Self‐Control as a Normative Capacity

Recently, two apparent truisms about self‐control have been questioned in both the philosophical and the psychological literature: the idea that exercising self‐control involves an agent doing something, and the idea that self‐control is a good thing. Both assumptions have come under threat because self‐control is increasingly understood as a mental mechanism, and mechanisms cannot possibly be good or active in the required sense. However, I will argue that it is not evident that self‐control should be understood as a mechanism, suggesting that we might also argue the other way around: if we have independent reason to hold onto the idea that self‐control is inherently good and active, the conclusion might be that self‐control cannot be a mechanism. I will show that Aristotle's original analysis of self‐control actually offers grounds for both assumptions: he took there to be conceptual connections between self‐control and goodness/activity. By examining these connections, I argue that an Aristotelian approach could offer promising leads for a contemporary non‐mechanistic understanding of self‐control as a normative capacity.     

The Problem of a Transcendent God for the Well‐Being of Continuous Creation

This year marks the 30th Anniversary of Lynn White's critique of Christianity, which set off the field of eco‐theology. At that time, apologetic theologians responded to the White critique, that the Genesis “dominion” command is largely responsible for the contemporary ecological crisis, through reformulating Christian doctrines to address ecological issues. These pioneers have brought us a long way in terms of addressing both how Christianity has been responsible in supporting harmful human‐earth relations and what resources within the tradition might be useful for addressing the contemporary ecological crisis. Building on this work, this article suggests that Christian theology (whether eco or not) will continue to support an understanding of the human being as rooted “outside of creation” as long as the concept of a transcendent, Omni, Creator‐God is left intact. In place of this theological discourse of transcendence which secularizes the natural realm, I suggest a “radical materialist” (Val Plumwood) understanding of Christianity that moves between idealism and reductive materialism (both are forms of transcendence) through a “planetary” (Spivak) understanding of Creation and a “bio‐historical” (Gordon Kaufman) understanding of anthropology.     

KIERKEGAARD'S ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE SELF: ETHICO‐RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF SELFHOOD

It is sometimes argued that the concept of the self is the unifying thread that ties together the rich diversity of philosophical and theological themes in Kierkegaard's works. 1 In his conception of the self he provides us with a coherent and unified view of human existence. For Kierkegaard the self is not a static entity but a dynamic and unfolding reality, something I must strive to become. One is not a self but becomes a self as an ethico‐religious task to be actualized. The purpose of this paper is to outline Kierkegaard's anthropology of the self with particular emphasis on the ethical and religious dimensions of selfhood. I will first elucidate the structure and dynamic character of the self, and then will examine the dialectical development of the self in the ethical and religious stages of existence. Finally I will address the widespread criticism of Kierkegaard's conception of the self as being radically individualistic and asocial.     

BRAIN DEATH AND ITS ENTANGLEMENTS

The Islamic philosophical, mystical, and theological sub‐traditions have each made characteristic assumptions about the human person, including an incorporation of substance dualism in distinctive manners. Advances in the brain sciences of the last half century, which include a widespread acceptance of death as the end of essential brain function, require the abandonment of dualistic notions of the human person that assert an immaterial and incorporeal soul separate from a body. In this article, I trace classical Islamic notions of death and the soul, the modern definition of death as “brain death,” and some contemporary Islamic responses to this definition. I argue that a completely naturalistic account of human personhood in the Islamic tradition is the best and most viable alternative for the future. This corporeal monistic account of Muslim personhood as embodied consciousness incorporates the insights of pre‐modern Muslim thinkers yet rehabilitates their characteristic mistakes and thus has the advantages of neuroscientific validity and modern relevance in trans‐cultural ethical discourse; it also helps to alleviate organ shortages in countries with majority Muslim populations, a serious ethical impasse of recent years.     

CHRISTIAN AND BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVES ON NEURO PSYCHOLOGY AND THE HUMAN PERSON: PNEUMA AND PRATITYASAMUTPADA

Abstract. Recent discussions of the mind‐brain and the soul‐body problems have been both advanced and complexified by the cognitive sciences. I focus explicitly here on emergence, supervenience, and nonreductive physicalist theories of human personhood in light of recent advances in the Christian‐Buddhist dialogue. While traditional self and no‐self views pitted Christianity versus Buddhism versus science, I show how the nonreductive physicalist proposal regarding human personhood emerging from the neuroscientific enterprise both contributes to and is enriched by the Christian concept of pneuma (spirit) and the Buddhist concept of pratityasamutpada (codependent origination).     

