In Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision, theologian David Wells argues that the Church is in danger of losing its moral authority to speak to a culture whose moral fabric is torn. Although much of the Church has enjoyed success and growth over the past years, Wells laments a "hollowing out of evangelical conviction, a loss of the biblical word in its authoritative function, and an erosion of character to the point that today, no discernible (...) ethical differences are evident in behavior when those claiming to have been reborn and secularists are compared." The assurance of the Good News of the gospel has been traded for mere good feelings, truth has given way to perception, and morality has slid into personal preference. Losing Our Virtue is about the disintegrating moral culture that is contemporary society and what this disturbing loss means for the church. Wells covers the following in this bold critique: how the theologically emptied spirituality of the church is causing it to lose its moral bearings; an exploration of the wider dynamic at work in contemporary society between license and law; an exposition of the secular notion of salvation as heralded by our most trusted gurus -- advertisers and psychotherapists; a discussion of the contemporary view of the self; how guilt and sin have been replaced by empty psychological shame; an examination of the contradiction between the way we view ourselves in the midst of our own culture and the biblical view of persons as created, moral beings. Can the church still speak effectively to a culture that has become morally unraveled? Wells believes it can. In fact, says Wells, no time in this century has been more opportune for the Christian faith -- if the church can muster the courage to regain its moral weight and become a missionary of truth once more to a foundering world. - Publisher. (shrink)

The subject of this article is the Rawlsian right to personal property. Adequate discussion of this right has long been absent from the literature, and the recent rise in interest in other areas of Rawlsian thought on property makes the issue particularly pertinent. The right to personal property as proposed by orthodox Rawlsians – in this article, the position is represented by Rawls himself – is best understood, I claim, either as a right to be able to privately (...) own housing and personal items or as a right to actually own these things. I argue, however, that the resources of a Rawlsian theory cannot justify a basic right to property which is as extensive as this. Instead, what can be justified is a more limited set of rights, comparable with the rights we have over objects that we rent. Rawlsian justice, then, has a more radical implications in terms of basic property rights than has previously been thought. (shrink)

This book covers the author's conception of God aside from any religion. He does not come from a religious view in order to transmit the truest conception of God that he is capable of because any religion, whatever it might be, always claims God for itself in an exclusionary fashion. In other words, you must be a follower of the chosen faith before God will accept you into his kingdom. Wells rejects this view. Any man or woman who accepts God's (...) love as one person connecting to their own creator, is fine. An intermediary, despite what they might crow from whatever pulpits they use, is not necessary. We are all God's children. We are all seeking the same God, so to be dogmatic within a certain exclusionary faith is small-minded and petty. If you want to grow up, spiritually, then this book is for you. (shrink)

Over the last 30 years the Indian philosopher-economist Amartya Sen has developed an original normative approach to the evaluation of individual and social well-being. The foundational concern of this ‘capability approach’ is the real freedom of individuals to achieve the kind of lives they have reason to value. This freedom is analysed in terms of an individual’s ‘capability’ to achieve combinations of such intrinsically valuable ‘beings and doings’ (‘functionings’) as being sufficiently nourished and freely expressing one’s political (...) views. In this account, ‘development’ is conceived as the expansion of individuals’ capability, and thus as a concept that goes beyond the economic growth of third world countries. My thesis is a philosophical examination of Sen’s capability approach. In the first part (chapters 1-3) I present and defend my interpretation of Sen’s work. (shrink)

Human development is meant to be transformational in that it aims to improve people's lives by enhancing their capabilities. But who does it target: people as they are or the people they will become? This paper argues that the human development approach relies on an understanding of personal identity as dynamic rather than as static collections of preferences, and that this distinguishes human development from conventional approaches to development. Nevertheless, this dynamic understanding of personal identity is presently poorly (...) conceptualized and this has implications for development practice. We identify a danger of paternalism and propose institutionalizing two procedural principles as side constraints on development policies and projects: the principle of free prior informed consent and the principle of democratic development. -/- . (shrink)

