Search Results

This chapter discusses the thoughts of Davidson and Freud about irrationality. It then examines the problem of self-transcendence, where a person forms a positive or negative judgment of some of his own desires, and acts to change these desires. From the point of view of the changed desire, there is no reason for the change — the reason comes from an independent source, and is based on further, and partly contrary, considerations.

Marriage is the natural institution of society established for companionship and for the continuation of the human race. It must be lifelong, and the partners must show total fidelity to each other. Lustful behaviour in marriage is pardonable, as it safeguards against adultery and fornication. Marriage is good, but consecrated virginity is better. Christian marriage differs from secular marriage in embodying sacramentum, an oath of lifelong allegiance that symbolizes unity in the future Jerusalem. Thus, marriage is good because it incorporates the three goods of proles, fides, and sacramentum.

The treatise incorporates two main themes, virginity in itself, and the necessity of humility in consecrated virginity. Virginity itself is considered from three aspects: first, Christ and his mother are adduced as ideal types of fecund virginity. Second, virginity surpasses conjugal fidelity in merit; the goods of marriage are human goods, but consecrated virginity is angelic. But marriage is not to be disparaged by consecrated virgins. In demeaning it, the manichees misinterpret I Cor. 7, and Jovinian is condemned for equating marriage with it. Third, the nature of the reward in heaven is outlined. The second main topic of the treatise is the importance of humility. Scriptural models are proposed—the centurion, the Canaanite woman, the tax collector, and finally Christ himself.

Aristotle is famous for his doctrine of the mean, but this is just one of several doctrines that together constitute Aristotle’s architectonic of virtue. The others include the doctrine of disjoint spheres which says that no situation is governed by more than one virtue, and the parameter doctrine which says each virtue is a disposition for getting all of the relevant parameters right (e.g. fearing the right objects, on the right occasions, to the right degree, etc.). This chapter describes and defends these and other doctrines in the course of describing and defending Aristotle’s account of the virtue of courage. In particular, although courageous and continent people both feel fear, Aristotle does not conflate these two character types. Fear inclines continent people to perform cowardly acts, and so must be resisted, but it inclines courageous people to perform courageous acts carefully, and so makes a useful contribution.

In this English translation of Virtues and Vices, the discussion offers definitions of the virtues and the vices, their characteristics and concomitants, and their general effect. The author begins with the statement that what is noble is praiseworthy, what is ignoble blameworthy. At the head of what is noble stand the virtues, at the head of what is ignoble the vices. The text also reflects on wisdom, which it calls a virtue of the calculative part which provides what conduces to happiness; good temper, a virtue of the passionate part through which men become difficult to stir to anger; and courage, a virtue of the passionate part through which men are undismayed by fears of death. Other virtues addressed in the text include temperance, continence, justice, and liberality.

This chapter examines the correlation between sexual continence, abstinence, and separation on the one hand, and masculine aggressivity and strength on the other, in the Amazonian and Melanesian cultures. It argues that “sexual avoidances are part of the means by which males temporarily or more permanently constitute themselves as strong.” Furthermore, the chapter shows that the essence of masculinity includes not only strength and courage, but also a crucial element of “power and menace, of dangerous potency.” Markedly similar concepts of masculinity have been found both in New Guinea and throughout the Amazonian region, wherein aggression and self-assertive activities are associated with sexual taboos. Finally, the chapter deals with the concept of masculinity in a well-described ethnographic context suggesting the analytic association of aggression and sexual taboo that indicates the way in which men's cults may foster exclusiveness and gender separation.

This section presents the English translation of Eudemian Ethics, which offers reflections on happiness—described in the text as the noblest, the best, and the most pleasant of human goods—and how it is acquired and attained. Eudemian Ethics also addresses two kinds of virtue, one intellectual and one moral, and goes on to argue that man alone is an originating principle of action. It also discusses examples of moral virtue such as courage, temperance, liberality, pride, and magnificence, as well as the five intellectual virtues: knowledge, craftmanship, wisdom, intelligence, and understanding. Other arguments in the text relate to justice and injustice, continence and incontinence, pleasure, friendship, good fortune, and gentlemanliness.

In this English translation of Magna Moralia, the discussion focuses on the themes of good, happiness, virtue, action, justice, continence and incontinence, pleasure, good fortune, friendship, and gentlemanliness. According to the author, the study of moral character is part of the craft of politics. The text also considers the views of Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato and argues that happiness consists in living well, that is, virtuously: it is not virtue itself but the exercise of virtue. Other insights offered by the text include those relating to moral virtues such as courage, temperance, liberality, pride, and magnificence, friendliness, and good temper; intellectual virtues such as knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, and understanding; the problems that arise from incontinence; and the connection between happiness and pleasure.

Virtue ethics is often praised, especially at the expense of Kant's deontology, for giving a better account of the moral significance of the emotions than the other ethical approaches, and, in particular, for giving a more attractive account than Kant of ‘moral motivation’. However, a careful consideration of Aristotle's enkrateia/arete distinction ( the distinction between strength of will or ‘continence’ and full virtue) and the famous passage in Kant's Grundlegung in which he discusses moral worth, reveals that, in many ways, Aristotle and Kant are much closer than is usually supposed. In so far as Aristotle has a notion of ‘motivation’, the continent and the fully virtuous agent have the same motivation—they both act from reason (logos) in the form of ‘choice’ (prohairesis.)

