This paper explicates how we might positively understand the distinctive, nonconceptual experience of our own actions and experiences by drawing on insights from a radically enactive take on phenomenal experience. We defend a late-developing relationalism about the emergence of explicit, conceptually based self-awareness, proposing that the latter develops in tandem with the mastery of self-reflective narrative practices. Focusing on the case of human newborns, Sect. 1 reviews and rejects claims that the capacities of actors to keep track of aspects of (...) themselves—e.g. their bodies, body parts, movements, activities, actions and experiences—when coordinating what they do equates to or is best explained by positing minimal, tacit awareness of their experiences as their own. Section 2 then considers and resists more familiar arguments, based on the so-called reflexivity thesis, that take such minimal self-awareness to be implied wherever there is any kind of phenomenal experience. In place of these ideas, we promote an alternative proposal of what is involved when agents keep track of aspects of themselves, drawing on a radically enactive conception of basic experience. Section 3 concludes by proposing that our first conceptual, explicit sense of self is something that only arrives on the scene once we become able to hold our own—through the support of others—in discursive, narrative practices that give us a conceptual grip on what it is to be a temporally extended self that persists over time. (shrink)

Unified theories of de se attitudes and de dicto attitudes, along the lines of David Lewis’s proposal, face a problem. Whether or not they are adequate for representing beliefs, they can misrepresent the content of many of our desires, which rank possible outcomes in which the agent with the desire does not exist. These desires are shown to play a role in the rational explanation of action, and recognising them is important in our understanding of ourselves. Lewis’s account of (...) attitudes de dicto and de se is shown to be unsatisfactory, and the lessons learned are applied more broadly. (shrink)

Depending on the Sitz im Leben of practical theologian, the issue of decolonisation will be a greater or lesser reality. For South Africans, decolonisation has become a part of their daily living. Decolonisation can be regarded as a second wave of liberation in the post-apartheid South Africa. Following on the first wave, or even the tsunami of transformation, is the urgent call for the decolonisation of colonial knowledge, structures and epistemologies that endured in the new dispensation. Squarely in the aim (...) of decolonisation efforts are institutions of higher learning and by implication all disciplines taught there, including theology. The non-negotiability of the decolonisation of higher education is evident in the recurring violent protests and mass action, as expressed in different ‘#must-fall’ campaigns over the last few years. This article argues that the current decolonisation drive in South Africa is urging local practical theologians to make an important choice, namely to move ‘selfishly backward’ or ‘selflessly forward’. In other words, maintaining current practices or exploring alternatives in a new context. This choice is embedded in the reality that a significant number of practical theologians in South Africa are white males that may, from a decolonisation perspective, be deemed part of the colonisation legacy. Against this background, the article attempts to provide a reflective insider’s perspective on a challenge and opportunity this creates for practical theology. (shrink)

Selfhood requires sufficient rationality, the capacities for self-reflection and self-knowledge, the capacity for autonomous action, temporal situatedness and an awareness of this, and psychological continuity and an awareness of this. Contemporary philosophers have more or less reached a consensus regarding NS, and the lion's share of discourse regarding the self seems to center on making sense of this constellation.While certainly having their own respective places within such discussions, value and commitment too often take a back seat. Here, I return (...) attention to these aspects of the self, specifically, in revisiting one of the more... (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to explore the Buddhist position particularly within the Mahāyāna sect about the use of human embryos which may be either surplus embryos thawedinthe laboratoryorembryosculturedfor researchpurposes.Buddhismdoesnot give prominence to any supreme creation whose plan might be distorted by human intervention with nature. Buddhism postulates the cyclic course of human existence as eternal. There is no starting point to the series of lives lived and obviously there is no end. In the Buddhist thought, there is a (...) belief that every individual had existence prior to the present birth. Following this, the paper made a study of the details of the conception and gestation as found in the Buddhist literature and sources. Buddhism aims to do away with pain. Intention is an intrinsic aspect in Buddhism referred to as sankalpa, which is beyond mere goals and objectives. An action is deemed as good karma because of its intentions. To Buddhism, a selfless action gains significance. (shrink)

Employee reporting dishonesty is a significant area of concern for firms. In this study, we investigate how providing information about their prosocial actions, such as organizational citizenship behaviors, affects the extent of employee reporting dishonesty. We distinguish prosocial actions whose welfare effects are mutually beneficial (i.e., that help others and the employee), which are common in business practice, from those that are selfless in nature (i.e., that help others at a personal cost to the employee). In addition to examining (...) the effect of the type of prosocial action on the extent of employee reporting dishonesty, we also examine the effect of construal (the manner in which individuals perceive and interpret the action). Using an experiment, we find that participants with high moral identity are less dishonest when they describe their selfless prosocial actions than when they describe their mutually beneficial prosocial actions, but only when they abstractly construe this information. However, we do not find evidence that the reporting dishonesty of participants with low moral identity is influenced by the type of prosocial action they provide information about or the construal of that information. We discuss implications of these results for theory and practice. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the experience of postmodern representation of the metaphysics of corporeality. The meaning of A. Artaud’s “Theatre of Cruelty” is shown as a living act of ontologization of the body through the pain phenomenon. The game of mercantile and thinking participant in the action is distinguished. The purpose of scientific research: to distinguish between psychological and metaphysical experiences as those that determine the bodily and carnal goals of the participants; accordingly, to show the actions of (...) selfish and selfless roles with their ability to pass or block pain. Objectives of the research: to investigate the mechanisms of postmodern understanding of the metaphysics of the body through A. Artaud’s experience; to present the sphere of the Theater of Cruelty as the destiny of mankind to be a participant in the horrible and to be able to sympathize with it; to highlight the game of mercantile and selfless participant in ambiguous actions; to emphasize pain as a criterion of ontologizing the body; to show the places of the Theater of Cruelty in action on living examples. The scientific novelty lies in the view of the metaphysics of corporeality through the Theater of Cruelty and existential pain. Being a man of postmodern thinking, A. Artaud considers metaphysics in action and shows corporeality by a joint action, which is an event. (shrink)

Universal Game Theory - The theory that all of life is a game played by consciousness’es, (Living Beings). The board is a dream like structure of the universe. The progression is through an active process of intent witnessing, and passive meditation. Which releases the tension in the nerves of the body and leads to selfless actions, moral goodness, and eventually the finish, Enlightenment. Just like a wounded creature only cares about it’s own self. Man in tensionthrough self-centered thought only (...) thinks about his own predicaments. Even if he is thinking about others it is only through his own objectionable view from his false-created center. The enemy or deterrents in the game is the conditioning created by society for ambition, greed, control and general brain washing to give theindividual a false sense of identity, the ego. This is achieved by Religion; tradition, culture, education, reasoning, linear thought, and the creation of time. Leaving him/her in constant anxiety about millions of future contingencies. Through witnessing one realizes the whole futility of one dimensional thought which only leads to more and more thought. Simple or constructed elaborately, thought being time, a human construction. The final step of the Universal Game Theory is understanding the whole process of thought and the eventual revelation of Enlightenment, Bliss, ecstasy. Which the person then understands that he/she is the creator of the life/dream with which they are in. That point being a sexual ecstasy similar to what happens in death to men. i.e. Human males release semenwhen they die, having a sexual ecstasy at their last breath. (shrink)

The Bhagavadgītā, part of the sixth book of the Hindu epic The Mahābhārata, offers a practical approach to mokṣa, or liberation, and freedom from saṃsāra, or the cycle of death and rebirth. According to the approach, known as karmayoga, salvation results from attention to duty and the recognition of past acts that inform the present and will direct the future. In the Bhagavadgītā, Kṛṣṇa advocates selfless action as the ideal path to realizing the truth about oneself as well (...) as the ultimate reality. Kṛṣṇa proclaims that humans have rights only to actions and not to their results, whether good or bad. Therefore, humans should not desire any results whatsoever. The prisoner’s dilemma is a fictional story that shows why individuals who seek only their personal benefit meet worse outcomes than those possible by cooperating with others. The dilemma provides an effective, albeit often overlooked, method for studying the Hindu principle of niṣkāmakarma that is arguably the central teaching of the Bhagavadgītā. In the context of the prisoner’s dilemma, a prisoner who wants to uphold niṣkāmakarma may choose one of two decision-making strategies: to be indifferent and leave the decision to chance or to either pursue the common good or the other person’s benefit instead of his or her own. Assuming that followers of niṣkāmakarma can be goal-oriented, the second strategy is more appropriate than the first, as long as one pursues unselfish goals and remains both indifferent and uncommitted to personal benefit. (shrink)