It should be evident from the foregoing discussion that one man's natural selection is not necessarily the same as another man's. Why should this be so? How can two theories, which both Matthew and Darwin believed to be nearly identical, be so dissimilar? Apparently, neither Matthew nor Darwin understood the other's theory. Each man's viewpoint was colored by his own intellectual background and philosophical assumptions, and each read these into the other's ideas. The words sounded the same, so they assumed (...) the concepts must als be the same.123As Ghiselin has pointed out, historians attempting to evaluate Darwin's predecessors have been similarly blinded by a preoccupation with words, without regard to their proper context.124 In the case of Matthew, the practice of quoting only brief passages from the appendix to Naval Timber and Arboriculture, without relating them to the rest of his work, has suggested a greater resemblance to Darwin's theory than actually exists.It is clear, both from the use which Matthew made of his ideas and from the philosophical roots of his natural world view, that he could not have arrived at the concept of natural selection by the same thought process which Darwin employed. His discussion of natural selection is presented not as an argument, but as an axiom. No theory is proposed, no evidence marshaled to support it. Natural selection is stated as a fact, a Law of Nature, unquestioned, and presumably, unquestionable.Despite his clamor for recognition as the discoverer of natural selection, Matthew recognized and acknowledged this very fundamental difference between Darwin and himself. In a letter to the Gardener's Chronicle of May 12, 1860, he wrote:To me the conception of this law of Nature came intuitively as a self-evident fact, almost without an effort of concentrated thought. Mr. Darwin here seems to have more merit in the discovery than I have had—to me it did not appear a discovery. He seems to have worked it out by inductive reason, slowly and with due caution to have made his way synthetically from fact to fact onwards; while with me it was by a general glance at the scheme of Nature that I estimated this select production of species as an a priori recognisable fact—an axiom, requiring only to be pointed out to be admitted by unprejudiced minds of sufficient grasp.125In the same letter, Matthew maintained that his ideas had not been accepted because “the age was not ripe for such ideas.”126 Nor, he said, was the present age. He considered the inability of most of Darwin's critics to grasp his theory to be “incurable.” Yet he did not argue that natural selection should be accepted because of the evidence, but rather, that it should be accepted on faith:Belief here requires a certain grasp of mind. No direct proof of phenomena embracing so long a period of time is within the compass of short-lived man. To attempt to satisfy a school of ultra skeptics, who have a wonderfully limited power of perception of means to ends... would be labour in vain.... They could not be brought to conceive the purpose of a handsaw though they saw its action, if the whole individual building it assisted to construct were not presented complete before their eyes... Like a child looking upon the motion of a wheel in an engine they would only perceive and admire... without noticing its agency in... affecting the purposed end.127Here, then, is the final irony. In a passage urging acceptance of Darwin's theory, a theory which was to banish design and purpose from the natural world, we find echoes of Paley and of Providence.Loren Eiseley has lamented the fact that Matthew “did not bring his views into the open, because the amount of ground he was able to cover in a few paragraphs suggests that he might have been able to sustain a longer treatise.”128 Now that the intellectual and historical context of Matthew's ideas are known, this statement is no longer tenable. Matthew was not a scientist, and his books were not written as biological treatises. His discussions of natural selection were not attempts to “cover ground” in advancing a particular scientific theory, but were simply reflections of his own assumptions about the natural world.Furthermore, despite Matthew's acceptance of evolution and natural selection, his biological thought was basically conservative on points where Darwin's was radical. Where Matthew saw a series of stable worlds interrupted by violent upheavals, Darwin saw a continuous process of change in an ever-fluctuating world. Where Matthew conceived of species in terms of Aristotelian classes and essences, Darwin revolutionized our concept of species by treating them as populations. Where Matthew saw a world of design and beauty functioning according to natural laws laid down by benevolent Providence, Darwin abolished design and Providence from nature and ushered in a world which cycles ever onward according to laws of chance and probability.It is not even particularly useful to point to Matthew as evidence that evolution was “in the air” prior to 1859.129 His ideas did not represent the first wave of a coming revolution, but were the product of his own personal philosophical outlook, as expressed in the context of the biological thought of the 1830's. Matthew is important in the history of ideas, not simply because he accepted the concept of evolution or thought of something resembling natural selection, but because he did so without overthrowing, in his own mind, any of the basic philosophical assumptions which had underlain biological science since Aristotle. In recognizing Matthew's failure to do so, we are in a position to appreciate more fully the significance of the Darwinian Revolution. (shrink)

