On Foundation Problems of Normative and Educational Ethics

1998 ◽  
pp. 215-222
Author(s):  
Horst Seidl
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Goodness ◽  
Deontological Ethics ◽  
Educational Ethics ◽  
The Will ◽  
Natural Inclination

The controversies in our time between teleological and deontological ethics which come down to the problem "from being to ought," referring to human being or nature, can be resolved only by an adequate conception of human nature. Taking up the ancient tradition (Plato, Aristotle, Stoa) again, we can re-examine the teleological conception of human nature as primarily instinctive and selfish, and say that human nature is constituted also by reason and that the instinctive nature is predisposed to be guided by reason or intellect. The constitutive order of the human soul, with the subordination of the instinct under the intellect, involves already some natural goodness, of which the intellect is aware (in the natural moral conscience) and for which the will strives (in a natural inclination). This is the basis for the "moral law" and for normative ethics. Thus, human nature is not selfish in itself. Although moral goodness as humankind’s perfection is an ideal, it has in us already imperfect natural beginnings, a "natural morality." In a certain sense, the moral ought of actions comes from one’s being, from the natural moral goodness of which the intellect is aware in itself, and from its good intentions.

Hylemorphism, rigid designators, and the disembodied ‘Jesus’: a call for clarification

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
JAMES T. TURNER
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Rigid Designators ◽  
Prime Matter ◽  
Holy Saturday

AbstractMany in the Christian tradition affirm two things: (1) that Jesus Christ descended to Hades/Limbus Patrumon Holy Saturday and (2) that the human nature of Jesus is a hylemorphic compound, the unity of a human soul and prime matter. I argue that (1) and (2) are incompatible; for the name ‘Jesus’, ‘Christ’, and ‘Jesus Christ’ rigidly designates a human being. But, given a certain view of hylemorphism, the human being, Jesus, ceased to exist in the time between his death and resurrection. So, Jesus did not descend to Hades/Limbus Patrum, even if God the Son did.

“Non potest non peccare”: Karl Barth on original sin and the bondage of the will

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-207
Author(s):  
Shao Kai Tseng
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Karl Barth ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Church Dogmatics ◽  
Historical Condition ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Will

Summary This article offers an exposition of Karl Barth’s actualistic reorientation of the Augustinian notions of original sin and the bondage of the will in § 60 and § 65 of Church Dogmatics IV/1–2. Barth redefines human nature as a total determination of the human being (Sein/Dasein) “from above” by the covenantal history of reconciliation. Human nature as such remains totally intact in the historical state of sin. The human being, however, is also determined “from below” by the Adamic world-history of total corruption. With this dialectical construal of sin and human nature, Barth redefines original sin as the radically sinful activities and decisions that determine the confinement of human beings to the historical condition of fallenness. Barth also challenges the famous Augustinian account of the bondage of the will to which original sin gives rise, and uses the present active indicative to express his actualistic reorientation of the Augustinian notion of the bondage: “non potest non peccare”.

William of Auvergne on the Various States of Our Nature

Traditio ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 201-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland J. Teske
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
The State ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Original State ◽  
The Third ◽  
Adam And Eve

Although William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 to his death in 1249, criticized Avicenna severely, he also adopted many philosophical positions of Avicenna. In a recently published article, I emphasized William's considerable debt to the philosophy of Avicenna, and in a still-to-be-published article I pointed out how William was indebted to Avicenna for his view of what it is to be a human being, and especially for his view of the spirituality of the human soul. For much of his lengthy work, De anima, William follows Avicenna's philosophy as he found it in the great Islamic thinker's Liber de anima, seu sextus de naturalibus; not, of course, without serious criticism on many points. In chapter 5, however, of his De anima, William rather abruptly introduces a historical concept of human nature, which is closer to that of Augustine than of Avicenna or Aristotle, in place of the philosophical concept of human nature, which he derived largely from Avicenna, whom he often confused with the real Aristotle. In introducing such a historical concept of human nature or of the nature of the human soul, William raises several rather intriguing problems, which I want to discuss in this paper. First, he raises a question about how the various historical states of human nature are to be conceived and how they are to be combined with the philosophical concept of nature that he derives from Avicenna. Second, he raises a question about how he can, while claiming to proceed exclusively by means of philosophical proofs, introduce such topics as the original state in which Adam and Eve were created, the original sin by which they fell and which they passed on to the rest of the human race, and Christian baptism by which the harm stemming from their sin can be undone. Finally, William speaks about the soul's state of natural happiness as opposed to the state of glory, and though his treatment of these states is rather brief, it raises a further question about how William envisaged these states and their relationship to each other. Hence, the paper will have three parts: the first on the present and past states of human nature of which William speaks and on their relationship to the philosophical concept of human nature, the second on how William introduces into what he claimed was strictly philosophical such apparently theological topics, and the third on how William understands the relation between the soul's state of natural happiness and the state of glory.

