by\u00a0Ana Bazac<\/p>\n
Anticipation<\/em> is an essential function of the mind\/ the consciousness, because it precedes<\/em> and prepares<\/em> the reaction <\/em>of the organism to the stimuli of the environment. By preceding it, anticipation is a rapid review of the possibilities and conditions and, as a result, it is the frame of the best choice\/the best model of reaction.<\/p>\n In the methodology of cognition<\/em> view, anticipation is a pattern of the next perceptions of the world: as such, this pattern \/ this modelling pattern is a \u201cprinciple of pure understanding\u201d[1]<\/a> \u2013 in our current \u201ctranslation\u201d, a mental meta<\/em> structure of cognition \u2013, while perception is \u201cthe consciousness of an appearance (before any concept)\u201d[2]<\/a>, and \u201cThe principle, which anticipates all perceptions, as such, runs thus: In all appearances the sensation, and the real, which corresponds to it in the object (realitas phaenomenon<\/em>), has an intensive magnitude<\/em>, i.e., a degree\u201d[3]<\/a>. Simpler, sensations can never be anticipated, because they are determined by the conjunction of physiology with the external stimuli, but perceptions of and within the a priori<\/em> of space and time can, as magnitudes or degrees of future<\/em> reality\/appearances via the empirical sensations[4]<\/a>. Here, anticipation is a presentiment organising the degrees of the next sensations.<\/p>\n The neuro-physiological<\/em> research has substantiated and confirmed the Kantian epistemology of anticipation, demonstrating that \u201cthe principle\u201d is a \u201csuper-ordering\u201d system<\/em> in the brain resulted from neuro and bio-chemical vectors and connections[5]<\/a>,\u00a0 and the ubiquity of anticipative ways and structuring in the deployment of many types of reactions[6]<\/a>.<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n All human reactions and behaviours are moral<\/em>, because they take place in society and between social beings, morality<\/em> being \u2013 the conscious or not, the intentional or not \u2013 general feature of human reactions and behaviours[7]<\/a>.<\/p>\n The oldest model of social reactions and behaviours is the interhuman discursive communication<\/em>: between the sender subject <\/em>and the receiver (S\u2192R).\u00a0 Because the unique peculiarity of both \u2013 thus, of the human beings as such \u2013 was\/ is logos<\/em> (\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2): reason articulately expressed, or words\/language symbolising the explanations after examination, the accounts, and synthesising the principles of understanding. Accordingly, both the relata <\/em>and the relatum<\/em> are social<\/em>, that is, each depends on the other, and the vector of this interdependence, language, is the means, as for instance the Sophists emphasised.<\/p>\n But this model<\/em> competes \u2013 rather with the ascent of modernity \u2013 with the one of methodological individualism<\/em>: where the social interconnectedness is fragmented<\/em>, a reaction emerging from a subject\/(S) considered either the active origin of reactions\/behaviours or the passive receiver of \u201canonymous\u201d others\u2019 reactions or behaviours. The methodological individualism was the main explicative model <\/em>in the European thought, but obviously not the single one. And it is useful as long as it is not <\/em>absolutized: because the whole picture is not 1 fragment + 1 fragment etc.<\/em>\/ an individual responds\/behaves in such or such way that is thus generalised\/generalisable<\/em>, but the whole explained through relationships\/ the whole system of relationships between parts<\/em>. Otherwise, the explanation of one individual\u2019s behaviour is reduced to a vulgar biological determinism.<\/p>\n And obviously, the methodological individualism, too, refers to the dominant conceptions of international relations: because these relations are also fragmented, and seen from the standpoint of the dominant (individual and collective) subject\/(S) that is their real or imagined master.<\/p>\n \n A result of the methodological individualism is the axiological relativism<\/em>: the narratives about the reactions, behaviours and attitudes of the many different subjects in the social relations arrives to be similar and similarly evaluated\/labelled, thus axiologically equivalent. And a mirror of this methodological individualism is a \u201cstatic\u201d ontology <\/em>of the human as a group of concepts logically derived according to a hierarchical pattern that however is only a means of a biased representation of also the moral side of social relations.