Global GDP is more than 100 trillion dollars, yet 10 % of the world’s population still live in extreme poverty on less than $1.90 per day. No one should have to live like that: alleviating poverty is a minimal moral obligation implied by nearly every secular and religious moral system. Unfortunately, neither economic growth nor conventional international aid can be relied upon to fulfil this obligation. A global basic income programme that transferred $1 per day from the rich world to (...) each poor person would eliminate extreme poverty directly and at negligible cost. It is the least we should do. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ontological and Other AssumptionsLloyd A. Wells (bio) and Sandra J. Rackley (bio)Fahrenberg and Cheetham have conducted an immensely thought-provoking study of the assumptions about human nature made by 800 students and pose a question about the future impact of these assumptions on individuals’ practice in professions including medicine and psychotherapy.This work represents a branch of “philosophical anthropology,” which considers assumptions people make about human nature. The authors used a (...) questionnaire, much of which was newly designed, to assess the assumptions made by university students studying psychology, philosophy, sciences, and other disciplines. Most of the respondents were studying at Freiburg, but some were sampled at several other universities in both the former East and West Germanies. Questions involved consciousness and the brain, evolution, free will, belief in God, the meaning of life, and theodicy.Given the importance of these beliefs and assumptions in so many peoples’ lives, it is quite surprising that there are so few modern data available, and this study ventures an important first step in assessing these assumptions. However, there are many problems inherent in this study (and any like it).The first, for us, is the validity of the questionnaire itself, an issue that was not specifically addressed in the paper. Face validity is a problem even in the few questions quoted directly in the paper. For example, some statements contain two clauses, and one could well agree with one without agreeing with another: “I do not know whether a God exists and I do not believe it is possible to know.” This is the most relevant answer for a true agnostic, but the assumption that “I do not know whether a God exists” does not necessarily link at all with “I do not believe it is possible to know.” Similarly, a theist might have trouble with the two clauses, “I know God really exists” and “I do not doubt this.” (Technically, knowledge does imply a lack of doubt, but belief certainly does not.) Particularly in the trilemmas, where various patterns of response were analyzed, these multiple-clause statements may have led students to respond in a manner inconsistent with their true beliefs and assumptions. Furthermore, many of the questions contain terms that may have been unfamiliar to first-year university students. The authors explain their rationale in not defining terms, but the lack of clarity about definitions may have led some of the students to not fully understand the questions asked and to perhaps influence the answers they chose.Misunderstanding of the questions may account for some of the disparities reported in the results. Other apparent inconsistencies, however, do not seem to be a result of unclear questions. For example, sixty percent of the students agreed with the statement that “I believe in … existence after death,” whereas forty-seven percent agreed with the statement that “when my brain is dead my consciousness and my person cease to be.” These [End Page 203] findings do not add up, and this study has several similar sets of data. People contradict themselves in long and complex questionnaires, and this may be a simple explanation for these findings, but is this the only explanation? How seriously did the students take the questionnaire, often given as part of their class? How honest were their responses?How generalizable are the findings of this study? It is very difficult even to speculate about this. The statistics are incomprehensible in light of the data given, and one must essentially take them on faith, wherever one falls on the God/theodicy questions. The design has many flaws, but we do learn how a subsample of German university students rate important factors about the meaning of life. Statements are made in the paper that the students’ results correlate with similar results for the general population, but this assertion seems to be based on a very few questions. One would like much more delineation of this apparent correlation, because we wonder about the juxtaposition of developmental factors with the answers the students gave to this questionnaire. First-year university students are at a critical developmental point, and it would be fascinating to follow this large cohort of students over time to see whether... (shrink)

