Thoughts on the Interaction of Trauma,Addiction, and Spirituality

This article reviews the prevalence of trauma, substance use disorders, and their co‐occurrence in both clinical and community populations. Deeper understanding of these phenomena is providing new and promising treatment modalities. Spiritual development and growth complement these emerging treatments.     

The Eucharist before Nature and Culture

This article examines the claim by Bruno Latour that the modern division between the realms of nature and culture is in collapse. Following Latour, the division of nature and culture is located within a “modern constitution” which also includes the bracketing of God and a non-theological ontology. Technology is examined as a means of overcoming the chaotic collapse of the dualism of nature and culture. Particular reference is made to the work of Donna Haraway. However, it is argued that technology, in being mimetic, is not able to re-configure the relationship between nature and culture. Instead, through a comparison of the theologies of John Calvin and St. Thomas Aquinas, nature and culture are seen to be reconfigured in a non-mimetic understanding of the Eucharist in which the natural and cultural elements of the Church's liturgy reach their telos through participation in the divine life.     

The moral behavior of ethics professors: A replication-extension in German-speaking countries

What is the relation between ethical reflection and moral behavior? Does professional reflection on ethical issues positively impact moral behaviors? To address these questions, Schwitzgebel and Rust empirically investigated if philosophy professors engaged with ethics on a professional basis behave any morally better or, at least, more consistently with their expressed values than do non-ethicist professors. Findings from their original US-based sample indicated that neither is the case, suggesting that there is no positive influence of ethical reflection on moral action. In the study at hand, we attempted to cross-validate this pattern of results in the German-speaking countries and surveyed 417 professors using a replication-extension research design. Our results indicate a successful replication of the original effect that ethicists do not behave any morally better compared to other academics across the vast majority of normative issues. Yet, unlike the original study, we found mixed results on normative attitudes generally. On some issues, ethicists and philosophers even expressed more lenient attitudes. However, one issue on which ethicists not only held stronger normative attitudes but also reported better corresponding moral behaviors was vegetarianism.