Part of a series of highly entertaining books on the history of sinning. Eating too much is one of the Western world's greatest problems, but relatively few people would consider it a crime against God. Yet even as gluttony has ceased to be an evil, food and dieting have become a cultural obsessions, with millions of pounds expended on mortifying the flesh with punishing diet and exercise regimes. This brief history of gluttony traces the changing cultural attitudes towards (...) food and pleasure, scarcity and abundance. It reveals how notions of saintliness and purity have helped form modern views of enjoyment, self-mortification, and ultimately nutrition. Restaurant-goers and readers of gourmet magazines rationalize their pursuit of too much food in many ways, but does a slight tinge of guilt makes your meal taste that much better? This book provides the answer, thoroughly exploring humankind's attempts to quell its chief survival strategy - eating. (shrink)

Abstract As there are food gluttons, so there are energy gluttons. One difference is that energy gluttons are typically oblivious to how much energy they consume and the source of that energy. Their energy gluttony is a side effect of insatiable desire for material goods, which themselves are often associated with social status. Nonetheless, steps taken to deal with energy gluttony parallel those taken with food gluttony. Typically these fall into three categories: educational, political, and technological. I (...) will examine a fourth, however, best characterized as philosophical. I will show how, by following the advice of the ancient Stoics and training ourselves to care less what others think of us, we can help overcome our desire for social status, resulting in a reduction in our desire for material things and a significant reduction in our personal energy bill. The pessimistic conclusion, however, is that most people are probably unwilling to undergo the self-analysis and self-transformation that this philosophical approach requires. (shrink)

This paper aims at looking at Shakespeare’s character Falstaff through the prism of some of the seven deadly sins. The paper doesn’t claim that it explores all the sins present in Falstaff’s personality. The main sins that this paper examines in Falstaff’s personality are the sins of gluttony, lust, avarice, sloth, and pride. The presence of so many sins in the personality of one character that are interconnected is known as concatenation of sins. As Bernard Spivack and David Wiles (...) have explained, in many ways Falstaff serves as the Vice figure from the morality plays tempting Prince Hal. Since in the morality plays the Vice figure stems and is associated mainly to the seven deadly sins, this paper will try to show that the fact that Falstaff possesses so many sins can facilitate the possibility of him being identified as stemming from the Vice figure from the morality plays. I will try to find each of the afore-mentioned sins by analyzing Falstaff actions and inactions and by trying to find characteristics of the sins present in Falstaff’s behavior. This paper will also look at Falstaff’s fate and whether there is any similarity between the fate of the Vice figure in the morality plays and the fate of Falstaff in the second part. (shrink)

This essay provides an overview of Plato’s contribution to food ethics. Drawing on various Platonic dialogues, the discussion includes an analysis of the problem of gluttony and the correlate virtue of moderation, the diet of the Republic’s ideal city, and the harmonious order of the tripartite soul.

Drawing on centuries of wisdom from the Christian ethical tradition, this book takes readers on a journey of self-examination, exploring why our hearts are captivated by glittery but false substitutes for true human goodness and happiness. The first edition sold 35,000 copies and was a C. S. Lewis Book Prize award winner. Now updated and revised throughout, the second edition includes a new chapter on grace and growth through the spiritual disciplines. Questions for discussion and study are included at the (...) end of each chapter. Contents 1. Why Study the Vices? 2. Gifts from the Desert: The Origins and History of the Vices Tradition 3. Vainglory: Image Is Everything 4. Envy: Feeling Bitter When Others Have It Better 5. Sloth (Acedia): Resistance to the Demands of Love 6. Avarice: Possession and Mastery 7. Wrath: Holy Emotion or Hellish Passion? 8. Gluttony: Feeding Your Face and Starving Your Heart 9. Lust: Sexuality Stripped Down 10. The Rest of the Journey: Self-Examination, the Seven Capital Vices, and Spiritual Formation Epilogue Index. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Historical Background Superbia (Pride) Invidia (Envy) Ira (Wrath) Acedia (Sloth) Avaritia (Avarice) Gula (Gluttony) Luxuria (Lust) The Antidote: Righteous Love The Bridge to Salvation.

The ancient Stoics believed that virtue is the only true good and as such both necessary and sufficient for happiness. Accordingly, they classified food as among the things that are neither good nor bad but "indifferent." These "indifferents" included health, illness, wealth, poverty, good and bad reputation, life, death, pleasure, and pain. How one deals with having or lacking these things reflects one’s virtue or vice and thus determines one’s happiness or misery. So, while the Stoics held that food in (...) itself contributes nothing to a person’s happiness, how one obtains, prepares, and serves it, and both what and how one eats, all reveal a person’s character as good or bad. Thus, understanding the purpose of food, the necessity of frugality, and the virtue of temperance are all important in Stoicism. This paper traces the ethical views on food from Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus to Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. They agree that the wise and temperate know that simple, inexpensive foods in moderate amounts produced locally are easy to get and prepare, healthy for the body, and good for the mind. Thus, Stoicism dictates frugality of diet and the rejection of ambitious eating, gluttony, luxuries, delicacies, and gustatory extravagance. Some Stoics favor vegetarianism. All Stoics think it wise to limit eating and drinking to strict bodily need and to eradicate all food anxieties. (shrink)

Gabriele Taylor presents a philosophical investigation of the "ordinary" vices traditionally seen as "death to the soul": sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. In the course of a richly detailed discussion of individual and interrelated vices, which complements recent work by moral philosophers on virtue, she shows why these "deadly sins" are correctly so named and grouped together.

I argue it is inconsistent to believe that overconsumption is wrong or bad yet believe that having children is morally permissible, insofar as they produce comparable environmental impacts, are voluntary choices, and arise from similar desires. This presents a dilemma for "mainstream environmentalists": they do not want to abandon either of those fundamental beliefs, yet must give up one of them. I present an analogical argument supporting that conclusion. After examining four attempts to undermine the analogy, I conclude that none (...) of them successfully locates a significant, relevant difference between procreation and eco-gluttony (roughly, consumption exceeding that of the average American). Thus, in order to be consistent, one must be in favour of both or opposed to both. Mainstream environmentalism, then, is not an option, and should be replaced by radical environmentalism, the view that both overconsumption and (in most cases) having children are morally problematic in an overcrowded world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Environmental Virtue EthicsChristopher Freiman (bio)Environmental Virtue Ethics, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro. New York and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, pp. 240. ISBN 0-7425-3389-1 (hardback), $75.00; ISBN 0-7425-3390-5 (paperback) $28.95.For most of its life, environmental ethics has been the province of consequentialism and deontology. But a growing number of environmental ethicists have found these act-centered theories too thin and limited to attend to the complexity of (...) ecological problems. Some see virtue ethics as promising a richer and more muscular approach to environmental ethics. The new anthology Environmental Virtue Ethics delivers on this promise.The book, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro, features fourteen selections—ten original contributions and four reprints of classic papers. The basic theme of environmental virtue ethics as a theory and Environmental Virtue Ethics as a volume is not that the environment is a bearer of rights or source of intrinsic value, but that an appreciation of nature is an ingredient in a happy and flourishing life. Virtue ethics considers character to be a central ethical concern and a critical part of living well. Rather than ask, as deontologists and utilitarians might, "What should I do?," virtue ethicists ask, "What should I be?"According to the first section of the book, environmental ethicists have implicitly been asking themselves this question for years. The first [End Page 133] two articles form a virtual genealogy of environmental virtue ethics, as Louke van Wensveen and Philip Cafaro examine virtue ethics' hidden role in the development of modern environmental ethics. Cafaro presents an account of historical exemplars of environmental virtue. Wensveen argues that the seeming poverty of "ecological virtue language" is partly due to environmental ethics' evolution within a specific cultural niche. Environmental ethics traditionally grappled with questions of practical political and legal import. As a result, the discipline adapted to the problems of rights and costs and benefits rather than character and human flourishing. Wensveen quips, "I imagine that appealing to a chemical company's love of nature in a court of law would be as effective as appealing to an ex-spouse's love of his or her children in a child custody case" (17). Nonetheless, Wensveen chronicles how virtue language has crept, largely unnoticed, into the environmental ethical dialogue.The second part focuses on the theoretical dimensions of environmental virtue ethics. The authors explore the ways in which virtue ethics can offer a fresh perspective on perennial environmental ethical questions. Thomas Hill's seminal "Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments" is a welcome inclusion. Hill inspires the movement to environmental virtue theorizing when he advises us to ask not simply, "What interests or rights are at stake when one destroys the natural environment?" but also, "What sort of person would do such a thing?" Indeed, we might view this entire volume as an extended attempt to answer to Hill's question.The next part of the book investigates the problems of defining environmental virtue and distinguishing it from anthropocentric virtue. The fourth and final section applies environmental virtue theory to specific ecological problems. The two articles, written by Peter Wenz and Ronald Sandler, use the virtue ethical framework to interrogate the morality of consumerism and genetically modified crops, respectively. This final section helps to allay an enduring criticism of virtue ethics as a whole: that it cannot be applied to real world problems. Sandler's piece in particular profitably uses the tools of virtue ethics to critically reflect upon both the moral problems raised by genetically modified crops and their proposed resolutions.The role of enlightened self-interest in environmental ethics is a recurrent theme. Against a public dialogue that pits human interests and [End Page 134] ecological interests in conflict, this book is refreshing reminder that human flourishing and ecological flourishing are not enemies. Human interests, properly understood, are in harmony with the interests of the environment. We ought to view our relationship with nature as positive-sum.This positive-sum outlook permeates Philip Cafaro's piece, "Gluttony, Arrogance, Greed, and Apathy: An Exploration of Environmental Vice." Cafaro forcefully argues that the vices that hinder human flourishing also hinder... (shrink)

