The Problem with Sandra

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 275-298
Author(s):  
Stephen Milford
Keyword(s):  
Animal Rights ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Relational Ontology ◽  
The Status ◽  
Great Victory

Abstract The orangutan, Sandra, has been legally granted the status of ‘non-human person.’ Although, a great victory for those who promote animal rights, this has raised questions about the contemporary approaches to personhood. Recent relational ontological shifts, evident in both secular and theological anthropology, risks unfortunate consequences. Like a snake eating its own tail, without proper circumspection, relational ontology is in danger of postulating a problematic circularity of persons creating persons out of nothing. This article explores these recent shifts, the possible pitfalls of relational ontology, and proposes certain theological desiderata.

The entanglement of knowing and being: Hegel, ontology and education in the 21st century

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-39
Author(s):  
Brendan Hyde
Keyword(s):  
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Relational Ontology ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Contemporary Education ◽  
Space Recognition

There has been a revived interest Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Notions emanating from his philosophy concerning the human person and that human beings together create and sustain phenomena through social practice speaks of a relational ontology that has relevance for contemporary education. This article argues that such ontology needs to be considered alongside the epistemological concerns of education. From Hegel’s writing, five interdependent ideas are delineated which have relevance for a relational ontology appropriate for contemporary education ‐ consciousness, self-consciousness, social space, recognition and identity. From these, three propositions for a social ontology of education ‐ learning as a socially constructed activity, learning as the formation of identity and learning as recognition ‐ are posited and discussed.

scholarly journals (Trans)Formative Trajectories of Decisions: An Analysis from The Translation Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 361-391
Author(s):  
Eduardo Guedes Villar ◽  
Karina De Deá Róglio ◽  
Natália Rese
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Network Theory ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Relational Ontology ◽  
Organizational Decision Making ◽  
The Status ◽  
Process Perspective

Motivated by an agenda for empirical research on decisions, we seek to understand how an issue or idea is labelled as a "decision". Based on the relational ontology, we used the Actor-Network Theory as a theoretical frame, and particularly the translation perspective. In order to understand the "process of formation and stabilization of decisions" focused on what makes actors act, we conducted an ethnographic study in a social enterprise for 30 months. Through narrative analysis, we propose the (trans)formative trajectories of decisions in which we describe the trajectory of these hybrid entities achieving the status of relative fixity labelled as "the decision". We understand the trajectory as an ongoing translation journey; thus, we tracked decisions in their trajectories of translation, packaging and legitimation. The elements of the organizational decision-making are re-signified as performative texts, which enter the network of relations. Therefore, decisions are (trans)formed on a journey of mediation among multiple actants. When objectified as crystallized texts, the decisions become performative, because they start to organize and participate in the constitution of the ongoing reality. This theoretical framework allowed us to extend the processual understanding of decision-making aligned with the relational ontology and the time-process perspective.

Animal rights – Jewish perspectives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronen Pinkas
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Golden Rule ◽  
The Other ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Strict Adherence ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Face ◽  
Pain And Suffering ◽  
Paradigmatic Change

This article raises the question why is it that, despite Jewish tradition devoting much thought to the status and treatment of animals and showing strict adherence to the notion of preventing their pain and suffering, ethical attitudes to animals are not dealt with systematically in the writings of Jewish philosophers and have not received sufficient attention in the context of moral monotheism. What has prevented the expansion of the golden rule: »Love your fellow as yourself: I am the LORD« (Lev 19,18) and »That which is hateful to you do not do to another« (BT Shabbat 31a:6; JT Nedarim 30b:1) to animals? Why is it that the moral responsibility for the fellow-man, the neighbor, or the other, has been understood as referring only to a human companion? Does the demand for absolute moral responsibility spoken from the face of the other, which Emmanuel Levinas emphasized in his ethics, not radiate from the face of the non-human other as well? Levinas’s ethics explicitly negates the principle of reciprocity and moral symmetry: The ›I‹ is committed to the other, regardless of the other’s attitude towards him. Does the affinity to the eternal Thou which Martin Buber also discovers in plants and animals not require a paradigmatic change in the attitude towards animals?

scholarly journals A Clean, Green New Zealand? An In-Depth Look at the Personal Experiences of Animal Rights Activists

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Feigin ◽  
Richard Glynn Owens ◽  
Felicity Goodyear-Smith
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Insight Into

This study explored personal experiences of animal rights and environmental activists in New Zealand. The stories of participants provided insight into the challenges activists face in a country where the economy is heavily dependent on animal agriculture. A qualitative methodology was utilised and several major themes emerged: (1) emotional and psychological experiences, (2) group membership, (3) characteristics of activism and liberation, (4) the law and its agents, and (5) challenge to society. Participants of the study represent a group of individuals engaged in acts of altruistic offending triggered by exposure to the suffering of non-human animals. Their moral philosophy and conscience overrode all considerations for legal repercussions, and through their activism they not only challenged the status quo, but also called upon non-activist members of society to make meaningful contributions to the world around them.

scholarly journals The Subject of Conceptual Mapping: Theological Anthropology across Brain, Body, and World

Open Theology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-135
Author(s):  
Erin Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Conceptual Mapping ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Research in conceptual metaphor and conceptual blending-referred to collectively as “conceptual mapping”-identifies human thought as a process of making connections across fields of meaning. Underlying the theory of conceptual mapping is a particular understanding of the mind as embodied. Over the past few decades, researchers in the cognitive sciences have been “putting brain, body, and world back together again.” The result is a picture of the human being as one who develops in transaction with her environment, and whose highest forms of intelligence and meaning-making are rooted in the body’s movement in the world. Conceptual mapping therefore not only gives us insight into how we think, but also into who we are. This calls for a revolution in theological anthropology. Our spirituality must be understood in light of the fact that we are embodied beings, embedded in our environment, whose identities are both material and discursive. Finally, using the example of white supremacy, I show how this revolution in understanding the human person can be useful for ethical reflection, and in thinking about sin and redemption.

