Euthanasia

Philosophy Study
Volume 3, Number 6, June 2013 (Serial Number 22)
David Publishing
David Publishing Company

www.davidpublishing.com
Publication Information:
Philosophy Study is published monthly in print (ISSN 2159-5313) and online (ISSN 2159-5321) by David Publishing
Company located at 9460 Telstar Ave Suite 5, EL Monte, CA 91731, USA.
Aims and Scope:
As a monthly peer-reviewed journal, Philosophy Study commits itself to promoting the academic communication about
developments in philosophy; it includes all sorts of research into Epistemology, Ethics, History of Philosophy, Philosophy
of Science, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Mind, Political Philosophy, and other relevant
areas, and seeks to provide a platform for scholars worldwide.
Manuscripts and correspondence are invited for publication. You can submit your papers via Web Submission system, or
e-mail to philosophy@davidpublishing.com (org) or philostudy@yahoo.com. Submission guidelines and Web Submission
system are available at http://www.davidpublishing.com.
Editorial Office:
Tel: 1-323-984-7526, 1-323-410-1082; Fax: 1-323-984-7374, 323-908-0457
E-mail: philosophy@davidpublishing.com (org), philostudy@yahoo.com
Copyright2013 by David Publishing Company and individual contributors. All rights reserved. David Publishing
Company holds the exclusive copyright of all the contents of this journal. In accordance with the international convention,
no part of this journal may be reproduced or transmitted by any media or publishing organs (including various websites)
without the written permission of the copyright holder. Otherwise, any conduct would be considered as the violation of the
copyright. The contents of this journal are available for any citation; however, all citations should be clearly indicated with
the title of this journal, serial number, and the name of the author.
Peer Review Policy:
All research articles published in Philosophy Study have undergone rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening
and anonymized refereeing by at least two anonymous referees.
Editorial Procedures:
All papers considered appropriate for this journal are reviewed anonymously by at least two outside reviewers. The review
process usually takes three to four weeks. Papers are accepted for publication subject to no substantive, stylistic editing. The
Editor reserves the right to make any necessary changes in the papers, or request the author to do so, or reject the submitted
paper. A copy of the edited paper along with the first proofs will be sent to the author for proofreading. They should be
corrected and returned to the Editor within three working days. Once the final version of the paper has been accepted, authors
are requested not to make further changes to the text.
Abstracted / Indexed in:
Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA)
Chinese Database of CEPS, American Federal Computer Library Center (OCLC)
Chinese Scientific Journals Database, VIP Corporation, Chongqing, P.R. China
EBSCO Databases
Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD)
The Philosophers Index
ProQuest
Summon Serials Solutions
Ulrichs Periodicals Directory
Universe Digital Library S/B
Subscription Information:
$450 (print/year)
9460 Telstar Ave Suite 5, EL Monte, CA 91731, USA
Tel: 1-323-984-7526, 1-323-410-1082; Fax: 1-323-984-7374, 323-908-0457
E-mail: order@davidpublishing.com, shelly@davidpublishing.com
DAVID PUBLISHING

www.davidpublishing.com
Philosophy Study
Volume 3, Number 6, June 2013 (Serial Number 22)
Contents
Ethics
Developmental Programming of Ethical Consciousness: Impact on Bioscience Ethics
Education and Learning
431
Irina Pollard
Prospective Consensus Building-Ethical Consideration on History of Reason and List
of Risks
443
Kumiko Yoshitake
Bodies, Persons and Respect for Humanity: A Kantian Look at the Permissibility of Organ
Commerce and Donation
456
Lina Papadaki
Why Hollywood Hates Business: Immanuel Kants Role in Avatar: Movie Reviewed by
Adam Smith
470
James F. Pontuso
Ethical, Religious, and Psychological Aspects of Euthanasia: Qualitative Study of Japanese
Roman Catholics
481
Sylwia Maria Olejarz
Epistemology
The One Who Has Left the Bildung Friedrich Nietzsches Philological Turn as a Catastrophe 492
Kristf Fenyvesi
Logic
Karl Poppers Critical Rationalism: Corroboration versus Confirmation
Oseni Taiwo Afisi
506
Philosophy of Religion
The Relation between Theory and Practice in Muslim Sages Thoughts in the Third and
Fourth Hijra Centuries and Its Effects on Concept of Craft (Sanaat) and Art in Islamic
Civilization
517
Hasan Bolkhari Ghehi
Political Philosophy
Right to Health or the Human Right of Access to Essential Healthcare
529
Nader Ghotbi
Aesthetics
Nietzsche and the Total Experience of Black Swan
538
A. Andreas Wansbrough
Natural Philosophy
Taking Nature Seriously: Hegel on Nature and the Education of the Mind
Vasiliki Karavakou
544
Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 431-442
DAVID
PUBLISHING
Developmental Programming of Ethical Consciousness:

Impact on Bioscience Ethics Education and Learning
Irina Pollard
Macquarie University
Personal ethics are strongly influenced by emotions, particularly secondary emotions, because these emotions
expand ethical reasoning and development as the child matures. A well-developed consciousness profoundly
influences a persons actions and conduct when solving problems of what is thought, or taught to be, right or wrong.
Compelling neurological evidence supports the claim that children begin to develop enduring ethical standards at an
early age and that these standards are largely based on the experiences of early childhood. Essentially, the innate
sense of ethics requires nurturing during infancy before it can be cognitively understood and practiced in maturity.
In biological terms, the development of neural networks that regulate emotional growth, and subsequently, the
capacity for ethical discrimination, depends on the infants early social environment. Thus, the toddlers early
epigenetic experiences enhance, or impede, its innate still dormant genetic potential. Importantly, personal character
development and ethical discrimination begins long before the childs formal educational years. As a consequence,
early learning has to discover ways of conserving adaptive thinking which can be applied to the choices that may
confront future generations. Early ethics education, including accurate access to scientific, medical, and
technological knowledge, is thus critical. Future generations will increasingly require education from a global
perspective when making major ethical decisions in areas, such as nuclear technology, disposal of wastes,
preservation of biodiversity, global warming, and unregulated human population growth. As long as our culture
continues to reflect advances in science and technology, there is an obligation to make science education overlap
with crucial periods in the advancement of ethical consciousness. Significantly, when considering the human
capacity for excess at times of conflict, it is incumbent on the scientific community to integrate research-based
knowledge with wide-ranging learning and problem-solving skills. Bioscience ethics, the established interface
bridging applied science and applied bioethics, can assist in this process of integration. To become fully responsible
adults, we must share our extraordinary cognitive talents and respect life on earth in all its rich diversity. In
biological terms, human uniqueness resides primarily in our brains with its products being co-operation in family
and ancestral units, long education, sophisticated language and culture, and importantly, ethical consciousnessall
attributes held in trust by knowledge and wisdom for future generations.
Keywords: human brain programming, evolution and ethics, neuroethics, primary and secondary emotions,
bioscience ethics, bioscience ethics education, early childhood education
Irina Pollard, B.Sc., Ph.D., Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Macquarie University, Australia; main
research fields: Reproduction and Development, Toxicology, Bioscience Ethics, and Bioethics. Email irina.pollard@mq.edu.au.
432
DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
1. Introduction: The Heritability of Ethics

Development in the child is a complex process and it lies at the very heart of every human being and his or her learning
process, beginning at birth and even before, in utero.
The implication of this on society, and the way children are taught, is enormous and necessarily means that the
importance of the first few years of life is increasingly being stressed by educators. Scientists now know that experiences
1
after birth rather than innate elements are actually responsible for wiring the brain together.
During infancy and early childhood, children develop their ability to regulate their own emotions and
behavior. This development of self-regulatory mechanisms has been considered to be the crucial link between
genetic predisposition, early experience, and later adult functioning in society. In evolutionary terms, the
success of the human species is attributed to the ability to live socially in groups, thus, humans have a longer
period of childhood compared to other species and it is suggested that this difference prepares the child for the
increasingly complex and changing socio-cultural environments encountered in adulthood (Berger et al. 2007).
Despite this insight, the standard teaching of human growth and development has generally been addressed to
the changes in the physical body and pays comparatively less attention to the processes of ethical consciousness
and self-determination. Sadly, the coincidental development of healthy ethical principles, as facilitated by the
relationships children have with the people around them, is often neglected (Kochanska, Gross, and Nichols
2002). Unquestionably, infancy and early childhood are periods in human lives when the brain is most
susceptible to both negative and positive experiences which, in turn, create fresh neural tracks that guide a
persons destination throughout life (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. The Neurobiological Tracks of Social Engagement Are Shaped Early in Life By Emotional Experiences
That Set the Imprint for Ethical Development and Moral Judgment (Photo, I. Pollard).
433
2. Human Brain Programming and the Evolution of Ethics

Neuroethicsat the intersection of bioethics and neuroscienceis a recent rationalization of centuries-old
philosophical deliberations of the ethical issues associated with mind, behavior, and society. In practice,
modern neuroethics deals with the pros and cons of research conducted on the brain, as well as the social, legal
and ethical implication of treating or manipulating the mind (Pollard 2007). Since our brain interprets what it
receives and incorporates it into judgment, volition, and consciousness of self and others, it is much more than
an instrument responding to the environment. Significantly, from abstract qualities evolved the human ability to
choose between alternative behaviors which accelerated the development of a fitness-enhancing collective
awareness, or ethics.
Human brain programming is multiphasic and is the process by which a stimulus or exposure during a
critical developmental period has a long-lasting or permanent influence on brain function (Sandman et al. 2011).
In the early years of life, the brain increases in size due to cell division, migration, specialization, pruning, and
remodeling (Nepomnaschy and Finn 2009). Synaptic connections gained, reinforced, or lost during these
critical developmental periods become the basics for learning and memory. In humans, brain development is
exceptional in that there are many critical developmental periods during which potentially adverse
brain-targeting influences may challenge the orderly progression of the early growth and organizational phases
triggering primary and/or secondary effects resulting in functional-emotional impairments, behavioral
aberrations, and learning difficulties (Pollard 2009c).
Emotions are an exceptional component in brain development because of their task in monitoring social
relations and mental/physical wellbeing. The capability to express varying emotions appears progressively in
the course of infant development, reflecting mainly genetic effects in the early stages, and psychosocial
conditioning and environmental factors in later ones (Pollard 2009b). Importantly, the brains psychological
advancement and consequent behavioral repertoirewhich gradually characterizes the adult personalitydepend
largely on the prenatal neurophysiological development and postnatal maturational accomplishments during
infancy.
2.1. Ethics: Our Biological Heritage

The evolution of our brain can be divided into three distinct ancestral stages (the Triune braina term
popularized by Paul MacLean in 1990), in which each evolutionary stage solved different physical, emotional,
and behavioural survival functions. The triune brain is composed of the primitive (or reptilian) brain, the early
mammalian (or limbic) brain and the new mammalian brain (or neocortex).
The primitive reptilian brain (also called the basal ganglia) is largely controlled by the unconscious
autonomic nervous system, and embodies a significant core of automatic survival functions, including
sentiments of which we are not necessarily aware. Some basic herd functions relating to instinctive behavior
patterns of self-preservation include the desire for pleasure, choosing a mate, breeding, fighting, fleeing,
territorialism, social hierarchy (pecking order), selection of leaders, status maintenance, resistance to change,
awe for authority, ritualism, prejudice, and deception. Evolutionary analyses view these basic instinctive
behaviors as adaptive for species survival, because they help to reduce vicious competitive interactions between
members of a species irrespective of moral considerations (Kemper 1987; Hayakawa, Altheide, and Varki 2005).
We carry our primitive reptilian brain around us largely unchanged.
434
The early mammalian or limbic brain evolved about 150 million years ago during the transition from
reptiles to mammals and embodied the first layer of the cortex responsible for our social and family behaviours
as mammals. It underlies the subjective experience of emotional feelings that guide functions involving defense,
food, and sex, as well as activities related to the expression of the semi-conscious emotions and feelings linked
to attachment and care of offspring. Accordingly, the limbic brains primal activities (such as the fight or flight
fear response) relate to the production of powerful emotions that enhance the objectives derived from the
primitive portions of the brain. Limbic-generated emotions and their corresponding reactions are, typically,
independent of thought reactions as relayed by the senses. This may explain why certain judgments, or any
strongly felt passion, may be so overwhelming that they remain in the face of logic and contradiction.
The latest evolutionary development is the new mammalian brain or neocortex, which evolved over the
last 60 million years, and it is most notable in primates, particularly ourselves. Our extensive neocortical
development encompasses conscious mental activity, and this made reasoning, abstract intelligence,
mathematical thinking, and decoding of sensory information possible, as well as many other new talents, such
as music, language, meditation, dreaming, expanded memory, spirituality, ethical reflection, and the
development of moral rules (Pollard 2009b).
More recentlyparalleling our brains biological evolution, a corresponding psychological theory has
been formulated. Triune Ethics Theory suggests that three types of ethical orientations emerged during
human evolution. These are the ethics of security, which focuses on self-preservation; the ethics of engagement,
which focuses on emotional affiliations with others; and the ethics of the imagination. The ethics of the
imagination coordinates the older parts of the brain (primitive and early mammalian) using reasoning to adapt
to social relationships by flexibly addressing future eventualities (reviewed in Narvaez 2010). Since each brain
level pertains to specific types of actions, the overall mix becomes significant, as it directly influences character
development and expression. Crucially, our early childhood experiences determine how we favor these
potential courses of action in later life and are, therefore, indispensable in facilitating the evolution of an
adaptive personal ethics. In order for a strong emotional circuitry to form that promotes a mature personal ethics
to be realized, optimal childhood environments providing safety and affirmative social interactions are crucial.
Clearly, emotions are an important part of our inner selves and cover many domains. Emotions are
subjective, internal experiences that arise from a group of biological reactions in response to situations that give
rise to various functional, cognitive, physiological, and behavioral responses. From an early age, humans are
aware of their surroundings and how they perceive things should be. While each individual possesses a unique
personality, early emotional experiences combined with a particular genetic predisposition form a mood
balance that influences the way an individual interacts with and perceives the world (Pollard 2003).
2.2. Early Attachment and the Evolution of the Primary and Secondary Emotions
Modern neurocognitive and neuroimaging research has generated increase in our understanding of the
neural mechanisms underlying cognition, behavior, and moods (Lemerise and Arsenio 2000). Mood is the
consistent extension of emotion in time, while emotion is typically transient and responsive to the thoughts,
activities, and social situations of the day. Emotion corresponds to an ancient signaling system that evolved
millions of years ago in all mammalian species living in social groups.
Human emotions can be classified into two basic sub-typesprimary and secondary. The basic primary
emotions are innate in nature and begin expression early in the life of the neonate. These emotions are love, joy,
435
surprise, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. Human primary emotions are remarkable in that they respond to
environmental cues that variously register security, protection, threat or danger and impel us to react
(TenHouten 2006). The secondary emotions (also referred to as the self-conscious emotions) stem from the
primary emotions. Secondary emotions, which include embarrassment, shame, guilt, jealousy, resentment, and
pride are learned through socialization, and significantly, rely on the intelligent judgment against experience
and an acquired set of ethical standards. For example, guilt or embarrassment is learned through the primary
emotion of fear. When a child commits a mistake, he/she fears punishment, and over time, the child learns that
when a similar blunder is committed, and fears punishment, then guilt is the emotion that should be invoked.
Other secondary emotions are happiness, affection, lust, longing, cheerfulness, zest, pleasure, amazement,
astonishment, and panic. With the emergence of these secondary emotions, ethical reasoning and behaviour
starts to develop and expand. For example, feelings of shame and embarrassment demonstrate that the child is
very aware of other peoples perception of it, and as a consequence, will be more involved in the establishment
of rules in social groups and gatherings (Ferguson, Stegge, and Damhuis, 1991; Ho Fu and Ng 2004). Feelings
of pleasure support happiness and demonstrate that the child is content in the company of significant others.
When children feel remorse, repulsion, sadness, empathy, or anger, they are aware of issues concerning
injustice and immorality. We should not forget that the self-conscious emotions rely on the ethical
consciousness of an individual, and importantly, are not innate in nature; that is, a child is not born with a
particular set of ethics or values, rather the innate predisposition for ethical judgment requires nurturing during
infancy before it can be cognitively understood and practiced in maturity. The relationships children have with
other children during the early stages of life are also important in establishing the ethical values associated with
sharing, cooperation, and the idea of intentions. Children as young as four years old are able to distinguish between
negligence and intentional wrongdoing when given a number of ethical situations to interpret (Ruffy 1981).
The development of the emotions of pride, shame, and guilt are thought to arise within the first two years
of life and are important in the development of the concepts of what is right and wrong, and later, higher
ethical standards (Allessandri and Lewis 1996). With the emergence of self-conscious emotions, a strong
connection between a toddlers emotional life and a developing sense of self is established; for instance,
joy/pride following success, sadness/guilt/shame following disapproval. If a child is to thrive, its basic needs
must be respected. If, for instance, the child receives gentle but unambiguous discipline mixed with gaiety, love
and respect, it will, in turn, learn to respect others and their feelings. If the child has to work hard to be loved,
as is the case of conditional love, then the infant is left confused, repressed, and emotionally isolated, risking its
behavior becoming manipulative or deceptive. If a child is dominated, then the child may become aggressive in
its fight to protect its interests, risking becoming a dominating person in turn. Importantly, total consistency
with the parents own behavior and what they communicate as acceptable behavior for the child is essential for
the healthy development of the sense of what is socially acceptable and what is not.
By the time, a child reaches the age of seven or eight, the brain has developed sufficiently for the child to
understand complex moral issues and apply this understanding to its behavior and the choices it makes. In the
last analysis, the healthy integration between the physical and the mental forms a continuum coordinated by the
neuroendocrine and immunological systems (Pollard 2009d).
The human brain is resilient to psychological trauma with the exception of two critically sensitive periods
at the second half of the first year of life, and the period between 25 and 36 months. Severe stress, especially
during critical periods of development, may adversely influence the developing brain of an infant, causing
436
hyperactive stress responses linked to unsocial behaviors (Lupien et al. 2009). Childhood neglect in the first
year of life risks damaging brain chemistry by altering the normal activity of hormones and neurotransmitters
that drive understandingessential for forming secure and healthy social bonds. Normally, by the age of one,
the infant understands distress and comforts those under stress with hugs and kisses (DeScioli and Kurzban
2009). By the age of three, children start to develop moral judgments and are able to distinguish between both
intentional and unintentional violence (DeScioli and Kurzban 2009).
2.3. The Neurobiology of Trust and Empathy

Early attachment is achieved through physical contact between a child and its caregiver(s) following a
stressful event. This is mediated by the release of the neurotransmitter oxytocin to lower the infants heartbeat
and promote attachment (Zak 2008). In this way, early childhood bonding is an example of an adaptive
response to stress and is linked to the promotion of trust that increases flexible resilience. There are several
brain structures that release and respond to oxytocin and control emotions by modulating dopamine
releasethe neurotransmitter that makes one feel goodthus rewarding and reinforcing specific behaviors. As
children grow older, they are less dependent on their parents and guardians and rely more on the experiences
that they may encounter in the wider community to guide them to decide and exercise their own personal
standards. Under normal circumstances, children become more independent and are able to distinguish thoughts
from personal feelings and make use of the more mature emotion of empathy. The capacity of empathy also
provides the gift of intuitive behavior which is set in motion very early in life. For example, by the mother
anticipating the childs needs, the child, in turn, learns to anticipate the needs of others. Anticipation becomes
linked to survival, whereas failure to anticipate creates anxiety.
Recent advances in non-invasive neuroimaging techniques and genetics have enable scientists to elucidate
more clearly the neurobiological basis of oxytocins influence on human social behaviors. These investigations
have revealed a role for oxytocin in a variety of human social cognitive processes, including social memory and
recognition, emotion perception, empathy, trust, cooperation, fear and aggression, and social stress (reviewed in
Zink and Meyer-Lindenberg 2012). Inadvertently, the availability of new research tools have provided the
essential context needed to make biological sense of the high-throughput data and so propel the neurosciences
to the forefront of mainstream biology. For instance, epidemiological studies have demonstrated that severely
neglected children do not respond with increased oxytocin secretion on physical contact (Moll et al. 2005).
Other surveys found that children who were exposed to corporal punishment at a young age had difficulty
expressing empathy as adults and also had impaired moral development compared with those exposed to little
or no physical punishment as children (Lopez, Bonenberger, and Schneider 2001). As identified earlier, ethical
reasoning through an imaginative ethic occurs in the prefrontal cortex of the brain and physiological or
psychological damage to this area adversely affects the recognition and review of socially-acceptable behavior.
Indeed, functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) has been successfully used to assess neurological
damage in children who have been neglected or abused during the first three years of life. Importantly, it was
confirmed that those children with impaired orbitofrontal cortex function were able to express primary
emotions like anger or violence, but could not express secondary emotions like empathy or pride (Moll et al.
2002; Koenigs et al. 2007).
The evidence is undeniable that adults who were mistreated and/or abused as children, or were raised
under extreme hardship, risk growing up with a set of ill-advised ethical values and may thus engage in
437
inappropriate behavior. By experiencing higher levels of stress compared with non-maltreated children, abused
and neglected younger children tend to develop post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) early in their lives. As a
result, these children often have a smaller corpus callosum compared with average children. The corpus
callosum is responsible for the integration of the right and left hemispheres of the brain (Becker-Weidman and
Hughes 2008). Poorly, integrated cerebral hemispheres and under-development of the orbitofrontal cortex cause
severe social and emotional symptoms. Major symptoms, consist of difficulty in controlling emotions, reduced
ability to accurately recognize emotions, inability to express own emotions and a lack of conscience (Koenigs
and Tranel 2007; Reynolds and Ou 2010).
The tragic cascade of severe neglect during early childhood and its consequences seen in later life was
clearly illustrated by the Romanian orphans living in institutional settings. In 1966, the Romanian communist
dictator Nicolai Ceausescu banned birth control and abortion in order to increase the countrys population and
workforce. His social experiment worked in terms of population growth, but with population growth increased
rates of child abandonment. When he was overthrown in 1989, an estimated 170,000 unwanted children were
left in orphanages across the country in appalling conditions. Orphans living in inhumane conditions provided
neurologists and psychologists access to an experiment where the effects of severe neglect and deprivation on
child development could be examined.
The Romanian orphans had, on average, lower brain activity with significantly lower intelligence
quotients (IQs) compared with the children living in the broader community (Kaler and Freeman 1994). As
described above, the brain is most plastic in early childhood, and given optimal experiences, it develops healthy,
flexible, and diverse capabilities. In abusive and neglectful environments, the process of normal
neurodevelopment is disrupted, as these childrens brains are frozen in a state of fear-related activation.
Fortunately, not all of the findings in these studies were negative. Although the effects of early deprivation in
children are not completely reversible, they can be minimized in some circumstances. However, it behoves us
to remember that these Romanian orphans were all born with the genetic potential to excel in most aspects of
human life, but it was environmental deprivation during critical periods in infancy and early childhood that
hindered their ability to reach their full genetic potential.
3. Education: Whose Responsibility?

While direct measurement of happiness presents challenges, tools have been developed by researchers. Positive
psychology researchers use theoretical models that include describing happiness as consisting of positive emotions and
positive activities, or that describe three kinds of happiness: pleasure (positive sensory experience), engagement (involvement
2
with ones family, work, romance and hobbies), and meaning (using personal strengths to serve some larger end).
It is agreed that to bring a child into the world that one is not ready for and would, or might resent,
presents a huge social problem. Parents who physically and emotionally batter, isolate or dominate their
children are in need of help. But what about the generations of children living in countries experiencing war,
political upheaval and economic hardship? How does the violence of one generation affect the ethical
development of the children in the next and subsequent generations?
It is well established that compassionate nurturing reflects compassionate and tolerant behavior in children
and, similarly, stronger levels of behavioral self-regulation are observed in preschoolers with a healthy social
upbringing (Eisler and Levine 2002; Kochanska et al. 2008). In comparison, neglected children show higher
levels of violence, perhaps reverting to more primitive and self-preserving behaviors. In order to promote the
438
development of an adaptive community that is positive, optimistic, and welcoming of life, it is crucial that early
infant and childhood experiences integrate caring relationships in high abundance. Early caregivers play a most
significant role in a childs neurological development. Furthermore, recent evidence has shown that the social
environment may alter neurogenesis in the adult brain and such adjustments vary depending on the type of
social stimulus (Lieberwirth and Wang 2012). Neurogenesis, or progenitor cell division leading to functionally
integrated neurons, was traditionally believed to occur only in the developing brain, but more recent studies are
highlighting the significance of the newly generated adult neurons in variously modulating neurobehavioral
tasks. Hence, there is an urgent need to consider new ways that society can facilitate educational experiences,
activating subconscious neurological maturational processes driving the establishment of mature secondary
emotions, such as empathy, reasoning, and peace-promoting ethical values.
Children living in war zones, or similar chaotic circumstances, adjust their ethical judgments to their
surrounding conditions. For example, a study found emotional differences in the ethical judgment of Jewish
Israeli and Palestinian children when they were given problems to solve based on real life scenarios. It was
found that Palestinian children offered more violent solutions than Jewish Israeli children (Elbedour, Baker, and
Charlesworth, 1997; Baker and Shalhoub-Kevorkian 1999). Further, Colombian children exposed to violence
and subjected to geographical displacement were more likely to engage in unethical behavior when provoked
(Ardila-Rey, Killen, and Brenick 2009). Distressingly, early childhood exposure to war and violence
irreversibly compromises the ethical development of these children in many ways. This was graphically
demonstrated in the aftermath of the Second World War where children who had been traumatized by their
experiences in Nazi concentration camps could not learn nor understand the significance of ethics; that is, they
had no capacity for empathy, nor feelings for others. At the time, the majority of these children were between
the ages of 4 and 12. Another insight comes from psychological assessments of infamous terrorists and
dictators, many of whom have had dysfunctional childhoods which made them hate before they learned what
they hated. When children face life threatening situations, their mind and body respond by engaging in the
struggle for survival. The energy needed to fight for survival is derived by channeling energy from other
important activities, such as generating adaptive emotions and ways of thinking (Parson 2000). Hence, such
deprived kids are lacking in ethical standards, and concepts, such as right and wrong, have little meaning. The
horror of Hitlers racial eugenics program clearly reminds us of the human capacity for excess.
In the above context, we cannot forget wars continuing social impact where children are conscripted as
child soldiers and forced to commit atrocities in exchange for basic requirements, such as food, shelter, and
tenuous protection. Most frightening is how children as young as eight years of age are being manipulated by
adults and forcibly recruited, coerced, and induced to become combatants. By this means, war-zone children are
not only victims of violence but also active participants. Human Rights Watch documented that there are an
estimated 300,000 children at any given time participating in armed hostilities while serving in rebel groups
and government forces around the world. These child soldiers perform a range of tasks, such as participating in
armed conflict, laying mines and explosives, scouting, spying, acting as decoys, serving as porters, and cooks
as well as sexual slaves (Pollard 2009a).
4. Evaluating the Impact of Education

We should not underestimate the power of social learning where the children of one generation learn ways
to think and behave from influential members of their community acting as role models, and in turn, transmit
439
this learning across the next and subsequent generations. In the final analysis, how we provide essential
education and health care, eradicate poverty, stem population growth, and restore war-ravished landscapes will
determine future living conditions. Current circumstances provoking strong physiological and psychological
stimuli will induce reactions, but as reviewed earlier, the character of these reactions follows the basic imprints
consigned during critical periods of cerebral development. Possessing this knowledge provides us with
powerto choose the preferred option; either the primitive instinctive (reptilian) option or the more cognitively
considered option is offered as possible choices. Given our technological power, we would be wise to adapt
emotionally in order to balance our unprecedented opportunities to annihilate ourselves and our fellow
passengers on earth. When we are profiting from the gifts provided by our advanced intellectual intelligence
(roughly measured by IQ), it is only fair that this gift be counterbalanced by an improved instinctive awareness
or emotional intelligence (EQ). Thinking along these lines, it seems below human dignity to irresponsibly
devalue scientific advances by applying sciences technology to aid the forces of conflict and destruction. An
in-tune EQ describes the ethical aptitude and skill to perceive and assess the emotions of self, others, and
groups. In neurological terms, a well-directed EQ signals that the brains homeostatic system has adopted an
advanced steady stateone more responsive to the physical and social environments, and therefore, more
adaptive in terms of ethical control over changing circumstances.
Educational ideals can be summarized within basic human core values. Prominently, for example, a
familiarity with the current knowledge base of early childhood care and education, and the requirement to keep
current through continuing community education and in-service training. How peace-promoting initiatives are
applied depends on individual and societal circumstance; however, at the core stands the overriding
responsibility to support and guide children to express, challenge, and achieve their desired goals to the fullest
of their biological potential. Since we do not live in isolation but in a pluralistic globalized world, both adults
and children need ethical sensitivities that relate across diverse cultures, ethnicities, and secular and spiritual
commitments. Given that learning is deeply subsumed within the processes of emotion, early ethics education,
including accurate access to scientific, medical, and technological knowledge, becomes critical. Future
generations will increasingly require education from a global perspective when making critical ethical decisions
about the politics of, for example, disposal of wastes, preservation of biodiversity, global warming, and
unregulated population growth. Therefore, there is an obligation to make relevant science education overlap
with critical periods in the advancement of ethical consciousness. Bioscience ethics learning and education may
assist in this process. Bioscience ethics facilitates free and accurate information transfer from applied science to
applied bioethics which, in turn, provides unique educational opportunities for advancing biological
understanding within the scaffolding of ethics. The Bioscience-Bioethics Friendship Co-operative web
(http://www.bioscience-bioethics.org/) provides free admittance to educational material and access to other
useful links for those interested in bioscience and bioethics.
5. Summary and Conclusions

(1) Instinctual behaviors that are deeply rooted in the human brain are a product of evolution and serve to
benefit primarily ourselves. Personal ethics can best be described as the differentiation between right and wrong
which governs the behavior of individuals. It can be principles or rules which are used to judge actions of
individuals as being adaptive or destructive. Adaptive sets of ethical principles can be recognized in society,
religion, or philosophy, and are unique to each individual.
440
(2) The primitive (reptilian) brain is a prime influencer of basic instinctive behaviors. Its function is to
maximize basic survival behaviors, including territoriality, fear, and anger, all of which contribute to a security
ethic and are hardwired into our subconscious. As a result, humans will default to these powerful behaviors if
stressed or threatened; indeed such emotions can dictate the actions of the rest of the brain. This arrangement
affects ethical judgment when instinctual needs overcome other ethical or moral circumstances. As children,
close nurturing encourages the development of an ethically responsive brain, which is less likely to emotionally
engage in the actions prescribed by the primitive brain.
(3) In situations of early neglect or mistreatment, the stress caused to the infant releases stress hormones in
several systems which, if prolonged, may cause developmental anomalies in the brain, primarily in the
orbitofrontal cortex and corpus callosumthe centers of emotional integration and brain lateralization. These
anomalies rob the child of the ability to feel regret about how its actions affect others and may lead to violence
in situations of social unrest and armed conflict. When proper care is ensured, the child gains values, such as
tolerance, empathy, and openness.
(4) There are no immediate solutions that will help protect children from having difficult childhoodswe
can only hope that with education, parents, and educators will become more attentive to the fundamental
genetic-epigenetic influences reinforcing adaptive or non-adaptive maturational processes. Informational
programs on their own are frequently ineffective, as they may change individual knowledge but not necessarily
behavior. More encouraging outcomes could be found in programs that combine some kind of social
competence training with a community wide involvement aimed not only at children but also at their
connections, parents, and teachers.
(5) In the final analysis, bioscience ethics can assist by providing transdisciplinary awarenesses. It is in
this context that I invite the reader to access the web (http://www.bioscience-bioethics.org/) which provides free
admittance to educational material in the area of stress physiology, reproduction, developmental toxicology and
other useful links for those interested in bioscience ethics and bioethics. I hope that a better understanding of
the neurobiological relationships between early development and ethical reasoning will provide a new basis for
innovation in the design of learning environments.
Notes
1. Excerpt from the Early Childhood and Family Education Unit by Bernard Combes, UNESCO Paris, France, p. 33, 1992.
2. Happiness from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Works Cited
Allessandri, Albrecht, and Lewis Bendersky. Differences in Pride and Shame in Maltreated and Non-maltreated Preschoolers.
Child Development 67.4 (1996): 1857-69.
Ardila-Rey, Alicia, Melanie Killen, and Alaina Brenick. Moral Reasoning in Violent Contexts: Displaced and Non-displaced
Colombian Childrens Evaluations of Moral Transgressions, Retaliation and Reconciliation. Social Development 18.1
(2009): 181-209.
Baker, Ahmad, and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian. Effects of Political and Military Traumas on Children: The Palestinian Case.
Clinical Psychology Review 19.8 (1999): 935-50.
Becker-Weidman, Arthur, and Daniel Hughes. Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy: An Evidence-Based Treatment for
Children with Complex Trauma and Disorders of Attachment. Child & Family Social Work 13.3 (2008): 329-37.
441
Berger, Andrea, Ora Kofman, Uri Livneh, and Avishai Henik. Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Attention and the Development
of Self-Regulation. Progress in Neurobiology 82. 5 (2007): 256-86.
DeScioli, Peter, and Robert Kurzban. Mysteries of Morality. Cognition 112.2 (2009): 281-99.
Eisler, Riane, and Daniel Levine. Nurture, Nature and Caring: We are not Prisoners of Our Genes. Brain & Mind 3.1 (2002):
9-52.
Elbedour, Salman, Ahmad Baker, and William Charlesworth. The Impact of Political Violence on Moral Reasoning in Children.
Child Abuse & Neglect 21.11 (1997): 1053-66.
Ferguson, Tamara, Hedy Stegge, and Ilse Damhuis. Childrens Understanding of Guilt and Shame. Childhood Development
62.4 (1991): 827-39.
Hayakawa, Toshiy, Tasha Altheide, and Agit Varki. Genetic Basis of Human Brain Evolution: Accelerating along the Primate
Speedway. Developmental Cell 8.1 (2005): 2-4.
Ho, David, Way Fu, and Siuman Ng. Guilt, Shame and Embarrassment: Revelations of Face and Self. Culture & Psychology
10.1 (2004): 64-84.
Kaler, Sandra, and Brian Freeman. Analysis of Environmental Deprivation: Cognitive and Social Development in Romanian
Orphans. Journal of Child Psychiatry 35.4 (1994): 769-81.
Kemper, Theodore. How Many Emotions are There? Wedding the Social and the Autonomic Components. American Journal of
Sociology 93.2 (1987): 263-89.
Kochanska, Grazyna, James Gross, Mei-Hua Lin, and Kate Nichols. Guilt in Young Children: Development, Determinants and
Relations with a Broader System of Standards. Child Development 73.2 (2002): 461-82.
Kochanska, Grazyna, Nasan Aksan, Theresa Prisco, and Erin Adams. Mother-Child and Father-Child Mutually Responsive
Orientation in the First Two Year of Childrens Outcomes at Preschool age: Mechanisms of Influence. Child Development
79.1 (2008): 30-44.
Koenigs, Michael, and Daniel Tranel. Irrational Economic Decision-Making after Ventromedial Prefrontal Damage: Evidence
from the Ultimatum Game. Journal of Neuroscience 27.4 (2007): 951-56.
Koenigs, Michael, Liane Young, Ralph Adolphs, Daniel Tranel, Fiery Crushman, Marc Hauser, and Antonio Damasio. Damage
to the Prefrontal Cortex Increases Utilitarian Moral Judgments. Nature 486.April (2007): 908-11.
Lemerise, Elizabeth, and William Arsenio. An Integrated Model of Emotion Processes and Cognition in Social Information
Processing. Child Development 71.1 (2000): 107-18.
Lieberwirth, Claudia, and Zuoxin Wang. The Social Environment and Neurogenesis in the Adult Mammalian Brain. Frontiers
in Human Neuroscience 6.118 (2012): 1-19.
Lopez, Nestor, Jrgen Bonenberger, and Hans Schneider. Parental Discipline History, Current Levels of Empathy and Moral
Reasoning in Young Adults. North American Journal of Psychology 3.2 (2001): 193-204.
Lupien, Sonia, Bruce McEwen, Megan Gunnar, and Christine Heim. Effects of Stress throughout the Lifespan on the Brain,
Behaviour and Cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 10.June (2009): 434-45.
MacLean, Paul. The Triune Brain in Evolution: Role in Paleocerebral Functions. New York: Plenum Press, 1990.
Moll, Jorge, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, Paul Eslinger, Ivanei Bramati, Janaia Mourao-Miranda, Pedro Andreiuolo, and Luiz
Pessoa. The Neural Correlates of Moral Sensitivity: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of Basic and
Moral Emotions. The Journal of Neuroscience 22.7 (2002): 2730-36.
Moll, Jorge, Robert Zahn, Ricardo de Oliveira-Souza, Frank Krueger, and Jordan, Grafman. The Neural Basis of Human Moral
Cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6.10 (2005): 799-809.
Narvaez, Darcia. The Emotional Foundations of High Moral Intelligence. New Directions for Child & Adolescent Development
2010.129 (2010): 77-94.
Nepomnaschy, Pablo, and Mark Finn. Life Influences on the Ontogeny of the Neuroendocrine Stress Response in the Human
Child. Endocrinology of Social Relationships. Ed. Peter Ellison and Peter Gray. President and Fellows of Harvard College,
2009. 369-75.
Parson, Erwin. Understanding Children with War-Zone Traumatic Stress Exposed to the Worlds Violent Environments. Journal
of Contemporary Psychotherapy 30.4 (2000): 325-40.
Pollard, Irina. From Happiness to Depression. Todays Life Sciences 15.4 (2003): 22-26.
---. High Tech Neuroscience, Neuroethics, and the Precautionary Principle. Asia-Pacific Perspectives on Ethics of Science and
Technology. Bangkok: UNESCO Bangkok, 2007. 37-43.
442
---. Human-Dominated Ecosystems: Warfare = Fitness Enhancement or Losing Strategy? Bioscience Ethics. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2009a. 243-62.
---. Human Origins, Natural Selection and the Evolution of Ethics. Bioscience Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009b. 1-23.
---. Inappropriate Lifestyle and Congenital Disability in Children: Basic Principles of Growth, Toxicology, Teratogenesis and
Mutagenesis. Bioscience Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009c. 44-60.
---. Understanding Child Abuse and Its Biological Consequences. Bioscience Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009d.
106-23.
Reynolds, Arthur, and Suh-Ruu Ou. Early Childhood to Young Adulthood: An Introduction to the Special Issue. Children &
Youth Services Review 32.8 (2010): 1045-53.
Ruffy, Michle. Influence of Social Factors in the Development of the Young Childs Moral Judgment. European Journal of
Social Psychology 11.1 (1981): 61-75.
Sandman, Curt, Elysia Davis, Claudia Buss, and Laura Glynn. Prenatal Programming of Human Neurological Function.
International Journal of Peptides 2011.ID837596 (2011): 1-9.
TenHouten, Warren. Primary Emotions and Social Relations. Paper presented at the American Sociological Association. Montreal
Convention Center, Quebec, Canada, 2006.
Zak, Paul. The Neurobiology of Trust. Scientific American 298.Jun. (2008): 62-67.
Zink, Caroline, and Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg. Human Neuroimaging of Oxytocin and Vasopressin in Social Cognition.
Hormones & Behavior 61 (special issue entitled Oxytocin, Vasopressin, and Social Behavior) (2012): 400-09.

