Is Aristotle an Archimedean Naturalist?

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-79
Author(s):  
Sylvia Berryman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
The Status ◽  
Relationship Of

This chapter examines the evidence of the ethical treatises regarding Aristotle’s use of the appeal to human nature to provide substantive guidance or justification for the demands of ethics. The so-called function argument, the notion that human beings have a natural direction of development, and the references to natural virtue or natural justice are canvassed as possible grounds for believing that Aristotle was an Archimedean naturalist about ethics. The status and relationship of the various ethical treatises is also discussed, together with the place of ethics within the hierarchy of sciences, as necessary background to the examination of Aristotle’s views.

scholarly journals Community and the Individual: A Note on Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
P. Eshwara Murthy
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Family Values ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Rohinton Mistry ◽  
Family Politics ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Individual

Rohinton Mistry was born in 1952 in Mumbai, but settled in Canada, is a well known contemporary postcolonial writer. His novels portray modern India, focusing on conflicting situations and redemptive moments. His works Such a Long Journey (1991) A Fine Balance (1996) and Family Matters (2002) emphasize poverty, corruption and injustice intertwined with humour and tragic beauty highlighting the perception of life of the urban poor. Mistry uses both myriad and mixed experiences of a particular family to present the brokenness of modern society which is compounded by various and different memories and feelings. The paper throws light on community and the individual in Family Matters, it was published in 2002, and is Mistry’s third novel.  It has been rightly acclaimed as a masterpiece and also shortlisted for Man Booker Prize in 2003.  The writer’s humanity and compassion towards human beings relations and problems have been delicately portrayed. Rohinton Mistry’s Family Matters focuses upon the problems of un- belongingness and preservation of family values. The novel reveals the mutual equation of family members and family politics in the post modern society. The novelist delineates the importance of belongingness and preservation of family values through the most trustworthy institution named family and reflects the psychological stance of the members of family towards their aging and dying elders. The novel is a representation of harsh realities and selfish human nature of the characters who expresses the status of an individual in relation to family, community and society.

scholarly journals Adolescent Psyche and Expressionism in ‘The Catcher in The Rye’ and ‘The Bell Jar’

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 27-47
Author(s):  
Ananya Roy
Keyword(s):  
Family Member ◽  
Technological Innovation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
World War ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Her Family ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Relationship Of

J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951) and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963), both serve as masterpiece accounts of teen angst and intricate detailed workings of the mind post world war when society was growing on one side with new foliage of technological innovation aimed at improving the lifestyle of human beings, on the other was on a slowyet painful process of moral, individual and spiritual decay as men and women had given way to the evils of the surplus and easy way of living. Not only were relationships coming under the radar of suspicion with humans doubting and betraying each other, a major issue of serious concern was on the rise as well that being the changing dynamics of adolescent brain and mind. Prone to modernization, the functioning of the mind of teenagers was undergoing a tremendous change where overt sensitivity was on rise. This paper focuses upon the main themes of (I) ideals cherished by both the protagonists, their view on them as individuals of the society, (II) on sexuality and (III) the serious issue of suicide which had been sought out as the best means of escape as their surroundings fail to bend according to their visions. This paper makes special efforts at analysing the same by bringing into it the status of relationship of the protagonist with his or her family member, peers, teachers and counsellors and how exactly it helps in expressing who they are and what they want.

Animality in Kant’s Theory of Human Nature

2020 ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
David Baumeister
Keyword(s):  
Human Development ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Universal History ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Theory Of Human Nature

This chapter provides an overview of Kant’s conception of the animality (or Tierheit) of human beings. Though human animality is treated in a wide range of Kant’s writings, it has received relatively little attention from scholars, perhaps because Kant wrote no text principally devoted to the subject. With the aim of establishing its systematic unity, I track the status and role of animality across three distinct but interrelated domains of Kant’s theory of human nature—his account of animality as one of three basically good original human predispositions in Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, his account of animality as the target of discipline in the pedagogy lectures, and his account of animality as simultaneously a driver of and hindrance to the progress of history in ‘Idea for a Universal History With a Cosmopolitan Aim’. I argue that these accounts, taken together and in light of the teleological vision of human development that connects them, manifest a distinctively Kantian vision of the human as an actively rational, but at the same time ineliminably animal, being. Far from denying that humans are animals or seeking to repress human animality wholesale, Kant in fact offers a nuanced and robust, though still problematic, defence of the necessity, innocence, and originality of the human’s animal side.

Love

2021 ◽  
pp. 262-280
Author(s):  
Frederick V. Simmons
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
Christian Realism ◽  
The Social ◽  
God's Love ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Widespread Interest ◽  
Do So

Reinhold Niebuhr regarded love as the law of human nature. He interpreted that love as agape, identified it with God’s love, and claimed that Jesus revealed it as universal, self-transcending, forgiving, non-resistant, and sacrificial. According to Niebuhr such love produces harmony yet humans inevitably succumb to something less. This inveterate shortcoming grounded Niebuhr’s Christian Realism and concentrated his social ethics on justice, which he related to love dialectically. It also shaped Niebuhr’s exposition of the Christian Gospel as primarily disclosure of God’s forgiveness, which enables human beings to love self-transcendently and thus fulfil their nature by freeing them from their failure to do so. Niebuhr’s account of love stimulated widespread interest in the topic and extensive criticism of his proposals. Nonetheless, Niebuhr argued that the paradoxical relationship of sacrificial and mutual love in history validated that account and the social ethics and soteriology he connected to it.

