Filial Love Research Articles

Duty, Virtue, and Filial Love

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to argue that the normative significance of the inner aspects of filial piety – in particular, filial love – is better captured when we understand filial love as part of the virtue of filial piety rather than as an object of duty. After briefly introducing the value of filial love, I argue that the idea of a duty to love one's loving parents faces serious difficulties in making sense of the normative significance of filial love. Then I show why the virtue-ethical approach to filial love, which views filial love as a constitutive part of the virtue of filial piety, can do justice to its normative significance while avoiding the difficulties.

TYPES OF PERSONAL LETTERS IN “SLAVENOBOLGARSKIY PREDRUCHNIY POSLATELNIK ZA NASTAVLENIЕ NA BOLGARSKITE YUNOSHI” (1835) BY NEOPHYTE BOZVELI AND EMANUIL VASKIDOVICH

The present article explores the teaching dedicated to the different personal letter types presented in one of the first printed letter-writing manuals – “Slavenobolgarskiy Predruchniy Poslatelnik za Nastavlenia na Bolgarskite Yunoshi“ (1835) by Neophyte Bozveli and Emanuil Vaskidovich. The educational goals of the book transpire in the very essence of the idea that the epistolary theory should be implemented into clear examples. Therefore, types of letter patterns were provided not for mere reproducing but for interpretation and implication. And it is not a coincidence that by including the largest possible collection of examples of human relations – written and used as images of the various aspects of the human connections and interactions – Bozveli and Vaskidovich brought forward their practical epistolary lessons on writing good letters and maintaining a correspondence and etiquette. The themes of the personal letters and fictional stories chosen by the co-authors not only reveal the wide range of possible human relations inside immediate and friend circles but also extol social, civil, and moral virtues. The alluded ethical issues of love, respect, commitment, filial love, clear conscience, kindness, and sincerity, as well as the influence they have or aim to have both on the sender and the addressee, implicitly point out the principles of good behavior at home, at school, and on the street. They truly embody the enlightenment philosophy about the new ethics – moral education, the core value of which is to work for the benefit of society.

Nobody likes to sleep alone: aspiring to kinship futures in post‐Soviet Cuba

AbstractIn post‐Soviet Cuba, instead of the political future envisioned by Revolutionary authorities, poor residents of Havana aspire to create kinship futures where there is no need to ‘sleep alone’. Here, the idea of ‘sleeping together’ represents a trustworthy social bond that shelters a person from loneliness over time. For these habaneros, sexual love between men and women cannot be trusted, since it is often plagued by suspicions of material interest. By contrast, they view parent‐child connections as a way to secure a cared‐for future for themselves. Nevertheless, as Cuban socialism undergoes transformations, gendered inequalities create obstacles for many people's aspirations for parenthood. This article explores the contrast between sexual and filial love in Cubans’ efforts to create kinship futures for themselves, thereby adding to our understandings of poor people's life projects.

The experiences of clinical nurses coping with patient death in the context of rising hospital deaths in China: a qualitative study

BackgroundChinese clinical nurses are increasingly confronting patient death, as the proportion of hospital deaths is growing. Witnessing patient suffering and death is stressful, and failure to cope with this challenge may result in decreased well-being of nurses and impediment of the provision of “good death” care for patients and their families. To our knowledge, few studies have specifically explored clinical nurses’ experiences coping with patient death in mainland China. ObjectiveWe aimed to explore nurses’ experiences coping with patient death in China in order to support frontline clinical nurses effectively and guide the government in improving hospice care policy.MethodsClinical nurses were recruited using purposive and snowball sampling between June 2020 and August 2020. We gathered experiences of clinical nurses who have coped with patient death using face-to-face, semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic analysis.ResultsThree thematic categories were generated from data analysis. The first was “negative emotions from contextual challenges.” This category involved grief over deaths of younger persons, pity for deaths without family, and dread related to coping with patient death on night duty. The second category was “awareness of mortality on its own.” Subthemes included the ideas that death means that everything stops being and good living is important because we all die and disappear. The third category was “coping style.” This category included focusing on treating dying patients, recording the signs and symptoms, and responding to changes in the patient’s condition. It also involved subthemes such as avoiding talk about death due to the grief associated with dying and death, and seeking help from colleagues.ConclusionsClinical nurses’ emotional experiences are shaped by intense Chinese filial love, charity, and cultural attitudes towards death. Reasonable nurse scheduling to ensure patient and staff safety is a major priority. “Good death” decisions based on Chinese ethical and moral beliefs must be embedded throughout hospital care.