Contemporary culture trivializes the "seven deadly sins," or vices, as if they have no serious moral or spiritual implications. Glittering Vices clears this misconception by exploring the traditional meanings of gluttony, sloth, lust, and others. It offers a brief history of how the vices were compiled and an eye opening explication of how each sin manifests itself in various destructive behaviors. Readers gain practical understanding of how the vices shape our culture today and how to correctly identify and eliminate (...) the deeply rooted patterns of sin that are work in their own lives. This accessible book is essential for any reader interested in spiritual disciplines and character formation. Excerpt Very simply, a virtue (or vice) is acquired through practice repeated activity that increases our proficiency at the activity and gradually forms our character. . . . We often need external incentives and sanctions to get us through the initial stages of the process, when our old, entrenched desires still pull us toward the opposite behavior. But with encouragement, discipline, and often a role model or mentor, practice can make things feel more natural and enjoyable as we gradually develop the internal values and desires corresponding to our outward behavior. Virtue often develops, that is, from the outside in. This is why, when we want to reform our character from vice to virtue, we often need to practice and persevere in regular spiritual disciplines and formational practices for a lengthy period of time. (shrink)

One of the principal aims of Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals, especially of the Doctrine of Virtue, is to present a taxonomy of our duties as human beings. The basic division of duties is between juridical duties and ethical duties, which determines the division of the Metaphysics of Morals into the Doctrine of Right and the Doctrine of Virtue. Juridical duties are duties that may be coercively enforced from outside the agent, as by the civil or criminal laws, or other social (...) pressures. Ethical duties must not be externally enforced (to do so violates the right of the person coerced). Instead, the subject herself, through her own reason and the feelings and motives arising a priori from her rational capacities -- the feelings of respect, conscience, moral feeling and love of other human beings, must constrain herself to follow them (MS 6:399-404).1 Among ethical duties, the fundamental division is between duties to oneself and duties to others. Within each of these two main divisions of ethical duty, there is a further division between duties that are strictly owed, requiring specific actions or omissions, and whose violation incurs moral blame, and duties that are wide or meritorious, the specific actions not strictly owed, but deserving of moral credit or merit. Kant treats these latter as ‘duties’ (eschewing any category such as ‘supererogation’) because the actions in question are conceived as fit objects of self-constraint – things we can make ourselves do through the exercise of reason and the moral feelings arising from the application of practical reason to our faculty of desire. Regarding duties to oneself, this division is between ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect’ duty; regarding duties to others, the strict or narrow... (shrink)

Grasping. Avarice. Covetousness. Miserliness. Insatiable cupidity. Overreaching ambition. Desire spun out of control. The deadly sin of Greed goes by many names, appears in many guises, and wreaks havoc on individuals and nations alike. In this lively and generous book, Phyllis A. Tickle argues that Greed is "the Matriarch of the Deadly Clan," the ultimate source of Pride, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust, and Anger. She shows that the major faiths, from Hinduism and Taoism to Buddhism and Christianity regard Greed (...) as the greatest calamity humans can indulge in, engendering further sins and eviscerating all virtues. As the Sikh holy book Adi Granth asks: "Where there is greed, what love can there be?" Tickle takes a long view of Greed, from St. Paul to the present, focusing particularly on changing imaginative representations of Greed in Western literature and art. Looking at such works as the Psychomachia, or "Soul Battle" of the fifth-century poet Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, the paintings of Peter Bruegel and Hieronymous Bosch, the 1987 film Wall Street, and the contemporary Italian artist Mario Donizetti, Tickle shows how our perceptions have evolved from the medieval understanding of Greed as a spiritual enemy to a nineteenth-century sociological construct to an early twentieth-century psychological deficiency, and finally to a new view, powerfully articulated in Donizetti's mystical paintings, of Greed as both tragic and beautiful. Engaging, witty, brilliantly insightful, Greed explores the full range of this deadly sin's subtle, chameleon-like qualities, and the enormous destructive power it wields, evidenced all too clearly in the world today. (shrink)

"Marin's admiration (in both seventeenth-century senses) for the word made flesh, and hence the word made power, is what makes this book both fascinating and disturbing." -- Times Literary Supplement A wicked queen orders the palace cook to kill her grandchildren and serve them up for dinner -- "in a sauce Robert." But as any good cook knows, this sauce is properly served with game, not domestic animals. Does the ogress transgress? Perhaps, but the cook breaks the rules as well. (...) Deceiving his mistress, he rescues the children and instead serves goat and lamb. In this provocative volume, Louis Marin treats a subject to which some of the most exciting literary criticism has been devoted: the body as represented in text and image. From fairy tales to biblical narrative, from the divine body in the eucharist to the body of Louis XIV as described in his physicians' journals, Marin focuses on the peculiar relationship between verbal and oral functions--speaking and eating, boasting and gluttony, lying and cannibalism. Drawing on the methodologies of semiology, philosophy of language, and literary and art criticism, Marin explores works by Rabelais, La Fontaine, Perrault, and the Logic of Port-Royal. Throughout, he is concerned with the conceptualization of desire and pleasure, justice and force, natural violence and political power -- and questions their ideological as well as their symbolic bases. (shrink)

You have heard of the Seven Deadly Sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. Each is a natural human weakness that impedes happiness. In addition to these vices, however, there are economic sins as well. And they, too, wreak havoc on our lives and in society. They can seem intuitively compelling, yet they lead to waste, loss, and forgone prosperity. In this thoughtful and compelling book, James Otteson tells the story of seven central economic fallacies, explaining why (...) they are fallacies, why believing in them leads to mistakes and loss, and how exorcizing them from our thinking can help us avoid costly errors and enable us to live in peace and prosperity. (shrink)

