We present an exactly soluble electron trajectory that permits an analysis of the soft (deep infrared) radiation emitted, the existence of which has been experimentally observed during beta decay via lowest order inner bremsstrahlung. Our treatment also predicts the time evolution and temperature of the emission, and possibly the spectrum, by analogy with the closely related phenomenon of the dynamic Casimir effect.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius are treasured today--as they have been over the centuries--as an inexhaustible source of wisdom. And as one of the three most important expressions of Stoicism, this is an essential text for everyone interested in ancient religion and philosophy. Yet the clarity and ease of the work's style are deceptive. Pierre Hadot, eminent historian of ancient thought, uncovers new levels of meaning and expands our understanding of its underlying philosophy. Written by the Roman emperor for his (...) own private guidance and self-admonition, the Meditations set forth principles for living a good and just life. Hadot probes Marcus Aurelius's guidelines and convictions and discerns the hitherto unperceived conceptual system that grounds them. Abundantly quoting the Meditations to illustrate his analysis, the author allows Marcus Aurelius to speak directly to the reader. And Hadot unfolds for us the philosophical context of the Meditations, commenting on the philosophers Marcus Aurelius read and giving special attention to the teachings of Epictetus, whose disciple he was. The soul, the guiding principle within us, is in Marcus Aurelius's Stoic philosophy an inviolable stronghold of freedom, the "inner citadel." This spirited and engaging study of his thought offers a fresh picture of the fascinating philosopher-emperor, a fuller understanding of the tradition and doctrines of Stoicism, and rich insight on the culture of the Roman empire in the second century. Pierre Hadot has been working on Marcus Aurelius for more than twenty years; in this book he distills his analysis and conclusions with extraordinary lucidity for the general reader. (shrink)

Ontology, the ideas we have about the nature of reality, and epistemology, our concepts about how to gain knowledge about the world, are interdependent. Currently, the dominant ontology in science is a materialist model, and associated with it an empiricist epistemology. Historically speaking, there was a more comprehensive notion at the cradle of modern science in the middle ages. Then “experience” meant both inner, or first person, and outer, or third person, experience. With the historical development, experience has come (...) to mean only sense experience of outer reality. This has become associated with the ontology that matter is the most important substance in the universe, everything else—consciousness, mind, values, etc., —being derived thereof or reducible to it. This ontology is insufficient to explain the phenomena we are living with—consciousness, as a precondition of this idea, or anomalous cognitions. These have a robust empirical grounding, although we do not understand them sufficiently. The phenomenology, though, demands some sort of non-local model of the world and one in which consciousness is not derivative of, but coprimary with matter. I propose such a complementarist dual aspect model of consciousness and brain, or mind and matter. This then also entails a different epistemology. For if consciousness is coprimary with matter, then we can also use a deeper exploration of consciousness as happens in contemplative practice to reach an understanding of the deep structure of the world, for instance in mathematical or theoretical intuition, and perhaps also in other areas such as in ethics. This would entail a kind of contemplative science that would also complement our current experiential mode that is exclusively directed to the outside aspect of our world. Such an epistemology might help us with various issues, such as good theoretical and other intuitions. (shrink)

What does it mean to be a morally good person? It can be tempting to think that it is simply a matter of performing certain actions and avoiding others. And yet there is much more to moral character than our outward actions. We expect a good person to not only behave in certain ways but also to experience the world in certain ways within.

This book is, along with Outward Signs, a sequel to Phillip Cary's Augustine and the Invention of the Inner Self. In this work, Cary traces the development of Augustine's epochal doctrine of grace, arguing that it does not represent a rejection of Platonism in favor of a more purely Christian point of view DL a turning from Plato to Paul, as it is often portrayed. Instead, Augustine reads Paul and other Biblical texts in light of his Christian Platonist inwardness, (...) producing a new concept of grace as an essentially inward gift. For Augustine, grace is needed first of all to heal the mind so it may see God, but then also to help the will turn away from lower goods to love God as its eternal Good. Eventually, over the course of Augustine's career, the scope of the soul's need for grace expands outward to include not only the inner vision of the intellect and the power of love but even the initial gift of faith. At every stage, Augustine insists that divine grace does not compromise or coerce the human will but frees, heals, and helps it, precisely because grace is not an external force but an inner gift of delight leading to true happiness. As his polemic against the Pelagians develops, however, he does attribute more to grace and less to the power of free will. In the end, it is God's choice which makes the ultimate difference between the saved and the damned, and we cannot know why he chooses to save one person and not another. From this Augustinian doctrine of divine choice or election stem the characteristic pastoral problems of predestination, especially in Protestantism. A more external, indeed Jewish, doctrine of election would be more Biblical, Cary suggests, and would result in a less anxious experience of grace. Along with its companion work, Outward Signs, this careful and insightful book breaks new ground in the study of Augustine's theology of grace and sacraments. (shrink)

Ralph Cudworth’s goal in his manuscript writings on freewill is to argue that our actions are in our own power in a robust sense that entails the ability to do otherwise. Cudworth’s unorthodox views about the nature of desire threaten to undermine this project, however. Cudworth maintains that only desire is able to distinguish good and evil and, consequently, that desire alone motivates our actions. Therefore, since Cudworth holds that desire itself is not in our own power, he appears committed (...) to the conclusion that our actions are not in our own power either. Cudworth’s solution, I argue, is to emphasize our inward responses to desire, which Cudworth does take to be in our own power. I focus in particular on attention: by directing attention differently in response to desire, Cudworth holds that we are able actively to influence the way in which desire motivates our actions. Our actions are in our own power, therefore, only because such inward responses to desire are in our own power. (shrink)

