility

Blame skeptics like Derk Pereboom make a distinction between forward looking and backward looking blame. Backward looking blame tends to be retributive, whereas forward looking blame aims to minimize future incidents.
I should note that focusing on increasing our care and consideration implies that we believe we were acting carelessly and inconsiderately, which I consider to be forms of anger-blame.

Let me ask you this: do you think you personally can get rid of the ALL of the following feelings in response to the actions of others?
— Joshs

No, should I want to? — Judaka

My claim is that all forms of blame I mentioned indicate a failure of insight on our part. I’m not saying they have no positive benefit. Our blame can cause another to apologize and tow the line. But it never achieves effective insight into why the other chose to act the way they did.
Feeling of blame are always an impetus toward conformity to what we thought should have been.

Do we have rules that protect the rights of employees and employers, rental providers and renters, customers and businesses, rules that protect from harassment, the rules of civility or even the rules of a game, on the basis of blame? If I scream at a co-worker or at a cashier, it's only a problem because I can be blamed? We need to ask whether or not I had a bad day? Did my parents raise me right? Was I being influenced by some biological factor? Or is the problem that as a society we want to protect people from being screamed at regardless of the reason? — Judaka

‘Rights’, like ‘justice’, is a concept that would not exist without anger and blame. Concluding that someone acted unjustly or violated another’s rights is a blameful judgement. Harassment is also a form of blame and anger , as is the concept of incivility. All
of these terms imply that the other knew better, or should have known better, than to do what they did. Do you violate my rights not to be harassed if you trip and fall on me? No, deliberate intent must be involved.

I do not believe people care about the violator as they do the rules — Judaka

Shift away for a moment from societal rules and laws, and focus instead on the much more relevant and frequent examples of anger and blame on our daily lives. Many of these occur in our relations with people we know well , and it is these that determine our day to day happiness to a much greater extent than the legal situations you refer to.
The legal situations are derivations of the intimate interpersonal interactions we experience. Here we can see how blame and anger are remarkably sensitive manifestations of rifts in the subtle and vulnerable bonds of expectation and trust we develop with our families, friends and acquaintances. Why did my spouse cheat on me , why did my friend insult me, why hasn’t my child called me lately? These are deeply intimate , surprising disappointments in our sense of how others think about us. We thought they cared for us, and now they seem to callously reject us. The hinge of anger and blame is the proximity we feel the other has to our needs and feelings. This is what gives anger the fuel to try to influence the other back into the fold, because we believe at some level they are close to their previous caring self and can be coaxed or forced back to that intimacy with us.
Justice, laws and rules retain this structure of hopeful coaxing or forcing. If we look at the cultural history of blame, we see that as our views of the psychology of interpersonal blame evolves, our notion of legal blame evolves in tandem with it.

Getting rid of blame is not logically sound. Why? How do we even start to define harm? Someone caused it, but he couldn't be blamed for it because there's no free will? How do we hold people accountable then? — L'éléphant

How do we hold children accountable for attacking another child out of fear because they didn’t understand the other child’s intent was innocent and peaceful? The whole point is we won’t need the concept
of moral accountability if we recognize that motivation and intent is never to ‘blame’ , but a limited understanding of other’s behavior and thinking is the root of what we mistakenly call immorality. There are all
sorts of ways we can protect ourselves from the potentially harmful actions of those whose limited insights make them a potential danger to us, as is the case with autistic children who can be uncontrollably violent with other family members. It’s important to note here that I am not considering the autistic child’s behavior irrational or parhological. On the contrary, it is a reflection of the child’s appropriate interpretation of their situation, given their inefficient processing of social and perceptual cues.

Ditching the concept of accountability allows us to know how to support others while protecting ourselves from their violence , rather than treating them
like demons.

How many times do you hold lovers, friends and
family members ‘accountable’ for actions you blame them for rather than blaming your own failure to effectively construe their thinking?

was this thread talking about anger as a tool for interaction or for a tool for analysis? For instance, seeing an issue like the Israeli-Palestine conflict or the Russian-Ukrainian conflict through the lens of anger and blame? What is the better way? — Judaka

We wouldn’t have anger and blame as tools
for analysis if they weren’t already being used as tools of interaction. Would it be possible to effectively understand such conflicts without assuming a basis in anger and blame? Put differently, what would be left of these conflicts without such feelings?

