scholarly journals MORAL AND RELIGIOUS MOTIVES IN THE WORKS OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN: CULTURAL CONTEXT

2017 ◽  
pp. 60-65
Author(s):  
A. Y. Morozov
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Coincidence Point ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Will To Power ◽  
The Will ◽  
Virtuous Life

The main moral and religious themes of J. Tolkien`s novels “The Lord of rings” and “The Silmarillion” are observed in the article. It is analyzed that Tolkien followed Christian tradition, sharing st. Augustine`s conception of evil as the absence of good. It is clarified Tolkien`s anti-Nietzschean position where evil is equal to the will to power, while the good is associated with humility and serving. It is shown an author`s interpretation of Socratic classic inquiry: would people live virtuous life if they achieve omnipotence and why moral life is preferable than immoral one. According to Tolkien, human moral obligations are closely connected with the awareness of freedom and mortality which are regarded as a giftto a man, enabling to escape from senseless “badinfinity” (Hegel) of material determinant existence. In its turn, a notion of “gift” refersto metaphysical model of world that assumes divine being and his providential intervention in the course of earthly history. One of this divine providence`s manifestation is so called “eucatastrophe”, unexpected salvation from tragedy, therapeutic consolation that returns to a man the feeling of meaningfulness and joy of being. It is suggested thatsalvation can be interpreted in romantic way as coincidence point of trajectories of art and nature, where fairy tale embodies in life, and life starts to be built according to the laws of fairy tale.

Nielsen, Ethics and God

1978 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Osmond G. Ramberan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Belief In God ◽  
Moral Insight ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
The Will

One of the central claims of most religious people (especially those in the Judeo-Christian tradition) is that morality is based upon religion or, more specifically, on a belief in God. A morality which is not God-centred not only cannot provide a genuine basis for moral beliefs but is really and truly groundless. For without a belief in the sovereignty of God, there can be no genuine adequate foundation for moral beliefs. In his recent book, Ethics Without God, Kai Nielsen claims that this view is grossly mistaken. According to Nielsen, morality cannot be based on religion because moral claims cannot be derived from religious (non-moral) cosmological claims such as ‘God is Creator’, or ‘God exists’. ‘God wills X’, ‘God commands X’, do not entail ‘X ought to be done’, or ‘I ought to do X’. It is perfectly in order for someone to say that God wills (commands) X, but is X good? It is also perfectly in order for someone to say that God commands me to do X, but why should I obey God? Surely it cannot be because God is powerful and, if I do not obey his commands, he will punish me. It may be prudent and expedient to obey God because I am afraid of punishment, but this is surely not a morally good reason for obeying him. Moral obligations follow God's commands only if it is assumed that God is morally perfect or that he is good or that his commands are right (p. 5). But I cannot know that God is good without an understanding of what it is for something to be good. To be sure, ‘God is good’, is a truth of language, but in order to understand it we must have a prior understanding of goodness- an understanding which is ‘logically prior to, and independent of, any understanding or acknowledgement of God’ (p. 11). Moreover, Nielsen argues, the religious quest is a quest to find a being that is ‘worthy of worship’, but it is by our own moral insight that we decide that any being, any Z, is ‘worthy of worship’. The decision that there is a Z such that Z is worthy of worship is a moral judgment which is in no way dependent upon the will of God. But more than this, ‘God’, in ‘God is worthy of worship’, is, in most cases, used analytically so that anyone who is brought to say ‘My God’, or ‘My Lord and my God’, is using ‘God’ evaluatively and by implication making a moral judgment - a moral judgment which is logically prior to the will or command of God. This leads Nielsen to conclude:

Valuation and the Will to Power

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Henrik Rydenfelt
Keyword(s):  
Will To Power ◽  
The Will

scholarly journals From Critical Thought to Emancipatory Action: Contradictory Research Goals?

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Humphries
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Will To Power ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
Traditional Research ◽  
The Will ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge ◽  
Oriented Research

This article results from reading Lather's Getting Smart (1991) and Hammersley's The Politics of Social Research (1995). The theme is the debates between ‘traditional’ research approaches and ‘emancipatory’ research approaches. It is argued that these debates are based on stereotypical views which obscure important characteristics held in common, and both require to be interrogated. The article examines two of these characteristics, appeals to a metanarrative of emancipation and the will to power, and considers the implications of the privileging of scientific knowledge over other forms of knowledge. It concludes by considering the possibilities for a praxis-oriented research which may lead to possibilities for emancipatory action.

scholarly journals M. Heidegger: Metaphysical character of technical scientific civilisation

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-140
Author(s):  
Mico Savic
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology ◽  
The Other ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Will To Power ◽  
World Picture ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
The World ◽  
The Will ◽  
Paper Author

In this paper, author deals with Heidegger's account of the modern age as the epoch based on Western metaphysics. In the first part of the paper, he shows that, according to Heidegger, modern interpretation of the reality as the world picture, is essentially determined by Descartes' philosophy. Then, author exposes Heidegger's interpretation of the turn which already took place in Plato's metaphysics and which made possible Descartes' metaphysics and modern epoch. In the second part of the paper, author explores Heidegger's interpretation of science and technology as shoots of very metaphysics. Heidegger emphasizes that the essence of technology corresponds to the essence of subjectivity and shows how the metaphysics of subjectivity subsequently finds its end in Nietzsche's metaphysics of the will to power, as the last word of Western philosophy. In the concluding part, author argues that the contemporary processes of globalization can be just understood as processes of completion of metaphysics. They can be identified as a global rule of the essence of technology. On the basis of Heidegger's vision of overcoming metaphysics, author concludes that it opens the possibility of a philosophy of finitude which points to dialogue with the Other as a way of resolving the key practical issues of the contemporary world.

The Will to Power

2013 ◽  
pp. 105-129
Author(s):  
Katrina Mitcheson
Keyword(s):  
Will To Power ◽  
The Will
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