Commonalities and differences between schemas of five types of love

AbstractThe present study sought to map schemas of five types of love and characterize their commonalities and differences in the Brazilian context. Two studies were carried out sequentially. In Study 1, 537 adults answered open‐ended questions about friends' love, romantic love, parental love, filial love, and self‐love. Responses for descriptions of the different types of love were grouped into 29 thematic categories. In Study 2, we tested the degree of representativeness of these 29 categories for the five types of love. Five hundred thirteen adults from all regions of Brazil participated. Results from two studies showed that each type of love has peculiarities that distinguish them from the others and that “understanding” is the common core of all types of love.

Single Blessedness as a Lived Experience in Roman Catholic Lay Institutes

This phenomenological research aimed to explore single blessedness as a lived experience in lay institutes of the Roman Catholics. An interview was used as the primary tool for extracting the meaning of single blessedness among laywomen. There were twelve (12) cases selected to undergo data saturation for emerging themes and categories. Findings revealed two categories of single blessedness—to serve God and serve the family. Having the desire to serve God and the community, especially the poorest of the poor, the unmarried female members in Roman Catholic lay institutes had shown their charity through opportunities to be with the needy, have prayerful reflection and discernment, and offer their God-given talents to others. Their experience of reluctance to respond to this vertical call led to uneasiness and incompleteness. Meanwhile, another cohort of women found blessedness as a choice to selflessly serve their family while enjoying independence and autonomy. This was described as a traversal free from worries and other responsibilities and full of filial love from friends and family members. Staying single for the rest of their lives, these women described daily life as prayerful and charitable or chaste and pure in words and deeds with a strong and decisive commitment to work for their families and the poor. Nevertheless, these women, in blessed singleness, nourished themselves as well as prayers, positive relationships with themselves and others, their families, and most especially God.

Zéro avant Jésus-Christ by Jean Chavot (review)

Reviewed by: Zéro avant Jésus-Christ by Jean Chavot Toti O’Brien Jean Chavot Zéro avant Jésus-Christ Trocy-en-Multien, France. Éditions Conférence. 2020. 496 pages. ZÉRO AVANT JÉSUS-CHRIST is the second published book by French author Jean Chavot, following a collection of flash prose, Soixante minutes. Witty and delicate, Soixante consists of small, distinct snapshots of daily life sketched with levity and concision, while the fifty-five chapters of Zéro unfurl like a continuous, irresistible wave. Like a wave, the narrative spirals, coming back to recurrent motifs, though the mounting tide inevitably pushes it toward its breaking point, ashore or, instead, far asea. A récit, neither novel nor memoir, Zéro belongs to the liminal zone of autofiction, a lively trend in French literature since the 1970s. It draws the life parabola of Nicholas—Chavot’s barely disguised alter ego— from childhood to an undefined midlife point where some questions seem to have been finally answered, if just to reveal wider horizons, more questions. That is enough time for the author to explore a rich gamut of historical, geographical, and societal landscapes: May 1968, the drug scene of the seventies, the entertainment world and the music business of the eighties, the spread of AIDS in the early nineties, Paris, Rome, and a number of provinces, both Italian and French, with their unique cultures and flavors. But the impetus behind the narrative isn’t descriptive. On the contrary, the kaleidoscope of sceneries and portraits have the slight ambiguity of projections despite their neat and elegant rendering. People and events of Nicholas’s life blend with his dreams and visions—either those chemically engendered or those born from his spleen and angst—and they all self-deny, self-erase as soon as the page is turned, swept away by the all-consuming quest for a Holy Grail that, once found, might quench the ontological thirst haunting the protagonist. What is Nicholas looking for? The book postulates his query as a need for transcendence on behalf of a child raised in a communist, strictly atheist environment. The religious dictate, usually imposed on children, who then spend their adult years trying to lift its burden, here becomes the mermaid, the unicorn, the hidden treasure denied to the acute, sensitive boy-who-needs-more-than-facts. Paradoxically, the secular child, the youth unbound by moralistic taboos, the man free to apply critical thinking, relentlessly seeks for a compass, a map, a sacred scripture. [End Page 64] But all of Nicholas’s attempts to marry religion end in divorce, just as his relationships do. And his quest for god is a sheer, naked veil revealing his poignant grief for the father, an elusive figure, beloved and untimely lost. As the mother painstakingly attempts to efface his legacy, the paternal shadow haunts the protagonist, asking for justice, for burial, for closure. Dealing in-depth with these feelings allows Nicholas to first redeem his filial love, then to parent his son, hence realigning a manner of male lineage, a vertical axis, the stipe of the Christian cross that so fascinates him. Anchored at last into earth, he is ready to explore longed-for otherness, whatever it might be, still blurred like the coast of Africa that looms far, yet visible, at the end of the book. Toti O’Brien Los Angeles Copyright © 2022 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Aged 70 and still a child: complexities, strains and gains of older children caring for their (near) centenarian mothers.