I suggest that it is possible to think beyond anger and blame entirely, but we can only do this by getting past the idea that human motives are fundamentally arbitrary and capricious, and subject to conditioning and shaping by irrational social and bodily sources. What do you think? — Joshs

I think this is a great topic, but you're asking questions that aren't actually applicable to reality. To explain, the functions of the brain, are in fact, the functions of the brain. These functions also include the executive function of perception and formulating thoughts on perception. Modern neuroscience shows us that basic behavioral protocols are initiated to achieve individual homeostasis, by and large, but that those protocols can be informed by values and concepts integrated through executive function perception. So, what are we dealing with here?

Anger and the other emotions you discussed are not issues at all. In fact, they are emotions that are essential to your survival, as well as your long-term homeostasis, and maximization thereof. However, the brain is also acutely perceptive of inequalities in homeostasis contributive resources between biological entites (nobody cares about being unequal with the person with cancer). Inequalities that, if the observer feels have no justifiable explanation, or the explanation includes behaviors that threaten homeostasis, then not only does one become angry, but often aggressive as a matter of function. The kicker here is the executive function value and concept integration.

Let's say I value equality as a standard for behavior. Then percieved inequality is going to incite anger, and likely agression, in response to what I have integrated into my behavioral processing mechanisms (amgdyla, thalamus, hippocampus, mesocorticolymbic, etc.) and for the pursuit of overcoming perceived disturbance of homeostasis. However, inequality is not something anyone can remove from reality, is a fact of nature. Thus, if I value the removal of an ineradicable factof reality, my anger systems will begin to burden me, and thereby reduce homeostasis, perhaps even long-term. The same is going to be true with any other value one integrates into the "threatens homeostasis" category of protocols for which there is no remedy, or correction possible. However, let's say I don't care about inequality. Let's say, on the contrary, I have integrated the value that inequality is the proper and realistic representation of individual aptitude within a given domain of production (art, music, basketball, coal mining), then I won't be perturbed at all. In fact, I will celebrate it, pursue, and achieve homeostasis by the behavioral standards that are instantiated as a result of that value integration. So, you know what I think about it all? Well, I'll tell you:

Philosophy has produced no real way to deal with the intrinsic emotions that you enumerated, especially the ones humanity is just so burdened by, because philosophers have NEVER understood the nature of the brain, and thereby the nature of consciousness. But, neuroscience has really revealed a good deal to us now, and nobody seems to want to explore it. And the reason for that is, that modern neuroscience verifies and validates every unpopular philosophical precept that dominates both religion, as well the academician philosophers in our educational milliue. That aptitude is real, that reality is real, that the brain is a material entity, that the brain has an intrinsic nature, that the nature of the brain can be predicted and tested, that the brain not only produces consciousness but also regulates every other function of the body, and that it's primary directive as established by evolution and the nature of the systems that gave rise to it is the pursuit of its own individual achievement and maximization of homeostasis. This shit flies right in the face of accepted modern philosophy, most of which being informed by Christian sentiment, and by proxy Kant, Marx, Foucault, Descartes, Plato (although not Christian still mystical), and Hume, whom all posit ideas that are contradictory to reality, and frankly, are complete bullshit.

So, that all being said, here's you a few good ethical propositions that are consistent with human nature by which to predicate your personal approach at dealing with anger:

1. Understand it is only a neural function designed to help you
2. Understand that any conclusions you draw while angry are likely to be irrational, and thereby likely to induce more anger and homeostatic precarity and disruption
3. That in order to achieve homeostasis and be free of the harmful effects potentially implied by anger, your conclusions must be rationally drawn in accordance with the most reliable data you can find
4. That every other human's brain is bound to the same functions and thereby intrinsically required to be respected in it's nature as an equal but independent entity from you for the sake of overall homeostasis for all people involved in the circumstances impacting said homeostasis negatively

Just these alone being integrated by most people would solve half of the worlds problems, and de-mystify anger as a neural phenomenon. Unfortunately, there is some truth to the assertion of the absence of philosophical approaches to these perceived issues, but there is always Epicureanism and Stoicism which did wonders for people, especially Epicureanism.

Luckily as it happens, actual philosophers are exploring and addressing these issues, I happen to be one of them. Feel free to ask me for clarity, or expansion of anything I have posited here.