ExtractIn a democracy people are free to express their opinions and question those of others. This is an important personal freedom, and also essential to the very idea of government by discussion. But it has also been held to be instrumentally important because in open public debate true ideas will conquer false ones by their merit, and the people will see the truth for themselves. In other words, democracy has an epistemic function as a kind of truth machine. From (...) this it follows that in a democracy there should be no dogma: no knowledge protected from public challenge and debate. Yet this whole argument is founded on embarrassing misconceptions of the nature of truth and of the working of democracy.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.DEMOCRACY IS NOT A TRUTH MACHINEVolume 12, Issue 33Thomas WellsDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000309Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. DEMOCRACY IS NOT A TRUTH MACHINEVolume 12, Issue 33Thomas WellsDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000309Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. DEMOCRACY IS NOT A TRUTH MACHINEVolume 12, Issue 33Thomas WellsDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000309Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 239-240 [Access article in PDF] News and Views Korean Temple Burnings and Vandalism: The Response of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies Harry L. WellsHumboldt State UniversityOver the course of the last decade a fairly large number of Buddhist temples in South Korea have been destroyed or damaged by fire by misguided Christian fundamentalists. More recently, Buddhist statues have been identified as idols, and attacked and (...) decapitated in the name of Jesus. Arrests are hard to effect, as the arsonists and vandals work by stealth of night. In 1998, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies announced its support for our Buddhist brothers and sisters and our disgust at such violent misuse of the name of Jesus. At the 1998 Board meeting, an ad hoc committee was set up to explore and develop strategies which would further address the situation. Below are some actions which have occurred during 1999. A Letter from Our President: The following letter of protest was sent on the Society's behalf on January 25, 1999 to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea and other governmental officials plus Korean church leaders and organizations. A second letter was sent to the U.S. State Department and the headquarters of various church bodies in the U.S. as well as the National Council of Churches. The Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies wishes to register its deepest sadness and most profound protest regarding the numerous acts of arson and malicious destruction done to Buddhist temples by misinformed and intolerant fundamentalist Christian groups throughout the Republic of South Korea. Professor Frank Tedesco of Sejong University first drew the attention of the Society to these incidents in an article he published in 1997 in Buddhist-Christian Studies, the journal of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. More recently, two more Buddhist temples have been burned by fundamentalist Christians, seven hundred Buddhist images have been decapitated, and the Roman Catholic Cathedral was also burned because it contained images. All members of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, both Christian and Buddhist, are embarrassed that such acts have been done in the name of [End Page 239] Jesus Christ, a name that demands that all persons should live in justice and peace, not sectarian stupidity and religious fanaticism. The small, but vocal, number of fundamentalist Christians in Korea who defend such actions as blows against pagan idolatry are simply wrong. Their actions are contrary to the core of Christian teaching and practice, which is that all persons are to be treated with love, justice, and respect. There is no excuse for intra-religious violence in Buddhist or Christian teaching and practice. Accordingly, the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies not only deplores fundamentalist Christian attacks against Korean Buddhist temples, images, and persons, we ask that the government of Korea actively seek out all groups and persons engaged in violent actions against our Buddhist brothers and sisters and bring them to justice according to the laws of the Republic of Korea. May the peace at the heart of the Christian tradition and the heart of the Buddha's Dharma heal the minds of the violent so that all human beings may one day live as brothers and sisters in accord and dialogue. Paul O. Ingram, President A Section on the International Association for Religious Freedom Website Robert Traer, General Secretary of the International Association for Religious Freedom, graciously agreed to allow the Society to post a section on their website about the Buddhist-Christian tensions in Korea. His hope reflects the hope of our Society, that incidents of vandalism will cease and dialogue efforts increase. This page presently includes the summary account written by a SBCS member, Dr. Frank Tedesco, photos, and an introductory statement by our Society. Visit the site! A Call for Monetary Contributions The Society initiated a contributions drive to collect funds to send to Korea as a symbolic gesture of support of our Buddhist brothers and sisters whose temples and images have been attacked by extremist Christian vandals... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Transformation of Hearts and Minds:Chan Zen-Catholic Approaches to PreceptsHarry L. WellsCatholic and Buddhist priests, monastics, teachers, and community leaders participated in the second of an anticipated four annual dialogues. The series is sponsored by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association, the San Francisco Zen Center, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The conference took place 4–7 March 2004 at Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA, whose own East-West (...) meditation program, led by Fr. Thomas Hand, celebrated its twentieth anniversary that year. A popular retreat center and home to the Sisters of Mercy of Burlingame, the Center offered participants tree-dotted, spacious grounds and strolling paths, as well as a labyrinth for contemplative walking.Each day began with both Catholics and Buddhists in Mercy Center's Rose Room, a Zen-style meditation space, for an hour of silent meditation in the morning. Catholic liturgy was celebrated in the afternoon in the main chapel, with all participants invited to attend and share prayer and blessings. On the two full days, Friday and Saturday, two sessions of presentations were held each morning, with one session following in the afternoon. Each of the six sessions focused on a position paper, with three papers given from a Buddhist and three from a Christian perspective. Each paper was presented by its authors, followed by two formal responses, one by a Buddhist and one by a Catholic participant. This was in turn followed by an open discussion within the whole group. A minute of silent meditation began and ended each session.The presentations focused on various meanings embraced by the term "precepts" in each tradition. One paper introduced perspectives on Buddhist precepts in three different Buddhist lineages. Another presented six guidelines as "Precepts on the [End Page 155] Mind-Ground" that connect ethical commitments with social engagement. A third paper focused on Bodhisattva practice, which embraces and unifies all sentient beings. On the Christian side, presentations discussed the precepts as signposts on the path that leads away from suffering, as motivations that move us, and as the practice of the presence of God, exemplified by the writings of Brother Lawrence.A glossary prepared by Fr. Francis Tiso helped define Catholic Christian terms for the Buddhist participants in the dialogue. Similarly, a book distributed to all participants by the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association provided background on "Buddhism A–Z." Formal discussion sessions in the evenings, as well as informal talks by the participants while walking outside or in the form of impromptu hallway meetings added to the depth and richness of the dialogue. Some recurring themes were the importance and meaning of a personal teacher in both traditions; another was the "embodiment" of the teachings, the value of teaching through presence. Personal stories and practical experiences offered by individual participants were much appreciated and added poetry and emotion to the headiness of theological discussion.Members of both the Buddhist and the Catholic traditions reported that the encounter with the spiritual practices and beliefs of the other faith provides both affirmation of the familiar and welcome discovery of unexpected riches of the spirit. The next meeting will be held 20–23 January 2005 at the San Francisco Zen Center. The theme will be "Practice: Method and Experience Toward Transformation."Participating in the 2004 dialogue were Rev. Heng Sure (Berkeley Buddhist Monastery), Bishop John C. Wester (Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of San Francisco), Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton (Mountain Source Sangha), Fr. Arthur Kennedy (Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, USCCB), Bhikshuni Heng Liang (Dharma Realm Buddhist Association), Dr. Martin Verhoeven (Institute for World Religions), Dr. Ron Epstein (Institute for World Religions), Dr. Snjezana Akpinar (Dharma Realm Buddhist University), Rev. Shosan Victoria Austin (San Francisco Zen Center), Rev. Alan Senauke (Berkeley Zen Center), Jan Chozen Bays (Zen Community of Oregon), Sr. Phyllis D'Anna, SND (Center for the Practice of Applied Spirituality), Fr. Thomas W. Devereaux (Diocese of Santa Rosa), Robert Hale, OSB Cam. (Incarnation Monastery, Berkeley, CA), Thomas Hand, S.J. (Mercy Center, Burlingame, CA), Fr. Rafael Luévano (Diocese of Orange), Deacon Thomas McGowan (Diocese of Oakland), Lorraine Moriarity (St. Vincent de Paul Society of San Mateo County), Fr. Gerry O'Rourke (Archdiocese... (shrink)

