Theory of Psychology: The Laws of Psyche (complete text)

We will start now the discussion about the “drift” of bipulsions. All that will be seen corresponds to the field of absolute values, in the frame of psychic functions of necessary development.

We have analyzed the moral bipulsion, but in fact it was something general; we only referred to what is good and bad of behaviors. But there are several ways of manifesting good and bad behaviors that motivate approval and disapproval respectively. In such way, the moral bipulsion that we have already analyzed and that we will call now: global moral bipulsion is divided, firstly, into the following bipulsions:

	Negative absolute value	Positive absolute value
• Skillful bip.	clumsiness	skillful act
• Originality bip. (it . refers to what is out . of the ordinary . or usual)	ridiculousness, extravagance	originality, creativeness, “novelty”
• Courage bip.	coward, fainthearted attitude	act of courage, daring, “bravery”
• Humility bip.	arrogance, proud	modesty, humility
• Sexual . re-assertion bip.	male expressions or attitudes in woman or female in man	virility or manliness demonstrations in man and femininity demonstrations in woman
• Personal beauty bip.	to look like ugly, bad aspect	to look like beautiful, pleasant to perception, good aspect
• Strictly moral bip.	to do bad	to do good

The seven ones entail the common essence of what is good and bad globally. For that reason, what we had discussed was the moral global bip. that is the general aspect in those particular ways. The moral global bip. is like saying “reptiles”, that is to say the general essence of lizards, snakes, iguanas, etc. Such particular bipulsions share the mechanism by means of which one tends to the pleasure of approval and to avoid the disapproval of displeasure. They are seven genders of good and bad or approvable and non- approvable facts. The moral global bip. is the common essence of those bipulsions. All of them share the top of the approval imp. and the conservation one, avoiding the displeasure of disapproval and self-disapproval. Since moral pleasure and displeasure are produced by approval-self-approval and disapproval-self-disapproval respectively, all these bipulsions lead to moral pleasure or displeasure in general.

Ethical bip, on the other hand, is also divided into three specific bipulsions. Therefore, what we have already discussed is called the global ethical bip.:

	Absolute negative value	Absolute positive value
• Ethical bip.- entertaining situation	other people’s bad act â gibes, sarcasm or signs of aesthetic displeasure	other people’s good act â admiration gesture, congratulation, signs of aesthetic pleasure
• Ethical bip.-situation of seriousness	other people’s bad act â affective rejection, reproach, signs of displeasure, anger expressions	other people’s good act â signs of gratitude and conformity, recognition
• Ethical bip. -situation of danger (danger in the sense of great importance or gravitation, especially in social terms)	other people’s bad act â severe condemnation	other people’s bad act â honors, distinctions, praises

Those three bipulsions, as peculiar manifestations of the global ethical bip., do not arise from a clear boundary that separates them, but they rather respond to the different types of situations or “psychic climates” in which good or bad behavior in general, may take place. For that reason, those are the three ways of approval-disapproval or ethical answer that basically take place.

Based on the elements we are dealing with, the bipulsion of the social responsibility appears in front of us now. Its absolute values are: fulfillment of obligations – non-fulfillment of obligations. This new bipulsion is the result of the combination of the properly moral and spiritual bipulsions. Fulfillment of duty, as positive value, has a double essence: moral and spiritual. It is simultaneously a moral good and something good for the O.M.F.I. Duty is a kind of new compound, made up by the properly moral goodness and what is beneficial for the tribe (or O.M.F.I.). When somebody feels inside him the obligation to achieve the fulfillment of duty, this is the synthesis of the two components forming it. It means feeling encouraged to do good, and to carry out what is good for the group. For that reason, the feeling of honor to fulfill obligations is a psychic reaction of combined moral and spiritual pleasure. Approval and/or self-approval are moral; and pleasure of the fraternal imp. as it involves a favorable fact to the O.M.F.I., is spiritual. On the other hand, as displeasure does not fulfill obligations, is also the synthesis of moral-spiritual displeasure: social disapproval and/or self-disapproval and spiritual pain for something that is negative for O.M.F.I. These last elements form the authentic feeling of guilt, as feeling responsible for something morally bad and at the same time harmful or negative for the O.M.F.I.

