In their struggle against the capitalist colonization of desire, Christianity and Buddhism offer similar strategies of fundamental formation or transformation of human desire. This article examines three specific features in which Christianity and Buddhism share a broad and deep resemblance in their analysis of on the dynamics of human desire and its transformation. First, both traditions identify distorted human desire as a source of bondage (or suffering), which affects the mind (intellectual), the heart (...) (affective) and the body. Second, in terms of the strategy of liberation from this bondage, both agree that human desiring constitutes the most effective internal force available in the human make up itself. Thus, the liberation process is not aimed at wiping out human desire but rather at channeling the very power of human desiring through a process of education whose dynamics are understood as an ascent or a journey that leads to higher (or deeper) Reality. Third, with regard to the direction of liberation, both traditions assert that this process should be directed not only toward the self but also towards others. Here the benefit for others, the virtue of caritas in Christianity and bodhicitta in Buddhism, constitutes a fundamental part of the direction of this process of formation. Keywords: Christianity, Buddhism, desire, capitalism, bondage,transformation, caritas, bodhicitta. Abstrak: Dalam perlawanan mereka terhadap kolonisasi hasrat oleh kapitalisme, tradisi Budhis dan Kristiani menawarkan cara-cara yang mirip untuk mendidik atau mentransformasi hasrat manusia. Artikel ini membahas tiga unsur penting yang sama dari analisis Budhisme dan Kristianitas mengenai dinamika hasrat manusia dan transformasinya. Pertama, kedua tradisi ini mengidentifikasi hasrat manusia yang rusak atau salah arah sebagai sebab dasariah dari penderitaan manusia. Kerusakan hasrat ini juga mempengaruhi dimensi intelektual, afektif dan juga tubuh manusia. Kedua, perihal cara pembebasan dari penderitaan ini, kedua tradisi ini juga sepakat bahwa hasrat manusia merupakan dayainternal paling efektif dalam diri manusia sendiri. Karena itu, proses pembebasan ini tidak dimaksudkan untuk membuang hasrat dari kemanusiaan, melainkan untuk menyalurkan daya hasrat ini melalui proses transformasi yang berdinamika “mendaki,” sebuah perjalanan menuju Realitas yang lebih tinggi atau dalam. Ketiga, mengenai arah pembebasan ini, kedua tradisi menekankan bahwa proses ini ditujukan tidak hanya untuk diri sendiri melainkan juga sesama. Dalam hal ini, kepentingan sesama seperti diungkapkan oleh keutamaan caritas dalam Kristianitas dan bodhicitta dalam Budhisme merupakan bagian dasariah dari arah transformasi hasrat manusia itu sendiri. Kata-kata kunci: Kristianitas, Budhisme, hasrat, kapitalisme, penderitaan, transformasi, caritas, bodhicitta. (shrink)

고대로부터 욕망은 결핍에서 비롯된 감정의 문제요 몸(신체)의문제로 인식됐다. 이 글은 욕망의 근원과 원리를 형이상학적 관점에서 구명하고, 현대 사회에서 욕망의 현상을 탐구하는 데 목적이있다. 인간의 욕망은 우선 생물학적 필요와 요구로부터 자연스럽게 생성되지만, 근본적으로 한계를 모르는 정신의 무제약적 행위에 근거한다. 인간이 욕망하는 주체인 것은 인간이 신체를 갖고있기 때문이 아니라 바로 정신을 갖고 있기 때문이다. 왜냐하면, 신체적 욕구(physiological needs)는 생리적 한계를 갖지만, 정신적 욕구(mental greed)는 결코 만족하는 법이 없기 때문이다. 물론 욕망은 인간에게 있어서 필연적으로 몸을 매개로 하는 정신의표현이기에 육체의 기능 없이는 불가능하다. 인간의 (...) 욕망은 기본적으로 인간의 본성에 근거하지만, 또한 사회 구조에 크게 영향을받으며 다양한 모습을 띠고 나타난다. 오늘날 현대 사회의 욕망은지각 체험을 넓혀주는 ‘신체의 확장으로서 욕망’, 욕망을 감추고이데올로기화하는 ‘욕망의 이데올로기’, 존재와 소유 사이에서 소유를 지향하는 ‘과대 소비 욕망’으로 특징지을 수 있다. (shrink)