The Martin-Steel coarse inner model theory is employed in obtaining new results in descriptive set theory. $\underset{\sim}{\Pi}$ determinacy implies that for every thin Σ 1 2 equivalence relation there is a Δ 1 3 real, N, over which every equivalence class is generic--and hence there is a good Δ 1 2 (N ♯ ) wellordering of the equivalence classes. Analogous results are obtained for Π 1 2 and Δ 1 2 quasilinear orderings and $\underset{\sim}{\Pi}^1_2$ determinacy is shown to imply (...) that every Π 1 2 prewellorder has rank less than $\underset{\sim}{\delta}^1_2$. (shrink)

Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians: The Ethical Turn in Psychoanalysis, demonstrates the demanding, clinical and humanitarian work that psychotherapists often undertake with fragile and devastated people, those degraded by violence and discrimination. In spite of this, Donna M. Orange argues that there is more to human nature than a relentlessly negative view. Drawing on psychoanalytic and philosophical resources, as well as stories from history and literature, she explores ethical narratives that ground hope in human goodness (...) and shows how these voices, personal to each analyst, can become sources of courage, warning and support, of prophetic challenge and humility which can inform and guide their work. Over the course of a lifetime, the sources change, with new ones emerging into importance, others receding into the background. Donna Orange uses examples from ancient Rome, from twentieth century Europe, from South Africa, and from nineteenth century Russia. She shows how not only can their words and examples, like those of our personal mentors, inspire and warn us; but they also show us the daily discipline of spiritual self-care, although these examples rely heavily on the discipline of spiritual reading, other practitioners will find inspiration in music, visual arts, or elsewhere and replenish the resources regularly. Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians will help psychoanalysts to develop a language with which to converse about ethics and the responsibility of the therapist/analyst. This is an exceptional contribution highly suitable for practitioners and students of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Donna M. Orange teaches, consults, and offers study groups for psychoanalysts and gestalt therapists. She seeks to integrate contemporary psychoanalysis with radically relational ethics. Recent books are _Thinking for Clinicians: Philosophical Resources for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Humanistic Psychotherapies _, and _The Suffering Stranger: Hermeneutics for Everyday Clinical Practice_, both from Routledge. (shrink)

During the past few decades, engineering ethics has been oriented towards protecting the public from professional misconduct by engineers and from the harmful effects of technology. This “preventive ethics” project has been accomplished primarily by means of the promulgation of negative rules. However, some aspects of engineering professionalism, such as (1) sensitivity to risk (2) awareness of the social context of technology, (3) respect for nature, and (4) commitment to the public good, cannot be adequately accounted for in terms of (...) rules, certainly not negative rules. Virtue ethics is a more appropriate vehicle for expressing these aspects of engineering professionalism. Some of the unique features of virtue ethics are the greater place it gives for discretion and judgment and also for inner motivation and commitment. Four of the many professional virtues that are important for engineers correspond to the four aspects of engineering professionalism listed above. Finally, the importance of the humanities and social sciences in promoting these virtues suggests that these disciplines are crucial in the professional education of engineers. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Creative Inner Space O True Apothecary! A Votary to Fond Desire Philosophers Gaining Altitude Insight and Delusion Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Cannabis.

This paper presents an interpretation of Plato''s moral psychology in two books of the Republic that construes Plato as adopting a strong unity for the moral agent. Within this conception reason influences both emotion and action directly. This view is contrasted with the current prevailing interpretation according to which all three parts of the soul have their own reason, feeling, and desire. The latter construal is shown to be both philosophically weak, and less plausible as a historical reconstruction.

The Indian-America philosopher Sri Chinmoy Ghose has distinguished between outer silence, inner silence, and innermost silence. In this paper I explore these distinctions and their educational relevance. My main conclusions are that (a) a deep inner silence, undistracted by questions or other thoughts, is at the root of one paradigm kind of good listening in education, and (b) what Chinmoy refers to as “innermost silence” is the moral virtue of receptivity to others that sustains inner silence, even (...) under challenging conditions, a virtue of importance in teaching and in learning from others. (shrink)

In this profound and yet accessible book, John Kekes discusses moral wisdom: a virtue essential to living a morally good and personally satisfying life. He advances a broad, nontechnical argument that considers the adversities inherent in the human condition and assists in the achievement of good lives. The possession of moral wisdom, Kekes asserts, is a matter of degree: more of it makes lives better, less makes them worse. Exactly what is moral wisdom, however, and how should it be sought? (...) Ancient Greek and medieval Christian philosophers were centrally concerned with it. By contrast, modern Western sensibility doubts the existence of a moral order in reality; and because we doubt it, and have developed no alternatives, we have grown dubious about the traditional idea of wisdom. Kekes returns to the classical Greek sources of Western philosophy to argue for the contemporary significance of moral wisdom. He develops a proposal that is eudaimonistic—secular, anthropocentric, pluralistic, individualistic, and agonistic. He understands moral wisdom as focusing on the human effort to create many different forms of good lives. Although the approach is Aristotelian, the author concentrates on formulating and defending a contemporary moral ideal. The importance of this ideal, he shows, lies in increasing our ability to cope with life's adversities by improving our judgment. In chapters on moral imagination, self-knowledge, and moral depth, Kekes calls attention to aspects of our inner life that have been neglected because of our cultural inattention to moral wisdom. He discusses these inner processes through the tragedies of Sophocles, which can inspire us with their enduring moral significance and help us to understand the importance of moral wisdom to living a good life. (shrink)