It is necessary to clarify that this is not the “false duty”, as synonym of simply doing good. The duty we are talking about, is the feeling of social responsibility; it is the “duty’s call”. It is about what the own subjectivity conceives as something that, apart from being morally good to be performed means a beneficial or positive fact for the group and its interests.

Before loosing contacts with impulses, we will see which is their connection with the absolute values of bipulsions. When we were discussing about impulses, we could see the difference that exist between the object of satisfaction and the mean-goals or purpose-goals set up by these ones. The object of satisfaction is not more than the essential entranceway to pleasure that each impulse has. For example, in the nutritious imp., the object of satisfaction is the act of eating. The mean-goals are those objects or facts that the D.T. set up as a previous step to the achievement of satisfaction. And the purpose-goals are the facts looked for as concrete forms of the object of satisfaction, and that can differ a lot, example: to eat one food or another.

We had stated that those goals were the flexible aspect of motivation, that is to say, although the object of satisfaction that is looked for is always the same, goals could vary endlessly. However, absolute values of bipulsions are absolute goals of impulses forming them. In other words, from the universe of mean-goals and purpose-goals, almost all of them are acquired and changeable; but only a few are necessary and steady. Among those necessary goals of impulses, we find the absolute values of bipulsions. For example, approval imp. entails the act of social approval and self-approval, as object of satisfaction. But the necessary goal, that is almost united to the object of satisfaction, is the good behavior. On the other hand, the conservation imp. entails the avoidance of pain as object of satisfaction. But, to avoid the pain of disapproval and self-disapproval by the own bad behavior is a necessary and usual goal of the impulse. Then, as the good act is divided into skillful, brave, original act, etc., such values are therefore, absolute or necessary goals of the approval imp. At the same time, the avoidance of acts of stupidity, cowardice, ridiculousness, are absolute or constant goals of the conservation imp. To sum up, what we have to clear up is that the absolute values of bipulsions are absolute, necessary and usual goals (mainly purpose-goals) of the impulses that form them. Thus, for example, the fulfillment of obligations is a necessary and structural goal shared by the fraternal and approval impulses.

These necessary goals of impulses (absolute values), as they are constant and regular give place to the invariable and essential structure of bipulsions. That is the reason why we are able to give up the level of impulses and to deal with the autonomy of the level of bipulsions and their own specific rules. Therefore, we will employ some concepts adapted to the level. The new concepts will be: general absolute value and specific absolute value of each bipulsion.

In the case of the global moral bipulsion, its general absolute values are what is good and what is bad; while its specific absolute values are: skilled-clumsy, good-bad, brave-coward, etc.

The concepts: general and specific are not fixed, but they are rather “fitted” according to the focused bipulsion. This way, if we focus on courage bip., its general absolute values are brave and coward acts. Instead, if we consider them from the point of view of moral global bip., the brave and coward acts will be only specific absolute values, since general values are at this stage, what is good and what is bad. But when going down the “step” and centering our attention in the courage bip., those absolute values: courage-cowardice, become the general values of the courage bip.

Coming back to the social responsibility bip., the fulfillment of obligations and the non-fulfillment of them are their general absolute values. But if consider those values taking into account the moral or spiritual bipulsions, from which that one is formed, we will see that obligations and the non-fulfillment of them are specific absolute values for these bipulsions. The moral bip. itself entails what is good and what is bad as general absolute values; and the spiritual one, what is positive and negative for the O.M.F.I. Fulfillment of duty and non-fulfillment of it are specific absolute values of both bipulsions; they are respectively, specific forms of what is good and what is bad, and specific forms of what is positive and negative for the O.M.F.I.

