Dall’enciclica “laudato si” all’enciclica “fratelli tutti”. Una prospettiva sulla spiritualità e l’etica sociale

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 155-168
Author(s):  
Peter Schallenberg ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Social Ethics ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Prodigal Son ◽  
Christian Social Ethics ◽  
Law And Ethics ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face

From the Encyclical „Laudato si” to the Encyclical „Fratelli tutti”. A Perspective on Spirituality and Social Ethics. The essay begins by showing that it is essential for all Christian thinking - and thus also for a Christian social ethics - to refer to a deeper meaning passively received from God. Starting from this Logos, Christian social ethical thinking tries to convey how to build a civilisation or a society of integral and humane capitalism whose inner building principle is love. This reception of meaning and love in order to be enabled to love takes place practically in liturgiacal worship as the author argues with Romano Guardini; here the absolute love of God is first received and vouchsafed as an unclaimable and yet profoundly vital gift. Liturgy focuses, like a burning glass, the experience of a greater freedom of the human being to do good in the face of a greater love, in the face of absolute love, in the face of God. In this view, liturgy is liberated freedom for the good and for the better, for the beautiful. From there, all human activity not only has a technical-instrumental and efficiency-oriented side, but is deeply ordered towards the realisation of higher values, so that the author can say: Culture grows out of cult. From here, he shows how a culture of law and ethics unfolds from the mere nature of man to faith in a personal God. In this perspective, law and morality are formulations of the primordial sense placed by God in human natural reason - the logos - and serve to shape a world conducive to life and worthy of human beings. This highlights in particular the space of political action, which plays a prominent role especially in Pope Francis’ encyclicals „Laudato si” and „Fratelli tutti”. In these encyclicals, the author primarily criticises a „technocratic paradigm”, in which human action is only reduced to questions of technical possibilities and efficiency, but in which the deeper meaning of human action is obscured. Starting from the parable of the prodigal son and the parable of the Good Samaritan, which is particularly prominent in „Fratelli tutti”, the author then develops the extent to which one must first convert to the incarnate Logos Christ in order to be able to realise the Logos instilled in man and the world, also in political thought and action. This is where the author sees the proprium of Christian social ethics as ethics of institutions and as inclusive capitalism, as also developed in the encyclicals of Pope Francis: The orientation of state, society and economy towards the realisation of higher values, of the Logos placed in the world by God. Keywords: Pope Francis, Fratelli Tutti, Romano Guardini, Liturgy and Ethics, Social Ethics, Personalism, Integral Humanism, Critique on technocracy

scholarly journals COVID-19 in the International Year of Plant Health

2022 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
José Jorge Gutiérrez-Samperio
Keyword(s):  
Life Forms ◽  
Plant Health ◽  
World Health ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Pests And Diseases ◽  
The Bible ◽  
United Nations General ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Health Organization

<p>Pests, in their broad sense, have played an important part in the history of humankind. We could say that humans, crops and pests have walked together through life. Codices, glyphs, paintings and countless ancient documents, including the Bible and the Koran, bear witness to this. Humanity has been attacked by its own diseases, but also by those that limit them from obtaining food and deteriorate the environment. COVID-19, which is now troubling us and was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March of 2020, became a part of the list of experiences we have suffered in the past, with pests or epidemics that caused millions of deaths by diseases or famines. It is paradoxical that this health contingency occurs when the United Nations General Assembly, on December 20th, 2018, in its resolution A/RES/73/252 decides to declare 2020 the International Year of Plant Health in order to “highlight the importance of plant health to improve food security, protect the environment and biodiversity and boost economic development” according to the pronouncement by the FAO. For the first time, in an era with great technological and scientific breakthroughs, humanity was aware of its vulnerability against the inevitable evolution of life forms in the face of dilemmas global impact caused by human beings. Thus, the pest or parasite makes its own declaration of existential preeminence through SARS-CoV-2 to remind us that the health of humans or plants is the essence of life and its continuity. But perhaps absolute health is not enough. It is necessary to find a balance in a world overwhelmed by giving so much in return for almost nothing to everyone living on it. If the sensor of our anthropocentric intervention of the world is climate change, then biological chaos is a masterpiece. The reemergence of pests and diseases considered eradicated, or those of zoonotic origin that had never accompanied our existence is a surreal dystopia that we will never be able to deny again.</p>

Negative Contrast Experience: An Ignatian Appraisal

Horizons ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
LaReine-Marie Mosely
Keyword(s):  
Negative Contrast ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Unconscious Bias ◽  
Negative Experiences ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face

In the face of continual and increased human suffering in every corner of the world, good and principled people often do nothing. Edward Schillebeeckx's understanding of negative experiences of contrast begins with outrage at excessive human suffering and is followed by protest and eventual praxis to ameliorate and end the suffering. The author queries whether unconscious bias prevents human beings from seeing this suffering, and suggests that embracing a rigorous Ignatian consciousness examen may correct this impairment.