For most pre‐modern philosophers, questions about the good life and the happy life were inseparable. Happiness is primarily a subjective notion. The Good Place suggests that relationships are key to the good life. It is a laboratory for testing moral theories, providing the show's writers opportunities to see which theories help the protagonists become better persons. An ethics of virtue is difficult and messy because it does not reduce morality to a simple formula. Instead, it involves an inner transformation (...) of character that leads to virtuous actions. In Aristotle's ethical system, true moral progress toward the good life is within reach. In spite of the verbal commitments made to Kant's ethics, the show ultimately proves to be a vindication of virtue ethics. A universe governed by Aristotelian morality is one in which moral development is possible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real HappinessJohn M. KollerInner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness. By Robert Thurman. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998. Pp. xiv + 322. $24.95.Can the Buddhist culture of Tibet—until the middle of the twentieth century a medieval theocracy almost completely isolated from the rest of the world—point the way to the fulfillment of the American dream? In (...) his extraordinary book, Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness, Robert Thurman, a distinguished Buddhist scholar, argues that it can.Inner Revolution is a significant reconstruction of the basic teachings of Buddhism from a Tibetan perspective that shows the important sociopolitical dimensions [End Page 138] of Buddhism, arguing convincingly that mental transformation based on deep understanding of self and reality is the basis for far-reaching peaceful social and political revolution. The energizing vision behind this book is summed up on page 221, in the concluding paragraph of chapter 7, "The World-taming Adepts":To finish building the free society dreamed of by Washington, Franklin, and Jefferson, we must draw upon the resources of the enlightened imagination, which can be systematically developed by the spiritual sciences of India and Tibet. We have not yet tamed our own demons of racism, nationalism, sexism, and materialism. We have not yet made peace with a land we took by force and have only partly paid for. We are a teeming conglomeration of people from different tribes who have yet to embrace fully the humanness in one another. And none of us can be really free until all of us are.This is the vision of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness" announced in the book's title. The means to the realization of this vision, the "cool revolution" that Thurman describes, is captured in the first words of the title, "Inner Revolution." This inner revolution is a transformation of the mind, a transformation effected by the deep understanding praised as prajñā or insight in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It is the deep understanding to which Śākyamuni, the historical Buddha of our era, awakened, making him a Buddha. It is the understanding that the truth of existence, the Dharma, is that things exist in dynamic interdependence. Nothing—persons or things—exists permanently or separately. The fundamental insight of the Buddha, pratītyasamutpāda, is that, in the felicitous words of the Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nat Hanh, things inter-are, in dynamic interdependence. It is because of the dynamic interbeing of things that genuine social and political freedoms are impossible without inner freedom. It was in his awakening to the truth of dynamic interbeing that, as Thurman describes it, "The Buddha found that inner freedom—freedom from our negative emotions and obsessive self-concern—is the essential precondition for goodness and social liberty" (p. 30).There is a tendency among Buddhist scholars to ignore or slight the social and political implications of wisdom and compassion. This is partly the result of reading modern Western individualism into Buddhist teaching and consequently focusing exclusively on how the individual person is transformed by wisdom and compassion, ignoring the social transformation inherent in the transformation of individuals. It is also partly the result of a failure to understand that compassionate action is as central to Buddhism as enlightened understanding. But Thurman clearly understands that the fundamental aim of Buddhist teaching and practice is to become a Buddha. And to become a Buddha, as Śāntideva says in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, a text that has inspired Tibetan Buddhists for over a thousand years, one takes the Bodhisattva vow to work tirelessly and unceasingly to bring happiness to all beings. In Śāntideva's own words: "As long as space abides and as long as the world abides, so long may I abide, destroying the sufferings of the world" (10.55). Compassion is inseparable from wisdom. When one awakens the mind of enlightenment (bodhicitta), compassion arises, leading one to take the Bodhisattva vow that Śāntideva expresses in 3.7 : [End Page 139] "I am medicine for the sick. May I be both the doctor and... (shrink)

Abstract Mohism has long been misrepresented. Mo?tzu is usually called a utilitarian because he preached a universal love that must benefit. Yet Mencius, who pined the Confucian way of virtue (humaneness and righteousness) against Mo?tzu's way of benefit, basically borrowed Mo?tzu's thesis: that the root cause of chaos is this lack of love?except Mencius renamed it the desire for personal benefit. Yet Mo?tzu only championed ?benefit? to head off its opposite, ?harm?, specifically the harm done by Confucians who with good (...) intent (love) perpetuated rites that did people more harm than good. Mo?tzu wanted his universal love to be the public good that would actually do the public good (i.e. benefit the collective). And he derived this from Confucius? teaching of ?Love (all) men? and his Golden Rule: Render not what others would not desire. No man desires harm. As a critic of Confucian rites (especially the prolonged funeral), Mo?tzu worked to replace the blind custom of rites with his rational measure of ?rightness?: what is right must do good (i.e. benefit the intended recipient). It is not true that Mohists were ?joyless? ascetics; they would gladly celebrate a good harvest with wine and folk song?not expensive court music?with the people. Since Mohist discourse is ?public? (that is, accountable), it is also only proper that what is ?right? should be outer (means?end efficacy) and not inner as Mencius would insist. (shrink)

