Description Of Human Nature Research Articles

IMPACT OF QUR’ANIC NARRATIVES ON JALAL-UD-DIN RUMI AND ALLAMA IQBAL

Qur’anic influence on the works of Rumi and Iqbal is equally recognized by poets, critics, and general readers. The researchers have tried to establish Qur’anic influence on their poetic themes, their mystical ideology, and their poetic style. There was a need to explore how the channel of influence from Qur’an to Rumi and Iqbal was completed. The current article examines the extent to which Iqbal’s technique of story writing has been influenced by Rumi’s art of narration inspired from the stories of the Holy Qur’an. The significance of this study can be judged through keeping in view the globally recognized status of both poets. The study is based on Harold Bloom’s model, the Anatomy of Influence. In the light of Bloom’s model, different features of Iqbal’s narratives including, Characters from the Qur’anic Narratives, Retelling the Existing Stories, Figures from the Islamic History, Description of Human Nature, Confrontation of Characters and their dialogues, Expressiveness, and Lack of Formal Style, have been analyzed to trace Rumi’s influence. Surprisingly, Rumi’s impact on all features of Iqbal’s stories has been noticed. It has been concluded that Rumi’s influenced on Iqbal’s narrative technique is confirmed. It has also been established that, Bloom’s model is an appropriate approach for similar research in Comparative study of literatures, religions, and politics.

Hume on Pride, Vanity and Society

Pride is a fundamental element in Hume's description of human nature. An important part of the secondary literature on Hume is devoted to this passion. However, no one, as far as I am aware, takes seriously the fact that pride often appears in pairs with vanity. In Book 2 of the Treatise, pride is defined as the passion one feels when society recognizes his connection to a ‘cause’, composed by a ‘subject’ and a (positive) ‘quality’. Conversely, no definition of vanity is provided. Despite Hume's fluctuating vocabulary, I hold that a conceptual difference between pride and vanity exists. To support this claim, I analyse the common features of these two passions, showing that both pride and vanity (a) are indirect passions, (b) are self-regarding passions, and (c) have the same structure. Supported by textual evidence, I then claim that vanity is a desire of reputation, a desire to feel pride, when pride is not (yet) in place, because its cause is only imaginary and not real. Nonetheless, I underscore that, at times, ‘vanity’ means simply pride and call for greater attention on this ongoing oscillation. In conclusion, I explore the implications of this account of vanity for social interactions in Hume's philosophy, which illustrates its intrinsic ambivalence.

Tax Jurisprudence with Benevolence and Love

A unique feature of tax jurisprudence is its origins in natural law. Tax jurisprudence is premised upon a description of human nature as individualistic and competitive as given by Thomas Hobbes. But, such a selfish description of human nature does not reflect the rich philosophy of natural law of the Scottish Enlightenment. This paper sets out to incorporate the natural law principles of “benevolence” and “love” and considerations of the “common good” as developed by Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and the subsequent existential reinterpretation by Soren Kierkegaard, into a more comprehensive version of tax jurisprudence.

Schopenhauer e a teoria política do individualismo possessivo

A teoria política de Schopenhauer parte de premissas próximas à teoria de Hobbes: o egoísmo e a competição levam à necessidade do contrato social para garantir a segurança na vida em sociedade. Embora seja constantemente comparado a Hobbes em sua descrição da natureza humana, Schopenhauer chegará a conclusões diametralmente opostas: afirmará a existência do direito natural para além do pacto social assim como o direito à propriedade independente do Estado. Este último, longe de assemelhar-se ao Leviatã hobbesiano, terá um papel bem limitado: apenas a garantia da lei e da segurança, sem interferir muito na vida dos indivíduos. Mesclando elementos liberais e conservadores, a teoria política de Schopenhauer está mais próxima da teoria de Locke do que daquela exposta pelo autor do De Cive. Tentarei desenvolver essa hipótese em minha comunicação.

The Limits of Moral Sense

Examining the moral sense theories of Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith, this essay shows that the moral sense or moral sentiments in those theories alone cannot identify appropriate morals. Chapter 1 first introduces those theories and clarifies important differences between them. It then examines whether moral judgment based on the moral sense or moral sentiments varies according to one's metaphysical beliefs. For this, the essay mainly applies those theories to such issues as stem cell research, abortion, and active euthanasia. In all three theories, false religious beliefs can distort moral judgment. In Hutcheson's theory, answers to stem cell research, abortion, and active euthanasia do not change according to the spectator's metaphysical beliefs. Yet answers to those issues can change according to the agent's metaphysical beliefs. Hume's theory cannot provide answers to stem cell research and abortion where the embryo or fetus is the receiver (the one affected by the agent's action) and to active euthanasia where the patient is unconscious. It may provide answers to abortion where the pregnant woman is the receiver and to active euthanasia where the patient is conscious. Yet the answers can vary depending on the woman's or the patient's metaphysical beliefs. Smith's theory can provide answers to stem cell research, abortion, and active euthanasia. But the answers can vary depending on the agent's metaphysical beliefs. These show that the moral sense or moral sentiments in those theories alone cannot identify appropriate morals.Chapter 2 examines those theories from the perspective of the is-ought problem. According to one interpretation, Hume's or Smith's theory is just a description of human nature. In this case, it does not answer the question of how we ought to live. According to another interpretation, it has some normative implications. In this case, it draws normative claims from human nature. Anyway, the sentiments of anger, resentment, vengeance, superiority, sympathy, and benevolence show that drawing norms from human nature is sometimes morally problematic. The changeability of the moral sense and moral sentiments in Hume's and Smith's theories supports this idea. Hutcheson's theory is morally more appropriate because it bases morality on disinterested benevolence. Yet disinterested benevolence is not enough for morality. There are no sentiments the presence of which alone makes any action moral.Chapter 3 analyzes three defenses of those theories against the relativism charge that a moral sense or moral sentiments vary across people, societies, cultures, or times. The first defense is the claim that there is a universal moral sense or universal moral sentiments. However, even if they exist, a moral sense or moral sentiments alone cannot identify appropriate morals. The second defense is to adopt a general viewpoint theory, which identifies moral principles by taking a general viewpoint. But it needs to employ reason, and even if not, it does not guarantee that we identify appropriate morals. The third defense is to adopt an ideal observer theory, which draws moral principles from sentimental reactions of an ideal observer. Yet it still does not show that a moral sense or moral sentiments alone can identify appropriate morals.

