Studies regarding the influence of therapeutic horticulture on the human-nature relationship and the increase of well-being

2021 ◽  
pp. 75-86
Author(s):  
T. Buru ◽  
É. Kállay ◽  
L.E. Olar ◽  
R. Ştefan ◽  
M. Cantor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Therapeutic Horticulture

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.

Calvin's legacy for contemporary Reformed natural law

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 414-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Herdt
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Fair Dealing ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Moral Quality ◽  
Careful Distinction

AbstractRecent scholarship has done much to uncover a continuous tradition of distinctively Reformed natural law reflection, according to which knowledge of the natural moral law, though not saving knowledge, is universally available to humanity in its fallen state and makes a stable secular order possible. A close look at Calvin's understanding of natural law, and in particular of conscience and natural human instincts, shows that Calvin himself did not expect the natural law to serve as a source of substantive action-guiding moral norms. First, Calvin held that conscience delivers information concerning the moral quality even of individual actions. But he also thought that we often blind ourselves to the deliverances of conscience. Second, he argued that our natural instincts predispose us to civic order and fair dealing insofar as these are necessary for the natural well-being or advantage of creatures such as ourselves. But he also carefully distinguished the good of advantage from the good of justice or virtue. The modern natural lawyers eroded Calvin's careful distinction between conscience as revealing our duty as duty, and instinct as guiding us towards natural advantage. They also turned away from Calvin's insistence on the moral incapacity of unredeemed humanity. The modern natural lawyers saw their task as one of developing an empirical science of human nature to guide legislation and shape international law, bracketing questions of whether this nature was fallen and in need of redemption. When Scottish Presbyterian Reformed thinkers, such as Gershom Carmichael and John Witherspoon, tried in diverse ways to restore eroded Reformed commitments to the science of human nature, about which they were otherwise so enthusiastic, they were not particularly successful. A science which could derive moral norms from an examination of human instincts, and a conscience which could deliver universal moral knowledge, proved too attractive to decline simply because of the transcendence of God or the fallenness of humankind. Those who wished to preserve an account of natural law which remained faithful to a fully robust set of Reformed theological commitments could do so only by refusing to regard the natural law as a positive source of moral knowledge.

Angus Fletcher’s Other Literary Darwinism

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-108
Author(s):  
Joseph Carroll
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Literary Scholarship ◽  
Negative Judgment ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Literary Darwinism ◽  
Patent Medicine

Abstract Angus Fletcher pitches his book to general readers. Though it consists of literary criticism, it is designed as a psychological self-help manual-literature as therapy. Fletcher's thera­peutic program is presented as an alternative to the kind of literary Darwinism that iden­tifies human nature as the basis for literature. He acknowledges the existence of human nature but aims at transcending it by promoting an Aquarian ethos of harmony and un­derstanding. He has some gifts of style, but the dominant voice in his stylistic blend is that of the shill hawking a patent medicine. He presents himself as a modern sage who reveals an ancient but long-lost technique for using literature to boost happiness and well-being. Each of his 25 chapters identifies a distinct literary technique and uses popularized neuro­science to describe its supposedly beneficial psychological effects. Fletcher’s chains of rea­soning are habitually tenuous, and his exposition is littered with factual errors that betray ignorance of the books, genres, and periods he discusses. Despite its shortcomings, Fletch­er’s book has received encomiums from prestigious researchers, including the psychologist Martin Seligman and the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. In evaluating Fletcher’s rhetor­ical style, analytic categories, Aquarian ethos, historical self-narrative, pattern of reasoning, and literary scholarship, this review essay reaches a more negative judgment about the value of his book. As an alternative to Fletcher’s book, I recommend a few evolutionary literary works for general readers.