SELF‐DECEPTION ABOUT EMOTION

In this paper, I address an ignored topic in the literature on self‐deception—instances in which one is self‐deceived about their emotions. Most discussions of emotion and self‐deception address either the contributory role of emotion to instances of self‐deception involving beliefs or assume what I argue is an outdated view of emotion according to which emotions just are beliefs or some other type of propositional attitude. In order to construct an account of self‐deception about emotion, I draw a distinction between two variants of self‐deception about emotion: cognitively motivated self‐deception and phenomenologically motivated self‐deception. After providing an account of each variant, I discuss the importance of the role that perception plays in cases of self‐deception about emotion. I conclude with a comment on the relevance of this discussion for contemporary debates in moral theory.     

Secondary self‐deception

According to doxastic accounts of self‐deception, self‐deception that P yields belief that P. For doxastic accounts, the self‐deceiver really believes what he, in self‐deception, professes to believe. I argue that doxastic accounts are contradicted by a phenomenon that often accompanies self‐deception. This phenomenon – which I term ‘secondary deception’ – consists in the self‐deceiver's defending his professed (deceit‐induced) belief to an audience by lying to that audience. I proceed to sketch an alternative, non‐doxastic account of how we should understand self‐deception in terms of the self‐deceiver's misrepresentation of himself as believing that P.     

ONENESS AND SELF‐CENTEREDNESS IN THE MORAL PSYCHOLOGY OF WANG YANGMING

Rather than “selfishness,” a more accurate and revealing interpretation of Wang's use of siyuis “self‐centeredness.” One of the main goals in Wang's model of moral cultivation was to attain a state devoid of self‐centered desires. Wang relied a great deal on the exercise and cultivation of an emotional identification and feeling of oneness with others. In this paper, I first provide a brief summary of the role of Wang's concept of siyu in his moral psychology. I then examine key passages in Wang's writings that reveal his nuanced understanding of siyu and, along the way, I draw on empirical research in psychology to help illuminate the significance of Wang's view of siyu to his overall model of moral cultivation.     

INDIVIDUALITY IN THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND THEORIES OF EMBODIED COGNITION

Contemporary theological anthropology is now almost united in its opposition toward concepts of the abstract individual. Instead there is a strong preference for concrete concepts, which locate individual human being in historically and socioculturally contingent contexts. In this paper I identify, and discuss in detail, three key themes that structure recent theological opposition to abstract concepts of the individual: (1) the idea that individual human beings are constituted in part by their relations with their environments, with other human beings, and with God; (2) the idea that individual human beings are unique entities; (3) the idea that individual human beings cannot be conceptualized in atemporal terms. Subsequently, I seek to demonstrate that theories of embodied cognition offer broad, if not unconditional, support for the concept of the concrete individual. As such, I suggest, theories of embodied cognition provide a valuable resource for dialogue between contemporary science and theological anthropology.     

Human Embryos and Human Dignity: Differing Presuppositions in Human Embryo Research in Germany and Great Britain*

This article notes differences in legislation in Germany and Great Britain regarding human embryo research and looks for an explanation in their divergent intellectual traditions. Whereas the German Stem Cell Act invokes an anthropological concept of human dignity to ground its ban on using embryos for research, there is no definition of what it means to be human in either the British Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act or in the advisory Warnock‐Report. After studying the differences and providing some philosophical background, the essay distinguishes two notions that are significant for understanding human dignity. It then proposes from a theological point of view a basic understanding within a relational anthropology, and comes to the conclusion that because of continuity in development and their relational constitution, humans embryos should be accepted as human from the moment of conception.     