Taking into account the social responsibility bip. now, we find that duty and its non-fulfillment are its general absolute values. But from this bipulsion, other specific bipulsions arise which are necessary and constant forms of fulfilling obligations, that is, they are specific absolute values of the social responsibility bip.:

	Negative absolute value	Absolute positive value
• Abnegation bip.	laziness attitude, idleness, lack of interest in common welfare, to overburden others with work, lack of abnegation	willingness to work, abnegated effort, carefulness, spirit of sacrifice, act of devotion and service
• Justice bip.	unfair action, to violate other people’s rights, lack of equity	to proceed with justice, equity, to reaffirm other people’s rights
• Loyalty bip.	disloyal behavior or attitude	loyalty signs
• Information bip.	to hide or to distort important social information, not to warn, deliberated omission	to inform or to communicate what has social importance, to warn, to confess
• Keeping one’s word bip.	non-fulfillment of what has been promised or fixed engagements, not to keep one’s word	Fulfillment of promises or fixed engagements

There are no doubts on the similarity and connection among those bipulsions. Many times they gather in the same situation. However, the five pairs of absolute values have their exclusive functions. There are many regular situations of the normal social relationship in which they appear alone or isolated in their particularity.

Let’s remember that such values are different ways of fulfilling obligations or of non-fulfilling them. All of them lead to a moral-spiritual pleasure or displeasure in the same way.

Based on the difficulties appeared in the field we are now, we will have to stop and glance at the compasses and the maps we bring. The principles we have to bear in mind in order to avoid an untrue step and to fall into a chaos, are the following ones:

1 - The general law of psyche. No bipulsion may exist, if it does not move between two opponent facts producing the corresponding pleasure-displeasure. Bipulsions work on the “basis” of pleasure and displeasure. This is the most general essence of intention and of all motivation.

2 - The pair of absolute and universal values, common in any culture, must be clear. Such values have to be certain notions of what they refer to. They also have to contain a clear gender of behaviors or facts since values are not only subjective or inner phenomena, but they are at the same time, external and objective facts. They are fundamentally the behaviors and concrete attitudes of the members of the tribe.

3 – There can not be any bipulsion which has not fulfilled a clear function for the survival of the tribe. We can be completely sure about that, because the natural selection of tribes was in charge of eliminating the social organisms in which the absolute motivation of their members was not fully guided towards what is useful for the survival of the group.

To sum up, and without putting aside the stated principles, we find that other derived bipulsions keep on appearing, with their respective absolute values, until concluding in the following total system of bipulsions:

