Free to Follow the Feeling

Enthusiasm ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 105-141
Author(s):  
Monique Scheer

Chapter 3 argues for the materiality of emotional practice, even when emotion is conceived of as immaterial or “immediate” experience. Emotions are especially important mediators of experience for Protestants because they can be conceived of as immaterial. Drawing on ethnographic studies of mainline and Charismatic church communities, this chapter shows that styles of enthusiastic practice (Enlightened, Romantic) make a difference as to what emotions are taken seriously. Emotions count as evidence in different ways for each: “depth” indicates for mainstream, liberal Protestants a real emotion, one that is in the immaterial part of the self, whereas for the Charismatics, “intensity” provides evidence, i.e. the material force of bodily movements and sensations counts as real. Their “belief” is framed as “knowledge”: they are certain. Rather appalled at this claim, the liberal Protestants engage in an emotional practice of doubt, which they view as essential to maintaining personal autonomy, even as they subscribe to conviction. Doubt is, however, also a material practice, dependent on a specific way of doing enthusiasm.

Author(s):  
David Wendell Moller

This chapter details the vicissitudes of race and poverty shaped J. W. Green’s upbringing in the Deep South as well as his adjustment to urban living as an adult. His lack of education, employment opportunity, and personal empowerment led to a “life on the streets.” Stoic faith saw him through a life and death in poverty. Mr. Green teaches us that everyone comes to this phase of life with strengths to cull from their cultural and spiritual beliefs. Mr. Green also teaches us that dignified dying does not require the unfettered exercise of personal autonomy, although a deep and abiding respect for the self-worth of the individual is necessary.


2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 392-401
Author(s):  
Volker Kaul

Liberalism believes that individuals are endowed a priori with reason or at least agency and it is up to that reason and agency to make choices, commitments and so on. Communitarianism criticizes liberalism’s explicit and deliberate neglect of the self and insists that we attain a self and identity only through the effective recognition of significant others. However, personal autonomy does not seem to be a default position, neither reason nor community is going to provide it inevitably. Therefore, it is so important to go beyond the liberal–communitarian divide. This article is analysing various proposals in this direction, asks about the place of communities and the individual in times of populism and the pandemic and provides a global perspective on the liberal–communitarian debate.


1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred Mele

John Christman, in ‘Autonomy and Personal History,’ advances a novel genetic or historical account of individual autonomy. He formulates ‘the conditions of the [i.e., his] new model of autonomy’ as follows:(i) A person P is autonomous relative to some desire D if it is the case that P did not resist the development of D when attending to this process of development, or P would not have resisted that development had P attended to the process;(ii) The lack of resistance to the development of D did not take place (or would not have) under the influence of factors that inhibit self-reflection;and(iii) The self-reflection involved in condition (i) [sic] is (minimally) rational and involves no self-deception. (11)


1981 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Wolstein

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
SAMULI REIJULA ◽  
RALPH HERTWIG

Abstract This article argues that nudges can often be turned into self-nudges: empowering interventions that enable people to design and structure their own decision environments – that is, to act as citizen choice architects. Self-nudging applies insights from behavioral science in a way that is practicable and cost-effective, but that sidesteps concerns about paternalism or manipulation. It has the potential to expand the scope of application of behavioral insights from the public to the personal sphere (e.g., homes, offices, families). It is a tool for reducing failures of self-control and enhancing personal autonomy; specifically, self-nudging can mean designing one's proximate choice architecture to alleviate the effects of self-control problems, engaging in education to understand the nature and causes of self-control problems and employing simple educational nudges to improve goal attainment in various domains. It can even mean self-paternalistic interventions such as winnowing down one's choice set by, for instance, removing options. Policy-makers could promote self-nudging by sharing knowledge about nudges and how they work. The ultimate goal of the self-nudging approach is to enable citizen choice architects’ efficient self-governance, where reasonable, and the self-determined arbitration of conflicts between their mutually exclusive goals and preferences.