<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n An example is the topic of the present note, moral anticipation<\/em>: anticipation not as a general <\/em>feature in the human relations and processes, but as a psycho-sociological kind <\/em>manifested as foreseeing<\/em> others\u2019 sentiments and as prevention<\/em> of those sentiments which are not suitable to the transmitter\/ (S). The moral anticipation is always conscious<\/em>: the neuro-physiological basis of anticipation is clear, psychologically the mirror neurons allow the mental image of others\u2019\/(R) feelings, but the moral anticipation \u2013 either alone, related to the conscious intention to grasp others\u2019 sentiments as a result of the subject\u2019s\/(S) discourse (or\/and facts), or accompanying other kinds of anticipation in scientific, political, cultural etc. discourses \u2013 is always present, implied in every social relationship. Accordingly, the moral anticipation issues from the neuro-physiologically based psychological need to prevent the individual\u2019s<\/em> bad feelings.<\/p>\n Now, the moral anticipation is not a simple neutral methodological principle: because of the social interdependence <\/em>and mutuality<\/em>, the moral anticipation concerns especially the bad feelings<\/em>, the sadness, offense, annoyance<\/em> felt by other persons. In other words, all types of feelings can be suitable or harmful to the sender\/(S) \u2013 and he\/she fits the discourse\/fact to the expectation of having triggered the suitable (bad or good) feelings of others\/(R) \u2013, but the bad feelings of the receivers\/(R) are the ones which, normally, are avoided<\/em>. Why? Functionally<\/em>: because the bad feelings of the receivers\/(R) could transform into bad, harmful responses to the sender\/(S). Morally<\/em>: because the humans apply what they can understand<\/em>, the evil <\/em>result of the treatment of others\/(R) only as means<\/em>[8]<\/a>.<\/p>\n Theoretically, the criterion of detecting and separating the good and bad feelings of others\/(R) is their universalizability<\/em>, and the universalizability must be made aware by the subjects\/(S) who own\/emit the message, first as rejection of bad feelings if they (S) were in the imagined similar situation of the receivers\/(R). If the question clearly posed is \u201cwhich feelings induced to others\/(R) are desirable to and assumed by me\/the transmitter subject\/(S)?\u201d, then we can distinguish between the moral feelings: which are all socially determined, but are not morally equivalent.<\/em><\/p>\n Foreseeing<\/em> others\u2019 moral feelings is not a question of simple mirror neurons mechanism[9]<\/a>, but one of a complex superposition of different aspects of moral evaluation<\/em>: of values and moral criteria, of interests, of contexts. And since anticipation<\/em> is the mental trajectory from the other\u2019s\/(R) future<\/em> state (of mind) to the present<\/em> moment of the sender subject\/(S) \u2013 and thus it is not<\/em> tantamount to fore<\/em>know and fore<\/em>cast, the mental trajectory from the present<\/em> moment of the subject\/(S) to the others\u2019<\/em>\/(R) future<\/em> state \u2013 the moral anticipation<\/em> is also the prevention<\/em> of bad feelings\/ situations of the receivers\/(R) of the discourse: from the present to the others\u2019\/(R) future state.<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n To prevent the others\/(R) from feeling bad, sad, offended, humiliated<\/em>, reduced, turned into bad persons<\/em> (situation that the subject\/(S) abhors when it is related to him\/her\/(S)): this is the core<\/em> of moral anticipation, and the proof<\/em> of moral sensitivity.<\/p>\n Traditionally, moral sensitivity<\/em> and empathy \u2013 <\/em>two concepts of the ontology of morals, but mainly discussed as psychological \u2013 are considered in a static way: they are contemplative <\/em>attitudes \u2013 and many intellectuals consider that their moral sensitivity and empathy are accomplished <\/em>in the criticism they express in their artistic, scientific, philosophical narratives \u2013, post<\/em> the facing of others\u2019 \/(R) situation. \u201cTo feel what[10]<\/a> the other\/(R) feel\u201d: and then, to feel pity towards others\/(R), to help them.<\/p>\n Actually, to feel what<\/em> the others\/(R) do feel is possible through language <\/em>and images[11]<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. This feeling in mirror becomes part \u2013 as a hyphen, an intermediate between contemplation and foreseeing<\/em> and, on the other hand, prevention <\/em>\u2013 of the moral anticipation. And thus, the moral anticipation \u2013 since its starting point is the representation<\/em> of the others\u2019\/(R) feelings \u2013 is prevention<\/em>: of worsening others\u2019\/(R) feelings through the sender subject\u2019s\/(S) contribution; thus, to annul the bad feelings and situations of others\/(R). Only by preventing the deterioration of others\u2019 feelings and our contribution to this embittering of others\u2019 feelings and situations, moral anticipation takes place, sensitivity becomes real<\/em>, and empathy \u2013 active<\/em>.<\/p>\n However, the ethical discussion of moral anticipation is forbidden in and by the dominant \u201cpens\u00e9e unique\u201d.