In punishment, proportionality is the systematic mathematical relationship between the significance of the wrongdoing and the amount of punishment that may be imposed on the wrongdoer. In this chapter, Kershnar argues that there is no adequate equation for proportionality. The lack of an adequate equation rests on intuitions and the absence of a shared metric. If there is no equation for proportionality, then there is no proportionality. This is because if there is no equation for proportionality, then there is no (...) general justification for proportionality. Purported justifications of punishment that lack proportionality—specifically, consequentialism and consent theory—are implausible. The lack of proportionality, then, is a threat to the notion that some punishment is justified and, more generally, non-consequentialism. (shrink)

Proportionality matters. Intuitively, proportionality sets the ceiling on the amount of defensive violence that is permissible. A plausible view is that what justifies proportionality also justifies other defensive-violence requirements—for example, discrimination and necessity—and shows why other purported requirements are mistaken—for example, imminence. I argue that if defensive-violence proportionality is a part of moral reality, then there is a systematic justification of it. If there is a systematic justification of proportionality, then there is an adequate equation for it. There is no (...) adequate equation for proportionality. Hence, proportionality is not part of moral reality. As a result, non-consequentialism does not justify defensive violence. The last part of this paper briefly applies these findings to vaccine mandates. (shrink)

Deciding the conflict between various rights and interests, especially in medical ethics where health and lives are in question, has significant challenges, and to obtain appropriate outcomes, it is necessary to properly apply the principles of non-discrimination and proportionality. Using the example of mandatory vaccination policies, we show that this task becomes even more difficult when these principles lead us to counterintuitive and paradoxical results. Although the general purpose of these principles is to ensure that decisions and policies seek the (...) highest and broadest possible enjoyment of rights for all (ie, the least restrictive solution), they achieve the complete opposite when applied to mandatory vaccination policies. To highlight and explain these paradoxical results, we present a typology of fifteen hypothetical mandatory vaccination policies containing various degrees of restriction and apply well-established non-discrimination and proportionality tests from constitutional law to each. We argue that mandatory vaccination policies exhibit two characteristics, namely the non-linear relationship between their general purposes and specific goals and the involvement of life and health, suggesting that more restrictive policies should prevail even though less restrictive policies might fail these tests. Using clearly structured and rigorous methodology from constitutional law, the proposed approach delivers a fresh view on the core ethical principles of non-discrimination and proportionality and a potentially useful tool in helping resolve also other challenges encountered in medical ethics beyond mandatory vaccination policies. (shrink)

Just war theory requires that a nation at war respect proportionality both before it goes to war, jus ad bellum, and in the way it fights a war, jus in bello. To respect proportionality is to know or estimate on good evidence that the whole war and the tactics used in the war will not generate more evil and harm and costs than they will generate good and help and benefits. This paper argues that the 2003–2004 U.S. war on Iraq (...) fails on both counts. It considers, in regard to jus ad bellum, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on the Iraqi military and civilians, the American military, and American and non-Iraqi civilians. It considers, under jus in bello, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on Iraqi civilians. On the proportionality standards for a just war, this war is a miserable failure. (shrink)

With a focus on the Common Law jurisdiction of England and Wales and the Civil Law jurisdiction of Vietnam, this article provides an analytical framework to address the uncertain jurisprudence of minor offence processes. The article’s approach is to seek an account of crime and criminal process that is most suitable for practice and most compatible with the broad notion of ‘criminal charge’ under international human rights instruments. It is argued that minor offences should be considered forms of less serious (...) crimes that are subject to short periods of imprisonment or non-custodial punishments and dealt with by summary procedures. The fragmentation of minor offences demands an approach to procedural pragmatism and procedural proportionality; that is, the procedure for each type of offence should be proportionate to the severity of punishment and fair as a whole. (shrink)

Political egalitarians tend to defend equal distributions of voting power at specific times, as in ‘one election, one vote’. Appealing as it is, the principle seems incompatible with distributing power proportionally to the stakes voters have at different elections, as in ‘one stake, one vote’. This article argues that the tension above stems from the temporal scope ascribed to political equality, as at specific moments of democratic decision-making instead of over entire lives. More specifically, ascribing a lifetime view to political (...) equality renders equality compatible with proportionality at different elections. I first show that storable votes differ from standard votes in their distinctive commitment to lifetime political equality. I then argue that storable voting schemes are compatible with three key reasons to value political equality: equal consideration of interests, relational equality, and non-domination. Finally, storable votes are also consistent with proportionality at specific times. I conclude that the neglected idea of lifetime political equality can, through storable votes, deliver proportionality without inequality. (shrink)