In Planescape: Torment, players assume the role of the Nameless One, an immortal being who suffers from amnesia. By making choices for the Nameless One, players decide not only what happens to the Nameless One but also the development of his moral character. In this way, Planescape: Torment invites its players to consider “what can change the nature of a man.” In the game’s canonical ending, the Nameless One regrets the great harm he inflicted on others, and he gives up (...) his immortality to amend his wrongdoing. Thus, the game holds that it is regret that can change someone’s moral character for the better. A defense of this claim about regret can be found in Aristotle’s view that one must practice virtuous actions in order to develop the moral virtues. The alignment system of Planescape: Torment demonstrates a similar connection between action and character: the Nameless One improves his moral character by taking selfless actions. Since regret motivates one to practice virtuous action to make amends for one’s wrongdoing, regret enables one to develop virtue, and so better moral character. Although Spinoza argues that we should avoid feeling regret because it makes us miserable, Planescape: Torment suggests that the painfulness of regret is what makes it an effective source of motivation to practice virtuous actions. (shrink)

Ethics plus theory of action -- Thinking the good through -- Fallacious conclusions -- Animal morabile -- Action -- The principle of happiness: eudaimonia -- The happiness of aspiration -- The art of living -- Four life goals -- Virtue -- Prudence, composure, selflessness -- Wisdom rather than calculation -- Does virtue make one happy? -- Euthanasia of morals? -- From an ethic of teleological aspiration to an ethic of the will -- The principle of freedom: autonomy -- (...) Locating moral freedom -- Practical reason: freedom of action -- Autonomous reason: freedom of the will -- Objection one: determinism -- Objection two: brain research -- The criterion -- The universalizability test: two examples -- Reality -- Morally evil -- Autonomous morality and the art of living -- Does morality make one happy?. (shrink)

In this paper, we address reports of “selfless” experiences from the perspective of active inference and predictive processing. Our argument builds upon grounding self-modelling in active inference as action planning and precision control within deep generative models – thus establishing a link between computational mechanisms and phenomenal selfhood. We propose that “selfless” experiences can be interpreted as cases in which normally congruent processes of computational and phenomenal self-modelling diverge in an otherwise conscious system. We discuss two potential (...) mechanisms – within the Bayesian mechanics of active inference – that could lead to such a divergence by attenuating the experience of selfhood: “self-flattening” via reduction in the depth of active inference and “self-attenuation” via reduction of the expected precision of self-evidence. (shrink)

In this chapter I explore several variations of mindfulness in performance, and I focus specifically on variations of self-awareness in these practices. I take an enactivist approach, clarifying first why enactivism is not a form of behaviorism. I argue that phenomenologically inspired enactivist conceptions of perception and action are neither mindless, in a naïve behavioristic way, nor overly cognitivist, but do involve aspects of mindfulness that support embodied performance. I’ll look at examples from athletics, dance and musical performance. Finally, (...) I’ll consider the status of self in mindful practices that are sometimes described as attaining mindless or selfless states. (shrink)

For medical humanitarian organizations, making their sources of legitimacy explicit is a useful exercise, in response to: misperceptions, concerns over the ‘humanitarian space’, controversies about specific humanitarian actions, challenges about resources allocation and moral suffering among humanitarian workers. This is also a difficult exercise, where normative criteria such as international law or humanitarian principles are often misrepresented as primary sources of legitimacy. This essay first argues for a morally principled definition of humanitarian medicine, based on the selfless intention of (...) individual humanitarian actors. Taking Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as a case in point, a common source of moral legitimacy for medical humanitarian organizations is their cosmopolitan appeal to distributive justice and collective responsibility. More informally, their legitimacy is grounded in the rightfulness of specific actions and choices. This implies a constant commitment to publicity and accountability. Legitimacy is also generated by tangible support from the public to individual organizations, by commitments to professional integrity, and by academic alliances to support evidence-based practice and operational research. (shrink)

In this book, Robin Gill argues that moral passion and rational ethical deliberation are not enemies, and that moral passion often lurks behind many apparently rational ethical commitments. He also contends that though moral passion is a key component of truly selfless moral action, without rational ethical deliberation it can also be extremely dangerous. Gill maintains that a reanalysis of moral passion is overdue. He inspects the gap between the 'purely rational' accounts of ethics provided by some moral (...) philosophers and the normative positions that they espouse and/or the moral actions that they pursue. He also contends that Christian ethicists have not been adept at identifying their own implicit moral passion or at explaining why it is that doctrinal positions generate passionately held moral conclusions. Using a range of disciplines, including cognitive science and moral psychology, alongside the more usual disciplines of moral philosophy and religious ethics, Gill also makes links with moral passion in other world faith traditions. (shrink)

This paper reports an attempt to develop a code of ethics for marketing educators at colleges and universities throughout the world. The paper describes the process of development and the outcome. The code of ethics details social responsibilities of marketing educators in relation to certain publics and actions. Social responsibilities related to certain publics include ethical prescriptions such as treating others with respect and dignity, upholding justice, providing information to others about matters that may significantly affect their well being, providing (...) access to needed and affordable resources, protecting the privacy of others, allowing the expression of a grievance and providing a mechanism for redress, providing fair credit, and ensuring safety. Social responsibilities related to certain actions include avoiding conflict of interest; conducting ourselves with the highest standards of intellectual honesty, professionalism, and objectivity; adhering to all policies of our academic institutions and challenging unjust or ineffective policies; mentoring our junior colleagues and students; being selfless in contributing to the marketing discipline and society at large, and defending the principles of academic freedom. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Living the Truth: Is Aquinas’s Ethical Theory a “Personal” One?John HofbauerThere is treasure to be mined from the philosophy of St. Thomas Aqui-nas and, in particular, from his ethical insights. It is my contention that, at its very roots, Aquinas’s ethical theory is eminently personal, and that today’s generation of college students would benefit greatly from a close reading of it. At their deepest levels, the youth of today (...) do not want to be coddled: they desire a challenge, a “call to arms” so to speak—something that will inspire them and lead them out of the sometimes suffocating circle of self-interest and self-pity that surrounds so many of them. Aquinas’s ethical theory is different from most modern and contemporary ethical theories. For he roots it in the real, in a real “person,” and I think that today’s youth should at least be made aware of the existence of such a deeply personal ethic. They deserve to be made aware of a real option for a way of life that offers the realistic possibility of deliverance from themselves, and one which, as well, offers definite answers to specific questions that they encounter as their life’s story plays itself out.As long as our youth are made aware of this uniquely personalist option which Aquinas offers them, they can choose to take it or leave it at their own good pleasure. And many of them will leave it, for the time being, as they search for other (typically more hedonistic) ways to find personal self-satisfaction and self-fulfillment. But at least they will know that it is out there (“it” has been called the “maximalist view,” the “path of greatest resistance”), waiting for them to heed its unique call to them on a personal level. Additionally, they will have the consolation of knowing that there really is a distinctly different way of life which, while it does not coddle them, offers them a meaningful opportunity for self-sacrifice and, ultimately, self-fulfillment, as long as the initially difficult choices are made.In this paper, we will concentrate, initially, on the personal “transcendence” [End Page 17] that takes place in Aquinas’s ethical theory. We will be looking at the ways in which this focus on the “other” can empower the moral agent to keep inordinate “selfishness” out of her primary motivation for acting. Afterward, we will look at those specific moments of a moral action which facilitate and give meaning to this personal “selflessness.” The last section of this paper will take a more “selfish” turn by focusing on the qualities of that lasting state of happiness which becomes the reward for the person whose primary focus has been on a transcendent personal “Good,” a “Good” which also happens to be what Aquinas considers as the “Greatest Good” (the “Good” which, from every viewpoint, is subjectively perceived by the person as the greatest objective good).If our students were to become acquainted with some of Aquinas’s ideas regarding ethics as a means to the end of possessing the greatest Good and the greatest happiness, they might be surprised to find themselves open to the possibility of adopting these ethical insights as their own. They may find in them the challenge and the inspiration to become who they really are, that noble “true self” that lies beneath the surface of self-indulgence and self-pity. They may also find in Aquinas some answers to the many questions they often ask about the destiny of the human person. Indeed, they may discover the reasons why some definitions linking success to eternal happiness are superior to definitions that are tied solely to “self-fulfillment,” “self-realization,” and the attainment of worldly possessions. And finally, they might realize that there is at least one philosopher who does not “pull any punches”—for Aquinas claims that we can know not only reality (what “is” the case), but he claims, as well, that we can know what obligations (what “ought” to be done) can be derived from that knowledge of reality. Let us now look at some of the specific ways in which Aquinas... (shrink)