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 443-455
DAVID
PUBLISHING
Prospective Consensus Building-Ethical Consideration on

History of Reason and List of Risks*
Kumiko Yoshitake
Juntendo University
In consensus building process in medicine, it is said that it is crucial for its participants to understand why each
stakeholder, patient, his/her family, physician, nurse, etc., in decision-making has his/her own opinion. In order to
understand this condition more deeply, I develop the notion of reason of opinion to characterize the process as
prospective consensus building. This prospective consensus building should satisfy the requirements of having
history of reason and list of risks. The former requirement, history of reason, can be characterized by making
clear when one started to form the reason of an opinion, how one formed the reason, what kind of relationship is
supposed to be between the present opinion and its reason, and what kind of result is expected to come out after a
decision making. The latter requirement, the list of risks, should display what kind of outcomes are supposed to
come out in each alternative of the decision making. Prospective consensus building makes it possible, firstly, for
the stakeholders to understand the patients needs more deeply. For the patient, secondly, the each stakeholder
would be able to become aware of his/her own sense of value and to confirm what he/she expects from the result of
his/her decision-making. For all the stakeholders, thirdly, it would make it possible to decrease the amount of risks
of misunderstanding and to share their expectations for their well-being. Finally, the stakeholders can reach a
satisfactory consensus and find a way to the better solution.
Keywords: consensus-building, decision-making in medicine, history of reason
1. Background
In medicine, the interacting partiespatients and doctorsstrive to restore the patients health through
engaging in therapy and treatment; however, occasionally conflicts occur between these interacting parties, and
if unresolved, can escalate to the point of medical lawsuits.1 Recently, a new theory of alternative dispute
resolution (ADR) from a legal viewpoint has been presented to aid in resolving medical disputes, focusing
particularly on the dialogue process between the interacting parties.2 ADR is a methodology for resolving a
dispute that has already arisen and can be implemented throughout the consensus-building process.
In general, research on consensus building has involved both practical and theoretical considerations. The
primary goal of consensus building is bridging the gap between diverse opinions to settle on a decision for a
specific problem. Within a social infrastructure, a consensus requires the participation of a variety of
individuals with different viewpoints. Consensus building that relates to planning rules, legal systems, and the
*
Acknowledgment: This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 22520031.
Kumiko Yoshitake, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Faculty of Health Care and Nursing, Juntendo University, Japan; main
research fields: Medical Ethics, Ethics of Perinatal Medicine, Midwifery Ethics, and Decision-Making and Consensus Building in
Medicine. Email: kumiko.yottake3@gmail.com.
444
PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY
like has been studied and practiced within a broad range of fields, including sociology, engineering, and law.
One study on consensus building in medicine looked at social consensus-building techniques as a means
for formulating standards in the fields of medical technology and bioethics (Akabayashi 2003). In contrast to
social consensus building, consensus building in cases where the interacting parties are limited, such as in
treatment decisions3 has been discussed as a new methodology for decision-making based on informed consent
(Sugita and Hirayama 1994; Shimizu 1997; Yoshitake 2007).
A number of different models have been proposed on how to approach the decision-making process of
treatment and care selection in medicine. These include the paternalistic model, the informed model, and the
shared model. In the paternalistic model, decisions and selections are made based on what the doctor thinks is
best. The informed model, in which treatment decisions are made by informed consent, respects the autonomy
of the patient by allowing them to make the final decision, after the doctor has provided them with sufficient
information relating to it. In contrast, the shared model4 is a method wherein doctor and patient operate in
collaboration, and information is exchanged in both directions. This model also emphasizes the process leading
up to decision-making (Charles, Gafni, and Whelan 1997; 1999). Previous studies have shown differences
between these models in terms of information exchange, deliberation, and treatment decision (Charles et al.
1999; Stacey Legare, and Kryeoruchko 2009); one report stressed the importance of being flexible in using
these models according to the circumstances (Charles et al. 1999).
In this paper, I use consensus building in medicine to create a consensus model and then clarify the
characteristics of this consensus model by describing its differences from the existing decision-making models
for medical treatment. In addition, I present the novel concept of prospective consensus building as an
approach to deal with problems in more complex and diverse aspects of decision-making, and aim to shed light
on the significance of using this concept.
2. Consensus Building in Medicine

Consensus building is a creative process for finding a satisfactory solution to a conflict between
interacting parties with a variety of viewpoints (Yoshitake 2007; Kuwako 2007; 2009). Consensus building can
be phrased as either simply consensus building or as social consensus building. The former term can be
used for either closed or open groups of interacting parties; an example of consensus building among a closed
group of people is a patient and a doctor deciding what treatment to follow. Meanwhile, social consensus
building assumes that the group of interacting parties is always open; an example would be companies creating
regulations for their employees or customers.
In medicine, where clinical practice involves making decisions on the best treatment to follow, the parties
involvedthe patient, family, and doctorare a specific group of people; as such, they represent a closed
group. Even in deciding on legislation and regulations relating to medicine, the interacting parties remain a
closed group when the decisions are made through discussion among members of a specific committee.
However, when an attempt is made to incorporate the opinions of the public and reflect them in the
development of regulations, the interacting parties become undefined and open, and therefore, social consensus
building becomes necessary.
It is important in consensus building to ascertain the identities of the interacting parties involved in an
issue, analyze what interests or concerns they hold, and then determine the best approach to solve the issue
based on communication between the interacting parties. An important element is the presence of a promoter,
445
who can identify the interacting parties, analyzing their concerns and motives, and manage the discussion such
that it runs in an appropriate manner. The interacting parties involved in a decision-making process are called
stakeholders, the interests and concerns held by the stakeholders are called interests, and the promoter
overseeing the discussion is called the facilitator.
2.1. Patients and Medical Staff as Those Who Worry and Hesitate
A major difference in the consensus model from the informed model is how it determines people to be
stakeholders. In medicine, the patient becomes an important stakeholder; because the patient is the principal
party involved in the treatment of his/her illness, it might be difficult for them to understand their situations and
make sound decisions, even if the doctor has thoroughly explained their treatment options. The patient might be
hesitant, worrying about the illness, treatment, and life after treatment, as well as how it will affect their family
and work. Even if a patient does not suffer from a vegetative state or mental illness, they might be unable to
clearly understand their own desires or intentions. For such people, it is not appropriate for the doctor to exert
pressure on them to make decisions according to the doctors own intentions, as per the paternalistic model.
The best approach for the patient is often not immediately understood, not even to the patient himself, and
the attending physician cannot possibly understand everything about their patient; the physician does not
necessarily know the best approach for a particular patient, simply by virtue of being an expert in healthcare.
Therefore, the stakeholders involved in treatment share questions of what course of action they can and
believe that they should take, and this communication provides a means for discovering the best course of
action; this is consensus-building. The act of listening to others opinions or talking about ones own worries
helps stakeholders form their own opinions and become aware of their own feelings. This kind of
communication with and mutual understanding of others makes it possible to find the best solution to any given
treatment problem. This differs from the manner of thinking that respects the individual with a personality, as
discussed by Kant. Because people are often aware of their anxieties and uncertainties, the emphasis in
consensus building is on the relationship of interdependence with others.
2.2. Stakeholders and Interests

In the case of treatment decisions, the stakeholders involved are the patient, their families, and the doctor. The
patients background, treatment, and other aspects of the circumstances dictate who exactly will be included in
the discussion as a stakeholder, but the number of stakeholders is ultimately limited.
The main concern of all stakeholders is the ailing party, that is, the person receiving treatment. The patient,
even though he might be a mature adult, is in poor health and therefore likely in an altered mental state, brought
on by generalized anxiety or a fear of illness and/or death. In some cases, physical pain is a factor; in this
physically ailing state, even some adults are not capable of a clear understanding of their own will or desires.
The same applies to newborns and patients with psychiatric disorders, who are incapable of acknowledging or
expressing their own desires. Even though the patient may understand the actions being done to him, he will
often have difficulty in accurately conveying his intentions to others and discussing matters with others as
equals.
The subjective and objective features of medical practice also make it difficult to build a relationship of
equals between the interacting parties. The medical staff act as the subjects, being the ones who carry out
general medical practice, while the doctor might be involved in a more specific process, such as surgery; the
446
patient receives this treatment, and is the object of the medical procedures being carried out. Whether or not the
surgery is successful depends on the surgeon and the medical staff, the patient has no way of being involved in
or contributing to the surgery. While the patient might ultimately decide on the treatment plan, he must still
entrust his body to the medical staff during treatment. He, thus, takes on a passive role, and this makes it
difficult to maintain a relationship of equals between the medical staff and patient.
Another difference between medical staff and patients is their understanding of the information relating to
medicine. Medical staff possess more information relating to medical treatment, not only being more familiar
with the practical methods of carrying out treatments, as well as information, like relevant literature, which
explains the risks, benefits, and results associated with those treatments, but they also have extensive
knowledge from their own experiences. In contrast, the patients understanding is limited; in accordance with
informed consent policies, patients receive only a short explanation from the medical staff, otherwise only
having access to information, such as that available on the Internet. One problem with this is that the
information available to the patient usually only includes the characteristic features of the treatment, the facility
in which they have been hospitalized, the medical staff working at the facility, the systems available at the
facility, and so on. In addition, not all patients will necessarily have a proper understanding of the information
relating to the treatment. Thus, it is difficult to say that the medical staff and the patient are on equal footing, at
least in terms of information.
If the discussion of what treatment to select takes place in the patients home, then the decision can often
be influenced by roles and power relationships within the family. For example, in a family where an
overbearing father wields absolute control, the opinions of the wife and children tend to be disregarded. If the
wifes role is to follow her husband without voicing her own opinion, it will be difficult for her to express in
front of her husband any opinion or intention she may have with respect to the treatment. Thus, the
relationships between family members are also not necessarily equal.
The patient aside, the relationship between a pregnant woman and her unborn fetus is even more
complicated. When a pregnant woman knows her fetus has an abnormality, and she is forced to make a choice
of whether or not to abort, the fetus, too, becomes an important stakeholder. Alternatively, in selecting whether
to undergo in vitro fertilization and have a surrogate conception, yet more stakeholders are the sperm and egg,
which become the fertilized ovum, embryo, and fetus, and then the child. However, it is difficult to think of
embryos or fetuses as stakeholders, given their inability to hold their own opinion; they might be treated as a
part of the womans body. Alternatively, an embryo or fetus, while not itself a person, will eventually become
one. The ethical debate on the point at which a fetus becomes a person, and should be treated as such, rages on,
but the presence of a stakeholder without a voice is not something that can be ignored. The medical staff must
endeavor to remember and respect the human rights of every patient when engaging in medical practice.
However, when the patient becomes responsible for making decisions with respect to medical practice, the
relationships between the stakeholdersthe medical staff and the patient, the patient and his or her family, and
the pregnant woman and her unborn fetusare not necessarily equal. In a relationship with unequal power, the
problem arises as to how to consider the voice of a patient whose intentions are difficult to understand, as well
as the presence of any voiceless stakeholders, in order to build a consensus between stakeholders.
In drafting regulations for medical practice, unlike in the decision-making process for treatment, the
relationships among the committee that has been chosen to deliberate must be equal. It is important that a
committee with different positions and diverse backgrounds discuss matters from a variety of different
447
perspectives. Members of an elected committee must not hold fast to their own pre-conceived positions; rather,
the discussion must progress beyond their individual positions.
Regulations addressing medical practice affect what can be done in clinical practice, so those involved
must not be far removed from practice. The facilitator of the committee must organize a discussion that would
reflect committee members opinions during practice. One method is to place a person who directly experiences
clinical practice onto the elected committee, or have someone inspect and conduct surveys at the hospital that
can be used as material for discussion. It is also critical that ideas and opinions put forth by the stakeholders
should be treated equally; it is not acceptable for the opinions of committee members to be respected above the
opinions of those engaged in medical practice.
2.3. Complex Situations and the Decision-Making Process

Treatment decisions handled in clinical practice are highly field-dependent, despite efforts to adhere to
common principles. Because, wherever healthcare is provided, each situation differs in terms of the facility,
region, customs, culture, individuals, resources, and cost. For example, in obstetrics, a shortage of doctors and
nurses has resulted in the closure of a large number of hospitals. When one facility shuts down, patients living
in the affected community must travel farther in order to seek the same treatment. The remaining facilities
become inundated with patients, which increases the burden on medical staff. Similarly, obstetric hospitals
differ in size as well as in the country, region, and facility where they are set up, each containing diverse staff, a
unique history, and governed by a unique culture specific to the region where the facility is located. In clinical
practice, decisions sometimes cannot be made using a set of universal principles alone, so researchers must
investigate more ways to make decisions better suited to the individual circumstances.
Both medical staff and patients are sometimes faced with making decisions that determine life or death.
With such life-threatening problems, it is not easy to bring the opinions of all interacting parties into alignment.
In order to bring others to their side, loud people will often voice their opinion in an intimidating manner, while
other parties might remain unconvinced; the act of trying to make others conform to ones own opinion cannot
be called consensus building. There might also be too much emphasis on reaching a unified opinion, as it may
be impossible to thoroughly understand the thoughts and intentions of all the interacting parties.
Furthermore, even if a treatment plan is selected with a consensus between interacting parties, unexpected
results to do with the treatment might still arise. In the worst case, these results might lead to death. Though
consensus might have been reached at one point, the interacting parties might regret their decision due to the
unforeseen circumstances. At such a time, it might help for those involved to ask what process was followed up
until the decision was made, whether the understanding and interests of the stakeholders were appropriately
interpreted, and whether a sufficient amount of discussion was held before the decision was made. This might
reduce stakeholders regret for the results following the selection.
2.4. Facilitation
When a discussion aimed at reaching a consensus is held, it is important to have a promoter or facilitator
who moderates the discussion. Facilitators, who must primarily have an accurate understanding of the
stakeholders, have a number of important duties, such as deciding when and where to hold the discussion, who
must be present, and how to reveal the opinions of those involved in a way that does not promote conflict
between the parties.
448
In consensus building, understanding what is shared between the stakeholders, that is, the reasons behind
their stated opinions, is important so that one can understand their primary interests. The methodologies of
discussion and how best to hold discussions were discussed in my previous papers (Yoshitake 2007; 2011b).
In medicine, discussions for considering treatments or care plans are held on a daily basis. However,
discussions held within the hospital or ward (called conferences) are not always conducted properly.
Reported problems have included the failure to build an equal relationship between different professions, and
the presence of bias in some stakeholders opinions. Similarly, while the presence of a facilitator mediating the
discussion is also required for discussions held in the medical field, the quality of these facilitators has been
questioned.
Often, it is desirable for a facilitator in clinical practice to be skilled not only in the translational role of
interpreting terminology difficult to understand, but also in the coordinating role of connecting interrelated
professions; similarly, he must possess communication skills that allow him to consider stakeholders who have
difficulty in expressing their opinions. Thus, it is preferred that the facilitator is someone who can understand
both the medical aspects of the issue and has the right position or profession to be able to communicate on
equal footing with doctors and managers.
2.5. Principle of Consensus

In order to satisfy people who might be worried or hesitant about the treatment they have been given,
doctors must instigate a decision-making process, through dialogue or discussion, to find the best alternative for
that patient and all other stakeholders. This process is called the principle of consensus. Those concerned in the
decisionthe patient, family, and doctoruse this process to try to understand each others opinions about the
situation, and then find, or create, a treatment or the best method of care. At the start of this consensus building
process, no views are prized over others, and the previously decided upon method is not imposed.
This process of consensus building comprises the following aspects: Stakeholders must: (1) share their
opinions and the reasons behind those opinions; (2) utilize dialogue that clarifies the patients intentions; and (3)
direct creative discussion towards identifying the best solution. These are the elements of the principle of
consensus,1 and are discussed in further detail in the following sections.
2.5.1. Shared Interest

Interacting parties must share their opinions and the reasons behind those opinions refers to the
individual positions of the interacting parties, as well as the deeper governing reasons behind the opinions.
Though different parties might have the same opinion about the treatment or the method of care, the reasoning
behind their opinions might differ.
As such, sharing opinions and motives provides a deeper understanding of the problem and helps clarify
the patients needs. It is this process of sharing and understanding that enables a decision on the best treatment
for the patients quality of life (QOL) to be made. Moreover, sharing opinions and motives also leads to greater
self-awareness for all parties, and can play an important role in the creation or correction of opinions. In
addition, since it is not known a priori which decision is the best, this method of consensus can foster
confidence among those involved about which alternative currently works best.
449
2.5.2. Dialogue towards Clear Intention

The second aspect, interacting parties must utilize dialogue that clarifies the patients intentions, refers
to the fact that discussion must be oriented around clarifying the patients own intentions, which might be
obscured by their worry about the illness. In order to do this, it is important to first enquire about the various
ideas and feelings of the people involved. In the case of an abortion, for example, those concerned must know
the mothers views about embryos, birth, and abortion. From her answers, it might be possible to elicit what she
intends to do.
In the dialogue of constructing a consensus, stakeholders should ask each other about the reasons behind
their ways of thinking, in order to understand the differences in opinion. Furthermore, to obtain a more accurate
and deeper understanding of other stakeholders ideas, one must repeatedly ask the others to clarify their
intended meaning. This sort of repetition of procedure can lead to the discovery of a means of reaching
consensus, through clarifying stakeholders intentions.
2.5.3. Creative Communication

Interacting parties must direct creative discussion towards identifying the best solution refers to
stakeholders not making a pre-arranged choice, but rather identifying new roles for everyone involved and
seeking a third alternative through this discussion. In order to conduct such discussion, a third-party facilitator
is necessary to promote and advance dialogue, first by organizing where and when the discussion should take
place, and who should be invited. Then, during the discussion, the facilitator should elicit the peoples motives,
so that they might be shared with the whole group.
3. Prospective Consensus Building

Prospective consensus building is a mindset that focuses on the passage of time in the past, present, and
future, seeking a deeper understanding of reasons, interests, concerns, anxieties, and expectations with respect
to the consequences that may arise after a decision which has been reached, and choosing the best course of
action, given these risks which are shared by each of the stakeholders. Fig. 1 shows the general structure of my
prospective consensus-building model.
Retrospection
Past
Motive
Process
Experience,
evidence,
education, etc.
Prospection
Present
opinions
The formation
process of
reason
History of Reason
Reasons
Interests
Future
Anticipated consequences
fears, anxieties, expectations,
hopes, etc.
Unforeseen consequences
List of Risks
Fig. 1. Structure of Prospective Consensus Building.
450
3.1. Retrospection
Prospective consensus building comprises both retrospection (looking back at the past) and prospection
(looking ahead to the future). Retrospection is the act of ascertaining the historical reasons behind current
opinions, by looking at past events and experiences that caused the stakeholders to form their opinions, thus
coming to a deeper understanding of the reasons behind present opinions. Essentially, it is the act of sharing the
history of a reason. 5 The history of a reason comprises four elements: (1) The motive by which a reason is
formed, that is, the impetus for formation; (2) the formation process of the reason, that is, the progression by
which it formed, leading from the impetus of formation to the present; (3) the current opinion and the reasons
behind it; and (4) the predicted consequences. These elements include the pieces of evidence that each
stakeholder should focus on when explaining their experiences and the history of the reasons for their opinions,
which can then formulate a narrative for how those opinions were reached.6 The act of sharing this history helps
stakeholders get a deeper mutual understanding of each others circumstances and experiences. Similarly, sharing
the history of the reasons for an opinion through prospection also assists stakeholders in understanding each
others values and approaches to problems.
3.2. Prospection
Prospection is the act of gaining a mutual understanding of the interests, concerns, anxieties, fears, and
expectations which stakeholders have about the changes that will occur to the patients body and daily life after
a decision is reached, and the act of sharing the risks associated with that decision. Fig. 2 shows the relations
between prospection and list of risks.
Medical practice is often accompanied by uncertainty, individuality, and invasiveness. Each stakeholder
will be interested in and concerned about different aspects of the problem of choosing a treatment. Medical
staff often use scientific evidence related to the treatment, such as its success rate, when considering the
selection method. They consider the best method based on the two elements of evidence and narrative. In
addition, stakeholders might share emotions, such as hope, anxiety, and fear for the predicted results, such as
possible changes in the patients body and the familys daily life, after the treatment is chosen. Medical practice,
being naturally accompanied by uncertainty, often involves unexpected consequences. It is important to assume
that there is the possibility of an unexpected outcome when considering the risks associated with a treatment.
Medical intervention
stakeholders narrative
patients
their family
physicians
nurses
other, etc.
evidence
objective dates
Uncertainty
Individuality
Invasiveness
Alternative 1
Alternative 2
Alternative 3
Anticipated consequences
a patients physical and mental

changes
changes in patients and his/her
familys daily life
Expectations, hopes fears, anxieties
Unforeseen consequences
Expectations,hopesfears,anxieties
List of Risks
Fig. 2. Prospection and List of Risks.
451
4. Meaning of the Prospective Consensus Model

Prospective consensus building can be thought of as a consensus model. Past research (Chares et al.
1999; Joosten et al. 2008) typically studied treatment decision-making models, namely, the paternalistic,
informed, or shared models, and comparatively studied the exchange of information, deliberation styles, and
decision-makers from an analytical perspective. Table 1 shows the breakdown of a comparison of the
prospective consensus building, that is, the consensus model, against the other treatment decision-making
models.
Table 1
Models of Treatment Decision-Making
Analytical stage
Information exchange
flow
Direction
Type
Paternalistic model
Informed model
Shared model
Consensus model
One-way
One-way
Two-way
Multiple ways
Deliberation style on
decision
Physician
Patient
Medical
Evidence (plus
Evidence
narrative)
Physician alone or with Patient (plus potential
other physicians
others)
Physician
Patient
Medical and personal
Integration of evidence
and narrative
Physician and patient
(plus potential others)
Deciding
Physicians
Patient
Contents shared
Preferences
Patient
Clinician
Stakeholders
Stakeholders
Medical and
personal
Integration of
evidence and narrative
Physician, patient, and other
stakeholders
Physician, patient, and other
stakeholders
Information about reason of an
interest
Facilitator (Practitioner)
Patient
Stakeholders
Kind
Physician
Medical
Leader
Physician
Team-based healthcare
Prognosis
Physician
consideration
patient
Evidence of the time of

treatment, patients needs, and
treatment and patients
history of reasons and risks for
needs
future
Note. Corrected based on Charles et al. (1999), Joosten et al. (2008), and Stacey et al. (2009); consensus model added.
Evidence of the time
Matters of importance
of treatment and
treatment
patients needs
The consensus model is based on a deeper mutual understanding between stakeholders. By becoming
aware of the human experience of fear and uncertainty, communication between stakeholders is a means of
finding a method that seems best. Stakeholders come to understand their respective opinions and the reasons
behind them, and through the expression of these reasons, they are able to grasp the nature of others interests
and concerns and where they are directed. Ultimately, the stakeholder who makes the decision is whichever is
most appropriate (be it the patient, the doctor, family member, etc.).
In the consensus model, discussions are held between stakeholders to seek out appropriate selections. The
facilitator also has a crucial role in enabling the discussion to proceed appropriately. In the shared model, the
clinician is generally given the role of coaching and facilitation (Stacey et al. 2009). In the consensus model,
the role of the facilitator conceivably is most appropriate for the clinician, but it must be a clinician with the
qualities of a facilitator, as mentioned previously.7
4.1. Diachronic Depth and Width of Interest

Thus, the consensus model comprises both the perspectives of looking back at the past (retrospection) and
ahead to the future (prospection). Retrospection includes examining the individual experience of each
452
stakeholder, such as the thought processes and experiences that led to the formation of their reasoning and their
current behavior. This expression of individual experiences and history allows stakeholders to get a deeper
understanding of each others values, beliefs, and approaches to understanding a given problem, and links
stakeholders with a narrative that informs their opinions. At the same time, it guides them toward ascertaining
the degree to which they are interested in or concerned about an issue, as well as how widespread these
interests and concerns are.
In the decision-making process between patients and medical staff, the importance of sharing subjective
experiences and emotions, that is, a shared mind (Epstein and Street 2009) has already been highlighted. This
shared mind perspective maintains that the act of sharing not only preferences, but also anxieties, concerns,
hopes, and other emotions associated with a choice helps the interacting parties gain a mutual understanding
and the patient get greater autonomy. The consensus model is characterized by the fact that interests and
emotions shared by the stakeholders are understood together over time. This reveals the depth and width of the
reasons for opinions, and helps each stakeholder find his course of action, prepare for the near future, and
determine his role in the action that has been chosen.
4.2. Distribution of Risks

Prospection, however, aims to make stakeholders imagine the changes in both body and daily life, after a
choice has been made, and then share the interests, concerns, anxieties, fears, and hopes about those anticipated
circumstances. Such a sharing of emotions helps each stakeholder recognize which misunderstandings and
problems are more likely to arise, and which risks they will have to bear in making a decision about treatment.
The results predicted by stakeholders in medical practice, which is naturally accompanied by uncertainty,
vary among cases. To manage the risks associated with this decision-making process, stakeholders might
engage in examining the situation from anothers, such as the patients, perspective. Given that predicting all
possible consequences of the decision in medical practice is nearly impossible, medical staff believe that at the
very least, they should fulfill what the stakeholders desire. Alternatively, while at first the situation may not
progress as predicted, making preparations for the risks will allow for a better handling of unexpected
consequences, as well as less regret once the decision has been made.
4.3. Method of Decision-Making Appropriate for Ever-Changing and Complex Situations

The types of decisions that must be made in medicine, treatment-related or otherwise, are often broad in
scope; naturally, these will include complex and diverse cases. In these cases, applying principles without
considering the context does not always work out well; because medical practice is so often uncertain, results
might end up running contrary to predictions. Decisions will also be influenced by differences in the setting,
such as the facility itself or the region in which it is situated. Given this diversityhow much is dependent on
the individual, setting, complexity, and contextit is difficult to show which method of decision-making works
best.
Among the different models, the paternalistic model emphasizes choosing whatever method the doctor
believes to be best, which means that the patient has little ability to express his own will or desires. In the
informed model, even though the patients autonomy is respected, the patient might lack an accurate
understanding of even his own intentions. Ascertaining how best to make a decision is even more challenging
when those decisions involve differences in opinion between the patients family, the patient, and the medical
453
staff. The shared model focuses on a process wherein the interacting partiesnamely, the medical staff and
patientshare information and arrive at a decision based on mutual understanding. As it is often difficult to
reconcile the diverse values of the interacting parties, and the decision is so often complex, this two-way flow
of information provides a good basis for understanding the preferences of the patient and medical staff.
In terms of methods for providing healthcare, it is important that healthcare is not based solely on
experiential knowledge, but also on solid scientific evidence. However, with the advent of the 21st century, in
order to provide healthcare that best meets the needs of the patient, attempts have been made to integrate both
evidence-based and narrative approaches (Silva, Charon, and Wyer 2011; Meza and Pesserman 2011). This
change in the approach to medical decision-making can be regarded as a change in direction that emphasizes
complexity, diversity, individuality, and context.
Indeed, the predictive perspective of the prospective consensus building, i.e., the consensus model
presented in this paper considers the complexity, diversity, individuality, and context of each decision, and
incorporates these elements into a novel and diachronic approach. Currently, the field of medicine is
ever-changing and fast-moving; when stakeholders who find themselves involved in a medical decision share
their predictions and anxieties associated with the consequences of that decision, on the basis of their individual
experiences and histories, it helps them visualize what course of action they can and should take. The process
of prospective consensus building makes it possible for previously latent issues to be expressed. Incorporating
the spatial elements of the medical facilities into the complex and diverse scenes where people and space are
interwoven can contribute to satisfying the needs of the stakeholders, while at the same time, can also
contribute to risk management.
4.4. Several Issues in Developing Consensus Model

When health professionals in the clinical setting choose an appropriate model, they should consider the
following three factors: how complex is the situation in decision making on treatment; how much time can be
spent in decision-making process; and whether there is a facilitator or not. If there is only one choice or one
opinion, the informed model is appropriate. It is that when there are opinions stakeholders can understand
easily, the shared model is useful. The consensus model is appropriate in those situations that it is difficult for
stakeholders to understand their own feelings or express their thoughts in determining a choice. The
stakeholders should share their opinions and the reasons deeply among themselves. In these situations, the
relation between opinions is very complex and the decision process might have latent ethical dilemmas or
conflicts among stakeholders.
The second factor is whether there is a facilitator who can play a role in decision making process. In the
three models, paternalistic model, informed model, and shared model, a facilitator is not necessary. In the
consensus model, an appropriate facilitator must play a necessary role in decision making, i.e., consensus
building process.
The factor, time, is a very important condition for the stakeholders and the facilitator to reach a decision
on treatment. If a decision maker has only a small amount of time, he/she should choose the informed model. In
case that the process allows some amount of time, both of the shared model and the consensus model are
appropriate. One of the difficulties of applying the consensus model to actual cases is the condition that it needs
more time for building a consensus. In particular, this approach is often inappropriate in the case of emergency
because the facilitator has little time to have a good discussion.
454
The effective training schemes for facilitators, however, can improve the difficulty of time. Candidates of
facilitators can have opportunity of faculty development in various educational opportunities in medical
departments, paramedical departments, and in-hospital educational programs. An able facilitator would be able
to manage the decision process in the less amount of time.
5. Conclusion
In the present study, I presented the concept of prospective consensus building, focusing on a temporal axis
composed of how consensus can be reached through factors from the past, present, and future. Compared to the
paternalistic, informed, and shared models, this model contributes to current methods for seeking out resolutions
to uncertain and complex issues through the sharing of deep-seated interests among stakeholders, as well as their
anxieties, hopes, fears, and any other emotion associated with making decisions.
Notes
1. The difficulty of consensus building relating to the problems of the medical field, including ethical problems, has been
reported abroad as well (Drane 1998).
2. A new theory that emphasizes a dialogue between interacting parties is called transformative theory. For more
information, see Wada (2005; 2006).
3. In consensus building theory, only one reported study offers a comparative discussion of consensus building hinging on
action and consensus building hinging on theory (Sass 1998)
4. The shared model has been the subject of widespread practice and conceptual analysis in the U.S. and Europe as shared
decision making (Stacey et al. 2010; Makoul and Clayman 2006; Gravel, Legare, and Graham 2006).
5. For a discussion on the history of reason, see Yoshitake (2011a).
6. Narrative is the product of the acts of speaking and being spoken to among stakeholders, such as the patient, family,
and medical staff. In a narrative approach, the narrative is the key to understanding any sort of phenomenon (Noguchi 2009), and
is used both practically and empirically. Narrative as employed in this paper is a practical method. People vary widely in terms of
how they approach illness and medical treatments, such as how actively they abhor the thought of surgery, to what extent they will
use any method to extend life even for one second, and to what extent they will opt to let the illness run its natural course if the
treatment is too painful; to analyze these differences, one must take into the account the idea that the words a person utters contain
their individual subjective thought processes and values. Narrative has been applied to many different clinical fields, including
medicine, nursing, and welfare, as well as other fields, such as sociology, cultural anthropology, and so on. In terms of medicine,
one proposed way of thinking called narrative-based medicine (NBM) stresses how the patients and medical staffs narratives
may be combined to form a more comprehensive narrative in order to advance treatment (Noguchi 2004; 2005; 2009).
7. The facilitator is preferably a clinician of a neutral position, such as a nurse, specialist nurse, principal nurse, or managing
nurse, who is able to understand the medical aspects of the decision, has strong communication skills for uncovering the reasons
behind stakeholders opinions, and is able to understand the patients position. For more information on the qualities of a
facilitator, see Yoshitake (2007).
Works Cited
Akabayashi, Akira. The Method of Social Consensus Building for Advanced Medical Technology. (2001, 2002). Special
Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology Report, 2003.
Charles, Cathy, Amiram Gafni, and Tim Whelan. Decision-Making in the Physician-Patient Encounter: Revisiting the Shared
Treatment Decision-Making Model. Social Science & Medicine 49 (1999): 651-61.
---. Shared Decision Making in the Medical Encounter: What does it Mean? (or, It Takes at Least Two to Tango). Social Science
& Medicine 44.5 (1997): 681-92.
Drane, James F. Decision Making and Consensus Formation in Clinical Case. Ed. Have Henk, A. M. J. Ten, and Hans-Martin
Sass. Consensus Formation in Healthcare Ethics. Great Britain: Kluwer Academic, 1998. 143-57.
Epstein, Ronald M., and Richard L. Street. Shared Mind: Communication, Decision Making, and Autonomy in Serious Illness.
Annals of Family Medicine 9.5 (2009): 454-61.
455
Gravel, Karine, France Legare, and Ian D. Graham. Barriers and Facilitators to Implanting Shared Decision-Making in Clinical
Practice: A Systematic Review of Health Professionals. Implementation Science 9.8 (2006): 1-16.
Joosten, Evelien A. G., Laura DeFuentes-Merillas, Gerdian. H. de Weert, et al. Systematic Review of Effects and Shared
Decision-Making on Patient Satisfaction, Treatment Adherence and Health Status. Psychother Psychosom 77.4 (2008):
219-26.
Kuwako, Toshio. Nursing Research from a Consensus Building Viewpoint. Journal of Japanese Society of Cultural Nursing
Studies 1.1 (2009): 42-45.
---. The Value of Landscape and Consensus Building. Journal of Japan Society for Impact Assessment 5.1 (2007): 24-30.
Makoul, Gregory, and Marla L. Clayman. An Integrative Model of Shared Decision Making in Medical Encounters. Patient
Education and Counseling 60.3 (2006): 301-12.
Meza, James P. and Daniel S. Pesserman. Integrating Narrative Medicine and Evidence-Based Medicine: The Everyday Social
Practice of Healing. London: Radcliffe, 2011.
Noguchi, Yugi. Care for Narrative. Tokyo: Igakushoin, 2004.
---. Clinical Society of Narrative. Tokyo: Keisochobou, 2005.
---. Narrative Approach. Tokyo: Keisochobou, 2009.
Sass, Hans-Martin. Action Driven Consensus Formation. Ed. Ten Have, A. M. J. Henk, and Hans-Martin Sass. Consensus
Formation in Healthcare Ethic. Great Britain: Kluwer Academic, 1998. 159-73.
Shimizu, Tetsuro. Latent Philosophy in the Medical Field. Tokyo: Keisousyobou, 1997.
Silva, Suzana Alves, Rita Charon, and Peter C. Wyer. The Marriage of Evidence and Narrative: Scientific Nurturance within
Clinical Practice. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 17.4 (2011): 585-93.
Stacey, Dawn, France Legare, and Jennifer Kryeoruchko. Evidence-Based Healthcare Decision-Making: Roles for Health
Professionals. Ed. Adrian Edwards and Glyn Elwyn. Shared Decision-Making in Healthcare: Achieving Evidence-Based
Patient Choice Second Edition. New York: Oxford UP. 2009. 29-35.
Stacey, Dawn, France Legare, and Sophie Pouliot, et al. Shared Decision Making Models to Inform an Interprofessional
Perspective on Decision Making: A theory Analysis. Patient Education and Counseling 80.2 (2010): 164-72.
Sugita, Isam, and Masami Hirayama. Informed Consent From Sympathy to Consensus. Tokyo: Hokugisyuppan, 1994.
Wada, Hitoshi. A Newly-Developed Autonomous ADR Model Conflict Negotiation Theory and the Transformative Approach.
Ed. Takeshi Kojima. The Practice and Theory of ADR. Tokyo: Tyuouhouki, 2005. 24-39.
Wada, Hitoshi, and Yoshimi Nakanishi. Conflict Management in Medicine. Tokyo: Shinyo, 2006.
Yoshitake, Kumiko. Consensus Building in Medicine and History of Reason. Annals of Japanese Association for Philosophical
and Ethical Researches in Medicine 29 (2011a): 63-72.
---. Medical Ethics and Consensus Building Decision Making in the Fields of Medical Treatment and Care. Tokyo: Toshindo,
2007.
---. Obstetric Medicine and Bioethics. Kyoto: Syowado, 2011b.

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 456-469
DAVID
PUBLISHING
Bodies, Persons, and Respect for Humanity: A Kantian

Look at the Permissibility of Organ Commerce and Donation
Lina Papadaki
University of Crete
Can choosing to sale ones kidney be morally permissible? No, Kant would answer. Humanity, whether in ones
own person or that of any other, must never be treated merely as a means, but always at the same time as an end, is
Kants instruction (Groundwork 4:429). He thought that organ sale violates this imperative. Lectures on Ethics
(27:346) shows that ... a man is not entitled to sell his limbs for money. If a man does that, he turns himself into
a thing, and then anyone may treat him as they please, because he has thrown his person away.... This paper
explains Kants reasons against commerce in organs, drawing on his views on prostitution, and the moral
impermissibility of sexual use within this context, a case which he himself compares to the selling of ones body
part(s). Can choosing to donate ones kidney be morally permissible? If we take Kants views at face value, it
would follow that organ donation is on a par with morality only if it takes place in a context where people have
gained rights over each others persons (for example, in a marital context). In this context, however, a person has a
right to her partners kidney should she happen to need it, which can open the path to bodily violation. Moreover,
this view severely restricts the permissibility of organ donation. In this paper, I argue that a closer examination of
Kants views on what is involved in the idea of respecting humanity could reveal that organ donation does not
violate the categorical imperative. In fact, it could be said to follow from such an imperative that we actually have a
duty to organ donation.
Keywords: Kant, organ donation, organ sale, prostitution
1. Introduction
Can choosing to sale ones kidney be morally permissible? No, Kant would answer. There are, for him,
limitations on what a person can permissibly do to her body, and on how she may allow others to use her for
their purposes. Humanity, whether in ones own person or that of any other, must never be treated merely as a
means, but always at the same time as an end, is Kants (1997b, 4:429) instruction. He thought that organ sale
violates this imperative. To deprive oneself of an integral part or organ (to maim oneself)for example, to
give away or sell a tooth to be transplanted to anothers mouth are ways of partially murdering oneself
(1996, 6:423).
a man is not entitled to sell his limbs for money. One may dispose of things that have no freedom, but not of a being
that itself has free choice. If a man does that, he turns himself into a thing, and then anyone may treat him as they please,
Lina Papadaki, Ph.D., Lecturer in Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and Social Studies, University of Crete, Greece;
main research fields: Ethics, Feminist Philosophy, and Bioethics. Email: lina_papadaki@yahoo.com.
BODIES, PERSONS, AND RESPECT FOR HUMANITY
457
because he has thrown his person away; as with sexual inclination, where people make themselves an object of enjoyment
and hence into a thing (1997b, 27:346).
Under no circumstance is it permissible for a person to sell her kidney, according to Kant. In this paper, I
aim to throw some light on Kants reasons against commerce in organs. This is done through drawing on his
views on prostitution, and the moral impermissibility of sexual use within this context. Kant himself compares
the selling of ones sexuality (prostitution) to the selling of ones body part(s), and uses the same argument to
support his conclusion that both are morally impermissible.
Let us now proceed to a different question. Can choosing to donate ones kidney be morally permissible?
In the United States, about 14,000 kidney transplants are performed every year. Just over one third of
transplanted kidneys are from living donors. At any point, about 55,000 people are on a waiting list for a kidney
transplant. Every year, over 3,000 people die while waiting for a kidney transplant.1 We commonly regard the
act of donating ones organ as one of utmost generosity and selflessness. If we take Kants views at face value,
however, it would follow that he would be against organ donation in the majority of cases. This is because the
donor runs the risk of being used merely as a means. Like sexual use, for Kant, is morally permissible only
within the context of monogamous marriage, it would follow that organ donation is on a par with morality only
if it takes place in a context where people have gained rights over each others persons (for example, a marital
context). This is not only an unintuitive view, because it severely restricts the permissibility of organ donation.
What is more is that, in this context, it appears that a person has a right to her spouses kidney should she
happen to need it. Like marital rape can become imperceptible within Kantian marriage, bodily violation where
one spouse, exercising her right, demands the use of the others kidney can also be difficult to condemn.
In this paper, I argue that a more charitable interpretation of Kant might, after all, be possible. There are
reasons to believe that one can legitimately put his life and humanity at risk in order to preserve someone elses
humanity. The case Kant himself discusses of the hero who risks his life in the battlefield in order to save his
comrades supports this idea. Even assuming that the donor is used merely as a means in donating her kidney,
then, it is possible to conclude that what she does is not morally condemnable. I then offer some arguments in
favor of the view that kidney donation does not in fact involve treating the donor merely as a means as the
receivers attitude is one of respect towards the donors humanity. If this is so, while there appear to be Kantian
reasons to condemn kidney sale in all cases, there is no reason for a Kantian to condemn the act of kidney
donation.2
2. Treating Merely as a Means and Disrespecting Humanity

Kant thought that both prostitution and selling ones body organs are morally impermissible, because they
violate the formula of Humanity of the Categorical Imperative. It is, therefore, necessary to examine Kants
instruction in this imperative, before we attempt to understand his condemnation of the above practices. So act
that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an
end, never merely as a means (1997a, 4:429).
Humanity is an objective end, an end that holds for all rational beings, and gives them grounds for
securing it. The characteristic feature of humanity is the capacity for rationally setting and pursuing ones own
ends. A being with humanity is capable of deciding what is valuable and of finding ways to realize and promote
this value. According to Korsgaard (1996):
458

the distinctive feature of humanity, as such, is simply the capacity to take a rational interest in something: to decide,
under the influence of reason, that something is desirable, that it is worthy of pursuit or realisation, that it is to be deemed
important or valuable, not because it contributes to survival or instinctual satisfaction, but as an endfor its own sake.
(114)
Humanity is what is special about human beings. It distinguishes them from animals and from inanimate
objects. Because human beings are special in this sense, they have, unlike animals and objects, a dignity (an
inner worth, as opposed to a relative worth) (Kant 1997a, 4:435). The value of what has dignity cannot be
exchanged or replaced with something else.3
One way of showing disrespect for the worth of humanity, according to Kant, is treating it merely as a
means for the attainment of some further end.4 But what does it mean to treat humanity merely as a means?
According to a prominent interpretation, defended by ONeill, an individual A treats another, B, merely as
a means if in his treatment of B, A does something to which B cannot consent.5 B can consent to being treated
in some way by A, if it is possible for her to dissent from it, and in ONeills own words, if B can avert or
modify the action by withholding consent and collaboration (ONeill 1990, 110). In Kants lying promise
example, where A borrows money from B falsely promising her that he will pay it back, B does not have the
opportunity to dissent to As action. This is because B is ignorant of As action of lying to her about repaying
her debt. ONeill argues that in cases of deception, as well as in cases of coercion, a persons dissent, and thus
her consent, is in principle ruled out.
An alternative account of what is involved, according to Kant, in treating a person merely as a means is
offered by Wood. For Wood (1999), a false promise, because its end cannot be shared by the person to whom
the promise is made, frustrates or circumvents that persons rational agency, and thereby shows disrespect for it
(153). An individual can share anothers end if she has chosen to realize it. In the lying promise example, the
promisee cannot share the promisors end, in the sense that she is not in a position to choose to realize it. The
promisors end in that case is the permanent possession of the promisees money. The promisee, however,
taking the promisors end to be, rather, the temporary possession of her money is unable to share the latters
end.
The above interpretations of what it means to treat a person merely as a means manage to capture the
moral wrongness involved in the case of the promisors making a lying promise. According to ONeills
account, the promisee cannot consent to the promisors action (she cannot avert or modify it). According to
Woods interpretation, the promisee cannot share the promisors end. In both cases, this appears to be the case,
because the promisee is ignorant of the situation.
These two prominent accounts, however, are not quite as successful in capturing the moral wrongness.
Kant thought is involved in the cases of prostitution and kidney sale. This is because in all of these cases, unlike
in the lying promise example, the people are not ignorant of the ways the others intend to use them. The
prostitute is well aware that the customer intends to use her to get sexual satisfaction, and realizes that this is
his end in this transaction. Likewise, the kidney seller is aware that the receiver intends to use her kidney to
save his life, and realizes that this is his end. The prostitute and the kidney seller, therefore, can consent to their
being treated in these ways (they can avert or modify the others treatment of them should they decide to by
refusing to sale their sexuality or kidney). Moreover, they can share their users ends, as they have chosen to
realize these ends. Under both ONeills and Woods accounts, then, it would follow that neither the prostitute
nor the person who sells her kidney are used merely as a means by the client and the kidney recipient
459
respectively. They are, therefore, not treated in a morally problematic way. In what follows, I intend to modify
these accounts, in a way that enables them to capture the moral wrongness Kant thought is involved in the
practices of prostitution and organ sale.
A modification of Woods account of what it means for a person to share (or have) an end has already been
offered by Kerstein, in his effort to explain how we can make sense of someones treating her own humanity
merely as a means. Kerstein writes: A person cannot have an end [and thus is being treated merely as a
means] if his willing it would be practically irrational in the sense of thwarting the attainment of some other
end that he is rationally compelled to have (Kerstein 2008, 212).
An agent would act irrationally in his sense by willing an end yet, at the same time, willing another end,
the attainment of which would, he is aware, make it impossible for him to take the otherwise available means to
his original end (2008, 210). And, it is important to note, the agents original end is one he is rationally
compelled to have (an end of this kind is that of preserving ones own humanity). The sort of practical
irrationality described here occurs when one acts contrary to the hypothetical imperative. The latter instructs
that if an agent wills an end, then he should also will, to the extent that this is in his power, the means that are
necessary for its achievement. Alternatively, he should abandon the end. According to Kerstein, then, suicide is,
for Kant, morally impermissible, because in taking the means to his end, that is, in killing himself, the agent
would render himself unable to attain an end that he is rationally compelled to have, namely that of refraining
from destroying humanity (2008, 212).
A similar modification can, I believe, be offered for ONeills (1990, 110) account: A person cannot
rationally consent to being treated in way x (and thus is being treated merely as a means), if consenting to x
would make her unable to dissent from (avert or modify) being treated in a way that thwarts her nature as an
end in itself.
The above two modified accounts can explain the moral wrongness involved in prostitution and kidney
sale. Prostitution and kidney sale involve, for Kant, the treatment of people merely as means, and are thus
morally impermissible, because we can hold, neither the prostitute nor kidney seller can: (1) have the ends in
question without thwarting the attainment of the end to respect their humanity, an end which they are rationally
compelled to have; or (2) rationally consent to being treated in these ways, as this would make them unable to
dissent from being treated in a way that disrespects their humanity.6
Of course, what remains to be said is why the above is the case. Why can the prostitute and the kidney
seller not have these ends, and at the same time, have the end of respecting their humanity? Likewise, why can
these people not rationally consent to being treated in these ways without disrespecting their humanity? The
answer, Kants answer that is, will be given in the following section, which involves an analysis of his views on
prostitution and the sale of body organs.
3. The Case Against Prostitution and the Sale of Body Parts