Nonreductive Physicalism and Soul: Finding Resonance Between Theology and Neuroscience

Cognitive neuroscience has raised important questions regarding the religious understanding of persons as bodies inhabited by nonmaterial souls (dualism). Although physicalism (monism) offers an alternative, this view has typically been associated with reductionism that is inconsistent with a religious view of persons. Nonreductive physicalism provides a description of human nature that is more resonant with a theological perspective. Nonreductive physicalism entails abandonment of reductionism in science and of body-soul dualism in theological anthropology. This article suggests that nonreductive physicalism preserves the critical properties and attributes of human nature, and potentials for human experience, which have been described in religious scriptures and assigned to the soul. It is argued that a critical feature of a religious view of persons is a capacity for the deepest forms of personal relatedness. Thus, soul is an attribute of physical human beings that is an emergent property of the capacity and experiences of personal relatedness.

Nonreductive Physicalism and Soul

Cognitive neuroscience has raised important questions regarding the religious understanding of persons as bodies inhabited by nonmaterial souls (dualism). Although physicalism (monism) offers an alternative, this view has typically been associated with reductionism that is inconsistent with a religious view of persons. Nonreductive physicalism provides a description of human nature that is more resonant with a theological perspective. Nonreductive physicalism entails abandonment of reductionism in science and of body-soul dualism in theological anthropology. This article suggests that nonreductive physicalism preserves the critical properties and attributes of human nature, and potentials for human experience, which have been described in religious scriptures and assigned to the soul. It is argued that a critical feature of a religious view of persons is a capacity for the deepest forms of personal relatedness. Thus, soul is an attribute of physical human beings that is an emergent property of the capacity and experiences of personal relatedness.

10.5840/croatjphil201111324

Examining the moral sense theories of Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith from the perspective of the is-ought problem, this essay shows that the moral sense or moral sentiments in those theories alone cannot identify appropriate morals. According to one interpretation, Hume's or Smith's theory is just a description of human nature. In this case, it does not answer the question of how we ought to live. According to another interpretation, it has some normative implications. In this case, it draws normative claims from human nature. Anyway, the sentiments of anger, resentment, vengeance, superiority, sympathy, and benevolence show that drawing norms from human nature is sometimes morally problematic. The changeability of the moral sense and moral sentiments in Hume's and Smith's theories supports this idea. Hutcheson's theory is morally more appropriate because it bases morality on disinterested benevolence. Yet disinterested benevolence is not enough for morality. There are no sentiments the presence of which alone makes any action moral.

Can a theory of moral sentiments support a genuinely normative environmental ethic?

The conceptual foundations of Aldo Leopold's seminal land ethic are traceable through Darwin to the sentiment‐based ethics of Hume. According to Hume, the moral sentiments are universal; and, according to Darwin, they were naturally selected in the intensely social matrix of human evolution. Hence they may provide a ‘consensus of feeling’, functionally equivalent to the normative force of reason overriding inclination. But then ethics, allege K. S. Shrader‐Frechette and W. Fox, is reduced to a description of human nature, and the question remains open whether one really ought or ought not value, approve, or do this or that. The moral sentiments, however, are informed by culture. Specific ethical injunctions, even so, are not culturally relative, because cultural beliefs are amenable to cognitive criticism. New experience and new discoveries of science may bring to light hitherto unrecognized ‘proper objects’ of our moral sentiments.

Man's Ministry to man

The ministry of man to man involves three basic necessities, whether we are speaking of the clergyman, the general practitioner, the psy chiatrist, the psychologist, the social worker, the teacher, the nurse, the educational or vocational counselor, or any of the numerous other helping professions. The first necessity is a working knowledge of the nature of man in its physical, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions. Our age is moving away from the description of human nature as composed of two distinct entities, mind and body, a description that has dominated Western thought from the time of the seventeenth-century thinker, Ren? Descartes. Descartes taught that the body is a machine and can be studied, described, and understood by the ordinary methods of natural science. The mind, on the other hand, he regarded as an immaterial and supernatural principle dwelling in the body but not subject to study and examination along scientific lines. The results of this position have been that science has restricted itself to the study of physical phenomena and tended to regard all other studies as unscientific. Only very recently, as the burgeoning concern with human be havior has drawn many disciplines together in the study of man's body, mind, and feelings, have we come to see that the separation of mind and body is more formal and theoretical than it is real and practical. The distinguished biologist Ren? Dubos writes in his book, The Torch of Life (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1962, p. 10) : "Is it really true . . . that the body and the mind are two distinct en tities? Or are they merely two different manifestations of the integrated structures which make a living organism? There is at present no con clusive evidence to decide between these two alternatives so fundamen