\u00a0 The discourse is \u201cpost-truth\u201d and the main takeaway is to ignore what is exterior to the dominant feelings. But in this way, the human faculty to rationally represent the world shrinks, flattens. The model <\/em>of the human being becomes deprived by the sensitivity towards others\/(R) \u2013 they being evaluated only from the standpoint of the usefulness<\/em> to the \u201chappy man\u201d (S): who is pushed to transfer the knowledge and problematizing of existence to inanimate robots[12]<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the general view of human beings as unique persons<\/em> each of them[13]<\/a> \u2013 and this general view likes to consider itself as the \u201csingle respectable tradition\u201d in the thinking about the humans \u2013 the discourse that annihilates the moral anticipation seems to be inadvertent: but they coexist without trouble<\/em>. In fact, this coexistence accepts the distance<\/em> between the pink personalism and reality, as well as the difference <\/em>between the accepted persons and the unaccepted, excluded ones: only the first have the real right to discourse transmission and, thus, to praxis standardisation.<\/p>\n But man\u2019s reason is open and always novel. Man can foresee and prevent. And he can fight for the realisation of these capacities, of the free manifestation of the people as \u201cmultitude\u201d of unique personalities[14]<\/a>.<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n Someone does not care about the sadness, the moral suffering he causes others\/(R): he\/she\/(S) is a bad person<\/em>. The evil<\/em> starts when one\/(S) emits messages 1) which are, au fond, false and 2) cause moral suffering to receivers\/(R). If the sending subject does not care about the moral suffering<\/em> of others\/(R), he\/she\/(S) does care neither about the physical suffering<\/em> he\/she causes.<\/p>\n Actually, the bad person\/(S) does want<\/em> to inflict to others\/(R) both<\/em> moral and physical suffering: because he\/she knows <\/em>\u2013 he\/she easily can anticipate \u2013 that the moral suffering expands itself from within, as <\/em>trauma, long-lasting, recurring trauma<\/em>[15]<\/a> resulted on the basis of an anticipating representation of continuous and never-ending suffering (fear, desperation) and its causes. <\/em>Imagine the children[16]<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n And more: the bad person\/(S) knows <\/em>that the physical suffering<\/em> \u2013 he\/she does not even think how would he\/she feel if he\/she were starving \u2013 generates moral suffering<\/em>: \u201cAt some point, hunger stopped being just physical, and started to erode the mind. You would see people wandering aimlessly, not even asking for food anymore. Children stopped playing. Conversations became quieter, slower. People forgot certain tastes… When people talk about starvation, they often think only of empty stomachs. But starvation is not just a bodily affliction. It eats away at the human spirit. It robs people of memory, emotion and clarity. Days pass in a fog, filled with survival tasks: fetching water, searching for something to eat, waiting in endless lines, watching others faint beside you\u2026 Parents, especially mothers, carry unbearable guilt – not just for failing to feed their children, but for the mere act of bringing them into this world, and for beginning to lose themselves, forgetting how to provide comfort\u201d[17]<\/a>.<\/p>\n The essence, as total result, of moral suffering is the lack of joie de vivre<\/em>, the definitive loss of the joy of life. When people become forcedly malnourished, they lose the moral energy<\/em> to taste the life\u2019s supplies: they lose the \u201cdopamine\u201d stimulus and marker, since life lost the marks fuelling the energy to confront and create[18]<\/a>.<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n The absolute lack of empathy of the perpetrator subject is revealed when he\/she denies<\/em> the ideas he\/she conceived of and the facts he\/she implemented: as \u201cstarvation\u201d[19]<\/a>, substituting this word with \u201cmalnutrition\u201d resulted from \u201csome dysfunctions\u201d the victims themselves being guilty of. Actually, there is no essential medical difference between starvation<\/em> and malnutrition<\/em>, both being a very severe condition[20]<\/a>, generating eventually only degrees of very bad physical and psychical long-lasting, even permanent and irreversible consequences[21]<\/a>. And how could a normal, so inherently good person, pretexts the \u201cinaccurate data, inconsistent methodology, potential bias led to false assertions that were utilized by ICC\u201d[22]<\/a>, in front of evidences[23]<\/a> and when the UN researchers and bodies[24]<\/a>, letting aside the aid bodies[25]<\/a>, including M\u00e9decins sans fronti\u00e8re<\/em>, have warned of \u201cmass starvation\u201d in Gaza, and much before 2025[26]<\/a>?<\/p>\n Is this illustration of moral and physical suffering not a removing from the theoretical problem of moral anticipation? No, it is not. Because, although every physical suffering generates psychical\/moral trauma \u2013 and every moral trauma involves harmful physical imbalances \u2013 the man-made<\/em>[27]<\/a> suffering negates even the reason-to-be of anticipation<\/em>: the anticipative sensing network has appeared in the living beings precisely to avoid harm and prepare a reaction\/the best reaction able to avoid harm and assure the good.