In our present-day Western society, there has been an increasing tendency towards individualism and indifference and away from altruism and empathy. This has led to a resurgence of ethical concerns in contemporary Continental philosophy. Following the thinking of philosophers such as Emmanuel Levinas, ethics has come to be defined in terms of a disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others. Levinas claims that taking care of others in need is not a free, rational decision, but a fundamental (...) responsibility that is pre-consciously felt. We are passively obligated before we can actively choose to help. Levinas therefore argues that the needy other incapacitates our normal selfish ways, and that this ‘radical passivity’ enables us to recognise our inherent responsibility towards others in need. Levinas's own thinking on this subject is not unambiguous, however. While his early works stress the fact that we cannot care for others if we do not first take care of ourselves, his later works focus exclusively on the other as locus of our ethical responsibility. Following this line of thinking, a false opposition has emerged between an absolutised egoism and a crushing altruism that threatens to undermine the recent resurgence of ethical concerns. For how can we continue to care for others if we fail to recognise the duties we have towards ourselves? Moreover, what is the moral significance of responsible action if it is not freely chosen but passively imposed? (shrink)

In the tradition of Western ethical thought, “charity” refers to two ideas. Although now distinguishable, they are historically connected. The first is an attitude: the attitude of selfless love which is treated in the Christian tradition as the most fundamental of the virtues. The second is a kind of action: the action of rendering material assistance to those who need it. Derivative from this second idea is the current use of “a charity” to refer to an organization (...) through which such assistance is coordinated. (shrink)

Flow has been described as a state of optimal performance, experienced universally across a broad range of domains: from art to athletics, gaming to writing. However, its phenomenal characteristics can, at first glance, be puzzling. Firstly, individuals in flow supposedly report a loss of self-awareness, even though they perform in a manner which seems to evince their agency and skill. Secondly, flow states are felt to be effortless, despite the prerequisite complexity of the tasks that engender them. In this paper, (...) we unpick these features of flow, as well as others, through the active inference framework, which posits that action and perception are forms of active Bayesian inference directed at sustained self-organisation; i.e., the minimisation of variational free energy. We propose that the phenomenology of flow is rooted in the deployment of high precision weight over (i) the expected sensory consequences of action and (ii) beliefs about how action will sequentially unfold. This computational mechanism thus draws the embodied cognitive system to minimise the ensuing (i.e., expected) free energy through the exploitation of the pragmatic affordances at hand. Furthermore, given the challenging dynamics the flow-inducing situation presents, attention must be wholly focussed on the unfolding task whilst counterfactual planning is restricted, leading to the attested loss of the sense of self-as-object. This involves the inhibition of both the sense of self as a temporally extended object and higher–order, meta-cognitive forms of self-conceptualisation. Nevertheless, we stress that self-awareness is not entirely lost in flow. Rather, it is pre-reflective and bodily. Our approach to bodily-action-centred phenomenology can be applied to similar facets of seemingly agentive experience beyond canonical flow states, providing insights into the mechanisms of so-called selfless experiences, embodied expertise and wellbeing. (shrink)

Both the Johannine and Akan cultures are described in scholarly literature as collectivistic communities that value love as a communal value. Nonetheless, a scholarly analysis of the Akan concept reveals that Akan proverbial tradition promotes love motivated by the expectation of reciprocation. Thus, the article aimed to provide a biblical response to these challenges for Akan Christians, who hold love as both a traditional and theological value. Consequently, the study employed Gatti’s dialogic hermeneutics because it encourages engagement between text and (...) culture, viewing them as dialogue partners from which a call to action emanates directed at the interpreter’s context. Even though the Akan concept relates love to sacrifice, forgiveness and reciprocity, it promotes conditional love, thereby diminishing its concept of love-motivated sacrifices and reciprocity. By incarnating the concept of love that Jesus promotes and embodies in John, Akan Christians can establish a culture that reflects the community of God, proscribing conditional love and prescribing utmost and greater love – godly selfless and reciprocal love. In addition, it makes love the substratum of functional unity and interpersonal relationships. Ultimately, it makes love a divine command for the community of believers. Contribution: This article engages the Johannine and the Akan ideations of love through dialogic hermeneutics and, as such, contributes to African biblical hermeneutics and the ongoing discussions on the inculturation of the New Testament within the African context. (shrink)