Though was this thread talking about anger as a tool for interaction or for a tool for analysis? For instance, seeing an issue like the Israeli-Palestine conflict or the Russian-Ukrainian conflict through the lens of anger and blame? What is the better way? — Judaka

I think the Israeli-Palestine conflict is a clear example of the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of blame and anger. What would a win-win situation look like here? Everyone is so focused on the significance of history in such a limited space, they’re ignoring aspects of the present reality. They acknowledge present pain and loss, but what’s not being recognised is the present state of humility. This is why the conflict continues, because both sides focus on past or consolidated pride to avoid a sense of humility in any present or future interaction.

Humility in this sense isn’t self-blame, though - it’s being honest about how far our present reality is from where we expect or prefer it to be, and about the distribution of attention and effort over time required to close the gap. Keeping in mind that we can only intend forward in time, and anything worth doing well involves choosing awareness over ignorance, connection over isolation and collaboration over exclusion.

Better to direct it towards increasing our capacity for awareness, consideration or carein future situations. — Possibility

Blame skeptics like Derk Pereboom make a distinction between forward looking and backward looking blame. Backward looking blame tends to be retributive, whereas forward looking blame aims to minimize future incidents.
I should note that focusing on increasing our care and consideration implies that we believe we were acting carelessly and inconsiderately, which I consider to be forms of anger-blame. — Joshs

Sure, it can imply that - if you’re focusing on consolidating a judgement of past behaviour; backward-looking blame, as you say. But the distribution of attention and effort I’m referring to here is more in line with taking responsibility in future interactions, rather than being morally responsible for past behaviour.

The legal situations are derivations of the intimate interpersonal interactions we experience. Here we can see how blame and anger are remarkably sensitive manifestations of rifts in the subtle and vulnerable bonds of expectation and trust we develop with our families, friends and acquaintances. Why did my spouse cheat on me , why did my friend insult me, why hasn’t my child called me lately? These are deeply intimate , surprising disappointments in our sense of how others think about us. We thought they cared for us, and now they seem to callously reject us. The hinge of anger and blame is the proximity we feel the other has to our needs and feelings. This is what gives anger the fuel to try to influence the other back into the fold, because we believe at some level they are close to their previous caring self and can be coaxed or forced back to that intimacy with us.
Justice, laws and rules retain this structure of hopeful coaxing or forcing. If we look at the cultural history of blame, we see that as our views of the psychology of interpersonal blame evolves, our notion of legal blame evolves in tandem with it. — Joshs

This corresponds to the increase in arbitration and mediation for legal situations regarding harm, disappointment or feelings of rejection.

I am wary of anger used as a tool for interaction - to try to ‘coax or force’ another back into intimacy, for instance. There may be an alternative perspective to what you’ve described here. Feelings of anger are a warning sign that the interaction is flawed. Using anger as a tool in this situation seems not so much a ‘hopeful coaxing’ but expressing a selfish threat to withdraw intimacy - believing our position, our needs and feelings, to be uncompromisingly central to the relationship.

Legal tools such as arbitration or mediation focus on the relation itself or ongoing interaction as central, rather than the ‘needs and feelings’ of one or the other party. That isn’t to say that our needs and feelings have no value, but that they form only one aspect of a broader reality - one in which justice, laws, rules and blame could be considered arbitrary.

the distribution of attention and effort I’m referring to here is more in line with taking responsibility in future interactions, rather than being morally responsible for past behaviour. — Possibility

I realize that the term blame is loaded with all kinds of oppressive moralistic connotations, and that’s why blame skeptics and incompatiblists ,embodied cognitive scientists , legal scholars and postmodern social constructionists are racing to distance themselves from the word. I agree with their rejection of the idea of blame as based on belief in traditional free will. The notion of blame I think still remains is something that many may not consider blame at all. But my notion of blame has
to do with aspects within models of psychological and social functioning threat rely on the idea that values are conditioned and shaped. Jesse Prinz says babies are natural psychopaths that need to be conditioned into
moral concepts.

You mentioned attention and effort. Attention and cognitive effort are central features of many contemporary cognitive theories. These concepts as
they are used in cognitive models assume that attention and effort are processes that are themselves
conditioned. They use experimental manipulations to attempt to demonstrate this. Phenomenolgosts like Eugene Gendlin and Husserl critique this idea
of attention as a kind of spotlight. They instead argue that attention is a creative process. We create what we are attending ro rather than noticing something that was assumedto be already there.
The difference here is between a causative
model and an intentional one. Causative
models are semi-arbitrary and based on conditioning. They imply the concepts of anger and blame , because these have to do with our experience of others behavior as semi-arbitrary and subject to shaping influences. We’re. it talking about moral condemnation here , just simple irritation and annoyance. Those are enough to lead us to try to ‘forcefully’ reshape attention and effort, rather than recognize that we always act to define and extend our understanding of
the world in the most appropriate fashion available to us at the time, given our pepe-existing knowledge.