<\/p>\n If so, the man-made<\/em> suffering is a \u201cmoral failure<\/em>\u201d[28]<\/a>. And an ontological failure<\/em>, because it \u00a0\u00a0opposes the moral anticipation that explains the genesis of moral reason. In other words, the human reaso<\/em>n \u2013 moral, since it results from its social cognitive faculties of supervising the empirical logic \u2013 deploys with the help of anticipation, more concretely, of moral anticipation<\/em>: but when it arrives to being used in order to be used to and legitimate the man-made suffering, it shuns this essential help\/means. Moral anticipation ceases to be an ontogenetic brick in a coherent human ontology.<\/p>\n Quite the contrary, from the standpoint that induces man-made<\/em> suffering, the human reason of a coherent ontology is minimised at the level of a crafty means that would anesthetise the moral anticipation. However, even though this standpoint believes that such deformed minimised reason would succeed, for eternity imposing its \u201cTruth\u201d and the ignorance of moral anticipation[29]<\/a>, in fact \u2013 but late \u2013 the humans can correct this ontological deviation.<\/p>\n But late. While the irreparable wasting of human lives was historically and socially determined, can it still be nowadays an ontological factor of the human reality?<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s leave aside for a moment the phenomenology discussing the one own\u2019s feelings when he\/she is hungry, and the ethics focused on the prevention of others\u2019 suffering. From a liberal standpoint, you should not give to a hungry man fish, but a fishing rod, so he can catch the fish. The liberal logic anticipates the counter-productive action of giving aid to people who have no the means to assure their own living. Then, why does Israel refuse the right of Palestinians to the shore of Gaza Strip and free access to the Mediterranean? And free access to their land?<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n Erasing <\/em>the moral anticipation is intended to construct a new, un-natural\/non-human reality. It occurs with the \u201cmanufacturing\u201d of moral feelings and knowledge. The goal of this manufacture is to induce moral exhaustion<\/em> from which issue the loss of hope, the cancelation of activism and resistance and its substitution with passive and even \u201cjoyful\u201d acceptance of the \u201cinevitable\u201d: \u201cYou want them to stop being citizens of a homeland and start being bodies trying to stay alive\u201d[30]<\/a>.<\/p>\n In discourse, the \u201cmanufacturing\u201d is \u201cmanipulation\u201d, as this word is widely known. It prepares the listener\/(R) to accept the standpoint of those\/(S) inflicting man-made suffering. It is deployed only with words, and the listener becomes confused<\/em>: he\/she no longer distinguishes the value of collective<\/em>, thus critical<\/em>, judgements<\/em> about humans from the absurd narrow individualism<\/em>, arriving even to align behind this \u201celite\u201d individualism. Perhaps in his\/her deep down, he\/she\/(R) does not believe the \u201chard-to-believe\u201d[31]<\/a>, but his\/her conscious stratum of immediate reactions\/accommodation pushes him to forgetting the search for truth, and to consider the deformation of or lies about reality as accreditable answers to this search.\u00a0 However, in this way he\/she becomes delusional<\/em>[32]<\/a>. For this reason, the domination over the human discourse is the fundamental \u201csin\u201d[33]<\/a>.<\/p>\n As it is known from history, from time to time, philosophy was expelled from polis<\/em>, because it was considered a danger for the power circles. And still as it is known, a way to defend itself was philosophy\u2019s will to suggest that its development as schools and branches, mutually isolated from each other, would avoid its inherent criticism concerning the power relations.\u00a0 An incessant abstract technique of many \u201cisms\u201d is not dangerous, isn\u2019t it? A branch of philosophy apparently very neutral was\/is phenomenology<\/em>.\u00a0 But here it is, even though its viewpoint is how the world does appear to the human consciousness \u2013 therefore, in a pattern of solipsistic relation of the subject with the vague and impersonal world which acquires colours only as a result of this relation \u2013 actually, the phenomenological question forces the enlargement of the pattern: the world in front of me is, first of all, the world of my fellow humans; and the world of my fellow humans gives <\/em>my configuration as the subject of logos<\/em>.<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/p>\n Is it possible to surpass the thought and facts which annihilate the moral anticipation<\/em>?<\/p>\n First, and with a leap we already are in this moment[34]<\/a>, people must take clear note<\/em> of them, must acknowledge <\/em>them. In this respect, a fundamental struggle is that of the power circles endeavouring to keep their domination over information.