This article surveys the discursive turns of a conventional historical trope: the change in the valence of alcohol (and drugs) from happy to miserable. This change is commonly told as the story of a golden age of drinking and a fall into addiction (although there is a confused relationship in many of the stories between a condition called medical alcoholism and the social behavior of drunkenness). This fall is variously dated from the fifteenth to the late nineteenth centuries (both the (...) conceptualization and the fact of alcoholism). Is this real historical change or only nominal change? Was alcoholism unknown in previous ages or has it always been around? Certain material factors (supply, absence of alternative drinks) may have impeded the visibility of alcoholism. The theory of nominal change is involved with factors like conspiratorial behavior, the conditions of scientific knowledge (i.e., the structure of investigation itself ), the baffles of categorization (heavy drinking was hidden within gluttony for most of history). Real change involves various facets of modernity and industrial capitalism: individualism and privacy, temperance, respectability, and rigid class formation, etcetera. But this shift is also a movement across class lines, from middle to lower-class drinkers. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze Kant’s ideas about eating and drinking. First, I show that gluttony and drunkenness are considered ways to oppose to the duty to oneself as an animal being. Second, I claim that for Kant there is a healthy way of having meals, which consists in eating together with friends. Then I indicate that Kant accepts that one can drink at dinner parties but has to avoid drinks that lead to drunkenness and unsocial behavior. In this (...) sense, he draws a classification of the various kinds of alcoholic drinks, according to their potential harm. Afterwards, I illustrate how Kant’s own intimate life was a daily practice of his thoughts on dietetic conceptions and on what is better for digestion and health. To conclude, I mention the idea of a philosopher’s medicine of the body and why a strict diet should be avoided. (shrink)

Plato's views on tragedy depend in large part on his views about the ethical consequences of emotional arousal. In the Republic, Plato treats the desires we feel in everyday life to weep and feel pity as appetites exactly like those for food or sex, whose satisfactions are ‘replenishments’. Physical desire is not reprehensible in itself, but is simply non-rational, not identical with reason but capable of being brought into agreement with it. Some desires, like that for simple and wholesome food, (...) are in fact ‘necessary’ and approved by reason. Other appetites, like lust and gluttony, are ‘unnecessary’ and anti-rational in that they are actively opposed to reason. According to the Republic, the satisfaction of these ‘unnecessary’ desires inevitably strengthens the elements in the soul that oppose reason. The desire to weep at the theatre is treated in this dialogue as just such an anti-rational desire. Even a temporary indulgence in tragic pity and fear has a permanent deleterious effect on the soul, although it does not lead directly to any action. This paper argues that a radically different psychological theory, with important aesthetic implications, appears in the discussion of wine-drinking in Books 1 and 2 of Plato's Laws. Though this long passage has been much scorned and neglected, it is of considerable philosophical importance. While in the Republic Plato condemns drunkenness and other anti-rational states, in the Laws he extols the benefits of a hypothetical ‘fear drug’ that could induce a temporary state of anti-rational terror and of wine to produce other anti-rational emotions and desires. (shrink)

I like punk rock. I like girls with weird eyes. I like drugs but my body and mind won’t allow me to take them. I like passion. I like things that are built well. I like innocence. I like and am grateful for the blue collar worker whos existence allows Artists to not have to work at menial jobs. I like killing gluttony. I like playing my cards wrong. I like various styles of music. I like making fun of (...) musicians who I feel pladgerise or offend music as art by exploiting their embarrassingly, pathetic versions of their work. I like to write poetry. I like to ignore others poetry. I like vinyl. I like nature and animals. I like to swim. I like to be with my friends. I like to be by myself. I like to feel guilty for.. (shrink)

Plato's views on tragedy depend in large part on his views about the ethical consequences of emotional arousal. In theRepublic, Plato treats the desires we feel in everyday life to weep and feel pity as appetites exactly like those for food or sex, whose satisfactions are ‘replenishments’. Physical desire is not reprehensible in itself, but is simplynon-rational, not identical with reason but capable of being brought into agreement with it. Some desires, like that for simple and wholesome food, are in (...) fact ‘necessary’ and approved by reason. Other appetites, like lust and gluttony, are ‘unnecessary’ andanti-rational in that they are actively opposed to reason. According to theRepublic, the satisfaction of these ‘unnecessary’ desires inevitably strengthens the elements in the soul that oppose reason. The desire to weep at the theatre is treated in this dialogue as just such an anti-rational desire. Even a temporary indulgence in tragic pity and fear has a permanent deleterious effect on the soul, although it does not lead directly to any action.This paper argues that a radically different psychological theory, with important aesthetic implications, appears in the discussion of wine-drinking in Books 1 and 2 of Plato'sLaws. Though this long passage has been much scorned and neglected, it is of considerable philosophical importance. While in theRepublicPlato condemns drunkenness and other anti-rational states, in theLawshe extols the benefits of a hypothetical ‘fear drug’ that could induce a temporary state of anti-rational terror and of wine to produce other anti-rational emotions and desires. (shrink)

Why do many societies moralize apparently harmless pleasures, such as lust, gluttony, alcohol, drugs, and even music and dance? Why do they erect temperance, asceticism, sobriety, modesty, and piety as cardinal moral virtues? According to existing theories, this puritanical morality cannot be reduced to concerns for harm and fairness: It must emerge from cognitive systems that did not evolve for cooperation (e.g., disgust-based “purity” concerns). Here, we argue that, despite appearances, puritanical morality is no exception to the cooperative function (...) of moral cognition. It emerges in response to a key feature of cooperation, namely that cooperation is (ultimately) a long-term strategy, requiring (proximately) the self-control of appetites for immediate gratification. Puritanical moralizations condemn behaviors which, although inherently harmless, are perceived as indirectly facilitating uncooperative behaviors, by impairing the self-control required to refrain from cheating. Drinking, drugs, immodest clothing, and unruly music and dance are condemned as stimulating short-term impulses, thus facilitating uncooperative behaviors (e.g., violence, adultery, free-riding). Overindulgence in harmless bodily pleasures (e.g., masturbation, gluttony) is perceived as making people slave to their urges, thus altering abilities to resist future antisocial temptations. Daily self-discipline, ascetic temperance, and pious ritual observance are perceived as cultivating the self-control required to honor prosocial obligations. We review psychological, historical, and ethnographic evidence supporting this account. We use this theory to explain the fall of puritanism in western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societies, and discuss the cultural evolution of puritanical norms. Explaining puritanical norms does not require adding mechanisms unrelated to cooperation in our models of the moral mind. (shrink)