No philistine, Thorstein Veblen thought humankind's innate impulse to imbue experience with aesthetic unity advanced all knowledge, and that the most beautiful objects, ideas, and actions met a standard of communal benefit reflecting humanity's naturally selected sociability. Though German idealism was an early influence, it clashed with Veblen's historicist critique of Western institutions, and it was William James's psychology that refined his ideas into a coherent aesthetics with ethical and political applications, by clarifying how instinct, habit, and environment could interact (...) to institutionalize standards of beauty subverting the native altruism of the aesthetic impulse. Over years of association with John Dewey, Veblen concluded that a redeemed and reflective will to behold and create beauty in and through selfless activity could advance a more efficient and egalitarian society, and that humans cooperatively shaping their environments for the common good could approximate the German tradition's ideal of harmonizing personal freedom and external reality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Keiji Nishitani and Karl Rahner: A Response to NihilityHeidi Ann RussellIn his essay “Kenosis and Emptiness,” Buddhist scholar Masao Abe states that “the necessity of tackling the Buddhist-Christian dialogue not merely in terms of interfaith dialogue, but also as an inseparable part of the wider sociocultural problem of religion versus irreligion has become more and more pressing in the past few decades.” 1 From Keiji Nishitani’s perspective a culture (...) of self-centeredness has developed out of the inability of many people to move beyond a sense of nihilism in their lives. Furthermore, technological advances and an increased understanding of the laws of nature have allowed humans to manipulate those laws for their own purposes. In this development, Nishitani believes that “the perversion that occurred in the original relationship of man to the laws of nature has taken the shape of a fundamental intertwining of the mechanization of man and his transformation into a subject in pursuit of its desires, at the ground of which nihility has opened up as a sense of the meaninglessness of the whole business.” 2Both Nishitani and Karl Rahner see in the development of science and technology a tendency to manipulate the laws of nature for one’s own benefit in a way that increases the self-centeredness and self-absorption of humankind while at the same time devaluing humanity and engendering an attitude of meaninglessness. In a world today that is confronted with issues such as war and global warming and in which religious communities are trying to make sense out of scientific issues such as stem cell research and cloning, the ability to address a nihilistic standpoint that sees the surrounding world as simply being at human disposal has never been more crucial. So how does one confront this crisis of a nihilistic culture? Abe recommends that both Buddhism and Christianity need “to pursue a fundamental reorganization in characterizing their faith such that the prevailing basic assumptions are drastically changed—for example, a revolutionary reinterpretation of the concept of God in Christianity and the concept of Emptiness in Buddhism—thereby allowing a new paradigm or model of understanding to emerge.” 3 The concept of emptiness or nothingness in Keiji Nishitani’s Religion and Nothingness and the concept of God as incomprehensible mystery in the theology of Karl Rahner 4 could allow for the [End Page 27] emergence of a model of understanding that addresses the problem of irreligion or nihility from an interreligious perspective.5 While in no way negating the very real dissimilarities between the concepts of Nishitani and Rahner or the respective religious traditions of which they are a part, one need not think of their concepts as diametrically opposed to one another in such a way that dialogue is impossible. To that effect, this essay will explore the common ground between Nishitani’s concept of śūnyatā6 (often translated or defined as ku /emptiness or mu /nothingness) and Rahner’s incomprehensible God 7 based on their interpretations of the human experience of meaninglessness and the need for a surrender of the self that manifests itself in one’s loving relationship with others. Common human experience, such as the experience of death or meaninglessness, and the interpretations of that experience found in various religions can provide ground from which to begin interreligious dialogue. One can search for a connection between the religious concepts by looking at the way they make sense out of a common affective experience without requiring an absolute identity between the cognitive religious concepts themselves.8 The important point of comparison is not manufacturing a false identity between the concepts, but the way the concepts work within the living communities to move one to volitive action. In this way the practical or ethical implications of the concepts and how they are lived out in the world become the focus. In the work of Nishitani and Rahner, that common human experience is the meaninglessness encountered in the world today and the call for a selfless love that will transcend such meaninglessness. In their roles as philosopher-theologians, both Nishitani and Rahner have probably had more influence on individuals or leaders within certain Buddhist and Christian... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Zen War StoriesSteven HeineZen War Stories. By Brian Daizen Victoria. London and New York: Routledge-Curzon, 2003. Pp. xviii + 268. Hardcover $124.95. Paper $34.95.Brian Daizen Victoria's Zen War Stories, following his highly acclaimed but also highly provocative Zen at War (Weatherhill, 1997), continues his withering attack on the embracing of wartime ideology by leading Zen masters and practitioners in Japan. Victoria seeks to show that the attitude characteristic (...) of numerous examples of prominent Zen monks and scholars was not simply a matter of benignly resisting, or even passively accepting, the rhetoric of Imperial Way Buddhism by clergy who were under pressure and powerless to stand up to the authorities. Nor was it an example of innocently recognizing historical and ideological affinities between Zen monastic discipline and military training.On the contrary, the Zen masters discussed here eagerly and enthusiastically endorsed some of the most excessive and reprehensible aspects of imperial ideology in the name of a corrupted vision of spiritual realization as a tool to spread the doctrine of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere. They also used Zen wedded to hyper-nationalism and imperialism as a tool to misread the historical records of their own tradition and to help transport Japanese supremacy to China and Korea, while refusing to acknowledge or repent for their actions with the defeat of Japan. This outlook also infected numerous politicians and military figures, who turned to Buddhism as a way of explaining away or masking their roles leading up to, as well as during and after, World War II.In part 1 of Zen War Stories Victoria documents several masters who have become icons in the West for their apparent adherence to a Zen tradition linked with an ability to address contemporary culture. After showing in chapter 4 that Ōmori [End Page 345] Sōgen, praised for his prowess in swordsmanship and other arts, had a fascistic, "Mr. Hyde" side as manifested in the founding in 1932 of the Kinnō Ishin Dōmei (League for Loyalty to the Emperor and the Restoration), Victoria turns to the case of Yasutani Haku'un. In chapter 5, "Zen Master Dōgen Goes to War," we find that Yasutani, known as the teacher of Philip Kapleau and the inspiration for The Three Pillars of Zen, wanted to smash all universities for being traitors. He was a fanatical militarist who "transformed the life and thought of Zen Master Dōgen (1200-1253), the thirteenth-century founder of the Sōtō Zen sect in Japan, into a propaganda tool for Japanese militarism" (p. 68).In particular, Yasutani tried to argue that Dōgen's famed pilgrimage to Song China in 1223 was triggered not by a longing for the Buddhist Dharma but by a disgust with the new shogunate and an infatuation with preserving the Imperial House. According to Victoria, Yasutani's corrupted spirituality did not end with a support for militarism. He was also even more "ethnic chauvinist, sexist, and anti-Semitic" (p. 68) than his teacher Harada Daiun Sōgaku, whose "most memorable wartime quote is: '[If ordered to] march: tramp, tramp, or shoot: bang, bang. This is the manifestation of the highest Wisdom [of enlightenment]"' (pp. 66-67).After discussing in chapter 7, "Zen 'Selflessness' in Japanese Militarism," how Zen's historical relation to the samurai was misinterpreted to support the imperial ideology concerning the acceptance of death by D. T. Suzuki and other prominent representatives of Zen, including former Eiheiji temple abbot Kumazawa Taizen, part 2 takes up examples of the involvement with Buddhist thought by military and political leaders. While this section is less devastating as a critique of Zen than of Japanese Buddhism and society in general, Victoria explains in chapter 10, "Buddhism-The Last Refuge of War Criminals," how easily the moral basis of religion can be distorted and subverted. For example, as recollected by Buddhist studies scholar Hanayama Shinshō, seven Class A war criminals who had been condemned to death continued, while on death row, to cling hypocritically to Buddhism to find some feeling of solace. For instance, Hirota Kōki never abandoned his attachment to Zen and the warrior class and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 84-89 [Access article in PDF] Christian Views on Ritual Practice Concerning Ritual Practice and Ethics in Buddhism Donald W. MitchellPurdue UniversityThe three papers presented by this panel have given me a much greater knowledge about, and appreciation for, the relationship between ritual practice and ethical action in Tibetan, Zen, and Nichiren Buddhism. I would like to respond to each of the papers one at (...) a time from a Christian point of view by making certain comparisons with the connection between Christian ethics and ritual practice. Let me begin by raising a comparative five points concerning Stephanie Kaza's wonderful description [End Page 84] and insightful analysis of the function of ritual in nurturing authentic personhood in Zen.First, it seems that the practice of ritual in Zen demands a degree of self-sacrifice which in turn aids in the cultivation of the virtue of selflessness. For example, Kaza says that through the participation in ritual practice, "the student is freed from his or her own individual designs and preferences... not asking any questions but just trying to do it better and more fully each time." Or elsewhere Kaza concludes, "Zen ritual is a training ground for intensive practice in giving up the small ego-bound self." In a similar way for the Christian, the self-sacrifice demanded in ritual performance can be seen as nurturing selflessness in the context of community--as aiding one in giving up one's ego in order to participate more fully in the communal life of agape. But more than this, the value of selfless participation in the Christian community that is reinforced by the ritual is connected to a call for future action: It calls one to contribute selflessly together with others to building the reign of God. In Christianity, the performing of ritual with others sensitizes one to the fact that he or she is part of the church working for a collective love and unity that manifests in human community the very holiness of the unity and love of the Trinity. One is thus called within the sacred ritual environment to bring this love and unity into one's everyday environment through ethical behavior.Second, besides selflessness, another positive quality that is cultivated through ritual practice is mindful awareness. As Kaza states in regard to the meal ritual, this practice "cultivates mindful awareness... if one merges wholeheartedly with the process, the meal itself becomes a lesson in co-dependent arising." In other words, the ritual performance brings to mind an awareness of fundamental reality according to Buddhism, namely, dependent arising. Being aware of mutual interdependence brings a deeper sense of compassion for all beings, and a more focused inspiration to act morally on their behalf. So, too, in Christianity, ritual is seen to be a "social drama" that brings to awareness the reality of the mystical body of Christ, the church, being the social form of Jesus Christ in the world. Ritual, as a sacred and dramatic social manifestation of the church, brings this communal reality of Christ to the Christian's mindful awareness by breaking into the secular structures of ordinary consciousness. Furthermore, the ritual also guides, forms, inspires, strengthens, and encourages the participants to re-enter that ordinary life committed to living the values and ideals expressed in the ritual. The formative power of the ritual performance lies, in part, in the fact that ritual ties ideas, values, and ideals to sensual and emotional stimuli in a way that, in the words of Victor Turner, "connects the obligatory into the desirable" (The Forest of Symbols, 1967).Third, Kaza shows how ritual in Zen helps to convey the tradition and promote solidarity within the community. She says that ritual in Zen: "promotes healthy sangha through sharing the stability and continuity of traditional practice forms... which generate a culture of the larger body--familiar and supportive." In Christianity, too, the multidimensional expressions of the ritual performance--the physical movements, sounds, music, smells, verbal articulations, etc.--all blend together in ways that pass on certain ideas, ideals, and values... (shrink)

An introduction to the long-forgotten healing methods of the Essenes—an ancient sect of Jewish mystics—that offers useful tools, meditations, and visualizations for modern-day practitioners Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1946, there was little known about The Essenes, a brotherhood of holy men and women living together within a community over two thousand years ago. The Essenes considered themselves to be a separate people—not because of external signs like skin color or hair color, but because of the (...) illumination of their inner life and their knowledge of the hidden mysteries of nature unknown to other men. The Gate of Light is based on Lars Muhl’s lifelong search for God. It doesn’t claim any absolute truths but sets out to provide a practice based on Essene teachings that allows us to look at how we judge ourselves and how we live in the world. Muhl asks: What motivates us? How do we create a balance between thoughts, words, and actions? How do we align ourselves in relation to our higher self and become the universal light beings we are meant to be? The Essenes understood that everything is interactively connected and that everything is energy. For them, God was the name for the highest form of awareness, something omnipresent and—if a human wished to learn how—they could communicate with this ever-present energy; through this communication humans could realize their full potential. Drawing on this ancient knowledge, Muhl presents a complete practice to help us recognize and answer the above questions. He particularly looks at: Grief and Happiness, Balance and Awareness, Selflessness, Boredom and Renunciation, Loneliness, Gratitude, Silence and Thoughtfulness. (shrink)