Kant examines prostitution and the sale of ones body parts/organs together, and uses the same arguments
to explain the moral impermissibility of both these practices.7 He writes Hence a man cannot dispose over
himself; he is not entitled to sell a tooth, or any of his members. But now if a person allows himself to be used,
for profit, as an object to satisfy the sexual impulse of another then he is disposing over himself, as if over a
thing, and thereby makes himself into a thing (Kant 1997b, 27:386).
460
Let us first have a look at the practices discussed here. Prostitution is defined as the offer of ones person
as a thing for profit to be used for anothers sexual gratification. This way of employing sexuality, in which one
satisfies the inclinations of others for gain is possible for either sex (1997b, 27:386). The other practice
described in this passage is the less well-known to us practice of selling ones tooth to be transplanted to
anothers mouth. According to Blackwell, towards the end of the 18th century in Europe, rich individuals
would purchase teeth from the least well-off. Surgeons extracted the teeth from the poor and implanted them
into the mouths of their wealthy customers. This was, according to Blackwells research, done mainly for
aesthetic reasons, as white and healthy teeth were considered to be fashionable (Blackwell 2004).
Kants conclusion in the passage above is that a person cannot sell her sexuality or any of her members
(for example, her tooth) without becoming a thing, an object of others use.8 Kants arguments in support of
this conclusion are given in the following passage:
Man cannot dispose over himself, because he is not a thing. He is not his own propertythat would be a contradiction; for
so far as, he is a person, he is a subject, who can have ownership of other things. But now were he something owned by
himself, he would be a thing over which he can have ownership. He is, however, a person, who is not property, so he
cannot be a thing such as he might own; for it is impossible, of course, to be at once a thing and a person, a proprietor and
a property at the same time. (Kant 1997b, 27:386)9
According to this property is, by definition, the thing to be owned by the proprietor. The proprietor is, by
definition, the person who owns property. Thus, a person cannot be property (and property cannot be a person).
In selling his sexuality or one of his body members/organs, a person disposes over himself as a thing (a
property). The prostitute and the tooth seller offer themselves as things to others, allowing them to use them for
their purposes. The prostitute allows the clients to use him for the satisfaction of their sexual inclinations,
whereas the tooth seller allows another to use him for the improvement of his appearance. According to Kant,
the prostitute and the tooth seller sacrifice their humanity, and are reduced to the status of things, objects that
are available for others use (Kant 1997b, 27:385).
What is yet to be explained is Kants idea that selling part of ones body amounts to selling ones whole
person. It is clear that the individual who sells himself into slavery sells his whole person, allowing another to
have complete disposal of his person. It is far from obvious, however, why the person who sells her tooth or her
sexuality is in fact selling the whole of herself, and allows others to make her whole person into a thing. Why
can one not remain a person once she has sold one of her teeth? How can this case be analogous to that of
slavery?
Kant (1997b) has an answer:
man is not his own property, and cannot do as he pleases with his body; for since the body belongs to the self, it
constitutes, in conjunction with that, a person; but now one cannot make ones person a thing.
Now, it is evident that if someone concedes a part of himself to the other, he concedes himself entirely. It is not
possible to dispose over a part of oneself, for such a part belongs to the whole. (27:387)
An individuals body and self, for Kant, are inseparable and together they constitute ones person. The
organ seller and the prostitute, then, do not have the option of selling only their sexuality or one of their body
parts/organs. In so doing, they necessarily sell themselves, that is, their whole persons.10
Kants answer here is vulnerable to criticism. Even if we grant that a person would not be a self without a
body, we are not rationally compelled to embrace the view that selling part of her body (a tooth and a kidney)
461
amounts to the agents selling her whole person. According to Stephen Munzer, Kant here commits the fallacy
of division, that is, he mistakenly argues that what is true of a whole must also be true of its parts. Munzer
(1994) explains:
Human beings have dignity. Human beings can also suffer offenses against dignity But it is fallacious to argue that, in
consequence, human body parts have dignity or can suffer offenses against dignity. Similarly, even if a living human being
has an unconditioned and incomparable worth, it does not follow that parts of that human beings body do. And even if
persons lack property rights in themselves or their whole bodies, it does not follow that they lack property rights in their
body parts or that those parts are not commodities. (275)11
Despite the above mentioned concerns, we now have a clearer idea of why Kant himself thought that the
prostitute and the kidney seller are used merely as means. Samuel Kerstein believes that there is no absolute
Kantian prohibition against the sale of organs. For him, whether or not this practice is morally impermissible
depends on whether a persons selling her organ would make someone more inclined than he otherwise would
be to accept the notion that someones humanity is available for others to use as they will (Kerstein 2009, 161).
In the case of poor people selling their teeth, it seems reasonable to believe that their doing promoted the idea
that their humanity is up for sale so that the poor can be used merely as means for the use of the rich. But this
need not be true in all cases of organ sale, Kerstein (2009, 160-01) argues.12 To hold that, I believe, would be
to miss Kants point. Kants concern with the case of organ sale and, similarly, with prostitution is not so much
whether the purchaser will become more likely to regard the seller as a mere means. Kants concern is, rather,
that the seller treats and reduces himself (his person and his humanity) to something that can be sold, a
property.
4. The Case against Free Exercise of Sexuality and What This Could Imply for Organ
Donation
Kant went much further than merely condemning the selling of ones sexuality. In fact, for him, the only
context in which sexual activity can take place without debasement of humanity and violation of morality is
that of monogamous marriage (Kant 1997b, 27:388). In what follows, I will explain Kants reasons for thinking
that sexual use outside the context of monogamous marriage is morally impermissible, and see what this could
mean for the case of organ donation.
Kant thought that in order for two people to use each other sexually in a morally unproblematic way, they
must come to own each others whole persons (bodies and selves). In other words, they must gain rights to
control and make use of each others persons. If individual A has a right over the whole person of B, it follows
that A has a right over Bs body. So in gaining such a right, A can use Bs body sexually and otherwise. But
this right that I have, so to dispose, and thus also to employ the organa sexualia to satisfy the sexual
impulsehow do I obtain it?, Kant asks. And he answers: In that I give the other person precisely such a
right over my whole person, and this happens only in marriage (1997b, 27:388). The only way that A can
obtain a right over the whole person of B, then, is to give B the same right over his whole person (body and
self). In order to gain such rights over each others persons, A and B must marry. Marriage gives two people
rights to lifelong ownership and disposal of each others whole persons, which includes the right to ownership
and use of each others bodies (including their sexual attributes) (1996, 6:277).
Monogamy is, for Kant, required. He writes in The Metaphysics of Morals that the relation of the partners
in marriage is a relation of equality in possession, equality in their possession of each other as persons
462
[hence only in monogamy] (1996, 6:278). In polygamous relationships, for instance concubinage13 or
polygamous marriage, there is no such equality in possession. The woman surrenders her person exclusively to
the man, allowing him to possess her person completely. The man, however, does not exclusively surrender his
person to her, and so he does not allow her to completely possess his person. As a result, for Kant, the woman
fails to regain her person (which has been given to her partners possession). She loses her person and becomes
a thing, a mere tool for the satisfaction of her partners sexual desires.
By contrast, in monogamous marriage, the spouses surrender their persons (bodies and selves) exclusively
to each other. Each of them allows the other to completely own his/her person. This equality and mutuality in
the surrendering and receiving of the two parties persons guarantees that neither of them will lose their person
and become an object:
But if I hand over my whole person to the other, and thereby obtain the person of the other in place of it, I get myself back
again, and have thereby regained possession of myself; for I have given myself to be the others property, but am in turn
taking the other as my property, and thereby regain myself, for I gain the person to whom I gave myself as property. The
two persons thus constitute a unity of will. (1997b, 27:388)14
Kants second requirement, besides monogamy, is that the relationship between two sexual partners is in
accordance with law, a marital relationship (1996, 6:277). Marriage is a legal contract, which obligates the
two spouses to surrender their persons exclusively to each other, each allowing the other to have complete
ownership of his or her person. This legal obligation makes marriage different from a monogamous relationship
between two unmarried partners. In the latter relationship, there is nothing external to guarantee that such a
mutual surrender will last. The legal nature of marriage gives the two parties security in their ownership of each
other.15
What could the implications of the above view be for organ donation? Is the kidney donor also used
merely as a means in offering her kidney to save someones life?16 Given Kants view on the inseparability
between body and self in persons, the kidney donor, in giving her kidney (part of her body), would inevitably
be giving her whole person (body and self) to the receiver. The donor, then, would be at risk of losing her
person, unless she had the receivers person in her possession. From Kants view on the impermissibility of
extramarital sexual use, then, it would appear to follow that in donating her kidney, the individual would be
treated merely as a means by the receiver. This would seem to be the case unless she and the kidney receiver
were in a legal relationship of mutual rights over each others persons (for example, a marital relationship).
This, however, is a deeply worrying thought. In the context of such a relationship of reciprocal ownership
and mutual rights of disposal over the two parties persons, it would appear that the person in need of a kidney
transplant has a right over her partners kidney. Since her partners person (body and self) is in her ownership,
she has rights over his person, which include the right to use his body: his kidney in the given case. Her partner,
of course, has the same rights over her person, and so, in theory, the right to use her kidney too. As things stand,
however, there is only one in need of a kidney transplant and the idea that this person can, exercising a right,
make use of her partners kidney even without his will, is outrageous. In this case, bodily violation becomes
disguised as a right one has over anothers person. This case parallels the imperceptibility of spousal rape
within Kantian marriage. Since Kant wants the spouses to have complete rights of disposal over each others
persons, rights to use each other sexually marital rape can become indistinguishable from normal sexual use.
463
Forcing sex on someone would count as a straightforward case of coercion in any other context. In marriage as
Kant describes, however, it can easily be disguised as sex, the exercise of a spousal right.17
One could attempt a defence of Kant here. Admittedly, he thought that the partners within a marital
relationship have rights over each others persons, and hence rights to use their bodies sexually and otherwise.
Surely, however, there must be limits as to how they can permissibly use one another. Kant would certainly
think, for example, that killing ones spouse or selling them into slavery are morally impermissible ways of
using them. That is true indeed, and yet not enough to ease our worry. The limits between permissible and
impermissible use can be difficult to discern, in a context where people have complete rights of disposal over
each others persons. The weaker and more vulnerable will always be in danger of being abused in the name of
their partners exercising their rights.18
5. Rethinking the Kantian Condemnation against Freely Donating Ones Organs

In the previous section, we have seen that organ donation would appear to be morally permissible, for
Kant, only in a context where people have gained rights over each others persons. A worry with this idea is that
it can promote bodily violation. Even if we could find a way to overcome this worry, however, the view in
question is overly restrictive and unintuitive. Organ donation is something that we encourage in our society. We
consider the donors act as one of utmost generosity, love, and respect for anothers humanity; a morally good
act. In what follows, I wish to rethink the Kantian condemnation against free organ donation.
Let us first go along with the assumption that the kidney donor is being used merely as a means. In giving
part of her body, she inevitably also gives herself to the receiver. And if the latter does not have a right over her
person, he is using her merely as a means for his purposes (like it is the case in non-marital sexual
relationships). Let us assume, then, that the donor cannot share the receivers end of maintaining his life,
without thwarting the end of respecting her own humanity. And, furthermore, that she cannot rationally consent
to this kind of treatment, because doing so would make her unable to dissent from disrespecting humanity in
her own person.
There is an important difference between the sexual case and the kidney donation case, which, I believe
could let one think that the donor, unlike the woman engaging in a non-marital sexual relationship, may
legitimately choose to be treated merely as a means. The male partners end in using the woman is that of
satisfying his sexual desires. The kidney receivers end in using the donor is to save his life that is to preserve
his humanity. The latters end, unlike the formers, is morally relevant. In sharing the receivers end to avoid
death by renal failure and in consenting to be used for this purpose, the donor would be showing respect for the
receivers humanity. By contrast, in letting herself be used merely as a means for someone elses sexual
gratification (and similarly, in the tooth transplant case, for the improvement of a rich persons appearance), the
person in question would not be respecting anyones humanity.
Since humanity, for Kant, whether in my own person, or in that of any other has an absolute worth and
ought to be respected and promoted, why can I not, in the case of kidney donation, choose to give priority to the
others humanity?19 A possible answer to this question would be that this is something I should not do, because
in doing so, I allow my humanity to be used merely as a means, whereas if I do not give my kidney to my dying
friend I do not use him merely as a means. This could be so. Even if the friend in question is not being treated
merely as a means in the case, I do not offer him my kidney, my not proceeding to this act of donation
464
nonetheless shows disrespect for his humanity. While I am in a position to help him stay alive and maintain his
humanity, I choose not to.
I think that a parenthesis might be useful here, to remind ourselves of Kants views on heroic acts, and
how they are distinguished from acts of suicide to maintain a tolerable condition up to the end of life (Kant
1997a, 4:429). Suicide, for Kant, is morally impermissible: Can I take my life because I cannot live happily?
No, there is no necessity that, so long as I live, I should live happily; but there is a necessity that, so long as I
live, I should live honourably (1997b, 27:373). However, even a persons life can legitimately be sacrificed in
some cases:
For to risk ones life against ones foes, and to observe the duty to oneself, and even to sacrifice life, is not suicide. He who
runs away to save his life from the enemy, and leaves all his comrades in the lurch, is a coward; but if he defends himself
and his fellows to the death, that is no suicide, but is held to be noble and gallant; since in, and for itself, life is in no way
to be highly prized, and I should seek to preserve my life only insofar I am worthy to live. (1997b, 27:370-01)
Here is where the moral problem lies, for Kant: disposing of oneself as a mere means to some
discretionary end is debasing humanity in ones own person (1996, 6:423). Sacrificing ones life to avoid a
life of misery is, for him, a discretionary end. That is, an end that one is not rationally compelled to have. There
is no necessity that ones life be a happy one. Sacrificing ones life while doing ones duty, by contrast, for
example while staying at the battlefield and protecting the lives of ones comrades, is not a discretionary end.
Giving ones life in this case is, rather, what one ought to do.
Going back to the kidney donation case, now, we might think that since the kidney donor is not being used
as a mere means for a discretionary end, her action, to say the least, is not a morally impermissible one. The act
of the kidney donor, to my view, resembles acts of heroism of the sort discussed above, where a person puts his
humanity aside in order to preserve and promote humanity in others. It is important to bear in mind, moreover,
that the heros aim is not to do anything degrading to his person, but rather to protect his comrades. Similarly,
the donor: his aim is not to degrade himself, but to save anothers life.20
Could we similarly rethink the Kantian prohibition against kidney sale? The kidney seller too, we might
think, allows his person to be used merely as a means and in doing so he preserves the receivers humanity.
This case appears to be different from the one of kidney donation, in that the kidney sellers end is monetary
gain. Putting ones humanity aside for the sake of profit could not, for Kant, be morally permissible, even if the
outcome of such an action is that of preserving the receivers humanity.21 To end the discussion here, however,
would be to oversimplify things. Ruth Chadwick explains that if I may have my foot amputated to save my
life, why not sell my kidney to pacify the loan sharks from whom I am in fear for my life? The motive of
self-preservation is obvious in both these cases, so why think that the latter, unlike the former, is not morally
permissible? (Chadwick 1989, 134). As Munzer also points out, money is just a medium of exchange.
Thus, receiving money in return for a body part is not inherently or always morally objectionable. One has to
look at the reason for which the seller wants the money (Munzer 1994, 271). As mentioned earlier, however,
no matter how morally worthy the end of selling my kidney might be, Kant is concerned that the organ seller
allows his person (body and self) to be used as a thing by others.
So far, I have been going along with the Kantian assumption that the kidney donor is being treated merely
as a means. I defended the view that the kidney donors act can nonetheless be in accordance with morality. My
465
final attempt to rescue Kants theory from the unintuitive view against free organ donation is to question the
very idea that the kidney donor is treated merely as a means.
In concubinage, we have seen that the concubine gives her body, and so inevitably her person to her male
partner. Her person is in his possession and control. And since she cannot similarly possess her partner, she is
incapable of regaining her person. As a result, for Kant, she loses her person and becomes a mere tool for her
partners sexual purposes. Women in Kants time were in a position of vulnerability and were thought to be in
need of male protection. Given this situation, then, Kants worry about a woman being at the whim of her
partners desires, without herself having any rights to control his conduct (like he thought is the case in
non-marital relationships) is understandable.
The idea that the organ donor ends up a mere tool at the receivers hands, however, is not an intuitive one.
Unlike the male partner is concubinage, who is bound to use her as a mere tool for his sexual gratification, the
organ recipient is not likely to regard the donor in a manner that resembles to the least the formers attitude.
The gratitude the recipient is likely to feel towards the donor will make him try to respect the latters humanity
as much as possible. If this is so, then it is plausible to think that the donor can share the end of the recipient,
without thwarting the attainment of an end she is rationally compelled to have (that or respecting her humanity).
Furthermore, the donor can rationally consent to give her kidney, because in doing so, she would not be unable
to dissent from disrespecting her own humanity. This would mean that the kidney donor is not treated merely as
a means, and thus the act of kidney donation is not to be judged as morally condemnable.
Unfortunately, the above view is vulnerable to objection. It is true that the organ recipient will in all
likelihood express respect towards the donors humanity. Moreover, we can understand Kants worry that the
attitude of the sexual partner towards the womans humanity in a non-marital relationship of his time is bound
to be that of disrespect. What is important, however, and where Kants concern lies, is that the donor (and the
woman sexual partner) allows herself to be at someone elses disposal. It would be foolish, for Kant, to rely on
anothers whim as to how he will treat our humanity; in our case, on the assumption that the kidney receiver
will show respect for the donors humanity.
I do not see why we should share Kants pessimism here. However, the concern in question in the case of
organ donation appears to be exaggerated. We can agree with Kant that a person ought to protect and promote
his own humanity, and refrain from engaging in contexts in which his dignity is not appropriately respected.
But a person who, in order to protect himself, refrains from looking around him and offering his help to others
is an egoist. It is obvious to me that the heros act of risking his life for others is morally superior to the act of
the person whose sole preoccupation is to protect his own life.
If we reject the view that the donor is used merely as a means by the receiver, the case of organ donation
can further be supported by appealing to Kants own discussion of the duty of beneficence. According to Kant,
we have a duty to help those who are in need of our help, when in a position to do so. This duty, which follows
from the Categorical Imperative, is classified by Kant as an imperfect or wide duty, which means that we are
allowed to decide when to help another person, or at least to what extent we are going to help her (Kant 1996,
6:390-94). In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant holds that, according to the Humanity
Formulation of the Categorical imperative, we must respect humanity, whether in our own person or that of any
other, and treat it always as an end in itself (Kant 1997a, 4:429). When someone offers his help to a needy other,
what he does is respect and promote the latters humanity and dignity. The organ donor fulfills the duty of
466
beneficence in a way relatively few people do: he chooses to give one of his organs to save anothers life. This
act shows the utmost respect towards humanity.
Turning to the Universal Law Formulation of the Categorical Imperative, now, one ought to act only in
accordance with that maxim, through which she can at the same time will, and it become a universal law
(1997a, 4:421). Kant explains why the maxim of non-beneficence cannot coherently be universalized: a world
in which no one helps others in need is one that can be conceived without logical contradiction. An agent,
however, cannot will to live in such a world. Because willing the universalized maxim of non-beneficence
would mean that no one would help the agent when she finds herself in need of assistance (1997a, 4:423). In
the case of organ donation, the potential donor can formulate her maxim as follows: I will not donate my
kidney, in order to save the life of a dying person, even though this poses no significant threat to my life and
well-being. The universalized version of this maxim is: No one will donate their kidney, in order to save the
lives of dying people, even though this poses no significant threat to their life and well-being. In willing this
universalized version of the maxim of non-beneficence, the agent in fact wills that no one help her to stay alive
when in need of a kidney. As a rational being, who respects humanity in her own person, the agent cannot
possibly will the universalized version of this maxim. Drawing on Kants discussion of beneficence, then,
allows us to conclude that the act of kidney donation is one a Kantian would, to say the least, encourage.
6. Conclusion
In this article, I started, in Section 2, with an analysis of what is involved in the idea of treating a person
merely as a means. I suggested that a plausible way to understand Kants condemnation against sexual use in
prostitution and the selling of ones organs is to employ Woods and ONeills modified accounts. The
prostitute and the kidney seller, as I have explained, are being treated merely as a means, because they cannot
share their users ends without thwarting the attainment of an end they are rationally compelled to have (that of
respecting their humanity). Furthermore, they cannot rationally consent to be treated in these ways, because
doing so would make them unable to dissent from disrespecting their own humanity.
In Section 3, I argued that the reason why the prostitute and the kidney seller are being used merely as
means lies in the Kantian idea of the inseparability between body and self. The prostitute and the kidney seller
exchange their person (their humanity) for profit. In so doing, they can no longer be proprietors (persons), but
are reduced to properties (things). Because of that, sexual use in prostitution, as well as selling ones body
organs, is, for Kant, morally impermissible in all contexts.
Section 4 dealt with an analysis of Kants view that sexual use is in accordance with morality only within
the context of monogamous marriage, where the two spouses have gained complete rights of disposal over each
others persons (and hence over their bodies). From this view, it would similarly seem to follow that organ
donation is morally impermissible, unless it takes place in a context where the individuals have rights over each
others persons. In this context, however, an individual would appear to have a right to use his partners kidney.
And there is always the fear that bodily violation could be disguised as an exercise of a right one has over
another. Furthermore, the view against freely donating ones kidney is overly restrictive and unintuitive.
My attempt in Section 5, then, was to find a way to rid the Kantian theory of such an unappealing view.
First, I argued that perhaps there is reason to believe that one can legitimately be treated merely as a means in
order to preserve and protect someone elses humanity. Even assuming that the case of the hero Kant discusses,
as well as the case of the person donating her kidney are cases where individuals are treated as mere means,
467
there is reason to think that they are not morally condemnable. This is because these peoples end is the
promotion of humanity in others, which is not a discretionary one. Secondly, I offered some arguments in
favour of the view that organ donation does not involve treating the donor merely as a means. The kidney
receivers attitude towards the donor is that of respect towards her humanity. Yet, for Kant, there is always the
danger that the donors humanity is misused. Perhaps the case of anonymous donation could ease this concern.
In this case, the donor cannot be said to be at the disposal of the receiver, since the latter is ignorant of the
donors identity.
Noticing the great similarities that exist between cases of heroism and those of organ donation, and given
Kants explicit appraisal of the former, I am much intrigued by the following thought: if we can successfully
argue against the view that the organ donor is treated merely as a means, a path may be opened towards a
Kantian duty to organ donation. How could a Kantian, in this case, not embrace the view that one ought to
donate ones kidney to another person, whose life and humanity are dependent on ones very act of donation?22
Notes
1. Access to US Government Information on Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation (Retrieved January 2010, from
http://organdonor.gov/).
2. In this paper, I refer to cases of kidney sale and donation, where a living person undergoes nephrectomy. I do not discuss
the issue of cadaveric kidney sale and donation. Kant would similarly condemn the sale of other organs. Moreover, he would
regard the donation of organs the extraction of which foreseeably results in the donors death (and destruction of her humanity),
for example, cases where a living person decides to donate his heart or lungs, as morally impermissible in all cases. I have chosen
to talk about kidney extraction throughout this paper, because death resulting from kidney extraction is rare (if done according to
certain standards, of course), and current research indicates that kidney extraction does not change life expectancy or increase a
persons risks of developing kidney disease or other health problems. Moreover, studies have shown that one kidney is sufficient
to keep the body healthy, and after recovering from surgery, a person can in most cases work and exercise, and lead an otherwise
normal life (University of Maryland Medical Center. Retrieved January 2010, from http://www.umm.edu/transplant/kidney).
3. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and
therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity (Kant 1997a, 4:434).
4. Of course, one can disrespect humanity without treating it merely as a means. For example, the decision of a relatively
well-off person not to help the poor expresses disrespect for the value of these peoples humanity. The person in question, however,
does not (at least not necessarily) treat them merely as means to achieve his ends.
5. To be more precise, according to ONeil A treats B merely as a means if in her treatment of B, A acts on a maxim to which
B cannot consent.
6. Of course, before the kidney extraction takes place, the seller may be able to withdraw her consent and thereby keep her
kidney. In this sense, the seller can avert or modify the buyers acquiring her kidney. My point here, however, is to say that once
a person has decided to proceed with such a transaction (and assuming she does not change her mind), she is unable to dissent
from being treated in a disrespectful manner. This is why the person in question cannot be said to rationally consent to this
transaction.
7. And I believe it is interesting to note that some kidney sellers compare themselves to prostitutes and experience similar
feelings of shame and worthlessness (Zargooshi 2001, 1795-96).
8. In his discussion of prostitution, Kant blames the prostitute for her objectification and degradation. One might be led to
think from this that it is the prostitute, not the clients, who turn her own person into an object. Under this reading, the clients are
not to blame for the loss of her humanity. There are complications with the view, however. According to Kant, sexual use
occurring in prostitution is natural, that is, use of one persons sexual attributes by another person. If the prostitute already was an
object by the time she was sexually used by the clients, then the latter would be using a thing, something that, in Kants own
theory, would make the sexual use in question unnatural (Op. cit., Kant 1997b, 27:390-392; Kant (1996) The Metaphysics of
Morals. Mary Gregor (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 6:277). Even though the clients are the ones who make the
prostitute into an object, Kant primarily blames the prostitute for her objectification. It is she, after all, who allows others to harm
her humanity. It seems, then, that there are, for Kant, two wrongs involved in prostitution: what the prostitute does (voluntarily
allowing others to use her sexually in exchange for profit), and what the clients do (using the prostitute for sexual gratification,
and so reducing her to an object). I take the case of organ sale to be analogous: even though it is the purchaser who treats the seller
merely as a means and reduces him to an object, the seller, for Kant, is still to blame for deciding to engage in this transaction.
9. Kant also expresses the view that body and self are inseparable in this way in Kant (1996, 6:279).
468
10. For a more detailed explanation of Kants view that the prostitute sells her whole person, see Papadaki (2007, 331-33).
11. Jean-Christophe Merle is also critical of the view that in selling each of ones body parts a person sells the whole of
herself. He believes it is necessary to draw a distinction between three sorts of body part, which give rise to different kinds of
restriction on how individuals can dispose of them. The first kind of body parts are the organs in the absence of which one could
not survive, because each of them is indispensable for the whole organism (Merle 2000, 94). An organ of that sort is the heart.
The second kind of body parts are those organs that cannot be replaced by the body once they are cut off from it (for example, a
tooth). And the third kind of body parts are not organs of the body but parts of it, which are naturally replaced after a short time
(blood, skin, and marrow samples, for instance). Merle argues that for at least the third kind of body parts, there should not be a
Kantian objection against sale, as transplants of this sort do not affect ones freedom of choice, the freedom of which we cannot
make use but through our body (Merle 2000, 96, 94-99).
12. Kerstein seems to be assuming, here, that the attitude of the buyer towards the seller is an empirical matter. The very act
of buying a kidney, however, could conceptually imply an attitude towards the seller, as the anonymous referee of Philosophy
Study has rightly remarked. This attitude, we might think, entails the commodification and degradation of the seller.
13. Concubinage is, for Kant, the non-commodified sexual relationship between a man and more than one woman (the
concubines) (Kant 1997b, 27:387-38; Kant 1996, 6:278-79). For a fuller analysis of Kants views on concubinage, see Papadaki
(2007, 333-37).
14. Kants claim that the spouses in marriage become each others properties is puzzling, given his conviction that a person
cannot be a property (Kant 1997b, 27:386). For a detailed discussion of this so-called paradox in Kantian marriage, as well as a
suggestion of how it can be overcome (Papadaki 2010).
15. For a fuller analysis of Kants conception of marriage, as well as polygamous relationships like concubinage see
Papadaki (2010, 2007, 333-39); Herman (1993); Brake (2005); Wilson (2004).
16. Nicole Gerrand emphasizes the fact that Kants worry is both with selling and donating body parts. That is because his
primary concern is not what happens to a body parts after its removal, but rather that a person should not have any of her body
parts removed unnecessarily (that is, for reasons other than his own self-preservation) (Gerrand 1999, 61).
17. The way Kant thought exercise of spousal rights takes place is indeed alarming: if one of the partners in marriage has
left or given itself into someone elses possession, the other partner is justified, always and without question, in bringing its
partner back under its control, just as it is justified in retrieving a thing (Kant 1996, 6:278). It should further be noted here that
Kant does not take the exercise of sexuality to be morally unproblematic in marriage for the purposes of procreation only. The
spouses can legitimately engage in sex merely for the purposes of enjoyment. Furthermore, Kant thought that sexual use is
necessary in order for marriage to exist (Kant 1996, 6:277-80). Marriage, he thought, is realized only through the use of their [the
spouses] sexual attributes by each other (Kant 1996, 6:280).
18. One could argue that a more promising context for organ donation is that of Kants perfect form of friendship, friendship
of disposition, which is characterized by absolute confidence between the friends, based on true communication and
understanding (Kant 1997b, 27:427). This relationship, like marriage, is conceived by Kant as a context of perfect equality and
reciprocity between the parties involved. The friends relationship, however, is, unlike that of the spouses, not based on rights of
use of each others person, but on mutual love and care for each others happiness. According to Kant: If I choose friendship only,
and look solely to the others happiness, in the assurance that he is similarly looking after mine, then this is indeed a reciprocal
love, whereby I am again requited. Here each would be tending the others happiness from generosity; I do not throw away my
happiness, but merely place it in other hands, while I have the others happiness in my own (1997b 27: 424). Elsewhere, I have
argued that, even though Kant did not acknowledge this possibility, sexual use can be in accordance with morality within the
context of a relationship which shares the basic characteristics of friendship of disposition (Papadaki 2010). This is because, in
this context, the friends care about each other and show true respect for one anothers humanity. In a similar manner, it could be
thought that organ donation in this context would not pose a threat to the donors humanity, since the latter is deeply respected by
the receiver. I very much thank one of the anonymous referees of Philosophy Study for encouraging me to examine other contexts
besides marriage, characterized by equality and reciprocity, in which organ donation could be thought to take place without posing
a threat to the donors humanity.
19. According to Kant, If [ones] foot is a hindrance to life, a man might have it amputated. To preserve his person he has
the right of disposal over his body (Kant 1997b, 149). We might think, however, that if I may amputate a foot to save my own
life, why not donate an organ to save anothers life? Is there a relevant difference between preserving my own humanity and
preserving anothers?
20. Despite the similarities between the war hero and the organ donor, there also seems to be a difference between the two:
the former is killed by others, that is, something is done to him, whereas the latter freely chooses to donate his kidney, which is
something he himself does. I would like to thank the anonymous referee of Philosophy Study for pointing this out to me.
21. Kants discussion of motivation is relevant here. The kidney seller is acting out of the motive of indirect inclination (he
sells his kidney in order to receive some profit). Thus, his action is, for Kant, morally condemnable. However, whether the kidney
donors act is morally good or not will also depend on her motivation. There is the person who donates her kidney, because it is
her duty to do so (like Kants example of the soldier who defends his comrades because he has a duty to do so). But there is also
the person who donates her kidney out of love or sympathy. While the formers act is morally worthy because it stems from the
motive of duty, the latters act, stemming from the motive of direct inclination, could be judged as not having moral worth. This,
for many at least, would be an unintuitive idea. There is no space here to do examine this issue further. For the purposes of this
paper, it would suffice to establish that freely donating ones organs is not, for Kant, morally permissible only when it takes place
469
in a context where people have rights over each others persons.

22. One of the anonymous referees of Philosophy Study has expressed the worry that if, on the Kantian account, citizens have
a duty to donate their organs, this would place too strong demands on them. This is a concern I myself share. In this article, I have
only put forward the idea that such a duty could exist, within the context of a Kantian theory. My purpose is not to deal with the
implications the duty to donate ones organs would have.
Works Cited
Blackwell, Mark. Extraneous Bodies: The Contagion of Live-Tooth Transplantations in the Late-Eighteenth Century England.
Eighteenth-Century Life 28.1 (2004): 21-68.
Brake Elizabeth. Justice and Virtue in Kants Account of Marriage. Kantian Review 9.1 (2005): 58-94.
Chadwick, Ruth. The Market of Bodily Parts: Kant and Duties to Oneself. Journal of Applied Philosophy 6.2 (1989): 129-40.
Gerrand, Nicole. The Misuse of Kant in the Debate about a Market for Human Body Parts. Journal of Applied Philosophy 16.1
(1999): 59-67.
Herman, Barbara. Could it be Worth Thinking about Kant on Sex and Marriage? A Mind of Ones Own. Feminist Essays on
Reason and Objectivity. Ed. Louise M. Antony and Charlotte Witt. Boulder/San Francisco/Oxford: Westview Press, 1993.
53-72.
Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997a.
---. Lectures on Ethics. Ed. Peter Heath and J. B. Schneewind. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997b.
---. The Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. Mary Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Kerstein, Samuel. Kantian Condemnation of Commerce in Organs. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 19.2 (2009): 147-169.
---. Treating Oneself Merely as a Means. Kants Ethics of Virtue. Ed. Monika Beltzer. Berlin/New York: de Gruyterp, 2008.
201-18.
Korsgaard, Christine. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Merle, Jean-Christophe. A Kantian Argument for a Duty to Donate Ones Own Organs. A Reply to Nicole Gerrand. Journal of
Applied Philosophy 17.1 (2000): 93-101.
Munzer, Stephen. An Uneasy Case against Property Rights in Body Parts. Social Philosophy and Policy 11.2 (1994): 259-86.
ONeill, Onora. Constructions of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990.
Papadaki, Lina (Evangelia). Kantian Marriage and Beyond: Why It is Worth Thinking about Kant on Marriage. Hypatia 25.2
(2010): 276-94.
---. Sexual Objectification: From Kant to Contemporary Feminism. Contemporary Political Theory 3.3 (2007): 330-48.
Wilson, Donald. Kant and the Marriage Right. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly Please add its volume number and issue number
(2004): 103-23.
Wood, Allen. Kants Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999.
Zargooshi, Javaad. Quality of Life or Iranian Kidney Donors. The Journal of Urology 166.5 (2001): 1790-99.

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 470-480
DAVID
PUBLISHING
Why Hollywood Hates Business: Immanuel Kants Role in

Avatar: Movie Reviewed by Adam Smith
James F. Pontuso
Hampden-Sydney College
One of cinematic science fictions most popular plot lines is to imagine an invasion of earth by an advanced alien
species. James Camerons Avatar turns the tables on that premise. Humans attack a peaceful, less technologically
sophisticated race in order to exploit their natural resources. Driving the assault is a mining company hell-bent on
improving its bottom line. The villain of Avatar is not a person, but those people who seek profit. To put it starkly,
business is evil. But why has the entertainment business cast business as a heavy? Hollywood has now made
Immanuel Kant as the director of moral sentiment. Not, of course, directly, but rather the ghostwriter of
Hollywoods ideas about morality. The works of Kant are not discussed or debated in the public arena, but their
principles have influenced the way people think about what is just and good. The ideas of Kant have filtered into
the contemporary discourse and are one of the key ingredients in the national dialogue over what it means to be
moral. The categorical imperative holds that an action is moral only if it is free from calculation of reward or gain.
To be truly, moral people must abandon all practical considerations of need or desire; they must be directed by pure
good will alone. Business people can never measure up to Kants standard. They always make choices based on
cost and benefit. Their businesses would quickly go bankrupt, if they made decisions on good will rather than
interest. Kants principles have raised the moral standard so high that even the common inclination to seek ones
own benefit is looked on with some mistrust. In Kantian-influenced movies, business people have come to play the
evil antagonist; they seek gain instead of the good. How would Adam Smith, the father of economic rationality,
respond to popularized Kantian morality?
Keywords: Smith, Kant, Hollywood
1. Plot
One of the enduring premises of Hollywood is to reflect on itself by wondering what alien creatures would
think of the human race when our television and radio signals reach their distant planet. If such beings were to
watch todays popular culture, they would probably take steps to arm themselves against the scourge of planet
earthcorporations. Popular culture portrays business people as greedy, uncaring, selfish, shortsighted, and
willing to put other peopleindeed, the planet itselfin danger, just to make a buck.
James Camerons hugely successful Avatarthe largest grossing film of all time with nearly
$2,783,918,982 in estimated revenuesis the apogee of anti-business sentiment (The Numbers: Box Office
Data, Movie Stars, Idle Speculation 2013).
James F. Pontuso, Ph.D., Patterson Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs, Department of Government and Foreign
Affairs, Hampden-Sydney College, USA; main research field: Political Science. Email: jpontuso@hsc.edu.
WHY HOLLYWOOD HATES BUSINESS
471
The film portrays former U.S. soldiers, now employed as a mercenary private security force, occupying
the planet Pandora, inhabited by a peaceful, but technologically primitive, speciesthe Navi. Navi are large
(10) bluish-skinned and sentient creatures that somehow resemble a cross between American Indians and tigers.
Navi are pantheists who worship Pandora and most everything that inhabits it. They are unwilling desecrate
the planet by allowing humans to mine for unobtanium, a mineral so rare that a mere ounce is worth a fortune.
Unobtanium has superconductivity properties that allow it to defy one of Newtons laws (every point mass in
the universe attracts every other point mass with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their
masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them). Unobtanium has the ability to
make objects float.
After some efforts at negotiating a settlement, the mining companys chief administrator Parker Selfridge
becomes exasperated with Navi truculence and orders bulldozers to destroy their villages and mercenaries to
violently crush all resistance. After much sacrifice and a bit of melodrama, the noble savages defeat the evil
corporation and expel its greedy employees from the planet.
There is nothing imaginative in characterizing business as the heavy. George Bailey had to save his
hometown from evil bankers in Its a Wonderful Life. Jaws Larry Vaughn, the businessman-mayor of Amity,
would rather have people eaten by a great white shark than miss even one day of beach-going-tourist dollars. In
fact, to freshen up this hackneyed storyline, Eddy Murphy in Dr. Doolittle II had to help the animals save
themselves from a company eager to clear-cut the forest. Perhaps, Nick Morelli, Jim Belushis character on the
defunct Columbia Broadcasting Company (CBS) series The Defenders, best expresses Hollywoods attitude
toward corporate America: We all know that business will act badly, he says, it is like asking why the
scorpion stings the frog who saves himthat is what scorpions do (The Defenders 2010).
How did Avatars formulaic script become such a huge success? There are a number of reasons. The
special effects, especially in three dimensional (3D), are extraordinarily well done. Neytiri, the leading female
character, is young, agile, lissome, and feline. She is the supermodel version of the American Indian and tiger
genetic mixa nice Navi tail as well. She is strong and independent, and has an intimate knowledge of
Pandoras lush rainforest. At the same time, she is vulnerable and femininethe ideal combination of
toughness and allure.
Avatars main protagonist, Jake Scully, has a compelling narrative. He is an ex-marine who is now a
paraplegic as the result of combat wounds. Despite his handicap, he is recruited to join a mission to Pandora as
a substitute for his brother of Tommy, a scientist slated to inhabit a Navi body that has been specifically
created to match his genetic code. Tommy has been mysteriously murdered, which puts the project at risk. In
order to transfer successfully into the Navi body, there must be a perfect genetic match. Jake is Tommys twin
and therefore a perfect replacement. The transfer is successful and Jakes consciousness is transported into a
perfectly healthy Navi body.
On his first mission to Pandora, Navi-Jake is separated from a party of other humans who have been
transferred into Navi bodies. Navi-Jake is saved from being devoured by forest creatures by a Navi woman,
Neytiri, to whom he cannot help being attracted. Neytiri teaches Navi-Jake the mysteries of the rainforest and
customs of the Navi. He must train physically to endure the rigors of a primitive life, mentally to adapt to the
complex ways of the Navi, and spiritually to understand the psychic force that connects all of Pandora. Jake
learns the superiority of the physical over the technological, the primitive over the civilized, and the sacred over
the secular. He changes loyalties, marries Neytiri, and becomes the dominant Navi warrior by mastering the
472
Great Leonopteryxa flying dinosaur-like creature that is the fiercest predator of the sky. He leads the Navi to
victory over the mercenaries and saves Pandora from the evil mining company.
Talk of genetic engineeringJakes journey-quest in Avatar is a mlange of Lt. John Dunbars trip back to
nature in Dances with Wolves, Luke Skywalkers Jedi training in Star Wars, with a pinch of Ron Kovics
struggle with infirmity in Born on the Fourth of July and Coming Home.
2. Ideas and Popular Culture

Since primitive people are the heroes of the film, it could be argued that the script owes its premise to the
ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau. There is much truth to this, since Rousseau is the father of the back to nature
movement. But such an analysis of the superiority of the primordial would not explain more generally why
Hollywood hates business. After all, Hollywood could praise the primitive without denigrating the civilized. Or,
it could attack advanced societies without demonizing business.
The issue is even more complex because movies and television are themselves big and lucrative
businesses; so why is business cast as the heavy? Ben Stein argues that Hollywood executives treat the business
of entertainment as if it were based on personal contacts, making Hollywoods ever-present devious dealings
the dominant practice (Stein 1988; Stein and Al Burton 2006). Steins experience might explain the proximate
cause of Hollywoods antagonism to business, but it does not account for the moral principles Hollywood
writers, producers, and directors rely on when they attack corporations. After all, even entertainment executives
deal with businesses outside the shark infested waters of Hollywood. What Stein misses is that Hollywood has
now made Immanuel Kant as the director of moral sentiment. Not, of course, openly, but rather the ghostwriter
of Hollywoods ideas about morality. The works of Kant are not discussed or debated in the public arena, but
their principles have influenced the way people think about what is just and good. The ideas of Kant have
filtered into the contemporary discourse and are one of the key ingredients in the national dialogue over what it
means to be moral.
As it has done for much of history, popular culture expresses public sentiment. It presents various strains
of moral beliefs found in society. Popular culture is created by artists. Artists hope to establish a realm of
freedom in which their work can be performed and appreciated. Therefore, artists frequently push the bounds
of moral sentiment toward a more open and progressive outlook. Interpreted sympathetically popular culture
uncovers not only the conventional wisdom of an era, but also the direction in which artists hope to move the
ruling principles. This paper will offer an analysis of the ways in which the ideas of Kant have shaped the
public debate in American culture.
3. Kant and the New Morality