The list of the seven capital vices include sloth, envy, avarice, vainglory, gluttony, lust, and anger. While many of the seven vices are more complex than they appear at first glance, one stands out as more obscure and out of place than all the others, at least for a contemporary audience: the vice of sloth. Our puzzlement over sloth is heightened by sloth's inclusion on the traditional lists of the seven capital vices and the seven deadly sins from the (...) fourth century onward. For hundreds of years, these seven vices were distinguished as moral and spiritual failings of serious and perennial importance. By contrast, recent studies, as well as the popular imagination, typically associate sloth with, or even define it as, laziness. But is laziness in fact a moral failing? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Three Probes into St. Francis of Assisi's Second Letter to the Faithful1Robert J. Karris, OFMFrancis' Second Letter to the Faithful2 is so rich that it would take a lengthy book to probe most of its treasures. My goal is to make three probes: 1) from a literary analysis of this letter of exhortation, 2) from the results of a more thorough search for the biblical sources behind its eighty-eight (...) lines, and 3) from the insights achieved through literary and theological parallels to its contents.3 I accomplish my goals by going systematically through this letter, which I contend has introduction, positive exhortations, conclusion to positive exhortations and bridge to second part of the letter, negative exhortations, aka polemic, the example story of the unrepentant rich man, and ending.4 At the very beginning, I remind myself and my readers of something that we might take for granted: The dominant figure of this letter is "our Lord Jesus Christ," an expression and reality that pulses through its eighty-eight lines. Take, as [End Page 79] an example, n. 49–50, which are staggering in scope: "And they (who persevere in penance) will be children of the heavenly Father, whose works they are doing. And they are spouses, brothers, and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ."Methodology: Search for Literary and Theological ParallelsEarly on in my doctoral studies, I learned the importance and value of investigating New Testament texts by means of their literary parallels.5 For example, there were significant interpretive payoffs to be gained by comparing St. Paul's use of polemic in the Pastoral Epistles (1–2 Timothy and Titus) to that employed by the Stoics.6 Paul probably never met a Stoic philosopher in his life, but their means of no-holds-barred polemic was "in the air" he breathed. Daniel J. Harrington expresses well this common methodology in New Testament Studies: "In literature a parallel involves some point or points of similarity between two texts where literary dependence is unlikely or not proved. Parallels to New Testament texts can be taken from any body of literature and from any period of history…"7So what parallels do I suggest as background for the interpretation of Francis' 2LtF? There may be many, since Francis' letter is dealing with fundamental human and Christian realities: sin and virtue. I have selected what I call The Big Three:In his De Virtutibus et Vitiis Liber,8 Alcuin of York (d. 800) wrote a letter to Count Guy, who is engaged in martial activities. Alcuin has followed Guy's request for paternal admonition and prays that his writing may help Guy to perpetual salvation (n. 6). Alcuin writes briefly about 35 topics: wisdom, faith, charity, hope, zeal of reading, peace, mercy, remission, patience, humility, compunction of the heart, confession, repentance, not delaying conversion to God, fear of God, fasting, almsgiving, chastity, avoiding fraud, judges, false witnesses, envy, pride, proneness to anger, not seeking human praise, perseverance in good works, eight principal vices, greed, fornication, avarice, anger, [End Page 80] weariness (acedia), sorrow, cenodoxia (vainglory), and the four virtues.9 It is abundantly clear that Francis does not engage in 35 topics, but his exhortations do overlap with a number of Alcuin's, e.g., almsgiving, judges, perseverance in good works.In his Liber exhortationis,10 Archbishop St. Paulinus of Aquileia (d. 802) wrote to Count or Duke Henry of Fruilli. His treatise has 66 chapters and covers virtually all spiritual and moral topics. Of singular interest is Chapter 8, "On Friendship with God and Keeping God's Commandments." His final chapter is a long prayer to resist the wiles of the devil and to persevere in virtue. Saints Paulinus of Aquileia and Francis of Assisi's 2LtF have numerous points in common.11Archbishop Hincmar of Reims (d. 882) wrote a very polished and regarded letter, De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis to King Charles the Bald.12 It has ten chapters. The first seven deal chiefly with vices such as avarice, pride, voluptuousness, gluttony, envy, anger, and jealousy. They also encourage virtuous deeds such as almsgiving, works of mercy, fidelity, and prayer. Chapters 8... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Neither/Nor:Ruminating on the Metanoetic Pharmakon in Nietzsche and Other BuddhasTakeshi Morisato (bio)A Compliment to the Philosopher Chef and His table d'hôte intellectuelleIf a book title were comparable to the name of a restaurant, the table of contents would be their menu. Jason Wirth's Nietzsche and Other Buddhas (hereafter NOB) initially reminded me of a fusion restaurant with a strong "Asian" flavor, an ambiguous genre that we would see anywhere (...) in continental Europe. As one could easily imagine, this is not necessarily a compliment to the chef. By integrating various ingredients and different techniques from diverse culinary traditions, a fusion restaurant might claim to create a new dish or a unique course that transcends the conventional categories of our dietary practice. Like what Kant says about the uniqueness of nonsense, however, their end product could fail to be original or, what is worse, could even be offensive to those who are very familiar with any of the specific culinary traditions. If what comes after comparative philosophy results in this kind of "fusion philosophy," its success will have to feed on our ignorance of intellectual histories.1 Our feeding frenzy in this new, fashionable modus operandi may starve us to death of philosophy rather than liberate us from the hunger that has propelled us into a philosophical search in the first place. To borrow Wirth's use of the "felicitous analogy from Kierkegaard," it might as well be that "the last thing that we need is more food. Rather we need to lose something, to shed our gluttony. We need a medicinal poison to take away an unhealthy poison."2As you can see, I was initially skeptical about the soundness of a philosophical menu that mixes Zen, Schopenhauer, Hakuin, James, Pure Land, Shinran, Tanabe, Deleuze, Dōgen, and Nishida (in order of appearance) with an explosive spice or the deadly meat, Nietzsche. Could this be a process of ventriloquizing Nietzsche through Asian philosophical traditions? Or are we washing down the strong aftertaste of reading Nietzsche or Schopenhauer with Pure Land or Zen water? How could we stomach all of these thinkers and traditions in one setting without causing serious indigestion in our hearts-and-minds? To my surprise, Wirth's text gives a performative proof that they can indeed be read together and examined with the purpose of giving us food for thought. What makes NOB particularly successful in referring to different thinkers is its emphasis on "rumination." It [End Page 1070] self-reflectively questions what it is to read any text philosophically and what it means to integrate texts into one's process of thinking such that its creative insight points toward the nutrients that it has found in the process of digesting ideas from diverse intellectual traditions.This philosophical process of "rumination" is not merely an external comparison of ideas from different philosophical traditions. Nor is it an imposition of one tradition over another. Rather, by harmoniously fusing together various insights, the author's very process of understanding the cultural, linguistic, and historical milieu of his existence delves into fundamental issues concerning our human condition in the world today. NOB, in this sense, renders a final form of "comparative philosophy," where a thinker is liberated from conventional categories of philosophizing (especially in reference to the almost obsolete distinction between "East and West") and proves that what philosophers can stomach and integrate into their process of (self-)understanding should count as "philosophy." That is to say, depending on the capacity of the thinker to deal with a variety of intellectual resources, some intellectual traditions or a combination of ideas that are seemingly counterintuitive to most scholars in the field of philosophy could generate a tremendous force that accelerates the (re)new (ed) sense of philosophy.3 The "philosophy of food" in chapter 5 especially demonstrates this excellence, and we should anticipate a longer sequel that would mark Wirth's original contribution to the history of philosophy.Two Counterfeit NegativesA food critic, however, must entertain the possibility of some improvement, even when the dish is well prepared and its overall presentation is exquisite. I would like to draw our attention to two... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Stumbling Block its IndexBrian Catling (bio)The Stumbling Block is a graphic font. This black plinth was once a brush or similar terminal that was the lips of an intense electrical arc. Industries proud and violent need spoke through it to turn the wheel or smelt and cast the constructed challenge. Now abandoned it finds benediction in seclusion. It has softened its mouth to hold water, so that small (...) animals and disjointed humans may drink or sign themselves in their passage. [End Page 218]The Stumbling Block has been used like an entrance step to sharpen knives on. Its fossil bristle of bright stone forcing the heavy blades down to a hiss along one edge. These are knives of gleaming hubris, long intentions honed for malice. They are magnetized and have been placed to construct a lectern. Each blade holding the next to form the platform. It may hold this index at its centre, hovering, placed outside in the aorta of streets. The removal of any of the blades from the assembled cluster will spill their fish bodies to the ground. The paper will drink any of the stains of their usage. [End Page 219]The Stumbling Block is an ark of extinction. A bouillon hive of the murdered past, frozen dry to a mass. Something has warmed its corner, the oxoed grit bleeds a vein of contagion, virulent in its passion to embrace and swim in human tides. [End Page 220]The Stumbling Block is unfound to the stained and unclear eye. But its nest, its negative hollow can be discovered in the mounds of waste and detritus that choke the streets. Its possible wedge, sphere or beam form is there; a vacant socket, easily trampled, destroyed or cleared away. It is watching. Its obstinate grace squinting across the demonstrations of power. It is the light in the eye of the needle grown solid with anger, a fat sugar that clogs the passage to any kind of paradise. [End Page 221]The Stumbling Block is a bell that sounds a deeper voice than the throats of men. Their image and cry shrinks the world.The communication of global gossip becomes a barbed wind of trivial penning; television enclosures of wired indifference, the reduction of memory removes the open field and causes blurred shivers to be understood as the same thing. The bell hums as acceleration eradicates silence, the foundation for stillness is removed. The speed of language clones its own restless manic hunger. The portable telephone, miniature televisions, satellites and their collection dishes are the cutlery for this gluttony.The inedible thinness they devour is obvious. To feed this addiction soapy fictions are boiled from the skin and bone of poverty. Tribes, villages, jungles and the very air itself can be wasted or burnt to secure a dry armpit in puppeted dramas of nightmare lives. Condensation is sweating inside the bell; a human modes sound that is unwelcome. It drips from the rim in whispers and pools beneath its limited protection. [End Page 222]The Stumbling Block is a shape shifter, a spirit bench that dwells in the cuffs of the expanding city. Over its warn layers of woven scars many forms have been stretched, clamped and tasted, licked and cut; reshaped. Anointed by abstraction, they are put back on the blinking streets, patted and set loose. In the deep pocketed burrows of the bench, termite-size clones dream white directions to colour the tiredness of their somnambulistic donors. [End Page 223]The Stumbling Block is a barrel organ dragged to the site of a crime. Its tin cup catching rain as it judders on the pounding box. The moon is caught between its throat and the water, and in the black gleam of its varnished vibration. It spills dance into the causeways, sucking revelers along the spindle of its cranked tune. They will spin and curl their lumpen massed centrifuge around the bellowing thing. The laughter is momentary but has soaked away the blood, only the scuffs of shoes and the scratched cobbles sing on. [End Page 224]The Stumbling Block is not a coffer, disguised by a wig of artifice. It cannot offer erudition or... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to Susan Laird, “Musical Hunger: A Philosophical Testimonial of Miseducation”Estelle R. JorgensenSusan Laird’s lament of her “musical under-education,” her youthful lack of opportunity for the sorts of experiences for which she hungered and its life-long after-effects, and her invocation of hunger as a metaphor for music education raise compelling questions. In a feminized field such as music, particularly piano playing, her hunger is particularly poignant. Also, the (...) notion of “musical taste” takes on new meaning, and the musical, educational, and ethical questions this metaphor evokes reveal its richness as a means of thinking about music education. This metaphor joins others such as Barbara Thayer Bacon’s metaphor of the quilt, Jane Roland Martin’s metaphor of the home, Iris Yob’s metaphor of pilgrimage, Elizabeth Gould’s metaphor of the nomad, Virginia Richardson’s metaphor of the steward, and Randall Allsup’s metaphor of the garage band, each of which illumines music education differently.1 Without one, we miss important insights into the thought and practice of music education; when taken together, they offer a richer view than were we to see music education in terms of one alone. [End Page 75]Although metaphor evokes imaginative thought and practice in music education, it is also limited. As Nelson Goodman aptly puts it, metaphor is a “matter of teaching an old word new tricks” and an “expedition abroad in which associations with one realm are applied in another.”2 Its power lies in its evocative and imaginative quality as it startles and surprises, challenges familiar ways of thinking and doing, and opens new possibilities for how we might think, act, and be differently. Although Laird would not want to literalize musical hunger or equate it with physical hunger—physical and spiritual realms intersect but they are not equivalent—it is possible to freeze a metaphor or literalize the vitality out of it. Testing it systematically, we enter the ground between metaphor and model, or what Iris Yob thinks of as the metaphorical model.3 While metaphor may prompt an intellectual journey, it cannot take us the entire way. In its particularistic and imaginative appeal, it opens reflection though it cannot suffice. A metaphor may also have a dark side. For example, envisaging the teacher’s role as salvific in providing bread for the hungry or preventing gluttony or food addictions may foster a paternalistic view that substitutes the teacher’s view of a student’s long term interests for the student’s directly-known and immediately perceived needs and interests, thereby subverting Laird’s expressed interest in the student’s desires. The educational “sin” of addiction may also be “redeemed” in Schefflerian fashion by pointing to important contributions of musicians who were doubtless excessive in their musical engagements.4 These possibilities suggest that we shall need to examine critically the metaphor and what it means for music education and move beyond the metaphor to its related models of music education.One of the interesting questions that Laird’s metaphor of hunger raises is the possibility of spiritual hunger, especially in a pervasively materialistic world. Matters related to spirituality have been addressed variously by writers in music education, whether it be the “healing” and ecologically-oriented approach of June Boyce-Tillman, the evolutionary and anthropologically grounded holistic approach of Anthony Palmer, the ethically-based approach of David Carr, the introspective and politically-charged writing of Cathy Benedict and Randall Allsup, the feminist perspectives of Elizabeth Gould, Charlene Morton, Roberta Lamb, and Deanne Bogdan, or the religiously grounded work of Iris Yob.5 Notions of spiritual hunger might be seen differently within the various lenses that these writers bring to music education but they all underscore the importance of knowing that goes beyond the literal, utilitarian, generalizable, and vocational to address the life of mind and body that Susanne Langer terms “feeling” and with which the arts, myths, rituals, and religions have to do.6 As such, they rebuke general education that is limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic, and driven by tests, standards, and mandates that often give short shrift to matters of human spirituality. Still, as the recent unanimous resolution in favor of... (shrink)