Which harms and benefits should be viewed as relevant when considering whether to launch cyber-measures? In this article, we consider this question, which matters because it is central to determining whether cyber-measures should be launched. Several just war theorists hold a version of what we call the ‘Restrictive View’, according to which there are restrictions on the sorts of harms and benefits that should be included in proportionality assessments about the justifiability of going to war (whether cyber or kinetic). We (...) discuss two such views – the Just Cause Restrictive View and Rights-based Restrictive View – and find both wanting. By contrast, we defend what we call the ‘Permissive View’. This holds that all potential goods and bads should be included in proportionality decisions about cyber-measures, even those that appear to be trivial, and where the various harms and benefits are given different weights, according to their agent-relative and agent-neutral features. We argue further that accepting the Permissive View has broader implications for the ethical frameworks governing cyberwar, both in terms of whether cyberattack provide just cause for coercive responses, including kinetic warfare and cyber-responses, and whether cyber-measures should be governed by just war theory or a new theory for cyber-operations. (shrink)

Just war theory requires that a nation at war respect proportionality both before it goes to war, jus ad bellum, and in the way it fights a war, jus in bello. To respect proportionality is to know or estimate on good evidence that the whole war and the tactics used in the war will not generate more evil and harm and costs than they will generate good and help and benefits. This paper argues that the 2003–2004 U.S. war on Iraq (...) fails on both counts. It considers, in regard to jus ad bellum, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on the Iraqi military and civilians, the American military, and American and non-Iraqi civilians. It considers, under jus in bello, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on Iraqi civilians. On the proportionality standards for a just war, this war is a miserable failure. (shrink)

Just war theory requires that a nation at war respect proportionality both before it goes to war, jus ad bellum, and in the way it fights a war, jus in bello. To respect proportionality is to know or estimate on good evidence that the whole war and the tactics used in the war will not generate more evil and harm and costs than they will generate good and help and benefits. This paper argues that the 2003–2004 U.S. war on Iraq (...) fails on both counts. It considers, in regard to jus ad bellum, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on the Iraqi military and civilians, the American military, and American and non-Iraqi civilians. It considers, under jus in bello, the evils, harms, and costs that the war forces on Iraqi civilians. On the proportionality standards for a just war, this war is a miserable failure. (shrink)

This article seeks to address the manner in which we should conceptualise the duties of directors in making decisions where fundamental rights are at stake. We first attempt to show that, in making decisions that implicate fundamental rights, directors are required to consider all individuals affected as having an intrinsic dignity. The interests of non-shareholders must thus be addressed in a non-instrumental manner which, we argue, is only compatible with the adoption of a ‘stakeholder’ conception of directors’ duties. Adopting such (...) an approach, however, raises the difficulty of how directors are to balance multiple intrinsically valuable interests. We argue that the doctrine of proportionality—which has been developed in fundamental rights law as a structured enquiry concerning the circumstances in which it is justifiable to limit rights—can be adapted to the domain of corporate decision-making. The proportionality enquiry provides a transparent, structured process of reasoning that can aid corporate decision-making and open up the possibility for reviewing decisions of directors that affect the fundamental rights of individuals. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the content of the causal proportionality constraint. It investigates two general versions of the constraint, namely “horizontal” and “vertical” proportionality. Moreover, it discusses whether proportionality is considered an ontic or an epistemic, i.e. explanatory, constraint on causation in the context of some of the most prominent theories of causation. The following main claims are defended: (1) The horizontal (HP) and the vertical version (VP) of the proportionality constraint are logically independent. (2) HP is implied by (...) some prominent theories of causation, not by others. (3) None of the discussed popular theories of causation contradicts either HP or VP. (4) HP and VP are not ontic or epistemic principles as such; rather, whether they are ontic or epistemic depends on the theories chosen plus background assumptions about the existence of higher-level causes and their non-identity to lower-level ones. (shrink)

‘Retributivism’ covers a wide range of theories which, even though they differ in various ways, all give some room for proportionality considerations with regard to the question of how severely offenders should be punished. This article addresses the question—well‐known from traditional ethical theory—as to whether proportionality constraints should be given an absolutist or a non‐absolutist interpretation. It is argued that both absolutist and some non‐absolutist accounts of proportionality constraints have counter‐intuitive implications and, more generally, that the non‐absolutist interpretation, to which (...) most retributivists seem to subscribe, faces serious challenges with regard to how the thresholds of such constraints should be determined. It is concluded that, given the aspiration of providing genuine action guidance for penal practice, the retributivist faces a dilemma that is not easily resolved. (shrink)