In this interview, professor Davis discusses the evolution of his career and research interests as a philosopher-economist and gives his perspective on a number of important issues in the field. He argues that historians and methodologists of economics should be engaged in the practice of economics, and that historians should be more open to philosophical analysis of the content of economic ideas. He suggests that the history of recent economics is a particularly fruitful and important area for research exactly because (...) it is an open-ended story that is very relevant to understanding the underlying concerns and concepts of contemporary economics. He discusses his engagement with heterodox economics schools, and their engagement with a rapidly changing mainstream economics. He argues that the theory of the individual is “the central philosophical issue in economics” and discusses his extensive contributions to the issue. (shrink)

Bishop John A.T. Robinson's Honest to God was exceptionally successful. In the decade following its publication more than a million copies were sold in seventeen different languages. Robinson was aware that numerous awkward questions were being asked about traditional Christian beliefs, which it was no longer possible to ignore. His purpose was not so much to question traditional ideas of God as to suggest alternatives for those who found them unsatisfactory . He wanted to convince such persons that an (...) inability to believe what is stated in the Bible or the prayer book does not disqualify them from calling themselves Christians and presenting themselves at church. He speaks of traditional Christian beliefs, as stated in the New Testament, as a ‘language’ and thinks that Christianity should be conveyed to people in a variety of languages. By employing, as he does, the language of such Christian scholars as Bonhoeffer, Tillich and Bultmann, an atheist may find himself able to call himself a Christian. But the old familiar language of the Bible remains more pleasing to most of God's children, particularly to his ‘older children’ , so we must not give it up, although he allows that it is becoming increasingly unpopular, so that without ‘the kind of revolution’ he is advocating, ‘Christian faith and practice … will come to be abandoned’. (shrink)

Attempting to trace the intellectual history of any political movement is, at best,problematic. Humans construct political movements and the intellectual, philosophical underpinnings of those movements, and, in general, it is not one person who is doing the creating, but rather a multitude of people are involved; the circumstance of how politics is created is a web, which makes it difficult for researchers to trace the historical roots of movements. Nazi Germany has been the focus of numerous research projects to understand (...) the intellectual roots of Nazism and the how and why they were successful in gaining and consolidating power. In line with popular theories in Sociology and History, earlier researchers have traced the intellectual roots of the Nazis in order to situate Nazi Germany as anti-modern, which by extension would situate their crimes against humanityand fascism in the same camp. In particular, Romanticism has been the movement that some historians have cited as a possible root for Nazism. The primary goal of this paper will be to disrupt the historical continuation argument, deconstruct the main parts of each of the camps, and provide support for the appropriation argument. This goal is designed to connect to the much larger debate of the state of anti-modern/modern of Nazism, and aid in showing Nazism as a modern movement. It is through researching and analyzingthe how and why the Nazis appropriated Romanticism that allows academics to study the influences from the past in the development of National Socialism, while accounting for the frame that the Nazis used to read the Romantics and the purpose for the way that Romantic literature was framed within Nazi-Germany. (shrink)

The relevance of the work is due to the fact that the analysis of indicators of mental and physical health of a person and their mutual influence is little disclosed in the philosophical literature. There is a problem of studying the achievement of well-being in philosophical terms and the factors influencing it, including the connection of existential fullness (fundamental existential motivations) with various positive aspects of the functioning of the individual that make up well-being: autonomy, competence, (...) personal growth, positive relationships, self-acceptance, life goals. In this regard, we have undertaken a study related to the study at the theoretical level of the relationship between existential fulfillment and well-being. The purpose of the study: to identify the relationship between the components of life well-being and existential fulfillment. The degree of existential fullness shows whether there is a lot of meaning in life, whether a person lives in inner harmony, whether his decisions and actions correspond to his essence. Life well-being is a subjective feeling of wholeness of satisfaction with one's being. The study revealed significant connections between the components of such personal constructs as life well-being and existential fulfillment. As a result of the theoretical study, the following conclusions were made: The first fundamental existential motivation concerning the possibility of existence in the world is largely related to self-acceptance and competence. The second fundamental existential motivation concerning the value of life is largely related to self-acceptance and positive relationships. The third fundamental existential motivation concerning self-esteem is largely related to personal growth. The fourth fundamental existential motivation, crowning all the previous ones and concerning meaning, is essentially related to life goals and autonomy. (shrink)

This book details how quantification can serve both as evidence and as an instrument of government, whether when dealing with statistics on employment, occupational health and economic governance, or when developing public management or target-driven policies. In the process, it presents a thought-provoking homage to Alain Desrosières, who pioneered ways to study large numbers and the politics underlying them. It opens with a summary of Desrosières's contributions to the field in which several generations of researchers detail how this statistician and (...) historian profoundly influenced them. This tribute, based on personal testimonies, bears witness to the vitality of the school of thought and analytical framework Desrosières initiated. Next, a collection of essays explores the statistical argument in the neoliberal era, examining issues such as counting the homeless in Europe, measuring the performance of public services, and quantifying the effects of public action on the unemployed in France. The third part details the uses of quantification. It reveals that although statistics are frequently used to the advantage of those in power, they can also play a vital role in challenging and resisting both the conventions underlying the measurements as well as the measurements themselves.Featuring the work of economists, historians, political scientists, sociologists, and statisticians, this title provides readers with a thoughtful look at an influential figure in the history of statistics. It also shows how statistics are used to direct public policy, the degree of conflict that is possible in their production, and the disputes that can develop around their uses. (shrink)

Books reviewed in this article:Roger Crisp and Brad Hooker (eds), Well–being and Morality: essays in honour of James GriffinJames Griffin, Value JudgementJohn O’Neill, The Market: ethics, knowledge and politicsE. F. Paul, F. D. Miller and J. Paul (eds), Human FlourishingJoseph Raz, Engaging ReasonL. W. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness and Ethics.