For decades, researchers have tracked the decline of traditional moral principles and the rise of secular
values, even among those who profess belief in the Deity (Hayes 1995; Fuller 2001; Hout and Fischer 2002;
Kosmin and Keysar 2006; Keysar 2007; Zuckerman 2009; Kosmin and Keysar 2009). Despite the weakening
of long-established religious prescriptions and proscriptions, people still quite readily make moral judgments.
In fact, the contemporary social and political discourse is full of righteousone might even say
self-righteousdenunciations.
While there is no single factor accounts for the new morality, it is possible to provide a partial explanation
by investigating the public philosophy of our era. In times gone by, as Edmund Burke so ably explained,
473
morality and ethics grew out of ones specific national and cultural history. This is no more true that we live in
a time of universal ideals. Principles, associated with a particular culture, religion, nation, or group, are suspect.
Indeed, any effort to label certain kinds of behavior wrong from the perspective of traditional principles is met
with loud and vigorous charges of narrow-mindedness and bigotry. While the banishment of traditional moral
judgments looks like relativism, it is not. Those who practice the new morality insist that long-established
beliefs are merely a form of parochial bias of gender, class, ethnicity, and the like. On the other hand, the new
morality aims at being inclusive, especially towards those who were considered outsiders within customary
belief systems. How does one undermine attachment to the old ways and defend the victims of parochial
thinking? This is done first, by asserting that time-honored morality is merely a form of self-interest and second
by fostering the belief that the pursuit of self-interest, itself, is immoral. Kants ideas have had a hand in
discrediting the old ways. He insists that even God must submit to the rules of morality or be dismissed as an
immoral being. He explains that the Divine will remaining to us is a conception made up of the attributes of
desire of glory and dominion, combined with the awful conceptions of might and vengeance, and any system of
morals erected on this foundation would be directly opposed to morality (Kant 2004).
American are generally a religious people, but the vast majority of believers have abandoned the fire and
brimstone tenets of their forefathers and adopted the more Kantian view of a good-hearted deity that rewards,
but does not punish.
For Kant, it is not Gods commandments, but the categorical imperative that provides the one and only
source of morality. The categorical imperative holds that an action is moral only if it is free from calculation of
reward or gain. To be truly, moral people must abandon all practical considerations based on their needs or
desires; they must be directed by pure good will alone.
Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good, without qualification, except a
good will. Intelligence, wit, judgment, and the other talents of the mind are undoubtedly good and desirable in many
respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them,
and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches,
honour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with ones condition which is called happiness, inspire
pride, and often presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind, and with this also to
rectify the whole principle of acting and adapt it to its end. The sight of a being who is not adorned with a single feature of
a pure and good will, enjoying unbroken prosperity, can never give pleasure to an impartial rational spectator. Thus a good
will appears to constitute the indispensable condition even of being worthy of happiness. (Kant 2004, First Section)
As time-honored ethical doctrines have waned, cultural elitesand much of secular Americahave
adopted Kants theory as its moral guidepost. In fact, Kant hoped that his ideas would shape moral sentiments.
Since a metaphysic of morals, in spite of the discouraging title is yet capable of being presented in popular
form, and one adapted to the common understanding, it is readily comprehensible to the public at large (Kant
2004). Kants morality is easy to understand, because it is based on something quite familiar, our inner own
will.
How can we recognize what actions are moral generally? Kant claims that this too is a simple task, known
without difficulty by every rational person. According to Kant, wrongdoing is easily understood because our
minds make universal categories from particular examples. We are aware almost immediately when we are
treated differently than another. We do not like it when someone jumps ahead of us in line, when a sibling is
favored by a parent, when a judge makes a biased ruling, or when a political leader claims special privileges.
474
We are especially attuned to hypocrisy. Scandals involving priest and ministers who give Sunday sermons on
righteousness, but who engage in trysts with parishioners during the week are universally condemned.
From the inclination of the human mind to recognize hypocrisy and inequity, and apply these valuations
generally, Kant puts forward the categorical imperative: Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the
same time will that it should become a universal law (Kant, 2004, Second Section). To be moral, an act must
apply equally to everybody.
4. Kants Influence
Kants moral principles have, without question, done well in the world. They have aided in overcoming
parochialism and dogmatism. They have facilitated civil society by obliging people to apply natural rights to
others.
For example, Abraham Lincoln seems to have used transformed Kants metaphysics into homilies in order
to illustrate the iniquity of slavery. He states:
If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. Why may not B. snatch the same argument, and
prove equally, that he may enslave A?
You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By
this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.
You do not mean color exactly?
You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take
care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.
But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest, you have the right to enslave another.
Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you. (Lincoln 1854)
Kants principles have also helped establish universal concepts of human dignity. As Georg Hegel
predicted, they have been popularized and democratized in support of an elevated view of individual
significance. After all, if morality consists of universally according every person respect, then individuals must
be recognized for their inner feeling and thoughts. What they think is important for their personal fulfillment
and becomes the key element in the construction of the self. Every self must be, according to dignity, a fact
born out in the age of Twitter.
5. Kants Uncredited Screenwriter of Avatar

Avatar portrays many of popularized Kantian themes. The Navi custom of using I see you as a form of
recognition indicates more than that another person is visible. It is also an acknowledgment of the others inner
identity and respect for the dignity of the others self. Netriyi, who falls in love with the handsome Navi-Jake,
shows her appreciation of the inner Jake by tenderly uttering I see you to the crippled-human-Jake. Netriyi is
actually embracing the Kantian theory that the phenomenawhat we seeis not as important as the noumenon
the inner worth of self that we experience with our minds. More broadly, Netriyi adopts Kants view that we
must accept people no matter the particular constitution or the accidental circumstances in which they are
placed (Kant 2004, Second Section).
Navi pantheism also makes sense in Kantian terms. Kant maintains that that the conception of God as
the supreme good arises from the idea of moral perfection (Kant 2004, Second Section). Eywa, the Navi
deity, is a rational creature who is not merely an idea of moral perfection, but is perfectkeeping all the plants,
animals, and spirits of Pandora in harmony.
475
The Navi is also acting on Kantian principles when they refuse to allow the mining company to damage
any of the natural environment. After all, Navi can make neural connections with plants and animals,
bestowing their rationality on everything they touch, even the dead. For example, Netriyi accepts Jake as one of
the Navi people when he acknowledges the killing of a hexapedea game animalwith a prayer in which he
sees the animal, gives thanks for the food, and sends the spirit to Eywa. Most importantly, since moral laws
ought to hold good for every rational creature, the planet itself must be respected; according to Grace
Augustines scientific analysis, it has more electrochemical synapses than the human brain.
6. Reverse Kantianism
If good will is the source of morality, why does Hollywood so deride a whole class of American society:
entrepreneurs? More broadly, why is there such a heated debate among political elites who accuse each other of
ill will? Why do not political rivals have good will towards each other? Here too, Kant is the culprit. People
engage in what might be called reverse Kantian morality. Kant holds that the sole component of morality is
good will. He states: A good will is good not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the
attainment of some proposed end, but simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself, and considered
by itself is to be esteemed much higher than all that can be brought about by it in favor of any inclination, nay
even of the sum total of all inclinations (Kant 2004, First Section).
Kant insists that the only source of morality is a good will and good will is only good when an action can
be applied to everyone. There is therefore but one categorical imperative which is a universal law (Kant
2004, Second Section). The universal application of the categorical imperative insures that no hidden motives
of self-interest or personal hope of gain sneak into the calculation of morality for effects as end and incentives
cannot give that action any unconditional moral worth (Kant 1959, 16, my emphasis)
Those who accept the modern understanding of morality know that they have good will. They believe in
universal peace, anti-imperialism, social justice, environmentalism, and tolerance for all, except narrow-minded
religious believers and business people, of course. If good will is the true test of moral goodness and they
believe that their innermost volition is based on good will, then they must be moral. Moreover, other people
with whom they disagree and who behave on a principle of self-interest must not have good will and therefore
are evil. Rather than making moral people tolerant and moral principles universally applicable, as Kant had
originally intended, reverse Kantianism make people self-righteous in privileging their own moral purity and
intolerant of political differences.
The categorical imperative holds that an action is moral only if it is free from calculation of reward or gain.
To be truly moral, people must abandon all practical considerations of need or desire; they must be directed by
pure good will alone. Business people can never measure up to Kants standard. They always make choices
based on cost and benefit. Their businesses would quickly go bankrupt if they made decisions on solely on the
basis good will rather than interest (Grant 2012). Kants principles have raised the moral standard so high that
even the common inclination to seek ones own benefit is looked on with mistrust. In Kantian-influenced
movies, business people have come to play the evil antagonist; they seek gain instead of the good.
But are not movies a big business? Do not producers, directors, and actors make exorbitant amounts of
money if, like Avatar, their creations become popular? How can we account for such hypocrisy?
476
Here too, Kant is the culprit. Those in the entertainment business know that however high their incomes
they have good will. They believe in moral causes and they denigrate all whose interest seems in conflict with
those ends.
Kant gives them a justification for this high-handed attitude, he argues the moral worth of an action is
determined solely by good will and not by a calculation of it effects:
That an action done from duty derives its moral worth, not from the purpose which is to be attained by it, but from the
maxim by which it is determined, and therefore does not depend on the realization of the object of the action, but merely
on the principle of volition by which the action has taken place, without regard to any object of desire. It is clear from what
precedes that the purposes which we may have in view in our actions, or their effects regarded as ends and springs of the
will, cannot give to actions any unconditional or moral worth. (Kant 2004, First Section)
There is then, according to Kant, an unbridgeable gulf between the phenomena and the noumenon; what
people do and what they think they should do. If no measure of the consequences of an action is needed to
decide whether it is moral, perhaps it is also consistent to maintain that no matter how people act in their
personal lives, and their good will makes their actions moral. Hence, Avatars creatorJames Camerona
preposterously rich, unpleasant, and demanding man, who has left four wives for other women can feel
righteous in attacking the truly bad people on this planet (or any other), those engaged in business. In spite of
his personal behavior, Cameron can feel indignant because he knows that he has good will and that, as Kant
explains, experience is not capable of determining anything about morals (Kant 2004, Second Section).
7. Economic Rationality
The inspiration for this paper came from a philosophic member of the Falmouth Massachusetts landfill
staff. I was throwing away some broken household goods when I noticed a truck dumping a huge load of
recycled items into the same area where the refuse was disposed. Why is that truck dumping recycled
materials into the landfill? I asked the worker. There is no market for paper or plasticso we just throw them
away, he answered. Why does the town bother spending money to have a separate recycling service, if
everything is just discarded into the landfill? I wondered aloud. Because, it makes people feel good, he
responded with a knowing and wry smile. When I told a West Coast relative about this distressing tale of public
policy ineffectiveness, the person exclaimed, things work much better in California. We have color-coded
recycling bins.
This is an example of Kantianism gone wild, I thought undertaking a moral deed in spite of its economic
irrationality. My indignation at paying higher taxes to support an economically ineffectual but psychologically
comforting program made me wonder how Adam Smiththe father of economic rationalitymight respond to
popularized Kantian morality.
Smith argues that free-market exchanges are moralindeed one of the highest types of morality, because
they leave people free to choose where they live, what they work at, and what they buy and sell. Individuals
gain dignity, since they determine their own destiny.
Smith maintains that only human exhibit the rational intent necessary to better their condition through
work and exchange. Nobody, he writes, ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for
another with another dog (Smith 1994, 14).
477
Smith holds that by seeking their own advantage, people actually fulfill the needs of a society better, more
quickly, and efficiently than if they behaves altruistically. He writes in a famous passage of The Wealth of
Nations:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to
their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own
necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his
fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him
with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life
which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of
his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With
the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges for
other old clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food,
clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion. (Smith 1994, 15)
By seeking their own advantage, people actually promote the common good without willing it or even
thinking about it. In order to pursue their own good, people are rewarded with profits and wages if they fulfill
the needs and wants of their fellow human beings. Smith explains that a person intends only his own security;
and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his
own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no
part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not a part of it. By pursuing his own
interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I
have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation,
indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it
(Smith 1994, 484-85).
Smith goes so far as to insist that a political leader who thinks of the common goodthat is, according to
some universal concept of moralitywill actually interfere with the efficient workings of the market. Human
beings simply do not have sufficient information about all the economic exchanges that occur in a society to
determine how to rationally organize those exchanges. He writes:
The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not
only load himself with most unnecessary attention but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and
senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of man who have folly and presumption
enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. (Smith 1994, 485)
Any effort to control free exchanges hinders the attainment of what Smith calls the natural price, which
he defines as the cost in labor, transportation, and materials of producing a good or service. If the market price
falls below the natural price and there is no profit or incentive in generating the merchandise or service, people
will cease the undertaking. When many people cease the undertaking, the good or service will become scarce
and the price will rise to its natural level.
According to Smith, the free market produces the highest possible quality goods and services at the lowest
possible price while at the same time paying laborers the highest possible wages. Possible here is defined as
the natural price at which a profit can be made for peoples efforts.
If, on the contrary, the quantity brought to market should at any time fall short of the effectual demand, some of the
component parts of its price must rise above their natural rate. If it is rent, the interest of all other landlords will naturally
478

prompt them to prepare more land for the raising of this commodity; if it is wages or profit, the interest of all other laborers
and dealers will soon prompt them to employ more labor and stock in preparing and bringing it to market. The quantity
brought thither will soon be sufficient to supply the effectual demand. All the different parts of its price will soon sink to
their natural rate, and the whole price to its natural price. (Smith 1994, 68)
The reason prices will remain low and high quality is competition. Producers will endeavor to attract
business by making a better product and by finding methods of producing it at a lower per unit cost than their
rivals. The most efficient way to beat back competitors is by the introduction of machines.
The increase in the wages of labor necessarily increases the price of many commodities, by increasing that part of it which
resolves itself into wages, and so far tends to diminish their consumption both at home and abroad. The same cause,
however, which raises the wages of labor, the increase of stock, tends to increase its productive powers, and to make a
smaller quantity of labor produce a greater quantity of work. The owner of the stock which employs a great number of
laborers, necessarily endeavors, for his own advantage, to make such a proper division and distribution of employment that
they may be enabled to produce the greatest quantity of work possible. For the same reason, he endeavors to supply them
with the best machinery which either he or they can think of. What takes place among the laborers in a particular
workhouse takes place, for the same reason, among those of a great society. The greater their number, the more they
naturally divide themselves into different classes and subdivisions of employment. More heads are occupied in inventing
the most proper machinery for executing the work of each, and it is, therefore, more likely to be invented. There are many
commodities, therefore, which, in consequence of these improvements, come to be produced by so much less labor than
before that the increase of its price is more than compensated by the diminution of its quantity. (Smith 1994, 99)
There are of course a number of ways that producers thwart the natural price in order to increase their
profits. Smith explains that:
When by an increase in the effectual demand, the market price of some particular commodity happens to rise a good deal
above the natural price, those who employ their stocks in supplying that market are generally careful to conceal this change.
If it was commonly known, their great profit would tempt so many new rivals to employ their stocks in the same way that,
the effectual demand being fully supplied, the market price would soon be reduced to the natural price, and perhaps for
some time even below it. If the market is at a great distance from the residence of those who supply it, they may sometimes
be able to keep the secret for several years together, and may so long enjoy their extraordinary profits without any new
rivals. Secrets of this kind, however, it must be acknowledged, can seldom be long kept; and the extraordinary profit can
last very little longer than they are kept. (Smith 1994, 70)
Since secrets are difficult to keep, producers are held in a constant state of anxiety by competition. They
seek to limit their adversaries through government action. They use the governments monopoly of force to
give them a monopoly in business. They work to influence government policy (through what we call lobbying)
to grant them either a monopoly of distribution or a bounty (subsidy) for production. Both monopolies and
bounties, Smith reasons, place a double tax on the general public since they either raise prices, are paid for
through taxation, or both (Smith 1994, 543).
8. At the Movies: Adam Smiths Review of Avatar

If Smith reviewed Avatar, he would point out that the Navi would probably just give their natural
resources away if they were as plentiful as portrayed in the movie. Why are the Navi hoarding a commodity
that means so little to them? Alternatively, he might add how selfish the Navi are. Any commodity so dearly
priced as unobtanium must be extraordinarily beneficial to those who use it. Of course, Smith thinks that
everyone is selfish, and he would doubt that Navi would in reality decline an offer from Selfridge to make a
deal. Jake claims that humans have nothing the Navi want. But would any rational beings truly decline an
479
opportunity to make their lives easier by utilizing technology? At the very least, would not the Navi desire
washing machines to cleanse their loincloths, refrigerators to keep their left-over hexapedes from spoiling and
sickening the children, and advanced weapons to ward off non-Kantian-inspired species from exploiting
Pandoras unobtanium?
Moreover, as Rousseau explains, primitive people have amour proper in their natures. They can be
competitive, envious, and spiteful; they also seek love and admiration. Amour propre seems to be present in the
Navi. They are resentful of the attention that Neytiri shows to Jake and envious of his skill flying the
leonopteryx. These attributes are sure signs that they think of their individual and personal welfare. Would not
one of the Navi make a deal with Selfridge to show off by using the mining companys technology to build a
bigger and more lavish tree house? Would not those who are excluded from tribal leadership stake their claim
to importance by pursuing economic advancement as a way of gratify their longing for distinction? All
primitive humans have certainly behaved as Smith predicts they wouldthey desire to better their condition.
Whether non-human beingones endowed with rationalitywould behave differently than primitive humans
is surely doubtful.
Finally, Smith would question whether the mining company could really make a profit on unobtanium.
Despite its high price, there are enormous capital outlays required to send thousands of highly-trained
mercenaries with advanced weaponry across the universe to a place where transactions costs are incalculably
steep. Business cannot thrive alongside war, violence, and distrust. Only a venture capitalist with persuasive
skills far superior to those of Bernie Madoff could convince stockholders to invest in such a hare-brained
scheme.
9. Pelosi versus Boehner

The ideas of Smith and Kant are important not only in reviewing blockbuster movies, they are also
responsible conflicting public philosophies. Kantian views have been adopted by people like former Speaker of
the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. She is aware that there are doctrines based solely on self-interest as
Kant had maintained that there have at all times been philosophers who have altogether denied that this
disposition actually exists at all in human actions, and have ascribed everything to a more or less refined
self-love (Kant 2004, Second Section).
But those under the influence of Kant categorize self-interest as a priori immoral for: A good will is good
not because of what it performs or effects, not by its aptness for the attainment of some proposed end, but
simply by virtue of the volition; that is, it is good in itself, and considered by itself is to be esteemed much
higher than all that can be brought about by it in favour of any inclination, nay even of the sum total of all
inclinations (Kant 2004, First Section).
In fact, even an everyday calculation of advantage discredits the moral worth of an action. Kant insists that
every empirical element is not only quite incapable of being an aid to the principle of morality, but is even
highly prejudicial to the purity of morals, for the proper and inestimable worth of an absolutely good will
consists just in this, that the principle of action is free from all influence of contingent grounds, which alone
experience can furnish (Kant 2004).
But business exits to gratify the self-interest of producers and consumers. In Kantian-influenced movies,
business people play the evil antagonist; they seek gain instead of the good. In politics, those under Kants spell
distrust the profit motive. Or as Nancy Pelosi puts it:
480

Americans will no longer tolerate the Republicans continued abuses of power and catering to corporate special
interests.
Lets just do what is right for the American people. And those of us who are involved in politics and government know
that our responsibility is to the American people, that we have a responsibility to find our common ground, to seek it and to
find it. (Pelosi 2013)
Smiths view of the world, on the other hand, holds that everyone always seeks their own interest.
According to this supposition, Speaker John Boehner and his ilk eye the very common good that Pelosi holds as
the highest act of public morality with suspicion. For him, government programs are rooted in special-interest
politics. Beneficiaries of government programs are both clients of taxpayer largesse and factions organized to
demand and sustain government support. Rather than promoting the public good, government programs are,
therefore, examples of colluding with special-interests (Boehner 2011).
The two visions of morality created by Kant and Smith compete for attention in the public arena. Each
side sees the other as somehow unsavory and corrupt. It is little wonder that the level of political discourse has
become so contentious and heated.
Works Cited
Boehner, John. Democrats for Progress. 2011. <http://democratsforprogress.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=3088>
The Defenders. Whitten v. Fenlee. Episode 9. November 8, 2010.
Fuller, Robert. Spiritual but not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America. New York, NY: Oxford UP, 2001.
Grant, Ruth. Strings Attached, Untangling the Ethics of Incentives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2012.
Hayes, Bernadette. The Impact of Religious Identification on Political Attitudes: An International Comparison. Sociology of
Religion 56 (1995): 177-94.
Hout, Michael, and Claude Fischer. Why More Americans Have No Religious Preference: Politics and Generations. American
Sociological Review 67 (2002): 165-90.
Kant, Immanuel. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Moral. Trans. Lewis White Beck. Indianapolis, ID: Bobbs-Merrill.
1959.
---. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Moral. Trans. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott. Project Gutenberg EBook, 2004. 1785.
<www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5682/pg5682.html>
Keysar, Ariela. Who Are Americas Atheists and Agnostics? Secularism and Secularity: Contemporary International
Perspectives. Ed. Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar. Hartford, CT: Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture,
2007. 33-39.
Kosmin, Barry, and Ariela Keysar. Religion in a Free Market: Religion and Non-Religious Americans. Ithaca, NY: Paramount
Market Publishing, 2006.
Kosmin, Barry, and Ariela Keysar. America Religious Identification Survey, Summary Report. Hartford, CT: Trinity College.
<www.americanreligionsurveyaris.org/reports/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf. 2009>
Lincoln, Abraham. Fragment on Slavery. Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln II (1854): 222. Lincoln on Slavery.
<www.nps.gov/liho/historyculture/slavery.htm>
The Numbers: Box Office Data, Movie Stars, Idle Speculation. Movie Budget Records. Jul. 16, 2013. <http://www.the-numbers.
com/movies/records/budgets.php>
Pelosi, Nancy. BrainyQuote. Apr. 3, 2011. <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/nancy_pelosi.html>
Pelosi, Nancy. Think Exist.com. 2013. <http://thinkexist.com/quotes/nancy_pelosi/>
Shibley, Mark. Secular but Spiritual in the Pacific Northwest. Pacific Northwest: The None Zone. Ed. Patricia OConnell Killen
and Mark Silk. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira. 2004. 139-67.
Smith, Adam. The Wealth of Nations. New York: Modern Library, 1994, 1776.
Stein, Benjamin J.. Hollywood Days and Nights. New York: Bantam, 1988.
Stein, Ben, and Al Burton. 26 Steps to Succeed In Hollywood...or Any Other Business. Carlsbad, CA: New Beginnings Press,
2006.
Zuckerman, Phil. Atheism, Secularity, and Well-Being: How the Findings of Social Science Counter Negative Stereotypes and
Assumptions. Sociology Compass 3.6 (2009): 949-971.

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 481-491
DAVID
PUBLISHING
Ethical, Religious, and Psychological Aspects of Euthanasia:

Qualitative Study of Japanese Roman Catholics
Sylwia Maria Olejarz
Cardinal Stephan Wyszynski University
The main aim of this qualitative work is to explore the scope, nature of existing doubts, concerns, and objections,
which arose in the mentality of selected groups of Japanese Roman Catholics, and to provide the typology of these
findings. The method used in this research was based on specially devised questionnaires. This method aimed to
collect qualitative data. The results obtained from questionnaires delivered in selected groups of Japanese Roman
Catholics (Hokkaido prefecture) inform that there is a very deep gap between understanding of the concept of
euthanasia and its acceptance/rejection. This investigation also reveals the hierarchy of values in the mentioned
context. In conclusion, the concept of euthanasia is very often confused with so called death with dignity (Songenshi)
and because of this fact it is not clear, what action is consistent with the religious doctrine and what is against. This
confusion might be a crucial factor which determines the attitude towards rejection/acceptance/withdrawal from the
decision concerning euthanasia in the group of Japanese Roman Catholics.
Keywords: euthanasia, Japan, Japanese Roman Catholics, death and dying, body and tissues, palliative care, spiritual care
1. Introduction
The problem of euthanasia is vigorously discussed all over the world. There are arguments pro and against
this type of procedure. In some countries, a right to euthanasia is legally recognized and commonly practiced.
For example, in the Netherlands, there is regulation called: Termination of Life on Request and Assisted
Suicide Act (enacted in April 2002). For many people, the evaluation of the act of euthanasia (active
euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide act) is strongly affected by personal moral convictions and religious
beliefs. The crucial question of this research is what Japanese people think about the concept of euthanasia
(here understood as physician-assisted suicide). Particularly, in this research, I was not interested in all Japanese
society, but in a specific group of themJapanese Roman Catholics. The reason is that in the group of Japanese
Roman Catholics, we can observe very unique processes of values assimilation (values based on the Jesus
Christs teaching). Do Japanese Roman Catholics feel some dilemmas and if yes, what kind of dilemmas, what
are the reasons for them? This was an initial research interest, which crystallized in this certain investigation.
Before I proceed with my study, let me explain what Japanese law says on the problem of euthanasia.
In Japan, there are some tentative legal frameworks both for passive euthanasia (
Shoukyokuteki Anrakushi) and active euthanasia ( Sekkyokuteki Anrakushi). However, Japanese
Sylwia Maria Olejarz, Ph.D. candidate, Center for Human Ecology and Bioethics, Cardinal Stephan Wyszynski University,
Poland; main research field: Bioethics, Applied Ethics, and Psychology (particularly, Psychology of Organ Donation and
Altruism). Email: gandras@o2.pl.
482
ETHICAL, RELIGIOUS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF EUTHANASIA
law does not provide a clear statement regarding euthanasia. There are two main very well known precedents in
the Japanese courts: (1) so-called (by Professor Kimura) Nagoya High Court Decision in 1962; (2) Tokai
University Hospital case (Kimura 1996).
The following conditions indicated in Nagoya High Court Decision must be fulfilled to legally terminate
the life of suffering patient:
(1) The patients situation should be regarded as incurable with no hope of recovery, and death should be
imminent;
(2) The patient must be suffering from unbearable and severe pain that cannot be relieved;
(3) The act of killing should be undertaken with the intention of alleviating the patients pain;
(4) The act should be done, only if the patient himself/herself makes an explicit request;
(5) The euthanasia should be carried out by a physician, although if that is not possible, special situations
will be admitted for receiving some other persons assistance;
(6) The euthanasia must be carried out using ethically accepted methods (Kimura 1996).1
However, in 2007, Catholic News Agency reported that the Japanese Association of Acute Medicine
issued a statement with conditions under which euthanasia can be conducted. One of them is a case (1) if a
person asked for it in writing. However, (2) if the will of a patient is unknown and the family is unable to take a
decision, a special review is done by a panel of medical doctors and a medical team will make this decision.2
Taking into the consideration the above-mentioned statements, it is very difficult to conduct euthanasia
(passive or active) in Japan, due to the absence of legal recommendations for medical personnel and patients.
Particularly, doctors are afraid of legal and social consequences of such act. The complexity of this problem
requires special attention. Let me show and elucidate the subject and objectives of this research.
2. The Subject and the Objectives

The objectum materiale of this paper are doubts and concerns existing in the worldview of Japanese
Roman Catholics in the context of euthanasia (physician-assisted suicide). There are three aspects (objectum
formale) from which this material object (doubts, concerns, and fears) will be examined, namely ethical,
religious, and psychological perspectives.
The objectives of this paper are: (1) to scrutinize the awareness and understanding of the problem of
euthanasia (people were asked about euthanasia understood as physician-assisted suicide); (2) to reveal nature,
quality of existing doubts and concerns, which arose in the mentality of selected groups of Japanese Roman
Catholics; and (3) to identify the sources and causes of doubts/anxieties and create their typology.
The group of Japanese Roman Catholics is very interesting for two main reasons. From the one point, there is
an aspect of Catholic doctrine with its requirements and obligations. And from another, there are personal
convictions and references to traditional beliefs rooted in the Japanese cultural context. The juxtaposition of
these two areas and exploration between them is very promising for understanding assimilation of bioethical
ideas (here euthanasia) in groups of Japanese Roman Catholics. Let me present the method applied in this
research.
3. The Method
This study was conducted on a group of Japanese Roman Catholics in Hokkaido prefecture (60
questionnaires). The group was large enough to observe the processes and mechanisms of assimilation
483
bioethical ideas in the local community (qualitative study). Hokkaido prefecture was chosen because of its
tradition and history of Ezo Christians. This region is also a melting pot of cultures (for example Ainu
culture) and has quite new history compared to the other parts of Japan (absorbing research object for observing
the process of value assimilation). The research group consisted of 60 people (39 women, 19 men, and 2
respondents did not disclose their gender). It is important to notice the age diversity in this group. Respondents
age is shown in table 1.
Table 1
Age and Sex of Participants
Age ranged between
18-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70-79
80 and over
Total
Males
1
3
2
1
4
5
3
19
Females
1
1
4
11
14
6
2
39
Undisclosed gender and age
The group selection criterion was the willingness to participate in this research. The study involved
devising a special questionnaire with a large number of statements on various bioethical issues (21 items).
Among them, there also was an item concerning euthanasia. The text of questionnaire was back translated into
Japanese language and the answersinto English. This paper presents only the part concerning euthanasia.
The first exercise (A) consisted of modified Likert scale answers: 1I completely agree; 2I rather
agree; and 3It is difficult for me to decide, etc.. The survey was not designed as a typical question-style one.
Instead of questions, certain statements (alternately: it ought to be done x and it ought not to be done y)
were given so that respondents could express their personal views.
The second exercise was an open-answer one. The respondents were asked to write about their
doubts/concerns (if any). This task included two incomplete sentences. The first sentence was given to indicate
the object of doubts/concerns: I have doubts about.... The second aimed to reveal the source of expressed
doubts: My doubts arise from....
The third exercise was devised to examine the value hierarchy of respondents so that possible
justifications could be given to choices in the first exercise: religious, moral, scientific, customary, aesthetic,
and utilitarian (practical) otherones own. The respondents were asked to put given justifications in
descending order of importance or at least mark what is the most important reason of their decision.
4. The Results
The results are classified in three sections consisted of exercise A (choosing), B (writing own reason), C
(choosing the justification for the answer in exercise A). Let me acquaint you with these results in detail.
4.1. The Answers in the First Exercise (A)

Respondents expressed their answers to the statement: People with terminal, painful illness ought to
have a right for euthanasia (voluntarily physician-assisted suicide) varied as follows in table 2:
484
Table 2
The Quantitative Results of Answer to Given Question about Euthanasia Using Likert Scale
I completely agree
I rather agree
19
It is difficult for me
I completely do not
I rather do not agree
Did not answer
to decide
agree
12
9
9
2
Namely, completely agree9; rather agree19; cannot decide12; rather do not agree9, completely
do not agree9, did not answer2 (and some people marked two answers). It is important to add that one
person completely agreed, however, under conditions provided in his answer. One respondent marked two
answers: I cannot decide and rather agree (which was included in two mentioned types of answers), and
two respondents did not answer.
4.2. The Answers in the Second Exercise (B)

In this part, respondents were asked to express their doubts and concerns or write their personal feelings
and remarks. Among obtained answers, the following types were distinguished:
4.2.1. Ethical Aspects

(1) Type concerning the concept of human dignity: to commit suicide or to prolong their suffering, both
conditions contravene human dignity [Thus, here for this respondent euthanasia might be understood as
something different from suicide on request and even it might have a meaning of good death];
(2) Type concerning the value of life (and the statement, that human being should not decide about it):
People should not decide about death; The definition of euthanasia is not clear. Human being does not have
a right to take away ones own life; and I chose this answer (I do not agree) because society might easily lose
value of life;
(3) Type concerning the concept of life and death of terminally ill patient: What is the concept of life and
death of terminally ill people? We should avoid of easy deciding on killing of patients and carefully consider
their situation; If a patient had no consciousness, it means that it would be extending the time of his death,
but it does not mean that he could be able to live as a human being;
(4) Type concerning money: Sustaining of life requires costs and this is also a problem.
4.2.2. Religious Aspects

(1) Gods will: If I were in such a situation, what would I do? It would be very difficult for me, but till
that time I would take an example from the Cross of Jesus Christ. God will decide about our death;
(2) Life is a gift from God: We should respect the will of a patient, but the will of family is also important.
But as Catholic believers we should not select the lives, lives which are gifts from God [Here is visible the
source of doubts on euthanasiaselecting human lives, is incompatible with the doctrine of Roman Catholic
Churchs teachinglife is a gift from Godso it should not be wasted and terminated by the will of a
person];
(3) Life belongs and does not belong to me: From the point of view that right to euthanasia should be
limited only for patients of terminal illness, and what it should be done with patient under the age in which they
cannot do self-decision?! Life is my own and Life is not my own, I think ... I think it is not normal to face to live
under hard condition;
485
4.2.3. Psychological Aspects

(1) Type concerning being a burden for the family: If it is in the case of terminal illness: I do not want
to cause trouble for family any more, I wish family to live as best as possible; Extension of life seems
unnatural;
(2) Type concerning pain: How excessive pain does he/she experience; We should live by given life.
But it is hard to live with suffering;
(3) Type concerning patients will and the will of family: I do not know what his /her lifestyle and will, is
I am thinking about the history of his/her life; It is OK in the case that patient has clear will on the paper,
written during the healthy condition, but I cannot say anything in the case that patients already does not have
[clear will]; We should respect patients will, but till that time, it might be necessary to communicate and
share value with family; We should decide (accept euthanasia) when the will of patient agrees with familys
will; It is not explained what is the will of patient and the way of its conveying. Despite the mentioned will
(and correct conveying), sometimes doctor cannot conduct euthanasia due to strong opposition of family; It
depends on whether patient show will or not; and We should decide when the will of patient agrees with
familys will;
(4) Type concerning conditions of terminal stage: The condition of terminal illness is not clear. For and
against depends on individual cases. For instance, if patents cannot move at all and is sustained by mechanical
breathing system, I would be perfectly for [euthanasia]; What period of time is terminal?;
(5) Type referring to the patients (health) condition, life situation: It depends on what is the condition of
a patient; The terminal illness does not have the same conditions (there are different conditions in terminal
illnesses. Each person has different conditions (surroundings); Everyone has different life, I cannot decide;
What is the condition of terminally ill patient? There are two cases: (1) when a patient is conscious and (2)
when a patient does not have consciousness (for example due to schizophrenia); and For or against
euthanasia depends on level of terminal illness;
(6) Type concerning unclear definition of euthanasia, and mixed feelings: I do not know much about
euthanasia. I have mixed feelings; The choice of euthanasia is some kind of right, but in Japan the definition
of euthanasia is not clarified. In some cases, medical doctor conducted euthanasia and was accused of crime;
(7) Type concerning the fact of lack of knowledge about euthanasia: Euthanasia it means suicide, isnt
it?; Euthanasia it means killing by some medicine or injection, isnt it? Does it mean liberation from the
unnatural sustaining of life (is it so-called death with dignitySongenshi)? Now, I am answering in the first
meaning (killing).
4.3. The Answers in the Third Exercise (C)

Respondents were asked to create the ranking of their justifications (quite a significant diversity) (table 3).
Table 3
Justifications of Answers Given by Respondents (How Do You Justify Your Answer?)
Religious
27
Moral
17
Scientific
3
Customary
3
Aesthetic
1
Utilitarian(practical)
5
Other
Various
486
In the free space other, respondents expressed their remarks, comments, and personal justifications: We
[should] respect their own will; It would be easier to answer on the certain example; My dog had cancer.
We were thinking about euthanasia, but it is good to accept the situation that we could see him till his last days;
From my own choice, I do not hesitate; I hesitated whether to answer completely agree; I hesitate to
accept euthanasia; Let us respect their will; I told my family not to extend my life;
Two people marked other justifications without writing them in explicit way. One person stated that
except for the religious reason, he has no any other justifications.
4.4. The Summary of Three Levels of the Results

In the first level of answers to the problem on euthanasia (physician-assisted suicide) in the group of
Catholics showed the tendency of rather agree to having such a right (19 people rather agree and nine
people completely agree). In the second level of an open-style exercise, where various kinds of
doubts/concerns were revealed, the main six types were distinguished (parent types, excluding subtypes),
namely: (1) type concerning the patients condition (physical, mental, social, financial, etc.) [the subject of
doubts]; (2) type concerning the concept of human dignity [the source of doubts]; (3) type concerning the lack
of knowledge; [the source of doubts]; (4) type concerning the family and patients will [the subject of doubts];
(5) type concerning the religious point of view (to the Catholic doctrine and to the teaching of Jesus Christ) [the
source of doubts]; and (6) type concerning the value of life [the source of doubts]. The doubt related to this
statement was the general anxiety. Additionally, some people confused the concept of euthanasia (good
death) and death with dignity (also included the thought that a patient does not want to make a
troublemental and financialto his/her family).
In the third level of justifications of their answers to the exercise A (why did you answer like that to the
part A, please write, at least, the most important reason). As a justification number one in the group of Japanese
Roman Catholics, it was chosen: moral justification (27) and religious justification (17). It must be underlined
that the justifications enumerated in the questionnaire were subject to free choice of the respondents, which also
means that some of the justifications could be absolutely omitted (not taken for the consideration) and new
justification could be added. After summarizing of obtained results, let me proceed to analysis.
5. Analysis of Concerns
People with terminal and painful illness ought to have a right for euthanasia (voluntarily
physician-assisted suicide). This statement brought a lot of various opinions, remarks, and concerns. I will
analyze the main types of them.
The first type of concern is associated with patients condition. The decision about euthanasia depends on
external factors. One of them is pain. Respondents say that we should live by given life. But it is hard to live
with suffering; and they also want to know: How excessive pain does he/she experience. According to these
opinions, this problem should be resolved by proper administration of pain killers, which can effectively relieve
patients pain. It is very essential to remember that pain control is one of the most important elements of the
subjective feeling of patients quality of life.
The next element is the health condition of terminally ill patient. Respondents mentioned that the
terminal illness does not have the same conditions and the opinion for or against euthanasia depends on level
of terminal illness. The health conditions differ from patient to patient and might be rapidly changed like
487
sinusoid. Therefore, it is very difficult to decide about euthanasia on the basis of such changeable (unstable)
factor. Another aspect of health conditions is the matter of consciousness and the possibility of taking
conscious decisions. Some respondents mentioned: What is the condition of terminally ill patient? and
distinguished: There are two cases: (1) when a patient is conscious; and (2) when a patient does not have
consciousness (for example due to schizophrenia). This respondent draws attention to the fact that in the
situation of terminal illness, it is very crucial to be able to take conscious and autonomous decision.
One more point in this type is the fact that the concept of terminal illness is not clear itself, as it was
mentioned by one respondent: the condition of terminal illness is not clear. For or against depends on
individual cases. For instance, if patents cannot move at all and is sustained by mechanical breathing system, I
would be perfectly for [euthanasia]. This shows that the concepts of autonomy, autonomous decision, and
autonomic life start to be present in the Japanese way of thinking about the conditions of life and death of
terminally ill patient.
At the end of this type, it is essential to note that financial situation is also an important condition, as it
was noted by some respondent: sustaining of life requires costs and this is also a problem. All of
aforementioned concerns can be classified as external decision factors.
The second type related to the concept of human dignity. One respondent mentioned that: people in
terminal illness have two choices: to commit suicide or to prolong their suffering, both conditions contravene
human dignity. This is very worrying concern. It shows that there are only two ways from the terminal illness
and both contravene human dignity. Respondent considers euthanasia (in questionnaire explained as
physician-assisted suicide) as a kind of suicidal act. And the second wayprolonging of patients sufferings
also seems to be morally reprehensible. What can we do with this impasse of terminal illness to protect human
dignity? This essential question will be the subject of study in the community of Japanese Roman Catholics
during the next research. However, it is essential to keep in mind that the concept of human dignity is an
internal decision factor.
The third type of concern is related to the lack of knowledge. Respondents were not sure about the
meaning of the word euthanasia and terminal stage. For instance some respondent asked: what period of
time is terminal? and other people wanted to be sure: euthanasia, it means suicide, isnt it? and whether
euthanasia it means killing by some medicine or injection, isnt it? Does it mean liberation from the unnatural
sustaining of life (is it so-called death with dignitySongenshi)? Now I am answering in the first meaning
(killing). One person claimed that the legal situation of euthanasia in Japan is not clear (The choice of
euthanasia is some kind of right, but in Japan the definition of euthanasia is not clarified. In some cases,
medical doctor conducted euthanasia and was accused of crime).
The mentioned quotations confirm that the definition, aim, method, and procedures of euthanasia (in
questionnaire explained as physician-assisted suicide) are still unclear for many laypeople in Japan. And this is
the main source of their doubts and misunderstandings. Without knowledge about the meaning of euthanasia
(and the types of euthanasia: passive, active, physician assisted-suicide), they cannot take fully conscious
decision concerning it.
The fourth type of concern is connected to the patients and familys will. Some respondent gives a hint
that it is acceptable under a conscious, autonomous, and written decision taken well in advance: It is OK in the
case that patient has clear will on the paper, written during the healthy condition, but I cannot say anything in
the case that patients already does not have [clear will]. Other respondents note that not only patients will but
488
also his or her familys will is essential: we should respect patients will, but till that time, it might be
necessary to communicate and share value with family; and we should decide (accept euthanasia) when the
will of patient agrees with familys will. Another respondent expressed his opinion in a very clear way that:
we should decide when the will of patient agrees with familys will. These answers point out that it is
essential to reach consensus between patient and his family. This should be done well in advance (before
illness) if possible.
The fifth type of concern is linked to the religious point of view. In this type, three elements are very
crucial. One is the following of the Gods will (not the will of family, not own will), which was expressed by
the respondent: If I were in such a situation, what would I do? It would be very difficult for me, but till that
time, I would take an example from the Cross of Jesus Christ. God will decide about our death. This is an
example of ceding our decision to some external source (God). The second element is the thought that life is a
gift from God: We should respect the will of a patient, but the will of family is also important. But, as Catholic
believers, we should not select the lives, lives which are gifts from God. This statement expresses the reason
against the euthanasia: people should not select human lives, because they are gift from God. Therefore, it
cannot be easily selected and judged as worth or worthless living. This judgment cannot be done neither by
third persons nor by patients themselves. The main reason for protecting human lives, from the beginning till
the natural death, is the fact of being a gift from God. This conviction is an internal and unchangeable decisive
factor. The third element in the concern related to religious point of view is the idea of the lifes ownership. One
respondent draws attention to this matter: Life is my own and Life is not my own, I think ... I think it is not
normal to face to live under hard condition. This thought is a very essential source of doubts. Moreover, it
draws attention to the discussion about the ownership of our biological and spiritual lives. Decision is not only
my, autonomous act, not only the result of the consensus with my family, but it should depend on something,
which is transcendent to this reality. In the researched community of Roman Catholics, here is the place for
God. And this conviction is also an internal and unchangeable decisive factor.
The last type of concern refers to the value of life (and death). Human life itself has a very special and
significant value and that is why some respondents mentioned that: people should not decide about death,
moreover, other person stated that: the definition of euthanasia is not clear. Human being does not have a right
to take away ones own life. The essential moral message from these opinions is that people should not decide
about ones own death (should not terminate it easily). Why people should not do this? The answer is given by
another respondent: I chose this answer (I do not agree) because society might easily lose value of life. Life
might easily lose its value. This thought is one of the crucial arguments against euthanasia given by researched
community. At the end of this type, it is necessary to quote some respondent who openly stated that: What the
concept of live and death of terminally ill people? We should avoid of easy deciding on killing of patients and
carefully consider their situation. This respondent is against the process of devaluating of human life. Life
terminationeuthanasiamight significantly contribute to progress of this process. Value of life is an internal
and unchangeable decisive factor. Taking for consideration the above analysis, let me show the main discussion
points.
6. Discussion Points
The problem given for consideration in this research encompassed a very difficult dilemma regarding
euthanasia (physician-assisted suicide). From the one side, there is a terminal and painful illness of a patient
489
(who has no hope for recovery) and the implicit question: should she/he continue this life condemned to
pain; life which quality gradually decreases? However, from the other side, there are concerns: can person
decide about the moment of the end of his/her own life? and should we accept the voluntary termination of
such a painful and hopeless life? These questions posed many inner conflicts and contradictions in the
worldview of the researched group of Japanese Roman Catholics.
The research group of Catholic believers rather agreed to accept euthanasia (mainly from the moral
reason). This is quite puzzling finding, particularly, if I compare this result with another item (not presented
here) of my questionnaire concerning the right to decide about the way of ones own death. For the problem
whether person has a right to decide about ones own death the group of Japanese Roman Catholics
expressed the answer completely do not agree for the religious reason. The main discussion point here is why
there is such a big difference between their answers?
One of the hypothetical interpretations is that, the concept of euthanasia seems to be mixed with another
concept, namely death with dignity. This shows that the concept, aim, method, and procedures of euthanasia
should be explained to laypeople.
The essential discussing point is the question of life ownership. To whom does human life belong
according to Japanese Roman Catholics? Is it gift from God, is it familial property or is it ones own
autonomous possession?
The group of Japanese Roman Catholics strongly referred to the moral and religious justifications. In this
context, conflict in the worldview (Catholic belief and traditional one) is more visible. The inner conflict is
revealed between accepting such a right (for bringing relief to patient and his/her family) from the one side and
aversion towards active interfering with the area, which belongs to God (or family), from the other side.
These points have to be discussed in details.
7. Conceptual Debate on Moral Motivation and Conflict of Values

