Foucault on Freedom and Trust

2015 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 653-659 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Luxon
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Progressive Change ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Significant Locus ◽  
Christian Understanding ◽  
The Will

Charles Taylor opens the essay “Foucault on Freedom and Truth” with the stark claim: “Foucault disconcerts.” Foucault disconcerts, on Taylor's reading, because he appears to repudiate both freedom and truth. Where other Western thinkers have sought to “[make] ordinary life the significant locus of the issues that distinguish the good life,” the Foucault of Discipline and Punish seems to refuse this Enlightenment valuation. After puzzling alongside Foucault, and the implications of his thought for freedom and truth, Taylor finally queries what drives Foucault to adopt a Nietzschean model of truth and argues to the contrary that we can trust in progressive change from one form of life to another because its politics intuitively derive from our personal discovery of “our sense of ourselves, our identity, of what we are.” These changes entail that “we have already become something. Questions of freedom can arise for us in the transformations we undergo or project.” For Taylor, the link between personal and political discovery is so tight, so intuitive, and such a clear barometer for progress and change, that the insistence on incommensurability, let alone its use to challenge Enlightenment values, simply is perverse. And so Taylor concludes his essay by asking of the late Foucault two questions: “Can we really step outside the identity developed in Western civilization to such a degree that we can repudiate all that comes to us from the Christian understanding of the will?” and “Is the resulting ‘aesthetic of existence’ all that admirable?”

“Ne Quid Nimis.” Kierkegaard and the Virtue of Temperance

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Compaijen
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
The Will ◽  
Self Knowledge ◽  
Harsh Critique

AbstractIn this article I argue that-despite Kierkegaard’s seemingly harsh critique of temperance-it plays a crucial role in the ethics he worked out under the pseudonym of Anti-Climacus in The Sickness unto Death and Practice in Christianity. Anti-Climacus, following Socrates in the Philebus, thinks of the good life as a “mixed” life in which the different and opposed dimensions of human existence, peras and apeiron, are in due proportion. In Anti-Climacus’ ethics the process of realizing the “mixed” life does not, contra the Socratic conception, involve reason restricting desire, but, instead, the will (infused with self-knowledge) grounding imagination in the facticity of human existence. It is through this perfectionist process that we are able to imitate Christ, which is how Anti- Climacus ultimately understands the good life. Moreover, I suggest that we could understand this form of temperance as a virtue. In the conclusion I show that Kierkegaard’s seeming critique of temperance is actually a critique of mediocrity

scholarly journals Aristotle’s Anthropological Machine and Slavery

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-262
Author(s):  
Tim Christiaens ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Bare Life ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Political Citizenship ◽  
Conception Of The Good

Among the most controversial aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy is his endorsement of slavery. Natural slaves are excluded from political citizenship on ontological grounds and are thus constitutively unable to achieve the good life, identified with the collective cultivation of logos in the polis. Aristotle explicitly acknowledges their humanity, yet frequently emphasizes their proximity to animals. It is the latter that makes them purportedly unfit for the polis. I propose to use Agamben’s theory of the anthropological machine to make sense of this enigmatic exclusion and suggest a new conception of the good life and community detached from political rule. Aristotle’s distinction between humans and animals condemns slaves to bare life, but also reveals an opportunity for an inoperative form-of-life.

Homo religiosus: does spirituality have a place in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics?

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID MCPHERSON
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Naturalism ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Form Of Life

AbstractIn this article I seek to show the importance of spirituality for a neo-Aristotelian account of ‘the good life’. First, I lay out my account of spirituality. Second, I discuss why the issue of the place of spirituality in the good life has often either been ignored or explicitly excluded from consideration by neo-Aristotelians. I suggest that a lot turns on how one understands the ‘ethical naturalism’ to which neo-Aristotelians are committed. Finally, I argue that through a deeper exploration of the evaluative standpoint from within our human form of life as ‘meaning-seeking animals’ we can come to better appreciate the importance of spirituality for human beings throughout recorded history up to the present and why we can be described ashomo religiosus.

scholarly journals Rifiuto delle cure e diritto di morire

2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianfranco Iadecola
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Life Support ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Life Support Care ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Moral Freedom ◽  
The Will ◽  
Conflictual Situation

Lo scritto intende sottolineare la difficile problematicità, dal punto di vista legale, del tema del rifiuto di cure salvavita da parte del paziente e del rilievo che una tale volontà (sempre che libera e cosciente) ha per il medico. In tale prospettiva, si dà conto di come, nella questione, interferiscano (ed entrino in contrasto) due interessi fondamentali, entrambi protetti dall’ordinamento, ossia quello della libertà morale della persona e quello della vita, osservandosi come siffatta situazione conflittuale si tragga proprio (anche) dal recente provvedimento giudiziale sulla vicenda “Welby”. Il tribunale di Roma, infatti, dopo aver ampiamente evidenziato la univoca protezione garantita dall’ordinamento giuridico alla libertà di autodeterminazione del malato, non può non registrare la indiscutibile ed assoluta tutela assicurata al bene della vita, in sostanza individuando in essa l’adempimento al riconoscimento della vincolatività, per il medico, di una volontà di cessazione delle cure idonee al mantenimento in vita, espressa dal paziente. Si osserva come, nella prima (reale) disamina specifica del problema (dei limiti di rilevanza della volontà del malato rispetto alla posizione di garanzia del medico) da parte di un giudice nazionale, venga condivisa – di contro alle opinioni dominanti nel dibattito dottrinale – la posizione secondo cui la indisponibilità del bene fondamentale della vita si ponga, anche allo stato normativo attuale, come limite al riconoscimento – del rifiuto consapevole di cure mediche salvavita – quale situazione giuridica soggettiva tutelata, sempre e comunque, dall’ordinamento. ---------- The writing intends to underline the difficult problematic nature, under the legal point of view, of life support care refusal matter by the patient and of the relief that such a will (provided that be free and conscious) has for the physician. In such perspective, it gives an account of how, in the matter, interfere (and enter contrast) two fundamental interests, both protected by the order, i.e. that of person’s moral freedom and that of life and it explains as such conflictual situation concerns really (also) about the recent judicial provision on the “Welby” case. The court of Rome, in fact, later have widely highlighted the univocal protection ensured by the legal system to the patient self-determination freedom, has to take into account the indisputable and absolute tutelage assured to the good life, basically identifying the fulfilment to the recognition of bond, for the physician, of a will of cessation of the cares suitable to the maintenance in life, expressed by the patient. One observes as, in the first (real) close examination of the problem (of the limits of importance of the will of the patient compared to the guarantee position of the doctor) by a national judge, is shared - against to the opinions ruling in the doctrinal debate, the position according to which the unavailability of the fundamental life good places, also according to the current normative state, as limit to the recognition - of the refusal aware of sustaining-life treatments - as subjective juridical situation protected, always and anyway, by the order.