Efforts to apply the principle of proportionality to criminal sentences are notoriously problematic. But even though they are daunting, only a few legal philosophers believe we should give up trying to do so. Perhaps we can make progress overcoming some of the many legal difficulties by attending to how the principle is applied in non-legal contexts—that is, in contexts I call personal life. Proportionality, I believe, is an attractive principle in penal sentencing because it is an attractive principle in ordinary (...) situations in which persons are sanctioned for wrongdoing. I briefly mention several familiar non-legal contexts in which sanctions have recently been imposed on celebrities or public figures for real or perceived wrongdoing. My hope is that sensitivity to how the principle of proportionality is interpreted in these contexts might facilitate efforts to apply this principle to sentencing domains. At first glance, proportionality as applied in non-legal contexts appears to differ from its penal analogue. I describe some of these alleged differences. Among the foremost is that judgments of proportionality in personal life often respond to how the transgressor has behaved apart from the particular incident that has attracted media attention. Penal sanctions, by contrast, are said to be imposed only for the particular crime charged. I argue that this difference is more apparent than real. I conclude that we can reach a few modest insights about how to apply the principle of proportionality in criminal sentencing by attending to its counterpart in personal life. (shrink)

The principle of proportionality is used in many different contexts. Some of these uses and contexts are first briefly indicated. This paper focusses on the use of this principle as a moral principle. I argue that under certain conditions the principle of proportionality is helpful as a guide in decision-making. But it needs to be clarified and to be used with some flexibility as a context-dependent principle. Several interpretations of the principle are distinguished, using three conditions as a starting point: (...) importance of objective, relevance of means, and most favourable option. The principle is then tested against an example, which suggests that a fourth condition, focusing on non-excessiveness, needs to be added. I will distinguish between three main interpretations of the principle, some primarily with uses in research ethics, others with uses in other areas of bioethics, for instance in comparisons of therapeutic means and ends. The relations between the principle of proportionality and the precautionary principle are explored in the following section. It is concluded that the principles are different and may even clash. In the next section the principle of proportionality is applied to some medical examples drawn from research ethics and bioethics. In concluding, the status of the principle of proportionality as a moral principle is discussed. What has been achieved so far and what remains to be done is finally summarized. (shrink)

When it comes to the question of how much the state ought to punish a given offender, the standard understanding of the desert theory for centuries has been that it should give him a penalty proportionate to his offense, that is, an amount of punishment that fits the severity of his crime. In this article, part of a special issue on the geometry of desert, we maintain that a desert theorist is not conceptually or otherwise required to hold a proportionality (...) requirement. We show that there is logical space for at least two other, non-proportionate ways of meting out deserved penalties, and we also argue that they have important advantages relative to the dominant, proportionality approach. (shrink)

A nation commits mitigated aggression by threatening to kill the citizens of a victim nation if and only if they do not submit to being ruled in a non-egregiously oppressive way. Such aggression primarily threatens a nation’s common way of life . According to David Rodin, a war against mitigated aggression is automatically disproportionate, as the right of lethal self-defense only extends to protecting against being killed or enslaved. Two strategies have been adopted in response to Rodin. The first strategy (...) grants that CWL is insufficiently valuable to lethally defend, however, other considerations can satisfy the proportionality requirement. I argue that this strategy is not persuasive. The second strategy argues for the sufficient value of CWL. This, however, fails to answer the forceful ‘benign dictator’ objection. I respond to this objection by grounding the proportionality of a defensive war in the value of what Phillip Pettit calls ‘anti-power’. (shrink)

In this article, we critically scrutinize the principle of proportionality when used in the context of security and government surveillance. We argue that McMahan’s distinction from just warfare between narrow proportionality and wide proportionality can generally apply to the context of surveillance. We argue that narrow proportionality applies more or less directly to cases in which the surveilled is liable and that the wide proportionality principle applies to cases characterized by ‘collateral intrusion’. We argue, however, that a more demanding criterion (...) than the lesser-evil justification that wide proportionality frequently entails is necessary in cases characterized by intentional intrusion upon non-liable individuals. The distinction between foreseeing and intending intrusion into the lives of individuals who are not liable has not previously been specifically addressed in discussions concerning surveillance ethics. This specification is thus increasingly important due to the general growing tendency for adherence to the precautionary principle and policies aimed at anticipating criminal acts before they are committed. Preventive surveillance of non-liable actors is considered an important instrument for obtaining this aim and thus calls for moral scrutiny in terms of permissibility and proportionality. We suggest the concept ‘wide proportionality +’ which applies to cases of intentional intrusion of non-liable individuals. (shrink)