Longer lives increase the possibility of caring duties, which means that older adults looking after their ageing parents-as well as their own partners-is becoming an increasingly common scenario in developed countries. To explore the caregiving demands of very old caregiving dyads and the experience of maintaining the identity of a child at such an advanced age. Qualitative study. 15 participants (four males), all aged 70 or over and caring for their mothers, aged between 95 and 105years old. Semi-structured interviews analysed thematically. Caregivers are willing to care for their mothers 'until death tears them apart', despite the double strains they face, that is more self-limitations and added care receiver need. On a positive side, they feel 'happy, thankful and proud' for still having their mothers alive. They also describe that maintaining the identity of a child at such an advanced age was somewhat unthought of and unexpected but an important source of pride. These findings suggest that these oldest-old caregiving dyads are characterised by a relationship shaped by strong feelings of extended filial love, constituting a family feature that needs further understanding. Findings also underscore the challenges these carers face in dealing with several agents (secondary caregivers) and entities in the care provision.

Love’s Labour’s Lost? Separation as a Constraint on Displays of Transnational Daughterhood

This article develops sociological knowledge on daughterhood through an analysis of how separation shapes the emotional and moral dynamics of transnational daughterhood. Building on Finch, we look at daughtering as a set of concrete social practices that constitute kinship and carry the symbolic dimension of displaying the family-like character of relationships. Within this framework, we analyse how Latin American women living in Barcelona discuss their transnational family lives and filial responsibilities. We see family as finite, evolving in the past, present and future, and develop a threefold understanding of filial love as an institution imbued with formal expectations, a strong and complex emotion, and reciprocal embodied caring. We consider persisting physical separation in migration as a circumstance that demands not only practical solutions but also ongoing moral labour that sustains transnational bonds and notions of being a ‘good enough’ daughter.