Legal tools such as arbitration or mediation focus on the relation itself or ongoing interaction as central, rather than the ‘needs and feelings’ of one or the other party. That isn’t to say that our needs and feelings have no value, but that they form only one aspect of a broader reality - one in which justice, laws, rules and blame could be considered arbitrary. — Possibility

Although our needs and feelings , far from being separable from a mitral, rational understanding of the situation , form the very basic of our rationality. Strongly polarized feelings between disputants are manifestations of different paradigms of rationality, different worldviews.

You mentioned attention and effort. Attention and cognitive effort are central features of many contemporary cognitive theories. These concepts as they are used in cognitive models assume that attention and effort are processes that are themselves conditioned. They use experimental manipulations to attempt to demonstrate this. Phenomenolgosts like Eugene Gendlin and Husserl critique this idea of attention as a kind of spotlight. They instead argue that attention is a creative process. We create what we are attending ro rather than noticing something that was assumed to be already there.
The difference here is between a causative model and an intentional one. Causative models are semi-arbitrary and based on conditioning. They imply the concepts of anger and blame , because these have to do with our experience of others behavior as semi-arbitrary and subject to shaping influences. We’re. it talking about moral condemnation here , just simple irritation and annoyance. Those are enough to lead us to try to ‘forcefully’ reshape attention and effort, rather than recognize that we always act to define and extend our understanding of the world in the most appropriate fashion available to us at the time, given our pepe-existing knowledge. — Joshs

I’m with you here. Cognitive theories, being narrowly focused on cognition, fail to recognise attention and effort as a pre-cognitive, creative/consolidating relation. In creating the object of our attention, we simultaneously consolidate the subject who attends - neither of which can be assumed to be ‘already there’ as such.

Although our needs and feelings , far from being separable from a mitral, rational understanding of the situation , form the very basic of our rationality. Strongly polarized feelings between disputants are manifestations of different paradigms of rationality, different worldviews. — Joshs

Agreed. And when we recognise this, it should be clear that whatever reality may be in itself must include what appears to us irrational.

Anger no. Blame yes.

Anger no. Blame yes. — Arne

That translates to aggression.

I’m with you here. Cognitive theories, being narrowly focused on cognition, fail to recognise attention and effort as a pre-cognitive, creative/consolidating relation. In creating the object of our attention, we simultaneously consolidate the subject who attends - neither of which can be assumed to be ‘already there’ as such. — Possibility

There is no such thing as "narrowly focused" on the most complex and sophisticated computational entity in the known universe. Such a "narrow" categorization is not just a reductionist fallacy, but an avoidance of established science in favor of feelings. If your conclusions on such emotions are non predominantly predicated on the assessments provided by cognitive neursoscience, and as much data as you can accrue in the field, then you have no opinion. You're simply just positing thoughts. Furthermore, this statement is completely incoherent. There is no "pre-cognitive" anything in human experience, it's made-up bullshit and a further reduction. "Creative/consolidating relation" describes what appears to be nothing that makes any rational sense. And objects of attention are observed, not created. In other words, only that which exists can be apprehended by the brain in the form of sensory data and analyzed across its astronomically advanced system of networks. This is all complete gibberish.

Agreed. And when we recognise this, it should be clear that whatever reality may be in itself must include what appears to us irrational. — Possibility

Why would one recognize something that is clearly not true? Rationality is a clealry defined, highly specific concept:

The quality of being based on or in accordance with reason or logic.

So is reason:

Think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.

So is logic:

Reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.

In other words, to accept rationality as relatrive to a paradigm, a group of feelings, or some other non-rationality associated term, is itself irrationality by definition. Reality is never in a position where the irrational must be included into our model. If something appears irrational, there is a flaw in either a premise of ours, or in our inductive assessment. Not that reality and irrationality are compatible. Where do you people generate this anti-philosophy from?