Workahol is the curse of the thinking classes. Though popular opinion has it that Oxford dons are given to claret and gluttony, no public recognition is given to our much more dangerous addiction to work. As we move into an era of great financial stringency, and are increasingly having to cut our coat according to our cloth, we need to review not only our resources but our use of them, and press home the question whether we are using them (...) aright. (shrink)

The article presents the results of an interview in a student’s group on the problem of the fall into sin based on the discussion at the seminar of Dante's «divine Comedy». The authors consider human as an image and likeness of God, who creates himself, choosing between good and harm. There were changes in the perception of the structure of Inferno: the number of circles of hell in the minds of young people interviewed decreased: all respondents do not see sin (...) in unbelief, three-quarters of respondents − in gluttony, half − in lust. The inter-pretation of heresy and fraud as ways to promote their projects is relevant. The effect of absolute rejection of violence, contemptuous attitude to treachery is revealed. The authors believe that secularization has touched only the first five circles of Hell, but at the bottom everything is still the same. (shrink)

In his Epistle to the Pisos, Horace advises aspiring playwrights to use their work to teach and delight,1 a dictum that has resonated down through the ages and has been referred to as the "Horatian platitude."2 In the preface to his comedy Clizia, Niccolò Machiavelli echoes Horace: "Comedies were discovered in order to benefit and to delight the spectators. Truly it is a great benefit to any man, and especially to a youth, to know the avarice of an old man, (...) the passion of a lover, the tricks of a servant, the gluttony of a parasite, the misery of a pauper, the ambition of one who's rich, the flatteries of a whore, the untrustworthiness of all men."3And what of Machiavelli's Mandragola?... (shrink)

The colorful worldviews of our contemporaries are a manifestation of world-wide processes in the world, which are usually defined through the concepts of "globalization processes", "information day", "postmodern instruction" and are accompanied in particular by such negative additions as "global problems of humanity", "information gluttony" "," the loss of faith in the reasoning of mankind and its historical progress. " The latter should also include the loss of faith in the true meaning of life, the world, history and, as (...) a consequence, the lack of faith in the guaranteed prospects of achieving a proper state of being. It is clear that these problems are in one way or another rooted in the spiritual realm, since the absence or irrelevance of the foundations of the worldview can lead to information bewilderment, alienation from the world, loss of self-identity and a harmonious and holistic vision of being in its multiple vector time parameters. Obviously, it is religion itself, and the Catholic Church in particular, that has historically developed and proven tools for restoring a human belief in the true, valid foundations and perspectives of human life. After all, religious organizations themselves have a keen interest in their relevance in the modern world, as their future will depend on it. (shrink)