The interventionist account of causation offers a criterion to distinguish causes from non-causes. It also aims at defining various desirable properties of causal relationships, such as specificity, proportionality and stability. Here we apply an information-theoretic approach to these properties. We show that the interventionist criterion of causation is formally equivalent to non-zero specificity, and that there are natural, information-theoretic ways to explicate the distinction between potential and actual causal influence. We explicate the idea that the description of causes should be (...) proportional to that of their effects. Then we draw a distinction between two ideas in the existing literature, the range of invariance of a causal relationship and its stability. The range of invariance is related to specificity and range of causal values. Stability concerns the effect of additional variables on the relationship between some focal pair of cause and effect variables. We show how to distinguish and measure the direct influence of background variables on the effect variable, and their influence on the relationship between the focal cause and the effect variable. Finally, we discuss the limitations of the information-theoretic approach, and offer prospects for complementary approaches. (shrink)

What is it for an event not to occur? This is an urgent, yet under explored, question for counterfactual analyses of causation quite generally. In this paper I take a lead from Lewis in identifying two different possible standards of non-occurrence that we might adopt and I argue that we need to apply them asymmetrically: one standard for the cause, another for the effect. This is a surprising result. I then offer a contextualist refinement of the Lewis approach in light (...) of initial problems, and discuss how the asymmetry remained hidden until now. I then relate the non-occurrence problem to issues of transitivity and proportionality in causation, before showing that a parallel problem exists for contrastivist and interventionist approaches to causation too. (shrink)

Most contemporary conflicts can be characterized as ‘wars or conflicts amongst the people’. International military forces deployed in such conflicts are confronted with complex operational environments where the distinction between combatants and non-combatants is often impossible to make. At the same time, there is a moral requirement imposed on Western coalition forces to perform in a humane manner and to keep casualties to a minimum. Non-lethal weapons are expected to enable military forces to accomplish their mission without having to kill (...) or destroy. The extent to which these weapons meet that promise in real world conditions is the subject of debate. A defence technology assessment of non-lethal weapons is proposed that validates their utility and moral implications by considering the user, the weapon and the target in the context of the deployment situation. It will be illustrated that the technical parameters of the non-lethal weapons are no guarantee that the weapons will perform as intended as the user and target introduce many factors of uncertainty in real world situations. Although such uncertainties undermine the moral acceptability of non-lethal weapons, it is argued that the principle of non-lethality is compliant with the Just War Tradition principle of proportionality. The principles of non-combatant immunity and discrimination need to be re-calibrated given the human-centricity of many military intervention operations. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that recourse to war is justifiable only as a last resort. If a situation can be resolved by less harmful means, then war is unjust. It is also commonly accepted that violent actions in war should be necessary and proportionate. Violent actions in war are unjust if the end towards which those actions are means can be achieved by less harmful means. In this article, I argue that satisfaction of the last resort criterion depends in part (...) upon the likelihood of success of non-violent alternatives to war, and that the actual and potential effectiveness of non-violent resistance means that the last resort criterion of the jus ad bellum and the proportionality criterion of the jus in bello are harder to satisfy than is often presumed. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an analytical and normative framework to re-visit the question of whether state parties should derogate from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to combat the COVID-19 pandemic via harsh ‘lockdown’ measures. It is three-pronged. First, I show that the predominant debate on the (non-)derogation question is informed by a textual approach to adjudication, which severely limits the analytical and evaluative horizon for addressing the issue. Most importantly, it cannot address one salient fact (...) about the effects of lockdown measures, namely their highly disproportionate effects on vulnerable groups and minorities. Second, I argue that proportionality assessment should be the basis for determining whether state parties ought to derogate or not. This is because proportionality’s very purpose is in part to track the effects of state interferences on minorities and vulnerable groups by measuring the disproportionate burden imposed on them. It is also because proportionality assessment has very different requirements between limitation clauses built into the relevant Convention articles (e.g. Article 5, Articles 8–11) and the derogation clause (Article 15) under the ECHR. Surprisingly, while the emerging literature almost always mentions proportionality as an important component of the analysis, it does not investigate the extent to which each regime (derogation or limitation) better performs it, and why. Third, I draw from the philosophical literature on the ‘right to justification’ to clarify the egalitarian and justificatory function of proportionality. Unlike derogation, limitation clauses have a much higher and systematic requirement of justification, which makes the case for non-derogation clearer and stronger. (shrink)