It might be helpful to understand the mentioned inner conflict when we look into the conceptual debate on
moral motivation in the philosophical literature. What are the reasons for acting in a moral way? Velleman
suggests rejecting the question whether reason do or do not depend on agents inclinations (such as his desires
or disposition to desire) (Velleman 2000, 171). He consequently claims that an agents inclinations determine,
not what he has reason for doing, but whether he is rational in his response to the reason he has (2000, 172).
Velleman claims that when desire and belief motivate behavior, they exert the influence of reasons (2000, 197)
and furthermore, that even desire-based reasons for acting derive their influence from an inclination other than
the desires on which they have based (2000, 198), and that the same influence is available to considerations that
are not based on desires at all (2000, 199). In conclusion, Velleman states that the reasons for action should not
be classified as external or internal, since they do not conform to the assumptions underwriting the use of these
terms [.] The inclination that makes one susceptible to a reason for acting is just the inclination that makes
one an agent (2000, 199). Krosgaard supports this thought and says: being a rational agent entails having
various motives, including a preference for ones own greater good (Krosgaard 1986). Krosgaard claims that
reflection gives us a kind of distance from our impulses, which both forces us, and enables us, to make laws for
ourselves and it makes our laws normative [] and identity, which stands behind the others: our identity as
human being [] to treat our human identity as normative, as source of reasons and obligations [] moral
identity (Krosgaard 1996, 129), which is inescapable (1996, 130). Krosgaard concludes that we have an
490
authority over ourselves, we can make laws for ourselves, and those laws will be normative (and) she agrees
with Kant that autonomy is the source of obligation (1996, 129, 165).
In the case of this research on Japanese Catholics regarding euthanasia, we also refer to the human
autonomy as the source of normativity. Most of respondents answered that the final decision depends on the
patients will. The human nature with all elements, included life and death, creates the basis of moral identity
and forces us to take a stand in our action. What helps us to do this are certain values, which people try to
pursue. A very crucial part of this research is the value conflict between the Catholic doctrine and traditional
Japanese view. This conflict between values can be articulated in terms of first order and higher orders desire.
The theory of first and second-order desires formulated by Frankfurt says that not only human beings are
having desires and motives, but only humans are able to form second order desires, in other words, to evaluate
their desires and regard some as desirable and others as undesirable (Frankfurt 1971). Taylor also agrees with
this point, however, he goes further and distinguishes two kinds of evaluations of desires: (1) weak evaluation,
which is concerned with outcomes, and never with desires (and for something to be judged good it is sufficient
that it be desired; and (2) strong evaluation where there is also a use of a term good for which being desired is
not sufficient (Taylor 1985, 18). Taylor explains that this radical evaluation is a deep reflection (like in
Korsgaard work) and a self reflection in a special sense: it is a reflection about the self, its most fundamental
issues, and reflection which engages the self most wholly and deeply [] it can be called a personal reflection
(1985, 42). Taking all of these remarks into consideration, we can reconsider the problem of euthanasia in terms
of value conflict. From one side, there are immediate desires (pragmatic values), which tempt terminally-ill
patients to hasten the death in the face of unbearable physical and mental pain. From the other side, there are
the second-order desires with strong evaluation and the process of personal reflection, referring to the deepest
self of human and moral identity which are calling to being against euthanasia (moral and religious values, for
example the value of afterlife).
In traditional view, Japanese people believe in mind-body unity, which will be continued also after death,
however, in a different form (transformation from the old body to new body during the funeral) (Namihira
1997, 61-69). The soul will be worshipped as so-called ancestral deity. The moment of deathseparation
from old body is crucial and should be natural, because it is believed that it will determine the wander of
the soul to the Pure Land. The soul of a dead person can be deified regardless the result from euthanasia and
suicide, when the dying process is natural, brave, virtuous, or meaningful (Becker, 1990).
Thus, people are driven by two contradictory desires: to terminate the life or to keep the natural process
of dying. It is very remarkable to observe the value conflict between Catholic belief (life is a value, gift from
the God and we cannot terminate it, because except of worldly life, there is also afterlife) and traditional
Japanese view (euthanasia permissible under the previously mentioned conditions) and personal convictions (it
is better to terminate own life than being a burden for the family). Here, the first and the second order desires
and the mentioned values are in conflict. They are difficult to live by when acting on immediate desires.
One important cue given by Taylor is that subject-referring feelings are the basis of our understanding of
what it is to be human and that these feelings are constituted by the articulations (interpretations) we come to
accept of them (Taylor 1985, 76). The second is given by Railton that nothing is good or bad unless it can
matter to someone, and that is then good or bad specifically for him (Railton 1986). In this research
self-referring feelings, which matter to respondents is the value of life (worldly life). This value is undermined
by hard conditions associated with terminal illness. People who are for euthanasia want to bring relief from all
491
kinds of pain. The question is: if we had possibility to remove the hardest conditions (sufficient control of
physical, psychological, and spiritual pain), could the value conflict be resolved? There is a well known truism
that human worldly life is limited and full of both happiness and sufferings, which we have to accept. However,
before accepting, we have to stop and fully engage in profound understanding of conditions and consequences
of alternative choices (personal reflection), evaluate them (strong evaluation), articulate in our human language
the conflict of values, and then decide which values are consistent with our identity as a human moral agent. In
the research group of Japanese Roman Catholics, the process of observation has stopped at the value conflict
stage. Further, observations are needed.
8. Conclusion
In conclusion, on the basis of provided data, there are some grounds to claim that the term of euthanasia
(physician-assisted suicide) is still not clear for most of respondents. Thus, it seems to be difficult for them to
make a fully informed, free, and voluntary decision on this matter. We can also observe that there is a conflict
in moral values, which was explained by the theory of first and second-order desires (Taylor, Frankfurt).
Finally, it is the time to map out of further investigation. It is necessary to examine: (1) what is the relation
between personal will and the sense of moral (and religious) obligation; (2) what is the regulative role and
functions of moral emotions (anticipated regret, helplessness, hope) in ethical reasoning and justification in the
case of euthanasia; and (3) what kind of rights/ privileges should be assured within a system of palliative care
in Japan (hospital based-hospice and home-based).
Notes
1. December 22 1962, Nagoya high Court, Collected Criminal Cases at high Court, Vol. 15, No. 9, 674 (see Kimura 1996).
2. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/japan_medical_association_approves_euthanasia/.
Works Cited
Becker, Carl Bradley. Buddhist Views of Suicide and Euthanasia. Philosophy East and West 40 (1990): 543-56.
Frankfurt, Harry. Freedom of the Will and the Concept of the Person. Journal of Philosophy 68.1 (1971): 5-20.
Kimura, Rihito. Death and Dying in Japan. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 6.4 (1996): 374-378.
Krosgaard, Christine. Skepticism about Practical Reason. The Journal of Philosophy 83.1 (1986): 5-27.
---. The Sources of Normativity. New York: Cambridge UP, 1996.
Nagoya High Court. Collected Criminal Cases at High Court. 22 Dec. 1962. Death and Dying in Japan (1996): 674.
Namihira, Emiko. The Characteristics of Japanese Concepts and Attitudes with regard to Human Remains. Japanese and
Western Bioethics. Ed. K. Hoshino. Dordrecht/ Boston/London: Kluwer Academic, 1997. 61-69.
Railton, Peter. Facts and Values. Philosophical Topics 14 (1986): 5-31.
Tanida, Noritoshi. Implications of Japanese Religious Views toward Life and Death in Medicine. Eubios Ethics Institute.
<http://www.eubios.info/ABC4/abc4288.htm>
Taylor, Charles. Human Agency and Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985.
Velleman, J. David. The Possibility of Practical Reason. New York: Oxford UP, 2000.

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 492-505
DAVID
PUBLISHING
The One Who Has Left the Bildung Friedrich Nietzsches

Philological Turn as a Catastrophe
Kristf Fenyvesi
University of Jyvskyl
Bildung, a western cultural ideal, which fundamentally can be traced back to biblical connotations, but is also
rich in Platonic elements from the history of hermeneutics, reached its culmination point by the 19th century. As
the vast superstructure of western erudition, it has acquired the rank of the sole discursive and epistemic
normativity, which has defined not only its own system, i.e., education in its narrow sense, but also the criteria
of scientific assertions. Since the basis of Bildung was formed by the variations of classical erudition changing
by every era, so in the Age of Bildung the defining epistemological and methodological pattern, which
determined it from a discursive, and at the same time, an epistemological point of view, was meant by classical
philology. As a classical philologist Friedrich Nietzsche was among the first to point out the inseparable
connection between rhetoric, interpretation, and epistemology. Nietzsche, as against the monolithic tradition of
Bildung, developed a set of aspects of subversive criticism of science, so his surpassing of the nineteenth century
academic philology and renewal of it as a kind of cultural hermeneutics walk hand in hand. Nietzschean
philology, first and foremost, has to be adapted for revaluing its scientific statements from the aspect of art, i.e.,
aesthetical sensitivity, which has to be reassessed from viewpoint of effects on life as active potential. The
claims of Nietzsche are so comprehensive that the notion of morality defined by Bildung, as well as the ethical
system of Bildung, the sole sense of morality is questioned, and his issues are extended over the methodological
basis of Bildung considered as normative. However, he does not use such a method of interpretation that, to a
certain extent, would not have been known and used by the philology of the Bildungs scientific ideal. With the
difference that the Nietzschean critical practice does not have respect for the borders defining homologous
structures but, by implementing transgressive tactics, it claims the authority of these borders. In my article, I
show how the Nietzschean propositions for the methodological reform of classical philology did set the stage for
Nietzsches later critical comments, now purely on the philosophy of science, and I analyse the multifold
consequences of the concept of the Nietzschean philology as an existential science, which was aimed to
de(con)struct the concept of Bildung.
Keywords: Nietzsche, Bildung, classical philology, epistemology, criticism of science, interpretation
A short version of this paper was presented at Nietzsches Wissenschafts philosophie Internationale Konferenz an der
Technischen Universitt Berlin, July 18, 2010. Thanks to Helmut Heit, Rainer J. Hanshe, Gary Shapiro, Tuomo Lahdelma, Beta
Thomka, Joln Orbn and Gyrgy Tverdota for their support.
Kristf Fenyvesi, Ph.D., Researcher of Contemporary Culture, Department of Art and Culture Studies, Faculty of Humanities,
University of Jyvskyl, Finland; main research fields: Contemporary Culture Studies; Nietzsche Studies; Body Studies;
Epistemology of Classical Philology; Interdisciplinarity; Art and Science Connections; and Experience-centred Education of
Mathematics through Arts and Playful Activities. Email: fenyvesi.kristof@gmail.com.
THE BILDUNG FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHES PHILOLOGICAL TURN AS A CATASTROPHE
493
People in general think that philology is at an endwhile I believe that it has not yet begun.1
Friedrich Nietzsche (1911, 120)
1. The Bildung and Its Enemies

The so-called Bildung, a Western cultural ideal, which can be traced back to Platonic elements, but is also
rich in biblical connotations from the history of hermeneutics, reached its culmination point by the 19th
century. 2 As the vast superstructure of Western eruditiona megamachine 3 accomplishing entirely the
anthropological and cultural interconnections of institutionalization, hermeneutics, epistemology, ethics, and
life, it has acquired the rank of the sole discursive and epistemic normativity, which has defined not only its
own system, that is education in its narrow sense, but also the criteria of scientific assertions. Since the basis of
Bildung was formed by the different variations of classical erudition, so in the so-called Age of Bildung the
defining epistemological and methodological pattern, which determined it from a discursive and, at the same
time, an epistemological point of view, was meant by classical philology.
Friedrich Nietzsches proposals for the criticism of classical philology and the reinterpretation of antiquity
are linked in many ways to the criticism of modern cultural myths and the criticism of scientific
epistemological tradition as inaugurated by Nietzsches thought. This is also one reason why Nietzsches
thoughts had a decisive impact on many 20th-century thinkersconfronting the crisis of the idea and
institutional system of Bildung. It is well known that at the age of 24as one of the youngest nominees even
until nowNietzsche had become a professor of classical philology at the prestigious Basel University without
a teachers diploma or a doctoral dissertation, but purely on the grounds of his scientific work. Even though he
had to take longer and longer pauses in his educational activities on behalf of his worsening state of health, he
was an active lecturer of classical philology for almost an entire decade.
However, Nietzsches professorship of classical philology as a biographical fact often appeared in the
Nietzsche discourse as a somewhat bizarre part of his Basel era (1869-1879), a circumstance hindering the
emergence of an independent thinker, and mostly in connection with The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsches first
major work. All of Nietzsches classical philological researches and writings, if their own value justified their
notation or in some cases their detailed analysis, the discussion of all, except a few, served the discursive role of
deepening some aspects of The Birth of Tragedy. In the beginning of Nietzsche studies, barely any attempts
were made at answering the questions about: (1) how Nietzsches early classical philological activities
influenced the development of classical philology as a discipline, and the methodological and factual
knowledge of its part- and co-sciences; and (2) how Nietzsches very advanced classical education and early
discoveries influenced his later thinking after the Basel era. The early 20th century movements urging a reform
of classical philology did insist that attention be given to the characteristics of this early stage of Nietzsches
work, and from time to time, a study presenting a detail appeared in the emerging Nietzsche discourse4;
however, the effects of Nietzsche being a classical philologist on his whole oeuvre have only just become a key
field of research in Nietzsche studies in recent years.
American classical philologist James I. Porter has played a key role in the rediscovery of the
classical-philologist Nietzsche, with his systematic and deep-analyses in his articles and books on Nietzsches
early writings and notes in connection with classical studies. Porter convincingly argues about how Nietzsches
classical studies, his research, discoveries, and extensive plans on the field, guided Nietzsche throughout his
entire oeuvre. That is why Nietzsches whole philosophical and literary work cannot be analysed, and his main
494
views cannot be presented, without thorough analysis of his early classical philological corpus. Porter (2000),
in his papers and his book Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future starts from the fact that whether or not we
attempt to analyse Nietzsche as a purely classicist scholar and thinker, or as purely a philosopher, both
approaches can easily lead to misunderstandings. During the development of the Nietzsche-discourse,
numerous misinterpretations emerged from the fact that the history of philosophy had a tendency over a long
period of time to regard Nietzsches classical philological activities as a secondary fact and to present the
Nietzschean oeuvre, as if it had begun with The Birth of Tragedy.... A reason for this imbalance in views could
be that most of Nietzsches classical philological writings and notes had not been published during Nietzsches
life, thus shadowing the documents of Nietzsches classical studies on behalf of the authorized philosophical
writings. However, the three thick volumes of the complete critical edition of Nietzsches works, which
contains his classical philological writings, supports the opinion that The Birth of Tragedywithout
questioning its importanceshould not be regarded as the beginning of Nietzsches oeuvre, but rather as part of
a train of thought being formed for years before, or even more as a document of a turning point in Nietzsches
thinking. Even from a chronological point of view, The Birth of Tragedy (1872) stands in the middle of
Nietzsches lifetime! From the view of the history of Nietzsches ideas, it bears the obvious marks of his
classical philological obsession, and the philosophic dilemmas pinioned between the influences of
Schopenhauer and Wagner, thus it can be analyzed as an intermediate discursive field in Nietzsches early work.
The Birth of Tragedy even condenses in itself what Nietzsche needs to leave behind to be able to use a more
independent, unmistakable and original voice in the future.
It is obvious for readers familiar with both the early and the late Nietzsche that despite the fact that he left
behind classical philology as some kinds of lagoon of his thinking, he did not abandon his classical
philological grounding. Greek and Roman culture were of the same importance to him in 1868 as they were in
1888. It can be shown through textual evidence that even in the development of his mature philosophic
concepts Nietzsche often reaches back to his early philological notebooks and studies. As Porter also highlights,
the young Nietzsche was a man of plans and projects: a crowd of sketches, study plans, unfinished essays,
course and lecture plans, and experimenting concepts in the most varied subjectsfrom the theory of antique
metre, going through Homers and Hesiods studies, up to educational and methodological reflectionsfollow
each other in his early notebooks. A respectful part of the materials of his Untimely Meditations and numerous
thoughts from Human, All Too Human originate in this corpus. As a common characteristic of the divergent
directions of plans and ideas, a sort of anthropological interest and an extensive critical attitude appear in an
ever more characteristic tone can be grasped by the astute reader of the early texts. Noting this, Porter classifies
Nietzsches philological practice as both an anthropological and culture-critical philology. The core of
Nietzsches criticism was the criticism of the image of antiquity presented by the classical philology of his time,
what, according to Nietzsche, was too timely, too contemporary, in a negative sense. In Nietzsches view, the
antiquity images of his time were much more reflecting the era when they emerged than antiquity. Nietzsche
called his own discipline to account and wanted to make classical philologists realize that the message of
antiquity cannot be timely or up to date, even more than genuinely leading back to antiquityon behalf of the
radical differences between antiquity and the present timemakes things downright untimely. To resolve this
dilemma, Nietzsche suggested a revolutionary philology that could, at given circumstances, work even against
its own pre-assumptions. As a basis of the new philology, Nietzsche suggested an epistemological change that
is which skipped over his eras epistemological-theoretical boundaries, and does not rely on the values (that
495
cannot be separated from the days influence) of faith, logic, and morals to create its own concept of antiquity,
but on merciless psychological and cultural-ideological analysis which keeps a distance to corrupted social
institutions. This process makes community constructions embedded into actual culture a subject of critical, in
some cases self-critical, analysis parallel to creating the new image of antiquity. We witness the emergence of a
new perspective of Nietzsches originating from this view, which was able to show a connection between the
philologicalthat means textual and interpretational normsand governing philosophical and epistemological
practices of given times. Nietzsche planned a study on this subject with the title History of Literary Studies in
Antiquity and Modernity. This plan can be viewed as one of the first examples of literary-theoretical interest in
todays sense. It also must not be forgotten that, by suggesting the fusion of philology and philosophy,
Nietzsche attempted bridging two fields that did not appear in the same educational matrix or curricula in his
time. It is just natural that this radical change was bearing numerous unforeseeable cultural risks, and it was
affecting epistemological bases and interpretational practices and met the most definite resistance from Ulrich
von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, later a leading scholar of European classical philology, and propagator of the
concept philologia perennis during his complete classical-philological career. This resistance against
Nietzsches philological and philosophical experiment, gained further traction among the students of
Wilamowitz, who defined the main thrust of the 20th-century classical philology.
While talking about Nietzsches philological research, it pays to mention some of the subjects that mostly
occupied Nietzsche during this period. Contrary to Aristotle, honoured as father and ideal of all foundational
thoughts and the logic of classical philological research in Nietzsches time, Nietzsche found himself another
philosopher, even though Socrates contemporary, yet still marked as a Presocratic: Democritus. According to a
tradition as accepted today, Democritus did not only engage himself with cosmology as a creator of atom theory,
but also through questions concerning the analysis of hidden components of physical reality (forms of nature
and atoms), their effects on the phenomenal world (sensing, vision, and epistemology), discreet fields of
scientific thought (medicine, physiology, biology, and mathematics), and cultural phenomena (religion, ethics,
language, and art). Nietzsches Democritus Studies were supplemented by the acute analysis of the sceptical
tradition and research on Greek materialism and the intensive effect of its modern interpretation, mostly those
fascinated by the investigations of Friedrich Albert Lange (cf. Stack 1983). The peculiarity of Nietzsches
recognitions is caused by the fact that Nietzsche did not stop at the philosophical-historical development of his
discoveries, but he tried to utilize all knowledge and all assumptions to criticize the methodology of his ages
classical philology and to develop a new classical philological concept. Besides conceptualizing philological
operations as a critical activity, Nietzsches studies carried him in the direction of developing some new sort of
sensualism. The hypothetical style of Democritian philosophizing and the Democritian practice of
argumentation, based on analogies and the often incidental and improvisational combination of analogies,
which means a heuristic model of research, proved to be norm-breaking within the epistemological framework
of classical Bildung and also received increasingly more attention within Nietzsches classical philological
practice. All of this was joined by an intensive poetical interest and sensibilitymarks that Nietzsche found
completely missing from his times classical-philological research, and therefore, developed them with
increasing purposefulness and intensity, opposing Bildungs philological practice, resting on classical
Aristotelian grounds. Within Nietzsches classical-philological practice, the philological study of literature
became connectible with research leading to poetic-aesthetic statements, and horribile dictu, even with fields
496
like studying nature, or physiological questions, through this epistemological change affecting the basis of
interpretation techniques.
Nietzsches research methodsmainly because of bringing the analogical argumentation patterns into the
foregroundbecame, in some ways, similar to poetical activity, allowing the analysis of relations, targeting
psychological dimensions, to gain field. The uniqueness of Nietzsches approach and its psychological basis is
visible in the fact that his study Homer and Classical Philology, his professorial inaugural lecture in Basel, was
originally titled On Homers Personality. Another illuminating example of this fact is that Nietzsche saw an
ethical teaching deep within the Democritian theory of atoms; moreover, the outlines of a kind of ethics that
bears aesthetic content in the concepts of texture, tonality, and modality, and by which the poetic potential of
the Democritean atomistic standpoint developed relevant questions requiring analysis. This unique perspective
connecting materialism with intellectual content through the sensus, carried Nietzsche in a direction of
composing assumptions that are probably only appreciable and evaluable through todays cognitive research,
like: the analysis of the physiologic relations of aesthetic phenomena; the study of correlations between
aesthetic experience and the body state; atomistic views of language; atomistic interpretations of rhythmics in
the unity of language, dance, and music (see LaMothe 2006; Babich 2005);5 bodily characteristics of rhythmics
from pulse throughout the physiology of rhythm up until philosophical interpretations of rhythm; describability
of quantitative measures of aesthetic states, and so on.... When Nietzsche wrote in Ecce Homo that his genius
was in his nostrils, if half-amusing or partly-comical, he was also dead serious, and it is a statement which
represents a certain new epistemological truth grounded in his re-conceptualization of epistemology (cf. Hanshe
2013). In that is the overturning of the Platonic-Christian heritage and the inauguration of Nietzsches
far-seeing holistic conception of philosophy and life, which is figured most dramatically in his agonistic
polarity of Dionysos versus the Crucified.
Parallel to the ever-deeper analysis of these questions and the new fields that would join them, Nietzsche
began to engage himself with the study of personal and social motivations that informed classical philological
activity. He revealed many methodological, historical, cultural, and psychological paradoxes. The importance
of these cannot be overestimated, because the study of classics, that is classical philological studies, has set the
cornerstones of classical Bildung, the educational ideal of the 19th-century Germany, and the whole German
educational system in Nietzsches time was based upon it. The inspiration for the system of Bildung was given
by the works of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768), the development of the superstructure and
institutionalization was done by Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835), classical humanist philosopher, polymath,
and pedagogical expert.
Nietzsche showed in his sceptical epistemological analysis of the classical image of the Greeks, combined
with psychological criticism, that the utilization of the Aristotelian principle of non-contradiction in connection
with the images on Greek culture generated by classical philology, led to significant distortions. As a result of
this, somewhere deep beneath the education founded upon the falsified image of Greek culture, a necessary
deception was hidden, of which in fact every professional master of classical philology was aware, but would
never admit. The paradox characterizing the idealistic systems, the logic of disavowal, succeeds within this
mechanism too. According to Nietzsche, because of the image created of the classic age was entirely a
construction of modernity, classicism too can be interpreted as a symptom of modern culture suffering an
identity crisis: far more an accomplice of modernity than its corrector. Antiquity is a blind spot, around which
497
modernity constructs itself. Knowing this, Nietzsche emphasized the use and abuse of history rather than
referring to its factual or essential contents, and marked invention as the key element of research rather
than the ideal of historic reconstruction. He defined this specific invention, above all, as an aesthetic operation,
too. By stating this Nietzsche set a requirementin fact an impossible one in his timefor the scholars of his
own discipline; classical philologists shall confess that the images of antiquity propagated by them are nothing
but aesthetic illusions. Above all of this, he encouraged his colleagues and students to advance and enhance
their aesthetic sensibility, their sensus, in order to recognize and implement this. Because one cannot talk about
antiquity-in-itself (an sich), according to Nietzsche, classical philology had to turn to the study of images of
desire in this respect. If classical philology wants to regain its authenticity and cultural productivity, it has to
present antiquity like some sort of anachronism.
After all this, the question arises: what was Nietzsches image of antiquity like? Porter convincingly
argues for Nietzsche in fact did not had a definite image of antiquity, but sustained several contradictory
narratives in his classical-philological writings. He actually accepted numerous premises of the ideology of
classicism, but he used them to map the philosophical thoughts underlying them, and the creation of subversive
interpretations. That is, he conceived illuminating aesthetical inventions and brought them into play on the
grounds of the premises of classicism, in the spirit of the philological practice he suggested. In this, he
diagnosed classicism as idealism itself and the myths creating classicism inclusive, calling for attention to both
the attractive force of these myths and their mode of operation as well: for all the fantastic visions out of which
they emerged, and the structural contradictions hidden within them.
Nietzsches aesthetic inventionalism as his classical-philological method might be the explanation for
the fact that even though he mercilessly castigates the classicist non-contradictory antiquity concepts, he does
highly value their basic points of referencesuch as Winckelmanns oeuvreand acknowledges them in
numerous respects. The understanding of this complex relationship between Nietzsche and classicism requires
complex analysis, which is not possible in the framework of this article. It might be sufficient to refer to Paul
Bishops (2004) Nietzsche and Antiquity as well as Sndor Radntis (2010) recently published
Winckelmann-monograph.6 The goal of Radntis monograph is to apprehend the revolution of autopsy that is
the dramatic movements emerging from the direct examination of ancient pieces of art, as a general change in
culture, within Winckelmanns discoveries (cf. Radnti 2006; 2010, 128-130). Although Nietzsche did not
follow Winckelmanns example in visiting original remains of antiquity and did not leave his final conclusions
on Winckelmanns aesthetics without sharp criticism, he valued the novelty of Winckelmanns relation to
antiquity and the ground-breaking nature of his approach. It is also worth noting that when describing his
poetical vision of Hellenism, Nietzsches interpretations and descriptions often exceeded those of
Winckelmanns.
On this complex base, as an exceptional philologist, Friedrich Nietzsche was among the first to point out
radically the inseparable connection between rhetoric, interpretation, epistemology, morality, religion, and
corporeality. This recognition, described by the means of philology and developed within the domain of it, was
his main motivation to reveal the meta-scientific, and simultaneously, the cultural scandal of domination
established and maintained by Bildungs homologous hermeneutical practice. Nietzsche, as against the
monolithic tradition of Bildung (Thompson 2005), developed a set of aspects of subversive criticism of culture
and science, so his surpassing of the 19th century academic philology and his renewal of it as a kind of cultural
hermeneutics then walks hand in hand.
498
2. Nietzsche and Classical Philology

Nietzsches first motive in the decisive change of his viewpoint and scholarly interest from the pure
classical philological research towards the philosophical and epistemological background of classical philology
is the recognition of the characteristic heterogeneity of classical philology as a discipline in his Homer and
Classical Philology (inaugural speech held at the Basel University in 1869). Nowadays, we would call this
heterogeneity multi-disciplinarity and would present these first Nietzschean proposals concerning the
modification and re-arrangement of taxonomy of philology as a certain kind of trans-disciplinary dynamics.
Nietzsche writesreferring to Senecas letter nr. 108that only a certain kind of a philosophical implantation
of the classical philologys diverging tendencies could help to master this strange centaur, called philology.
Seneca complained that philosophy had become a mere study of words: Quae philosophia fuit facta philologia
est. Nietzsche transmutes this remark into Philosophia facta est quae philologia fuit.7 (What was once
philology has now been made into philosophy.) It means that the philologist can give dimensions to
philological discoveries only by connecting them to a philosophical background and thus make vivid again the
classical philologys findings.
The demonstration of the fusion where Sophia (wisdom) embraces logos (science) appears publicly
for the first time in Nietzsches The Birth of Tragedy (1872) and presents a heterological pattern conquering
Bildungs homology, accompanied by strong metaphoric and corporeal implications also in the figures of
Dionysos and Apollo. According to Nietzsches program, the unsophisticated attitude towards the rich cultural
context of antiquity and the treatment of the research subject as an empty shell should be replaced by a
philological approach which is self-conscious about its own social and cultural context and scientific methods
and practices, and takes into consideration the statements about the past and how they are reflected in the
present. Nietzsches conception of philology, first and foremost, has to be adapted for revaluing its scientific
statements from the aspect of art that is aesthetical sensitivity, and aesthetical sensitivity has to be reassessed
from the viewpoint of effects on life as active potential. Nietzsches claims for philology are so
comprehensive that the notion of morality defined by Bildung, as well as the ethical, methodological, and
institutional system of Bildung are all being questioned. In this sense, we can say that Nietzsche matured as a
philosopher through the critical analysis of classical philologys methodological problems.
3. From the Critique of Classical Philology to the Critique of Science, Christianity, and
Culture
In Nietzsches published and unpublished writings and notes during the time of his Basel professorship
(1869-1879), we can track the process of how the remarkably versatile and powerful critique of classical
philology is converted into a scientific and cultural critical methodology. He was interested less and less in the
pure hermeneutics of ancient textual material, the program for developing a philosophical background for
classical philology is urged on as his attention turns at the same time towards the critical reassessment of
Western philosophys key concepts of philosophy, morality, and religion which were established by antique and
Christian material and to the philosophical consequences of the contemporary Christianity and science. Matters
of training and education are also embedded into an even wider framework of criticism and anti-metaphysical
issues, of a critique of Christianity and religion in general, which they are expressed in ever more direct forms
in the Basel-period.
499
As Gary Shapiro states in Nietzschean Narratives, Nietzsches epistemological break takes place in relation
to Nietzsches pedagogical break with logocentrism: it is necessary to situate Nietzsches epistemological break
regarding narrative in relation to what could be called a pedagogical break having to do with the modalities of
writing and speaking; that is, with what Derrida has called the question of logocentrism (Shapiro 1989, 15).
One can find comprehensive presentations of the logocentric character based on the oppressive pedagogy of
Bildung in Nietzsches texts already from the Basel period. Each of the early statements has far-reaching critical
consequences describing a major arc of the Nietzschean oeuvre:
The professor often reads when he is speaking. [...] One speaking mouth, with many ears, and half as many writing
handsthere you have, to all appearances, the external academic apparatus; there you have the university culture machine
in action. (Nietzsche 1910, 125-26)8
[...] all culture begins with the very opposite of that which is now so highly esteemed as academic freedom: with
obedience, with subordination, with discipline, with subjection. And as leaders must have followers, so also must the
followers have a leader tuition, the state... The eternal hierarchy to which all things naturally tend is always threatened by
that pseudo-culture which now sits on the throne of the present. (1910, 139)9
All of these statements, which at first reflected only on classical philological training, will later become
the source of Nietzsches mature Dionysian (corporeal and perspectivist) criticism of Bildungs epistemological
failures. The focus of Nietzsches writings expands from reflection on the peculiarities of classical philological
training and research and the attempt of defining the philosophy of philology towards a critique of
contemporary culture, while the development of a philosophy of science received new impetus from a variety
of alternative research. The criticism of Bildung runs through the Basel-periods writings and from the faculty
specific methodology of limited validity and a mixed set of critical essays, and notes on culture a new
philosophical material emerges in the multimodal structure of Human, All Too Human (1878) which coronate
the Basel-period.
4. The Nietzschean Experience of Seneca

Senecas already mentioned letter nr. 108, which serves as an important inspiration for Nietzsches
philosophy of philology, first and foremost calls for a relationship between philosophy and active life, for unity
of thought and action, and the importance to transforming the idea into deed. To quote Seneca (2010):
... to avoid slipping into the role of student of text or literary critic, I want to remind you that listening to philosophers and
reading their work is for the purpose of attaining a blessed life, not so as to hunt archaic or artificial language and
extravagant images and figures of speech, but to learn beneficial instructions and glorious and spirited sayings which will
presently be turned into action. May we learn such things so thoroughly that what were words become deeds. (236-37)
The need for direct experience, the demand for unity of life, thought, and action initiates a full scale
philosophical and cultural revision pointing beyond of the issues of methodology and the scientific theory of
classical philology. The trans-figurative power of direct experience and the critical judgement of the value of
the knowledge of life were recognized for the first time in the domain of classical philology urges Nietzsche to
develop a versatile criticism of scientific education.
Although Nietzsches draft notes to the Untimely meditation entitled We Philologists has not been
published in its authors life, reading its judgements makes clear that this corpus was served for Nietzsche as
experimental material for developing and polishing his later critical reflections on science and culture. The role
of the Senecan experience-based approach and the Nietzschean extensions of the Senecan demands are well
500
represented when Nietzsche (1911, 113) writes about the experience as certainly an essential prerequisite for a
philologist who must first of all be a man.10 Nietzsche explicitly talks about the process of scientific
understanding as an act of psychological incorporation and attach existential importance to the philological
findings (1911, 113).11 Emphasizing the significance of the youths contact with real sciences, likewise with
real art, Nietzsche talks about interdisciplinary and inter-artistic complexity and the importance of a radical
experience-centred approach in the scientific education which obviously takes place in a life-long perspective
(1911, 148).12 He reminds that the formal education in the second and third centuries contained the teaching
of walking, dancing, speaking, singing, acting, or arguing: and the so-called formal teachers did impart their
instruction this way, but in the training of the Bildungs philologist, the scientific man of Nietzsches age is
not contain any of these lively skills and results in formal thinking and writing, and hardly any speaking at
all (1911, 130).13 Nietzsches proposal is to break with this tendency through the development of a radical
self-reflective standpoint by the scientists themselves, which start with the questioning of the relation itself
between the scientists and their science: we must again set about doing everything for ourselves, and only for
ourselves measuring science by ourselves, for example with the question: What is science to us? (1911, 119)14
This way the philologist will be really introduceable as a preparation for the philosopher, who knows how to
utilize his ant-like work to pronounce some opinion upon the value of life (1911, 115).15 And that is why
Nietzsches untimely reminding is important because in the Age of Bildung the inner purpose of philological
teaching has been entirely altered; it was at one time material teaching, a teaching that taught how to live; but
now it is merely formal (1911, 130).16
5. Nietzsches Foundational Questions of Science and Culture

Nietzsche fires the classical question of Why do we do the things we do? at himself as a scholar, a
scientist and also at all the figures of classical philology, science, and culture as potential Bildungsphilisters.
Nietzsche goes that far in the questioning that he even makes a sharply ironic comparison between the
philologists of his age and the objects of their studies, the Greeks of the antiquity (1911, 153).17 But still,
Nietzsches provocations of the humanities have that productive role to get timely answers to these kinds of
untimely questions:
Ah, it is a sad story, the story of philology! The disgusting erudition, the lazy, inactive passivity, the timid submission.
Who was ever free? (1911, 153)18
Philologists, when discussing their science, never get down to the root of the subject: they never set forth philology
itself as a problem. Bad conscience? or merely thoughtlessness? (1911, 146)19
Philologists are people who exploit the vaguely felt dissatisfaction of modern man, and his desire for something
better, in order that they may earn their bread and butter. I know them I myself am one of them. (1911, 146)20
Therefore, the questions raised in We Philologists reach far beyond the questions related to the
elaboration of a philosophical background for classical philology. This heavy criticism of Bildung and
reassessment of knowledge as value attains at the foundational questions of science and culture:
What is the foundation on which the high value attached to antiquity at the present time is based, to such an extent indeed
that our whole modern culture is founded on it? [] all our philology that is, all its present existence and power is based
on the same foundation as that on which our view of antiquity as the most important of all means of training is based.
(1911, 126)21
Nietzsches question, as we will see below, concerning the scientific activity in its whole and implicitly underlie
501
the epistemology of all modern scientific research projects.

In the Age of Bildung, it seems to be clear for Nietzsche that the philologist himself is not the aim of
philology (1911, 114),22 but how the scholars choose research topic? What kind of forces dictate their choices?
How are the researchers own tastes, interests, and desires effecting the research? These are simple, but decisive
questions which tell not only about the nature of a certain research itself but the culture where a research is
carried out as well: [t]he following is one way of carrying on classical studies, and a frequent one: a man
throws himself thoughtlessly, or is thrown, into some special branch or other, whence he looks to the right and
left and sees a great deal that is good and new. Then, in some unguarded moment, he asks himself: But what
the devil has all this to do with me? In the meantime, he has grown old and has become accustomed to it all;
and therefore, he continues in his rut just as in the case of marriage (1911, 152).23
What guides the choice of methods and theories the scholars decide to use? Which are the ethical
implications of their research activities? What are the features of that new knowledge what the scientists and
their institutions generate? These are as much personal and socio-cultural, as institutional and intentional
questions towards the scholars: the philologist, if he wishes for a verdict of acquittal, must understand three
things: antiquity, the present time, and himself: his fault lies in the fact that he either does not understand
antiquity, or the present time, or himself (1911, 139).24 Nietzsches findings on these paths are pointing
directly towards his later investigations when he comprehensively studied the question of scientific methods and
the process of knowledge-creation, where knowledge explicitly told to be functioning as a tool of power.25
6. Decree against Homology

The We philologists text includes a kind of a decree thatin a very similar manner to the later
famous-infamous text of Decree against Christianity included in The Antichristsummarizes Nietzsches
radical attitude concerning the questions originating from the critique of classical philology. That confirms the
even more convincing claim that we should set a higher value on Nietzsches philological turn, more than a
simple shift of discourse and a transition into philosophical activity. Namely, we have to realize the inception of
the Nietzschean catastrophe threatening Bildung in its every aspect, and at the same time, the birth of that
Nietzsche who by extending the epistemological questioning, defines the very matter of epistemology and who
opposes his epistemological standpoint with all the phenomena of past, contemporary, and future cultures. As
Nietzsche formulates this approach in a single note for the We Philologists: The future commanding
philologist sceptical in regard to our entire culture, and therefore also the destroyer of philology as a
profession (Nietzsche 1911).26
When I use the term catastrophe in connection with the decree of the We Philologists, I refer, on the
one hand, to Nietzsches own statements, who often says especially in his last creative period, that his name
would be associated with something terrible, and that he is the one who breaks the history of mankind into
two.27 At the same time, I also refer to Michel Foucault, who relates the first and most crucial moment of
breaking out from the epistemological framework of Kantian Anthropology to Nietzsches philological critique
and special biologism when alluding to Nietzsches self-appraising statements on the closing pages of The
Order of Things (Foucault 1994, 341).28 If we take a look on the text, its parallel tendencies with the Decree
against Christianity are obvious:
The Death of the Old Culture:
1. The signification of the studies of antiquity hitherto pursued: obscure and mendacious.
502

2. As soon as they recognize the goal they condemn themselves to death: for their goal is to describe ancient culture
itself as one to be demolished.
3. The collection of all the conceptions out of which Hellenic culture has grown up. Criticism of religion, art, society,
state, morals.
4. Christianity is likewise denied.
5. Art and history dangerous.
6. The replacing of the study of antiquity which has become superfluous for the training of our youth. Thus the task of
the science of history is completed, and it itself has become superfluous, if the entire inward continuous circle of past
efforts has been condemned. Its place must be taken by the science of the future. (Nietzsche 1911, 186-87)29
From the aspect of scientific theory, it is an open question here and remains open during the whole oeuvre
of Nietzsche, how it is possible or whether is it possible at all to give any uniform epistemological framework
to such a wide scope of claims which Nietzsche connects with the science of the future. The Nietzschean
Theory of Everythingbe it the concept of will to power or eternal recurrencefirst of all requires the
Criticism of Everything, if only it is not the case that Theory of Everything for Nietzsche means Criticism
of Everything and for that will to power, eternal recurrence, or revaluation of every value serve only its
metaphors in different discourses and registers:
I dream of a combination of men who shall make no concessions, who shall show no consideration and who shall be
willing to be called destroyers: they apply the standard of their criticism to everything and sacrifice themselves to truth.
The bad and the false shall be brought to light! We will not build prematurely: we do not know, indeed whether we shall
ever be able to build, or if it would not be better not to build at all. There are lazy pessimists and resigned ones in this
world and it is to their number that we refuse to belong.... (1911, 190)30
However, Nietzsche along with his philosophy use only such a method of interpretation that, to a certain
extent, have been known and used by the classical philology of the Bildungs scientific ideal with the difference
that the Nietzschean critical practice does not have respect for the borders defining homologous structures but,
by implementing heterological patterns and transgressive tactics, it claims the authority of these borders.
Therefore, the question of methodwhich regulate above the way of use the certain methodsin relation to
Bildung has a far bigger and more comprehensive significance than to simply describe it only as a
methodological issue. Nietzsche, just some months before his mental-physical collapse, describes Human
All-Too Human, that work with which he permanently closes his Basel career and philologist period, in one of
his last letters to Franz Overbeck, as a hundred declarations of war and a great example of his heterodoxy:
[t]his work amounts to a hundred declarations of war, with distant thunder in the mountains; in the foreground,
much jollity, of my relative sort.... This work makes it amazingly easy for anyone to gauge my degree of
heterodoxy, which really leaves nothing at all intact.31
7. The Nietzschean Transformation of Classical Philology: Karl Kernyis Apollo

The questions of precisely how Nietzsche was intended to transform classical philological practice in
general and was there any classical philologist who implemented the Nietzschean program in his/her
philological practice is an under-researched domain. The classical philological oeuvre of the Hungarian Karl
Kernyi (1897-1973) serves as a uniquely complex example for the conversion of classical philological
research inspired mainly by Friedrich Nietzsche. Kernyi, colleague of Carl Gustav Jung, during his
philological breakthrough of domain towards psychoanalysis, drew his fundamental arguments primarily from
Nietzsches remarks. Kernyi discussed philology as a medium suitable for sheltering the stranger, the other
503
coming from outside: we are prepared to open for the foreign essence because we desire the essential. Our
existential aim is to reach this way our own essence [] Ancient studies is primarily an existential science for
us: the knowledge of the antique way of being (Kernyi 1984, 157).32
As Nietzsche talks about the revaluation of scientific achievements from the aspect of art, and the
revaluation of artistic achievements from viewpoint of life, the keystone of Kernyis conceptual shift of his
notion of the Greeks is a certain gesture of an artwork: the enigmatic wolf-smile of an Etruscan sculpture, the
Apollo of Veii. The Apollo of Veii has distracted me from the philology of Wilamowitz (qtd. Szilgyi
1998)33as Kernyi himself once told to an archaeologist friend. Kernyi, as a former student of Ulrich von
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, taking Nietzsches philological model and throughout his oeuvre succeeds in
placing another great stranger, the other Apollo next to the orgiastic, libidinous, and ecstatic Dionysos. The
complementary aspect represented by the dark, enigmatic wolf-smile of his other Apollo obviously not only
alters Bildungs classical philological conception of Apollos character but everything that one believed of the
Greeks in the Age of the Bildung, and all about the speculations of the very nature of classical philology
(Fenyvesi 2010).34
Nietzsche initiates the program of cultural experimentation operating with the tools of philology but
Kernyi launches the program of experimental philology operating with the tools of culture. Jean Luc-Nancy
described Nietzsches philological practice as Faustian (cf. Nancy 1990). The same cannot be applied to
Kernyis practice, in terms of the discursive or disciplinary stakes of their ventures, although there is no
controversy in their interpretations, particularly not in connection to their critique of Bildungs scientific ideal,
its practice, and its mirror: classical philology. Breaking through domains occurs time by time. Nietzsche and
Kernyi, in their own disciplines and guided by their own inquiries, develop such a reflective discourse
thatcompared to any former discoursetakes interest in its own existential and epistemological genealogies
with more radical intensity than ever. It does not cease to criticize its own foundation over and over and take it
as a basis without a base. But in their critics opinion, however, as a consequence of the same aspiration, their
work is rendered baseless as an unscientific practice which normalizes heterology. The acts made by the
philologists of heterology are being taken as contagious incidents for disciplinary ecstasy. The philologists of
heterology themselves are being taken as the enemies of science and the state and taken as somebody who has
to be isolated, excluded, or exiled.35
Notes
1. WPh, KSA 8.34. Abbreviations in the text: BA: Friedrich Nietzsche: ber die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten; KSA:
Friedrich Nietzsche: Smtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe; KGW: Friedrich Nietzsche: Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe;
WPh: Friedrich Nietzsches notes and fragments, under the title Notizen zu Wir Philologen; WP: A posthumous selection from
Nietzsches notebooks: Friedrich Nietzsche: The Will to Power.
2. For the history and interpretation of the classical German conception of Bildung (education, culture) (cf.: Bollenbeck 1994;
Bruford 1975; Klafki 1986; Oelkers 1997; Thompson 2005). On the Nietzschean problem of the Bildung see Nietzsches ber die
Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten (Nietzsche 1910) and Gerhardt and Renate (2005).
3. For the term megamachine, see Mumford (1964).
4. The following scholars need to be mentioned in this regards: Babette E. Babich, J. Barnes, Christian Benne, Fritz
Bornmann, Tilman Borsche, Richard Brandt, Hubert Cancik, Daniel Conway, Claudia Crawford, Philippe Ducat, Johann Figl,
Hellmut Flashar, Volker Gerhardt, Marcello Gigante, Karlfried Grnder, Helmut Heit, K. Hildebrandt, Sarah Kofman, M. S.
SilkJ. P. Stern, etc..
5. These views gained ground only in the most recent Nietzsche research, for the most beautiful examples (see LaMothe
2006; Babich 2005).
6. Radnti's monograph (Radnti 2010) was published in Hungarian, but his main concepts are accessible in some of his
504
English articles as well (see, Radnti 2004; 2006).