In Deadly Vices, Gabriele Taylor provides a secular analysis of vices which in Christian theology were thought to bring death to the soul: sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. She argues that these vices are appropriately singled out and grouped together in that ‘they are destructive of the self and prevent its flourishing’. Using a related approach, I offer a secular analysis of gluttony and cowardice, examining their roles in common failures to empathise with animals. I (...) argue that these vices constitute serious moral failings, for they enable continuing complicity in animal abuse and undermine integrity. While Taylor aims to show that ‘deadly vices’ are destructive of the self, I argue that they are ultimately deadly to other animals. I offer practical suggestions for overcoming them by cultivating agentic courage and better empathy with animals. (shrink)

Against the common understanding that the Ethics promotes a "radical anti-emotion program," I claim that Spinoza describes an immanent transformation of love from a form of madness to an expression of wisdom. Love as madness produces the affects that another tradition unites in the seven deadly sins, such as lust, gluttony, envy, greed, and pride. Spinoza, however, never condemns these affects as such. Within each affect one can find its "correct use" (E5p10schol), which enables us to love and to (...) live otherwise. As we come to understand our beloveds as determinate expressions both of nature's power and of our own ability to persevere in being, we find conditions for our liberation within these most burdensome of passions. More specifically, as we diminish our tendency to imagine what we love in terms of its finitude and susceptibility to loss, we are determined to love and to know both others and ourselves by the joyful passions. Ultimately, Spinoza's portrait of love suggests ways of life that generate the satisfaction of our possessive desire with the collective and inclusive love of, certainly, the eternal and immutable thing, but also the eternal and immutable in things, in each other, and above all, in ourselves. In other words, Spinoza's economics of love and possession point up the desire to appropriate our own power in and of community, and in of nature. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Shame is Not an Effective Diet PlanJudith BrukThe stigma of being obese is so strong that it is assumed that anyone with the condition is (or should be) deeply ashamed. After all, it’s really easy to lose weight, right? Just cut out dessert and walk around the block three times a week. If you can’t even do that, then you are definitely a moral failure, have succumbed to (...) class='Hi'>Gluttony and Sloth, and deserve to be shunned by society.The problem is that shame is not a very effective diet plan; quite the opposite. It’s no surprise that recent research shows that shame leads to depression that leads to isolation, which, in the morbidly obese, leads to a suicide rate twelve times that of healthy–weight people.Unfortunately, it is indeed true that many obese people feel a great deal of shame, even if we occasionally put on a façade of bravado or seeming shamelessness, e.g., the “large and in charge” sitcom staple trope. The bottom line is that our shame about our weight does keep us from engaging with other people, limits our willingness to participate in physical activities, and generally makes us reluctant to simply exist out in public. None of these are behaviors conducive to positive lifestyle changes.For years I engineered my life so I would only go out of my house when absolutely necessary: grocery shopping and the occasional meeting at work were pretty much it (I usually work from home). I went for years without going to a movie, shopping for clothes in a store, eating in a restaurant, gardening, or any of the other activities I once enjoyed. I was ashamed to be seen. And since I had tried and tried and tried and tried to lose weight for three decades and only ended up more overweight as the years went by, I finally, truly gave up. I convinced myself my psychological makeup was so flawed (or was missing whatever ingredient it was that made someone succeed at sustained weight loss) that I just hoped my inevitable heart attack would be instantaneously fatal. This thinking is irrational, or at least unhealthy. (I am an otherwise fairly smart person with an advanced degree and am professionally employed.) Yet, it is basically the path that both societal attitudes and medical treatment lead us down at this point in time.Here are a few examples that illustrate how the path to irrationality evolved for me.About twelve years ago, I decided to see a psychotherapist to get to the bottom of my subconscious psychological issue that was keeping me overweight. This therapist suggested I see a nutritionist who gave me a list of detailed thyroid tests to take to my doctor so she could order the labs and we could get a full profile of how my thyroid was functioning. Upon presenting the list to my doctor’s PA (my doctor was not available that day), she rolled her eyes, gave a very deep sigh and said to me, “Every fat woman wants to believe it’s because of her thyroid and it never, ever is.” I was so embarrassed for having even brought the subject up that in an effort to save face, I reacted to my shame by replying, “Yeah, I just assume my extreme lack of energy and excess weight is simply because I eat too much.” She said, “Right, so let’s not even bother running these tests.” It was at least ten years later that I finally had the thyroid panel run and found out it was very low functioning.After about a year of seeing that shrink, she declared me “cured” and sent me on my way, though I had not lost any weight. It was about this time I first began thinking that throwing in the towel [End Page 91] was a good option. That didn’t mean that I went out and ate pizza and ice cream every day. Not at all. In fact, given the fact that I had been vegetarian and general health–food freak beginning in my mid–twenties, I rarely had anything in the house that contained sugar... (shrink)

This article examines Kant’s overlooked concept of “active play,” as opposed to “free play,” in connection with the influence of the Brunonian system of medicine, both of which, I propose, are central to understanding the broader significance of intoxication in Kant’s post-1795 work. Beginning with a discussion of the late-18th century German reception of Brunonian theory, the idea of vital stimulus, and their importance for Kant, I assess the distinction drawn between gluttony and intoxication in The Metaphysics of Morals (...) and Anthropology from a Practical Point of View. Both are analysed in the context of the Brunonian system of medicine, having establishing Kant’s commitment to the Brunonianism system, as corroborated by Wasianski. What emerges is a novel understanding of intoxication in the work of Immanuel Kant, which brings to light a previously unexamined dynamic between imagination, intoxication, and the aesthetic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 67.4 (2006) 675-696 MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]History of Religion Becomes Ethnology: Some Evidence from Peiresc's AfricaPeter N. Miller Bard Graduate CenterAbstractThe relationship between history of religion and ethnology on the one hand, and antiquarianism and them both, on the other, lie at the core of this essay. These lines of inquiry come together in the work of Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637), (...) the intellectually adventurous Provençal late humanist. Peiresc's correspondence with a renegade in Tunis, an adventurer in Ethiopia, and a missionary once based in Guinea provided him with remarkably direct information about the customs and practices—the moeurs—of contemporary sub-Saharan Africans. The content of these letters has not found its place in histories of anthropology or histories of antiquarianism.I.Bound up amidst Peiresc's copies of his letters to the Paduan antiquary Lorenzo Pignoria from the winter of 1615–16 is a text of four sides entitled, in large letters, "Delli Popoli della China" and continuing, in smaller ones, "written by P. Ioannes Pietro Maffei History of the Indies, Fr. Antonio di Saint Roman, in the History of the East Indies, Fr. Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza Augustino, in the books on China, and others." 1 The reading notes [End Page 675] that follow are interesting for one reason: though labelled "Delli Popoli della China" they are almost entirely about religion in China. At this stage of Peiresc's thinking at least, history of religion seems interchangeable with ethnography.In his letter to Pignoria of 4 January 1616, Peiresc acknowledges having time to page through ("di transcorrere un poco") Maffei, Gonzales, and Saint Roman where he found some information about figures they had discussed, and also about artificial grottoes used for domestic refrigeration, "which I did not note when I read it the first time." He asked if Pignoria wouldn't mind inquiring as to whether there was a more precise impression of a particular Chinese plaque or medallion—Pignoria had sent him one but Peiresc pronounced it "not as exact as I would like." 2Peiresc begins with the gods that were worshipped (these included deceased parents and friends, as well as the occasional living person) and auguries. This then leads to mention of the clothing and hair styles of those priests making offerings to the gods. Some of this information was derived from that octagonal medallion. Peiresc also noted down the presence of a vase, as if for libation, and other instruments for offerings.These authors, he continued, observed that the Chinese revered the God of Heaven above all the others. Peiresc recorded that Gonzalez mentioned that he was indicated by use of the first letter of the alphabet, that this character looked a bit like "AF," that it was called "Guant," that he was honored with a solemn festival every near year, at the new moon in March, with vocal and instrumental music during which his priests applied themselves for an entire day to a board groaning with meat, poultry, fish, and fruits (no wonder the earlier reference to the gluttony of the priests). For the greater veneration of the King he was called the "Son of Heaven."Mention of the King led to discussion of the monthly festivals in the provinces when priests bore a portrait of the King, on gold, through the streets with great reverence. But then, citing from Maffei, Peiresc proceeded to jot down observations made about Chinese seaside towns and the domestic interior. This, in turn, led to some observations about dining—and, therefore, feasting—practices.Finally, Peiresc returned to the aforementioned medallion, whose details now seemed to him to represent just such an honorific feast. But he was especially interested in the practice of indicating the name of God with a single Chinese character, or cipher. This reminded him, he wrote, that the [End Page 676] Basilidian gnostics, as recorded in Epiphanius, represented the god of heaven with the seven Greek vowels AEHIOUY. He... (shrink)