Three times in Book 1 chapter 13 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle says desire partakes of reason in a way. There is a consensus view in the literature about what that claim means: desire has no intrinsic rationality, but can partake of reason by being blindly obedient to the commands of reason. I argue this consensus view is mistaken: for Aristotle, adult human desire has its own intrinsic rationality, and while it is to be obedient to (...) reason, it is not blind obedience, for when reason tells desire to obey, it includes an explanation supporting its order which desire can at least potentially understand. Thus, the nature of human desire, and also of the characteristic interaction of desire and reason, is much different than it is standardly taken to be. (shrink)

In, Love and Politics Jeffery L. Nicholas argues that Eros is the final rejection of an alienated life, in which humans are prevented from developing their human powers; Eros, in contrast, is an overflowing of acting into new realities and new beauties, a world in which human beings extend their powers and senses. Nicholas uniquely interprets Alasdair MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism as a response to alienation defined as the divorce of fact from value. However, this account cannot address alienation (...) in the form of the oppression of women or people of color. Importantly, it fails to acknowledge the domination of nature that blackens the heart of alienated life. Alienation must be seen as a separation of the human from nature. Nicholas turns to Aristotle, first, to uncover the way his philosophy embodies a divorce of human from nature, then to reconstruct the essential elements of Aristotle's metaphysics to defend a philosophical anthropology based on Eros. Love and Politics: Persistent Human Desires as a Foundation for Liberation presents a critical theory that synthesizes MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism, Frankfurt School Critical Theory, and Social Reproduction Theory. It will be of great interest to political theorists and philosophers. (shrink)

Being born into a family structure—being born of a mother—is key to being human. It is, for Jacques Lacan, essential to the formation of human desire. It is also part of the structure of analogy in the Thomistic thought of Erich Przywara. AI may well increase exponentially in sophistication, and even achieve human-like qualities; but it will only ever form an imaginary mirroring of genuine human persons—an imitation that is in fact morbid and dehumanising. Taking (...) Lacan and Przywara at a point of convergence on this topic offers important insight into human exceptionalism. (shrink)

This essay examines Aquinas’s analysis of the human desire to know, which plays a central role in his thought. (I.) This analysis confronts him with the Aristotelian tradition: thus, the desire for knowledge is a “natural” desire. (II.) It also confronts him with the Augustinian tradition, which deplores a non-virtuous desire in human beings that is called “curiosity.” (III.) Aquinas connects the natural desire with the Neoplatonic circle motif: principle and end are identical. (...) The final end of the desire to know is the knowledge of God. (IV.) Aquinas also connects the end of the natural desire to know with Christian eschatology, teaching that man’s ultimate end is the visio Dei. This end, however, is “supernatural.” (V.) Duns Scotus severely criticizes central aspects of Aquinas’s account. (VI.) As a rejoinder to Scotus’s objections, we finally consider Aquinas’s view on the proper object of the human intellect. (shrink)