7. Homer und die Klassische Philologie: KGW II. 1, 268.
8. BA KGW IV. 1, 232.
9. BA KGW IV. 1, 242.
10. WPh KSA 8.31.
11. cf. what we can obtain from the Greeks only begins to dawn upon us in later years: only after we have undergone many
experiences, and thought a great deal (Nietzsche 1911, 113, WPh KSA 8.25).
12. cf. Our young students should be brought into contact with real sciences. Likewise with real art. In consequence, when
they grew older, a desire for real history would be shown (Nietzsche 1911, 148, WPh KSA 8.77).
13. WPh KSA 8.50.
14. WPh KSA 8.34.
15. WPh KSA 8.32.
16. WPh KSA 8.49.
17. WPh KSA 8.57.
18. WPh KSA 8.80.
19. WPh KSA 8.74.
20. WPh KSA 8.76.
21. WPh KSA 8.124.
22. WPh KSA 8.21.
23. WPh KSA 8.53.
24. WPh KSA 8.127.
25. WP:480, KSA 13:14 [122]
26. WPh KSA 8.56.
27. cf. Denn ich bin stark genug dazu, die Geschichte der Menschheit in zwei Stcke zu zerbrechen. Friedrich Nietzsches
letter to August Strindberg. December 8, 1888, Torino.
28. cf. Perhaps we should see the first attempt at this uprooting of Anthropologyto which, no doubt, contemporary
thought is dedicatedin the Nietzschean experience: by means of philological critique, by means of certain form of biologism,
Nietzsche rediscovered the point at man and God belong to one another, at which the death of the second is synonymous with the
disappearance of the first and foremost the imminence of the death of the man. In this, Nietzsche, offering this future to us as both
promise and task, marks the threshold beyond which contemporary philosophy can begin thinking again (Foucault 1994, 341).
29. WPh KSA 8.84.
30. WPh KSA 8.48.
31. Friedrich Nietzsches letter to Franz Overbeck Turin, October 18, 1888.
32. My translation.
33. My translation.
34. For on this question in details , see Fenyvesi (2010).
35. Because of political reasons Karl Kernyi emigrated to Switzerland in the 1940s.
Works Cited
Babich, Babette. Mousike Techne: The Philosophical Practice of Music in Plato, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Between Philosophy
and Poetry: Writing Rhythm History. Ed. Massimo Verdicchio and Robert Burch. London: Continuum, 2005. 171-80.
Bishop, Paul. ed. Nietzsche and Antiquity. His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition. (Studies in German Literature,
Linguistics, and Culture). Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2004.
Bollenbeck, Georg. Bildung und Kultur. Glanz und Elend eines deutschen Deutungsmusters. Frankfurt am Main: Shurkamp, 1994.
Bruford,Walter Horace. The German Tradition of Self-cultivation. Bildung from Humboldt to Thomas Mann. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1975.
Fenyvesi, Kristf. Das Fremde In Der Bildung: Die Grenzberschreitung als nietzscheanische Praxis und die existenzielle
Philologie Von Kroly Kernyi. Mvszet s pszichoanalzis. Kunst und Psychoanalyse. Ed. Jlia Fabnyi. Pcs: Janus
Pannonius Museum, 2010. 62-70.
Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things. An Archeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.
Gerhardt, Volker, and Renate Reschke. eds. Bildung Humanitas Zukunft bei Nietzsche. (Nietzscheforschung. Jahrbuch der
Nietzsche-Gesellschaft, Vol. 12). Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2005.
Hanshe, Rainer J. Nietzsches Synaesthetic Epistemology and the Restitution of the Holistic Human. Nietzsche and the
Becoming of Life. Ed. Vanessa Lemm and Miguel Vatter. New York: Fordham UP, forthcoming.
Kernyi, Kroly. kortudomny. [Ancient Studies] Halhatatlansg s Apolln-valls [Immortality and Apollonian Religion].
Budapest: Magvet, 1984.
505
Klafki, Wolfgang. Die Bedeutung der klassischen Bildungstheorien fr ein zeitgemsses Konzept von allgemeiner Bildung.
Zeitschrift fr Pdagogik 32.4 (1986): 455-76.
LaMothe, Kimerer L. Nietzsches Dancers. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Mumford, Lewis. The Myth of the Machine: I. Technics and Human Development. New York: Harvest Books, 1964.
Nancy, Jean-Luc. Nietzsches Thesis on Teleology. Looking After Nietzsche. Ed. Laurence A. Rickels. Trans. Peter Connor. New
York: SUNY Press, 1990.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings. Trans. Ronald Spiers. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. 1-116.
---. Homer and Classical Philology. The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Vol. 8. Ed. Oscar Levy. Trans. J. M. Kennedy.
Edinburgh/London: T. N. Foulis, 1911, 145-170.
---. Human, All Too Human. Trans. Marion Faber and Stephen Lehmann. London: Penguin, 1984.
---. On the Future of our Educational Institutions. The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Vol. 3. Ed. Oscar Levy. Trans. J.
M. Kennedy. Edinburgh and London: T. N. Foulis, 1910.
---. Smtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe. 15 vols. Ed. G. Colli and M. Montinari. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter,
1967-1977; Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1980.
---. We Philologists. The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Vol. 8. Ed. Oscar Levy. Trans. J. M. Kennedy.
Edinburgh/London: T. N. Foulis, 1911. 109-90.
---. Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Ca. 40 vols. Established by G. Colli and M. Montinari, continued by W. Mller-Lauter and
K. Pestalozzi. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1967.
---. The Will to Power. Ed. and Trans. R. J. Hollingdale and Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1967.
Oelkers, Jrgen. ffentlichkeit und Bildung: Zur historischen Genesis eines europschen Konzepts. Pdagogische
Zukunftsentwrfe. Festschrift zum 70. Geburtstag von Wolfgang Klafki. Ed. K. H. Braun and H. H. Krger. Opladen: Leske
+ Bludric, 1997. 29-49.
Porter, James I. Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future. California: Stanford, 2000.
Radnti, Sndor. Jjj s lss! A modern mvszetfogalom keletkezse. Winckelmann s a kvetkezmnyek [Come and See: The
Rise of the Modern Concept of Art Winckelmann and the Consequences]. Budapest: Atlantisz, 2010.
---. The Origins of a New Reception of Antiquity: Autopsy and the Transformation of Perception/Vision in Winckelmann. The
Nineteenth-Century Process of Musealization in Hungary and Europe. Ed. Ern Marosi and Gbor Klaniczay. Collegium
Budapest Workshop Series No. 17, 2006. 21-28.
---. Why One should Imitate the Greeks: On Winckelmann. Aspects of the Enlightenment: Aesthetics, Politics and Religion. Ed.
Ferenc Hrcher and Endre Szcsnyi. Budapest: Akadmiai, 2004. 202-37.
Seneca. Selected Letters. Trans. Elaine Fantham. New York: Oxford UP, 2010.
Shapiro, Gary. Nietzschean Narratives. Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1989.
Stack, George J. Lange and Nietzsche. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1983.
Szilgyi, Jnos Gyrgy. Egy hallhr. Kernyi Kroly, szletett Temesvron 1897-ben, meghalt Zrichben 1973-ban. [An
Obituary. Karl Kernyi: Born in Temesvr in 1897, Died in Zurich in 1973]. Beszl Journal 3.4 (1998): 94-101.
Thompson, Christiane. The Non-transparency of the Self and the Ethical Value of Bildung. Journal of Philosophy of Education
39.3 (2005): 519-33.

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 506-516
DAVID
PUBLISHING
Karl Poppers Critical Rationalism:

Corroboration versus Confirmation*
Oseni Taiwo Afisi
University of Canterbury; Lagos State University
This paper reviews and adds to previous arguments for the thesis that Karl Popper was mistaken to have rejected
hypothetico-deductive confirmation. By turning from the positive idea of verification to the negative idea of
criticism, Popper believed that he had turned his back on induction. He believed he had solved the problem of
induction by providing a non-inductive account of corroboration. Popper used the term corroboration rather than
confirmation which he believed was too closely allied to the notion of the inductive or probabilistic support that a
theory can receive from evidence. Wesley Salmons (1967) concept of confirming evidence and Clark Glymours
(1980) bootstrap conception of evidence for theory both defended respectively the thesis that passed tests can be
confirmed by evidence or warranted by the degree of probability. Using a sequence of symbols in logical form or
analysis, I shall further defend the concept to hypothetico-deductive confirmation in order to show that the known
weaknesses of Poppers critical rationalism are remediable, once the notion of evidence for theories is brought back
into consideration.
Keywords: hypothetico-deductivism, induction, corroboration, confirmation, critical rationalism, consilience,
bootstrap
1. Introduction
Poppers philosophy of science has been developed as a counter reaction to logical empiricism. He rightly
recognized many of the weaknesses of logical empiricism, particularly its conflating of problem of meaning
and that of problem of demarcation leading to the empiricists using the verificationist principle as a solution to
both of them. The criticisms of verificationism, such as the charge of empirical meaninglessness that Popper
made against logical empiricism, were justified for two reasons:
(1) The logical empiricists, such as A. J. Ayer and the early Rudolf Carnap, were foundationalists: for the
support of science or rational justification, they require there to be empirical bedrock. Ayer (2001), for instance,
in his Language, Truth and Logic, insisted that sentences need to be supported by evidence and require
verification, but nevertheless cannot be conclusively verified. However, Carnap (1947) under the influence of
*
Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank Prof. Robert Nola of the University of Auckland, New Zealand for
providing further notes on hypothetico-deductive methodology and on Poppers theory of corroboration, and the permission
granted the author to use the notes. The author would also like to thank Prof. Mark Francis and Dr. Philip Catton, both of the
University of Canterbury, New Zealand for reading through the original manuscript and for making valuable comments and
suggestions.
Oseni Taiwo Afisi, M.A., Ph.D. candidate, Department of Philosophy and Political Science, University of Canterbury, New
Zealand; Academic Staff, Department of Philosophy, Lagos State University, Nigeria; main research fields: Critical rationalism,
Philosophy of Science, and Political Philosophy. Email: oseni.afisi@gmail.com.
KARL POPPERS CRITICAL RATIONALISM: CORROBORATION VERSUS CONFIRMATION 507

Otto Neurath, later abandoned foundationalism, rejected verificationism, and subsequently proposed the
concept of the degree of confirmation in severe testing of scientific hypothesis;
(2) They were verificationists. As with the first justification, they were mistaken; as they sought to explain
the difference between science and non-science by reference to the idea that science alone was meaningful, that
meaningfulness consisted in verifiability, and that science was steadfast in its orientation to empirical
verification.
Popper attacked these views systematically. He disputed the idea of foundationalism as well as the reality
of its supposed empirical bedrock. Without empirical bedrock, verificationism falls; verificationism in this case
was not even coherent as a doctrine of meaningfulness. Popper (1959, 37) also rejected the programme of
demarcating science from non-science with the system of meaningfulness pseudo-statements. In place of
verification, he emphasized falsification or criticism; in place of meaningfulness as a demarcation criterion, he
emphasized merely the critical method.
2. Critical Rationalism
Poppers notion of critical rationalism is a method which holds that any claims to knowledge should be
open to rational criticism. Critical rationalism is Poppers philosophical stance which emphasizes the need to
engage in critical discussion, to be prepared to listen to criticism and to be able to accept criticism. All forms of
knowledge must be put to the test of criticism. In the realm of science, such claims to knowledge should be
subjected to a test of falsification in order to be termed scientific. The progress of knowledge, in Poppers view,
is concerned with falsification or error elimination (conjecture and refutation). This process allows our more
valued sets of knowledge or scientific theories to either stand, or be replaced by superior arguments or new
scientific theories (Popper 1945, 260). Claims to knowledge that are potentially falsifiable can be admitted to
the body of empirical science, and then further differentiated according to whether they are retained or indeed
are actually falsified. If retained, yet further differentiation may be made on the basis of how much subjection
to criticism they have received, how severe such criticism has been, and how probable the theory is. It is the
least probable theory that still withstands attempts to falsify it that is being the one to be preferred. This is the
criteria Popper used in his attempts to distinguish science from non-science.
Popper insisted that only scientific statements must satisfy the falsification criterion (Popper 1959, 20).
This criterion is claimed to demarcate science from non-science. This proposed solution to the demarcation
problem differs from the focus on empirical meaninglessness pursued by the logical empiricists. They focused
on distinguishing meaningful statements from meaningless ones, and saw the criterion of verifiability by
possible experience as the solution. This criterion of verifiability was rejected by Popper on the grounds that it
rendered laws of science meaningless, and the problem itself as merely verbal and trivial (Irzik 2012). With this,
Popper appropriately identified this verifiability criterion as the main weakness of logical empiricism in science.
He was thereby encouraged to develop his alternative understanding of science; his critical rationalist approach.
The positivists defended their argument on verificationism against Poppers challenge and he responded with
further good reasons to defend his doubts. Boldly, he inverted their fascination with verification by instead
emphasizing falsification, a novel move that proved to be a powerful idea.
More fundamentally, he used his falsificationism to develop a new version of the Darwinian evolutionary
approach and adapted it into an evolutionary approach to knowledge. Popper likened the manner in which not
only scientific but also other kinds of knowledge progress in the Darwinian, struggle for existence in nature.
508 KARL POPPERS CRITICAL RATIONALISM: CORROBORATION VERSUS CONFIRMATION
What Popper said was that our theories need to survive when tested against their evidential base and many will
not survive this test. In this respect, they die off like species who do not adapt against the test of a changing
environment. This he used to explain how knowledge progresses. In likening progress in science to progress in
the living world through Darwinian evolution, Popper proposed to understand life as progressing. He was
committed to saying: life progresses through its Darwinian struggle for existence (Popper 1972, 19).
3. Induction, Corroboration, and Severe Testing of Hypothesis

Scholars, since David Hume, have faced the challenging task of dealing with the logical problem of
induction. Induction is simply the process of inferring a general law or principle from observation of particular
instances. However, a broader context of induction suggests a meaning which depicts a process where the
premises of an inductive argument indicate some degree of support (inductive probability) for the conclusion
but do not entail it (Vickers 2013). This broader context of induction suggests that it contains elements of
probability, which means the certainty of the conclusion is a matter of degree. Certainly not implausible and
certainly not logically entailed induction is dependent on reasoning from detailed facts to general principles.
Hume rarely used the word induction but the underlying principle of his epistemology revolves around the
problem of induction. His argument concerns how to rationally justify inductive reasoning in the contexts of
uniformity of nature and causation. Humes argument is that inductive inferences cannot be rationally justified,
and this can be shown in two ways of reasoning: demonstrative (deductive) reasoning and probable (inductive)
reasoning. While Hume contended that the former is consistent and conceivable (Hume 1902, 111) with
deductive reasoning, the latter cannot be hold any form of rational justification.
Popper agreed with Hume that induction could not be justified, even though we use it all the time. Given
this, Popper looked for ways of giving support to a theory that does not rely on induction through his theory of
corroboration (Popper 1959, 33). One of the ways to introduce Poppers notion of corroboration is by means of
the notion of a severe test.
Popper puts great emphasis on the idea of a severe test as opposed to those tests which involve evidence
similar in kind to that already gathered in support of a theory (Popper 1957, 269). Let us consider the
introduction of a new theory T which is to be tested in the following logical analysis. Its introduction takes
place against the background of older theories which it could well displace if it passes the test. Denote some
older theory B, or background theory, with respect to which T is a new rival, by B (this is not the same
sense of background theory as that already employed since T and B may be rival theories). Let E be
some test evidence. Let us suppose that from the point of view of the new theory T, P is an exciting novel
prediction; but from the point of view of the older theory B, P is not even envisaged at all, or P is highly
unlikely. Then since, with respect to the old theory B, T sticks its neck out over P, then P is said to
be a severe test for T. If we then check P against evidence E, and P fits E very nicely (that is, P is
true), then P is said to corroborate theory T rather than the older background theory B (Nola 2012b).
A more technical account of Poppers theory of corroboration: Let the expression prob(E, T) stand for the
probability of the evidence E given theory T. This is sometimes understood as the expectedness, or the
likelihood, of evidence E given theory T. It is quite distinct from prob(T, E) which is the probability of
theory T given evidence E.
Popper defines the severity of a test by comparing the likelihoods of the evidence E given both the new
and the older background theories, viz., T, and B:

E is a severe test of T with respect to background theory T, or S(E, T, B) = Defn prob(E, T) is much
greater than prob(E, B).
The explanation: Let us take the case where from T (with any auxiliaries) we can deduce E; then
prob(E, T) = 1, or is very high.
Now considering the background theory B and E, there are two cases:
(1) Suppose that E is highly likely given B, i.e., prob(E, B) =1, or is very high; then S(E, T, B) = 0, or
is very low. In this case, E gives roughly the same degree of support to T as to B and is not a severe test
between them;
(2) Suppose that E is quite unlikely given B, prob(E, B) =0 , or is very low; then S(E, T, B) = 1, or is
very high. In this case, E gives quite different degrees of support to T and B and is a severe test between
them. In particular novel evidence, EN would be a severe test for a pair of theories since it is based on a novel
prediction which turned out to be true (Nola 2012b).
Given the above quantitative notion of a severe test defined in terms of likelihoods, Popper is now in a
position to define the notion of degree of corroboration. In its simplest form, this is done by saying: the degree
of corroboration of T by E with respect to B is directly proportional to the severity of test of T by E
with respect to B. However, it is also possible to introduce a normalising factor so that a measure of degree
of corroboration can be set up between -1 and +1. This is done in the following way (following a suggestion of
Lakatos (1968, 415): The degree of corroboration of T by E with respect to background theory B, Corr(E,
T, B) = Defn [prob(E, T) - prob(E, B)]/[ prob(E, T) + prob(E, B)].
To show how this definition works, let us simplify this so that we consider only three cases of degree of
corroboration, -1, 0, and +1.
Case 1: suppose that from the new theory T, evidence E can be deduced (with the help of auxiliaries).
Then, prob(E, T) = 1. The corroboration formula then simplifies to: Corr(E, T, B) = [1 - prob(E, B)]/[1 +
prob(E, B)].
There are now two sub-cases to consider:
Case 1(a): if the likelihood of B on E is high, i.e., prob(E, B) 1, then the degree of corroboration of
T by E is zero (or nearly zero). (Consider what happens to the numerator of the equation.) In this case,
since the likelihood for both T and B on E is high, then E gives little corroboration to T.
Case 1(b): if the likelihood of B on E is low, i.e., prob(E, B) 0, then the degree of corroboration of T
by E is 1 (or nearly 1). (Again consider what happens to the numerator of the equation.) In this case, since the
likelihood for both T and B on E is quite different, then E gives high corroboration to T.
Case 2: Suppose that E refutes T (with its auxiliaries). That is, from the new theory T, we cannot
deduce evidence E but rather its negation not E. Then prob(E, T) = 0. If we substitute this in the definition
of Corr(E, T, B), then the equation reduces to: [0 - prob(E, B)]/[0 - prob(E, B)]. Then, no matter how small
prob(E, B) is, providing it is not zero, if E refutes T, then the corroboration that E gives T is -1. This
aligns with our intuitions about the case where E refutes T. In this way, we have a measure for the degree
of corroboration of T by E that ranges from the worst case of -1 to then best case of +1 (Nola 2012b).
Popper thought that a formal account of corroboration, such as that attempted above, did not capture all
that he intended by the notion. In particular, Popper insisted that corroboration is only a guide to the way in
which a theory has passed tests up to a given time. He did not think that it provided a guide to the future
success of the theory. This reflects the consistency of his anti-inductivism where he assumed there to be no
secure inductive inference from past observation to future performance.
Yet despite his efforts to correct the deficiencies of inductivism, Poppers telling perspective on
falsification suffers weaknesses of its own that subsequent philosophy of science has served sharply to reveal.
By turning from the positive idea of verification to the negative idea of criticism, Popper believed he had turned
his back on induction. He believed he had solved the problem of induction by providing a non-inductive
account of corroboration. He believed a story concerning science, an explanation of what keeps the theoretical
activity in science honest to empirical considerations, can be told entirely in terms of hypothetico-deductive
testing. A hypothesis remains ever tentative no matter what tests it has passed: the next test could produce
refuting evidence rather than corroborating evidence. However, well known criticisms have been made of all
this.
More interesting is the fact that Popper is a fallibilist. However, I disagree with him on the presupposition
that hypothetico-deductivists somehow seem to have a monopoly on fallibilism. Popper supported the
hypothetico-deductivist idea, but did not accept a theory of confirmation that commonly goes with it. So, he
opted for corroboration. Popper was a hypothetico-deductivist with a difference: he wrapped into his
hypothetico-deductivism the anti-inductivist understanding that hypothetico-deductive confirmation is a
contradiction-in-terms. Consequently, he sought to do without any notion of confirmation of theories. While
this makes Popper an arch-fallibilist, he has no monopoly on fallibilism. Many criticisms have trailed this
fallibilist-falsificationism but Salmons (1967) concept of ampliative inference and Glymours (1980) idea of
bootstrap seem to be the most impressive.
3.1. Wesley Salmons Concept of Ampliative Inference

With the concept of ampliative inference, Salmon gives an in impressive literary rendition on why
induction cannot be by-passed in the actual testing of hypothesis. In the first instance, Salmon berates David
Humes attempt at a justification of induction and his accompanied skepticism that inferences of inductive logic
with true premises must have true conclusions. This skepticism is the basis of Humes rejection of induction.
Salmon avers that Hume is mistaken, because there is no reason to find a justification for induction precisely
because it is the function of deduction to prove the truth of conclusions, given true premises. Induction has a
different function. An inductive inference with true premises establishes its conclusions as probable (Salmon
1967, 38). To justify inductive inferences, according to Salmon, is not to establish them as true, but to establish
them as probable. It is only deductive inferences that can be rationally justified to have true conclusions;
inductive inferences cannot be rationally justified, it rests more on probability. This understanding also explains
why Humes attack on causality through the principle of the uniformity of nature cannot broadly be accepted as
his requirement for a rational justification of induction.
Originally, Humes contention is that the predictive power to assume that because, say, an event occurred
sequentially in a certain way in the past is not a justification that it will continue to do so in the future (Hume
1902, 165). Popper accepted Humes doctrine that induction cannot be rationally justified. For Popper,
inductive inferences can only produce singular statements. Since we cannot move from singular to general
statements without inductive justification or confirmation, induction must be rejected (Popper 1959, 315). This
is a simple consequence of scientific theories or hypotheses requiring general or universal statements. Poppers
rejection of induction relates to the following hypothetical argument: Let us assume that we have been

witnessing numerous cries of witches every night and children have been dying the following morning, does
this justify our belief that if another witch cries tonight, another child will die tomorrow morning? Poppers
answer is that there were no valid logical or demonstrative arguments that allowed us to establish that those
instances, of which we have had no experience, resemble those, of which we have had experience (Popper
1959, 42). In other words, there is no reasonable valid inference to predict that the future will resemble the past.
So, even after the observation of the frequent or constant conjunction of events, like the numerous cries of
witches every night and the death of children the following morning, we have no reason to draw any inference
concerning any events beyond those of which we have had experience. Poppers conclusion, therefore, is that
past experience cannot justify attributing a truth value to a scientific theory. Since there cannot be confirmation
for scientific theories, science consists only of falsification, bold conjectures, and refutation. It is only through
repeated testing that a theory is corroborated, and not confirmed. Scientific theories are not valued on the
implication of confirmation, or the confident they display about future predictions.
Salmon acknowledges Poppers concern for justification of inductive inference as warranted. However,
Salmon opined that without an element of induction, Poppers notion of corroboration would not broadly be
considered as a scientific process. Salmon did not aim to defeat Popper; rather to show that the scientific
enterprise involves inductive inferences other than deductive reasoning alone. Salmons disagreement with
Popper was premised on the non-inductivist notion of corroboration that Popper held. Salmons argument is
that human beings use evidence from experience to ground beliefs for things not yet observed. In fact, Salmon
reiterates that a scientific theory needs total evidencethe absence at the time of any undermining evidence
(Salmon 1989, 255). This evidence cannot be rationally justified like the argument of the hypothetic witches
associated with the death of children mentioned above, yet the probability of a repeated occurrence is pragmatic,
and not epistemic. This explains why a scientific theory must necessarily have a predictive power to be able to
have implications for future experience. To Salmon, science requires predictions both for practical purposes and
in order to test theories. Salmons main argument against Popper is that when there are a variety of possible
hypotheses which have not yet been falsified, there seem to be no logical method of determining which is most
likely to be preferred, because there are too many hypotheses to choose from. To Salmon, the Popperian claim
that the best corroborated theory is to be preferred is based on probability. This suggests that since Popper
needs to make a selection from the number of unfalsified theories available to him, he faces a dilemma. That is,
Popper would have to choose a well-corroborated theory from among them. This would lie on essentially
inductive claim that since a theory has survived criticism in the past, it will be a reliable prediction in the future;
or that corroboration is no indicator of predictive power. As a result, no amount of rational or critical scrutiny
would be sufficient for his preferred selection principle (Salmon 1967, 26).
3.2. Clark Glymour Idea of Bootstrap

It is the same degree of confirmation with Salmon that Glymour also formulated as the evidently
non-hypothetico-deductive notion of bootstrap inference. Glamours bootstrapping theory is a formal
characterization of how a theory is confirmed by a piece of evidence with respect to some background
hypothesis. The bootstrap strategy is that a hypothesis can be tested with other hypotheses in the theory using
observational evidence. From each hypothesis in the theory, we can obtain evidence from the hypothesis we are
testing. In order words, we are obtaining evidence for the hypothesis we are testing by using part of the theory
to obtain evidence for other parts of the same theory. This is called bootstrap testing (Glymour 1980, 130).
The formalization of the bootstrap strategy involves a collection of quantities {Pi} uses a set of data:
E-experiment, H-hypothesis, T-theory and C-computations.
E along with set of background H = T.
E together with the values of {Pi} confirms H with respect to T when a set of computations C are
applied (Glymour 1980, 130). The formulation of this method helps to make out how harmony of bootstrap
confirmation is deemed the best or most cogent empirical evidencing of theory in science. This is clear with the
way that a hypothesis H1 is confirmed by obtaining evidence from other background evidence H2, H3, H4.
Together with the values of {P1} using a new set of C2; we can obtain evidence and arrive at the same result.
For a clearer understanding of the above formalization of how bootstrapping uses background hypothesis to
obtain evidence let us consider one of Glymours historical examples of Newton and Kepler. According to
Glymour, Newtons argument for universal gravitation emphasizes that all bodies in the universe attract each
other with a force that is inversely proportional to the square of distance between them. This is clearly an
argument that requires confirmation from Keplers laws of planetary motion, based on observational evidence.
More fundamental is the fact that it was Newtons second law of motion that corresponds with Keplers law of
planetary motion which served as evidence for the theory of universal gravitation that Newton established
(Glymour 1980, 203-214). Based on observational evidence, Newton used Keplers background hypothesis to
bootstrap his argument in the way that the Keplers law of planetary motion confirms the Newtons law of
motion. In so doing, Newton used a particular hypothesis of his second law of motion to obtain confirmation
for his general theory of universal gravitation based on observational evidence from keplers law of planetary
motion.
From the above account, it is clear that bootstrapping provides a significant lift to the idea of the
confirmation of theories, though the fallibility of this and its lack of dependence on the reality of empirical
bedrock is also notable. More significantly, the bootstrap conception helps us to understand in a new light
what it is for a science to be theoretically healthy and what it is for evidence to impressively cater for theories
of science.
The bootstrap conception makes good of some of the positivists ideas to which an understanding of
Popper is critical, not in the raw form of the positivists verificationism but in a more refined and sophisticated
form. This new refined form turns out to be in a certain higher respect defensible which is a strength better
recognized in further exploring the concept of confirmation. Popper is trying to deal with ideas of no evidence
for scientific theory, but we have got the idea of bootstrap evidence for theories. With this, we can use the
bootstrap idea to bolster the need for a severe testing that Popper prescribed. We can get Popper working better
by employing the bootstrap theory. Indeed, when we look at what is plausible about bootstrap confirmed
theories, we can say that the theory has done well in relation to a severe test, which is monumental when we
think about it in the way that Popper emphasizes. In the anti-foundationalist, fallibilist spirit that the position
directly calls for, I agree with Glymour about bootstrap model of the relation of evidence to theory, and like
him, I remain a fallibilist about science.
Of course, bootstrap or confirmed theories can be false, because bootstrap inferences depend on
background assumptions that can be in error. Still, there are powerful reasons to think that a theory that is a
bootstrap one can be confirmed or measured in a variety of ways. In this sense, bootstrapping displays an
ability to harmonize the evidence, or the quality of consilience of inductions as discussed by William
Whewell (1840) in Edward Wilsons Consilience (1998).
4. Hypothetico-Deductive Confirmation: The Logic of the Argument

Clearly, from the positivists perspective on verification and inductivist orientation, Popper developed
some critical arguments which then led to him to assert that what truly matters was falsification. Yet, there is
some instability in this position. Most emphatically, when one looks at hypothetico-deductivism in the critical
spirit that Popper praises, there is a weakness. When one considers Poppers point of view that there is no
logical path from evidence to theory but only logical path from theory to evidence there is a weakness.
However, the bootstrap idea rescues this situation by focusing upon an understanding of a certain kind of
confirmation. It is the kind in which a theory is one that can be confirmed not just once, but in multiple ways;
where from many sides one can come to a single conclusion. For instance, from the different ways of
measuring the Avogadros number, one can know the number of atoms present in one mole of carbon 12 and
this is applicable to any type of chemical entity. This kind of consilience or harmony of bootstrap confirmation
is deemed the most impressive empirical evidencing of theory in science.
Let us consider the following analysis:
Let H stand for any hypothesis that is to be tested. The hypothesis can be a particular statement (e.g., in
medicine a hypothesis can be formed as to whether a given person A has lung cancer or not; or in criminal
investigations a hypothesis can be formed as to whether a given person B knowingly acted as an agent to sell
stolen property, and so on); the hypothesis can be a generalisation (restricted or not), a law of nature, a set of
laws, or an entire theory. (Usually, we will denote an entire theory by T, which can contain many hypotheses or
laws, rather than H.) In short, any statement can serve as a hypothesis to be tested. In addition, let E stand for
any piece of evidence. E will at most be a finite conjunction of statements which serve to test a hypothesis.
The evidence can be reports of observation, but need not always be so. Evidence can be generated by some
other theory not under test. For instance, hypotheses in archaeology rely on evidence based on the theory of
carbon dating, a theory which relies on yet other evidence in physics and in the past history of the worlds
climate as well as in data upon vegetable and animal life, etc., for its testing. Even laws can be said to confirm
higher level laws, thus Galileos laws of free fall and Keplers laws of planetary motion confirm Newtons more
general laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation in that the latter laws entail the former laws (though
only under some plausible assumptions). Thus, what counts as evidence and what counts as hypothesis can be
taken quite generally; any pair of statements can be regarded as evidence and hypothesis (Nola 2012a).
The main point is that evidence E stands in the same relation to hypothesis H as do premises to a
conclusion in an argument (either deductive or inductive). However, it would be wrong to think of
hypothetico-deductive confirmation merely as a deductive argument of the following form:
From H can be deduced E (i.e., H implies E);
Evidence E is true (as is shown by observation):
H is true.
This argument commits the fallacy of Affirming the Consequent. So the hypothetico-deductive method
must be understood quite differently.
In hypothetico-deductive method, the conclusion for which we argue is the hypothesis, and the premises
are the evidence E. The form of the argument is inductive with evidence as premises and hypothesis as
conclusion. It can be set out in the following way (where the double line indicates an inductive, not a deductive
argument):
E
H
In this case, we say: E confirms H; or E gives support to H; or E is positive evidence for H;
and so on. If we abbreviate E confirms H as conf(H, E) and read this as the confirmation given to H
by E, then the following hold for the notion of confirmation, where stands for the relationship of
deduction or of logical implication:
E H if and only if conf(H, E) = 1.
In this case, if E is true or is known to be true, then H is true or is known to be true (i.e., verified). The
worse possible relation between H and E is that in which the evidence E logically implies that H is
false, i.e., Enot -H (Nola 2012a).
The indication of the above logical analysis is to explain what hypothetico-deductive confirmation entails,
and why it is essential that a hypothesis can also be confirmed by evidence. This is in defence of the position of
both Salmon and Glymour of why Popper is mistaken to have rejected hypothetico-deductive confirmation.
5. Conclusion
I think Popper was right to have asserted that a theory needs to pass through severe testing in order to be
corroborated. He was also right in his thinking that a theory needs to be open to be refuted to be scientific or
those that remain unfalsified, thus corroborated can still be falsified in future. Nevertheless, I do not believe
that Popper was right in his total rejection of evidence-based theory. Poppers convictions, for instance, that
Einsteins relativity theory is devoid of evidence which is why it has a high level of corroboration content, is
rightly seen as disputable. Poppers view was that between when Einstein had finalized the formulation of his
theory at the end of 1915, and the 1919 eclipse results by Eddington, Einsteins theory bore but a potential
relation to evidence and as yet no actual relation to evidence. This seems false. In my view, Einstein had good
reasons of an evidential kind for his theory even before the end of 1915, and in addition, before long that the
eclipse expedition results came in. Popper mistakenly argued that the corroborating results of the eclipse
expedition counted for Einsteins theory (Catton 2004, 66-74).
To buttress this position further, a brief examination of history of science would suggest that many
practising scientists use background knowledge (as does Popper) or evidence to further confirm the theory they
are developing. As I mentioned above in logically analysing hypothetico-deductive confirmation, Newtons law
of gravitation, for instance, infers evidence from Keplers laws of planetary motion and further provides
corrections to Keplers laws. No one would deny that this is a very innocuous background assumption and very
impressive. The evidence that Newton harmonises with Kepler points in the same direction (Catton 2004,
66-69). In this connection, Popper cannot proceed rationally in his conviction to reject evidence for theory if,
for instance, he needs some background knowledge before he can consider acting practically on some medical
intervention that a life depends on. Popper cannot also explain, for instance, the rationality of acting to save a
child from some medical condition by using some medications that have not been confirmed in anyway by past
experience except until they are falsified. So, Poppers rejection of warrant for evidence in a corroborated
theory seems to me to put science in a box. It seems to me that Poppers anti-inductivist
hypothetico-deductivism does not allow a new way of thinking in science.

Furthermore, the bootstrap conception indicates that science works well with confirmation. While
Bootstrapping does not use theory for prediction, it uses a background idea to show that from things that are
observed something theoretical can be inferred. It shows that there is no mystery regarding to how a particular
fact could help support the general conclusion. The following logical analysis would buttress the point: If, for
instance, I have as a background belief that if there is one S in the world that is a P, then I can conclude
that all S are P. If I have this as a background assumption, and then observe some particular S to be P,
then I have deductive grounds to believe that all S are P. In other words, it is not a logical problem to infer
from particular things, provided the right kind of theoretical background assumption is in place.
It is, therefore, mistaken to think that no logical path leads from particular to general, or from evidence to
theory, provided that there is the support of an appropriate background assumption. The bootstrap explanation
is that one does not deduce from hypothesis rather one uses background assumption to deduce knowledge from
particular things to some theoretical conclusions. This is a very different conception from Poppers
hypothetico-deductive corroboration, and it leads to different conclusions about what well evidenced theory
would look like. However, this position does not discredit the hypothetico-deductivism that Popper endorsed
which presupposes that a hypothesis needs to pass through severe testing. The dispute with Popper is that
hypothetico-deductive corroboration is not only what is needed in severe testing of a hypothesis to make a
theory scientific. A scientific theory always rests on a fine knife edge, balanced by the weight of disproving
evidence on one side and corroborating evidence on the other. To claim that only one of these is the only true test
of validity is to put it very simply, not true (Rothchild 2006, 8). This simply suggests that a hypothesis also
requires confirmation or warrant of evidence to make the severe testing open to more testing.
On the above account, it is clear that the expectation that a theory harmonized based on some kind of
evidence through bootstrap inferences is possible with the severe testing process is established. This is the kind
of confirmation of evidence that Salmon and Glymour endorse. A critical reflection of this kind helps to return
our attention to some strength of the logical empiricists. The kind of critical reflection about bootstrapping
which is a critical response to Poppers anti-inductive hypothetico-deductivism also draws our attention to
certain remaining strengths of Poppers position. Bootstrapping, in particular, allows us to look with renewed
intelligence at the severe testing idea that Popper is defending. The bootstrap inference helps us to see how
certain background assumptions would inform us about the temerity of a theory in terms of its degree of severe
testability and corroboration. Popper admits that background knowledge contains certain basic assumptions
tentatively relevant to the test that we intend to undertake.
In this respect, Poppers objection to inductive warrant or confirmability is not defeated; it only leads to a
higher realization which returns us to understand better the concept of hypothetico-deductive confirmation. The
talk about the idea of testing can show how it would be possible for a warranted theory that allows one to
interpret the evidence in certain ways. With this, one can know that evidence counts for something. One can
then make out Poppers ways of thinking more adequately knowing with confidence what his raw theory was
not sufficiently able to explain. This is where the consilience features that the notion of bootstrapping highlights
are helpful. The idea, for instance, that evolutionary theory is tested by whether there is conformity between
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) estimation, or whether there is a similarity between species and the fossil record;
all need morphological evidence to show that species are diverge through different historical times. So, the
command that a theory should agree with evidence this way is on really severe demand, and in a sense, the
value of rich over-determination of theoretical judgment in a bootstrap sense of harmony could register with us
in the terms that Popper provides in the passing of severe test. This is also a step towards returning to Popper to
make sense of the importance of what he is saying about severe testing of hypothesis.
In all of this, the known weakness of Poppers critical rationalism in science is remediable, once the notion
of evidence for our theories is back on board. Why the concept of severe testing is legitimate is now
understandable, and moreover, why all the bootstrap best confirmed theories are at the same time best
corroborated in Poppers understanding of that word can now be made out. It is, therefore, equally easy to make
out why we are rational to depend practically on well corroborated or confirmed theories. In this way, we gain
the measure of the strength of Poppers philosophy of science precisely through critical reflection into its
known weaknesses. We are more able to appreciate Popper and show more strengths in Poppers position than
Popper himself could see about his idea of critical rationalism.
Works Cited
Ayer, Alfred Jules. Language, Truth and Logic. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 2001.
Carnap, Rudolf. On the Application of Inductive Logic. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 8.1 (1947): 133-48.
Catton, Philip. Constructive Criticism. Karl Popper: Critical Appraisals. Eds. Philip Catton and Graham Macdonald. London,
New York: Routledge. 2004. 50-77.
Glymour, Clark. Theory and Evidence. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1980.
Grol, Irzik. Critical Rationalism. The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of science. Ed. Stathis Psillos and Martin Curd.
London/New York: Routledge, 2013.
Hume, David. Inquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals. (Reprinted from 1777
edition). 3rd ed. Ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902.
Lakatos, Imre, ed. The Problem of Inductive Logic. Amsterdam, North Holland, 1968.
Nola, Robert. Hypothetico-deductive methodology. Unpublished. Obtained, 2012a.
---. Poppers Theory of Corroboration. Unpublished. Obtained, 2012b.
Popper, Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London/New York: Routledge, 1959.
---. The Open Society and Its Enemies: The High Tide of Prophesy: Hegel, Marx, and the Aftermath. Vol. II. London: Routledge
and Kegan Paul, 1945.
---. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.
Ramasesha, S. Experimental Determination of Avogradro Constant. Resonance (2006): 79-87.
Rothchild, Irving. Induction, Deduction and the Scientific Method: An Eclectic Overview of the Practice of Science.
Publication of the Society of the Study of Reproduction 2006. 1-11.
Salmon, Wesley. The Foundations of Scientific Inferences. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1967.
---. Four Decades of Scientific Explanation. Minneapolis, MN: U of Minnesota P, 1989.
Vickers, John. The Problem of Induction. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Spring 2013 Edition. Ed. Edward N. Zalta.
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/induction-problem/>
Whewell, William. The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded Upon Their History. 2 vols. London: John W. Parker, 1840.
Wilson, Edward. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Knopf, 1998.

