Being Right,and Being in the Right

This paper presents a critique of a prevailing conception of the relation between moral reasoning and judgment on the one hand, and moral goodness on the other. I argue that moral reasoning is inescapably vulnerable to moral, as opposed to merely theoretical, failure. This, I argue, means that there is something deeply misleading in the way that Kant's moral theory, and some of its main rivals, have invited us to conceive of their subject matter.     

Being moved

In this paper, we argue that, barring a few important exceptions, the phenomenon we refer to using the expression “being moved” is a distinct type of emotion. In this paper’s first section, we motivate this hypothesis by reflecting on our linguistic use of this expression. In section two, pursuing a methodology that is both conceptual and empirical, we try to show that the phenomenon satisfies the five most commonly used criteria in philosophy and psychology for thinking that some affective episode is a distinct emotion. Indeed, being moved, we claim, is the experience of a positive core value (particular object) perceived by the moved subject as standing out (formal object) in the circumstances triggering the emotion. Drawing on numerous examples, we describe the distinctively rich phenomenology characteristic of the experience as well as the far-reaching action-tendencies and functions associated with it. Having thus shown that the candidate emotion seem to satisfy the five criteria, we go on, in section three, to compare it with sadness and joy, arguing that it should not be confused with either. Finally, in section four, we illustrate the explanatory power of our account of “being moved” by showing how it can shed light on, and maybe even justify, the widespread distrust we feel towards the exhibition of ‘sentimentality’. On the whole and if we are right, we have uncovered an emotion which, though never or rarely talked about, is of great interest and no small importance.     

Being grateful for being: Being, reverence and finitude

Atheists are rarely associated with holiness, yet they can have deeply spiritual experiences. Once such experience of the author exemplified ‘the holy’ as defined by Otto. However, the subjectivism of Otto’s Kantianism undermines Otto’s otherwise fruitful approach. While the work of Hegel overcomes this, it is too rationalistic to account for mortal life. Seeking to avoid these shortcomings, this paper places ‘holiness’ within a self-differentiating ontological unity, the Heideggerian ‘fourfold’. This unity can only be experienced by confronting groundless finite mortality, and the resulting existential disposition is characterized as ‘reverence’. Reverence is gratitude for mortal existence, and existence itself. Moreover, it is as much political as it is ontological, atheistic as it is theistic.     

On Being Unprincipled

Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics -     

善高于存在

在苏格拉底早期对话中隐含着一种善—目的论的逻辑,正是这种逻辑推动了对话的展开。在早期对话中被预设了的善在中期对话《裴多》、《理想国》等篇中进一步由伦理学原理上升为宇宙论、存在论原理。"善高于存在"的提出意味着柏拉图不是从存在看善,而是从善看存在,形成了其独特的目的论存在论和伦理性的形而上学。     

体悟“无”与“有”

在道教义理中,"无"和"有"是一对非常重要的概念,它是道门先哲研究天地万物的起源、运化及归根的一对高层次概念,是认识事物发展变化的哲理工具,应用范围极广。对宏观可以无限大,对微观可以无限小,不论有间无间,以"无""有"论之,无不中的。不断加深对"无""有"内涵的学习和领悟,对生活与修道都有重要的指导意义。本文拟从以下三个方面来谈谈自己对"无"和"有"的体悟。