미발수행법은 마음이 지각하기 이전의 상태에서 욕망의 고리를 끊기 위한 수양의 방편 이다. 이황의 ‘미발수행법’은 현대 자본주의 사회에서 인간이 어떻게 욕망을 제어하고 조 절하고 절제하여 사회적 갈등의 원인을 제거하는가에 깊은 성찰이 녹아있다. 이황은 마음이 미발 상태에 있을 때는 기가 힘쓰지 않은 때이며, 오로지 리가 있을 뿐 이어서 악이 존재하지 않을 때임을 말한다. 미발의 상태에서 현실로 넘어오는 그 찰나에 마음은 리와 기라는 결합체이지만, 이 때 기가 용사하지 않으므로 리의 순선함이 그대로 발현될 수 있다. 이황은 인간의 욕망을 제거하는 방법으로 그 보이지 않는 곳에서도 (...) 삼가 조심하며, 그 듣지 않는 곳에서도 두려워해야 함을 역설한다. 희노애락이 아직 발하지 않 은 곳, 곧 보이지도 듣지도 않는 곳이 감정이 아직 싹트지 않은 곳이다. 이 지점에서 경계 하고 두려워하는 자세로 수행처를 삼으라는 것이다. 이황은 미발의 때에 천리의 본연을 함양하고 이발의 때에 인욕의 기가 용사하지 못하도 록 경계한다. 이것은 마음이 수양의 주체임을 강조한 대목이다. 본원의 함양이라는 것은 리의 함양인데, 리의 본체가 발현한 사단 혹은 도심을 일컫는다. 이때의 리는 태극이므로 마음속에 천리가 내재해 있기에 미발의 때에 존양과 성찰이 선제 조건으로 자리 잡을 수 있다. 이황은 인간 본성이 발하여 감정으로 드러나는 과정에는 경을 가지고 수양을 거듭하 면 천리와 이욕에 어둡지 않게 된다는 입장이다. 경(敬)으로서 중(中)을 가진 사람의 마음은 천리와 융화하여 흔적이 없게 되므로 마음 은 바름을 얻게 된다. 밝은 거울이나 고요한 물이 되기 위해서는 일회적인 경의 자세로는 이루어질 수 없다. 고요할 때는 천리의 본연에 젖어 들고 활동할 때는 인욕을 기미에서 끊어야만 한다 이렇게 하여 진실함이 쌓이고. 오래도록 힘써서 순수하고 익숙함에 이르게 된 다. 개체 안에 내재된 생명의 리를 잘 보존하고 함양해서 거울과 같이 밝게 비추고 물과 같이 고요함을 유지한다면, 개체의 본체는 언제나 맑아서 모든 사태에서도 굴절되지 않고 비출 수 있다. 우리 삶의 미시적 영역까지 침투한 신자유주의는 세계의 모든 영역을 시장처럼 조직될 필요가 있는 경쟁 공간으로 구성한다. 또한 시민들에게 자립성과 경쟁력을 갖춘 기업가적 주체가 될 것을 요구하며 자기 자신에 대한 책임을 강조한다. 신자유주의는 제도적으로 인 간의 욕망을 부추겨서 경쟁의 공간에서 탐욕으로 치닫게 하는 경우가 발생한다. 이는 타자 의 욕망을 욕망하게 하는 구조로 만들고 욕망을 따라가기 위해 자칫 인간의 기본적인 욕구 를 넘어서는 사태로 번질 가능성이 있다. 우리는 신자유주의라는 미명하에 무한경쟁으로 내몰리고 경쟁의식에 대한 압박감으로 순조로운 일상이 깨지는 경우가 생긴다. 신경증, 무 기력증, 번 아웃, 공항장애 등의 질환이 급증하는 원인의 하나가 이런 경쟁의식의 대한 긴 장감이다. 이런 긴장감이 절제되지 못할 경우 사회적 갈등이 유발하게 된다. 이황은 성리학적 체계의 완성을 실천을 통해서 완성하고자 한다. 실천은 내면의 수양을 통해 천리체인을 이루고 체득하는 것을 말하는데, 이것이 미발수행법으로 나타난다. 미발 수행을 통해 인욕이 제거되고 리의 존재성을 발견하며 참된 자아를 완성해간다. 이황의 미발수행법이 우리사회에 만연하고 있는 사회적 갈등을 해결하는데 하나의 방편이 될 것으로 보인다. (shrink)

The theory about human desire is one important component in early Confucian theory of humanity. It is worth our attention that Pre-Qin Confucians never put human desire at the absolute opposite position to the Heavenly Principle, as their successors do. Contrarily, they generally believe that the desire is the inseparable property of normal human nature, and making efforts to satisfy the human desire is reasonable. Only in terms of reducing the conflicts between (...) human desire and the limited resources they advocate a moderate abstinence. [key words] Pre-Qin Confucianism; the theory of human nature; human nature is good; human desire. (shrink)