Background: Clinical education is an essential part of the Bachelor’s program in Nursing and a keystone of professional nursing education. Through clinical experiences, the student nurses acquire nursing knowledge and essential skills for professional practice. The preceptor plays a vital role in the development of student nurses becoming professional nurses. Aim: The aim of this Nordic qualitative study was to explore the experiences of good preceptorship in relation to undergraduate student nurses in clinical education from the perspective of the preceptors (...) themselves. Method: Data were collected by narrative interviews with 27 preceptors in Finland and Sweden and analyzed using a hermeneutical approach. Findings: A caring relationship, based on caring ethics, is seen as the foundation for learning and development. Moreover, a mutual respect is a prerequisite for fellowship and a good atmosphere. As such, encounters are characterized by reciprocity and mutuality. The preceptors have a deep sense of responsibility toward the students and the profession. Furthermore, the preceptors have an inner responsibility to guide the students into working life and to share their knowledge by acting as role models. Conclusion: The findings suggest that preceptorship should be examined through new lenses. Moreover, preceptorship is an ethical issue that should be recognized by all stakeholders. (shrink)

This thesis argues for a radical understanding of personal autonomy as constitutively social-relational. Standard conceptualisations in liberalism construe autonomy broadly in line with Frankfurt and Dworkin’s accounts, which rely on the idea of an inner self as the authenticator of personal commitments. These conceptualisations suffer from serious theoretical limitations including problems of regress, manipulation and authority. I argue that attempts to address these problems from within the standard paradigm, for example by building in conditions of procedural independence to prevent (...) commitments from being manipulated, help to an extent. However, they remain reliant on an insufficiently explained idea of an inner self as the source of an autonomous agent’s motives, so they do not go far enough to capture what we want from autonomy: that it explains how a person can have the power to shape her life. I explore two sets of criticisms of the standard paradigm, from communitarianism and feminism; both argue that standard autonomy is excessively individualistic and fails to pay enough attention to the role of social factors. I enter the debate about how far, if at all, autonomy might be either causally (weakly) or constitutively (strongly) social-relational. I show that the liberal can accommodate the idea that autonomy is enabled by social relations, but is severely challenged by more strongly relational, constitutive claims. I make the original point that standard views cannot explain how individuals can be sure which of their motives are authentic and which should be endorsed. This is a significant gap in autonomy theory. I propose a methodological shift from analysing autonomous actions to analysing autonomous agency. Drawing on dialogical accounts of critical reflection, Axel Honneth’s inter-subjectivity, and Bernard Williams’ notion of ‘trustful conversation’ I contribute a constitutively social-relational condition for autonomous agency. From this I argue for a constitutive condition for autonomous actions. (PhD, 2014. Supervisors: Miranda Fricker and Susan James.). (shrink)

There is a continuing debate as to whether externalism about mental content is compatible with certain commonly accepted views about the nature of self-knowledge. Both sides to this debate seem to agree that externalism is _not compatible with the traditional view that self-knowledge is acquired by means of observation. In this paper, I argue that externalism is compatible with this traditional view of self-knowledge, and that, in fact, we have good reason to believe that the self-knowledge at issue is acquired (...) by means of observation. (shrink)

This paper discusses two key claims of Tomas Sedláček’s Economics of Good and Evil in the light of Catholic social teaching—that mainstream economics cannot grasp the domain of the human because of its focus on ‘utility-maximisation’ and that human interiority with its wild desires is at the roots of economic dynamics. I call these claims the ‘H-claim’ and the ‘I-claim’ respectively. After having clarified these claims I look at Catholic social teaching and its perspective on interiority and on the relationship (...) between personal micro-relations and structural macro-relations. In this light, I suggest, in a third step, an understanding of ‘the inner dimension’ of economics and social thinking making use of the concept of intangible infrastructures. (shrink)

In this essay, part of a cluster of pieces on her concept of “lyric philosophy,” the author explores connections between imagination, understood as the capacity to think in images, and what Wittgenstein called “seeing-as.” In seeing-as, we focus on what Wittgenstein identifies as inner structural relations. This is a term that Max Wertheimer, one of the founders of gestalt philosophical psychology, used independently to describe how seeing-as involves seeing into a thing or situation. The present essay suggests that both (...) seeing-as and seeing-into depend on, and develop, sensitivity to ontological resonance, the attunement of things with one another, the deep analogies that constitute the underlying structure of the world. Imagination is thus fundamental to the good, or ethical, life. For its disciplined exercise relieves us of what Simone Weil calls the “Ring of Gyges”: the refusal to perceive significant analogies between ourselves and other beings, which is the root of injustice. (shrink)

THIS ESSAY EXAMINES INNER-CITY NEIGHBORHOOD MURALISM TO ILLUMINATE the practical relationship between theological aesthetics and the ethical principle of the common good. I suggest collaborative public art as a viable resource for reframing or revisioning the common good in a way that counters its often conceptual, abstract, and pragmatic tendencies with an organic, selfcritical, and creative relationality that arises from the mutually dependent transcendental categories of the beautiful, the true, and the good. Ethical reflection on this public art exposes (...) the mystagogical components of the common good, which foster the often-overlooked intuitive, experiential, tactile, and nonverbal potential of this central idea in Christian ethics. (shrink)

This paper is an inspired address by the author to engage in a momentous battle for character and human values in life and worklife. The keynote of the author's exposition on values-centred manage ment is the concept of dharma. Here the Indian ideal of dharma is compared to and contrasted with the Western notion of integrity. While integrity is based on the human virtues of wholeness, goodness and having the courage and self-discipline to live by the inner truth, (...) dharma gives a radically different orientation to any human endeavour by upholding the notions of spirit, rightness, and fearlessness. There is also a distinction between individual dharma and organizational dharma, which the author defines as the organization's inner law. In the concluding part of the paper, the author crystallizes the wisdom contained in the Bhagavad Gita and asserts that hidden away in our inner nature is the law, the writ of our life that enables us to transcend the purposelessness of pomp, power, property and pedigree towards a more meaningful human existence. (shrink)