Michael Ridge At one point in England it was a capital offense to “appear on a high road with a sooty face.”1 I do not know whether anyone was executed for this offense, but many people were sent to Australian penal colonies for such petty crimes as stealing a handkerchief. More recently, Kenneth Payne was sentenced to 16 years in prison for stealing a Snickers Bar in Texas. When the Assistant District Attorney in this case was asked how she could (...) justify putting a man in prison for 16 years for stealing a candy bar she replied, “It was a king size,” and indeed it was – value, $1.00.2 These punishments are vulnerable to many criticisms but the most obvious is that they do not fit the crime. Unfortunately, the idea that the punishment should fit the crime is as difficult to characterize precisely as it is plausible. The doctrine of lex talonis embodied in the slogan “an eye for an eye” provides the most obvious answer to this question but it has the unfortunate vice of being false. In some cases the problems with lex talonis are moral ones – we would debase ourselves if we were literally to rape rapists. In other cases the problems are conceptual – taken literally, the theory seems to have no intelligible application for a crime like treason, for example. These problems are familiar and defenders of lex talonis typically qualify the doctrine in ways that are supposed to avoid them. However these qualifications typically are either ad hoc or too metaphorical to be helpful. Intriguingly, Michael Davis argues that we can formulate a more precise and non-metaphorical account of proportionality by.. (shrink)

Oppressive governments that use violence against citizens, e.g. murder and torture, are usually thought of as liable to armed revolutionary attack by the oppressed population. But oppression may be non-violent. A government may greatly restrict political rights and personal autonomy by using surveillance, propaganda, manipulation, strategic detention and similar techniques without ever resorting to overt violence. Can such regimes be liable to revolutionary attack? A widespread view is that the answer is ‘no’. On this view, unless a government is or (...) is likely to turn violent, revolution against it is disproportional. After all, revolution would involve launching potentially lethal attacks against oppressors who do not threaten the lives and bodily integrity of their subjects but pose only lesser threats. I argue that this claim of disproportionality is false. Armed revolution against Stably Non-violent Oppressive Regimes can be proportional under some circumstances, thus they may be liable to revolutionary attack. My argument relies on the Responsibility-Sensitive Account of Proportionality. This account holds that responsibility for posing threats renders agents liable to greater defensive harms than the harms with which they threaten. Even if non-violent oppressive regimes do not threaten citizens with murder, serious physical injury, or enslavement, their responsibility for creating an environment in which citizens’ political rights and personal autonomy are extremely restricted may loosen the proportionality requirement of inflicting defensive harm and render them liable to revolutionary attack. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The exclusion problem is meant to show that non-reductive physicalism leads to epiphenomenalism: if mental properties are not identical with physical properties, then they are not causally efficacious. Defenders of a difference-making account of causation suggest that the exclusion problem can be solved because mental properties can be difference-making causes of physical effects. Here, we focus on what we dub an incompatibilist implementation of this general strategy and argue against it from a non-reductive physicalist perspective. Specifically, we argue that (...) incompatibilism undermines either the non-reductionist or the physicalist aspirations of non-reductive physicalism. (shrink)

A study of the constitution and development of the human being from the metaphysical point of view, with special reference to Vedantic doctrine.

Prominent Kantian scholars, such as Korsgaard and Waldron, claim that the very existence of juridical-political institutions is sufficient to render laws authoritative. Critics argue that this view is unpersuasive as it requires subjects to obey grossly unjust laws. Here, I identify two problems facing scholars who reject the absolutist view of political authority proffered by Korsgaard and Waldron. First, when there is reasonable disagreement regarding a law’s legitimacy the Principle of Right generates contradictory obligations as it commands both disobedience and (...) compliance. In clarifying this problem, I argue that individuals must disobey illegitimate laws where this requirement is co-extensive with the duty to leave the state of nature. However, disobedience amounts to domination when individuals are subjected to private judgments regarding the conditions of freedom. The Principle of Right cannot overcome this impasse as it does not offer reasons in favor of compliance that are distinct from those reasons legitimating the law. To address this issue, I supplement Kant’s account with Joseph Raz’s ‘service conception’ of authority to show that compliance can be rendered compatible with the Principle of Right. A second problem emerges when laws are blatantly illegitimate such that obedience cannot be justified. In these cases, the Principle of Right cannot guide legislative reform in an intuitively appealing way as it fails to address considerations of proportionality. Though this latter problem is not resolved here, identifying it helps to further clarify the relationship between Kant’s moral and political principles. (shrink)