Where do you people generate this anti-philosophy from? — Garrett Travers

A lot of it is generated from cognitive neuroscience. Check out anything by Panksepp or Antonio Damasio.
Or Lisa Barrett’s ‘How Emotions are Made: the Secret Life of the Brain’:

“ You might believe that you are a rational creature, weighing the pros and cons before deciding how to act, but the structure of your cortex makes this an implausible fiction. Your brain is wired to listen to your body budget.
Affect is in the driver’s seat and rationality is a passenger. It doesn’t mat­ter whether you’re choosing between two snacks, two job offers, two in­vestments, or two heart surgeons —your everyday decisions are driven by a loudmouthed, mostly deaf scientist who views the world through affect-­colored glasses.

Antonio Damasio, in his bestseller Descartes’ Error, observes that a mind requires passion (what we would call affect) for wisdom. He documents that people with damage to their interoceptive network, particularly in one key body-budgeting region, have impaired decision-making. Robbed of the ca­pacity to generate interoceptive predictions, Damasio’s patients were rud­derless. Our new knowledge of brain anatomy now compels us to go one step further. Affect is not just necessary for wisdom; it’s also irrevocably wo­ven into the fabric of every decision.”

You might believe that you are a rational creature, weighing the pros and cons before deciding how to act, but the structure of your cortex makes this an implausible fiction. Your brain is wired to listen to your body budget. — Joshs

Oh, the reduction and the false dichotomy fallacies that seem to take everybody for fools.

No, man.

"Your brain is wired to listen to your body budget," is but one, singular function that the brain performs in a vast array of functions that includes memory, concept generation, analysis of perceptions, regulating all organs and homeostatic systems necessary for maintained survival, and get this, no shit, executive function; the exact same executive function that allowed this person to not only observe what she believes she has observed in the brain inductively (rationality), but concisely and tactfully right a fucking book on the subject (even more rationality). It's nonsense. You don't get to convey something to me as that is a result of exclusively using the prefrontal cortex executive functions that allow for reason, to tell me reason in an "implausible fiction." This person shoud be ashamed of herself for witing this, especially if she's a cognitive neuroscientist.

Antonio Damasio, in his bestseller Descartes’ Error, observes that a mind requires passion (what we would call affect) for wisdom. He documents that people with damage to their interoceptive network, particularly in one key body-budgeting region, have impaired decision-making. — Joshs

Now, this is far more inlign with what is understood in neuroscience.

Robbed of the ca­pacity to generate interoceptive predictions, Damasio’s patients were rud­derless. Our new knowledge of brain anatomy now compels us to go one step further. Affect is not just necessary for wisdom; it’s also irrevocably wo­ven into the fabric of every decision.” — Joshs

Bingo! It is one of the brain's feedbackloops that induces more experience through action/behavior, thereby more data accrual, data to be abstracted from to form concepts, that inform future behaviors and the pursuit of homeostasis achievment and maximization. Also being just one singular group of functions that the brain helms. The key to understanding this awesome shit, as opposed to the quackery above, is that the observance of self-eveident neural protocols such as rationality, are absolutely not incompatible, or negated by self-evident neural protocols used to regulat temperature, heart beats, emotional processing, or any other demosntrable function of it. The brain is literally doing all of it. Meaning, when you see that the science demonstrates another group of processes and functions, you do not conclude them to be of primacy,at or dismiss other observations that are sound and reliably observed, but incorporate them into the body of knowledge of observed and tested neural processes and functions upon which to draw conclusions.

Here is a plethora of sources on the brain, go check out what it is doing at all times, it is literally mind-boggling:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroeconomics

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6043598/

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2018.00359/full

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5586212/

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Field_theories_of_consciousness

https://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/i/i_03/i_03_p/i_03_p_que/i_03_p_que.html

https://qbi.uq.edu.au/brain/brain-functions/visual-perception

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK542184/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10870199/


Plenty more where this came from.

Here is a plethora of sources on the brain, go check out what it is doing at all times, it is literally mind-boggling: — Garrett Travers

What you need to do is find out what the neuroscience sources you endorse are saying about the sources you reject as false and bogus. It’s easy to do, and maybe you and I should do it together. For instance, you refer to Barrett’s work as ‘quackery’ and praise Damasio. But what does Damasio say about Barrett? You treat sources your reject as though no self-respecting cognitive psychologist would treat them seriously , but that reflects a misunderstanding of how such theorists are viewed within the cognitive neuroscience community.