Two Theories of Natural Justice in Plato’s Gorgias

Elenchos ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-228
Author(s):  
Leo Catana
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Civic Life ◽  
Alternative Theory ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
Alternative Concept ◽  
Theory Of Human Nature

Abstract In Plato’s Gorgias 482c4–484c3, Callicles advances a concept of natural justice: the laws of the polis must agree with nature, that is, human nature. Since human nature is characterised by its desire to get a greater share (pleon echein), nature itself makes it legitimate that stronger human beings get a greater share than weaker ones. Socrates objects: Callicles’ theoretical approach to civic life poses a threat to the polis’ community, its citizens, and to the friendship amongst its citizens. However, Socrates accepts Callicles’ premise, that the laws of the polis must agree with nature (again, human nature). Still, he disagrees with Callicles about the nature of human nature and proposes an alternative theory of human nature, eventually leading to his alternative concept of natural justice. The article explains the arguments underpinning these two concepts of natural justice, including the conflicting understandings of human nature.

Exploring the human–nature relationship of conservation gardeners

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 212-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Cartwright ◽  
Denise Mitten
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Relationship Of

Persons Together

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
Market Relations ◽  
The Image Of God

This chapter moves into the political and economic aspects of human nature. Given scarcity and interdependence, what sense has Judaism made of the material well-being necessary for human flourishing? What are Jewish attitudes toward prosperity, market relations, labor, and leisure? What has Judaism had to say about the political dimensions of human nature? If all humans are made in the image of God, what does that original equality imply for political order, authority, and justice? In what kinds of systems can human beings best flourish? It argues that Jewish tradition shows that we act in conformity with our nature when we elevate, improve, and sanctify it. As co-creators of the world with God, we are not just the sport of our biochemistry. We are persons who can select and choose among the traits that comprise our very own natures, cultivating some and weeding out others.

Wer täuscht wen?

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100
Author(s):  
Daniel Strassberg
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
The Self ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Narrative Context ◽  
Everyday Knowledge

The insight that human beings are prone to deceive themselves is part of our everyday knowledge of human nature. Even so, if deceiving someone means to deliberately misrepresent something to him, it is difficult to understand how it is possible to deceive yourself. This paper tries to address this difficulty by means of a narrative approach. Self-deception is conceived as a change of the narrative context by means of which the same fact appears in a different light. On these grounds, depending on whether the self-deceiver adopts an ironic attitude to his self-deception or not, it is also possible to distinguish between a morally inexcusable self-deception and a morally indifferent one.

scholarly journals Exploring Children’s Values Questionnaire: Measurement, Gender, and Age Issues

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 309
Author(s):  
Loyd Richard Fyffe ◽  
Ian Hay
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Theoretical Construct ◽  
School Based ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
The Status ◽  
Good Internal Consistency ◽  
Student Values ◽  
Fit Index ◽  
Relationship Of

Values are conceptualized as the standards individuals use to determine the status of events and actions and are considered to influence individuals’ behaviours, reasoning, and perceptions. Based on a synthesis of six school-based student values enhancement programs, this paper reports on the development of the Children’s Values Questionnaire (CVQ). This Questionnaire was conceptualized as composing of seven dimensions: Self-Concept; Behaviour; Healthy Life; Social; School Climate; Emotional Intelligence; World View and 26 related sub-dimensions. A total of 848 co-educational students (52% male, 48% female) from Years (Grades) 4 to 7, ages 9 to 13+ years, across 11 Australian schools completed the 95-item CVQ Questionnaire. The Cronbach alpha coefficient of the instrument was 0.94, indicating that the questionnaire had good internal consistency. The inter-correlation between its seven dimensions clustered at Pearson r = 0.55. An exploratory factor analysis was supportive of the CVQ’s theoretical construct (Norm Fit Index of the data to the theoretical construct, 0.09). Girls rated themselves higher than boys (p < 0.001) on items related to Playing by the Rules, Responsibility, Creativity, Empathy, and Communication, and boys rated themselves higher than girls on Physical Activities items (p < 0.001). Older students (Years 6 and 7) compared to younger students (Years 4 and 5) demonstrated greater discernment and differentiation of context (p < 0.05), the growing influence of peer friendship in their value beliefs and an increase in confidence in social settings (p < 0.001). The relationship of the CVQ to Schwartz’s Universal Valued Goals is reported in the paper, along with examples of the application of the CVQ in schools.

Why Repentance Affects Divine Punishment but Not Human Punishment?

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-115
Author(s):  
Shoval Shafat
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Status ◽  
Divine Punishment ◽  
Divine Mercy ◽  
Rabbinic Courts

The aim of the discussion in this article is to explore two different Rabbinic explanations for the status of repentance in human and divine punishment, and to emphasize the essential distinction between them. According to the first explanation the source of accepting repentance is divine mercy upon human beings. Since mercy is not a legitimate consideration in conviction or even in determination of punishment in Jewish criminal law there is no wonder why repentance does not have any role during the criminal procedures in rabbinic court. According to the second explanation the acceptance of repentance by God is similar to the acceptance of flattery and bribe by a Roman corrupted judge. God decides to accept repentance and to forgive the transgressors since it better serves God’s interests. This analogy between repentance and flattery and bribery then explains why rabbinic courts do not take repentance into account.

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