Is Mozi a utilitarian philosopher?

In this essay I argue that Mozi’s philosophy is anything but utilitarianism by way of analysing four ethical theories. Utilitarianism is an ethics in which the moral subject is an atomic individual human being, and its concern is how to fulfill the interests of the individual self and the social majority. Confucian ethics is centered on the notion of the family and its basic question is that of priority in the relationship between the small self and the enlarged or collective self. Opposite to these two moral theories is Mozi’s ethics: The interests that Mozi is primarily concerned with are not the interests of my individual self or my collective self, but the interests of the other. The fulfillment of the material needs of the other is my moral obligation. The arguments are centered on the three basic concepts, “the I,” “the we,” and “the other.” The significance of Mozi’s thought in modern or postmodern context lies in its striking resemblance to the philosophy of a contemporary western philosopher, Levinas. In both Mozi and Levinas, there is a suspension of utilitarianism. __________ Translated from Zhongguo Zhexue Shi 中国哲学史 (History of Chinese Philosophy), 2005 (1)     

Love and Eschatology

Abstract : This article reflects on the connection between Christian hope for salvation and Christian praxis today. Following a discussion of Christian approaches to hope, salvation, and reconciliation, the eschatological potential of love is explored in conversation with significant theologies of love in Western Christianity. It is argued that love, properly understood, offers the most adequate and dynamic horizon for approaching God's coming reign and for being transformed in the process.     

AQUINAS ON ATTACHMENT, ENVY, AND HATRED IN THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA

This essay examines Aquinas's discussions of hatred in Summa Theologica I‐II, Q. 29 and II‐II, Q. 34, in order to retrieve an account of what contemporary theorists of the emotions call its cognitive contents. In Aquinas's view, hatred is constituted as a passion by a narrative pattern that includes its intentional object, beliefs, perceptions of changes in bodily states, and motivated desires. This essay endorses Aquinas's broadly “cognitivist” account of passional hatred, in line with his way of treating passions in general. I suggest that Aquinas's account of hatred's arising out of attachment is compelling. However, I also argue that if Aquinas's treatment of hatred is to help us understand the phenomenon of hate, where classes of people are abominated for an identity they bear, and to avoid equating an oppressor's hatred with that of the oppressed for the oppressor, the cognitive pathway to hatred must be broader than through envy.     

THE JOURNEY BEYOND ATHENS AND JERUSALEM

Abstract. John Caiazza's essay raises important controversial issues regarding the contemporary debates between science and religion. His arguments are largely presented in a dichotomous and rather adversarial mode with which I strongly disagree. Unable to present a detailed counterargument in this brief reflection, I ask, What is being spoken about, and who is speaking? What is meant by science and religion here? Neither term can be taken as a unified, essentialist category; both comprise many historical layers, possess numerous internal complexities, and invite a diversity of interpretations. I refer to the science of China, India, and the ancient Near East, all of which have fed into modern science, so that the sciences cannot be restricted to those of the modern West. Nor can religion be limited to the religious beliefs and practices of Western Christianity. I discuss the position/location/context of the author‐ Caiazza's as well as my own‐ after introducing Hans‐Georg Gadamer's idea of the “fusion of horizons,” which provides a rich vein for enhancing the debate between science and religion. To expand the respective horizons of their dialogue it will be important to move away from an adversarial, exclusionary spirit to a more collaborative and communicative framework that allows for the development of new ideals, new questions, new ways of knowing, and an ethical and socially responsible stance more centered on human needs and concerns. We may have to build an altogether new Athens and Jerusalem for this.     

Le chant et la dispute (song and dispute)

Résumé Une forme originale de débats poétiques en relation avec la lyrique courtoise s'élabore aux XIIé et XIIIè s. Appelés jeux-partis en langue d'oïl ils connaissent un certain succès dans le cadre urbain du puy d'Arras. Formulant une casuistique amoureuse, ils sont à la croisée de différentes formalisations: poétique, juridique et scolastique.L'enjeu du débat est exprimé sous le mode dilemmatique. L'argumentation mise en oeuvre se déploie autour de trois énoncés fondamentaux: sentences, proverbes et images.La sentence, inscrite dans le discours lyrique qu'elle érige en axiomatique de l'amour, occupe une fonction ambivalente: elle est l'énonce 'e que l'on se propose de discuter et al forme qu'adopte la démonstration. Se combinant avec une syntaxe de la démonstration, elle ne produit que l'illusion de la dialectique et révèle, en creux, le caractère tautologique du jeu-parti. Sur 120 poèmes, il n'y a pas moins de 80 expressions proverbiales qui s'articulent différemment sur le contexte — quoique majoritairement par des formules assertives — mais qui toutes rompent avec son isotopie, illustrant et énonçant en même temps la règle. La procédure d'exemplarisation, sous la forme d'énoncés imagés, opére d'autres déplacements. Si le proverbe, issu de l'univers empirique, universalise la situation à laquelle il se réfère, l'image procède à l'inverse: d'un thème général, elle offre l'exemple d'une ou de plusieurs situations anecdotiques, d'où surgit l'universalité de la règle.Or aucun de ces énonc'es n'entrent dans une logique démonstrative et proprement argumentative. Ils resten clos sur eux-mêmes. Les interlocuteurs ne reprennent pas ce qui vient d'être dit, sinon sous une forme brutale de réfutation. La véritable formalisation est polémique. Discours qui manipule l'ironie, frôle l'insulte et recherche l'effet plus que le raisonnement Discours qui bâtit sa vérité -contradictoire-comme un jeu tourné vers un auditoire dont on saisit et quête les complicités.Car la vérité reste bien au coeur du débat et elle est sans cesse assertée. Comme elle l'est dans les disputes, ces combats des clercs.Disputes et ieux-partis mettent en scéne une logique de la controverse. Ils sont des argumentations spectacles. L'élaboration de la vérité se fait ailleurs, dans les sommes par exemple. Le jeu-parti est aporétique. S'il est une réponse á son questionnement, elle se lit dans le poéme d'amour dont la forme enferme le sic et non de la joy, joie et jeu d'amour.