<\/p>\n But, after a too long interval, things are known and thus, a clear public recognition<\/em> of the historical neglect and disdain of moral anticipation is necessary. However, the present already out-of-date hierarchical relations of domination-submission generate not only the annihilation of moral anticipation, but also the rejection of its recognition<\/em>.<\/p>\n The moral suffering of the ruler subject\/(S) and the ruled (R) is different<\/em>: the former\/(S) fears his\/her legal answerability<\/em>; but also, his\/her moral accountability<\/em>: \u00a0generally \u2013 and laws were systematically constructed so as, with all the institutional counter-powers and examples of punishment, the rulers\u2019 structural decisions to enjoy impunity <\/em>\u2013 the leadership was and is exempted from the democratic obligations to respond legally and morally for the results of their decisions which remain untouchable[35]<\/a>.<\/p>\n The public recognition of the moral<\/em> and, thus, \u201cmetaphysical<\/em>\u201d guilt <\/em>of accountability which are not separated[36]<\/a>, and are universal even though the concrete guilt varies, is very difficult. However, not from a lack of cognitive ability, but because of the traditional asymmetric and hierarchical social relations and, thus education. And although we might surmise that every member of society who had another human in a lower social position than him transferred the guilt to this one, depriving himself of moral judgements about his own moral tasks, in fact this supposition itself is a culturally\/socially exaggeration: because it isolates the moral conscience \u2013 that involves indestructibly the spirit of responsibility of the self \u2013 from moral motifs<\/em> which generate moral energy<\/em>, as love, care, friendship, compassion, mutual aid, human solidarity.<\/p>\n The difficulty is related to the moral shame<\/em>: to recognise in front of others and also in front of one own\u2019s conscience not only the concrete guilt but also the \u201cmetaphysical\u201d guilt to having be fallen<\/em> under the power of evil motifs which generate moral exhaustion, indifference, disdain, arrogance, lack of restraint and moral judgements. This is the evil<\/em> \u2013 already banal<\/em>, as Hannah Arendt pointed out \u2013, and the clever psychology of religions urged the sinners to confess, because confession helps: to explain to oneself the causes and ways of the sin to having be fallen, to arrive, with the support of confessors as representatives of all humans, to alternative moral fuels, and to decide the paths of moral transformation. But, since we see that Hannah Arendt was right, religions\u2019 urge and the conclusions of common people\u2019s experience were to no end.<\/p>\n Anyway, the public recognition of the forgetting of moral anticipation implies the mastering of one\u2019s shame, somehow transforming it into decisions to annul the basis of the concrete shame. The public recognition of the forgetting of moral anticipation implies to<\/em> (know how to<\/em>) admit one\u2019s mistake<\/em>: not to ask for forgiveness in a pharisaic way \u2013 although it is difficult even to ask \u2013 but to admit one\u2019s mistake. Science intrinsically implies criticism\/self-criticism, the recognition of errors, because the cognitive process itself implies the evaluation of reactions, actions, solutions, therefore their criticism. On a social (political) level, is it difficult to admit moral mistakes: because of the pattern of asymmetrical relationships of power (domination-submission, superior-inferior hierarchy). Of course, asymmetrical relationships can also be socially neutral (the teacher-student model). But 1) the teacher must anticipate the best explanation and not make mistakes, 2) and if he is wrong, he must openly admit and explain where he went wrong, etc.: imposing the wrong point of view is the most counterproductive for both the teacher and the student.<\/p>\n The moral suffering of the ruled (R), as well as their recognition of their responsibility generate and manifest in different ways. As we see today, (S) doesn\u2019t experience moral shame and doesn\u2019t feel accountable. But (R), even though he\/she is not the direct decision-maker, knows <\/em>that he\/she is an indirect <\/em>cause of the evil, because he\/she doesn\u2019t oppose the use of his\/her taxes to wage war, becoming unwitting participants in another’s conflict. Accordingly, (R) may transform his\/her moral suffering into a general physical and social condition and illness: the Japanese hikikomori<\/em> phenomenon[37]<\/a>, withdrawal of adolescents from society\/active life, spread to Italy[38]<\/a>, France[39]<\/a> and other countries, and, although its name appeared in the 1990s, was experienced in Japan as social-<\/em> and anthropo- phobia<\/em> already in the 70s[40]<\/a>. What can they do in front of the normalisation of war[41]<\/a> and the institutional surveillance that equates critique with foes of the state and \u201cinternational community\u201d and forbids peaceful protests, imposing with all means the capitalist \u201crule of game\u201d[42]<\/a>?<\/p>\n