scholarly journals The Other as My Equal

Poligrafi ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (99/100) ◽  
pp. 27-44
Author(s):  
Rasoul Rasoulipour

The tremendous human capacity to “love” one another is, in my opinion, the strongest evidence both for the existence of God and for the relationship that God intends for human beings to have with God and with each other. At the same time, the human capacity for envy, hate, aggression, and violating the dignity of “other” humans is similarly great evidence that something is horribly wrong − human beings fail to maintain the intended relationship with God and each other. God’s intention does not change, but we forgetful human beings lose sight of it from time to time. This problem is at the root of human alienation from God and others that leaves us isolated, oblivious, suspicious and fearful.This paper intends to provide a framework that allows us to see the source of the problem, to explore some of the causes for human alienation from each other and creation, and to find ways to heal the gap between ourselves and the rest of God’s creation. I believe that all struggles, oppressions and sufferings result from this alienation, and a substantial mission of all religions, at least the Abrahamic religions, is to heal this divide by seeing the other as one’s equal.

Author(s):  
Christine M. Korsgaard

This book argues that we are obligated to treat all sentient animals as “ends in themselves.” Drawing on a theory of the good derived from Aristotle, it offers an explanation of why animals are the sorts of beings who have a good. Drawing on a revised version of Kant’s argument for the value of humanity, it argues that rationality commits us to claiming the standing of ends in ourselves in two senses. As autonomous beings, we claim to be ends in ourselves when we claim the standing to make laws for ourselves and each other. As beings who have a good, we also claim to be ends in ourselves when we take the things that are good for us to be good absolutely and so worthy of pursuit. The first claim commits us to joining with other autonomous beings in relations of reciprocal moral lawmaking. The second claim commits us to treating the good of every sentient animal as something of absolute importance. The book also argues that human beings are not more important than, superior to, or better off than the other animals. It criticizes the “marginal cases” argument and advances a view of moral standing as attaching to the atemporal subjects of lives. It offers a non-utilitarian account of the relationship between the good and pleasure, and addresses questions about the badness of extinction and about whether we have the right to eat animals, experiment on them, make them work for us, and keep them as pets.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Agustinus Wisnu Dewantara

Talking about God can not be separated from the activity of human thought. Activity is the heart of metaphysics. Searching religious authenticity tends to lead to a leap in harsh encounter with other religions. This interfaith encounter harsh posed a dilemma. Why? Because on the one hand religion is the peacemaker, but on the other hand it’s has of encouraging conflict and even violence. Understanding God is not quite done only by understanding the religion dogma, but to understand God rationally it is needed. It is true that humans understand the world according to his own ego, but it is not simultaneously affirm that God is only a projection of the human mind. Humans understand things outside of himself because no awareness of it. On this side of metaphysics finds itself. Analogical approach allows humans to approach and express God metaphysically. Human clearly can not express the reality of the divine in human language, but with the human intellect is able to reflect something about the relationship with God. Analogy allows humans to enter the metaphysical discussion about God. People who are at this point should come to the understanding that God is the Same One More From My mind, The Impossible is defined, the Supreme Mystery, and infinitely far above any human thoughts.


Author(s):  
Michael Naas

This chapter analyzes a large swath of Plato’s Statesman (287b–311c) in order to ask, with “Plato’s Pharmacy” in the background, about the Stranger’s claim that law—and especially written law, since writing is the essence of law—is at once inferior to rule without law and yet, in a world without divine rulers, absolutely necessary for human governance. This chapter returns to many of the insights from Chapter 2 on the myth of the two ages, since what that myth demonstrated was the desirability and yet impossibility of an age in which a truly divine being rules over human beings and the concomitant necessity of trying to imitate that age through laws. Once again, we see that what is at issue in the relationship between the two ages, as well as in the relationship between a regime without law and a regime with it, are two different valences or valuations of life—the values of pure life, fecundity, spontaneity, and memory, on the one hand, and the values of death in life, forgetting in memory, and sterility in fecundity, on the other.


Human Arenas ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 405-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaakko Hilppö ◽  
Niklas Alexander Chimirri ◽  
Antti Rajala

Abstract How to investigate psychologically relevant phenomena in the most ethical ways possible is an enduring question for researchers not only in psychology but also in adjacent fields that study human subjectivity. Once acknowledging that both researchers and the people whose lives they want to study are human beings acting in a common world, also inhabited by non-human beings, the relationship between researchers and participants touches upon fundamental questions not only about what it means to do research together, but also what it means to conduct life in this world together. This implies that questions regarding what counts as ethical conduct need to be accentuated and also profoundly re-drawn given the encompassing complexity of these relations. In this article, we will shortly review the theoretical foundations and associated problematics of the dominant view of the researcher-researched relationship in current psychological (and other) research ethics. We then present and discuss what we mean by a relational ethical position from within practice and for practice. We will also shortly introduce how the other contributions to this special section advance the theoretical debates on research ethics.


1981 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 299-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney D. Vanderploeg

In the last issue (Vanderploeg, 1981), the concept of the Imago Dei was shown to be central to being human and as establishing human beings as essentially relational, called to relationship with God and with each other. God's election was seen as at the core of the Imago Dei and hence as a universal phenomenon. In the present article, the intrapsychic aspect of personality is also discussed as a third important relational aspect of the Imago Dei. The Imago Dei is seen as foundational to psychotherapy, providing both a ground for therapy and a mandate. The therapeutic relationship is understood as covenantal and as an affirmation of God's election, as it is a relationship in which clients are universally supported in enhancing their relationships, that is, the Imago Dei. The transpersonal, God-person relationship is also discussed, both as to how it manifests itself in therapy and how it can be dealt with therapeutically. Throughout, the focus is on questions which help therapists intergrate their faith with their vocation rather than segregating the two by imposing one on the other.