Jonathan Edwards's Freedom of the Will and his defence of the impeccability of Jesus Christ

2007 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J Fisk
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Moment

AbstractIt is in Jonathan Edwards's Freedom of the Will (1754) that he reconciles impeccability and freedom of the will in the human soul of Jesus Christ, even when Jesus is in a state of trial. But how does he shape a synthesis between these two attributes without duplicity, and at the same time avoid theological and christological barbs, whether Arminian or Hobbist, Nestorian or Apollinist? For Edwards, the Son of God did not surrender impeccability when he undertook to fulfil – in human nature, and in a state of trial – intra-trinitarian promises, promises made not only by the Father to the Son, but by the Son to the Father. Edwards views the habits of the heart of Jesus Christ progressing in holiness from the moment of his incarnation. He understands the excellencies that the Son of God brought to the human nature in the incarnation in no way to have added to nor to have diminished the impeccable holy disposition of his person. A key to interpreting the holy habits of Jesus’ heart is, according to Edwards, to view the source of the impeccability of the soul of Jesus as lying in its essence, not in a cause outside his person; it lies in the very disposition of his heart.

scholarly journals Manusia Dan Kesempurnaannya (Telaah Psikologi Transendental Mullā Shadrā)

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 133
Author(s):  
Kerwanto Kerwanto
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Theoretical Reason ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Mulla Sadra

Abstract : Mullā Ṣadrā is one of the philosophers who had considerable attention to the study of human. His view concerning the human soul and its perfection can be applied as the basis of Islamic principles of psychology. Under the investigation on his philosophical writtings as well as his  Quranic  interpretation,  such  as  Tafsīr  al-Qur’ān,  we  are  invited  to  understand  human nature and its perfection. This article shows Ṣadra’s view about the value of knowledge as the basis of the achievement of happiness in human being. This paper also intended to show that knowledge about the reality of the human soul has a major influence on moral action of an individual.Keywords :  transcendental  psychology,  substantial  motion  (al-harakah  al-jawhariyah), ignorance  (jahl),  theoretical  reason  (nazari),  practical  reason  (‘amali),    intellectual  faculty, animal faculty, lust and anger (amarah). Mullā Shadrā  merupakan salah satu filsuf yang memberikan perhatian yang besar pada kajian tentang  manusia.  Beberapa  pandangannya  tentang  jiwa  manusia  dan  kesempurnaannya bisa dijadikan sebagai basis prinsip-prinsip psikologi Islam. Melalui penelusuran terhadap beberapa karya filsafatnya termasuk juga kitab tafsirnya seperti Tafsīr al-Qur’ān al-Karīm, kita diajak untuk memahami hakikat manusia dan kesempurnaannya.Tulisan ini menunjukkan pandangan  Shadrā  tentang  nilai  pengetahuan  sebagai  basis  capaian  kesempurnaan  jiwa dan  puncak  kebahagiaan  manusia.  Tulisan  ini  juga  ditujukan  untuk  menunjukkan  bahwa pengetahuan  tentang  realitas  jiwa  manusia  memiliki  pengaruh  besar  terhadap  tindakan moral seorang individu. Kata-kata kunci :  psikologi  transendental,  gerak  substansi  (al-harakah  al-jawhariyah), kebodohan  (jahl),  akal  teoritis  (nazhari),  akal  praktis  (‘amali),  daya  intelektual,  daya hewaniyah, syahwat dan amarah.

scholarly journals Human Rights and Human Nature

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-534
Author(s):  
Jean Rhéaume
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Positive Law

At least two important consequences follow from the fact that human rights are based on human nature. First, they exist according to natural law even in cases where positive law does not recognize them. Secondly, they cannot evolve because the nature and purpose of the human being does not change: only their formulation and level of protection in positive law can vary according to the socio-historical context.