2020 ◽  
pp. 223-237
Author(s):  
G. V. Chaika

The article examines the psychological qualities and characteristics that support positive relations with others as they are understood in C. Ryff 's model of psychological well-being and compares them with those personal qualities that usually understood as supporting an individual 's personal autonomy. To solve this task, we used the corresponding scale from the Ryff 's Scales of Psychological Well-being; the Test of Meaningful Life Orientation of D. A. Leontiev; Test-Questionnaire of Self-Attitude of V. V. Stolyn, S.R. Panteleyev; Self-Efficacy Scale proposed by R. Schwarzer and M. Jerusalem (adapted by V. G. Romek), S. Maddi 's Hardiness Scale (adaptated of D. A. Leontiev et al.), the Self-Actualization Test (CAT), the self-expression scale from the self-determination test of Osin E. et al. In total, 150 respondents - students of Kyiv universities participated in the research. The study data show that there are strong correlations between positive relations with others and such personal traits as life process and life results and other indicators of meaningfulness of life; self-expression, which reveals whether life is experienced as consistent with one 's own desires, needs and values; self-respect and expected attitudes of others and several other indicators of self-attitude and general scale of self-attitudes; self-actualizing value and psychological hardiness. The predictors of successful positive relations are commitment, expected attitudes of others, self-expression and self-respect, existing life goals and positive life results. High locus of control on self and control as a factor of psychological hardiness can prevent from development of warm, good and deep relations. The obtained results show that there is a line of personal characteristic that support personal autonomy and positive relations with others, namely, self-expression, self-respect, life-goals. That is why we cannot argue the idea that personal autonomy and positive relations with others are totally opposite personal traits and that need in autonomy can is fulfilled by neglecting relationships with others.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 80-99
Author(s):  
Arthur Arruda Leal Ferreira ◽  
Natalia Barbosa Pereira ◽  
Bruno Foureaux Figueredo

O alvo deste trabalho é examinar os efeitos de subjetivação produzidos pelas práticas psi, notadamente as oriundas do campo clínico. Para tal tomaremos como ferramenta-chave o conceito de tecnologias ou técnicas de si, desenvolvido na última fase dos escritos de Michel Foucault, nos anos 1980. Tais tecnologias são analisáveis em componentes como substância, askesis, práticas de si, e teleologia. A partir destes componentes, Foucault estabelece alguns sistemas éticos específicos, dentre eles, a hermenêutica de si cristã, que seria fundamental para o surgimento dos saberes psi. Contudo, mais do que sugerir uma aplicação do conceito foucaultiano às práticas psicológicas, o campo de estudos da Antropologia da Ciência ou Epistemologia Política, como também é chamado, nos permite fazer um estudo das técnicas de si presentes nas práticas clínicas atuais. Para tal, seguimos com uma pesquisa de campo realizada com dispositivos psicológicos específicos, na Divisão de Psicologia Aplicada da UFRJ. Ao longo da pesquisa acompanhamos as distintas técnicas terapêuticas que são colocadas em prática neste espaço por estudantes do curso de psicologia sob orientação de profissionais mais experientes, sendo este estágio uma parte do processo de formação dos primeiros. Além de entrevista com estagiários, a pesquisa conta com outros recursos como entrevista a pacientes e supervisores e observação participante.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuli Reijula ◽  
Ralph Hertwig

This article argues that nudges can often be turned into self-nudges: empowering interventions that enable people to design and structure their own decision environments—that is, to act as citizen choice architects. Self-nudging applies insights from behavioral science in a way that is practicable and cost-effective but that sidesteps concerns about paternalism or manipulation. It has the potential to expand the scope of application of behavioral insights from the public to the personal sphere (e.g., homes, offices, families). It is a tool for reducing failures of self-control and enhancing personal autonomy; specifically, self-nudging can mean designing one’s proximate choice architecture to alleviate the effects of self-control problems, engaging in education to understand the nature and causes of self-control problems, and employing simple educational nudges to improve goal attainment in various domains. It can even mean self-paternalistic interventions such as winnowing down one’s choice set by, for instance, removing options. Policy makers could promote self-nudging by sharing knowledge about nudges and how they work. The ultimate goal of the self-nudging approach is to enable citizen choice architects’ efficient self-governance, where reasonable, and the self-determined arbitration of conflicts between their mutually exclusive goals and preferences.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 619-637
Author(s):  
Tom O’Shea

The ideal of personal autonomy faces a challenge from advocates of orthonomy, who think good government should displace self-government. These critics claim that autonomy is an arbitrary kind of psychological harmony and that we should instead concentrate on ensuring our motivations and deliberations are responsive to reasons. This paper recasts these objections as part of an intramural debate between approaches to autonomy that accept or reject the requirement for robust rational capacities. It argues that autonomy depends upon such responsiveness to reasons, countering objections that ‘externalist’ rationalist criteria strip the self from self-government.


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