The Nature of Human Beings and the Moral Regulation of Passions

Dialogue and Universalism 25 (2):123-132 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Passionate human behavior should be regulated by moral instructions, teaching and practices. For explaining the issue, Rene Descartes in The Passions of the Soul and the Hindu traditions of Sāṁkhya are here considered. These two systems provide fourdimensional physical, mental/moral and spiritual descriptions of human nature and a mechanism of regulating passions. The first two parts of the paper are focused on the nature of human beings, its holistic and integrative character, and on understanding emotional behavior. The next two parts describe moral ways used to regulate passions on the basis of Samkhya’s eight steps, i.e., reasoning, hearing, studying, Pramod, Mudita̅and Modma̅n, respect and gratitude. Descartes’ concept of generosity as a basis of the inculcation of virtues like self-esteem, veneration, hope, courage and bravery, selfsatisfaction, is also analyzed. In conclusion, the relevance of the aforementioned mechanismis presented at the individual and social levels.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,486

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-12-16

Downloads
21 (#1,049,356)

6 months
2 (#1,294,541)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references