The relationship between being and goodness is one of the most engaging philosophical questions, particularly in light of the new science, which pointsto the interconnectedness of the physical world. The relationship between being and goodness is examined here in the thought of Bonaventure, who maintainsa primacy of the good. Bonaventure’s integration of philosophy and theology provides an understanding of being as goodness and hence an understandingof being as relational and generative. Because being is good, created reality is (...) intrinsically good and bears within it an inner dynamic toward the pleroma oflove. The implications of Bonaventure’s metaphysics of the good for ecology and epistemology are explored. (shrink)

While the concept of Bildung has acquired international currency in educational and philosophical studies, its moral implications have been obscured by existing educational accounts. I present the moral implications inherent in the term through specific reference to the early works of Wilhelm von Humboldt. In contrast to previous scholarships, where Humboldt’s theory of Bildung has been deployed for drawing on the account of the true end of the human being and the inner process of interaction between the self and (...) the world, I draw on Bildung as a moral conception of promoting a good life for others. To illustrate this conception, I (a) demonstrate the basic structure of Humboldt’s theory of Bildung by examining its four core components, (b) reconstruct Humboldt’s notion of virtue balanced state of various faculties as a moral ideal (c) consider Humboldt’s philosophical historiography to illustrate how Bildung can be mediated at individual and collective levels, and (d) present the concrete forms of the obligation to promote the good lives of others in his anthropological writings. (shrink)

Beginning in 1992, MBA students enrolled in a capstone Strategic Management course at Loyola University Chicago have, as their major course assignment, researched and prepared an original business plan proposal to provide a needed good or service, as well as employment opportunities, to residents in one of Chicago's underserved innercity neighborhoods. This paper describes the genesis of the project, how it works, and what the outcomes have been to date. The pedagogical model is arguably appropriate for MBA programs in or (...) near any area that is economically underdeveloped, be it urban or rural. (shrink)

In various places today we encounter a veritable cult of happiness, a socially mandated optimism, and a pathologization of persistent negativity or reluctance to participate as sickness to be treated. In this essay, I develop a critical perspective on this system of hegemonic happiness through an engagement with the thought of Adorno. It acts, I argue, as ideology in his sense of the term. After situating the discussion in the context of the broader philosophical project of Negative Dialectics, I elaborate (...) the sustained critique of “the doctrine of inner health” laid out in Minima Moralia. Then, as an expansion and update of this critique, I consider in more detail the prevailing form of the inner health discourse—what I will call “the happiness machine.” As a brief excursus into popular culture, I read an episode of The Twilight Zone as an apologue for this ideological mechanism and its functioning. Finally, I suggest a way of articulating refusal of the happiness machine rooted in Adorno’s conception of resistance. (shrink)

Background Middle managers play a key role in promoting a caring culture in nursing homes. However, there is limited knowledge about middle managers’ inner motives and their experiences of their responsibility in developing a caring culture. Research aim The aim of the study is to get a deeper understanding of middle managers’ motives and their experiences of their responsibility to develop a caring culture in nursing homes. Research design A qualitative design with a hermeneutic approach inspired by Gadamer was (...) chosen which guided the interpretation of data. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted. Participants and research context Data were collected from thirteen middle managers in nursing homes, in six municipalities in northern Norway in September and October 2021. Ethical considerations The study was approved by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data. Oral and written informed consent was obtained from participants. Findings The findings show that the middle managers had non- egoistic motives to promote a caring culture as expressed in their attitudes and actions. They felt responsible to promote a caring culture where both patients and staff experienced care and were respected and recognized as unique individuals. Middle managers as good role models are responsible for being present and raising awareness of the importance of care in the nursing home culture by systematically reflecting on care values. However, a strong focus on the financial and administrative demands limits the middle managers’ possibilities to promote a caring culture and prevented them from always acting as they wanted to act, which often causes moral distress. Conclusion Being in contact with inner motives, enables the leader to promote a homelike and caring culture where both patients and staff feels respected and recognized as unique individuals. This study highlights the importance of systematic reflection on caring values in nursing homes which leads to value awareness among all actors. (shrink)

This paper discusses the robotization of the workplace, and particularly the question of whether robots can be good colleagues. This might appear to be a strange question at first glance, but it is worth asking for two reasons. Firstly, some people already treat robots they work alongside as if the robots are valuable colleagues. It is worth reflecting on whether such people are making a mistake. Secondly, having good colleagues is widely regarded as a key aspect of what can make (...) work meaningful. In discussing whether robots can be good colleagues, the paper compares that question to the more widely discussed questions of whether robots can be our friends or romantic partners. The paper argues that the ideal of being a good colleague has many different parts, and that on a behavioral level, robots can live up to many of the criteria typically associated with being a good colleague. Moreover, the paper also argues that in comparison with the more demanding ideals of being a good friend or a good romantic partner, it is comparatively easier for a robot to live up to the ideal of being a good colleague. The reason for this is that the “inner lives” of our friends and lovers are more important to us than the inner lives of our colleagues. (shrink)

The relationship between being and goodness is one of the most engaging philosophical questions, particularly in light of the new science, which pointsto the interconnectedness of the physical world. The relationship between being and goodness is examined here in the thought of Bonaventure, who maintainsa primacy of the good. Bonaventure’s integration of philosophy and theology provides an understanding of being as goodness and hence an understandingof being as relational and generative. Because being is good, created reality is (...) intrinsically good and bears within it an inner dynamic toward the pleroma oflove. The implications of Bonaventure’s metaphysics of the good for ecology and epistemology are explored. (shrink)