Author(s):  
Madhuri M. Yadlapati

This chapter examines four particular ways in which faith has been expressed as a commitment to one's responsibilities vis-à-vis one's community and God. It discusses Hindu epic illustrations of dharma, or sacred duty; an allegorical extrapolation of Christian responsibility in C. S. Lewis's Narnia series as well as his discussion of the relationship between faith and works; Islamic understanding of human beings as God's caliphs (khalifa) and the responsibility for jihad; and Jewish articulations of human responsibility in a covenantal relationship with God. These examples concern a specific interface of religious ethics and the commitment to faith, by which one embraces a tremendous sense of responsibility for the very fate of the human world.


Author(s):  
Seungeun Choi ◽  

The number of foreigners residing in Korea exceeded 2.5 million for the first time ever. As the ratio of foreigners to the total population approaches 5%, it is evaluated that Korea has actually entered a multicultural society. It is known that among the types of foreigners staying there are many young foreigners who visit Korea for the purpose of employment. The number of marriage immigrants was 16,025, an increase of 4.3% from the previous year. Of these, 82.6% were women. Entering a multicultural society in a situation where empathy for each other is insufficient can lead to social conflict. In particular, in the COVID-19 pandemic, hostility toward foreigners is more prevalent, and hatred for strangers is increasing. This study critically analyzes these social phenomena and seeks to raise the philosophical basis for multicultural education by establishing a concept with a new perspective on the other. This paper focuses on the philosophy of Buber and Levinas. By establishing 'I and You' as a meeting, Buber presented a new relationship with others. Meanwhile, Levinas emphasized human ethics and responsibility as the absolute and infinite being of the other. According to Buber, in the world there is a relationship between 'I-You' and 'I-It', and in order to live a true life, you must establish a relationship between 'I and you'. The relationship between 'I and it' is a temporary and mechanical relationship where objects can be replaced at any time by looking at the world from an instrumental point of view. However, the relationship between 'I and You' is a relationship that faces each other personally, and the only 'I' that cannot be changed with anything and the 'You' that cannot be replaced exist in deep trust. In phenomenology of otherness, Levinas intends to describe the encounter with the something outside the subject. The concepts of possession, distinctiveness and understanding are replaced by those of approaches, proximity, care and fecundity. In Korean society, a policy that seeks to use foreigners as human resources and, especially in the case of marriage immigrant women, as a solution to a society with low birthrates along with the labor force, shows how society treats others. Therefore, multicultural education must rethink the existence and dignity of human beings through the perspective of the other as asserted in the philosophy of Buber and Levinas.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-56
Author(s):  
Nancy Levene

Abstract In working to understand myths, rituals, and the human beings who craft and use them, Jonathan Z. Smith involved himself in a debate located primarily in anthropology. What is one to make of cultural and linguistic differences? How do differences come to matter? Are there barriers to understanding between one culture-group-tribe and another that surpass the power of translation? Smith’s stance in this debate was partly negative. It cannot be the case that there are differences between cultures that entail ranking some higher than others. More constructively, Smith posed the question of the relationship of two approaches that shape the debate: on one side, the approach of structuralism, which seeks to identify what all cultures share, and on the other, the approach of history, which looks for anomalies and outliers, specificities and accidents. One must commit to both, he claimed. The question is, how?


Author(s):  
Joshua Gert

‘Sentimentalism’ is a name for a wide class of views in value theory. Sentimentalist views are unified by their commitment to the idea that normative or evaluative properties or concepts are best explained in a way that relies, in some fundamental way, on an appeal to the emotional and affective nature of human beings. ‘Moral sentimentalism’ is simply sentimentalism that restricts its focus to moral properties or concepts. Moral sentimentalism contrasts importantly with moral rationalism, according to which the foundation of morality is to be found in the human capacity for reason. Often this capacity is taken to be of the same sort that yields knowledge of the truths of logic, mathematics or physics. Hume can be taken as an arch sentimentalist, and Kant as an arch rationalist. Sentimentalism takes six primary forms: expressivism, quasi-realism, dispositionalism, fitting-attitude views, reference-fixing views and rational sentimentalism. Expressivism holds that normative judgements are expressions of attitudes such as approval and disapproval. Quasi-realism can be seen as a sophisticated version of expressivism that attempts to vindicate our thinking and talking as if moral judgements were truth-apt. Dispositionalism, on the other hand, straightforwardly makes moral talk truth-apt by understanding it as factual talk about our emotional dispositions. Fitting-attitude views are similar to dispositional views, but they replace talk of causing certain attitudes with talk of meriting them or making them fitting. Reference-fixing views use our sentiments just as an account of heat might use our capacity to feel heat: as detectors of objective and external properties, the essences of which we can then discover. Finally, rational sentimentalism holds that concepts such as the pitiful or the admirable are ones we use to help regulate, by reflection and argument, motivational attitudes such as pity and admiration.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-157
Author(s):  
Gerald McKenny

A fundamental theme in Gilbert Meilaender’s work on bioethical issues is the relationship between the ethical claims of finitude (that is, the biological necessity that characterizes human beings as finite creatures) and of freedom (that is, the capacity of human beings to transcend biological necessity). This article identifies two ways in which Meilaender articulates this relationship (one Niebuhrian, the other Augustinian) and proposes a third (Barthian) way which avoids the limitations of the first two ways while serving Meilaender’s purpose, which is to redress what he sees as an imbalance in favor of the claims of freedom over those of finitude in contemporary biomedicine and bioethics. The article ends by suggesting that Meilaender’s purpose would be best served by avoiding tensions between finitude and freedom as the third way does.


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