Martin Luther’s Teaching and Practice of Charity and Social Ethics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Torvend
Keyword(s):  
Social Assistance ◽  
Social Ethics ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Business Practices ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Revolutionary Change ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World

Luther not only wrote about charity and social ethics throughout much of his life; he also experienced the conditions that were the object of Christian generosity and ethical reflection. This essay suggests that his study of the Bible and Church Fathers was not the only source of Luther’s writings and revolutionary programs. His experience of deprivation as a child and a monk, his encounters with the homeless poor of Wittenberg, and his observation of corrupt business practices and failed political leadership played significant roles in his sensitivity to the scriptures and the history of ecclesial care for the poor. The rise of social history and the use of social scientific methods have drawn attention to the economic, political, and social context in which Luther lived and to which he responded throughout his life. The reformer’s works on charity and social ethics did not emerge in a vacuum. His initial public foray focused on the “spiritual economy” of the late medieval church, which discriminated against many of Luther’s poor parishioners. While the Ninety-Five Theses raised serious questions about the sacrament of penance, the role of indulgences, and the authority of the pope, the text also reveals Luther’s early concern for the poor, who were frightened into buying spiritual favors for themselves or their dead relatives. In addition to theological problems, Luther recognized the ethical dimension of this large-scale sales campaign that benefited archbishops and the Vatican treasury. Luther’s rediscovery of the Pauline teaching on justification by grace alone reoriented Christians toward life in this world. Rather than spend effort or money on spiritual exercises that might win one God’s favor in the afterlife, human energies could be directed toward alleviating present suffering. A dialectical thinker, Luther insisted on holding together two seemingly irreconcilable claims, two disparate texts, two discordant images in order to raise the question: How is one related to the other? His teaching on justification claims that God always advances toward a suffering humanity first and that this advance is revealed with utter clarity in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who incarnates God’s desire to free human beings from the deathly presence of anxious religion and give them “life, health, and salvation.” But such freedom must be used for the good of one’s neighbor who suffers within the economic, political, and social fabric of life. The advance of God, who is mercy and grace, continues into the world through Christ and his body. This essay suggests that while Luther animated significant contributions to biblical studies and theology, a body of ethical teaching has been harder to discern among his followers. Perhaps this hesitancy arose out of fear that an emphasis on ethics would be construed as a lapse into what Luther called “works righteousness.” This essay considers a number of the ethical questions and crises that faced Luther, which have not subsided and ask for contemporary investigation. A remarkable achievement of Luther’s reform was a revolutionary change in social assistance. The monastic communities of western Europe had long served as centers of hospitality and charity, and the order in which the young Luther made his vows was a reforming order committed to austerity of life and care for the urban poor. For theological reasons, Luther promoted the suppression of the monasteries and vilified the mendicant orders, but this left a gap in care for the growing population of homeless peasants seeking work in urban centers. The reform of social assistance undertaken in the small “Lutheran” town of Leisnig, Germany, in the early 16th century would become the model for many church orders throughout Germany and Scandinavia, influencing today’s state-run and tax-funded assistance to needy families. Recently, ethicists and Luther scholars have reassessed his reform of charity to ask how the reformer’s social teaching might support engagement with a wide range of present-day social movements. Increased study of Luther’s social writings and the study of evangelical “church orders,” previously marginalized in the academy, offers promising avenues for continued research. This essay also compares three forms of charity—Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and Reformed—illustrating the symbiotic relationship between social ethics and theology and underscoring the role of theological priorities in the conceptualization of social assistance. Finally, this essay considers Luther’s writings on social ethics. Frequently, interpreters of this focus on “faith active in love,” or the utility of his distinction between two kingdoms or governments. Such studies offer a biblical or theological grounding for Lutheran ethics yet frequently overlook the actual crises or practices he encountered. Luther was not a “systematic” theologian, and one must search through his many writings to discover his “ethical” teachings. Luther scholars and historians of social ethics are increasingly interested in the specific ethical questions he was asked to discuss by those who had accepted his reform. The growing popularity of his reform movement and the seismic shift in Christian thought and practice it animated left Luther little time to construct a well-ordered corpus of social teaching, yet many of his concerns are vitally alive in the world today albeit within a different context. Many of his concerns were enlightened by his study of scripture, in which he recognized a mirror of his own turbulent era.