“Comer para viver e não viver para comer”, essa é uma máxima que parece ter percorrido a história do Ocidente. Desde o século XIII a moderação tornou-se um ideal e a renascença trouxe consigo a civilidade das maneiras, transformando a voracidade do comer em uma atitude animalesca. Utilizando como fontes, manuais de civilidade de diferentes épocas, pretende-se analisar preceitos neles contidos sobre ideais de comportamento social e moral diante da comida, e em que medida podemos perceber permanências e transformações de (...) regras em relação ao comedimento e de rejeição da gula à mesa ainda no Brasil do século XX.Dominating its own flesh: gluttony, temperance and table manners in civility handbooks “Eat to live and not live to eat”, this is maximum that seems to be traversed the West history. Since the thirteenth century moderation has become an ideal and the arrival of the renaissance brought with it the civility of manners, transforming the voracity of eating into an animalistic attitude. Using as sources, handbooks of civility from different epochs, we intend to know and analyze precepts contained in them about ideals of social and moral behavior in front of food, as well as to observe to what extent we can perceive permanences and transformations of rules in relation to restraint and rejection of gluttony at the table in twentieth-century Brazil. Resumen Dominando su propia carne: gula, templanza y maneras de mesa en los manuales de civilidad "Comer para vivir y no vivir para comer", esa es una máxima que parece haber recorrido la historia de Occidente. Desde el siglo XIII la moderación se ha convertido en un ideal y el renacimiento ha traído consigo la civilidad de las maneras, transformando la voracidad del comer en una actitud animal. Utilizando como fuentes, manuales de civilidad de diferentes épocas, se pretende analizar preceptos en ellos contenidos sobre ideales de comportamiento social y moral ante la comida, y en qué medida podemos percibir permanencias y transformaciones de reglas en relación al comedimiento y de rechazo de la gula a la en el Brasil del siglo XX. (shrink)

Roots, Cogwheels and Clouds: A Tale of Encounters In her first book The Illusion of Freedom published in 2006 and in The Age of Gluttony published in 2010 Yıldız Silier focused on the notions of freedom and happiness respectively. This last book on justice completes her trilogy. Instead of taking injustices as a discourse on victimization, she focuses on the life experiences of resisting subjects and collates them through semi fictional tales, letters and diaries. The concrete, material foundations of (...) injustices are exposed in the Roots. The Cogwheels, puts forward what happens when the rebellions fail and the Clouds predict what would have happened if the rebellions had succeeded. Through these three axes, the past (the lost possibilities), the present (dystopia) and the future (utopia) are merged. -/- Those that resist the dictator in the country of animals, peasant risings in the 14th century England, women’s rebellion during the witch hunts in the 16th century Italy, 18th century slave riots in the plantations of West Indies and in workers’ rebellion in the 21st century in a Chinese factory that produces tablets and mobile phones; these are the main subjects of these semi fictional tales. In the second part of the book on “the meeting of old class mates” five friends having different political views discuss “what will happen to our country?” and uncompromising conflicts appear. The last part of the book includes three essays on the Gezi rebellion, Pontecorvo’s film Burn and Calvino’s book Invisible Cities. (shrink)

A picture which reflects the contradictions of our era: Glutton adults, who are always bored and constantly demand new toys and hungry children who have grown untimely. Completely different lives in the same world: Those in the display windows and those in the garbage... This picture is the starting point of the Age of Gluttony. -/- Silier who uses a plain and fluent language, starts from a story of Kafka and touches upon the reasons of obedience to authorities, the (...) internal fears that hinder freedom and issues related with the “meaning of life”. She then proceeds by searching answers to new questions: How does the fetishism of happiness encourage individualism and prevent the flourishing of individuality? Taking inspiration from Kant, Marx, Mill and Sartre can we form a conceptual frame for critical and objective ethical values? -/- What are the different accounts of individuality that lay at the foundations of Marx’s goal of overcoming alienation and existentialists’ yearning for authenticity? How does postmodernism confuse different conceptions of “reason” and “progress”, to charge the Enlightenment as guilty for the crimes and devastation caused by capitalism? How were women transformed through history from goddess to pariah by being domesticated? Can motherhood experiences be saved from the oppressive effects of “motherhood ideology” and have a liberating potential? What kind of link exists between narcissistic individuals who relate freedom with the absence of rules and limits and the ideology of consumerism, which redefines gluttony as a virtue? As greedy companies which rule the world shape both consumers and employers in their image, how does the “irrational” system at the basis of “deformed” and alienated individuals become naturalised and invisible? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Environmental Virtue EthicsChristopher Freiman (bio)Environmental Virtue Ethics, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro. New York and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, pp. 240. ISBN 0-7425-3389-1 (hardback), $75.00; ISBN 0-7425-3390-5 (paperback) $28.95.For most of its life, environmental ethics has been the province of consequentialism and deontology. But a growing number of environmental ethicists have found these act-centered theories too thin and limited to attend to the complexity of (...) ecological problems. Some see virtue ethics as promising a richer and more muscular approach to environmental ethics. The new anthology Environmental Virtue Ethics delivers on this promise.The book, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro, features fourteen selections—ten original contributions and four reprints of classic papers. The basic theme of environmental virtue ethics as a theory and Environmental Virtue Ethics as a volume is not that the environment is a bearer of rights or source of intrinsic value, but that an appreciation of nature is an ingredient in a happy and flourishing life. Virtue ethics considers character to be a central ethical concern and a critical part of living well. Rather than ask, as deontologists and utilitarians might, "What should I do?," virtue ethicists ask, "What should I be?"According to the first section of the book, environmental ethicists have implicitly been asking themselves this question for years. The first [End Page 133] two articles form a virtual genealogy of environmental virtue ethics, as Louke van Wensveen and Philip Cafaro examine virtue ethics' hidden role in the development of modern environmental ethics. Cafaro presents an account of historical exemplars of environmental virtue. Wensveen argues that the seeming poverty of "ecological virtue language" is partly due to environmental ethics' evolution within a specific cultural niche. Environmental ethics traditionally grappled with questions of practical political and legal import. As a result, the discipline adapted to the problems of rights and costs and benefits rather than character and human flourishing. Wensveen quips, "I imagine that appealing to a chemical company's love of nature in a court of law would be as effective as appealing to an ex-spouse's love of his or her children in a child custody case" (17). Nonetheless, Wensveen chronicles how virtue language has crept, largely unnoticed, into the environmental ethical dialogue.The second part focuses on the theoretical dimensions of environmental virtue ethics. The authors explore the ways in which virtue ethics can offer a fresh perspective on perennial environmental ethical questions. Thomas Hill's seminal "Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments" is a welcome inclusion. Hill inspires the movement to environmental virtue theorizing when he advises us to ask not simply, "What interests or rights are at stake when one destroys the natural environment?" but also, "What sort of person would do such a thing?" Indeed, we might view this entire volume as an extended attempt to answer to Hill's question.The next part of the book investigates the problems of defining environmental virtue and distinguishing it from anthropocentric virtue. The fourth and final section applies environmental virtue theory to specific ecological problems. The two articles, written by Peter Wenz and Ronald Sandler, use the virtue ethical framework to interrogate the morality of consumerism and genetically modified crops, respectively. This final section helps to allay an enduring criticism of virtue ethics as a whole: that it cannot be applied to real world problems. Sandler's piece in particular profitably uses the tools of virtue ethics to critically reflect upon both the moral problems raised by genetically modified crops and their proposed resolutions.The role of enlightened self-interest in environmental ethics is a recurrent theme. Against a public dialogue that pits human interests and [End Page 134] ecological interests in conflict, this book is refreshing reminder that human flourishing and ecological flourishing are not enemies. Human interests, properly understood, are in harmony with the interests of the environment. We ought to view our relationship with nature as positive-sum.This positive-sum outlook permeates Philip Cafaro's piece, "Gluttony, Arrogance, Greed, and Apathy: An Exploration of Environmental Vice." Cafaro forcefully argues that the vices that hinder human flourishing also hinder... (shrink)