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 517-528
DAVID
PUBLISHING
The Relation between Theory and Practice in Muslim Sages

Thoughts in the Third and Fourth Hijra Centuries and Its
Effects on Concept of Craft (Sanaat) and
Art in Islamic Civilization
Hasan Bolkhari Ghehi
Tehran University
Farabi defines Ilm al-Hiyal (mechanic) in Ihsa al-Ulum as knowing a way by which, human can adjust all of the
concepts that have been proved in mathematics with verification to exotic objects, and helps their states in exotic
objects to be carried. He believes this will be recognized and be attained by craft (sanaat, art). This was the
common view in Islamic wisdom and philosophy in third and fourth Hijra centuries (9 & 10 CE). Researchers
believe that the unique emphasis on parallelism between theoretical science and practical work is an important
feature of Baghdad school and affected Islamic visual culture. Baghdad school had been affected by translation. In
this way, Ikhwan-al-Safa, whom wrote the first encyclopedia of science in Islamic culture, had a very efficient role.
They devised geometry into intellectual and sensual ones in the second part of their book, al-Rasa-el, and
considered intellectual geometry as one of the middle philosophy and recognition and understanding factor for
meaning of sensual geometry evidences. They insisted on basic situation of intellectual geometry in guidance of
whom, want to learn intellectual things from sensual ones. They knew intellectual geometry as the factor for
requiring skill in scientific crafts (sanaat), and sensual geometry as the factor of practical crafts, and made a vast
relation between them. They also defined end of intellectual geometry understanding the base of all sciences and
the main factor of wise, essence of self (nafs). Important feature of Ikhwan-al-Safas wisdom is omitting the gap
between theory and practice, making a vast relation between them, which affected the meaning of crafts in Islamic
culture, and rendered a spiritual feature to crafts and arts. It seems this relation has created the concept of traditional
arts, and integrating wisdom and crafts in Iranian-Islamic culture constructed all of the Fotowat-Nam e (book of
Chivalry). This article reviews the concept, which affiliates theory and practice in third and fourth centuries and has
a deep effect on recognition of art and craft in Islamic culture.
Keywords: philosophy, art, Islamic civilization, theory, practice
1. Introduction
During three centuries (2-4 Hijra), Muslims translated the great human heritage; science was translated
from Syriac, Pahlavi, Latin, Indian, and especially Greek, to Arabic. Such translation movement caused a
Hasan Bolkhari Ghehi, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of High Studies of Art, Tehran University, Iran; main research
field: Philosophy of Art. Email: hasan.bolkhari@gmail.com.
518
THE RELATION BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE IN MUSLIM SAGES THOUGHTS
tremendous impact in preserving human heritage. Most of these works were implemented in science like
medicine, alchemy, arithmetic, and in theoretical scientifically translation of religion texts like the Torah and
the Gospel and philosophical texts. In some cases, there were not suitable words in Arabic language, or the
translators were not specialized enough in Arabic language to choose the suitably equals in languages, so the
words exactly entered Arabia culture. That is how myth, element (nature), schematic (astrolabe), Almagest, and
philosophy entered Islamic culture. At first, these words have the exact concept of their meaning in original text,
but as time passed and thinkers started to criticize, correct, and expurgate these texts, especially with Islamic
thoughts, the incoming words not only transformed in their concepts but also got some synonyms in Islamic
and Arabic language. For example, the word philosophy implies wisdom (Hikma) which has been stated in
Quran.
Thus, especially after the third century, untranslatable idioms of Greek, Indian, and Syriac texts, which had
a vast field, got a deeper and more sophisticated meaning than their origins. Such process occurred slowly. For
example, the word philosophy in Islamic civilization, especially in the third and fourth centuries, got a most
common meaning rather than philosophy in Greek.
Philosophy and especially the Alexandria philosophy, which was the most important way to be familiar to
Plato and Aristotles philosophy, and the vast presence of Neo-Platonism components, which had more ability
for corresponding philosophy to Islamic doctrines foundation, made a medium for Muslims to be family with a
kind of Greek philosophy. The concept, structure, and division of this philosophy afterwards have affected the
men whom were known as philosopher. For example, Yaqb ibn Ishq al-Kind1 is called the first philosopher
in historical view, and got the title Arabian philosopher (Ibn e Nadim 2002, 465) and the first Islamic
Aristotelian philosopher. He thought in Greek philosophy structure and wrote many epistles (2002, 465-472).
Therefore, the first philosophical school in Islamic world formed. It was Baghdad school. The Appearance
of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad (Beit al-Hikma) and the vast patronize of some Abbasid caliphs from
translation made the first philosophy school in Islamic civilization, which had two especial states: First, trying
to compile between Islam and philosophy; and second, make equilibrium between theory and practice, which
were the most important states of Baghdad school to scholars views and had an undeniable affection on Islamic
visual culture (Najib Oghlo, 2000, 180).
Analyzing works of these most brilliant philosophers and sages (wise men) approve these two features.
This affected the matter and essence of philosophical argument in Islamic philosophy and wisdom history.
These scientists reviewed Quran verses and Hadith in philosophical and theosophical view, and theorized
them. Therefore, these theories made a base for a civilization, which was Islamic in its essence. However, there
were some Greek roots in it but most of them were Islamic teaching. Islam is a religion, which emphasizes on
act; whenever it talks about beliefs, it emphasizes on acting according to the truth. It emphasized on relation
between science and practice. Therefore, this emerged civilization had new practical ideas, for example in
crafts and other practical works. This had effective transformation in Islamic science and culture florescence.
This transformation persuaded Muslims to ponder, contemplate, and strive. In addition, the particular concept
of wisdom in Quran, which was the practice acquired from science, confirmed and cleared the relation
between theory and practice.
Therefore, emergence of a powerful movement could not be due to division of philosophy to theoretical
and practical, in Greek philosophy. For example, some works are as follows:
(1) Mizan al-Hikma of Al-Khazini;
519
(2) Kitab al manazil Fima yahtaju al Kuttab wa al ummal min al hisab (Book of the stations on what the
scribe and secretary needs of the science of arithmetic) and Kitab Fima Yahtaju ilayhi al-sani min amal al
handasa from Abu al-Wafa Buzjani;
(3) Inbat al-Myiah al-khafyia (book on finding hidden waters) from al-Karaj, works of Banu Musa
(Muhammad, Ahmad and al-Hasan and especial Mohammad b. Musa b. Shakir which were known
al-Khwrizm and has a great role in completing science and algebra);
(4) Kitab al Hiyal al-Ruhanyia wa Asrar al-Tabi-iya fi Daqa-iq al Ashkal al Handasiya (Book of
pneumatics and natural mysteries about the subtleties of geometric figures) attributed to Al-Farabi;
(5) The works of Abul-Hasan al-Amiri.
Many of these works tend to emergence of specified courses of science in Islamic civilization, like
geometry, mathematics, music, architecture, geodesy logy, Ilm al hiyal or mechanic, etc., could not be product
of this division. Other motivations and religion and regional factors have affected that alteration, which have
had more effective role in religion teachings; especial Quranic definition of wisdom, which is researching in
science and practicing certitude (Fayz Kashani 1997, 128). For example:
(a) The vast emphasis on practice in Quran and Traditions (Hadith) underlined this meaning;2
(b) al-Rasail of Ikhwan al-Safa which to Shiaa doctrines was full of references to Quran and Hadith and
the relation between theory and practice was so brilliant in it which, we can clearly say Ikhwan have not argued
any theoretical science without emphasis on its practical aspect.
We can understand the enlightenment of this attempt from contemplating in works of the first Muslim
philosopher, Kind. This clarification was on one side the explanation of collecting between Islam and
philosophy, and on the other side, an introduction in proving a theory. This theory was Muslims had vast
contemplation in making the relation between theory and practice in the first centuries of Islam, and this had an
important role in emergence and incidence of a scientific, crafty revolution.
2. Yaqb ibn Ishq al-Kind

Al-Kindi, in an epistle, which he has written to Mutasim (Abbasid Caliph) about prime philosophy, has
known the philosophy as the highest and the noblest human crafts, which knows the truth of things equal to
Islamic capacity. This definition is Greek or has been influenced by Greek texts, or in other words, is the
Alexandrian Eudorous3: to be similar to God as much as possible (Copleston 1989, 520). The Eudorous
definition has certainly been affected first by the Platos in Thetetus (Plotinus 1987 1327), and second,
Plotinuss in the second epistle of first Ennead in the Enneads (The Collected Works).
We mention this to underline philosophical references (sources) in the first Muslim philosophers thought,
and explain motivation of application tallying Islam and philosophy, which were in some, such him. Above
references show both the references and the content, especially a concept like being similar to God, which is
synonym with some Hadith like Do like God,4 and Mir Seyyed Sharif Jurjan in al-Taarif, has mentioned this
synonymy in definition of philosophy in narration of Imam Jafar ibn Muhammad al-Sdiq (Al-Jorjani 1927, 73).
To Kindi, philosophers aim is reaching to the true and doing according to it (Kendi 1950, 26). Nevertheless, on
the base of what we pointed out to, he completely concentrates to Divine Law as the first Muslim philosopher.
To him, prime philosophy is the highest grade of philosophy, because it is knowledge and cognition of truth, so
it is equal to what messengers have brought. He knows the philosophy as the cognition to things realities,
divine knowledge, and all the sciences, which are beneficial for human and constrain dangers and harms in his
520
life, and it is all things, which true messengers have brought from God. Kindi believe that the philosophy of
messengers resurrection is human confession to absolute unity and divine lordly condition, and the necessity of
doing virtues and leaving vices (1950, 36). In addition to this, his books in geometry, spherical figures, music,
mathematics, celestials, medicine, and architectural science have been an important factor in formation of
writings practical epistles in geometry, music, architecture, and other practical science. Also, his definition of
philosophy, and more important, his view in making relation between philosophy and Divine Law, caused the
unique definition and explanation in Baghdad school philosophers and some after them.
3. Abu Nasr al-Farabi

Abu Nasr al-Farabi5 is placed after Kindi. His division and explanation of science in his book, Ihsa
al-ulum, has a penetrating affection in definition of science in Islamic civilization. Al-Farabi in Tahsil al-Saada
has called philosophy as the most ancient and perfect of knowledge. To him, at first, Caledonians had known
this knowledge. Then philosophy went to Iraq, next, to Egypt, subsequently to Greek, and from there
transferred to Syriacs and at last to Arabs. In derivation word philosophy, he said, This word has been made
in Greek at first, then translated to Syriac, and from there to Arabi (Al-Farabi 1992, 119). To Greeks, this
science was called wisdom, and the great wisdom. Al-Farabi by analyzing the famous idioms
philosophialoving wisdomgot the lover and be effective on wisdom. This is one of the first
substitutions of word wisdom instead of philosophy in Islamic civilization. However, some like Kindi had done
this substitution before him, but the great affect of Farabi gave more legitimization to this matter. Farabi
mentioned: the Greek called this science as the science of sciences (elm-al-ulum), the mother of science
(om-al-ulum), Hikmat-al-Hikam (wisdom of wisdom) and Sanaat-al-Sanaat, and believe sages are very skilful
in their crafts and their methods are effective in all crafts (nafiz al-rawiah) (1992, 120).
To Farabi, if the skilful and the learned philosopher who could not use these sciences in his practical
aspects is an imperfect philosopher. To him, the perfect philosopher is the individual who has acquired
theoretical sciences and could use them in practical objects. According to this ability (making relation between
science and practice), such man can be also the first chief [ruler of community]. Farabi discussed this matter in
Tahsil al-Saada. He believed factors of earthy felicity, otherworldly bliss of community and creed are only in
four kinds of virtues: intellectual, theoretical, moral, and practical crafts. Theoretical virtues, which are the
primary sciences, conclude intelligible and completely well established intelligible beings. He described
preliminaries of these sciences and real objects and named the numbers and lines as one of the creations genus,
which their understandings are easy for human and do not distress him with chaos and agitation. According on
this science, science of teachings (mathematics), some things would be produced which are good in
arrangement, fortified in combination and beautiful in composition (1992, 131). This matter represents relation
between medieval philosophy, practical crafts, and beauty in perfection.
His Ihsa al-ulum, which is one of the most important references in division of science in Islamic
civilization, emphasizes on crafts so, making transparent the relation between theory and practice, architecture
and jobs. His division is different from the Greeks in dividing philosophy, but contains it. Knowledge divides
to five parts: language, logic, instructive sciences, natural knowledge, and social sciences. In Ihsa al-ulum,
knowledge of language divides to seven parts, and knowledge of logic divides to eight parts. Nevertheless, as
we mentioned, his important work in exact clarification relation between theory and practice manifests in
describing kinds of learning knowledge (mathematics). He pointed to seven main parts of mathematics as
521
arithmetic, geometry, learning astronomy, music, optics, mechanic, and then divided it science to theoretical
numbering science and practical one. The first is the number absolute knowledge but the second is its use in
civilization trade and Bazaars trading.
Geometric science is also divided to theoretical and practical. Theoretical discusses about lines and
surfaces of things, in general and absolute form. Practical is the use of this geometry in external matter like
carpentering, blacksmithing, geodes logy, and agriculture. Emphasizing on practical geometry and placing it
below division of wisdom and knowledge caused writing some influenced epistles and texts in Islamic
civilization. Epistles were known as the reference texts in architecture and crafts:
(1) Bagh-iat al-Amal fi Senaah al-Raml wa Taghwim al-Ashkal, al-Hial al-Rohaniah and al-Asrar
al-Tabieiah fi Daghaegh al-Ashkal al-Hendesiah by Farabi;
(2) Al-manazil Fima yahtaju al Kuttab wa al-ummal min al-hisab (Book of the stations on what the scribe
and secretary need to the science of arithmetic) by Buzjani;
(3) Rasail by Ikhwan al-Safa.
Role of these epistles in formation of geometry of architecture and in use of arithmetic and geometry in
making crafts and arts is very important.
Al-Farabi, after defining learning astronomy and optics, talks about music and by dividing theoretical
music to five parts, knows the practical ones making sensible sounds by practical and artificial devices.
He has described theoretical and practical music in his book, Musighi al-Kabir (The Great Music)
completely. However, some part of this book has been lost, but it is one of the most important references in
Islamic civilization. In its introduction, he mentioned the perfection conditions of a theoretical crafts (sanaat):
knowing the bases of theoretical craft (sanaat) completely (corresponding theory to practice), and ability to
criticize that craft (sanaat) completely and answer its obstructions. According to mimesis theory, he believed
practical aspect of music is noticing and imitating teacher exactly, and doing all of seeing and hearing of this
imitation. Therefore, its result is skillfully in practical ability and achieving perfection of this capacity. However,
the main point of Farabi is his view in ability of intellect, and dividing it to agent and non-agent ones. Every
craft (sanaat) is an intellectual capacity. Some of these capacities are agent and some are non-agent. Those
intellect capacities which are not agent are knower ones.6 Therefore, all theoretical crafts are intellectual
capacity and knower. Theoretical music is also intellectual capacity and knower in sound and its appendages.
These annexations which Farabi calles true imagine and music science born from, make music capacity. This
capacity in itself has intelligence in act (Al-Farabi 1992, 31).
Therefore, music can be intellectual capacity of knower agent. In this case, the relation between science
and act will clarify the concept of act: Master of theoretical crafts must be actually knower of everything which
anyone who pursuits this craft must know them, and be able to adduce non-knowing of this science from its
knowing.
Farabi, by contemplating on this concept that among most of this science, single elements have been got
from craft and not from the nature, refuses Pythagoreans theory which says that spheres make rhythmic sounds
by their circular movement, and empasizes on that substance of music is got from craft. But, he did not believe
in as music substance is got from craft, so science of music divides to theoretical music and practical one.
Therefore, he discussed that this division is as the same one as in geometry. This will be a fine division in
relation between act and theory. He believed that some sciences are aquired to be only in act, like medicine,
522
but some are only theorethical ones which do not have practical end, and emphasized to this point ... act might
be got from theoretical craft (1992, 35).
Emphasizing on this concept that most of single elements of music are got from craft (and not from nature),
ends to this: first principle of music craft are sensual, so practical music is perior to the theoretical part in a long
time. Farabi discuseed that practical music had been made and developed at first and then theoretical music was
recognized. This, refused the common theory of that time, which was dicussed in Rasail of Ikhwan.
To Farabi, realizing experience of music, which is gained from sensing single elements repeatedly, is
necesary for research in music, and some musical acts, such as playing and singing, are not necessary. But as
we mentioned before, it is necessary to recognize what evokes joy in haman and what induces pain. The one
who is skilled in practical music can distinguish and discernment natural and unnatural sounds from each other.
Consequently, the spirant of theoretical music gets such ability from him. Therefore, if theoretical musician
could not discernment, these sounds must refer to practical one. Ptolemy did so. Such a view gave authenticity
to experience of realizing scientific knowledge, and on the other hand, made theory and practice interdependent.
Therefore, we cannot separate one from another. List of works that have been written by sages and Muslims are
in the second part (Fann) of seventh article in al-Fihrist of Ibn Nadim (Ibn e Nadim 2002, 478-510).
As a result, this deep revolution accrued in architecture, creating city, army tools, medicine, pharmacy, and
mechanics works, so after fourth century of Hijra, no practical craft could be found in music, architecture,
calligraphy, engineering, and chivalry epistels like dyers, chintz-makers, and ironsmiths. For example, drill
(exercise) was divided to theoretical, practical, and imaginal ones in Adab al-Mashgh of Baba Shah7 of Isfahan
(Qhilich Khani 1994, 218).
The most important part of Ihsa al-Olum in explaining relation between theory and practice is Farabis
definition of Ilm al-Hial. To him, it is recognizing a guardianship way by which human can communicate all
concepts in mathematics that have been proved by proof, to objects (external bodies) and actualized them in
objects (Al-Farabi 1992, 90). Farabi continued, In mathematics, some concepts, such as lines, surfaces,
incarnateds, and numbers, are discussed without external bodies and only on intellectual point. However, in
making these concepts in extern by using craft, we need a force to clarify the way in which they are made and
are communicated to objects. To Farabi, external bodies do not get every capacity, because they have special
qualities. The force, which makes things to accept mathematics concepts, is Ilm al-Hial. It discusses relation
between theory and practice completely. It also explains philosophically the relation between theoretical
sciences and practical crafts. It has divisions: numeral, geometry, etc.. Architecture or engineering is the
important component of its geometrical one. In addition to architecture, musical instrument, mirrors, telescopes
and many other things are Ilm al-Hials productions.
Dividing science to theoretical and practical had an important effect; emerging an especial recognition in
crafts and writing many theoretical epistles concerning about them. Some of these epistles are completely
engineering, like Buzjani, engineering, Ilm al-Hial (mechanics), theories of light, and so on. Some are both
theoretical and practical, such as epistles of Ibn Heitham, Jabir ibn Haiian, Safi al-Din Ormawi, and Abd
al-Ghadir Maraghi. Some other are completely theoretical.
4. Abul Hassan Ameri

Abul Hassan Mohammad Ibn e Yusif Ameri8 is one of Baghdad school members, too. He has followed
Kandis way in definition, object, and philosophy limits, and making equilibrium between theoretical science
523
and practice. He has such a high respect that Shahristani calls him one of grant Islam philosophers like Kendi,
Farabi, and Ave Sina. He has explained relation between religion and philosophy in al-Alam bi al-Managhib
(Ameri 1998, 186).
In explicating arithmetic, he refers to Quran9 and Imam Alis words: sciences have two parts; science of
religion and science of Bodies.10
He has exact explanation in relation between theory and act in Chap. 6. Act is renamed to belief and
adoration in religious realm. Ameri emphasized that, suitable religion is the moderate one, which believes in
reconstruction of this world and the last world. Then he invoked to some Quran verses, which God learns
some special crafts like making dress and mail, to human. Therefore, as craft is a Devin matter in itself, so has a
no-breakable relation to Gods cognition. In some chapters of this book, some acts of worship and practical
crafts like governing are some of the most important Islamic devotional aspect, which take into account its
reality.
Ameris view in adapting Law (Shariat) and philosophy is found in one other of his Rasail named Inghaz
al-Bashar min al-Jabr wal-qadar (Deliverance of Mankind from the Problem of Predestination and Free Will).
He has used idioms al-Ilaheen phalasifa (1998, 231) and divine wisdom, and has pointed to famous speech
of Imam Jafar Sadigh about predestination and free will (no predestination and no free will), Imam Alis words
and soul of Quran verses,11 to show he has considered agreement between law and philosophy. His discussion
about essence (nature) of act and exact explanation about different aspects of practice and deed proves another
important feature of Baghdad school: necessary relation between theory and deed. If we contemplate on what
Ameris work shows, we understand he has got the relation between science and deed from wisdom concept in
Islamic thought. This could be found in his book, al-Taghdir li wajh al-Taghdir in which he believes two
faculties for soul: theoretical and practical. Special act of human substance is re-knowing the God and doing
according to His way (Ameri 1996, 436). Therefore, the perfect person is the one who has the most cognition
about God and is the most powerful one in doing according to His way. He criticized severely from the ones
who believe practice is specified for the common people, and philosopher does not need practice (Ameri
1998, 180). Ameris thought in confirmation between theory and practise is adding Ilm al Hial to the four kinds
of medieval philosophy (mathematics, astronomy, geometry, and music), and in emphasizing role of geometry
and its effect on crafts and architecture is in this sentence: Geometry has the second place after
mathematics. If geometry does not exist, figures of buildings could not be recognized. Length, width and
deep of a mountain never recognized... (1998, 191). This shows vast important role of geometry and its role in
most artistic crafts and architecture in the last decades of the fourth Hijra century.
5. Ikhwan al-Safa and Khollan al-Wafa

Rasil of Ikhwan al-Safa which to Corbin has affected all Islamic researchers and Sufis (Corbin 2005, 193),
in no doubt is the most complete and important reference in relation between theory and practice, with the
affection on IslamicIranian art and crafts in fourth century. Ikhwan, according to their Shiaa view, have both
contemplated and fostered wisdom view based on circular circle, intellectual and philosophical methods. They,
like most sages and philosophers of centuries three and four of Hijra, collect between Islam and philosophy.
They mentioned to Quran verses and Hadith, as they pointed to Greek, Iranian, and Indian philosophy.
They used Quran verses in explaining philosophic concepts in gathering between Islam and philosophy by
this famous motto: We collect between philosophy & Islam (Tohidi, 2004, 147). For example, affecting by
524
contemplating view of Shiaa Imams, and according to allegory gradient of light in Light verse, they explained
grades of intellect. Most sages from Avicenna to Sadr al-Din Shirazi have done either. Allegory is the other
ways, which Ikhwan used to explain wisdom and philosophical meaning. Their analogy view which explained
philosophical immaterial (separate) meanings in form of stories and narratives has had effect on emergence
sages allegory epistles like: Salaman and Absal, Hayy ibn Yaqzn, (Alive, son of Awake), Aghl e Sorkh (The Red
Intellect), etc..
Relation between theory and practice which to Ikhwan is called wisdom and crafts, is one of the most
basic principles rules on these brethrens thoughts, and by this reason its explanation cannot be done except
according to general principles of Ikhwans philosophy. In explaining universe, they believed in effluence (Feiz)
doctrine and analyzed hierarchy of being (wujud) in a longitudinal order: the Divinity, His First effusion: the
First Intellect (Deus revelatus), soul and hyle (hayuli). According to this longitudinal hierarchy, the first
intellect embraces all Trumpets (Sowar) and soul of human is receptacle of all divine trumpets, which have
been gotten from active intellect. These divine receptacles have been bestowal from the first intellect to
universal soul and from it to hyle, then from hyle to human individual soul.
In this system, human mind (soul) is not only receptacle, but also can imitate nature (Ikhwan 2005, Vol. 1,
250). Ikhwan have explained this concept in their Rasail. Some verses emphasize this concept: 47:80, 16:81
and 11:37. Human powers of soul conclude two powers: bodily and spiritual. The later concludes imagination,
reflective, remembrances, calculative (discursive), and creator. Creator faculty is at the end of spiritual
faculties. Ikhwan divided powers of soul in two parts and they believed knowing the essence of soul (nafs) is
the base of all crafts (Ikhwan, 2005, Vol. 3:189). To them, intellectual geometry is one of the ways to knowing
the entity and essence of soul (2005, Vol. 1:110). Therefore, crafts are in the length of intellect and cognition.
Crafts bear from wisdom and sages create crafts (2005, 159).
Ikhwan in the second part of their book, al-Rasa-el, divided geometry into intellectual and sensual ones
and considered contemplate in sensual geometry ends to skillful in all practical crafts, and ponder on
intellectual geometry ends to skillful in sciential crafts. They had some examples in these matters in chapter
On geometrical Shapes.
Important feature of Ikhwan-al-Safas wisdom is omitting the gap between theory and practice and making
a vast relation between them, which affected the meaning of crafts in Islamic culture and gave a spiritual
feature to crafts and arts.
To Ikhwan, sages presented geometry after numeral science. They devised it to sensual and intellectual to
descend from sensuality to intellectuals concepts and from corporal principles to spiritualities. Therefore, every
sensual thing had an intellectual aspect. This was a Platonic matter and Muslims sages according to Quran who
had accepted it.
They believed human realizes forms of sensations from his sensual faculties. Then, when that image is
absent human gives it to imaginary faculty, then to thinking faculty and at last to memory faculty. This made
human to be aware, get rid of nature prison, and contemplate in real world. They used a verse of Quran to prove
this matter:
To him, ascend good words, and the righteous deed he raises (35:10).
(10 :)
525
Ikhwans believed that every geometrical shape has an especial feature and if human use these shapes in his
life, their spiritual feature will affect the life. For example, a shape with nine sides simplifies the childbirth.
Music has numeral orders and has spiritual effects in audiences sprit. It epitomizes a sanctified world for him.
Therefore, they accepted every geometrical shape which is completely sensible has spiritual effects,
which are called intellectual geometry. They demonstrate states of figures like triangle, quarter, rectangle, and
other figures like u quarter, which is one of the basic quarters in architecture (Fig. 1). Their insistence on
architecture of Bee and demonstrating its geometry points and astonishment have encouraged architects to
imitate divine geometry of nature. This concept made Iranian golden relation, which achieved from a rectangle
in six angles (Pir Nia 2005, 155).
Fig. 1. A Page of Rasail.
526
It seems vast use of geometrical shapes in Islamic art and architecture has been affected by this Ikhwans
and other sages view. To Muslims, sacred places, such as mosques, are called house of God according to Quran
verses. Calligraphy, as a sacred art, writes Quran in the most beautiful type. Illumination is very important in
making this calligraphy seen beautiful. Geometrical shapes had spiritual effects in an effort to transfer spiritual
effects with themselves to the inspectors. Artistic forms in Islamic civilization have been completely depended
on mathematics and geometry. According to their theoretical and intellectual aspects, they can show sacred
words in Islamic civilization (Fig. 2)
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
Fig. 2. Analyze of Geometrical Shapes in the Dome of Soltaniyeh (1-5)
(Mausoleum of IL-Khan Oljeitu) (6). The structure, erected from 1302 to1312 A.D.
In addition, generosity epistles, as theoretical and spiritual manifest of crafts, arts, and architecture in
Islamic civilization, and a most important reference to explain the relation between theory and practice, are due
to Ikhwans teaching system. They instructed teaching system in four grades:
The first grade began from 15 years old and was based on the verse of Quran:
And when the children among you have attained to puberty (24:59).
(59 :)...
Persons, who were accepted in this grade, must have had three characteristics: cleverness, speed
imagination, and soul purification.
527
The second grade started from 30 years old and was specialized for who had passed the first grade.
Acceptance conditions for this grade were being kindness to other Brethren, munificence, and respect other
Brethren quality. This grade was based on verse below:
And when he attained his maturity and became full grown, [w]e granted him wisdom and knowledge.
And thus do [w]e reward those who do good (to others) (28:14).
(14 : )
Third grade, which begin from 40 years old, was according to the verse below:
Until when he attains his maturity and reaches forty years (46:15).
(15 : )... ...
The one who could pass the second grade could enter in this grade. Conditions for penetrating to this grade
were ability to conciliate and guide the opposite people, and enemy by benevolence and courtesy.
The fourth grade was the most complete one. Surrendering and vision of God were begun from 50 years
old. Men in this grade were prepared to ascent to heavens and observe (spiritual experience) after death events.
Ikhwan referred this grade to the verses below:
O soul that art at rest! Return to your Lord, well-pleased (with him), well-pleasing Him (89: 27-28).
(28 -27 : )
They made an institution which is the most important base and model in forming books of Chivalry
(Fotowat-Nam e) and circles concluding generosity epistles which were full of crafts and wisdom (Hikma and
sanaat).
However, new view with scholarship and Ikhwans contemplating in craft concept has had a deep effect on
crafts specialist (artists) thoughts and IslamicIranian artists, architects, engineers, and designers views.
There is no doubt that Ikhwan were family with Pythagorean, Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and
Napoleonic thoughts, and knew artistic theoretical foundation, contemplate craft concept in this realm with
insistence on Quran verses and Islamic culture, and used craft concept in all humanityobjects creatures
(artificial things), emphasized on its artistic instances.
6. Conclusion
There are two basic states of sages in third and fourth Hijra centuries, collecting between Islam and
philosophy, and making balance between theory and practice. This not only made a deep revolution in technical
and crafty science in Islamic civilization, but also by their insistence on nature relation between Islam and
philosophy, and putting community roles on religion roots, and gave a spiritual form to crafts and jobs. So,
generosity epistles emerged and a unique form in architecture style of mosques, religious schools, Bazaars, and
even bathes were made to emphasize on spiritual identity of all works that are done in these buildings, from
pray and teach to trade and purification (Taharat). In addition, all-comprehensiveness of wisdom and
philosophy concept in Islamic civilization was the basic factor in emerging practical epistles after theoretical
ones, and florescence in crafts and architecture in Islamic civilization.
528
Notes
1. C. 801-873 CE; also known by the Latinized version of his name Alkindus to the western world.
2. Especially the great scientific movement of two Imams, Muhammad ibn Al al-Bqir and Jafar ibn Muhammad al-Sdiq,
whose reflection emerged in Jbir ibn Hayyn and by some mediators in some greats like Alhazens (Ab Al al-Hasan ibn
al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham).
3. Eudorus of Alexandria (Greek: ; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, and a representative of
Middle Platonism. He attempted to reconstruct Platos philosophy in terms of Pythagoreanism.
4. .
5. C. 872between December 14, 950 and January 12, 951.
6. Here, knowledge is getting cognition in being of a thing and cause of its being.
7. D. 996.
8. D. 381 Hijra.
9. 19: 94 and 72: 28.
10. :
11.He has not indicated the verses.
Works Cited
Alfa Khori, Hana, and al-Jar Khalil. History of philosophy in Islamic world. Trans. Abd al-Hamid Aiati. Tehran: Zaman, 1979.
Al-Farabi, Abonasr. al-Amal al-phalsapiah. Researched by Jafar al Yasin. Beirut: dar al-Manahil, 1992.
Al-Jorjani, Seiied Sharif. al-Tarifat. Tehran: Nasir Khosro, 1927.
Al-Maraghi, Abd al-Ghadir. Jamie- ol- Alhan, Taghi Binish, Tehran: Research and Study Institute, 1993.
Amiri, Abol Hasan. al-Alam bi Managhib al-Islam. Ed. Ahmad Gharib. Trans. Ahmad Shariati. Tehran: University Publishing
Center, 1988.
---. Rasail. Ed. by Sbhan Khalifat. Trans. Mahdi Tadiion. Tehran: University publishing center, 1996.
Bolkhari Qehi, Hassan. Geometry of Imagination and Beauty. Tehran: Iranian Academy of Arts, 2009.
Copleston, Fredric. History of philosophy. Trans. Seiied Jallal al-Din Mojtabawi. Tehran: Sorush, 1989.
Corbin, Henry. History of Islamic Philosophy. Trans. Jawad Tabatabay. Tehran: Kawir, 2005.
Fayz Kashani, Mohsen. al-Asfa fi Tafsir al-Quran. Qom, 1997.
---. al-Ihsa al-Olum. Researched by Ali bu Molhim. Beitut: al-Hilal, 1987.
---. al-Musiqi al-Kabir. Trans. Azartash Azarnush. Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Culture Studies, 1996.
The Glorious Quran. Trans. Mohammad Shakir. Qom: Ansarian Publication, 1998.
Ibn e Nadim. al-Fihrest. Trans. Reza Tajadod. Tehran: Asatir, 2002.
Ikhwan al-Safa wa Khollan al-Wafa. al-Rasaiel (Epistles). Vol. 4. Ed. Mustafa Ghalib. Beirut: Dar al-Sadir, 2005.
Kendi, Yaghob ibn Ishagh. Rasail Kiendi al-Phalsaphiah. Mohammad ibn al-Hadi Abo Riaz. Cairo: dar al-Fikr, 1950.
Najib Oghlo, Golru. The Topkapi Scroll Geometry and Ornaments in Islamic Architecture. Santa Monica: Getty Center for the
History of Art and the Humanities Trans. Mehrdad Bid Hindy. Tehran: Rozaneh, 2000.
Pir Nia, Mohammad Karim. Introduction to Islamic Iranian Architecture. Tehran: Surush e Danesh, 2005.
Plato. Majmue Asar (The Collected Works). Trans. Mohammad Hassan Lotfi. Tehran: Kharazmi, 2001.
Plotinus. The Collected Works. Trans. Mohammad Hassan Lotfi. Tehran: Kharazmi, 1987.
Qhilich Khani, Hamid Reza. Epistles in calligraphy and dependent Art. Tehran: Rozane, 1994.
Tohidi, Abi Hayyan. al-Imtina al-Moanisa. Beirot: Dar al-Marifat, 2004.

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 529-537
DAVID
PUBLISHING
Right to Health or the Human Right of Access to