Salvation in Plato and St. Paul: An Essay in Normative Ethics

1973 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-344
Author(s):  
George Nakhnikian
Keyword(s):  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Proper Function ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Republic

What is a good man, and how does he become good? My aim in this paper is to unravel and to assess Plato's and St. Paul's very different answers to these questions. The pivotal texts are the Republic and Paul's Epistles.A good man, according to Plato, is a man who is dikaios (righteous, just), temperate, wise, and courageous. A just man is one each one of the three parts (elements, components) of whose soul is doing its own [work, ergon]. We must pause a moment at the crucial passage in 441 DE. Cornford's translation of it is somewhat ambiguous. “ ... each one of us likewise will be a just person, fulfilling his proper function, only if the several parts of our nature fulfil theirs.” According to this rendition Plato may be construed to be saying that a human being is doing his own work as a just person only if each part of his inner nature (=soul) is doing its own work.

The Distinctive Unity of the Human Being in Aquinas

2021 ◽  
pp. 580-595
Author(s):  
Therese Scarpelli Cory
Keyword(s):  
Human Being ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Rational Animal ◽  
The Core ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter explores the fundamental vision of the human being at the core of Aquinas’ anthropology. Aquinas has typically been construed as defending a fundamentally ‘Aristotelian’ vision of the human being. I show that this label has generated a skewed reading of Aquinas. Accordingly, this chapter does not lay claim to identify what it would take for an anthropology to be authentically ‘Thomistic’. Instead, it makes a proposal concerning what I argue is the ‘guiding vision’ of Aquinas’ anthropology: namely the ‘distinctive unity of the human’. Aquinas prioritizes this notion of distinctive unity in the different areas of his anthropology. I explore how this distinctive unity is expressed (a) in Aquinas’ account of the human soul as the ‘horizon’ of the bodily and spiritual worlds, and (b) in his definition of the human being as ‘rational animal’.

scholarly journals Is the Human Being Redeemable? A Meditation on Rosenzweig’s Claim That Death Is Very Good

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-77
Author(s):  
Agata Bielik-Robson
Keyword(s):  
Human Being ◽  
The Will ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Abstract In this article I claim there is no contradiction involved in Franz Rosenzweig’s love of life and his apology for death: what he loves and wants us to love is the finite life, life offered in its finitude which should in the end appear as enough – that is, sufficient and fit for everything we could want from life, redemption included. The beyond toward which death as the end gestures is not a promise of immortality, offering a transcendence in temporal terms infinitely prolonged. The will “to stay, to live,” of which Rosenzweig speaks in the opening paragraph of The Star of Redemption, is the drive characteristic of another finitude: desiring and investing in life, without, at the same time, wishing to prolong itself into infinity.

Demon est Deus Inversus: Honoring the Daemonic in Iamblichean Theurgy

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 177-195
Author(s):  
Gregory Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Human Soul ◽  
Immortal Soul ◽  
The Will

Iamblichus’s doctrine that the immortal soul becomes mortal is puzzling for Platonic scholars. According to Iamblichus, the embodied soul not only becomes mortal; as human, it also becomes “alienated” (allotriōthen) from divinity. Iamblichus maintains that the alienation and mortality of the soul are effected by daemons that channel the soul’s universal and immortal identity into a singular and mortal self. Yet, while daemons alienate the soul from divinity they also outline the path to recover it. Iamblichus maintains that daemons unfold the will of the Demiurge into material manifestation and thus reveal its divine signatures (sunthēmata) in nature. According to Iamblichus’s theurgical itinerary, the human soul—materialized, alienated, and mortal—must learn to embrace its alienated and mortal condition as a form of demiurgic activity. By ritually entering this demiurgy the soul transforms its alienation and mortality into theurgy. The embodied soul becomes an icon of divinity.

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