Over the last decade, attention has crawled from out of the shadows into the philosophical limelight with several important books and widely read articles. Carolyn Dicey Jennings has been a key player in the attention revolution, actively publishing in the area and promoting awareness. This book was much anticipated by insiders and does not disappoint. It is in no way redundant with respect to other recent monographs, covering both a different range of material and developing novel positions throughout. The book (...) might have been called The Attending Self, since Jennings defines attention as mental prioritization controlled by the self. This invocation of the self is among her central innovations, and may prove to be the main source of controversy. I will highlight points of contention here, but want to emphasize at the outset that the book is essential reading for anyone interested in attention. Jennings also contributes to a range of other debates, which will help a broader audience appreciate the importance this topic.After a brief introduction, Jennings provides “a philosophical landscape” of attention (chap. 2), tracing the concept through history. This is an invaluable achievement that will be welcomed by both newcomers and veterans. Jennings exhibits enormous breadth, covering areas that contemporary philosophers of mind tend to neglect: medieval philosophy, Buddhist thought, and phenomenology, to name a few. We also get perspectives on attention from core figures in the Western canon, such as Descartes, Locke, and Kant, as well as thinkers who gave the topic a more political inflection: Mary Wollstonecraft and W. E. B. DuBois. Jennings surveys contemporary literature as well, locating recent work in these older lineages. Some authors get more treatment later in the book (e.g., William James and Wayne Wu). Overall, Jennings provides the best overview of this history I have seen. She proves that attention is not a new topic, but one with deep roots and one that can inform current debates; Jennings draws on these roots throughout. I would love to see a companion piece surveying scientific theories, including “gain control” and “biased competition,” which get little airtime in the book. Some recent philosophical theories are under-explored as well, including Chris Mole’s concept of cognitive unison (Jennings discusses other aspects of his view), Carlos Montemayor and Harry Haladjian’s exploration of attention’s diversity (we get a touch of this), and my own proposal that attention is a gateway to working memory (not mentioned here). That said, no extant survey is more complete.Chapter 3 begins with the empirical claim that attention is regulated by slow brainwaves, and then takes up two issues. The first is mental causation. Endorsing moderate emergentism, Jennings argues that slow brain waves are causally efficacious even though they are not reducible to lower-level processes. (The metaphysics and neuroscience are presented accessibly, aided by three appendixes.) Second, Jennings argues that these slow brain waves indicate that attention is controlled by the self. As someone who was never moved by the mental causation problem—I don’t think overdetermination threatens efficacy—I would have welcomed more development of this second issue. For one thing, in linking attention to subjective control, Jennings eschews the idea that there can be purely “bottom-up” attention driven by stimulus features alone. This goes against the orthodoxy in attention science, and makes it hard for her to accommodate phenomena such as “pop-out,” or the commonsense idea that attention can be “captured” by a sudden flash or loud sound. For another thing, I wanted to hear more on why Jennings relates slow brain waves to the self. Does this include the slow waves that occur during deep sleep? Is there even such a thing as the self? Is there one self or many? How do slow brain waves reflect our interests, projects, values, self-conceptions, autobiographical narratives, or social identities? Does the social self invoked by Wollstonecraft and DuBois gain a foothold here? The whole chapter campaigns against metaphysical reductionism, but arrives at a perspective on the self that will strike some readers as highly reductive.In the fourth chapter, Jennings sheds further light on her conjecture that attention involves the self by advancing the thesis that attention endows sensory information with meaning. On the face of it, this may sound implausible. Object recognition, reading, and many other meaning-involving processes can take place outside of attention and outside of consciousness. But Jennings has a richer notion of “meaning” in mind. She develops the idea of “subject unity,” which is imposition of structure on perception that reflects the interests of the perceiving subject. This, she claims, is what brings perception into the space of reasons. Along the way, she has interesting observations about binding, feature integration, and demonstrative reference. The material is highly original, and Jennings’s postulation of interest-based perceptual organization is compelling. At the same time, one might wonder whether interests are really relegated to the ambit of attentional control. Consider the cocktail party effect, wherein one’s own name captures attention. This implies a preattentive filter that reflects our interests. Emotionally charged words, facial expressions, and dangerous objects also work this way, and social biases can operate preattentively as well. If these reflect our interests, then meaning may arise outside attention.Jennings’s fifth chapter explores the relationship between attention and consciousness. Some authors have argued that attention is necessary and sufficient for consciousness. Jennings focuses primarily on the necessity claim. She does not systematically review the empirical literature here, but she addresses some of the key findings, and effectively rebuts studies that allege to find consciousness outside attention. She does not rest her case there, however. Instead, she identifies a new class of examples that purport to establish the possibility of consciousness without attention. Her central example she calls “conscious entrainment,” which is what we experience when engaged in habitual or skilled activities. Other possible examples touched on in the chapter include hypervigilance in individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), passive movie watching, dreaming, and “attentional neglect.” These states all involve intense focus, Jennings admits, but not attention. To some readers this may sound contradictory. Isn’t focus a kind of attention? Don’t these states of absorption involve stimulus selection and enhancement of relevant features, suppression of distractors, and other hallmarks of attention? Jennings says none of this is tantamount to attention. Recall that she thinks attention is controlled by the self. In these cases, we are invited to imagine that the self takes a passive role: control is either ceded to the world (movie watching) or to previously mastered routines (skills and habits). Thus, Jennings’s claim that there is no attention in these cases hangs on her contentious thesis that attention requires a controlling self. One might also push back by arguing that, in some of Jennings’s allegedly selfless examples, the self remains involved. Skilled activities and hypervigilance, for example, can reflect personal interests.Skills and hypervigilance get more airtime in chapter 6. There, Jennings turns to questions of responsibility—a neglected topic in attention research. The chapter begins with a manslaughter trial in which the teenage plaintiff was given a light sentence because the judge evidently believed that the teen’s ADHD compromised his ability to control his actions. The example may be a bit triggering for people who have a personal relationship with this diagnosis, but, putting that aside, Jennings uses it to introduce the important concept of attention-based control. With reduced control, Jennings argues, comes reduced responsibility. I am inclined to see ADHD as involving dysregulation of attention (difficulty disengaging and dividing attention, for example) rather than diminished attention, but that can still be characterized as an issue with control of attention; therefore ADHD still illustrates Jennings’s point that there is a link between responsibility and control of attention. This, it turns out, is only half of her story. Having argued for this link, one might expect Jennings to follow Wayne Wu, who contends that attention is necessary for action, and hence for responsibility. She does not. Instead, she says argues that responsibility can also arise in cases of “strategic automaticity.” This brings us back to skills. When skills are deployed, action is governed by learned pairings between stimuli and responses. The choice to exercise a skill requires attention, so attention is needed for being a responsible agent, but once a skill kicks in, attention is no longer required, and one can be held responsible for actions performed skillfully—thus attention is not required for responsibility tout court. Jennings addresses an opposing view (defended by Wu, Ellen Fridland, and Barbara Montero), according to which skills involve “automatic attention” rather than no attention. Jennings worries that this move will collapse the distinction between attention and other kinds of selection and filtering that occur throughout the nervous system, including the retina. She says that the attentional interpretation of skilled action is at odds with the lack of top-down reweighing of sensory inputs, regulated by lateral frontal cortex. These objections to automatic attention warrant response. My own view is that attention involves broadcasting to working memory, so retinal filtering is ruled out. Jennings’s insistence on top-down reweighing will not move those who believe attention can be purely bottom-up. For all that, I side with Jennings in wanting to allow for responsibility without attentional control. I think we can be responsible for implicit biases, for example. I also think attentional control is insufficient for responsibility, as when we act under duress.Jennings offers fresh perspective on the nature of attention, and its role in meaningful perception, consciousness, action, and responsibility. Each chapter can be read separately, but they hang together well, and each reflects her thesis that attention is essentially linked to the self. Though I am skeptical of that strong claim, we would do well to follow Jennings in regarding attention as interest-laden interface between mind and world. I look forward to a sequel in which attention is related to richer conceptions of identity, and where the political consequences of this link are actively explored. Meanwhile, one can hardly fault Jennings for covering too little. She tackles a remarkable range of topics, from metaphysics to ethics. Her arguments throughout demand response, repay careful study, and propel the field forward. (shrink)