Labour Exploitation and Work-Based Harm

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Scott
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Food Supply Chain ◽  
Social Harm ◽  
Labour Exploitation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Efficiency And Productivity

This is a book about labour exploitation. Labour exploitation tends to emerge when workers are subject to excessive and oppressive forms of control; controls that are rooted within workplaces and beyond. A central argument of the book is that it is time to study control and exploitation from a social harm perspective. This perspective is novel in the way that it questions a crime-orientated approach to issues and problems at work. Specifically, labour exploitation may exist without evidence of a crime being committed, and, only the most extreme cases of labour exploitation are ever effectively criminalised. Correspondingly, solutions to labour exploitation are needed that acknowledge the limitations of legal baselines. These involve a re-assessment of the contemporary structures within which work and workers are produced and reproduced. The book draws heavily on evidence from workers in the food supply chain, mainly of migrant origin, to reveal the face of labour control, exploitation and harm in contemporary contexts. In addition, policies shaping work/workers are profiled from across the world, some that facilitate harm and others that prevent it. The book concludes that it is time to contemplate the plight of the world’s workers as human beings, rather than to simply engage in research aimed at maximising the efficiency and productivity of labour. To this end, the dilemma is not about how to produce good and better workers, but how to produce good and better work.

The Culture of the Church

1954 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-154
Author(s):  
Frank O'Malley
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Church

Among the preparatory prayers of the Mass, there are these words from Psalm 42: “Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy.” However inadequately accomplished, the purpose of this essay is to affirm and distinguish our cause as Catholic minds and human beings from the nation and from the world that are not holy—to affirm the strength and meaning of the world of the Church for our varied worlds of living and working. As Christopher Dawson points out in a remarkable essay, there is, even in the modern world, “a tradition of sacred culture which it has been the mission of the Church to nourish and preserve”—and to nourish and preserve it even in the nation that is not holy. “However secularized our modern civilization may become,” Dawson continues, “this sacred tradition [this sacred life] remains like a river in the desert, and a genuine religious education can still use it to irrigate the thirsty lands and to change the face of the world with the promise of a new life. The great obstacle is the failure of Christians themselves to understand the depth of that tradition and the inexhaustible possibilities of new life that it contains.”

scholarly journals Social transcending as a conceptual basis for understanding culture and society

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-32
Author(s):  
Zh. V. Latysheva
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
European Philosophy ◽  
Social Creativity

Modern problems of the socio-humanistic sciences, including the interaction of structure/ agency, the ways and forms of both personal development and socio-cultural changes, the transformation of the value status of a social ego, the reinterpretation of its contribution to the creativeness of society require substantial amendments to the definitions and methodology of socio-humanistic research. In order to achieve this goal, the article considers one of the basic concepts of European philosophy, transcending from the point of view which differs from generally accepted. The singularity of the author’s approach is the social notion of this concept and the identification of its integrating capabilities regarding to semantically close concepts and terms of social theory of the 20th – 21st centuries. To reach these objectives, a comparative analysis of the concepts of social transcending and the concepts of action creativity (H. Joas), fabulation (A.-T. Tymieniecka), signification (P. Berger, T. Luckmann), noting (J. Alexander), metalanguage (R. Barthes), agency (E. Giddens et al.) was treated. Social transcending is as intentional and creative as human action. However, the first concept, besides, is intersubjective, communicative and teleological. As a fabulation, social transcending raises a person by means of functioning of many sociocultural practices, above the world of mundanity. However, in fabulation the mechanism of such exaltation is a artistic and aesthetic experience, while in social transcending all the interests peculiar to human beings are used: cognitive, ethical, religious, etc. Signification involves the individually-personal and sign-symbolic aspects of social transcending, its everyday and non-everyday levels, being one of the significant ways of social transcending. Noting and metalanguage also embody the options of signifying of social transcending; by means of agensy its dynamism is revealed. The author comes to the conclusion that the generic conceptual-substantive basis of the analyzed concepts is social transcending, which «incorporates» the most important processes of social creativity.

Cosmopolitanism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Held ◽  
Pietro Maffettone
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
High Degree