For over a century before the establishment of English vernacular religious drama in cities of the north, there was a concerted effort by the papacy and episcopacy to eradicate or rechannel lay and clerical ludi that struck the establishment as more conducive to lechery, gluttony, and the mocking of sacred things than to worshipful remembrance of Christ's sacrifice or to meditation on man's lamentable condition. However, legislating a distinction between appropriate and inappropriate ludi was not easy. When Innocent III (...) sought to ban ludi theatrales among his clergy, his edict had to be glossed to assure religious communities that the pope did not oppose the decorous representation of certain topics — the story of Rachel, the Three Kings, and Herod. Since some of these ludi took place within monastic and other religious houses, not all the participants thought them objectionable, but English bishops, particularly Grosseteste and Grandisson, tried to put down raucous and inappropriate ludi — some of which they called miracula — whether they occurred within religious houses or among the laity. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The First Noel: Christmas's Pre‐Christian Origins “Do they know it's Christmastime at all?” What Should Naturalists Do At Christmas? Why Deck the Halls? The Importance of Ritual When I Was Small I Believed in Santa Claus, Though I Knew it Was Dad: Why Belief is Not Important Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire: What Christmas is All About That Spirit of Christmas: Christmas's Secular Humanism Festivus for the Rest of Us.

Much attention in the recent resurgence of interest in virtue ethics has been paid to the virtues. At the same time, however, comparatively little has been written about vices. In Deadly Vices, Gabriele Taylor aims to remedy this by offering a detailed discussion of the vices that are traditionally labeled the seven deadly sins: sloth, envy, avarice, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony. Among her central claims about them is that they are each focused primarily on the self, and that (...) they lead to self-destruction and inhibit our flourishing in ways that we can understand without having to appeal to an objective account of flourishing. Taylor takes her conclusions to “offer at least negative support for some central claims of an Aristotelian-type virtue-theory” (p. 1). (shrink)

У статті викладені особливості харчування англійського пізньосередньовічного бюргерства. На основі аналізу наративних і документальних джерел висвітлено асортимент страв та режим харчування міщан, регламентацію споживання харчів з боку світської та церковної влади. Автор доходить висновку про істотне урізноманітнення раціону харчування англійських бюргерів протягом XIV-XV ст., а також про поступове послаблення впливу релігійних приписів на раціон харчування.

Paul Grice seems to have led a quintessentially academic life — a life spent jotting notes, giving lectures, reading, talking, and arguing with his past self and with others. In virtue of his age and station, he remained largely at the fringes of the great battles of his day — World War II and the clash of the positivists with the ordinary language group. There are no grand family tensions `a la Russell, nor any deep psychoses `a la Wittgenstein. Just (...) obstinacy, unfashionable dress, cricket, and periods of gluttony. It is not the usual stuff of high drama. But Siobhan Chapman’s biography Paul Grice: Philosopher and Linguist tells a compelling story. It’s a story of surprising influences and gradual intellectual evolution. And it is well timed from the linguist’s perspective. Now more than ever, the boundaries of conversational implicatures, Grice’s most important designation, are being redrawn. It is illuminating to return to their sources and track their development. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Environmental Virtue EthicsChristopher Freiman (bio)Environmental Virtue Ethics, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro. New York and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, pp. 240. ISBN 0-7425-3389-1 (hardback), $75.00; ISBN 0-7425-3390-5 (paperback) $28.95.For most of its life, environmental ethics has been the province of consequentialism and deontology. But a growing number of environmental ethicists have found these act-centered theories too thin and limited to attend to the complexity of (...) ecological problems. Some see virtue ethics as promising a richer and more muscular approach to environmental ethics. The new anthology Environmental Virtue Ethics delivers on this promise.The book, edited by Ronald Sandler and Philip Cafaro, features fourteen selections—ten original contributions and four reprints of classic papers. The basic theme of environmental virtue ethics as a theory and Environmental Virtue Ethics as a volume is not that the environment is a bearer of rights or source of intrinsic value, but that an appreciation of nature is an ingredient in a happy and flourishing life. Virtue ethics considers character to be a central ethical concern and a critical part of living well. Rather than ask, as deontologists and utilitarians might, "What should I do?," virtue ethicists ask, "What should I be?"According to the first section of the book, environmental ethicists have implicitly been asking themselves this question for years. The first [End Page 133] two articles form a virtual genealogy of environmental virtue ethics, as Louke van Wensveen and Philip Cafaro examine virtue ethics' hidden role in the development of modern environmental ethics. Cafaro presents an account of historical exemplars of environmental virtue. Wensveen argues that the seeming poverty of "ecological virtue language" is partly due to environmental ethics' evolution within a specific cultural niche. Environmental ethics traditionally grappled with questions of practical political and legal import. As a result, the discipline adapted to the problems of rights and costs and benefits rather than character and human flourishing. Wensveen quips, "I imagine that appealing to a chemical company's love of nature in a court of law would be as effective as appealing to an ex-spouse's love of his or her children in a child custody case" (17). Nonetheless, Wensveen chronicles how virtue language has crept, largely unnoticed, into the environmental ethical dialogue.The second part focuses on the theoretical dimensions of environmental virtue ethics. The authors explore the ways in which virtue ethics can offer a fresh perspective on perennial environmental ethical questions. Thomas Hill's seminal "Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments" is a welcome inclusion. Hill inspires the movement to environmental virtue theorizing when he advises us to ask not simply, "What interests or rights are at stake when one destroys the natural environment?" but also, "What sort of person would do such a thing?" Indeed, we might view this entire volume as an extended attempt to answer to Hill's question.The next part of the book investigates the problems of defining environmental virtue and distinguishing it from anthropocentric virtue. The fourth and final section applies environmental virtue theory to specific ecological problems. The two articles, written by Peter Wenz and Ronald Sandler, use the virtue ethical framework to interrogate the morality of consumerism and genetically modified crops, respectively. This final section helps to allay an enduring criticism of virtue ethics as a whole: that it cannot be applied to real world problems. Sandler's piece in particular profitably uses the tools of virtue ethics to critically reflect upon both the moral problems raised by genetically modified crops and their proposed resolutions.The role of enlightened self-interest in environmental ethics is a recurrent theme. Against a public dialogue that pits human interests and [End Page 134] ecological interests in conflict, this book is refreshing reminder that human flourishing and ecological flourishing are not enemies. Human interests, properly understood, are in harmony with the interests of the environment. We ought to view our relationship with nature as positive-sum.This positive-sum outlook permeates Philip Cafaro's piece, "Gluttony, Arrogance, Greed, and Apathy: An Exploration of Environmental Vice." Cafaro forcefully argues that the vices that hinder human flourishing also hinder... (shrink)