Christians frequently resist evolutionary theory, believing it to be incompatible with the core values of their tradition. But what exactly are the tensions between evolution and religious faith in the area of human morality? Evolution and Ethics examines the burning questions of human morality from the standpoint of Christian thought and contemporary biology, asking where the two perspectives diverge and where they may complement one another. -/- Representing a significant dialogue between world-class scientists, philosophers, and theologians, this volume explores the (...) central features of biological and religious accounts of human morality, introducing the leading theories and locating the key points of contention. Central to these discussions are the questions of whether human actions are ever genuinely selfless, whether there is something in the moral life that transcends biological function, and whether one can sensibly speak of an overall purpose to the course of evolution. (shrink)

For a long time the foundations of an Ethic of Nursing have been formulated in terms of Christian charity. The article discusses this concept by examining the roots of modern Nursing in the Kaiserswerther Diakonie. This Christian work -ethic is criticised by modern nursing ethics. lnstead of an Ethic of Charity an Ethic of Care is promoted by the common representatives of a modern ethics of nursing. But such as an Ethic of Christian Charity an Ethic of Care has to (...) deal with those problems: the naturalizing of femininity, the asymmetry of persans in caring relations, the relation between justice and care, the relation between caring and nursing. Care ethics following Gilligan and her recipients are not able to solve these problems in a satisfactory way. Therefore it could be useful to reformulate the Christian notion of charity. It can be demonstrated that Agape is not combined with conceptions of subservience and self-denial. The difference between Eros as a perverted selfishness and Agape as selfless virtue cannot be held any langer. Agape tends to reciprocity which has its model in the Golden Rule. In addition Agape is no sentiment, but related to action -Agape is practiced justice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction:Spiritual Friends in a Multifaith and Multisuffering WorldKyeongil JungAnanda said to the Buddha. “Master, spiritual friendship is half of the spiritual life.” The Buddha told him. “Not so, Ananda. It’s the whole of the spiritual life.”—Samyutta Nikaya, Volume 1If one friend suffers, all the friends suffer together with her; if one friend is honoured, all rejoice together with him.—1 Corinthians 12:26This year’s Buddhist-Christian Studies includes selected articles presented at (...) the International Buddhist-Christian Conference titled “Enlightenment and Liberation: Engaged Buddhists and Liberation Theologians in Dialogue,” which took place at Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York April 17–20, 2013. The conference was a historic gathering of socially engaged Buddhists and liberationist Christians from many corners of the world.There have been many Buddhist-Christian dialogues during the last century. Yet there have not been many dialogues between socially engaged Buddhists and liberationist Christians. Although many Buddhist and Christian activists and scholars have responded to the reality of social suffering, which is a universal experience across religions, cultures, and countries, most of them have not, because of the sheer fact of physical and geographical separation, had the opportunity to met each other and spend time together. This is precisely what happened at this Union conference. And it was amazing to see how quickly strangers became friends, almost as if they had long known one another. Such bonds of friendship grew spontaneously out of the one essential thing they all had in common: a selfless love and compassion for the poor and oppressed. All of them loved their suffering neighbors as they loved their own selves. Thus, engaged Buddhists and liberationist Christians immediately recognized one another as friends working for the same goal: liberation. In this way, the conference [End Page 3] confirmed that their spiritual friendship transcended religious boundaries in the face of social and political suffering. In a multifaith and multisuffering world, being friends cannot and should not be limited by the boundaries of a faith tradition.As the title of the conference indicates, the conferees shared their experiences of spiritual and social engagement in a multifaith and multisuffering world. For four days they exchanged their ideas and experiences of responding to the five faces of eco-human suffering in today’s world: economic injustice, war and violence, sexism, racism, and ecological crisis. These five issues were discussed comparatively and interreligiously. In each session, two participants, one Buddhist and one Christian, presented their ideas followed by discussion among their fellow participants. Along with those five topics, there was also a special session on spirituality and liberation in which Buddhist and Christian participants talked about how their spirituality supported and strengthened their social action for liberation. Every night there was a public presentation in which distinguished scholars and activists from the two spiritual traditions spoke about listening to the world and to the heart. In addition, the conference offered various smaller workshops, seminars, and informal conversations between the conferees and with general participants, such as “Buddhist and Christian Grassroots Organizing,” “Socially Engaged Buddhism: East-West Dialogue,” “Occupy Society and Religion: A Buddhist-Christian Conversation,” and “Buddhist and Christian Nuns Compare Notes.” In all this, dialoguers spoke to and listened to one another as openly and accurately as they could.Another mutually enlightening and empowering experience at the conference was that it created an interspiritual space. Every morning during the conference two conferees, one Buddhist and one Christian, co-celebrated interfaith meditation. It was initially designed as a spiritual exchange between Buddhism and Christianity. Yet, interestingly, that exchange took place not between but within each of the participants. In other words, it was not a Buddhist and Christian practice, but rather a Buddhist-Christian practice. In addition, the conference offered various opportunities for interspiritual interaction, such as “Ecological Worship Service,” “Compassion Meditation for Social Activists,” “Question-and-Answer Dharma Talk,” and “Buddhist-Christian Communion,” in which Buddhist and Christian participants shared their spiritual practices and techniques respectfully and mindfully. Such spiritual components of the conference proved that silence could be a wide door through which Buddhists and Christians can meet one another deeply and perceptively. Paraphrasing interreligiously the... (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the performance stories in the Zhuangzi, and the Butcher Ding story, emphasize an activity meditation practice that places the performer in a mindfulness flow zone, leading to graceful, efficacious, selfless, spontaneous, and free action. These stories are metaphors showing the reader how to attain a meditative state of focused awareness while acting freely in a flow experience. From my perspective, these metaphors are not about developing practical or technical skills per se. My (...) argument challenges a strict instrumental reading. Although instrumental reasoning can easily lead one to focus on the pragmatic outcomes depicted in these stories (See Eno, “Cook Ding’s Dao;” Callahan, “Cook Ding’s Life;” and Robins, “Beyond Skill”), the proposed pragmatic outcomes are merely a kind of collateral result of effortless, free actions, in the flow experience. The metaphors of Butcher Ding, the Lüliang rapids swimmer, the Wheelwright Bian, the Woodcarver Qing, the cicada catcher, the naked artist and so on are used to show the reader a way to engage in free and graceful action in the flow experience. Zhuangzi is not concerned about developing labour skills. He criticizes such skills; seen below when the Butcher claims to have “… left skill behind …” (進乎技矣) (Graham, Chuang-tzu, 63), and chapter five notes that “… skill is a peddler” (工為商) (Watson, Complete, 75). (shrink)