The Shackled King

Reviewed by: The Shackled King Jennifer Moss Waghorn The Shackled King Presented by John Casken and Counterpoise as a pre-recorded broadcast via YouTube for the online conference Shakespeare and Music: New Interdisciplinary Perspectives, hosted by the Universities of Manchester and Huddersfield, and the Royal Music Association (private performance; world premiere). 10–11 December 2020. Written and composed by John Casken, using extracts from William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Audio and video footage edited by Patrick Allen. Instrumental ensemble Counterpoise directed by Barry Millington. Studio space provided by the English National Opera. With Sir John Tomlinson (bass; King Lear), Rozanna Madylus (mezzo-soprano; Cordelia/Goneril/Regan/Fool), and the Counterpoint ensemble: Fenella Humphreys (violin), Deborah Calland (trumpet), Kyle Horch (saxophone), and Yshani Perinpanayagam (piano). Sometimes the most vivid renderings of chaos and uncontrollable emotion through art come from absolute precision—from expression distilled to a razor-sharp edge. In The Shackled King, composer John Casken took the story of Shakespeare’s King Lear and did exactly this, drawing on the formidable ensemble skills of Sir John Tomlinson, Rozanna Madylus, and Counterpoise. Casken’s “chamber opera” focused absolutely on Lear and Cordelia, exploring Lear’s various shackles: his struggles with madness, his responsibility and grief for the fractured relationship with Cordelia, and ultimately their literal imprisonment and her death. Except for brief appearances by the Fool, Goneril, and Regan, everything else was stripped away, including Kent’s involvement and the Gloucester subplot; the production was an intense fifty minutes long. Sections of text from King Lear were underscored or set to music out of sequence, providing concentrated episodic snapshots of moments throughout the play, but framed within and always returning to the prison environment shared by Lear and Cordelia by the final scene. Originally intended for live performance, The Shackled King was rapidly rehearsed and adapted for performance to camera following social [End Page 313] distancing guidelines. It was filmed in a rehearsal studio space using two chairs and a table for a set, and with minimal costuming, which involved single signifiers (a hat or blanket) to denote Madylus’s rapid character changes. Movement was limited and stylized within the stripped-back stage space. A great deal was done with very little, and this minimalism meant that everything was primarily shaped and expressed through instrumental music, song, and speech. Rhythm and pitch placement afforded by the standard written language of musical notation allows for greater precision than a speech-only play text; Casken went further, developing a sliding scale of spoken to sung text with Counterpoise. This ranged from speech performed freely within temporal “boxes,” through to rhythmic or pitched speech, sprechgesang and recitative styles, and fully sung words. While such a precise performance vocabulary could be constrictive in less expert hands, the effect in The Shackled King was to marry the language and verse rhythms of Lear to a rich palette of sounds from a small and relatively unusual combination of instruments (violin, trumpet, saxophone, and piano), sculpting the sounds of disorder and chaos with almost invisibly exact note placements. I was surprised and extremely impressed to discover that the four instrumentalists and two singers had performed without a conductor or musical director leading them through the cues and tempo changes, which were pin-sharp. The ensemble was small but versatile in the soundscapes it produced; it was most effective in moments of contrast between expressions of characters or mood, such as the representations of the three sisters when asked to express their filial love. Goneril’s magisterial, soaring sung speech was accompanied by uneasy violin glissando and trumpet, creating a disorientating feeling of empty space within the music. Regan’s sounded more like siren song, accompanied by voluptuous saxophone and reaching a climactic discord on “your dear highness’ love.” Cordelia was accompanied first by stabs on the piano, accentuating her stark “nothing,” before a higher sustained trumpet and violin refrain over a sweeter sung passage, feeling more sincere in its expression of sentiment through more comfortingly regular rhythms. Percussion was also used intermittently. The Fool was accompanied by a harsh rattle, and dry claves were played at the start of every section as the piece returned to the prison...

Orthodox Passions: Narrating Filial Love during the High Qing, written by Maram Epstein

Orthodox Passions: Narrating Filial Love during the High Qing, written by Maram Epstein

Lisboa y el fin de las teodiceas. El mal entre la confianza y el dolor

El presente texto realiza un breve recorrido a través de distintas posturas filosóficas que sostienen o critican teodiceas en la modernidad. En cada una de ellas se ensalza el papel de la fe entendida como confianza filial y el mal físico o dolor, y la forma en que esa dualidad adquiere un papel de importancia para tales posturas de pensamiento. Se señala la confrontación entre las teodiceas y el dolor como una forma en que las estructuras generales del mundo —como lo son las teodiceas— se enfrentan con el individuo.

The Prosthetic Impulse Revisited in <em>A.I. Artificial Intelligence</em>

The Prosthetic Impulse Revisited in <em>A.I. Artificial Intelligence</em>

Transmission of ideas about love: Filial piety, love attitudes, and romantic satisfaction

Transmission of ideas about love: Filial piety, love attitudes, and romantic satisfaction

A Loving Kind of Knowing: Connatural Knowledge as a Means of Knowing God in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica

In his exegesis of Romans 8:15-16, Thomas Aquinas asks how it is that the Holy Spirit bears testimony in us that we are the children of God. He responds that the Spirit bears testimony “through the effect of filial love he produces in us. ” At least in some circumstances, Aquinas suggests, we can come to know God through our experience of loving him. But Aquinas, following a long tradition, teaches that we love things insofar as we know them as good (cf: I-II, q.9, a.1, corpus and ad.3). How then can love give rise to knowledge?Aquinas’s teaching in the Summa Theologica on the Holy Spirit’s gift of wisdom provides a key to this question. The gift of wisdom makes use of the love of charity to know God (II-II, q.45). Charity, by making us “connatural” with God, can give rise to knowledge of God. I will then consider how the Holy Spirit’s gift of wisdom relates to the science of theology. The gift of wisdom, however, does not offer an independent or parallel path to knowledge of God, but rather, depends on faith and is the perfection to which the science of sacred is oriented.