We are unlikely to stop seeking pleasure, as this would prejudice our health and well-being. Yet many psychoactive substances providing pleasure are outlawed as illicit recreational drugs, despite the fact that only some of them are addictive to some people. Efforts to redress their prohibition, or to reform legislation so that penalties are proportionate to harm have largely failed. Yet, if choices over seeking pleasure are ethical insofar as they avoid harm to oneself or others, public health strategies should foster (...) ethical choice by moving beyond current risk management practices embodied in the harm reduction movement. The neuroscience of pleasure has much to offer neuroethics and public health strategies. Distinguishing between ‘wanting’ and ‘liking’ fosters new understandings of addiction. These hold promise for directing the search for pharmacotherapies which prevent addiction and relapse or disrupt associated neuromechanisms. They could inform new research into creating lawful psychoactive substances which give us pleasure without provoking addiction. As the health and well being of human and other animals rests upon the experience of pleasure, this would be an ethical objective within public health strategy. Were ethical and neurobiological obstacles to ending addiction to be overcome, problems associated with excessive consumption, the lure of unlawful psychoactive substances and the paucity of lawful means to achieve pleasurable altered states would remain. Non-addictive designer drugs, which reliably provided lawful access to pleasures and altered states, would ameliorate these public health concerns insofar as they fostered citizens’ informed, ethical choices according to a neurobiological taxonomy of pleasures. (shrink)

The Reign of Quantity gives a concise but comprehensive view of the present state of affairs in the world, as it appears from the point of view of the 'ancient wisdom', formerly common both to the East and to the West, but now almost entirely lost sight of. The author indicates with his fabled clarity and directness the precise nature of the modern deviation, and devotes special attention to the development of modern philosophy and science, and to the part played (...) by them, with their accompanying notions of progress and evolution, in the formation of the industrial and democratic society which we now regard as 'normal'. Guénon sees history as a descent from Form (or Quality) toward Matter (or Quantity); but after the Reign of Quantity-modern materialism and the 'rise of the masses'-Guénon predicts a reign of 'inverted quality' just before the end of the age: the triumph of the 'counter-initiation', the kingdom of Antichrist. This text is considered the magnum opus among Guénon's texts of civilizational criticism, as is Symbols of Sacred Science among his studies on symbols and cosmology, and Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta among his more purely metaphysical works. (shrink)

Description: Contents: Preface 1. General Remarks on the Vedanta 2. Fundamental Distinction Between The Self and the Ego 3. The Vital Centre of the Human Being, Seat of Brahma 4. Purusha and Prakriti 5. Purusha Unaffected by Individual Modifications 6. The Degrees of Individual Manifestation 7. Buddhi or the Higher Intellect 8. Manas or the Inward Sense : The Ten External Faculties of Sensation and Action 9. The Envelopes of the Self ; The Five Vayus or Vital Functions 10. The (...) Essential Unity and Identity of the Self in all the States of the Being 11. The Different Conditions of Atma in the Human Being 12. The Waking State or the Condition of Vaishwanara 13. The Dream State or the Condition of Taijasa 14. The State of Deep Sleep or the Condition of Prajna 15. The Unconditioned State of Atma 16. The Symbolical Representation of Atma and its Conditions by the Sacred Monosyllable Om 17. The Posthumous Evolution of the Human Being 18. The Reabsorption of the Individual Faculties 19. Differences in the Posthumous Conditions According to the Degrees of Knowledge 20. The Coronal Artery and the Solar Ray 21. The Divine Journey of the Being on the Path of Liberation 22. Final Deliverance 23. Videha-mukti and Jivana-mukti 24. The Spiritual State of the Yogi : The Supreme Identity. (shrink)

QUALITY AND QUANTITY are fairly generally regarded as complementary terms, although the profound reason for their comple- mentarism is often far from being understood, this reason lying in the 'polar' correspondence referred to toward ...

The concluding chapter lays down the essential conditions for any genuine understanding between East and West, which can only come through the work of those who have attained, at least in some degree, to the realization of 'wisdom uncreate' ...

Buddhist concepts of personal life and responsibilities.