The Virtues of Justice: Toward a Moral and Jurisprudential Psychology

2021 ◽  
pp. 0306624X2110668
Author(s):  
Christopher Williams ◽  
Bruce Arrigo
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Offender Therapy ◽  
Psychological Structure ◽  
The Common ◽  
Over Time

Within the theoretical literature on crime control and offender therapy, little has been written about the importance of virtue ethics in the experience of human justice and in the evolution of the common good. As a theory of being, the aretaic tradition extols eudemonic existence (i.e., excellence, flourishing) as a relational habit of developing character that is both practiced and embodied over time. What this implies is that virtue justice depends on a set of assumptions and predispositions—both moral and jurisprudential—whose meanings are essential to comprehending its psychological structure. This article sets out to explore several themes that our integral to our thesis on the virtues (i.e., the being) of justice. We reclaim justice’s aretaic significance, critique the common conflation of justice and law, discuss how the dominant legalistic conception of justice is rooted in a particular view of human nature, suggest how justice might be more properly grounded in natural moral sensibilities, and provide a tentative explication of the psychological character of justice as a twofold moral disposition. Given this exploratory commentary, we conclude by reflecting on how individual well-being, system-wide progress, and transformative social change are both possible and practical, in the interest of promoting the virtues of justice within the practice of crime control and offender therapy.

The Perfectionist Turn

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas J. Den Uyl ◽  
Douglas B. Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Living Things ◽  
Good For

This chapter argues against the claim advanced by Daniel Haybron, Daniel C. Russell, and Mark LeBar that human self-perfection is ultimately based on notions of well-being and human flourishing that we bring to our understanding of human nature and in favor of the idea that it is human nature itself that ultimately grounds our understanding of human well-being or human flourishing. In doing so, the question of whether there is some gap between (a) what it is to be a good human being and (b) what is good for a human being is addressed. It is shown that the arguments on behalf of a such a gap fail and that the version of perfectionism that is advanced—that is, individualistic perfectionism—is ideally suited to not only avoid such a gap but also to display their unity, especially when perfection is understood as a process of living things and not as some cosmic or metaphysical process.

Epicureanism

2021 ◽  
pp. 115-140
Author(s):  
Christopher W. Gowans
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Fear Of Death ◽  
Philosophical Foundation ◽  
Physical Pain ◽  
Ideal State ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Ideal

The chapter argues that ancient Epicureanism (mainly Epicurus, Lucretius, and Philodemus) is plausibly interpreted as a self-cultivation philosophy. The existential starting point is a life of irrational fears and frustrated desires. The ideal state of well-being is a life of pleasure, understood primarily as the absence of physical pain and mental distress (more tranquilism than hedonism). This ideal life is free of fear of death and the gods, and it is devoted to friendship, moral virtue, and the pursuit of desires only if they are natural and necessary. The philosophical foundation is a materialist, atomistic theory of nature and human nature that entails that death is nothing to fear, the gods are unconcerned with us, and only natural and necessary desires are important. We achieve this ideal through spiritual exercises that involve learning Epicurean philosophy, modifying desires, and cultivating virtue in a community of like-minded people.

On Contemporary Nihilism

1945 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aron Gurwitsch
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Conditioned Reflexes ◽  
The Times

At The present time, reason is not held in any too great esteem; “rationalism” is deprecated in most intellectual circles. “To believe in reason” is to be behind the times, to give evidence of a mode of thinking that is out of date, out of contact with what today is called “progress.”The “belief in reason” is now replaced by all sorts of psychological and sociological sciences: the psychology of the unconscious, of the subconscious, of behavior, of suppressed desires and conditioned reflexes. The variety of sociologies is no less disconcerting—not should we forget the sociological psychologies and the psychological sociologies. Formerly man was considered to be an animal rationale, a rational being; now he has become simply a vital being, not further qualified. Since man lives in community with his fellows, it was formerly the practice to inquire into the structure and organization which society ought to have in order to correspond to the rational and human nature of its members. But today no such question is raised; it is taken for granted that man, as a social animal, must adjust himself to his environment or suffer the consequence to his well-being and his happiness. It is no longer a question of whether one may or one should adjust oneself to certain social conditions: it is now only a question of what is the most effective means or technique of adjustment.

