logic vs ethics and people-related topics

[chemical]

I am curious how you think logical vs ethical types deal differently with the people-oriented topics out there. This is about getting at the heart of logic/ethics reasoning, namely their differences.

I have a hard time accepting that logical types cannot understand people and what goes into their interactions and motivations, because this is a brand of knowledge like anything. At most they should approach it in a way different from the focus of the ethical types.

As a simple example: just because something deals with emotions and subtle questions about them, it can be tempting to peg it Fe? Why? It makes little sense to me, in the sense that I am unsure how this cannot be approached in an entirely logical/scientific way.

Thoughts? What makes the information that the ethics and logic elements process so incompatible as to create separate types?

(I have ideas on this but they don't seem to follow directly from socionics literature and I'm curious to hear others' understanding.)

[krieger]

if you're thinking of it in terms of "understanding" people it's already in the domain of logic. ethics' main asset is exactly the subversion of the need for understanding.

[chemical]

ethics' main asset is exactly the subversion of the need for understanding.

Could you expand on the sense in which this subversion becomes the aim?

The one obvious place to look at for my question is Gulenko himself, a socionics whose work arguably does a lot to try to spell upon people's psychological workings, inter-relations, and the like, but classified under his own system I believe as LII.

[krieger]

it's not an aim, it's a passive quality. a thing the ethical person does as a deeply ingrained habit.

[chemical]

it's not an aim, it's a passive quality. a thing the ethical person does as a deeply ingrained habit.

OK could you say what you think the heart of the ethical types is, and how that brings about an ingrained tendency to subvert the need for logical understanding?

[FDG]

OK could you say what you think the heart of the ethical types is, and how that brings about an ingrained tendency to subvert the need for logical understanding?

ethical functions are involved functions (as opposed to logic which is "detached", meaning that action is something deliberately done). So they use in-the-moment "information" (either explicit or implicit) to act, they don't require a framework of rules to understand how to behave in a specific situation.

[chemical]

they don't require a framework of rules to understand how to behave in a specific situation.

That might also be bringing in dimensionality implicitly, namely where the ethicals are at most at norm-level rather than situational in logical types.

The way I see involved/abstract is that the involvedness of the individual is crucial to the existence of the judgment in ethics. That is why these types are said to work by persuasion, because the point is "is this acceptable" if they were to sort of put themselves in the shoes of whatever human parties are involved. This also seems to be where Jung is coming from when he calls the feeling function subjective in an essential way, despite its ability to achieve universality, in that there is an appeal to the subjective sentiments of the human being, and universality is achieved more by a universal subjective appeal, meaning one must subjectively relate to the truth, there is no logically detached equivalent of it, but the idea is every being can relate to it subjectively, i.e. by "involving" themselves.

This does indeed imply, like you say, that you don't need any rules that exist apart from your sensibilities.

So bringing dimensionality in, when situation-specific understanding is needed, I guess the logical types take their personal experience with regards to ethical content, and then use a more logical means of noting the differences between situations, abstract what was contained in their personal experience, and obtain some approximation of what it is like to ethically involve oneself in the situational setting. They could also use something like intuition in place of logic, or whatever else.

[Skepsis]

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[Iris]

I will give you a personal example:

I have a relative who is so engrossed in mechanics and computers that he fails to see that his own wife is quite lonely and is in need of emotional/physical intimacy, but he either finds that sort of thing smothering or irritating, or he is altogether indifferent to it. I feel incredibly bad for his wife. He should stop ignoring that part of the human life and give her love and attention. She doesn't even demand all that much, just enough. So as I see it, intellectual pursuits are fine as long as no one is being emotionally neglectful.

I also read a biography on Einstein and how one of his sons felt resentment toward him because he ignored his family for the most part as he spent most of his time in his study. He hardly spent any time with his family at all. The ethical person would be troubled by this and not have been so emotionally distant.

Ethical types can be capable of emotionally distancing themselves as well. I have an IEE in my life who needs lots of emotional support. Combined with her Si dual seeking, I feel like she sucks me dry. So I try to keep things at a superficial level most of the time because I have to for my own sanity. I feel that I am providing what I can, being decent out of consideration for another human being. But I am sure it is not enough for her.

I am also sitting here being a little emotionally distant to an EII who is regaling me with Si stuff that I care nothing about. I have been trying to finish reading something, which he should notice -I even made polite mention of how close I was to finishing. But he keeps talking and I can't be rude and not respond. So my responses are getting briefer and briefer. Finally I look up over my glasses and say, WHAT did you say? to one of his remarks. Then he realizes I dont want to talk and he is offended.

I think quadra values play a huge part. I don't really enjoy watching the deltas in my life massaging and tweaking their Si and Fi interests, past a certain point, because it feels self indulgent to me. So some of my remoteness in situations is just self protection.

I would never be this brutally honest in IRL. I am speaking frankly in case it will be helpful in understanding Betas in general and EIEs specifically.