Books reviewed in this article:Roger Crisp and Brad Hooker (eds), Well–being and Morality: essays in honour of James GriffinJames Griffin, Value JudgementJohn O’Neill, The Market: ethics, knowledge and politicsE. F. Paul, F. D. Miller and J. Paul (eds), Human FlourishingJoseph Raz, Engaging ReasonL. W. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness and Ethics.

Books reviewed in this article:Roger Crisp and Brad Hooker (eds), Well–being and Morality: essays in honour of James GriffinJames Griffin, Value JudgementJohn O’Neill, The Market: ethics, knowledge and politicsE. F. Paul, F. D. Miller and J. Paul (eds), Human FlourishingJoseph Raz, Engaging ReasonL. W. Sumner, Welfare, Happiness and Ethics.

Well-Being and Death addresses philosophical questions about death and the good life: what makes a life go well? Is death bad for the one who dies? How is this possible if we go out of existence when we die? Is it worse to die as an infant or as a young adult? Is it bad for animals and fetuses to die? Can the dead be harmed? Is there any way to make death less bad for us? Ben (...) Bradley defends the following views: pleasure, rather than achievement or the satisfaction of desire, is what makes life go well; death is generally bad for its victim, in virtue of depriving the victim of more of a good life; death is bad for its victim at times after death, in particular at all those times at which the victim would have been living well; death is worse the earlier it occurs, and hence it is worse to die as an infant than as an adult; death is usually bad for animals and fetuses, in just the same way it is bad for adult humans; things that happen after someone has died cannot harm that person; the only sensible way to make death less bad is to live so long that no more good life is possible. (shrink)

The narrative view of personhood suggests that we as persons are constituted by self-narratives. Self-narratives support not only the sense of personal persistence but also agency. However, it is rarely discussed how self-narratives promote or hinder personal well-being. This paper aims to explore what a healthy self-narrative looks like. By reframing a famous debate between Strawson and Schechtman about narrative personhood, I argue that self-narratives can hinder our personal well-being when affective identification leads (...) to inflexible self-images, illustrated with the examples of imposter syndrome and rationalization. Furthermore, I explore how having a healthy self-narrative is not about disengaging from one's personal past and future, but about fostering affective identification in ways that allow flexible self-images. (shrink)

This booklet is based on an inaugural professorial lecture given by Professor John White at the Institute of Education, University of London.

A central aim of education has to do with the promotion of the pupil's and other people's well-being. Recent work by John O'Neill locates the strongest justification of the market in an individualistic preference-satisfaction notion of well-being. His own preference for an objective theory of well-being allows us to make a clear separation of educational values from those of the market. Problems in O'Neill's account suggest a third notion of well-being which better (...) supports the separation mentioned. (shrink)

In the philosophy of well-being, there is hardly anything written on the lives of people with autism or on the question whether existing philosophical theories of well-being are suited for understanding how well the lives of autistic persons are going. This paper tries to make some progress towards filling this gap. I start by giving a concise account of autism, which highlights the huge heterogeneity among autistics. I discuss some basic features of autism, ask whether (...) there are good reasons why we would need an account of well-being specifically for autistics and what philosophical well-being research could learn from being informed by autistic experiences and phenomenology. I then investigate to what extent the capability approach gives us a helpful theory of well-being for autistics, and what looking through an autism-lens can contribute to the further development of the capabilitarian well-being. In particular, I show that some capabilities that are crucially relevant for autistics are also relevant for the lives of non-autistic people. The final part of the paper looks at an important difficulty in using the capabilitarian account of well-being for autistics, namely: should the normative focus be on achievements (functionings) or real opportunities (capabilities)? (shrink)

Discussion regarding education’s aims, especially its ultimate aims, is a key topic in the philosophy of education. These aims or values play a pivotal role in regulating and structuring moral and other types of normative education. We outline two plausible strategies to identify and justify education’s ultimate aims. The first associates these aims with a normative standpoint, such as the moral, prudential, or aesthetic, which is overriding, in a sense of ‘overriding’ to be explained. The second associates education’s ultimate aims (...) with the intrinsic value of personal well-being. We advance reasons to doubt that these strategies are successful. The shortcomings of these strategies impute yet further urgency to the issue of how we are to ascertain and validate education’s ultimate aims. (shrink)

This dissertation develops a theory of personal well-being---i.e., a theory of what is it for a person's life to go well for them. The proposed theory is called "the successful activity view of well-being." It is an end-neutral account of individual welfare that primarily values the pursuit, achievement, and enjoyment of ends that are important to a person. The parts of this process---e.g., the pursuit of ends, the achievement of ends, the enjoyment of activities (...) and situations, and even the satisfaction of desires for situations---are also of some significance for a person's level of well-being when actualized separately. I argue that previous end-neutral accounts of well-being, such as hedonism and desire-satisfactionism, are open to damaging objections because pleasures and desires can fail to coincide with a person's values. I also argue that the successful activity view has greater unity, explanatory power, and ontological economy than any form of perfectionism or any hybridized theory of wellbeing currently on offer.^. (shrink)