Bipulsion	Absolute negative value	Absolute positive value
1- Global moral	bad act	good act
2- Skillfulness	awkward behavior	skillful act
3- Originality	ridiculousness, extravagance	original, creative act or fact
4- Courage	cowardice, faintheartedness	brave act, daring
5- Humility	arrogant attitude, pedantry, haughtiness, proud, immodesty, pride, presumptuousness	humble attitude, simplicity, modesty
6- Sexual re-assertion	male actions or attitudes in woman or female in man	virility or masculinity demonstrations in man and femininity in woman
7- Personal beauty	to look ugly, unpleasant to perception, lack of attractiveness, lack of “beauty”, bad aspect	to look beautiful, pleasant for senses, beauty in personal appearance, good aspect
8- Properly moral	to do bad	to do good
9- Spiritual	negative fact for the O.M.F.I.	positive fact for the O.M.F.I.
10- Intellectual	not to understand, not to know, not to explain to oneself, confusion, doubts, misguidance, loss of intellectual control	understanding, comprehension, explanation, enlightenment, intellectual control, knowledge
11- Esthetics	to perceive something ugly, reluctant, unpleasant, hateful	perception of what is beautiful, pleasant
12- Anticipatory	failure, frustration, mistake, disappointment, announcement of something bad (displeasure, bitterness)	success, achievement, attainment, announcement of something good (happiness, joy)
13- Global ethics	other’s bad act â to disapprove	other’s good act â to approve
14- Ethics-entertainment	other’s bad act or bad fact â gibe, esthetical displeasure signs	other’s good act or fact â admiration, esthetical pleasure signs
15- Ethics - seriousness	other’s bad act â affective rejection, reproach, criticism, displeasure signs	other’s good act â recognition, conformity signs
16- Ethics - danger	other’s bad behavior â harsh condemnation, repudiation	other’s good behavior â honors, praise, ennoblement
17- Intelligence	stupid act, lack of imagination, lack of perspicacity, ingenuity, foolishness	clever, witty, intelligent act
18- Knowledge	to ignore what one should know, not to know or not to know to do specific things that one should know	to know or to know how to do what is socially expectable or desirable, to learn something concrete
19- Funniness	reception of an uncomfortable, bad- quality or graceless joke	reception of a funny joke or fact
20- Humor	to lack funniness in what one says, to carry out a joke worthy of group seriousness	to tell a funny joke, amused for receivers
21- Artistic	personal creation, work or job carried out badly, lack of beauty and success, bad quality, untidiness in the execution, lack of harmony	well- performed work, beauty in the finished job, success in performance, harmony in shapes
22- Goodness	badness, cruelty act	good-natured act
23- Generosity	selfish, mean act, , avarice, to deny oneself to share, lack of renunciation	generous, altruistic act, , willingness to share, renunciation, unselfishness
24- Social responsibility	fulfillment of duty	non-fulfillment of duty
25- Abnegation	laziness, idleness, lack of will to work, carelessness, lack of interest in common welfare, to overburden others with job, lack of abnegation	desire to work , spirit of sacrifice, interest in common welfare, service act, abnegation
26- Justice	injustice act, to violate other’s rights, lack of equity, to be unfair	fair action, to proceed with justice, equity, impartiality, to reassert other’s rights
27- Loyalty	disloyal behavior, unfaithfulness	signs of loyalty, faithfulness
28- Information	not to inform what has social importance, not to warn, not to notify, to hide, to distort, to omit	to inform what has social importance , to advise, to bring to light, to confess
29- Keeping one’s word	not to fulfill with the engagement, to turn the promise into falseness, not to keep one’s word	to fulfill with the promise, to confirm the truth of engaged word
30- Respect	abuse, lack of respect, non-consideration	Respectful, considered behavior or attitude
31- Telling the truth	to lie, deliberated deceit, not to tell the truth, hypocrisy, lack of authenticity, falsehood	to tell the truth, to be honest, sincere, truthful, “to get along” with truth
32- Tribal devotion	to offend, to attack or to insult what is conceived as sacred or supreme	to honor, to venerate, to worship the reputation of the supreme, to offer tributes to what is holy (tribe, ancestors, heroes, tribal symbols)
33- Group morals	bad or non-merit act of the group one belongs to, humiliating or dishonorable fact for the group	good act of the group, pride for something worth of the group or of a member the representative
34- Teaching	other’s specific ignorance, lack of control or other’s non-comprehension of what one intends to teach	to teach, other’s learning
35- Rational	untrue knowledge, misconception, incoherence, not to be right, contradiction, foolishness, irrationality, absurdity, lack of realism and logics in thought and/or action	true knowledge, logical certainty, lucidity in thought, coherence, to be right, sensibleness, realistic reasoning, critical judgment, common sense, rationality
36- Heroism	treason	heroic behavior
37- Personal performance (in any social activity, being labor highlighted as social main activity)	inefficient, non-productive performance, uselessness, poor performance	efficient, productive performance, good performance
38- Moral fight	to lose, defeat, to be defeated, to be surpassed, to be “worse”	to win, triumph, victory, to defeat, to be “better”

The couple of general absolute values of each bipulsion always refers to concrete facts. Virtual qualities have not been considered yet, they will be discussed later (chapter 12). We are currently interested in for example, the concrete skillful act and not “skillfulness” as a virtual condition or stable and continuous quality of a subject.