Aristotle holds that the ultimate goal of our action is our own happiness (“psychological eudaimonism”). Though this position is controversial, it’s widely thought that he never attempts to defend it. I argue, to the contrary, that he does. I begin by pointing out that in Nicomachean Ethics 9.8 Aristotle raises an endoxic challenge to psychological eudaimonism—namely, that virtuous people act selflessly, especially in relation to their friends—and that he responds to this challenge by declaring that the (observable) “facts” disagree (...) with these popular “speeches.” I then argue that some of the facts that he has in mind can be found in his surrounding discussion of friendship. Specifically, I point to two observations in the Nicomachean account of friendship that suggest that friendship isn’t a source of selfless motivation for virtuous people—that friendship dissolves with distance and that friends do not wish their friends to become gods—and one observation that suggests that virtuous friends do not benefit each other selflessly tout court—that friendship requires an equal return of benefit in order to preserve itself. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 84-89 [Access article in PDF] Christian Views on Ritual Practice Concerning Ritual Practice and Ethics in Buddhism Donald W. MitchellPurdue UniversityThe three papers presented by this panel have given me a much greater knowledge about, and appreciation for, the relationship between ritual practice and ethical action in Tibetan, Zen, and Nichiren Buddhism. I would like to respond to each of the papers one at (...) a time from a Christian point of view by making certain comparisons with the connection between Christian ethics and ritual practice. Let me begin by raising a comparative five points concerning Stephanie Kaza's wonderful description [End Page 84] and insightful analysis of the function of ritual in nurturing authentic personhood in Zen.First, it seems that the practice of ritual in Zen demands a degree of self-sacrifice which in turn aids in the cultivation of the virtue of selflessness. For example, Kaza says that through the participation in ritual practice, "the student is freed from his or her own individual designs and preferences... not asking any questions but just trying to do it better and more fully each time." Or elsewhere Kaza concludes, "Zen ritual is a training ground for intensive practice in giving up the small ego-bound self." In a similar way for the Christian, the self-sacrifice demanded in ritual performance can be seen as nurturing selflessness in the context of community--as aiding one in giving up one's ego in order to participate more fully in the communal life of agape. But more than this, the value of selfless participation in the Christian community that is reinforced by the ritual is connected to a call for future action: It calls one to contribute selflessly together with others to building the reign of God. In Christianity, the performing of ritual with others sensitizes one to the fact that he or she is part of the church working for a collective love and unity that manifests in human community the very holiness of the unity and love of the Trinity. One is thus called within the sacred ritual environment to bring this love and unity into one's everyday environment through ethical behavior.Second, besides selflessness, another positive quality that is cultivated through ritual practice is mindful awareness. As Kaza states in regard to the meal ritual, this practice "cultivates mindful awareness... if one merges wholeheartedly with the process, the meal itself becomes a lesson in co-dependent arising." In other words, the ritual performance brings to mind an awareness of fundamental reality according to Buddhism, namely, dependent arising. Being aware of mutual interdependence brings a deeper sense of compassion for all beings, and a more focused inspiration to act morally on their behalf. So, too, in Christianity, ritual is seen to be a "social drama" that brings to awareness the reality of the mystical body of Christ, the church, being the social form of Jesus Christ in the world. Ritual, as a sacred and dramatic social manifestation of the church, brings this communal reality of Christ to the Christian's mindful awareness by breaking into the secular structures of ordinary consciousness. Furthermore, the ritual also guides, forms, inspires, strengthens, and encourages the participants to re-enter that ordinary life committed to living the values and ideals expressed in the ritual. The formative power of the ritual performance lies, in part, in the fact that ritual ties ideas, values, and ideals to sensual and emotional stimuli in a way that, in the words of Victor Turner, "connects the obligatory into the desirable" (The Forest of Symbols, 1967).Third, Kaza shows how ritual in Zen helps to convey the tradition and promote solidarity within the community. She says that ritual in Zen: "promotes healthy sangha through sharing the stability and continuity of traditional practice forms... which generate a culture of the larger body--familiar and supportive." In Christianity, too, the multidimensional expressions of the ritual performance--the physical movements, sounds, music, smells, verbal articulations, etc.--all blend together in ways that pass on certain ideas, ideals, and values... (shrink)

Albert Schweitzer preached a message of reverence for life - all life - that touched the hearts of a generation. As a medical doctor in French Equatorial Africa who selflessly helped those in need, Schweitzer was recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize in the wake of two world wars. But less than fifty years since the time of his death, the great humanitarian and scholar has faded from public awareness. In The New Rationalism, David Goodin explores the underlying philosophy behind (...) Schweitzer's ethic of compassion, presenting it as a response to contemporary questions in social justice, economic equality, and environmental action. For the first time, the political, sociological, and philosophical contexts supporting the development of Schweitzer's ethic are examined in order to bring his timeless message of elemental morality to new life for the modern world. Inspired by Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, Schweitzer built his ethic to create an elemental nature philosophy compatible with empirical science, and to support a new ontological understanding of the human person - a project he termed the New Rationalism. Goodin recovers and analyzes Schweitzer's arguments and shows where his theories can provide a framework for both environmental and civic ethics today. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay establishes a cross-cultural comparison between Kierkegaard's ironist and the figure of the Chan master, with specific reference to Kierkegaard's dissertation The Concept of Irony and the renowned gongan collection Blue Cliff Record (Biyan lu 碧巖錄). The main thesis is that the comparison makes explicit significant aspects of Chan orthopraxis, since Chan masters, as presented in the Blue Cliff Record, exemplify Kierkegaard's portrayal of the ironist. In particular, these aspects pertain to the progressive detachment from the discriminating action (...) of karmic consciousness and self-centered thinking, toward the cultivation of a selfless stance. The first section focuses on Kierkegaard's ironist. The following sections analyze relevant gongan narratives from the Blue Cliff Record with the purpose of expounding on the relation between performative irony and the discriminating mind, playfulness, and selflessness. The final section considers the major incommensurable differences that mark the present cross-cultural dialogue. (shrink)

When one says, “I had a desire to have a glass of water and this was followed by my action to fetch the glass of water” then the common sense observation would assume that one’s mind caused this action. In this paper, I assume that there is a mind or there are ‘mental states’ which either belong to an enduring self or constitute a selfless stream of consciousness. I will provide the debate between Advaita Vedanta and Abhidharma (...) Buddhism to present this tension between enduring self and selfless stream of consciousness clearly. However, the aim of this paper is to look at how the mind is assumed to have causal powers. Is this assumption valid or not? Jaegwon Kim presents three problems that arise out of this assumption: “mental anomalism,” content externalism and causal exclusion. I shall look at these problems in detail in part I. In part II, I shall provide Buddhist arguments in favour of mind especially consciousness that can escape the reductionist arguments formulated by Kim by looking at the recent debates in contemporary physics especially quantum mechanics. (shrink)

It has been claimed that we need singular self-knowledge to function properly as rational agents. I argue that this is not strictly true: agents in certain relations could dispense with singular self-knowledge and instead rely on plural self-knowledge. In defending the possibility of this kind of ‘selfless agent’, I thereby defend the possibility of a certain kind of ‘seamless’ collective agency; agency in a group of agents who have no singular self-knowledge, who do not know which member of the (...) group they are. I discuss four specific functions for which singular self-knowledge has been thought indispensable: distinguishing intentional from unintentional actions, connecting non-indexical knowledge with action, reflecting on our own reasoning, and identifying which ultimate practical reasons we have. I argue in each case that by establishing certain relations between agents – relations I label ‘motor vulnerability’, ‘cognitive vulnerability’, ‘evidential unity’ and ‘moral unity’ – we would allow those agents to do everything a rational agent needs to do while relying only on plural, rather than singular, self-knowledge. Finally, I consider the objection that any agents who met the conditions I lay out for selfless agency would thereby cease to qualify as distinct agents, merging into a single agent without agential parts. Against this objection, I argue that we should recognise the possibility of simultaneous agency in whole and parts, and not regard either as disqualifying the other. (shrink)

Decades of feminist research has revealed the dismal labor conditions for women in global supply chains. Given this reality, why does Walmart use women in its supply chain as icons of female empowerment? Combining the Marxist notion of a “spatial fix” with a feminist analysis of symbolic resources, we develop the concept of a “gender fix” to understand a growing field of corporate programs that use women as symbolic resources to restore the image of firms as ethical actors. The gender (...) fix encompasses a wide range of corporate empowerment strategies to capture a broad pattern of action. A second term is necessary to situate Walmart’s particular empowerment strategy within its corporate positioning as leader of a vast supply chain network. We identify Walmart’s particular empowerment strategy as “outsourcing feminism.” Walmart’s use of the outsourcing feminism strategy stems from its commanding position in supply chains, which allows it to extract a symbolic surplus from women business owners from whom it sources products. When Walmart argues that it uplifts these women, its strategy targets the consumer end of the supply chain, emphasizing sourcing practices that promote a racially diverse, selfless, and middle-class femininity. In so doing, Walmart deflects attention from the treatment of women in other segments of its supply chain (e.g., its stores and factories). (shrink)

After distinguishing between a metaphysical and a contemplative strategy interpretation of the no-self doctrine, I argue that the latter allows for the illumination of significant and under-discussed Kantian affinities with Buddhist views of the self and moral psychology. Unlike its metaphysical counterpart, the contemplative strategy interpretation, understands the doctrine of no-self as a technique of perception, undertaken from the practical standpoint of action. I argue that if we think of the contemplative strategy version of the no-self doctrine as a (...) process engaged in, in order to free oneself from delusion and to see things more objectively in order to promote right action, then we find a clear parallel in Kant’s duty of self-knowledge which demands that we rid ourselves of deluded moral self-descriptions. While in Buddhism the aim is a selflessness that liberates one from suffering, for Kant the aim is an agency free of the conceit that interferes with clear moral vision, sound judgement, and dutiful action. I conclude by responding to objections advanced by Charles Goodman which aim to show that the Kantian position is deeply at odds with Buddhist thinking, arguing that neither Kantian agency nor Kantian self-legislation is undermined by the doctrine of no-self. (shrink)