Canadian video game developer BioWare’s critically acclaimed Mass Effect video game series has been called the most important science fiction universe of a generation. Whether or not one is inclined to agree, it cannot be denied that Mass Effect matters. It matters not only because of its brilliant narrative and the difficult questions it asks, but also because, as bioethicist Kyle Munkittrick writes, it reflects society as a whole. Mass Effect is a sci-fi epic in the truest sense, spanning over (...) years and across hundreds of planets tucked away in the darkest corners of the galaxy, populated with dozens of species with their own histories, beliefs, cultures, and technologies. Academics and dedicated fans have explored the numerous facets of the game, from its philosophy to time and temporality, fandom ethnographies, and ethics. This article proposes to explore the boundaries of alien sex and the desire for alien others as represented in sci-fi role playing games, and their reinterpretation by fans. Science fiction role playing games in particular enable the production of sexual modalities outside of the constraints of heterosexual norms. Alien sex, animal sex, or monstrous sex are common tropes in fantasy and sci-fi media—the vampire, the werewolf, and monstrous non/in-humans are eroticized and construed conduits of a mainly female sexual desire. However, the example I would like to approach is slightly more radical, both in terms of execution and in terms of media audience response: examples of “alien sex” as illustrated in the Mass Effect video game series, whose canonical representation of alien-human romances invite some interesting questions about either the potential exacerbation, or the rendering-unintelligible of sexual difference, as well as about cross-species desire and about the ontology of the natural and the artificial. (shrink)

Richard Bradley’s landmark book Decision Theory with a Human Face makes seminal contributions to nearly every major area of decision theory, as well as most areas of formal epistemology and many areas of semantics. In addition to sketching Bradley’s distinctive semantics for conditional beliefs and desires, I will explain his theory of conditional desire, focusing particularly on his claim that we should not desire events, either positively or negatively, under the supposition that they will occur. I shall (...) argue, to the contrary, that permitting non-trivial desirabilities for events whose occurrence is known or assumed is both more intuitively plausible and more theoretically fruitful than Bradley’s approach. In the course of the discussion I will contrast Bradley’s broadly evidentialist picture of decision theory with my own more orthodox causal approach. (shrink)

I discuss Dante’s understanding that human existence is “ordered by two final goals” and how this understanding defines philosophy’s and theology’s respective scopes of authority in guiding human conduct. I show that, while Dante devalues the philosophical authority associated with the traditional Aristotelian emphasis on the significance of contemplative activity, he does so in order to highlight philosophy’s ethico-political authority to guide human conduct toward its “earthly beatitude.” Moreover, I argue that, although Dante subordinates earthly beatitude to (...) spiritual beatitude, he nonetheless maintains that philosophy’s authority to reveal a path to spiritual beatitude requires its fundamental independence from theology. (shrink)

When we compare contemporary moral philosophy with the well-known moral systems of earlier centuries, we should be struck by the fact that a certain assumption about human well being that is now widely taken for granted was universally rejected in the past. The contemporary moral climate predisposes us to be pluralistic about the human good, whereas earlier systems of ethics embraced a conception of well being that we would now call narrow and restrictive. One way to convey the (...) sort of contrast I have in mind is to note that according to Plato and Aristotle, there is one kind of life, that of the philosopher, that represents the summit of human flourishing, and all other lives are worth leading to the extent that they approximate this ideal. Certain other ethical theories of the past were in a way more narrow than this, for whereas Plato and Aristotle maintained that many things are in themselves worthwhile, others argued that there is only one intrinsic good—pleasure according to the Epicureans, virtue according to the Stoics. By contrast, it is now widely assumed that all such approaches are too exclusive, that not only are there many types of intrinsic goods but there is no one specific kind of life—whether it is that of a philosopher or a poet or anyone else—that is the single human ideal. Even hedonism, a conception of the good that had a powerful influence in the modern period, has few contemporary proponents. A consensus has arisen in our time that there is no single ultimate good that provides the measure by which the worth of all other goods must be assessed. (shrink)