In this paper I focus on how the meritorious dimension (or latitude, Spielraum) involved in the promotion of the highest good is closely related to the constitution of an ethical community as a free, open and progressive moral society. I argue that since moral perfection and moral belief/faith as the grounding elements for the promotion of the highest good (synthesis of virtue and happiness) are not objective duties that must be promoted to a definite extent but involve a certain latitude (...) in their employment, the ethical community that emerges out of the pursuit of the highest good does not prove to be a uniform society in terms of the degrees of the pursuit of moral perfection and moral commitment of its citizens. Rather, I point out that the latitude involved in the pursuit of moral perfection and the adoption of moral belief leads to the establishment of an ethical community that emerges as an open and free society entered by its citizens freely and willfully as part of their inner self-constraint. I thus hold that in such an ethical society agents can pursue and promote the highest good not in a strictly prescribed and uniform manner but in various forms and degrees as long as they constantly progress towards a higher form of moral perfection and purer form of religious (or rational) belief/faith. (shrink)

In Quiet, Fearne Cotton explores why so many of us question whether we are, or will ever be, 'good enough.' This beautiful book, filled with Fearne's creative hand-drawn illustrations and thought-provoking activities to still your mind, will silence your inner-critic and stop you from continually self-sabotaging. Quiet includes interviews with people who have helped Fearne to accept her flaws and love her own imperfections, as well as advice on how to drown out misinformation and the, sometimes, pressurizing noise from (...) family, work and friends, which can fuel our insecurities and self-doubt. Fearne talks honestly and openly about what it's like to live in the public eye and shares some of the methods and practical activities she uses to ignore negative online chatter and trolls. She acknowledges the terrifying stats and research linking social media to rising levels of depression, anxiety and other mental health issues in young people and offers advice about how to listen more selectively to what we are told in an era of constant-sharing, over-sharing and general misinformation about what is 'good' or 'bad' for us. Stop competing with all the noise out there and accept that Quiet might be your most formidable force yet"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

Many people don’t know how to reconcile the spiritual with the reality of where they are psychologically, so their psychological issues are not submitted to the spirit. Thus, followers of Christ are often living with shame, oppression, or even hatred. It should not be this way. The good news is that there is a way to wholeness. Evangelizing the Depths calls us to listen closely to the Word of God as, very practically, Simone Pacot explains how the grace of the (...) Triune God can restore us to life in every facet of our being, even those that have been deeply wounded by events of the past. As the entwining of the spiritual and psychological levels is explored, this book will help establish us in the love and the truth of God. As this happens, it becomes possible to identify the paths of death that we have taken in the past and then leave them behind as we choose to follow Christ along the way of true life. (shrink)

In his reflections on ethics, Descartes distances himself from the eudaimonistic tradition in moral philosophy by introducing a distinction between happiness and the highest good. While happiness, in Descartes’s view, consists in an inner state of complete harmony and satisfaction, the highest good instead consists in virtue, i.e. in ‘a firm and constant resolution' to always use our free will well or correctly. In Section 1 of this paper, I pursue the Cartesian distinction between happiness and the highest good (...) in some detail. In Section 2, I discuss the question of how the motivation to virtue should be accounted for within Descartes’s ethical framework. In Section 3, I turn to Descartes’s defence of the view that virtue, while fundamentally distinct from happiness, is nevertheless sufficient for obtaining it. In the final section of the paper , my concern is instead with a second and sometimes neglected distinction that Descartes makes between two different senses o.. (shrink)

: In response to John Lachs' December 2007 Presidential Address to the William James Society, this article elaborates upon James's concern about vision, identifies some of the roots of his interest in the inner experiences of others, expresses appreciation for the positive contributions of the address, questions a few of its assertions, relates its approach to that of others, and notes the continuing relevance of James's call for clearer and more appreciative insight into the inner lives and aspirations (...) of others. In all, it attempts to underscore the timely nature of Lachs' address, which serves as a useful reminder of the importance of each and every individual and of the close connection between the quality of life for one and all. (shrink)

In Judgment and Agency, Ernest Sosa takes “reliabilist” virtue epistemology deep into “responsibilist” territory, arguing that “a true epistemology” will assign “responsibilist-cum-reliabilist intellectual virtue the main role in addressing concerns at the center of the tradition.” However, Sosa stops short of granting this status to familiar responsibilist virtues like open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual humility. He cites three reasons for doing so: responsibilist virtues involve excessive motivational demands; they are quasi-ethical; and they are best understood, not as constituting knowledge, but (...) rather as putting one “in a position” to know. I elaborate on and respond to each of these concerns. I argue that none of them provides Sosa with a good reason for excluding responsibilist virtues from occupying a central role in his reliabilist virtue epistemology. I conclude that Sosa owes virtue responsibilism an even wider embrace. (shrink)

Learn mystical methods for clearing and uplifting the energy in your home! Space clearing is the art of cleansing and harmonizing the energy within an environment. This ancient practice has the power to not only make your home feel good but also help those within to feel more positive and energetic, to bring balance to relationships, and to remove blocks for increased abundance, creativity, and well-being. In this comprehensive guide to space clearing, internationally best-selling author Denise Linn distills more than (...) 50 years of experience as a leading authority in energy healing to guide you through sacred ceremonies and modern techniques for regaining control of the energy in any environment, including your home and your body. You'll learn how to transform any space using feng shui, clutter clearing, prayer, crystals, essential oils, mystic mudras, holy water, pendulums, and more! (shrink)

