Maryja i współczesny problem ciała

Mary and the contemporary question of the body The question concerning human body certainly can be counted among the most urgent issues in the modern culture. Therefore theology as well has to include it among the fields of its research if it wants to participate in a most vital discussion for contemporary man. Theological tradition focuses upon the figure of Mary, and especially on Her virginity, emphasising that She has always ameliorated the profound understanding of the body and its destiny and concurrently its personal and moral context. In the face of contemporary, urgent need for the restoration of the dignity of the bodythe return to Marian devotion and following Her virtues is definitely required. Only in this perspective it is possible to grsap and properly cultivate the relation between the body and the soul and further between man and woman, and by the same token to influence the culture making it more friendly for people. Abstrakt Problematyka dotycząca ciała na pewno należy do najbardziej aktualnych we współczesnej kulturze, a tym samym także teologia musi ją uwzględniać w swoich poszukiwaniach, jeśli ma uczestniczyć w tym, co najbardziej zasadnicze dla człowieka. Tradycja teologiczna zwraca uwagę, że także postać Maryi, szczególnie Jej dziewictwo, zawsze wpływała na pogłębione rozumienie ciała i jego przeznaczenia, a tym samym na osobowe i moralne odniesienie do niego. Wobec współczesnej, pilnej potrzeby odbudowania godności ciała zachodzi między innymi wyraźna potrzeba powrotu do kultu maryjnego i do naśladowania cnót Maryi, ponieważ w tej perspektywie można uchwycić i właściwie kształtować relacje między duchem i ciałem, między mężczyzną i kobietą, a tym samym oddziaływać na kulturę, czyniąc ją bardziej przyjazną człowiekowi.

Particularities of Moral Contexts

We can only become competent moral thinkers by engaging in our community, but even if our communal practices and language in this way provide us with the resources necessary for moral thought, they may also be the source of moral bias, distortion, and corruption, a problem which is explored in this chapter with the aim of understanding the connection between moral thought and moral context. In opening, the chapter addresses the question of whether the embeddedness of the moral subject in a particular context or community challenges the possibility of moral responsibility, but its main part is devoted to the question of how context influences our moral thought and responsibility. An investigation of cases of changes in language use and linguistic practices demonstrates how we face a twofold moral responsibility, both for what we say and do and for the practices in which these sayings and doings are embedded. A further discussion of moral practices leads to the insight that even if particular practices can inhibit or distort moral thought, they cannot make certain moral thoughts or judgements inaccessible to us. Nonetheless, even if we in principle may think any moral thought in any context, context still greatly influences what thoughts we have reason to think, making some moral insights readily accessible while hiding or marginalising others. This again points to a general moral responsibility for critical moral reflection on context.

Moral Context, Moral Complicity And Ethical Theory

One of the dominant traditions in normative ethics is characterised by the attempt to develop a comprehensive moral theory that can distinguish right from wrong in a range of cases by drawing on a philosophical account of the good. Familiar versions of consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics have emerged from this tradition. Yet such theories often seem to lack the resources needed to evaluate the broader contexts in which moral dilemmas arise, which may cause them to encourage moral complicity. Context-insensitive complicity of this sort receives surprisingly little direct philosophical attention, despite its being a ubiquitous concern for ordinary moral agents and despite the threat it poses to this form of ethical theorising. The present paper sketches the problem more formally and canvasses some leading responses before locating its source in the implicit distinction between moral and non-moral domains at the root of much traditional normative theorising.

“We Are All Alive . . . But Dead”: Cultural Meanings of War Trauma in the Tamil Diaspora and Implications for Service Delivery

Providing culturally appropriate mental health services to war-affected refugees residing in the West continues to pose many challenges. Gaining firsthand knowledge from the refugee communities themselves is crucial to improving our knowledge and guiding our interventions. The purpose of this study is to understand perceptions of war trauma in the Tamil diaspora. Fifty-one Sri Lankan Tamils living in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, were interviewed. Transcripts were thematically analyzed using content analysis. Findings indicate that war trauma is not viewed by the diaspora as a pathological notion. Positioned within a moral context, and independent from isolated events of war, manifestations of war trauma were discussed at an interpersonal and collective level. Diagnostic categories, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), do not seem to fully capture the breadth of war trauma in this diaspora community. Implications for service delivery, and for incorporating the unique aspects of suffering resulting from a fragmented community, are discussed.

Deterrence and the Moral Context: Is the Impact of Perceived Sanction Risk Dependent on Best Friends’ Moral Beliefs?

Research on differential deterrability suggests increasingly that the size of a potential sanction risk effect is conditional on characteristics of the person and properties of the setting. Whether the moral context of young people’s action settings shapes adolescents’ responsiveness to deterrent cues has been a neglected issue, however. Since youths spend much time in the company of their peers, close friends’ stance toward crime may serve as a measure of the moral makeup of the immediate environment in which young people make behavioral choices. Based on a longitudinal adolescent self-report survey, we test whether the impact of an individual’s sanction certainty perceptions varies according to the level of his or her best friends’ moral beliefs regarding selected acts of rule-breaking. Lagged negative binomial regression analyses provide mixed support for the hypothesis that perceived sanction risk matters more for adolescents whose close friends encourage criminal activity. These findings have wider implications for perceptual deterrence research: They suggest that efforts to specify the conditions under which sanction certainty perceptions are related to offending should concentrate on the presence of criminogenic factors.

Pandemic Emotions: The Extent, Correlates, and Mental Health Consequences of Personal and Altruistic Fear of COVID-19

COVID-19 has had unprecedented effects on populations around the world. Given the political and moral context of the pandemic and the nation’s response to it, this study sought to assess the extent of American’s personal fear about the virus as well as their fear for others (altruistic fear), identify potential predictors of these fears, and examine the mental health impact of heightened COVID-19 fears. Overall, a majority of respondents worried about various aspects of the virus, from being exposed to dying and reported often worrying about others, including family, the elderly, and healthcare professionals. Building on the fear of crime literature, we find that certain individuals, including those who believe they are at a high risk of dying from the virus, those who closely follow news coverage of the pandemic, and those with strong moral foundations, are likely to experience elevated fear and, possibly, its consequences.