Process Church of the Final Judgment

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carole M. Cusack
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identity ◽  
Animal Rights ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Animal Society ◽  
Best Friends ◽  
The Status ◽  
New Research

This article examines a new religious movement (NRM) founded by charismatic leaders in the mid-1960s from the viewpoint of its demise. The Process Church of the Final Judgment was founded in 1966 in London by Mary Ann MacLean and Robert de Grimston. The Process developed a theology melding esoteric Biblical motifs with psychoanalysis. The Process ceased to exist two decades later due to changes in belief and affiliation; members adopted other, mainstream, identities. De Grimston was expelled from The Process in 1974, after which it transformed into The Foundation Faith of God under MacLean’s leadership. The Foundation Faith of God later morphed into the Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah, abandoning a religious identity in favour of an animal rights-based identity. Until recently little attention was paid to how NRMs ended; the academic focus was overwhelmingly on the origins of such groups. This study builds on new research to argue that The Process ended via activities of transmutation and replacement. In 2020 The Process is a defunct religion with extensive online archives, curated by exmembers and enthusiasts. Processean ideas are kept “alive” and potentially able to be revived; the status of virtual communities and attempted revivals is also discussed with regard to identifying the precise date of the demise of NRMs.

Actual Human Persons Are Sexed, Unified Beings

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (10) ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Elliott Louis Bedford ◽  
Jason T. Eberl ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Gender Dysphoria ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
Health Care Ethics ◽  
Metaphysical Explanation ◽  
Appropriate Care ◽  
Made In

Recently, Edward Furton commented on an article that we published in Health Care Ethics USA concerning the philosophical and theological anthropology informing the discussion of appropriate care for individuals with gender dysphoria and intersex conditions. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify the points we made in that article, particularly the metaphysical mechanics underlying our contention that, as part of a unified human person, the human rational soul is sexed. We hope this more in-depth metaphysical explanation shows that Furton’s concern, while valid insofar as our position may have needed clarifying, is nevertheless ill-founded with respect to our contention that actually existent human rational souls are sexed.

A Theocentric Vision of Culture in John Paul II

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
Steven J. Meyer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Second Vatican Council ◽  
John Paul Ii ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Intellectual Legacy

This essay explores John Paul II’s intellectual legacy as a champion for a theocentric view of culture that emphasizes the human person and human dignity in quest for human self-realization in a community that seeks the transcendence of God. His theopocentric vision for culture is defined in the context of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council. John Paul’s theological anthropology is grounded in personalism, communion, dialogue, and freedom. When God is eclipsed from human activity, particularly via the “shadow” of secularism, it engenders the crisis of culture. John Paul’s articulation of dialogue emphasizes inculturation and evangelization. His Trinitarian and social encyclicals reflect a theocentric and anthropocentric vision for culture, while his Polish and literary background show his thoughts on culture not as teachings but as integrated into his life experience. The essay concludes with reflections on Mary and the challenge of dialogue in a multicultural world.

scholarly journals Being Gifted as Negative Certainty

Open Theology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-240
Author(s):  
David Mark Dunning
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Subject ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Human Person ◽  
The Social ◽  
Contemporary Philosopher ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Subjective Phenomenon ◽  
Human Embodiment

Abstract Existentialism centres reflection upon the bodily existence of the human person. Generally, however, theological anthropology has struggled to manage developments in biological and psychological sciences that have made clear the pluriformity of human embodiment. The work of the social sciences has also increased the visibility of minority, disadvantaged, or neglected persons. Theological anthropology must begin to conceive of an inclusive, non-static understanding of human nature that fully acknowledges the integrity and the diverse identities of the human subject. To riposte, this article utilises the interplay between phenomenology and theology in the work of the contemporary philosopher-theologian Jean-Luc Marion. Marion undeniably sees the root of the human in the concrete free person; he recognises an ever-receding, indefinable horizon towards which the incomprehensible existence of the subjective phenomenon is universally oriented. In this article I focus on how a combination of the theology of the subject and its existential orientation, realised through the freedom of incomprehensibility à la Marion, may provide a dynamic basis for understanding human nature at a time when subjective diversity is ever more asserted.

Childhood in Eastern Patristic Thought: Some Problems of Theology and Theological Anthropology

1994 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 39-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Gould
Keyword(s):  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Early Church ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Eternal Salvation ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Present Life

The writings of the Early Church concerning childhood are not extensive, but in the works of a number of Eastern Christian authors of the second to fourth centuries it is possible to discern some ideas about childhood which raise important problems of Christian theology and theological anthropology. The theological problem is that of the question posed for theodicy by the sufferings and deaths of infants. It is harder to give a brief definition of the anthropological problem, but it is important to do so because to define the problem as the Eastern Fathers saw it is also to identify the set of conceptual tools—the anthropological paradigm—which they used to answer it. These are not, naturally, the concepts of modern anthropology and psychology. Applied to patristic thought, these terms usually refer to speculations about the composition and functioning of the human person or the human soul which belong to a discourse which is recognizably philosophical and metaphysical—by which is meant that it is (though influenced by other sources, such as the Bible) the discourse of a tradition descending ultimately from the anthropological terminology of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Patristic anthropology seeks to account for the history and experiences of the human person as a created being—fhe experience of sin and mortality in the present life, but also of eternal salvation and advancement to perfection in the image of God.

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