Page 63 - Contribution To Phenomenology

56 RICHARD M. ZANER

that, or for my own judgment about the anger? How is this at all
presented or experienced, such that judgments can either be well-made
or not? Clearly, things are quite complicated: how emotive qualities are
experienced and interpreted, ultimately how other persons are experienced
in such situations. Without going much further into these issues ([39], pp.
181-240), it is still possible to tease out some interesting matters.
Consider merely one of the themes that have become prominent in
this methodical process. Every concrete instance of clinical encounters
displays a remarkable array of "feelings"—strongly expressed wishes,
wants, desires, aims, purposes, puzzlements, etc. These "feelings" are
evoked, most often by the patient's condition; in the mentioned case, it
is primarily the fetus's condition that evokes the range of feelings noted
(but also the couple's and their physician's responses). The feelings are,
moreover, directed to the developing fetus's present condition (diagnosis)
and, as efforts "to do something about it" are suggested (therapy), these
are aimed at its range of possible, probable, or likely futures (prognosis).
Accordingly, feelings are constituted as oriented expressions of moral life.
They are, that is, displayed concerns that orient the participants about
how to be most responsible and responsive to the specific persons
involved—regarding the fetus, how best, if at all, to help it be or become
**whole," "hale," or 'Veil" to whatever extent is possible; in the case of
the mother and father, how best to help them understand and adjust to
the likely outcome (whether of diagnosis, intervention, or prognosis).
Whatever else "feelings" may be, thus, their clinical presentation is the
concrete, practical display of moral concerns about doing what is believed
and hoped are the right, good, and just thing for the persons
involved—^within the constraints imposed by the patient's particular
condition, biological wherewithal, values, social circumstances, and
available medical procedures and resources.
Feelings are indices of moral life more generally. They are not simply
overt reports about a person's subjective (and presumably inaccessible)
life at the moment. They are not something Uke literal "ex-pressions:" the
"pressing-outward" of what is thought to lie essentially "inside" as purely
private and available only to the one whose feelings they are. As evoked
by, directed to, and aimed at the specific patient within her present
distress and possible restored futures, such feelings are the experiencing
person's own moral orientations toward the circumstances and decisions,
choices and outcomes, actually confronted. FeeUngs are thus not in the
least "subjective," if by that one means private ([39], pp. 48-66; [43], pp.