Volunteering in Ukraine is becoming an increasingly popular phenomenon that occupies an important place in the life of society. Many people choose volunteering as a way to help people in difficult life circumstances, as well as to develop their own personality and engage in active civic participation. As a significant social phenomenon, volunteering has its own ideological foundations that define its core values and principles. Volunteering is based on the desire to help people and nature regardless of their status, nationality, (...) religion, or political beliefs. The purpose of the study. The current study examines the ideological foundations of volunteering in Ukraine in wartime and their significance for volunteering, to study the practical experience of volunteers in Ukraine in 2014-2023, and to examine the peculiarities of the legal regulation of volunteering in Ukraine in wartime. Methods. Achieving the goal and objectives of the study was made possible by using a set of interrelated modern general scientific and special methods and approaches. The systematic approach made it possible to study volunteering as a holistic set of elements in the totality of the connections between them. Through the use of the method of systematization, the author provides a review of the legal framework for volunteering, factor analysis is used to determine the factors influencing the relationship between the state and society in the field of volunteering, and system analysis is used to assess the state of relations between the state and society in Ukraine at this stage through its quantitative indicators.Results. According to the study “Volunteer Movement in Ukraine”, prepared by GfK Ukraine on behalf of the UN in Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens pay great attention to the volunteer movement in the development of social processes: 62% recognize the role of volunteers in the changes in the last year; 85% believe that the volunteer movement helps strengthen peace; 81% tend to consider the volunteer movement an essential component of civil society. Regarding the legal regulation of volunteer activities in Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine “On Volunteer Activity” of April 19, 2011, No. 3236-VI was adopted in April 2011. The Law of Ukraine of 15.08.2022 No. 2519-IX On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Volunteer Activity” on Support of Volunteer Activity regulates social relations related to volunteer activity in Ukraine. Discussion. One of the key principles of volunteering in Ukraine is selflessness and the ability to work in extreme conditions. Volunteers often work in difficult and dangerous conditions that require a high level of professionalism and skills. For many volunteers, the Ukrainian revolution of 2013-2014 and the events in eastern Ukraine were turning points that forced them to change their attitude to their own lives and start helping others. Ukrainian volunteers are an example of community and state cooperation that contributes to ensuring security and helping victims. They have shown that volunteering can be an effective tool in the fight against war and its consequences. Many volunteer organizations provided free medical care, took on the responsibility of supplying the military with necessary items and military equipment, organized the evacuation of people from the war zone, and provided psychological support to the military and their families. Conclusions.Volunteering in Ukraine is not a new phenomenon, but the war with Russia has become a catalyst for its development. This is a great example of how crises can encourage people to act together and interact to achieve a common goal. Volunteerism in Ukraine demonstrates the importance of spiritual unity and cooperation in difficult times, and is one of the most striking examples of civil society in action. The ideological principles of volunteering in Ukraine include non-profitability, openness, spirituality, and humanism, transparency and openness, security, and cooperation with government agencies and the military. The volunteer movement in Ukraine, especially in times of war, is an important factor in ensuring security and helping victims. Involvement of different groups of the population in volunteer activities, as well as cooperation with state and international structures, are important to ensure the effectiveness and success of volunteer activities. (shrink)

Buddhist ethics generally favour attention over action, and mental cultivation as the means of ethical transformation. Buddhaghosa’s treatment of samādhi – meditation – in the Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) exemplifies this view that practices of attention are morally transforming. His detailed discussion of which forms of attentional exercises are transformative to whom reveal that edifying attention is directed to impersonal reality rather than persons – even when the Buddha is our object of attention. In successful meditation, we do not (...) just recognise reality and ourselves as devoid of essence; we experience it as such – and in the experiencing, become so ourselves. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 541 But the end result is what La Capra terms "a philosophical conservatism," a call to create a morality to counteract the disintegrating forces in modern society. Here too Durkheim joins hands with Weber, Freud, and Malinowski. "Excessive individualism was symptomatic of social disintegration" (p. 145). Its antidote is the formation of cooperative groups. So for Weber the individual, in order to be a genuine man, must (...) always stand in a state of tension between self-interest and selflessness. So too for Freud and Malinowski unbridled individualism, incest and rebellion, are the major threats facing society. In contrast to Weber, who foresaw that "not summer's bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness and hardness.... "Durkheim's work stands in the more benign, less beclouded light of Cartesianism. La Capra stresses the philosopher rather than the sociologist in Durkheim, but in a comparative analysis with his great contemporaries that judgement may well stand. LUCIANC. MARQUIS Pitzer College and Claremont Graduate School The Li/e and Mind o/John Dewey. By George Dykhuizen. Introduction by Harold Taylor; edited by Jo Ann Boydston. (Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973. Pp. xxv + 429. $15.00) This detailed and documented account of the "life and mind" of John Dewey is the fruit of years of careful research by Professor Dykhuizen of the University of Vermont, and it is also the product of cooperation by many institutions and individuals whose records have been made available to the author. The book is a synthesis of biography, history, and philosophy; it is good reading matter as well as an excellent reference work, truly a magnum opus, a worthy record of the inseparability of Dewey's life and mind. The story begins in the obscurities of rural life and schooling in the 1860s, and it culminates in the complicated international affairs of the world since 1914. It is appropriate and inevitable that the public activities of Dewey should dominate the account of the last thirty years of his life. But it is remarkable that a philosopher should be devoted to so many and varied public affairs without being distracted by them. This fact is explained by the character of his philosophy: his philosophical devotion to "inquiry" made almost any public problem grist for his mill. He faced problems professionally as an analyst, not in order to solve them but in order to understand them concretely as obstacles to action. The biography gives abundant evidence of this fact, both in technical philosophical issues and in "the problems of men." Dewey confessed that his science of inquiry was unfortunately entitled "Logic." When he began his inquiries into the process of thinking, the German term logische Studien was still commonly used for any work on the theory of knowledge, and Dewey was not prepared for the revival and reconstruction of formal logic during his mid-career. I am reminded of a remark by his colleague, Professor Woodbridge, who said: "At first I could not figure out what Dewey's logic was about; then it suddenly occurred to me that he was telling us 'How We Think'." For Dewey and Mead the problem of knowledge was almost entirely the problem of thinking, "reflective thinking." At Columbia we tried to make textbooks on reflective thinking, much to Dewey's amusement and scorn: "You should use reflective thinking, not teach it as subject-matter. And as for formal logic, you should save that for graduate school; it corrupts young minds who mistake it for knowledge." Despite his emphasis on "reflective thinking" he disliked the term "reflection"; it had been too much abused by philosophers who engaged in speculation, meditation, and other forms of "day-dreaming." Dewey's preference for "imagination" instead of "consciousness" is related to this circumstance. He regarded "consciousness" as an abstraction; whereas imagining is a cenlxal 542 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY aspect of thinking. It implies not merely getting a suggestion in relation to a problem, but getting a suggestion whose consequences could be anticipated. Unless a suggestion anticipates consequences, it is not an idea; it has no meaning, no means to suggest for the problem or plan. Accordingly, for Dewey "acting consciously... (shrink)

Proper assertion requires belief. In support of this thesis, I provide an explanatory argument from linguistic patterns surrounding assertion and show how to handle cases of "selfless" assertion.

Global challenge-led research seeks to contribute to solution-generation for complex problems. Multicultural, multidisciplinary, and multisectoral teams must be capable of operating in highly demanding contexts. This brings with it a swathe of ethical conflicts that require quick and effective solutions that respect both international conventions and cultural diversity. The objective of this article is to describe the process of creating a toolkit designed to support global researchers in navigating these ethical challenges. The process of creating the toolkit embodied the model (...) of ethical research practice that it advocates. Specifically, at the heart of ethical decision-making is consideration of the following: Place, solutions must be relevant to the context in which they are to be used; People, those impacted by the outcomes must be partners in co-creation; Principles, ethical projects must be guided by clear values; and Precedent, the existing evidence-base should guide the project and, in turn, the project should extend the evidence-base. It is the thesis underlying the toolkit that consideration of these 4Ps provides a strong basis for understanding ethical conflicts and allows for the generation of potential solutions. This toolkit has been designed in two phases of collaborative work. More than 200 researchers participated from more than 30 countries and more than 60 different disciplines. This allowed us to develop a model for contextual, dynamic analysis of ethical conflicts in global research that is complementary to traditional codes of ethics. It emphasizes the need to consider ethical analysis as an iterative, reflective, process relevant at all stages of the research journey, including, ultimately, in evaluating the legacy of a project. The toolkit is presented as an open access website to promote universal access. A downloadable “pocket guide” version is also now available in 11 languages. (shrink)