This paper argues that the value of genetic-relative family health history information and the notion that lack of this information is a disadvantage can be established through its role as a nested goal in comprehensive life projects independent of documentation of particular health outcomes. Health information often plays a significant role in a person's formulation of life goals and projects, as well as in identification of plausible effective means to realize these goals. If health outcomes are valuable in part (...) because of the nested role these play in the successful realization of a person's life projects and goals, then other, similarly nested contributors to such success must also be valued on a similar scale. Some of these other contributors to a successful life may themselves be nested with health considerations, as illustrated in the relationship that will be the focus of this paper. Health information --independent of outcomes per se – influences relationships, reproduction, and the formulation of plausible comprehensive life goals in intricate and very influential ways. Although such information may be valued in part because it is predictive of health outcomes, this relationship does not reduce such information, nor the comprehensive life goals and projects such information promotes, to health outcomes. That is, while health status can both enhance and detract from the autonomous pursuit of life projects formulated in the context of health information, the value and weight of these projects is independent of particular health status or outcomes, even while in part shaped by them. (shrink)

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome severely affects psychological well-being. This syndrome frequently occurs in obesity; however, no previous study has investigated the level of psychological well-being in the case of OSA syndrome associated with obesity. In this work, we assessed the level of psychological well-being in fifty-two individuals affected by OSA syndrome and obesity through the Psychological General Well-Being Index. Moreover, we investigated the role of personality, cognitive functioning and attentional capabilities, subjective perception (...) and objective measurement about sleeping, on the subjective perception of psychological well-being. Our sample reported a lower level of psychological well-being; the participants’ scores were below the normative cut-off in all components, except for depression symptoms. A lower expression of harm avoidance temperament and a lower level of daily sleepiness predicted a higher level of psychological well-being. Psychological well-being seemed to be severely affected in individuals affected by OSA syndrome and obesity. The temperament and subjective perception of daily alertness and sleepiness, rather than the syndrome severity, seemed to play a crucial role in the individual perception of the psychological well-being. (shrink)

While many theories of well-being are able to capture some of our central intuitions about well-being, e.g. avoiding alienation worries, they typically do so at the cost of not being able to capture others, e.g. explaining deprivation. However, both of these intuitions are important and any comprehensive theory of well-being ought to attempt to strike the best balance in responding to both concerns. In light of this, I develop and defend a theory of (...) well-being which holds that our well-being depends, in part, on the nature of our well-being qua person, a class whose members are defined by their possessing certain cognitive and volitional capacities including those capacities constitutive of autonomy. I argue that this theory of well-being is able to address concerns about alienation and deprivation, along with capturing the importance of autonomy to well-being, better than many popular subjective and objective theories of well-being. (shrink)

Previous research associates free will skepticism with adverse well-being effects. However, it is doubtful that skeptical participants in these studies disbelieved in the incompatibilist notion of what it means to have free will. This is one of the first studies to exclusively examine such skeptics. A sample of 167 participants who claimed to believe that there is no free will responded to an online survey. After examining whether participants in fact disbelieved in the incompatibilist concept, they were asked (...) to describe how their skepticism is affecting their personal life and well-being. Reoccurring themes were identified through thematic analysis. Positive consequences were most commonly reported, including increased compassion for others and oneself, being less controlling and more relaxed, as well as having more control through environmental awareness. Other participants felt unaffected by their disbelief and most frequently mentioned the persisting feeling of having free will as a reason. The most common negative implications were to feel less effective as an agent and to miss a sense of purpose. These findings may shed new light on how to handle the issue of free will in the public sphere as well as inform future research investigating incompatibilist free will skepticism. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Brad Hooker's “Does having deep personal relationships constitute an element of well‐being?” (2021). The paper begins with a discussion of the implications of disagreement about such issues. After raising some general questions for Hooker's account, the paper turns to the key elements in a deep personal relationship, according to Hooker: multi‐faceted understanding, and strong affection. The issue of impartiality is discussed, and it is claimed that Hooker's account is consistent with (...) morality's being impartial. Some possible interpretations of Hooker's overall project are offered, and the paper ends with a discussion of Hooker's suggestions that the affection in valuable personal relationships must be merited. (shrink)

This book addresses a range of relevant theoretical issues, including the possibility of an interpersonally comparable measure of well-being, or “utility” metric; the moral value of equality, and how that bears on the form of the social welfare function; social choice under uncertainty; and the possibility of integrating considerations of individual choice and responsibility into the social-welfare-function framework. This book also deals with issues of implementation, and explores how survey data and other sources of evidence might be used (...) to calibrate both a utility metric and a social welfare function, and whether distributive goals are ever best pursued through regulation rather than the tax system. In working through this range of theoretical and practical issues, the book draws from a wide variety of literatures, including philosophical scholarship on equality, responsibility, the nature of well-being, and personal identity over time; the social choice literature within economics; applied economic literatures concerning the measurement of inequality and poverty; legal and policy-analysis scholarship on cost-benefit analysis, environmental justice, and the choice between regulation and taxation; and the burgeoning field of “happiness studies”. (shrink)