It seems to be a phenomenon of contemporary life that we consider goodness embarrassing and rather dull. In contrast, the activities and inner lives of villains are deemed more complex and fascinating than those of good people. This paper attempts to understand the conception of goodness that underlies this phenomenon, and I suggest that informing it is the combination of two ideas, in tension with each other: firstly, a distorted understanding of the ancient conception of full virtue (...) as the absence of all inner conflict; and secondly, the intuition that real goodness is only apparent and generated in inner conflict. In response, I offer an alternative picture of goodness as an ongoing, active and progressive relation to value, and conclude that in order to render goodness attractive again we need more adequate portraits of goodness from both philosophy and art. (shrink)

The mainstream tradition in recent Anglophone Zhuangzi interpretation treats spontaneous skillful responsiveness – similar to the spontaneous responsiveness of a skilled artisan, athlete, or musician – as a, or the, Zhuangzian ideal. However, this interpretation is poorly grounded in the Inner Chapters. On the contrary, in the Inner Chapters, this sort of skillfulness is at least as commonly criticized as celebrated. Even the famous passage about the ox-carving cook might be interpreted more as a celebration of the knife’s (...) passivity than as a celebration of the cook’s skillfulness. (shrink)

My objective of this paper is to suggest and workout a more credible form of the Principle of Beneficence from the common essential elements of the three major ethical theories (Deontology, Utilitarianism and Virtue Ethics) that will try to overcome the over-demanding objection of Utilitarianism and the rigorism of Kant’s Deontology. After analyzing these three moral systems, I find that beneficence lies within the very essence of humanity. Human beings are superior to other creatures in the world due to rationality (...) and humanity. From the humanitarian ground, a common goodness lies within every human. Beneficence, as a moral principle, is derived from this inner humanity of every individual. Despite their initial differences, utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics recognize this fundamental humanitarian disposition of doing good for all as a part of being a morally better person. The principle of beneficence as I suggest, is different from its consequential utilitarian notion suggested by Mill. This version of beneficence is more credible as it does not impose excessive demands upon an individual to develop any maximum beneficial outcome following utilitarian calculation of beneficence over cost, and it also strives to overcome the rigorous duty-based theory of Kantian deontology by appealing to the fundamental virtue of humanity. Finally, the credibility of this form of beneficence comes from the underlying transcendental humanism which is the chief feature of Indian tradition. (shrink)

This book is, along with Inner Grace, a sequel to Phillip Cary's Augustine and the Invention of the Inner Self. In this work, Cary argues that Augustine invented the expressionist type of semiotics widely taken for granted in modernity, where words are outward signs giving inadequate expression to what lies within the soul. Augustine uses this new semiotics to explain why the authority of external teaching, including Biblical authority, is useful but temporary, designed to lead to a more (...) permanent Platonist vision granted by the inner teacher, Christ, who is the eternal Wisdom of God. In fact, for Augustine we literally learn nothing from words or other outward signs, which are useful only as admonitions or reminders pointing out the right direction for us to look in order to see for ourselves, with the inner eye of our own mind. Even our knowledge of other people is ultimately a matter of seeing what is in their souls, not putting faith in their words. Cary argues that for Augustine outward signs cannot give us knowledge because all bodily things are fundamentally powerless, incapable of conveying an inner good to the soul. This also leaves no room for a concept of efficacious external means of grace DL not even the flesh of Christ. The sacraments, which Augustine was the first to describe as outward signs of inner grace, signify what is necessary for salvation but do not confer it. Baptism, for example, is necessary for salvation, but its power is found not in water or word but in the inner unity, charity, and peace of the church. Along with its companion work, Inner Grace, this careful and insightful book breaks new ground in the study of Augustine's theology of grace and sacraments. (shrink)

This Nietzschesque “genealogy of morals” presents the Confucian virtue of xin (trust and true) so basic to friendship as a civic virtue rooted among social equals. Among non-equals, a servant has to prove his trustworthiness but not yet vice versa. The script 信 ( xin ) tells of living up to one’s words. Yanxing 言行 (speech and action) describes actively keeping a verbal promise. The Agrarian school endorses xin as the primary virtue in its utopia of virtual equals. It knew (...) oral trust and had no use for written covenants. In debating Mencius, Gaozi kept to that earlier primacy granted public speech as tied to one’s social reputation. Mencius turned inward and elevated mind as the inner good of moral intent instead. In the Doctrine of the Mean , inner xin would expand outward into becoming the ultimate truth, the sincerity of Heaven and Earth. The essay ends on an aside on the case of the Cretan Liar. (shrink)

Such a bewildering and contradictory welter of behaviors and traits are connoted by “honor” and its best equivalents in other languages that analyses of the concept have daunted philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, historians, and literary scholars for millennia. Is it an external good given — and revoked just as easily — by others? Or does “honor” name an inner good that’s absolutely in our control: our integrity, our very commitment to right conduct? Is honor a central moral virtue (...) — as when we might say that “all was lost, save our honor”? Or is it a good quality that’s not-quite “moral,” or indeed even an antiquated virtue hostile to true morality? Is the honorable man a heroic figure who protects the weak, or one who can be expected to bully the weak, as in the case of “honor killings”? Is honor aristocratic and inegalitarian, and thus a virtue that enables and ennobles what’s essentially oppression? Or is honor a signal virtue of fair-dealing, fair-fighting, and fair competition, as evidenced in sportsmanship? (shrink)