What is the good for human persons? If I am trying to lead the best possible life I could lead, not the morally best life, but the life that is best for me, what exactly am I seeking?This phrasing of the question I will be pursuing may sound tendentious, so some explanation is needed. What is good for one person, we ordinarily suppose, can conflict with what is good for other persons and with what is required by morality. A (...) prudent person seeks her own good efficiently; she selects the best available means to her good. If we call the value that a person seeks when she is being prudent “prudential value,” then an alternative rendering of the question to be addressed in this essay is “What is prudential value?” We can also say that an individual flourishes or has a life high in well-being when her life is high in prudential value. Of course, these common-sense appearances that the good for an individual, the good for other persons, and the requirements of morality often are in conflict might be deceiving. For all that I have said here, the correct theory of individual good might yield the result that sacrificing oneself for the sake of other people or for the sake of a morally worthy cause can never occur, because helping others and being moral always maximize one's own good. But this would be the surprising result of a theory, not something we should presuppose at the start of inquiry. When a friend has a baby and I express a conventional wish that the child have a good life, I mean a life that is good for the child, not a life that merely helps others or merely respects the constraints of morality. After all, a life that is altruistic and perfectly moral, we suppose, could be a life that is pure hell for the person who lives it—a succession of horrible headaches marked by no achievements or attainments of anything worthwhile and ending in agonizing death at a young age. So the question remains, what constitutes a life that is good for the person who is living it? (shrink)

To be human is to be autonomous, yet this is a trait that most of us lack. We are subject to forces external to our being. We are workers; we are citizens; we are needful creatures. Humanity-proper in these times of neoliberal omnipotence is defined differently. The key terms are familiar: personal betterment, personal responsibility, productivity, pleasantness. A forked tongue slithers in our conscience, tells us that these are the traits of the human condition. Through Bataille, this paper (...) argues the substrate of these oft repeated familiar mantras are other. Neoliberal subjects, propelled by need, understand themselves along the axis of the useful choice. The paper turns to myth to understand the interdependence of need and choice, and how this interdependence posits being as always in desire but never in pleasure. Revisiting Don Giovanni, a character central to Acéphalic thought, and the commentary of Søren Kierkegaard, we think in terms of non-abstraction, of pleasurably floating in change, rather than toiling in desire. For it is by grace in the form of chance, that at the very time of transgression, that we – in and for an instant – become human, become as the sacred in the flesh. (shrink)

BackgroundIn recent years, there have been many studies using the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) to investigate individual differences in primary emotion traits. However, in contrast to other primary emotion traits proposed by Jaak Panksepp and colleagues, there is a considerable lack of research on the LUST (L) dimension – defined as an individual’s capacity to attain sexual desire and satisfaction – a circumstance mainly caused by its exclusion from the ANPS. Therefore, this study aims to take a first (...) step toward the development of a standardized self-rate measurement for the L-disposition. For this purpose, two versions of the L-scales (L-12 and L-5) were developed and evaluated regarding reliability and aspects of validity.Materials and MethodsAfter a pilot study (N= 204; female: 81%) with an initial 20-item pool item reductions were conducted. This led to the construction of a 12-item (L-12) version and a 5-item version (L-5), which were assessed in a second sample consisting of 371 German-speaking healthy adults (58.50% female) aged 18–69 years (M= 28;SD= 9.75). Aspects of external validity were assessed by investigation of correlations with the ANPS, psychiatric symptoms (Brief Symptom Inventory-18), attachment security (Adult Attachment Scales) and personality functioning (Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnostics Structure Questionnaire). To evaluate structural validity, both L-scales were investigated via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).ResultsCronbach’s α indicated excellent internal consistency regarding L-12 (α = 0.90), while L-5 showed acceptable reliability (α = 0.82). CFA of a bifactor model of the L-12 indicated excellent model fit. Moreover, an excellent model fit was observed regarding a single factor model of L-5. For both scales small to moderate positive correlations were observed with SEEKING, PLAY, and secure attachment, while they exhibited small to moderate negative correlations with SADNESS, insecure attachment, lower personality functioning, and increased psychiatric symptom load.ConclusionBoth newly developed scales exhibit satisfying psychometric properties, indicating high reliability, good structural validity and plausible correlations with external criteria. Hence, this study poses an important step toward the operationalization of the LUST concept. However, more research is needed in particular with respect to the scale’s external validity and its applicability in clinical populations. (shrink)