[ashlesha]

^ the difference i see is that the distancing jimmers is talking about seems more unintentional. personally even though i'm Fi base which is probably the type least associated with emotionally neglecting people i have definitely done so, both intentionally and unintentionally. i can be pretty self absorbed which i could actually see being related to Fi (at least as jung describes it, maybe not aushra). also so-last.

[Iris]

^ the difference i see is that the distancing jimmers is talking about seems more unintentional. personally even though i'm Fi base which is probably the type least associated with emotionally neglecting people i have definitely done so, both intentionally and unintentionally. i can be pretty self absorbed which i could actually see being related to Fi (at least as jung describes it, maybe not aushra). also so-last.

This is one of those times that I wished I understood instinct stackings better. I think some people are less focused on others. Sp>So, maybe?

[Skepsis]

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[mu4]

One major difference between logic and ethics in general is the implicit/explict(internal/external) dichotomy of the functions. As rational functions they are similar but the functions short circuits each other, ethics by triggering the emotional parts of the brain and suppressing reasoning, and reasoning by suppressing the emotional parts of the brain.

[mu4]

I also read a biography on Einstein and how one of his sons felt resentment toward him because he ignored his family for the most part as he spent most of his time in his study. He hardly spent any time with his family at all. The ethical person would be troubled by this and not have been so emotionally distant.

The ethical person might be "troubled" by this but in a similar way a ethical individuals involved with a family can take a dark turn and they can inflict emotional abuse over the family, it's a involved form of interaction but no less damaging. I've seen familial interactions where despite the ethical individuals in the family loathing each other, there was this constant toxic gathering of these individuals in order to inflict emotional pain on each other.

There are also many situations where excessive emotional involvement of individuals result in dependency issues and various other issues as well.

[chemical]

As rational functions they are similar but the functions short circuits each other, ethics by triggering the emotional parts of the brain and suppressing reasoning,

The way Jung conceived of "rational" was exactly corresponding to not suppressing reason, and socionics supposedly took suit from Jung, though it obviously took things its own direction. In what sense do you view ethics as suppressing reason? I view it as a way of reasoning, so you probably mean something specific, e.g. thinking of reasoning as logical reasoning here?

^ the difference i see is that the distancing jimmers is talking about seems more unintentional. personally even though i'm Fi base which is probably the type least associated with emotionally neglecting people i have definitely done so, both intentionally and unintentionally.

Great point, and definitely among the reasons I wished to start this thread to discuss meaningful differences. I think one cannot underestimate the breadth of application of the ethics functions, and how someone's focus may turn out to be quite apart from a certain application. Also, is there any reason Fi base is least associated with emotional neglect, as opposed to Fe to you (since Fe is ethics of emotions?) - you could make the argument that even if Fe deals more directly with ethics of emotions, Fi might have a more stable definite code on what constitutes acceptable attention on a basic leve I guess.

Basically, I think simple shows of affection as part of a relationship shouldn't necessarily be the logic vs ethics thing but maybe that's just me overdoing things. Ethical reasoning can be complex, and frankly I think it is very possible for the most ethical types to get so lost in the higher level ethical reasoning that the very basic things seem mundane by comparison.
As a simple example, Fyodor Dostoevsky is often typed EII, right? His brilliance into human ethics needn't to me necessarily result in someone who is the most considerate partner - now maybe he was, but I'm just giving it as an example (Fi-Ne could tend to pretty intangible, abstract ideational insights about humanity, and much as a theorist in logic can lose track of basics, not in terms of ability but attention) of a possible case.

The real deal should be what dimensionality one tends to feel natural to turn to and look out for information-wise. How consistently someone notices and accurately responds based on low-dimensional information (like personal experience teaching you what makes your partner smile) should be more about laziness/effort put in to some extent than the sheer depth/dimensionality of the ethical content one tends to notice.

Now where I can use a lot of help is contrasting the theoretical properties of ethics/logic so that in particular, I can really start envisioning what 3D and 4D ethics looks like.
I find the question of neglect vs non-neglect is insufficient and reminds me a lot of stereotypes like the genius at numbers who just doesn't get people, when in reality getting people can be just as conducive to the kinds of socionics-based logical reasoning.

[Skepsis]

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[Xenith]

I thought of understanding people as more intuition... like intuition can more easily detach from the first-person perspective, and people with intuition look more into motivations, and can describe people's qualities with more ease and abstractify the person.

But maybe I only think this because I am a sensor and I don't really understand people ^_^

[mu4]

The way Jung conceived of "rational" was exactly corresponding to not suppressing reason, and socionics supposedly took suit from Jung, though it obviously took things its own direction. In what sense do you view ethics as suppressing reason? I view it as a way of reasoning, so you probably mean something specific, e.g. thinking of reasoning as logical reasoning here?

It's about suppressing logic, not rationality.

[chemical]

It's about suppressing logic, not rationality.

OK thought so. But then, what is important about suppressing logic for ethical types?