Tradition or revolution? The difficult "turning point" in Italian Children’s Literature

The 1960s and 1970s in Italy was a complex period, full of often contrasting stimuli from different directions. The imaginary worlds of children participated in what was happening at a social and cultural level, albeit in a more muted way. By analysing sources from the publishing world, TV programmes for children and other mass media, it is possible to identify a profound ambiguity and ambivalence in the material proposed. On the one hand there was an abundance of writers, artists and thinkers ready to place childhood at the very centre of educational processes, attributing to it a heretofore unthinkable autonomy and dignity. On the other, it is possible to sense in many narrators a firm retreat into tradition, conservatism and the maintenance of a status quo based on stories of “fine sentiments”, filial love and containment of emotions…Even though there was much distance between these contradictory visions, their incongruity was able to spark new curiosities in (perhaps not only) children, to suggest new existential questions and open up new interpretive perspectives.

Confucian philosophy and contemporary Chinese societal attitudes toward people with disabilities and inclusive education

This article focuses on the Chinese traditional culture, specifically Confucian philosophy, and analyses four core concepts of Confucianism which include ‘ren’ (Benevolence), ‘Jun zi’ (Superior man), ‘Tian ming’ (heaven’s mandate), and ‘Xiao ti’ (Filial piety and fraternal love). Based on these core concepts, this study explores how social attitudes in China (and among Chinese people living in other countries) toward people with disabilities are formed and influenced by Confucian philosophy, and how they impact the education of people with disabilities. It suggests that the related social attitudes of sympathy, rights awareness, and criteria of success, especially school performance in this case, can have both positive and negative impacts on inclusive education for children with disabilities. Strategies are suggested for encouraging attitude change, when appropriate, in order to facilitate special education and inclusion and how to do so in a manner that is culturally respectful of the core beliefs based on Confucianism.

Orthodox Passions: Narrating Filial Love during the High Qing by Maram Epstein

Orthodox Passions: Narrating Filial Love during the High Qing by Maram Epstein

A. Sokurov’s “The Lonely Voice of Man” in the Context of Russian Cosmism

The article is devoted to the first collaborative work of the director Alexander Sokurov and the scripwriter Yury Arabov The Lonely Voice of Man, based on A. Platonovs works. The everlasting value of the picture is expressed through a number of concepts and images, identified by the author, which will later become his central ideas and further develop in Sokurov's films. The author analyses the imagery system of the film, its major concepts in the context of artistic-philosophical system of Platonov and N. Fyodorov's philosophy of the common task, addresses the main and essential biblical allusions implicated in the film. First and foremost, the main character Nikita Firsov is associated with the images of the prodigal son and Jesus Christ: love without any body contact, break with the father (earthly), Nikita's departure which reminds of Christ's withdrawal to the desert, return of Nikita associated with the arrival of Christ in Galilee, unique resurrection from the dead, etc. The research is based upon the concept of substance of existence - the central idea of philosophy of Russian cosmism and Platonov's artistic-philosophical system (greatly influenced by the ideas of N.Fyodorov). In the context of A. Sokurov's creative work the author pinpoints the issue of the filial love, as a necessary condition to achieve unity and harmony that became the basis for philosophical explorations of N. Fyodorov and philosophical-imagery system of A. Platonov. The author also juxtaposes A.Sokurov and A.Tarkovsky in their ways of depicting historical (narrative) time. A.Tarkovsky defines this category via motive of unity of a person with the world resulting in disappearance of the notion of the past (in accordance with the Fyodorov's vector of mankinds movement). A. Sokurov like A. Platonov expresses this historicism through entropy. For A. Tarkovsky it is a cutoff, eternity and homogeneity (an absolute substance of life), for A. Sokurov (as well as for A. Platonov) it is a movement and versatility.

Disenchanting Secularization

Disenchanting Secularization