This chapter discusses an interdisciplinary project that takes a multifaceted approach to reducing the impact of continence difficulties for older people. Environmental barriers to participation for people with continence or accessibility needs were addressed by investigating toilet provision outside the home. A variety of methods was used to investigate the concerns of both providers and users of publically accessible toilets and a technological solution was designed. NHS continence services were investigated from patient and professional perspective with the aim of understanding the particular needs of older patients. Two assistive devices that had been requested by continence pad users were developed to clinical prototype stage and tested for efficacy and user satisfaction.

This chapter describes the practice and popularity of spiritual marriage. Medievalists define spiritual marriage as sexual abstinence within wedlock, or what historians of early Christianity would call chaste marriage. John Chrysostom argues that women and men would be better off spiritually if they refused the comfort of each other's services. His attack on couples living in spiritual marriage seems to presume that they were striving after this new kind of friendship. The couples living in spiritual marriage eschewed marriage vows because they had pledged themselves to virgin continence. The cachet of spiritual marriage is confirmed by the social status of the couples. Additionally, some primary social features of spiritual marriage are presented. Spiritual marriage features illicit sexuality and the corruption of marriage.

This chapter begins Section II of the book, which sets soteriological universalism in the historical, social, political, economic, and religious and philosophical context of the Third Century Crisis. By analyzing a plethora of epigraphic data to show the reader the nuances of the views on salvation in the Greco-Roman world of Porphyry’s period, religious and philosophical paganism is soteriologically categorized into four main groups: Salvation from the world, in the world, for the world, and beyond the world, thus laying a foundation for the following chapters, which place pagan and Christian notions of soteriology in their broader historical and cultural contexts, and also showing how they contributed to Porphyry’s tripartite system.

This chapter provides a framework and suggestions for growth in intellectual virtue. It likens our growth in intellectual virtue to a trip to an important destination. Any well-planned trip requires a clear destination, an assessment of our current location, and a map from getting from where we are to where we want to go. Likewise, any good plan for growth in intellectual virtue requires a clear conception of intellectual virtue, an accurate assessment of our current intellectual character, and paths from getting from our current character to a more virtuous one. Chapters 1–11 provide the clear conception needed here. This chapter considers our current intellectual character by introducing the well-known categories of continence and incontinence. It suggests that many of us exhibit neither virtues nor vices, but rather, traits—like continence or incontinence—that lie between the two. It closes with several suggestions for growth in intellectual virtue, including help from friends and mentors, emulation of exemplars, and specific, intelligent practice.

Christian writers Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, John Chrysostom, and Ambrose accepted the view (familiar from Philo) that the woman failed in her attempted seduction because “the Lord was with him” (Genesis 39:2) and because he exercised self-control, even if, as one of them supposed, Joseph feared that being touched by Potiphar’s wife would arouse “incentives to lust.” Anti-Judaism appears: Ambrose argues that Joseph’s servant status prefigured Jesus’ adoption of lowliness (Philippians 2), and proceeds to claim that Christians would not have bought him, except for the fact that his own people had sold him. Christian monasticism adopted two views of Joseph: a man untempted and a man who was tempted, but prevailed. Striking interpretations of events in Joseph’s life appear in art works: carved images on a fourth-century sarcophagus lid and sculpted ivory scences decorating a sixth-century Ravenna bishop’s chair.

This chapter asks whether there are any diachronic principles of credal rationality corresponding to the synchronic principles for updating rules that were considered in the previous chapter. The chapter concludes that there are no such principles.

Chapter 7 demonstrates that sexual sin became the main target for purity discourse in early Christian texts, and attempts to explain why. Christian imagery of sexual defilement drew from a number of traditions—Greco-Roman sexual ethics, imagery of sexual sin from the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple texts, and both Jewish and pagan purity laws, all seen through the lens of Paul’s imagery of sexuality and sexual sin. Two broad currents characterized Christian sexual ethics in the second century: one upheld marriage and the family as the basis for a holy Christian society and church, while the second rejected all sexuality, including in marriage. Writers of both currents made heavy use of defilement imagery. For the first, sexual sin was a dangerous defilement, contaminating the Christian community and severing it from God. For the second, more radical current, sexuality itself was the defilement; virginity or continence alone were pure.

This chapter examines the way Augustine’s appropriation of the doctrine of oikeiōsis informs his advice on the goods associated with marriage and family life. Analysis of Augustine’s correspondence with the widows Proba and Juliana, and the married woman Ecdicia, reveal Augustine’s take on how the goods associated with sexual intimacy (e.g. marriage, celibacy, remarriage, widowhood, chastity, continence) fit within the framework of oikeiōsis. This framework allows Augustine to hold the divergent goods of married and celibate life together—affirming the goodness of each, and identifying their deep interconnection—and also to appreciate the diverse ways in which people may relate to these goods and develop the virtues associated with them.