In Wuthering Heights a man and a woman fall in love and their passion for each other wreaks havoc on several lives, theirs included. Long after his beloved is dead, Heathcliff’s life revolves entirely around his love for her. Frustrated by events, his grand romantic passion expresses itself in destructive spasms of antisocial behavior. Catherine, the object of this passion, marries another man on a whim, but describes her feelings for him as like superficial foliage, whereas ‘her love for Heathcliff (...) resembles eternal rocks beneath.’ ‘I am Heathcliff,’ she declares, shortly before dying at the age of nineteen. (shrink)

When Aristotle said that an action is voluntary if its source lies within the agent rather than outside, he added that an action done from desire or anger is a voluntary one. He dismissed as absurd the suggestion that desire or anger are external forces, and can be classed in consequence as compulsions. In doing this he was rejecting one use of a device whose implications I want to explore in this paper—the device of selecting among the phenomena (...) of our mental lives some which are truly part of us, and distinguishing them from others which are not. This device is in turn a manifestation of a capacity that seems to be unique to persons—the capacity to make judgments about the forces within us that move us to action, and to identify with them or wish them to be otherwise. In exploring the implications of the device, therefore, I shall be trying to assess some of the implications of having the special capacities of a person. (shrink)

Animals are at work everywhere in education, yet existing nowhere: Education doesn’t know them beyond their instrumental use value; as animals-for-us (Pedersen, 2019a, p. 7; Wallin, 2014, p. 149; c...

The extended reliance on media can be seen as one indicator of mediatization. But even though we can assume that the pervasive character of digital media essentially changes the way people experience everyday life, we cannot take these experiences for granted. There has recently been a formulation of three tasks for mediatization research; historicity, specificity and measurability, needed to empirically verify mediatization processes across time and space. In this article, we present a tool designed to handle these tasks, by measuring (...) the extent to which people experience that media reach into the deeper layers of daily human life. The tool was tested in an empirical study conducted in Sweden in 2017. The results show that perceived media reliance is played out in relation to three types of basic desires: (1) (re)productive desires, (2) recognition desires, and (3) civic desires, and is socially structured and structuring. We argue this tool, in diachronic analyses, can measure one important aspect of mediatization. (shrink)

Doctoral learning entails transition from experienced student to stance-defending researcher, exposed to international critique: a disorientation and reorientation into a new identity. Arts and Hum...