scholarly journals Community Enterprises: Enduring Institutions for a Newer World

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Bernard Teahan
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Goals ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Global World ◽  
Community Enterprises

<p>Community enterprises have long endured. Why they have endured and why there are undergoing a renaissance is explained by the very nature of their constituent parts: a sense of self, a love of and the need for community, the pursuit of solidarity, and enterprise attributes. These are the driving forces behind community enterprises, which have melded together to deliver significant benefits to many New Zealand communities over many years. Although community enterprises are not for every enterprise circumstance and every community, they reflect underlying truths of human nature, and when successfully employed, will endear themselves to their communities. When unsuccessful, they may generate strong emotions of rejection. This thesis explores these themes and their relevance to contemporary New Zealand society. It pursues the question of why some communities have a strong affinity for the concept of community enterprises and others do not; and argues for their importance as a complementary structure in a global world rightly and properly dominated by private enterprise. Distinctive features of community enterprises, including ownership, the pursuit of mixed economic and social goals, and the influence of politics, are also examined. Finally, the thesis tells the dynamic story of community enterprises in contemporary New Zealand through eight vignettes and four case studies. This thesis supports a contention that community enterprises are enduring and endearing institutions that can significantly benefit the well-being of a community.</p>

scholarly journals Nature engagement for human and nature’s well-being during the Corona pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Miles Richardson ◽  
Iain Hamlin
Keyword(s):  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Nature Conservation ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Connectedness To Nature ◽  
Nature Connectedness ◽  
The Uk

Purpose To explore the associations between noticing nature, nature connectedness, time in nature and human and nature’s well-being during the corona pandemic restrictions. Design/methodology/approach Natural England’s people and nature survey (PANS) data (n = 4,206) from the UK was used to assess a number of well-being outcomes (loneliness, life satisfaction, worthwhile life and happiness) and pro-nature behaviours as a function of longer-term physical time in nature and psychological connectedness to nature and shorter-term visits and noticing of nature. Findings Longer-term factors of nature connectedness and time in nature were both consistent significant predictors of well-being measures (apart from loneliness) and pro-nature conservation behaviours. Considered alone short-term visits and noticing were again consistent and significant predictors of three well-being measures, but recent visits to nature were not associated with pro-nature conservation behaviours. A combined regression highlighted the importance of a longer-term relationship with nature in all outcomes apart from loneliness but also revealed that even when considered in concert with longer-term factors, currently noticing nature had a role in feeling one’s life was worthwhile, pro-nature behaviours and loneliness. Originality/value The closeness of the human-nature relationship and noticing nature have rarely been examined in concert with nature visits. Further, the reciprocal benefits of pro-nature behaviours are often overlooked.

scholarly journals Understanding Human–Nature Connections Through Landscape Socialization

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (20) ◽  
pp. 7593
Author(s):  
Li-Pei Peng
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Sense Of Community ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Policy Interventions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Land Use Policies ◽  
Analytical Tools

Understanding the landscape socialization underpinning the human–nature relationship is essential because it can contribute to assisting us to reconnect with nature. Reconnecting to nature is increasingly recognized as positively contributing to health and well-being. This study aimed to understand people’s connections with nature through landscape socialization under different land use policies. The study assumed that social values, as perceived by residents, facilitates their landscape socialization. Using a questionnaire measuring sense of community and the Social Values for Ecosystem Services application as analytical tools, the study assessed how residents with varying educational attainment, sense of community, and grounded occupation differ in identifying with conservation- and recreation-oriented policy interventions. The results demonstrated the role of landscape socialization in how people connect with nature, and the landscape socialization as a result of long-term policy interventions may exert substantial effects on residents’ social values across various spatial scales. The results deepen the general understanding of system leverage points for creating inner connections to nature which can aid sustainability transformation.

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