Impressions, energy radiated by phenomena in the momentary environmental scene, enter sensory neurons, creating in afferent nerves a data stream. Following Kant, by our inner sense the mind perceives its own thoughts as it ties together sense data into an internalized scene. The mind, residing in the brain, logically a Language Machine, processes and stores items as coded grammatical entities. Kantian synthetic unity in the linguistic brain is able to deliver our experience of the scene as we appear to (...) see it. Uniquely, the brain records its own history, synthesizing a Movie-in-the-Brain, called the Noumenal Cosmos. Attempting thereby to represent the actual Universe, this makes for a sovereign brain that governs itself. The brain is domicile of an Ego, with its selfhood at stake at all times. Yet, it can know itself only by its actions, in which it appears as an actor in its own movie. Phenomena enter garbled, as confused apparitions, and must be put in good form using top–down feedback control by Ego, so that each movie frame makes rational sense within the overall context of the Noumenal Cosmos. A stack of frames is processed typically in 40 Hz rhythm with 300 ms process time each, for about 12 in the stack at any time. Successive neural centers are processing the stack in the brain assembly line, based on data from increasingly global receptive fields. Ego stitches together the movie frames, but only the top frame is in consciousness for 25 ms. The top frame contains the whole scene where the Ego makes an appearance as the actor that imposes Kantian synthetic unity on the scene, merely an assembly of grammatical texts, in a system-internal coded process language, fitting the scene into the Noumenal Cosmos. But Ego observes Ego only to the extent permitted by the objectivity rule, only what it does and thinks, not its true face. From the Noumenal Cosmos, the Ego receives grammatical messages in the internal sense code. They are integrated into a whole in the reaction of the Ego to the momentary scene. The voluntary nature of Ego’s decisions is explained, based on its ability to code in advance its own actions sequentially in time, as it sees fit with a view to an orderly Noumenal Cosmos, records of code being arranged spatially in neural structures. (shrink)

The essay brings a summation of human efforts seeking to understand our existence. Plato and Kant & cognitive science complete reduction of philosophy to a neural mechanism, evolved along elementary Darwinian principles. Plato in his famous Cave Allegory explains that between reality and our experience of it there exists a great chasm, a metaphysical gap, fully confirmed through particle-wave duality of quantum physics. Kant found that we have two kinds of perception, two senses: By the spatial outer sense we perceive (...) phenomena, objects in space. Our temporal inner sense lets us perceive our inner state, noumena . Kant's two senses are fully confirmed through bilateral brain duality of cognitive science. The bilateral brain serves inner, temporal sense, logic & noumena in the left hemisphere. The right brain half is for the outer, spatial sense, geometry & phenomena. We form a whole system, a bilateral interior cosmos, a kind of world model, expressing what may lie beyond the metaphysical gap. In the right brain we build a phenomenal cosmos, to resemble the outer environment. In the brain's left hemisphere a noumenal cosmos, a model of our private world including Saint Teresa of Avila's castillo interior. The cosmos is regularly updated with novel sense data integrated into our memory banks. This was recognized early by Helmholtz (1860s). Our lives, health & well-being depend on us keeping our interior cosmos in good order. This used to be seen as saving one's precious soul from perdition. While we endeavour to keep our phenomenal cosmos neat & orderly by protecting the environment from harm, our noumenal cosmos to be livable requires us to engage in ethical conduct. This bilateral cosmos is responsible for our common sense judgment power, that we depend on for being able to lead a good & benign life. The 200 million neurons of BA10 in the prefrontal lobe have global access to the interior cosmos, & apply massive feedback to identify environmental conditions rapidly. The global access also gives conscious presence of the individual to itself, all that is present in the interior cosmos, for total freedom of action. In the left brain private ego, we are guarded by faith in divine mercy, & guided to choose the best course of action, able to survive under the most adverse conditions. For this, we receive directions from the Holy Ghost in Saint Teresa's castillo interior. (shrink)

In two essays, first published in book form in 1940, Louis Lavelle delves into Evil and Suffering, tracing their relationships with Good and Happiness, the Body and the Spirit, Matter and Spirit. Evil and Suffering is considered a work of moral philosophy. In it, Lavelle leads us to reflect on suffering and how it is inserted in the inner and outer world of the being. From this experience of living suffering, according to the author, the spirit arises. The marks (...) that pain causes in us allows us to transcend what we are to the external world, after understanding ourselves with suffering in the inner world. If suffering is an inherent condition of human life, it remains for him to do his best, face it and overcome it. According to Lavelle, it is suffering itself that gives meaning to life; but this is only possible if there is awareness that one suffers, because it is this awareness that awakens the spirit. The author also, through antitheses, tells us that it is in the absence that we find the presence, in the darkness we see the light, in loneliness we find community, in an inner deepening, where we perceive reality. Therefore, suffering connects beings. Pain shapes us, awakens us and makes us better beings if we know how to face it. Reading this book, of incredible spiritual richness, generates in us a dialogue about suffering, in order to transcend it. (shrink)

It is argued that the "inner" negation $\mathord{\sim}$ familiar from 3-valued logic can be interpreted as a form of "conditional" negation: $\mathord{\sim}$ is read '$A$ is false if it has a truth value'. It is argued that this reading squares well with a particular 3-valued interpretation of a conditional that in the literature has been seen as a serious candidate for capturing the truth conditions of the natural language indicative conditional (e.g., "If Jim went to the party he had (...) a good time"). It is shown that the logic induced by the semantics shares many familiar properties with classical negation, but is orthogonal to both intuitionistic and classical negation: it differs from both in validating the inference from $A \rightarrow \nega B$ to $\nega(A\rightarrow B)$ to. (shrink)