Cosmopolitanism, in the broadest sense, is a way of thinking about the human condition. It portrays humanity as a universal fellowship. The unity to which cosmopolitans refer can be intellectual (we all share a capacity for reason), moral (we are all part of a single moral community), or institutional (we are all vulnerable to the same political evils and thus require shared collective solutions). The cosmopolitan intuition with its drive to highlight commonality is undoubtedly important. It understands that human beings are capable of an enormous range of good and bad, and attempts to embed human activity in a framework of common rules and norms; hence, it seeks to tame the potential for violent conflict. It tries to give us reasons to care for each other and to broaden our moral and intellectual universe beyond the remit of our personal ties and immediate environment. It offers a model of political action that confronts some of the most pressing challenges we face in the twenty-first century and does so by suggesting inclusive institutional solutions. Yet, cosmopolitanism would not be an attractive philosophical position if it did not consistently strive to address some of its underlying tensions. One of the most intensely shared elements of the human experience is particularity, not unity. We come to the world from families and social and cultural groups, and often develop our moral sensibilities within the framework of public discourses based on specific political traditions. Critics often contend that cosmopolitanism downplays such particularity and is thus unable to reflect one of the most important aspects of persons’ lives. A second encompassing objection leveled at cosmopolitanism is its high degree of utopianism. Cosmopolitanism, its critics contend, is a flight from political reality. Its plans for institutional reform are too abstract to be credible and neglect the importance of power in human political relationships. Cosmopolitans should accept these challenges. Their aim should be to make cosmopolitanism more attractive by explaining the place of special ties in their moral outlook, and to make it more credible by detailing the urgency of cosmopolitan political reform. The enduring success of a cosmopolitan ethos is thus partly reliant on cosmopolitans’ ability to provide convincing answers to these alleged weaknesses.

Exploring the Complexities of Human Action

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Raeff
Keyword(s):  
Human Action ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
Empathic Understanding ◽  
Environmental Processes ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Common Goals

Exploring the Complexities of Human Action offers a bold theoretical framework for thinking systematically and integratively about what people do as they go about their complex lives in all corners of the world. The book offers a vision of humanity that promotes empathic understanding of complex human beings that can bring people together to pursue common goals. Raeff sets the stage for conceptualizing human action by characterizing what people do in terms of the complexities of holism, dynamics, variability, and multicausality. She also constructively questions some conventional practices and assumptions in psychology (e.g., fragmenting, objectifying, aggregating, deterministic causality). The author then articulates a systems conceptualization of action that emphasizes multiple and interrelated processes. This integrative conceptualization holds that action is constituted by simultaneously occurring and interrelated individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. Action is further conceptualized in terms of simultaneously occurring and interrelated psychological processes (e.g., sensing, perceiving, thinking, feeling, interacting, self/identity), as well as developmental processes. This theoretical framework is informed by research in varied cultures, and accessible examples are used to illustrate major concepts and claims. The book also discusses some implications and applications of the theoretical framework for investigating the complexities of human action. The book shows how the theoretical framework can be used to think about a wide range of action, from eating to art. Raeff uses the theoretical framework to consider varied vexing human issues, including mind–body connections, diversity, extremism, and freedom, as well as how action is simultaneously universal, culturally particular, and individualized.

Of Wonder and Changing the World: Philip Allott’s Legal Utopianism

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 335-364
Author(s):  
Jens T. Theilen
Keyword(s):  
Legal Theory ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Law And Society ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Open Future ◽  
Utopian Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Law ◽  
Utopian Thought

Utopian perspectives on law are rare – both within legal theory, which generally eschews utopianism as frivolous and unrealistic, and within utopian studies, which have argely neglected to analyse the role that law plays in utopia or on the path towards it. Philip Allott’s work, and his latest monograph ‘Eutopia’ in particular, constitutes a notable exception which is positioned at the intersection between law and utopianism, and this paper aims to explore that intersection with a view to identifying the conceptualisation of law that it implies. To tease out the utopian elements in Allott, I suggest reading ‘Eutopia’ in light of Ernst Bloch’s ‘The Principle of Hope’. Three related utopian themes can thus be identified: the orientation towards the future based on dreams, imagination, and educated hope; the defamiliarisation from the present to open up possibilities of change; and the situation of utopian thought in relation to present reality, dynamically construed, with an emphasis on the need for action by human beings to propel society towards a utopian future. I argue that this framework leads to a utopian account of law which is critical of the law as it stands, dynamically oriented towards an open future, and in the hands of human beings who have the power to shape and transform its content. The conclusion considers the implications of this analysis for the genre of text to which ‘Eutopia’ belongs: If the point is to transform law and society by way of human action, then it constitutes a utopian manifesto that aims to instigate a sense of responsibility among its readers, and thus achieve the world as it could be.

List und Form

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuel Seitz
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Morality Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
Skill Building ◽  
Blind Spots

Prudence is the prerequisite for skill. Building on this suspicion, Emanuel Seitz examines the essence of prudence from its beginnings in ancient philosophy to Heidegger's reinterpretations. He frees prudence from its dubious reputation of being no more than an instrumental calculus. Its real task is to provide advice on the form of life and skillful ways of dealing with the world. The attempt to conceive of human action in terms of prudence brings to light the blind spots in modern theories of morality, politics and society. It serves to illuminates the riddle of practice, explores the hidden meaning of cunning and explores what is possible for human beings beyond what is merely necessary.

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