1. Specific bipulsions

From now on, we will analyze the structure, natural function and other features of bipulsions, taking into account the order they were presented. Although its discussion will be the briefest and most synthetic possible, it may result “long” the same. But it is bipulsions’ “blame”, as those essential and absolute tendencies of human motivational structure human are plentiful.

[Click on here to observe an outline that synthesizes what we will do next. This is one of the three cases of the graphics that are recommended to print (in horizontal)]

1- Global moral bipulsion

This constitutes the mechanism by means of which one seeks to affirm what is good or approvable and to deny what is bad or non-approvable. Most bipulsions fall within the movement of this simple essential mechanism; that is, the positive and negative values of the group of bipulsions derived from global moral, in spite of their features, keep on being forms of what is good and bad in general.

The global moral bip. has a very little performance field apart from their derived specific bipulsions. It exists fundamentally as what is general in them. For that reason, what is good-bad of behaviors may be manifested in the values: intelligent-stupid, brave-coward, fair-unfair, etc., as facts that are good or bad in general.

As well as all bipulsions and impulses entail the essence of the general law as basic mechanism (to assert pleasure and to deny displeasure), in the same way but in an smaller level of generality, those specific bipulsions share the mechanism to seek what is good and to deny what is bad of the own behavior. In all the cases, what is good leads to moral pleasure (social approval and/or self-approval) and what is bad, to moral displeasure (social disapproval and/or self-disapproval). This basic mechanism, shared by all the bipulsions with moral motivations, makes the global moral bip. be like a “general sub-law” for all of them. None escapes from the common pattern to affirm what is good or approvable and to deny what is bad or non-approvable.

2- Skillfulness bip.

Skillfulness-clumsiness appear in the practical or mental behavior. The “mental portion” is the one forming part of other bipulsions related to the intellectual function.

A skillful act produces aesthetic pleasure in the observer, which leads to approval. A clumsy behavior is a negative value that, paradoxically, produces pleasure in the observer. It is a sudden pleasure leading to laugh or jeer as a way of disapproval. This situation takes place in this way, when the outcome of the behavior does not affect the group interests; that is, the social concrete benefit or damage that behavior has like an outcome determines, in the end, the approval or disapproval towards a person. For that reason, if a skillful behavior causes as a result a damage to the group, it will be condemned “with skillfulness and in spite of it”; whereas a clumsy behavior harming the group does not make fun but it rather turns into a moral evil, receiving the observers' rejection or condemnation. Only when the social outcome of the skillful or clumsy behavior is neuter, the skillful or clumsy act appears in its “pure” way, being answered according to its aesthetic or “humorous” quality respectively.

The clumsiness act is a “material absurdity”. Absurdity is what it does not respond to the demands of incidental reality which agree inter-subjectively implicitly or explicitly, it is something coming out or contrasting with what is suitable to that reality. Clumsiness arises when the purpose has been settled, behavior is not adjusted to what reality demands for the achievement of the goal, but it is rather deviated from that direction. The sudden pleasure that generates laugh in the observer appears essentially in a jeer way, which produces displeasure in the author of the clumsiness.

The function of such mechanism is to reinforce the prize and punishment system, extending it to all type of acts and in any situation. Originally, approval-disapproval took place in situations where outcomes of behaviors were serious or weighty facts in their social meaning. But if approval-disapproval in a tribe, still continue in any entertaining situation, they will be obliged to avoid clumsiness in every moment. The consequence of this means a larger development of skillfulness to carry out any task, reason why that tribe will have more skillful members in general. Although clumsy act does not hurt anybody, and only occurs during an entertainment situation, shame, as a form of moral displeasure in the author, is useful to strengthen the interest in doing things well. The same thing regarding the approval of the skillful act. Although its performance does not favor anybody, except aesthetically, its approval favors the repetition of that type of behaviors, which will always end up in the benefit for the tribe.

3- Originality bip.