The ‘Comparison of Lives’ in Plato's Philebus

1938 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-124
Author(s):  
N. R. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
The Will ◽  
Rational Factor

The Republic represents the good life as some sort of harmony or composition between the different interests of which the threefold nature of the soul makes it capable. The rational factor, τ λολιστικν, not only chooses which impulses shall be satisfied and which rejected but is credited also with impulses of its own, such as the desire for knowledge, to the importance of which the Republic testifies by various strands of argument. But in Plato's attempt to prove the goodness of this mixed life he may be thought to have relied too much on arguments about its pleasantness. If he had really meant from the first to prove against Thrasymachus that the just life is more prolific in pleasure1 than the unjust, he would have had to undertake the task of proving a necessary connection between just activities and pleasant states of feeling which could scarcely exist unless feelings were under the control of the will. If this had been his intention, the whole weight of the argument would rest on the two comparatively short passages in Book IX (581–3, 583–6) in which he makes first a dubious appeal to experience and then, by an equally dubious piece of metaphysics, attempts to reinforce his ethical conclusion by denying the reality of such pleasures as might tend to throw doubt on it.

scholarly journals The social contagion of aspirations: On the happiness of having a 'life style'

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (26) ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgitte Folmann
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Life Style ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Rapid Change ◽  
Social Contagion ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Life Styles ◽  
Health Related

Discussions of health-related behaviors and lifestyle often become theoretical and morally laden owing to their individualistic view on risk factors and life choices. This article uses the analytical concepts of contagion and configuration to explore the spread of aspirations for the good life among young men in Northern Uganda. The potential social contagion of aspirations is unfolded to provide a deeper understanding of social processes not only as dynamics between people but also as processes between people and their surroundings in a society which is subject to rapid change. This understanding will provide a sense of the meaning invested in having a ‘life style’ and the significance of choice. Inspired theoretically by the Weberian concept of life style, it is found that young people in Northern Uganda, although they may be limited in terms of their life chances, live their lives as well as possible by taking advantage of the little space for choice that the reality of their resources and class circumstances allows. Young people in particular seek to engage in and perform what could be described as aspirational consumption in the form of ‘life styles’; and even though they rarely succeed, making some progress along this path seems important and fuels their ongoing aspiration for the good life. Having a ‘life style’ means being able to choose and consume, and getting a ‘life style’ reflects an aspiration for social mobility. Taking the emic approach helps to explain how social contagion occurs and how health-related practices are formed.

Jeong Dasan's Interpretation of Mengzi: Heaven, Way, Human Nature, and Human Herat-mind

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-237
Author(s):  
Philip J. Ivanhoe
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Ethical Philosophy ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Will ◽  
Human Emotions ◽  
The Way

This essay offers an introduction to Jeong Yakyong’s (Dasan’s) ethical philosophy as revealed by his commentary on the Mengzi. Following Mengzi, Dasan insisted that the Confucian Way was grounded in the will of Heaven but looked back to early views about the Lord on High and described ethical life in terms of an everyday, natural order decreed by the Lord on High. Not only did he see a wide range of human emotions as indispensable and central to the good life, he also insisted that Heaven and the Way must be understood in terms of their manifestations in this world.

scholarly journals Charles Taylor: el ser humano y el bien

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rubén Benedicto Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Good Life ◽  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Moral Experience ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Critical Reading ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
Human Agent

ResumenA partir de una lectura crítica de diversos textos fundamentales de Taylor, este artículo investiga la conexión que aparece en la obra de Charles Taylor entre el agente humano y el bien, proponiendo los rasgos de la experiencia moral que derivan de aspectos fundamentales e históricos. Se examinan algunos problemas antropológicos, éticos y políticos de las conexiones entre esta particular comprensión del ser humano y la vida buena. Asimismo, se ofrece una evaluación sobre el alcance teórico y práctico de esta propuesta señalando su posible alcance en el plano institucional.Palabras claveSer humano, bien, autenticidad, diálogo, reconocimientoAbstractAfter a critical reading of a range of Taylor´s basic texts, this paper investigates the connection that appears in the work of Charles Taylor between the human agent and good, proposing traits of moral experience which derive from fundamental and historical aspects. Some anthropological, ethical and political problems which arise from the connections between this particular understanding of man and the good life are also examined. Similarly, assessment of both the theoretical and the practical scope of this proposal is given, pointing out its possible extension on an institutional level.KeywordsHuman being, good, authenticity, dialogue, recognition

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