Experiential self‐understanding

The notion of insight is at one and the same time central to psychoanalysis and to the self‐understanding that is part of everyday life. Through clinical material and critical engagement with contemporary philosophical work on self‐knowledge, this paper clarifies one crucial aspect of this key notion. Self‐understanding of the sort we have in mind, while of course involving cognitive elements, is not sufficiently accounted for by cognition about one's affects, motivations, or other aspects of the psyche, nor by the simple conjunction of such cognition with felt affect, motivational urges, etc. Nor is it best modelled in terms of internal self‐observation. Rather, it is the product of an ongoing process of the unfolding articulation of one's psychic life. The notion of experience is important here in three ways. First, lived experience is that out of which the self‐understanding arises. Second, this self‐understanding is a development and articulation of these aspects of our inner lives; it is a part of that same lived perspective. And third, this understanding in turn shapes one's experience of one's inner world: as it is attained, one's experience of oneself thereby changes. Central here is the emphasis upon a developing process involving the ability to speak from one's subjective perspective while experiencing one's subjective perspective as the perspective that it is.     

?The person is a monad with windows?: sketch of a conceptual history of ‘person’ in Russia

The basic concepts ??person?? (Person), I/self (Ich) and ??subject?? (Subjekt) structuring the Russian discourse of personhood (Personalit?t) developed during the philosophical discussions of the 1820s?C1840s. The development occurred in the course of an intense reception of German Idealism and Romanticism. Characteristic of this process is that the modern meaning of personhood going back to the theological and natural-law interpretations of the person in Western Europe does not exist in the Russian cultural consciousness. Therefore the Russian concepts of personhood demonstrate the influence of the semantic innovations of Romanticism. Correspondingly, the semantic core of the Russian discourses on personhood is not the idea of an ??autonomous person?? but that of an ??unique individuality??. Here, personhood is not the indefeasible attribute of every man, but the mark of inimitable individuality. Accordingly, the basic distinction underlying the discourse on personhood in Russia is not the differentiation between ??person?? and ??thing?? as in the European tradition, but the distinction between ??individual?? and (anonymous) ??community??. Also, in the meaning of the concept of I/self the dominant differentiation is not that between I/self (Ich) and not-I/not-self (Nicht-Ich), but that between I and We. This discourse on personhood centring on the idea of individuality took form in Russia starting in the middle of the nineteenth century, in particular in aesthetics, psychology, and educational theory, as well as in the philosophy of history. The comparative intercultural analysis of the history of concepts pertaining to personhood in the German-Russian cultural transfer brings to light the dialectic of European modernity in which a degree of tension is visible between the idea of personal autonomy and individuality.     

EMERGENCE FROM PHYSICS TO THEOLOGY: TOWARD A PANORAMIC VIEW

Abstract. At its best, the emergence debate provides a helpful model of what religion‐science scholarship can and should involve. (At its worst it represents the faddishness and bandwagon effects to which our field is also prone.) Those involved in the debate must pay close attention to concrete theories and results in the natural sciences. They rely on the careful conceptual distinctions that philosophers of science draw concerning complexity, novelty, and organization. The resulting views about human mentality and consciousness are tested against these results and checked for their adequacy to the phenomena of human experience. Emergentist theories of nature and personhood have entailments for one's theory of religion and for theological reflection; conversely, theological accounts may constrain one's interpretation of emergent phenomena. In my response to the four symposiasts I draw out these deeper dimensions of the emergence debate.     

MARTYRDOM: SELF‐DENIAL OR SELF‐EXALTATION? MOTIVES FOR SELF‐SACRIFICE FROM HOMER TO POLYCARP A THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION1

This article explores the theological understandings of martyrdom in the second century and how they might serve as a response to Nietzsche's critique that Christian martyrdom is not self‐abnegation but a self‐deluded assertion of the will to power. In reply to this objection, the article focuses on the early church's self‐conscious concern for the proper and improper forms of martyrdom as depicted in the Martyrdom of Polycarp. By contrasting the depiction of Polycarp's martyrdom “according to the gospel” with classical views of self‐sacrifice in Homer's Iliad and Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, it will show how martyrdom, contra Nietzsche, can be an act of true self‐denial.     

THE HUMAN BEING SHAPING AND TRANSCENDING ITSELF: WRITTEN LANGUAGE,BRAIN, AND CULTURE

Recent theological anthropology emphasizes a dynamic and integral understanding of the human being, which is also related to Karl Rahner's idea of active self‐transcendence and to the imago Dei doctrine. The recent neuroscientific discovery of the “visual word form area” for reading, regarded in light of the concept of cultural neural reuse, will produce fresh implications for the interrelation of brain biology and human culture. The theological and neuroscientific parts are shown in their mutual connections thus articulating the notion that human beings shape and transcend themselves both at the biological and at the cultural level. This will have relevant implications for the timely topic of human uniqueness in science and theology, and in proposing a new research perspective in which theology may consider culture along with its biological import, but not necessarily in strictly evolutionary terms alone.     