Concerned to make certain a difference between the human and its machinic simulation, two films released at the start of the new millennium put the trope of the Oedipal at the heart of their action. In doing so, both succeed in establishing the real of the human within its terms. However, by taking the Oedipal as the figure of this difference, both films also unleash a set of possibilities for being human in the new millennium that may (...) not have been entirely expected. In a close reading of both Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001) and I, Robot (Alex Proyas, 2004), this article examines the possibilities for human being as they come to circulate within the narrative structures of both films. In doing so it also examines the further difference drawn between what each film offers as the literal and metaphorical rendition of the Oedipal itself. With the metaphorical opened to the space and time of being excluded as a possibility in its literal rendition, the consequences of the subsequent process of becoming of the human are finally laid bare. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre argues that human beings are fundamentally incomplete. Self-consciousness brings with it a presence-to-self. Human beings consequently seek two things at the same time: to possess a secure and stable identity, and to preserve the freedom and distance that come with self-consciousness. This is an impossible ideal, since we are always beyond what we are and we never quite reach what we could be. The possibility of completion haunts us and we continue to search for it even (...) when we are convinced it can never be achieved. Sartre suggests that we have to continue seeking this ideal in the practical sphere, even when our philosophical reflection shows it to be an impossibility. Sartre puts this existential dilemma in explicitly theological terms. 'God' represents an ideal synthesis of being and consciousness which remains a self-contradictory goal. This dilemma remains unresolved in his thinking. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that human meaning and value are grounded in an infinite horizon as opposed to the finite horizon of the building of a life. This infinite grounding of human meaning and value makes sense of and justifies the desire for everlasting life. I also argue that this infinite horizon can motivate an ethic of social justice better than the necessity of building a life within a finite timeframe could. In this article I take (...) Martin Hägglund's This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom as representative of the position that meaning and value can only be made sense of in light of the horizon of death; and I draw on phenomenologist Michel Henry's concept of Life and Jean-Luc Marion's concept of the saturated phenomenon to argue against that position. I then draw on Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and David Graeber to argue that social justice cannot be grounded in secular faith of temporal finitude but is rather best made sense of in view of an everlasting hope and a move to the infinite. (shrink)

Publication date: 15 October 2018 Source: Author: Mohsen Hanif, Hamed Badri Theodor Dreiser's Sister Carrie dramatizes the unbridled greed for wealth and craze for status in an extremely commercialized world. It exemplifies the servitude of a society beholden to a consumerist market, where the affluent prey on the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the poor. The novel captures human relations in their seismic change, where family bonds are breaking down and the family is losing its role as a basic social (...) unit. This article will argue that human desire lies at the heart of family breakdowns in Sister Carrie. In doing so, it will provide an insight into the workings of the capitalist system, including its inroads into the shores of human desire – explaining how it robs individuals of their true essence and dehumanizes them. Finally, the article will call for checks and balances vis-à-vis our uncontrollable desires and recommend collective efforts in order to protect the institution of family and bring back commercialized societies from the brink. (shrink)

Beginning with The Automatic Society, where Stiegler, on the occasion of an analysis of the unification of the technical system by the digital, synthesizes his thought of the three stages of the process of "proletarianization," this paper comes first to a critical examination of the originary "prosthetic conditions" which, according to Technics and Time, made possible the ambivalence of the technical pharmakon and the "systemic stupidity" of today. This leads then to a development on the problem of the status of (...) desire in the stieglerian pharmacology of mind, which makes it infinite and specific to humans. Finally, this development leads us to a confrontation between Stiegler’s mobilization of doing-right (faire-droit) to unify the domains of philosophy, and a redefinition of doing-right within a differently unified human ecology, whose archireflexive methodological questioning is translated secondarily in this redefinition in terms of suffering needs versus consumerist Desire. (shrink)

Many people find sacred choral music profound and deeply evocative, even in societies that seem to be turning away from religious belief. In this book, Julian Perlmutter examines how, in light of its wide appeal, sacred music can have religious significance for people regardless of their religious convictions. -/- By differentiating between doctrinal belief and the desire for God, Perlmutter explores a longing for the spiritual that is compatible with both belief and 'interested non-belief'. He describes how sacred music (...) can elicit this kind of longing, thereby helping the listener to grow in religious openness. The work of Thomas Merton is also analyzed in order to show that musically-elicited desire for God can be incorporated into the Christian practice of contemplative prayer, aimed ultimately at a union of love with God. By exploring connections between desire, knowledge and religious practice, this engaging account illustrates how sacred music can have a transformative effect on one's wider spiritual life. -/- Of particular interest to philosophers and theologians, the book makes a novel contribution to several topics including religious epistemology, the philosophy of emotion and aesthetics. (shrink)