Memory modification technologies (MMTs)—interventions within the memory affecting its functions and contents in specific ways—raise great therapeutic hopes but also great fears. Ethicists have expressed concerns that developing and using MMTs may endanger the very fabric of who we are—our personal identity. This threat has been mainly considered in relation to two interrelated concerns: truthfulness and narrative self‐constitution. In this article, we propose that although this perspective brings up important matters concerning the potential aftermaths of MMT utilization, it fails (...) to tell the whole story. We suggest that capturing more tangible potential consequences of MMT use, namely, its psychological ramifications is crucial both in ethical considerations and in making decisions regarding the permissibility of such interventions. To this end, we first examine what current MMTs are capable of and what are the prospects of emerging MMTs. Subsequently, we outline the relationship between memory and personal identity; specifically, we indicate that concepts of self‐defining memories and narrative identity are crucial to considering how MMTs may influence one's psychological functioning. On this basis, we analyze potential consequences of narrative disruption that may be the result of the use of MMTs; more precisely, we consider its potential effects on mental health, well‐being, and personal agency, and outline the ethical dilemmas that decision‐makers face in this context. We conclude by considering the broader cultural context that may have influence on policymaking regarding permissibility of memory modification interventions. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to adapt the Austrian-German version of the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious/Spiritual Well-Being into the Italian language and culture, and to investigate possible associations between the RSWB dimensions, “Big Five” personality factors and mental illness within an Italian student sample. Hence, the first Italian translation of the MI-RSWB scale was applied on a sample of 412 undergraduate students in three different cities and regions of Italy: Padova, Rome, and Palermo. Like the original Austrian-German (...) scale, we were able to find convincing psychometric properties for the new Italian version of the scale. By mirroring previous research, the RSWB-dimensions turned out to be substantially associated with personality dimensions, as well as negatively related with a global measure of mental illness. Our initial results confirm that these RSWB-dimensions are important facets of personality and mental health. (shrink)

The physical distancing measures necessitated by COVID-19 have resulted in a severe withdrawal from the patterns of daily life, necessitating significantly reduced contact with other people. To many, such withdrawal can be a major cause of distress. But, to some, this sort of withdrawal is an integral part of growth, a pathway to a more enriching life. The present study uses a sequential explanatory QUAN-qual design to investigate whether people who felt that their lives had changed for the better after (...) being forced to engage in physical distancing, what factors predicted such well-being, and how they spent their time to generate this sense of well-being. We invited 614 participants who reported closely following physical distancing recommendations to complete a survey exploring this topic. Our analyses, after controlling for all other variables in the regression model, found a greater positive association between presence of meaning in life, coping style, and self-transcendent wisdom and residualized current well-being accounting for retrospective assessments of well-being prior to physical distancing. An extreme-case content analysis of participants' personal projects found that participants with low self-transcendent wisdom reported more survival-oriented projects (e.g., acquiring groceries or engaging in distracting entertainments), while participants reporting high self-transcendent wisdom reported more projects involving deepening interactions with other people, especially family. Our findings suggest a more nuanced pathway from adversity to a deeper sense of well-being by showing the importance of not merely coping with adversity, but truly transcending it. (shrink)

Scanlon's distinction between well-being and other personal values cannot be made out clearly if well-being is understood, as it commonly is, to consist in whatever is intrinsically good for a person. Two other accounts of well-being, however, might be able to explain this distinction. One is a version of the rational care view proposed by Stephen Darwall; another is a rational sympathy view suggested by some of Brad Hooker's work.

A major focus of attention in psychology has been on the consequences and determinants of well-being. Religiosity and personality have both been shown to predict mental health and well-being, but the two predictors have not often been investigated together. In 4 studies involving 7 surveys in various social and religious contexts, the relations among well-being, religious orientation, and personality factors were studied. Results showed that Extraversion was the single strongest correlate of higher levels of (...) subjective and psychological well-being. Religiosity had null or weak positive relationships with well-being, and managed to explain variance in some aspects of positive functioning beyond personality factors. The null or week relationship of religiosity with well-being beyond personality was consistent across the HEXACO and the Big Five models of personality structure. It has been suggested that religion is relatively more important for eudaimonic than for hedonic way of living. (shrink)

According to Aristotle, wisdom orchestrates all other virtues and therefore leads to eudaimonia, which can be translated as flourishing or psychological well-being. Wisdom guides people to take the morally right course of action in concrete situations to benefit themselves and others. If Aristotle’s theory is correct, then wisdom should be related to different moral virtues and wisdom, rather than individual virtues, should predict eudaimonic well-being, establishing wisdom as the driving force behind human flourishing. Survey data were (...) collected from 230 undergraduate students (M = 21 years, median age = 20 years) attending five different classes in the social sciences at a university in the Southeast of the United States at the beginning and end of the fall semester in 2016. Bivariate correlations, regression analyses, and a structural equation model were utilized to analyze the data. Three-dimensional wisdom (3D-WS) at the beginning of the semester (T1), consisting of the average of cognitive, reflective, and compassionate personality qualities, was significantly positively related to gratitude, forgiveness, morality/fairness, modesty, greed avoidance, and sincerity at T1. Wisdom at T1 predicted flourishing at the end of the semester (T2), assessed by self-acceptance, mastery, purpose in life, and orientation toward personal growth. Among the virtues, only gratitude at T1 significantly predicted flourishing at T2. It appears that Aristotle was correct! Wisdom, at least as measured by the 3D-WS, seems to orchestrate moral virtues and result in human flourishing. This implies that cultivating the development of wisdom will lead to a better and more flourishing life. (shrink)