THE SCIENTIFIC CHARACTER OF PHILIP HEFNER'S “CREATED CO‐CREATOR”

Philip Hefner's understanding of humans as “created co‐creators” has played a key role in the science and religion field, particularly as scholars consider the implications of emerging technologies for the human future. Hefner articulates his “created co‐creator” framework in the form of scientifically testable hypotheses supporting his core understanding of human nature, adopting the structure of Imre Lakatos's scientific research programme. This article provides a brief exposition of Hefner's model, examines his hypotheses in order to assess their scientific character, and evaluates them against the relevant findings of contemporary science. While Hefner's model is largely commensurate with contemporary science, he at times makes claims that cannot be scientifically falsified or corroborated. Hefner's accomplishments in demonstrating the scientific compatibility of many theological notions is admirable; however, his overall position would be strengthened with a more tacit acknowledgment of the limitations of scientific knowledge. His anthropology draws also from extrascientific commitments and is all the richer for it.     

Optimal Self‐esteem is Contingent: Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic and Upward Versus Downward Contingencies

We argue that noncontingent, unconditional self‐esteem is not optimal but defensive. We introduce the concept of intrinsic contingency, where self‐esteem is affected by whether one's actions are self‐congruent and conducive to personal growth. Whereas external contingencies, especially social and appearance, were negatively correlated with authenticity, self‐compassion, and personal well‐being, intrinsic contingencies were positively correlated with these measures, and uncorrelated with aggression and self‐esteem instability. Participants with high intrinsic contingency rated higher on measures of psychological adaptiveness than noncontingent participants. In addition, we distinguish upward from downward contingencies, the latter being more harmful in case of external contingencies but not for intrinsic contingencies. We conclude that intrinsic contingency, rather than noncontingency, may reflect true self‐esteem as implied in self‐determination theory. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Slavoj Žižek,the Death Drive,and Zombies: A Theological Account

In this article, I discuss the question of the hybridity of the religious and the secular through the example of the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj ?i?ek and his psychoanalytically inspired notion of the undead. The undead is ?i?ek's rendering of the Freudian death drive, and as the undead is instantiated in the popular culture cliché of the zombies, we need to look no further than to George A. Romero's classic zombie movie Night of the Living Dead from 1968. Thus, this article proceeds in three steps: first, I trace the concept of the death drive from Freud to ?i?ek, supplemented, for their theological importance, by two contemporary philosophers, Jonathan Lear and Eric Santner. Second, I discuss the zombie in contemporary popular culture, with a focus on Romero's movies, and whether such cinematic representations can function as a kind of cultural critique. In conclusion, I return to the question of theology by showing what ?i?ek means by theology and contrasting as well as comparing his philosophy to Augustine's anthropology. Despite ?i?ek's atheistic confession and his dismissal of all pre‐modern philosophy and theology, I show that Augustine's anthropology is structurally similar to ?i?ek's, thus suggesting that the relationship is more complex than ?i?ek allows. Both are united in rejecting any superficial and transparent understanding of self, and become, consequently, an example of the ambiguous relationship between religion and secularity in contemporary times.     

Natures,Human Nature,Genes and Souls: Reclaiming Theological Anthropology Through Biological Structuralism

Abstract : Within the field of Theology and Science, discussions regarding the relationship between biology and theological anthropology have tended to focus on the themes of ‘human uniqueness’ and ‘human nature’. These ideas have continued among theologians and anthropologists despite the widespread agreement among neo‐Darwinian evolutionary biologists that such general or universal accounts of ‘natures’ in general, or ‘human nature’ in particular, have no proper place within the neo‐Darwinian evolutionary framework. In view of this neo‐Darwinian rejection of universal human nature and the subsequent undermining of theological anthropologies based on such, Biological Structuralism is proposed as an alternative theoretical framework through which to construct a theological anthropology in light of evolution. Within the Structuralist framework scientific resources are provided which facilitate fresh perspectives on ancient theological discussions regarding the nature of the soul and the place of nonhuman animals within theological anthropology.