On the stupidity of oysters -- Divining creaturely love -- Horsing around: the marriage blanc of Nietzsche, Andreas-Salomø, and Røe -- Groping for an opening: Rilke between animal and angel -- Electric caresses:Rilke, Balthus, and Mitsou -- Between perfection and temptation: Musil, Claudine, and Veronica -- The biological travesty -- "The creature whom we love": Proust and jealousy -- The love tone: capture and captivation -- "The soft word that comes deceiving": Fournival's bestiary of love -- The cuckold and the (...) cockatrice: Fourier and Hazlitt -- The animal bride and horny toads -- Unsettled being: Ovid's metamorphoses -- Fickle metaphysics -- Nymphomania and faunication -- Senseless arabesques: Wendy and Lucy -- The goat in the machine (a reprise) -- On cetaceous maidens -- Animal magnetism and alternative currents (or Tesla and the white dove). (shrink)

In the United States today, the human body defines a lucrative site of reusable parts, ranging from whole organs to minuscule and even microscopic tissues. Although the medical practices that enable the transfer of parts from one body to another most certainly relieve suffering and extend lives, they have also irrevocably altered perceptions of the cultural values assigned to the body. Organ transfer is rich terrain to investigate—especially in the American context, where sophisticated technological interventions have significantly shaped understandings (...) of health and well-being, suffering, and death. In _Bodies, Commodities, and Biotechnologies_, Lesley Sharp probes the ideological assumptions underlying the transfer of body parts, the social significance of donors' deaths, and the medico-scientific desires surrounding complex forms of body repair. Sharp also considers the experimental realm, in which nonhuman species and artificial devices present further opportunities for recovery and for controversy. A compelling scientific investigation and social critique, _Bodies, Commodities, and Biotechnologies_ explores the pervasive, and at times pernicious, practices shaping American biomedicine in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

This book defends the Humean Theory of Motivation, according to which desire drives all action and practical reasoning. -/- Desire motivates us to pursue its object. It makes thoughts of its object pleasant. It focuses attention on its object. Its effects are amplified by vivid representations of its object. These aspects of desire explain why motivation usually accompanies moral belief, how intentions shape our plans, how we exercise willpower, what human selves are, how action can express (...) emotion, why we procrastinate, and how we daydream. The Humean Theory also suggests a new account of moral judgment that upholds objectivity while understanding moral concepts in terms of our feelings. (shrink)

Human desires for survival and things conducive to survival seem to be exactly what one would expect given natural selection. Thus, one might intuitively assume that such desires provide evidence for evolutionary naturalism. The purpose of this paper is to show that they do not: desires for survival, things conducive to survival, and other natural desires found in human beings are not an evidential asset to evolutionary naturalism. Indeed, they are severely problematic due to their intentionality and the (...) fact that they fit just as well, if not better, with theism. (shrink)

The development of highly humanoid sex robots is on the technological horizon. If sex robots are integrated into the legal community as “electronic persons”, the issue of sexual consent arises, which is essential for legally and morally permissible sexual relations between human persons. This paper explores whether it is conceivable, possible, and desirable that humanoid robots should be designed such that they are capable of consenting to sex. We consider reasons for giving both “no” and “yes” answers to these (...) three questions by examining the concept of consent in general, as well as critiques of its adequacy in the domain of sexual ethics; the relationship between consent and free will; and the relationship between consent and consciousness. Additionally we canvass the most influential existing literature on the ethics of sex with robots. (shrink)

It is seemingly bad for animals to have their desires modified in at least some cases, for instance where brainwashing or neurological manipulation takes place. In humans, many argue that such modification interferes with our positive liberty or undermines our autonomy but this explanation is inapplicable in the case of animals as they lack the capacity for autonomy in the relevant sense. As such, the standard view has been that, despite any intuitions to the contrary, the modification of animals’ desires (...) is not harmful (at least not in itself). In this article, I offer a different perspective on this issue, laying the foundations of a novel argument in defence of the view that animals _can_ be harmed by desire modification directly. I suggest that the modification of an animal’s desires (under certain circumstances) is harmful for that animal because it undermines their agency. (shrink)