---

An original form of poetical debate is elaborated in the 12th and 13th century in relation to court lyricism. Under the appellation of jeux-partis in oil tongue, they meet some success in the urban frame of the puy d'Arras. As they formulate a sophistry of love, they intersect a number of different formalisations such as the poetical, juridical and scholastic ones.What is at stake in the debate is expressed on the dilemmatic mode. The argumentation is worked out at large through three basic enunciations: maxims, proverbs and images.The maxim, inscribed as it is in the lyrical discourse that it lays down as being axiomatical for love, has an ambivalent function: on one hand it is the enunciation one intends to dispute, on the other hand it is the form taken by the demonstration. As it combines with a syntax of demonstration it only brings out the illusion of dialectics incidentally revealing the reduddant tautology of le jeu-parti. Out of a number of 120 poems, there are no less than 80 proverbial expressions which articulate themselves on the context differently — although they do so in majority through assertive formulations — yet disrupting with its isotopy in so much as they illustrate and enunciate the rule at the same time. The process of examplarisation, in the form of imaged enunciations operate other alterations. If the proverb, descending from the empirical universe, universalizes the situation it refers to, the image alone proceeds inversely: from a general theme it gives an example of one or several anecdotical situations out of which the universalness of the rule emerges.Now, none of those enunciations proceeds from a demonstrative or even properly argumentative logic. They are enclosed in themselves. The interlocutors do not resume what has just been said, unless it be in a blunt form of refutation. The true formalisation is polemical. It consists in a discourse which handles irony, lightly touches insult and seeks after effect rather than reasoning. It builds up its own truth — contradictorily though — as a game played on an audience whose complicity is to be grasped and then requested — for truthfulness does lie right in the midst of the debate and asserts itself unendlessly, such as it is in les disputes, those contests between scholars. Disputes and jeux-partis promote a logic of controversy. They are argumentations-spectacles. The elaboration of truth lies elsewhere, in the Summae for example. Le jeu-parti is aporhetical. If ever there exists an answer to its questioning, it can be found in love poetry the form of which includes the sic et non of la joy, mirth and play on love.

     

MYTH AND MORALITY: THE LOVE COMMAND

Abstract. Following in general a history of religions analysis, the paper argues that myth lays a basis for morality in that it sets forth a picture of "how things really are" (the is ), to which humans seek to conform their actions (morality, the ought ). A parallel argument locates the capacity for morality and values orientation in the process of evolution itself. A hypothesis is formulated concerning the function of myth in the emergence of Homo sapiens , namely, to motivate the action required if creatures so culturally formed as humans were to survive. The Christian love command (understood as altruism) is interpreted as an example of the general hypothesis.     

Can Science Help Construct a New Global Ethic? The Development and Implications of Moral Transformation Theory

This paper reports the results of a ten-year search for consensus among scientific findings on the nature of the origin and development of moral sensitivity and morality. Significant agreement on six underlying factors was found. Based on these foundations, a new theory of moral transformation and a scientific "global ethic" relating to the global ethic of Hans Kung and the Parliament of the World's Religions is proposed. Fields surveyed include psychology, sociology, political science, economics, history, and gender and feminist studies in social science; physics and biology in natural science; and brain research, archaeology, and both old and new evolutionary studies and theory, including chaos, self-organizing, and other nonlinear theories, in systems science.     

Volo ut sis: Arendt and Augustine

This article focuses on Hanna Arendt's use of love in her writings. More specifically, I contend that Arendt's use of volo ut sis (I want you to be) and labeling of this type of love as Augustinian, takes what Augustine meant by "love" too far.     

品牌依恋:理论、测量及与相关变量的关系

品牌依恋是消费心理学和营销领域的重要概念。在理论层面,它描述了品牌与消费者之间的关系,可以有效预测消费者的行为。在应用层面,品牌依恋可以反映营销方案对产品销售的促进作用,因此也受到营销管理者的密切关注。在广泛考察已有文献,特别是近10年国内外文献的基础上,本文对品牌依恋的概念、测量方法、理论模型、影响因素和结果变量、以及与相关变量的辨析等进行了梳理,也对国内品牌依恋的相关研究进行了介绍。最后,未来的品牌依恋的研究应从三个方面开展,包括整合理论观点、提高外部效度和考察文化差异。