Essential Healthcare
Nader Ghotbi
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights refers to the human right to health and well-being including medical
care, but for the majority of people whom are not covered by health insurance this is better said than done. Ensuring
the access of all citizens to the needed medical care requires the provision of health insurance coverage to a
population pool and gradually expanding the pool to the whole nation. The ethical perspective of pooling resources
across various groups of people with different levels of income and different health risks associated with age,
genetics, and lifestyle, may raise the issue of individual autonomy versus social solidarity. Governmental, social,
private, and community-based healthcare coverage have been used in different countries with varying details in the
sources of funding, pooling of contributions, and the purchase of the covered healthcare services; these models
have had varying levels of success depending on not only the availability of funds, but also on the political
commitment of the state and the social solidarity and cultural attitude of the population towards universal
healthcare. Therefore, universal healthcare requires not only a certain level of economic development, but also a
strong sense of solidarity among the people as well as a political commitment in their government. I argue that the
statement regarding the right to health, well-being, and medical care needs to be rethought, and instead universal
access to essential healthcare should be regarded as a basic human right.
Keywords: health insurance, health security, healthcare access, human rights, social solidarity, universal health
coverage
1. Introduction
Article 25 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations 1948) consisted of two parts
and emphasized the right of everyone to health, well-being, and among other things, medical care:
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family,
including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of
unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of
wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
It has been frequently said that health is a basic human right, but this phrase is too broad and may also
be interpreted differently. If we assume that the text of the Article 25 from The Universal Declaration of
Nader Ghotbi, Ph.D., Professor of Bioethics and Health Science, College & Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies,
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan; main research fields: Bioethics with a special interest in Environmental Ethics, Ethics
in Education, and Ethics of Public Health. Email: nader@apu.ac.jp.
530
RIGHT TO HEALTH OR THE HUMAN RIGHT OF ACCESS TO ESSENTIAL HEALTHCARE
Human Rights is a formal statement on the notion that everybody has a right to health (Gruskin et al. 2005), it
provides us with a more specific statement for discussion and analysis. In fact, some very helpful observations
may be implied from the text of Article 25 (Annas 1998; Claude and Isse 1998):
The fact that access to food, clothing and housing plays a major role in health; it may be more
significant than medical care.
Besides medical care, the necessary social services are needed to provide security from unemployment,
disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood beyond ones control. Again, medical care is not the
only way to provide health.
Mothers and children have been entitled to special care, assistance, and social protection. These are
the two vulnerable groups whose right to medical care receives special attention in The Universal Declaration.
The definition of health has gone through a lot of changes through time. The World Health Organization
(WHO) has defined the concept of health as a state of complete physical, mental & social wellbeing & not
merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The WHO has also expressed its official position regarding health
as a human right: The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights
of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic, or social conditions.
Article 25 had no enforcement mechanism and was mainly a statement of aspirations; whether the
health-related rights would lie on the state and/or the private sector was not specified either. Nevertheless, it
provided an important normative guideline for public health policy, and in fact was followed by two
International Covenants, one on Civil & Political Rights, and the other on Economic, Social & Cultural
Rights. The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights was issued in 1966, and
planned to become legally binding from Jan. 1976. Article 12 of this covenant says:
(1) The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable
standard of physical & mental health.
(2) The steps to be taken by the States Parties to the present Covenant to achieve the full realization of this right shall
include those necessary for:
(a) The provision for the reduction of the stillbirth-rate & of infant mortality & for the healthy development of the
child;
(b) The improvement of all aspects of environmental & industrial hygiene;
(c) The prevention, treatment & control of epidemic, endemic, occupational & other diseases;
(d) The creation of conditions which would assure to all medical service & medical attention in the event of sickness.
2. Basic Arguments
Please note that Article 12 has taken a step towards the restatement of the right of everyone to public
health services including the health of mothers and infants, environmental, and occupational health, and the
control of epidemics of contagious diseases. Other changes include more emphasis on healthcare rather than
medical care, and the mentioning of mental health along physical health; healthcare implies an emphasis on
preventive care that may also be provided by non-medical staff. Also in this article, it is the states that are being
called to take the necessary steps towards the goal of providing healthcare to their citizens. Therefore, a gradual
transition can be seen in the concept of the right to health which is more realistic compared with the statement
that health, well-being, and medical care are basic human rights. The fact is that a lot of progress is needed to
achieve an acceptable level of health and wellbeing at the global scale.
531
One might say that the establishment of the WHO under an independent constitution in 1948 followed
such a goal and vision. The WHOs agenda include fostering global health security through the support and
strengthening of the healthcare systems. The WHO has defined health security as: the rights & conditions that
enable individuals to attain & enjoy their full potential for a healthy life. The WHO and United Nations
Childrens Fund (UNICEF) Declaration of Alma-Ata, reaffirmed the position in 1978 that health is a
fundamental human right, and the attainment of the highest possible level of health is a most important
world-wide social goal whose realization requires the action of many other social and economic sectors in
addition to the health sector.
More recently, in September 2000, all of the 191 United Nations member states signed the United Nations
Millennium Declaration and agreed to follow eight goals known as the United Nations Millennium
Development Goals by 2015. These goals include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, the reduction
of child mortality and improvement of maternal health, and combating Human immunodeficiency virus
infection/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS), malaria, and other diseases.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights had required the signing states, as
a core obligation, to adopt a national public health strategy and plan of action. However, by 2005, 57 years
after The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the worldwide violations of health rights including the right
to healthcare had expanded far beyond what was imagined in 1948. The United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) through its general conference at its 33rd session adopted a Universal
Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights on October 19, 2005, which was mainly addressed to states.
Article 14 of this declaration is on social responsibility and health and consists of two parts:
The promotion of health and social development for their people is a central purpose of governments that
all sectors of society share.
Taking into account that the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the
fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or
social condition, progress in science, and technology should advance: (1) access to quality health care and
essential medicines, especially for the health of women and children, because health is essential to life itself
and must be considered to be a social and human good; (2) access to adequate nutrition and water; (3)
improvement of living conditions and the environment; (4) elimination of the marginalization and the exclusion
of persons on the basis of any grounds; and (5) reduction of poverty and illiteracy.
Article 14 recognizes the role of factors other than healthcare (from b to e) on provision of health, and
emphasizes on the central role of governments on health promotion and a fundamental right of all humans to
enjoy the highest attainable standard of health through all the possible means (Leary 1994). It is interesting to
note that the terminology is focused on healthcare, the strong emphasis on public health services is preserved,
and the issue of discrimination and disparities in health is also targeted.
Nevertheless, different nations have experienced various levels of success under a complex set of different
policies that were meant to provide adequate, accessible, and affordable healthcare (Garrett et al. 2009). There
are wide disparities in access to healthcare all over the world (Benatar 1998). One-third of all human deaths
still result from curable conditions that result from a lack of access to healthcare; this amounts to 50,000
avoidable deaths per day. Women and children under five are significantly overrepresented in the severe
morbidity and mortality figures, respectively. The most significant correlation is with poverty; almost all the
avoidable mortality and morbidity occurs in poor countries, especially in their poorer citizens (Pogge 2005).
532
About 85% of the world population lives in developing countries and suffers almost 90% of the total disease
burden, while receiving only 12% of the total health expenditure. A similar disparity exists within developing
countries where the total national expenditure on healthcare is unevenly distributed between the relatively
wealthier and poorer communities within the country (Garrett et al. 2009). More importantly, the current trends
mean that in the near future, the disparity is going to become only wider.
3. Justice in Healthcare
The health disparities are to some extent related to different rates of population growth and economic
development between the developed and developing countries, and the widening gap of wealth between the rich
and the poor (Benatar 1998). If we divide the total expenditure on health into public and private expenditure, it
is seen that developed countries have a much larger share of public expenditure (around 60%) than developing
countries (less than 30%). Another observation on the issue of equity is that access to healthcare as well as the
width of access commonly depends on the users ability to pay rather than their needs for healthcare. The
establishment of a universal healthcare system with larger pools of finances and health risks could minimize
this problem. Out-of-pocket expenditures globally account for less than 20% of expenditure on health, but
they account for more than 50% of the total health expenditure in low-income countries. The poorest people
worldwide pay the highest percentages of their wealth for healthcare. On a per capita basis, high-income
countries spend about 100 times more on healthcare than low-income countries, and even after adjusting for
differences in cost of living, high-income countries still spend about 30 times more on health. While the
average health expenditure per capita in low-income countries is $25, the annual per capita health expenditure
in the US was about $8,300 in 2010. Therefore, ethically speaking social justice is a major issue in provision of
healthcare both globally and also at the national level especially in developing countries.
Four general models may be used to provide healthcare for the citizens of a country including
governmental or state-funded, social, private, and community-based models (Gottret and Schieber 2006).
Governmental models are usually implemented through the ministry of health or a national health service, such
as in the UK. Social models are based on the payroll contributions of workers and employees, such as in Korea
and Japan. Private models may depend on voluntary contributions to privately managed systems, but may be
regulated by the state, such as in Sweden and Uruguay. Community-based models are commonly seen in low
income countries where they act as the minimum healthcare coverage for a relatively small and poor population,
and therefore, are difficult to sustain. However, there are significant variations within each category that are
related to the economic, historical, demographic, socio-cultural, and epidemiological differences between the
countries. Nevertheless, any model has to deal with three basic issues regarding provision of healthcare to its
people. These include how to raise revenues from different sources, how to pool these financial resources to
cover the health risks of the population, and what types of healthcare services may be purchased.
Various choices of revenue to support the healthcare system depend on the tax structure and efficiency, the
size and proportion of individual contributions, and availability of other sources, such as national resources or
external assistance (Gottret and Schieber 2006). Pooling of resources as well as the health risks is a vital
function. If social solidarity exists and is supported by government policies, the collected taxes and
contributions from the wealthy and the poor can be pooled to cover all people with different levels of health
risks. In most nations with some levels of social solidarity, it is commonly expected that the wealthy contribute
more in a progressive way, while they may use the system less, because as a group, they are healthier than the
533
poor. The health risks to individuals of a population may be different because of factors that are not in the
control of an individual (such as age and genetic factors) or factors that are mostly in control of an individual
(lifestyle factors such as smoker vs. nonsmoker). However, poverty may limit the individual choices and result
in a lifestyle that has higher health risks, for instance by limiting the ability to exercise or have a more
nutritious diet that costs more.
4. Discussion
A number of ethical issues were implied in the short description of the overall set of affairs that was
summarized here. From an ethical standpoint, health has intrinsic value, rather than only instrumental value
(Austin 2001). Health has also a close association with human dignity (Gostin 2001); a violation of health
amounts to a violation of human dignity. There are large international disparities in health and healthcare
provision which probably constitute the gravest problem of medical ethics in our time.
There is a strong public goods basis for public intervention to provide universal healthcare. Human
rights values underlie the concept of public health (Rodriguez-Garcia and Akhter 2000) and the public health
system may be well founded on the principle of human rights (Susser 1993). Public intervention is needed
because of market failures in private financing (such as information asymmetries), other sources of instability,
such as favorable risk selection by insurers, moral hazard, cream skimming, adverse selection, etc.. Social
justice is the key ethical value in provision of healthcare. The question is how can a society equitably allocate
benefits (services) on one hand and burdens (costs) on the other? Ronald Green used Rawls theory of justice to
argue for ensuring equal rights in access to healthcare, regardless of income and only limited by the total
amount of a societys resources that may be devoted to healthcare (Moskop 1983).
There is no denying about the fact that healthcare has played an important role in combating disease and
mortality and improving health and life expectancy (Pogge 2005). However, an important issue is the nature
of the right to the needed healthcare as phrased in the text of The Universal Declaration. An observation is that
Article 25 of The Universal Declaration has not necessarily set the goal of free medical care; a reasonable
implication is that adequate healthcare at a standard level must be accessible and affordable to individuals
and their families. In fact, one of the responsibilities of WHO is to set the norms and standards in healthcare.
Differences exist in the types of healthcare services that are supported by the various systems. However,
most healthcare systems require the provision of a basic package of essential or primary healthcare
services; these services may be less expensive but benefit the whole community as well as the individual, such
as vaccinations, screening for and treatment of contagious infections, etc.. There are also some relatively
expensive services that target a catastrophic health event which usually happens unexpectedly, such as with
injuries and medical/surgical emergencies. These services may not be considered primary healthcare but are
still essential, because without them, many lives would be lost and the continuity of families would be
endangered.
The experience with some medical care services, such as optometric services, has shown that not all
medical care needs to be financed by a pooling mechanism. Optometric services although essential, recur quite
infrequently and their costs are usually well tolerated by individuals who pay for it; a free market mechanism in
fact has allowed the service to be provided more efficiently. Other examples include non-essential or
not-so-essential services, such as cosmetic surgeries, orthodontics, and psychoanalytic counseling. The question
arises whether this list can be expanded to cover a lot more of elective procedures that can be effectively
534
planned and thus paid for by individuals who choose to have them. Some examples include removal of a
gallbladder with non-symptomatic gallstones, removal of ovaries in postmenopausal women, etc..
Interestingly, the achievement of universal health coverage does not necessarily depend on a high national
gross domestic product (GDP); many countries with low GDPs (e.g., Costa Rica, Cuba, Gambia, and Gabon)
have achieved a very impressive prepaid coverage, as compared with those with high GDPs (e.g., China, India,
USA) (Kinney 2001; Kinney and Clark 2004). The main differences appear to be in political commitment,
and the health system design, management and financing (Singh, Govender, and Mills 2007). The entire
Latin America is on the path to achieve universal health coverage within this decade. In Vietnam, almost
everyone is covered by some forms of health insurance or protection, though the range of services and the
quality of care at government health centers may be inadequate. On the other hand, Thailand has achieved
universal coverage, along with a reasonable quality of care and roved health outcomes. In Japan, article 25 of
The 1946 Japanese Constitution affirms that in all spheres the state shall use its endeavors for the promotion
and extension of social welfare and the security of public health. This article demonstrates the intention of the
Japanese government to protect the health of its citizens and the strong sense of social solidarity among all
Japanese citizens.
However, in the US, The Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medical, Biomedical, and
Behavioral Research (1983), appointed by the president, rejected the concept of a right to healthcare as an
ethical basis for reforms of the US healthcare system. The main reason for this rejection was that such a right
was not included in The Bill of Rights to the American Constitution. The anti-social rights orientation of the
Reagan Administration, at the time, may have played a role, too. In the US, health expenditure was $2.4 trillion
in 2008 (17% of GDP), but not all US citizens have access to a decent level of healthcare. About 50 million
citizens have no health coverage (less than 75% population health coverage), and another 25-45 million people
are covered by inadequate insurance, implying that a major medical event can cause family bankruptcy.
The resolution endorsed by the 58th session of the World Health Assembly (2005), called the member
countries to work towards sustainable health financing. The resolution defined universal health coverage as
access for all to appropriate health services at an affordable cost. But should all individuals in a community be
forced to join the system through compulsory contributions in order to widen the pooling effect and improve
the efficiency, or should they be given a choice in the matter? This is quite an important issue, because it puts
healthcare as a shared human right opposite to individual autonomy which is also a basic human right (Farmer,
1999). The recent political controversy in USA over the so-called Obamacare is a good example of the existing
dilemma. The US public opinion polls in 2011 and 2012 reported an almost equal number for and against
Obamacare (43% favorable vs. 39% unfavorable, Kaiser Family Foundation poll) and the most recent polls in
2013 report relatively higher unfavorable views (43% vs. 54%, Rasmussen and CNN/ORC polls); however,
citizens of countries that have universal healthcare based on compulsory contributions appear satisfied with
their model and prefer the wide healthcare coverage everybody is entitled to.
I argue that the major issue in any governmental planning for the provision of universal healthcare in the
US is the lack of a strong sense of social solidarity among contemporary Americans as a multiethnic society
with a history of racial issues. The lower levels of social solidarity over sharing health risks and financial
contributions are related to the multiethnic and racial mix-up including socioeconomic issues related to the
relatively large number of immigrants; some people do not want to pay for the healthcare of a different racial or
ethnic group than their own.
535
An alternative explanation is the strong emphasis of the American culture on self-reliance, standing on
ones own feet and taking responsibility for ones own needs and problems. Nevertheless, many Americans are
not satisfied with the current situation of private healthcare market where Health Maintenance Organizations
(HMO) may dictate, even to healthcare providers, what conditions may be covered, who may not be covered,
etc.. On the other hand, the federal program of Medicare is quite well-liked and its expansion may also be
welcome by a wide majority of people, especially those without any form of healthcare coverage or those who
have been refused coverage because of pre-existing conditions, etc..
However, there are also some genuine concerns regarding the sharing of the health risks under universal
healthcare; for instance, should the community pay for the cost of the health risks associated with an
individuals lifestyle choices, such as smoking (Gostin, 2001)? Some countries have started to compel people
into a conscious appraisal of their unhealthy lifestyles and to assign more responsibility to the individual under
certain circumstances, such as in accidents under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Another example is the wide
category of occupational hazards where coverage is provided by employment-based plans.
But, there are still many conditions where the voluntary choices of individuals impose a significant cost,
which is also an opportunity cost, onto other members of the population pool they belong to. Individuals with
lung cancer following years of smoking are not charged extra for the healthcare services they receive, for
example. It is said that raising special taxes (sometimes called a sin tax) may help cover for such expenditures.
In fact, there have been many attempts to indirectly charge some of the risk-taking groups over the cost of the
added health risks: special taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, and tanning booths are some examples. Critics say that
these taxes are still far less than the actual cost to the healthcare system. Recently, taxes are also being proposed
on sugar and other fattening foods that are deemed responsible for the obesity pandemic which is extremely
expensive on the healthcare system.
One of the successful aspects of the universal healthcare system in Japan is the provision of feedback
information following the annual health checks which are required by law. The periodic health checks not only
provide an opportunity to screen for the most common health problems, but also to provide health promotion
and systematic encouragement towards some appropriate healthy lifestyle changes. Therefore, it could be said
that the provision of a reasonable and appropriate set of information regarding health protection is a crucial
component of the basic human right to healthcare.
Many countries including USA continue to provide emergency medical care services for anyone who
needs them even if they cannot afford it at the time of admission. This appears to be an ethically correct policy;
however, some critics challenge that as a result of such laws many health problems have been neglected at an
earlier stage and people who could not afford to pay for healthcare services may wait until they are taken to a
hospital emergency room after the medical problem progressed to an advanced stage (Jekel et al. 2007). The
important point for the healthcare system is that prevention could have cost a lot less, and now the community
has to pay for the expensive emergency resulting from an originally small but neglected problem. Accordingly,
it may be suggested that some of such health problems could be identified and listed for more generous
community coverage to help prevent them from aggravation and thus lower the associated expenses resulting
from an emergency.
On the other hand, the large costs of futile treatments to terminally ill patients that are blindly forced onto
the healthcare system may become a crippling factor in aging societies, such as Japan. This is another ethical
issue to be discussed and resolved in the society. It appears that such revisions require a social debate to raise
536
the issue for an exchange of information, opinions, and expression of values in the society before any change
can happen.
5. Conclusion
Good health is a well recognized human need, but its provision depends on many factors including healthy
food, shelter, job, and social status, as well as basic and essential healthcare. I have argued that the availability
of affordable healthcare at an adequate and standard level, especially for vulnerable groups, such as pregnant
women and children, is a basic human right. To say that health, well-being, and medical care is a human right,
may be too broad, impractical, and considering the wide range of medical services, even improper.
However, a wide range of healthcare services, more than the required minimum, are provided in developed
countries with a strong health financing system in place. Such systems have historically adapted themselves to
the optimum conditions needed to fund revenue, pool resources, and purchase the healthcare services. So the
major ethical problems are the large inequality between the developed and the developing economies, and the
continuing need for foreign assistance in many of developing countries especially in Africa who should find
more resources for the increasing needs of their growing populations.
The concept of social solidarity is essential and should usually be considered in the discussions on the
right to health, because a universal healthcare system requires a high level of cross-subsidization between the
rich and the poor, and the low-risk and high-risk people with different lifestyles as well as genetic risk factors.
To protect the basic interests of communities such as their health has ethical value just as the protection of
individual freedoms; however, the concept of access to healthcare as a human right relies on an understanding
that individuals benefit from being part of a well-regulated society that reduces the shared risks to all its
members.
The recognition of access to essential healthcare as a basic human right can generate the needed
socio-political commitment, and lead to a better health for all people. Development of efficient healthcare
systems also relies on health financing mechanisms that offer universal access to healthcare. However, the
specific nature of such financing schemes and service delivery models may vary, depending on each nations
economic, historical, and cultural factors. Nevertheless, the basic mechanism is the pooling of resources among
a larger population and progressive contributions where wealthier people contribute more though they may use
the system less. The optimum provision of healthcare to more people requires a pooling of resources where
finances may be distributed temporally, from the young and healthier to the elderly, as well as from the
wealthier and healthier groups of people to the poorer groups. This requires a strong support for social
solidarity versus individual autonomy and freedom of choice. If the society gives priority to healthcare access
as a human right, it may support strong policies to make it happen. In countries that have historically relied
more on individual freedom of choices and/or have suffered from racial-ethnic division, strengthening the sense
of solidarity would require a lot of socio-cultural work; changes cannot be made overnight.
Finally, a standard level of adequate healthcare that may benefit everyone in the society requires some
healthcare services to be provided for free. Immunizations and screening for and treatment of highly contagious
infections are examples. Catastrophic medical conditions and surgical emergencies to save life or treat
significant morbidity should also be optimally subsidized. I referred to the concept of essential healthcare as
an inclusive term for all such instances. It is possible that a ranked listing of healthcare services could help with
537
decision-making in situations where there are not enough resources to cover for all or most of the sought after
healthcare services.
Works Cited
Annas, George J. Human Rights and Health The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 50. New England Journal of
Medicine 339.24 (1998): 1778-81.
Austin, Wendy. Using the Human Rights Paradigm in Health Ethics: The Problems and the Possibilities. Nurs Ethics 8.3 (2001):
183-95.
Benatar, Solomon R. Global Disparities in Health and Human Rights: A Critical Commentary. American Journal of Public
Health 88.2 (1998): 295-300.
Claude, Richard Pierre, and Bernardo W. Issel. Health, Medicine and Science in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Health and Human Rights (Fiftieth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) 3.2 (1998): 126-42.
Farmer, Paul. Pathologies of Power: Rethinking Health and Human Rights. American Journal of Public Health 89.10 (1999):
1486-96.
Garrett, Laurie, A. Mushtaque R. Chowdhury, and Ariel Pablos-Mndez. All for Universal Health Coverage. Lancet 373.9697
(2009): 2078-81.
Gostin, Lawrence O. Public Health, Ethics, and Human Rights: A Tribute to the Late Jonathan Mann. The Journal of Law,
Medicine & Ethics 29.2 (2001): 121-30.
Gottret, Pablo, and George Schieber. Health Financing Revisited: A Practitioners Guide. The World Bank, 2006.
Gruskin, Sophia, Michael A. Grodin, George J. Annas, and Stephen P. Marks. Perspectives on Health and Human Rights. New
York: Routledge, 2005.
Jekel, James F., David L. F. Katz, Joane G. Elmore, and Dorothea Wild. Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Preventive Medicine. 3rd
ed. Philadelphia: Saunders, 2007.
Kinney, Eleanor D. The International Human Right to Health: What does This Mean for Our Nation and World. Ind. L. Rev. 1457,
2000-2001.
Kinney, Eleanor D., and Brian A. Clark. Provisions for Health and Health Care in the Constitutions of the Countries of the
World. Cornell International Law Journal 37 (2004): 285-355.
Leary, Virginia A. The Right to Health in International Human Rights Law. Health and Human Rights 1.1 (1994): 24-56.
Moskop, John C. Rawlsian Justice and a Human Right to Health Care. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 8.4 (1983): 329-38.
Pogge, Thomas W. Human Rights and Global Health: A Research Program. Metaphilosophy 36.1-2 (2005): 182-209.
Rodriguez-Garcia, Rosalia, and Mohammad N. Akhter. Human Rights: The Foundation of Public Health Practice. American
Journal of Public Health 90.5 (2000): 693-94.
Singh, Jerome Amir, Michelle Govender, and Edward J. Mills. Health and Human Rights 2. Do Human Rights Matter to
Health? Lancet 370.9586 (2007): 521-27.
Susser, Mervyn. Health as a Human Right: An Epidemiologists Perspective on the Public Health. American Journal of Public
Health 83.3 (1993): 418-26.
United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. G. A. res. 217A (III), U.N. Doc A/810 at 71, 1948.

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 538-543
DAVID
PUBLISHING
Nietzsche and the Total Experience of Black Swan

A. Andreas Wansbrough
University of Sydney
This paper argues that Nietzsches view of tragedy as involving the Apollinian and the Dionysian may explain the
appeal of the popular film Black Swan. The basis for this argument rests on Nietzsches innovation in The Birth of
Tragedy, namely, his emphasis on spectacle. Nietzsche argues for a collective experience, where the ego is
abandoned in a renewed and shared sense of life. Black Swan provides a spectacle outside the confines of high
culture and philosophical categories, where destructive and bestial nature is presented in an illusory and safe way
for the audience. From a Nietzschean perspective, tragedy and Black Swan achieve this effacement of the ego
through the aesthetic marriage of clarity and confusion, ugliness and beauty, music and image, inducing an
experience in the audience that goes beyond moral judgment. This Nietzschean prism provides a case for the films
artistic merits where traditional conceptions of aesthetics and morality arguably fail to provide insight.
Keywords: Dionysian, Apollinian, cultivation, art, ugliness, terror, spectacle
1. Introduction
Nina, a mentally unstable ballet dancer, has just committed a murder, or so she believes. Rather than
entering a state of guilt or shame, Ninas transgression liberates her. Instead of fleeing the scene of the crime,
she goes on stage to perform as the lead in Swan Lake. This liberation is not merely psychological, but
strangely bodily. Her whole body is enhanced and energized as she experiences a state of self-overcoming.
Losing any grip over her self-image, in fact, no longer Nina, she believes that she is becoming a Black Swan.
Her body convulses and in her altered transitional consciousness, feathers appear to penetrate through her flesh
and her arms transform into wings. This sequence is from the movie Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky
and released in 2010. At once terrifying and exciting, the movie has proved successful not only in terms of
award nominations but also audience appeal. The film channels horror, terror, and ugliness in a way that
engages the audience, but does not educate the sentiments as with Aristotelian conceptions of drama. In this
respect, the film provides an example of Friedrich Nietzsches conundrum in Twilight of the Idols. If art
redeems life, or serves a purpose in life, why does it, to quote Nietzsche (1976, 529), make apparent much that
is ugly, hard, and questionable?
The ugly, hard, and questionable as it appeared in Black Swan left many viewers repulsed and critics
skeptical. Despite the various award nominations and the Academy Award winning performance of Natalie
Portman, many critics gave negative reviews to Black Swan. Although cinema has long been viewed as a
challenge to the traditional role of the spectator as a detached and disinterested observer, the criticisms of Black
Swan reveal a lingering distaste toward extreme experience. Some critics and the philosopher Slavoj iek
A. Andreas Wansbrough, Ph.D. candidate, Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, Australia; main research fields:
Aristotle, Hegel and Nietzsche, Visual Art, and Film and Cultural Theory. Email: andreaswansbrough@hotmail.com.
NIETZSCHE AND THE TOTAL EXPERIENCE OF BLACK SWAN
539
argue that the film is sexist (Medeiros 2011), and one self-help writer argues that the film is nihilistic. In this
way, many of the objections toward Black Swan relate to an ethical and political evaluation of art, and a distrust
of hyperbolic experiences. These objections seem in keeping with the traditions of Plato and Aristotle. Indeed,
commercial film is often thought of as continuing something of the Aristotelian narrative, which, in Aristotles
account of (largely tragic) poetry, mediates experience. Aristotles Poetics is often taken to be a reply to Plato.
Whereas Plato fosters fears regarding the erotic pathos of the spectacle of Greek tragedy, Aristotle reassures us
that the spectacle is less significant than the narrative which either cleanses, purges, or clarifies fear and pity,
depending on ones interpretation of catharsis.
As Jacques Rancire observes, in the early days of experimental cinema, there was a hope that cinema
would dislodge Aristotelian narratives in favor of unmediated experience (Rancire 2006, 1-20). As cinema
became a popular art form, the narrative itself became more important and an essential artistic criterion.
Nietzsche offers an alternative way to evaluate aesthetic and artistic experiences of drama that I argue can be
applied to Black Swan. In particular, Nietzsches understanding of tragedy as a site for the aestheticized
rendering of suffering, struggle, and annihilation may offer insights into the films power to engage audiences.
In this way, I argue that Black Swan has at least some artistic merits when viewed from a Nietzschean
perspective. For Nietzsche, the narrative should actually be absorbed into the spectacle of the performed
artwork, allowing us to grapple aesthetically with hard truths displayed in hyperbolic ways. There are two
objectives in examining Black Swan and Nietzsches views of tragedy. This essay argues, firstly, that Nietzsche
provides a radical understanding of art connected to suffering that differs from traditional aesthetics, and
secondly, that this new understanding brings in turn a new evaluation of Black Swans popular appeal.
Regardless of whether Black Swan is a work of art, Nietzsches aesthetics provide a sense of why the film is
appealing and why, despite its sensationalism, the visceral power of the film still speaks to an existential
longing.
2. Nietzsches Aesthetics and Its Relevance

Nietzsches innovation deals with existential problems and depends principally on his notion that evil
can be embraced aesthetically. Nietzsche maintains that what is often considered evil: suffering and destruction,
is part of life and can be artistically transformed into an affirmative experience. Our sense of self-preservation
leads us to demonize anything destructive and call it evil, but, according to Nietzsche, we should sacrifice
self-preservation in favor of self-continuation in an experience beyond the self, an experience of life in its
extremes. Nietzsches The Birth of Tragedy asserts that the highest form of art and tragedy involves a
presentation and justification of the ugly and the disharmonic (1967, 141). Nietzsche maintains that it is
through art that we can justify the suffering of life, going beyond an individuals agony.
The opening scene of Black Swan introduces Nina (Natalie Portman) through presenting her dream in
which she plays the Swan Queen in Swan Lake. After she wakes from the dream, we begin to realize that Ninas
entire life has been structured towards achieving a controlled porcelain perfection befitting the White Swan. It
is, however, clear that Ninas perfectionism suppresses her more animal instincts and pleasures. These instincts
haunt Nina in the form of a darker shadow that appears everywhere, a kind of doppelganger dressed in black. A
rival ballet dancer, Lily (Mila Kunis), also takes on this shadowy appearance. What Nina has failed to admit to
herself is that to play the Swan Queen, the White Swan, she must also embody her darker side by playing the
Black Swan. The director of the production of Swan Lake, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), challenges Nina to
540
discard her sense of individuation and her self-mastery in order to let go and to lose herself in the experience.
Nina finally does so, but this realization brings about her (own) joyful destruction.
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche distinguishes two impulses that both originate from nature and
constitute ways to experience nature. These two impulses are energies that also guide human affairs. One is
inclined toward order, reason, individuation, beauty, and illusion, namely the Apollinian. The other, which he
terms the Dionysian, is directed towards oneness, the destruction of the image, and the state of eternal flux.
Man is torn between the illusion of images that make reality bearable and the Dionysian that unites people with
nature. Dionysian totality is the realization that urges and forces drive all natureanimals, the natural world,
and humans. Black Swan almost begs a Nietzschean perspective with Nina torn between the polarities of her
self and her conflicting urges. On one level, Nina is aware that there is something destructive about her, for
example, she has an impulse toward self-harm, and a yearning for annihilation. According to Nietzsche, such a
realization sustains the Apollinian impulsewithout Dionysus, Apollo could not exist (1967, 46). But Nina,
aided by her mother, does her best to strengthen her illusory order and untainted image, surrounding herself in
pink and white from her room to her clothing, and denying her darker and animalistic instincts. And so her false
surroundings become a burden, for as Nietzsche warned, to mistake Apollinian illusion for reality is to enter
into pathology. Socially awkward and often unstable, Ninas arguably Apollinian constructed self becomes
fragile, her very strength against breaking becomes difficult to bear, especially as she increasingly becomes
aware of the abyss within her (1967, 63). Yearning to be more than an artist, Nina wishes also to become a
work of art. Such a struggle is elucidated by Nietzsche in binary terms: to desire to be an artist is Apollinian,
but to become a work of art is Dionysian (1967, 37). Ultimately, her passion leads her to new experiences
where she can forget her self, her illusory distinct form, and become one with spectacle. Nina impregnates
the White Swans death with its greatest significance only when she unleashes her destructive and evil side.
3. The Advantage of a Nietzschean Prism

There are other ways to understand Black Swan, such as a Lacanian approach, where desire is understood
to structure the subjects social reality. Desire is constituted by a lack without which the human subject is
thrown into confusion. As soon as a desire is realized, the subject can no longer function normally and loses
his/her grasp of reality. Nina realizes her dream of performing in Swan Lake, and it is precisely this realization
that brings about both her loss of identity and sanity. The desiring function that keeps us linear and sane is set
adrift. Black Swans narrative could be understood in a way that does not invoke the Dionysian and its relation
to the Apollinian.
But to accept the insights of psychoanalysis as a way to understand Black Swan is not to preclude a
Nietzschean account. One of the merits of a Nietzschean approach is that it accepts a plurality of perspectives.
In Nietzsches The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche ridicules the one great Cyclops eye of Socrates that reduces
life to formulation in search of an ultimate, final truth (1967, 89). In later works, Nietzsche contrasts Socratic
scientism with his own perspectivism, which postulates that perspective is part of life, and that the most
valuable perspectives allow for revaluation. All the necessary is that a perspective allows us to glean an insight,
providing a new evaluation. In this case, the new evaluation hinges on Nietzsches tragic optic which allows a
connection to aesthetics, and the idea of a total art form. This takes us beyond many Lacanian readings, since
Lacanian readings tend to focus on narrative and spectacle as a narrative device. Such a tendency derives from
Lacan himself, even stating in a seminar that film should be judged by Aristotelian criteria, and following
541
Aristotle in devaluing spectacle (Lacan 2008, 311). A Nietzschean approach, on the other hand, recognizes
narrative as a part of a transformative spectacle.
4. Visceral Spectacle in Black Swan and Nietzsches Conception of Tragedy

This spectacle is a type of total spectacle. Although, as far as I am aware, Nietzsche does not use Wagners
term total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk) in The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche does use the term elsewhere in
his lecture entitled The Greek Musical Drama (qtd. Kofman 1985, 205). Furthermore, in The Birth of Tragedy,
Nietzsche talks of the total release of symbolic powers, and the total power of art which completely removes
one from culture and its surroundings. In this respect, the tragic experience is beyond both everyday reality
with its moral and practical concerns, and the contemplation of the ideal and cultivated spectator. Nietzsches
total experience of art is one in which humanitys impulses and drives manifest aesthetically. Dionysus is
associated with the myth that founds a tragedy and with the music played during a tragedy. Dionysus
universalizes the images on stage, giving them a new meaning, allowing the audience to identify with them. In
tragedy, the audiences anatomy becomes engaged. Nietzsche conceives of total art as inhabiting a space
between physical exercise and a mystical unveiling, the link being a sense of heightened experience and an
engagement with the primal. This return to the physical experience of tragedy is achieved by fusions of
antithetical forces: beauty and ugliness, image and music, illusion, and truth.
Throughout Black Swan, these antithetical forces confront one another, making the audience members
flinch and jump. Ninas ideal beauty is revealed to be an illusion from the very first scene, where after waking
from her dream, she gets out of her bed and cracks her toes and neck to prepare her body for ballet. In Black
Swan, Tchaikovskys music, which borders on kitsch, is indeed reworked with an underscoring of drums and
various horror film audio effects to make the image of Nina in the process of self-destruction become
horrifyingly engaging. In spite of the fact that to watch a figure destroy herself is morally questionable, Black
Swan and Nietzsches conception of tragedy take us beyond moral evaluation, where evil becomes an aesthetic
criterion. Darren Aronofsky describes the film as a were-swan movie, due to Ninas immersive but terrifying
transformation from an ideal beauty to a monstrous black swan (qtd. Riefe 2010). What moves the audience
watching Black Swan is not moral pathos, but the mixed emotions of pleasure and suffering. In tragedy, so
Nietzsche claims, the audience forgets itself, losing itself in the artwork and experiencing the conflict of drives
within Man.
Part of the engagement and excitement of a tragedy, according to Nietzsche, is the Dionysian message of
tragedy, namely that death is not the end. Rather man is simply an aesthetic phenomenon torn between different
impulses that continue after an individuals annihilation. Thus, mans highest significance is that of aesthetic
phenomena, a transient and partial encapsulation of these forces that is ultimately subsumed into a larger will.
Such a message seems to be expressed by Nina at the end of Black Swan. She says, as she lies dying, after
having delivered a performance that incites the audience to chant her name that she has achieved perfection.
She has succeeded in merging her darker, animal side, the Dionysian force that possesses her as the Black Swan,
with her Apollinian self-mastery in the form of the illusory and shimmering White Swan, more beautiful than
real. And this sense of perfection, Ninas ability to dissolve herself at the same time as express herself, explains
part of the appeal of Black Swan. One might venture to say that Ninas appeal resembles that of the Nietzschean
conception of the protagonist of a tragedy who becomes Dionysus. In The Birth of Tragedy, the oneness of
Dionysus is torn apart by possessing and absorbing an Apollinian figure, the hero of a tragedythe god
542
experiencing in himself the agonies of individuation (2010, 73). From the destruction that ensues, there is a
rebirth of Dionysian energy, and the very death of the protagonist is just part of lifes endless destructive
processes. At the end of Black Swan, Nina is fatally injured, dying, but in a way, the life force that she
embodies survives her, and her audience is united in clapping and chanting her name. As Nietzsche argues, the
will that the hero has embodied is not diminished by the individuals annihilation, rather, the heros annihilation
brings about an exultant sensation in the audience.
5. Contextualizing the Nietzschean Merits of Black Swan

One writer, Stephanie Dowrick (2011), author of self-help books, criticizes Black Swan as an exercise in
nihilism, as a work that has a dangerous effect on the audience, glorifying the meaningless of life. This
objection is not dissimilar to the one that Socrates issues in Platos The Republic. Plato has Socrates criticize
the affective and effective corruptive nature of tragedy, on the basis that the bad is romanticized for aesthetic
affect. But Nietzsche, as Sarah Kofman (1985, 201) implies, sees philosophy rather than art as corruptive. The
spectacle of suffering serves to connect us with nature truth, the way the universe is, in actuality. The
universe is not a nice place and it is always in a state of flux. Philosophy, on the other hand, attempts to abstract
life rather than represent or manifest universal fluctuations whilst obscuring our animal natures. Aristotle
infamously offers a defense of tragic poetry but only by devaluing the role of Opsis (spectacle) in tragic
production. Recognizing that spectacle does not serve a moral function, since it does not impart a message,
Aristotle emphasizes the narrative of tragedy, and it is from the continuance of this legacy that films are judged
by their theme. Nietzsches rejection of Platonic philosophy also rejects formulations of the good as an end, and
with it, Aristotles narratively grounded moral education. But, Nietzsche (1976, 529) also sees art as connected
to the totality of life, asserting that art detached from life is a worm chewing its own tail. Art ought to be a
total experience that engages our eyes and our ears and motivates us to move and be energized, making us more
ready to live. Whereas optimists see the potential for enervation in the depiction of the ugly and the destructive,
a Nietzschean prism would emphasize the life-affirming power of aesthetically conveyed suffering. In this
respect, a Nietzschean pessimist is more optimistic about suffering than are optimists.
6. Conclusion
According to Nietzsche, suffering is not itself disgusting. It has a bodily and aesthetic appeal for the
audience, because it unites them together, breaking through the confines of cultivation. But although total tragic
art is a collective and sadomasochistic experience, meaningless suffering would be intolerable. In order to make
suffering bearable, it must be fated and willed, and be revealed to be a precondition for excellence and eternal
life (1976, 104). Above all else, suffering should become a spectacle. Only as a spectacle can suffer be
properly appreciated and celebrated. As Nietzsche writes in Twilight of the Idols, tragedy speaks to and
celebrates what is warlike in our soul (1976, 530). But without art, the repetitious flux of life becomes
nauseating and the horror beneath illusion sickening, art becomes a saving sorceress, expert at healing (1976,
60). Such a view makes sense of perhaps Nietzsches strangest and most troubling argument, in his extremely
strange and troubling The Birth of Tragedy, namely, that it is at a tragedy that mans highest significance is
achieved. Black Swan provides us with safety from the terrors of existence by making us experience them
aesthetically, freeing us from the terrible anxiety which death and time evoke (Nietzsche 2010, 213).
Nietzsches conception of art, unlike philosophy, the cultivated intellect, and art as understood by the
543
Aristotelian tradition, engages all of our faculties, but in order to do this, it requires illusion. Nietzsche claims
that the fusion of image and music is also a fusion of states of intoxication and of dreaming (1976, 33). Black
Swan fuses illusionistic imagery with the excitement and rapture of a powerful score, becoming a Dionysian,
intoxicated, and intoxicating, dream.
Works Cited
Aristotle. Aristotles Poetics. Trans. James Hutton. New York/London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1982.
Dowrick, Stephanie. A Very Ugly Swan. Online Review of Black Swan. stephaniedowrick.com. 25 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.stephaniedowrick.com/blog/a-very-ugly-swan/>.
Kofman, Sarah. Metaphor, Symbol, Metamorphosis. The New Nietzsche. Ed. David B. Allison. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
1985. 201-14.
Lacan, Jacques. The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Trans. Dennis Potter. London: Routledge, 2008.
Medeiros, Vince. Slavoj iek: The End Times. Huck Magazine 22 May 2011. <http://www.huckmagazine.com/
features/slavoj-zizek/>
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy. The Birth of Tragedy and the Case of Wagner. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York:
Random House, 1976. 3-144.
---. Twilight of the Idols. The Portable Nietzsche. Ed. and Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Penguin Books, 1976. 463-563.
---. Untimely Meditations. Ed. Daniel Breazeale. Trans. R. J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010.
Plato. The Republic. The Dialogues of Plato. Vol. 4. Trans. Benjamin Jowett. London: Sphere Books Limited, 1970.
Rancire, Jacques. Film Fables. Trans. Emiliano Battista. Oxford: Berg, 2006.
Riefe, Jordan. Aronofsky on Black Swan: A Werewolf Movie, Except Its a Were-Swan Movie. The Wrap 17 Nov. 2010.
<http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/aranofsky-black-swan-werewolf-movie-except-its-were-swan-movie-22590>.

June 2013, Vol. 3, No. 6, 544-557
DAVID
PUBLISHING
Taking Nature Seriously: Hegel on Nature and the

Education of the Mind
Vasiliki Karavakou
University of Macedonia
The incredible extent of current environmental destruction justifies the modern concern to resist the alienated view
of nature as a resource to exploit a totality of dead and meaningless objects, a totally disenchanted world. In this
spirit, modern philosophy tries to take nature seriously by recapturing a sense of natures intrinsic value. Hegel
respects nature to the extent that it bears the trace of the human mind, to the extent that it is forced to speak the
voice of reason. Although there are grounds for being critical of the Hegelian project, especially because Hegel
remains silent on the issue of our duties towards nature for the sake of nature and his argumentation serves the
primordial desires of human reasoning and not the rights of nature itself, it is suggested that no matter how much
inauthentic and incomplete is the recognition that the human mind acquires in its dialectical confrontations with
nature. Hegelian phenomenology grants the human mind with a remarkable degree of self-certainty, necessary for
all its subsequent educational enterprises.
Keywords: nature, reason, education, mind, recognition, dialectic, phenomenology
1. Introduction
For a considerable number of years now, an ever growing number of philosophers have been expressing a
deep concern about the need to resist the alienated view of nature as the totality of bare, dead, meaningless,
and unconnected objects existing merely as a resource to exploit, and inevitably, destroy. The incredible extent
of current environmental destruction justifies the concern to embrace an ecologically sensitive philosophy that
recaptures nature and takes nature seriously. Hegel respects nature to the extent that it bears the trace of the
human mind and is forced to speak the voice of reason.
Although scholars may disagree about Hegels sincerity and ask whether he can be legitimately placed on
the good side of environmentalism, given that his argumentation serves the primordial desires of human
reasoning and not the rights of nature itself, we may safely accept that he genuinely re-enchants nature and
implicates it in the educational activities of the mind. In an attempt to defend, in a rather reconstructive fashion,
the Hegelian view, it is suggested that no matter how much inauthentic and incomplete the recognition is that
the human mind acquires in its dialectical confrontations with nature, Hegelian phenomenology grants the mind
with a remarkable degree of self-certainty, necessary for all its subsequent educational enterprises. Hegelian
phenomenology can be a fruitful conceptual framework that prepares the ground for: (1) a different account for
Vasiliki Karavakou, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Research Fellowship, Associate Professor, Department of Educational and Social
Policy, University of Macedonia, Greece; main research fields: Philosophy of Education, Moral and Political Philosophy, and
German Idealism. Email: vkaravakou@yahoo.co.uk.
HEGEL ON NATURE AND THE EDUCATION OF THE MIND
545
understanding human nature and nature in general; and (2) a phenomenology of sense experience that grasps
nature in terms other than the scientific paradigm. The phenomenological grasp of nature proves to be an act of
the highest educational significance for human subjectivity.
2. Reason and Nature: The Need to Overcome the Culture of Reflection

One of the most enduring problems in the history of philosophy is the powerful dichotomy between reason
and nature. Nature has been taken as the given, the untrustworthy, the unreliable, the ignoble, what is evocative
of fear and in need of refinement. Reason has been taken as the humanly contrived, our refuge and achievement,
what we can claim and use and understand as the true result of our own deliberative activity. Hegels theory of
the Bildung (education) of the human mind constitutes a provocative challenge against a long standing
philosophical tradition that portrayed the relationship of reason to nature in a state of perennial opposition.
What Hegel (1977b)1 styles as reflective philosophy, or the culture of reflection raised to a system is an
amalgam of philosophies ranging from Lockean empiricism, Enlightenment naturalism, and Kants
transcendental philosophy, which precipitated a crisis in the spiritual integrity of reason and nature with serious
implications not only for our understanding of human nature but also for our conceptions of morality and
freedom. For Hegel (1977a; 1977b), they all failed to dismiss the inevitability of the dichotomy, because they
adopted a reflective starting point according to which reason (or rational intelligence) is affected by nature (or
sensibility). Of course, one may find various versions (or expressions) of the dichotomy, earlier than the
culture of reflection. But, Hegel was right in observing that this culture had raised the dichotomy to the
standpoint of an absolute antithesis.
The new theory challenges the alleged inevitability and absoluteness of this dichotomy and its description
of the human condition as the final predicament. Hegel agrees with Kant that this unity cannot be the result of
empirical experience in as much as he clearly understands the significance of preserving the apriority and
autonomy of reason: reason is always naturalistically irreducible and self-sustaining. This means that reason
comprehends nature, whilst nature is not and cannot be in possession of itself. For Hegel, to speak of the unity
of reason and nature is to adopt the speculative standpoint which creates the conceptual framework that renders
possible the speculative identity of objective nature and subjective reason in an articulated whole. The need to
restore the integrity of human nature, do justice to the unlimited powers of reason and replace the philosophical
idiom of dualism with a viable theory of human self-actualization became for Hegel a task of paramount
importance. This was not an idiosyncratic urge to restore duality with unity, nor a romantic nostalgia for some
kinds of lost harmony. In one of his early writings, Hegel speaks of the need for a philosophy that will
recompense human nature for the fragmentation that it suffered and restore the status of human rationality
not by having Reason renounce itself or become an insipid imitator of Nature, but by Reason recasting
itself into Nature out of its own inner strength (1977a, 83) To achieve this, Hegel needed a new model of the
mind (Geist), a new kind of an active subjectivity, capable of replacing the reflective dichotomies with
speculative identities.2 The latter was the achievement of the self-creative and self-constituting activity of the
human mind. In as much as Hegel embraced anti-naturalism and the Kantian spontaneity of reason, he was
equally dismissive of any idea of a pre-established unity of reason and nature. For Kant, this unity had to be
spontaneous, behind all experience. For Hegel, it had to be established by human subjectivity, in and through its
profound dialectical relationship with the world. For the limited standpoint of Verstand (understanding), the
unity remained always a beyond, whereas it should be seen as the activity of the one universal Reason
546
directed upon itself (Hegel 1977a, 88) Hence, in the Phenomenology of Spirit and the mature Philosophy of
Mind, his theory of Bildung describes and explains how human subjectivity, whilst embarking on an educative
self-investigation, finally comes to the important realization that prior to a speculative understanding of the
world and itself, it always ends in arbitrary fabrications (or abstractions) which consciousness prefers to raise to
the point of the highest contradiction3 in its attempts to form, transform, and actualize itself.
3. Hegel on Mind and Nature

Hegels Philosophy of Nature is, unanimously agreed, the most difficult part of his mature system to
understand and consequently one of the least studied texts. Hegel (1970, para. 250R, 215-216) himself
attributed this difficulty to natures being contingent, capricious, not in order, unable to hold fast to the
realization of the concept. When Hegel himself asks in the Philosophy of Nature: What is nature?, he goes
on to admit that, ... [w]e find nature before us as an enigma and a problem, the solution to which seems to both
attract us and repel us; it attracts us in that spirit has a presentiment of itself in nature; it repulses us in that
nature is an alienation in which spirit does not find itself (Hegel 1970, I, para. 244A). We have good reason,
however, to agree with Alison Stone (2000, 725), who says that, the more immediate reason the text poses
such difficulty is that its arguments are exceedingly compressed and frequently submerged amidst Hegels
lengthy discussions. This obstructs any attempt to identify the intriguing and elaborate theory of nature
presented in this text, a theory that has escaped the notice of secondary commentators Fortunately, the
situation has improved in the last ten years,4 so that one feels more comfortable at present to deal with the
Hegelian text, although we still strive to make this text meet contemporary standards of philosophic
intelligibility.
Geist (mind), not nature, is the famous protagonist in Hegels philosophy. Geist is not an entity to which a
collection of faculties belongs. It is rather a structured hierarchy, a system of interconnections of various
capacities. It constitutes and expresses itself through its own activity (Hegel 1977, para. 22, 35-36; 1991, para.
34A.; 1975, pp. 33, 48), driven by an immanent dialectical power to move from the in-itself to the
for-itself.5 This is a profoundly paideutic movement in and through which the human mind seeks to form,
transform, and actualize itself. In other words, the mind seeks to educate itself and, therefore, it needs to take
over both cognitively and practically what is other than itself.6 The only way Geist is able to know and
actualize itself is through the encounter with the other, the subsequent overcoming of the opposition between
mind and the other and the eventual ideal assimilation of the other by Geist. This is how the human mind,
according to Hegel, educates itself, i.e., through its confrontation with nature. The result of the confrontation is
minds gaining self-consciousness as a being capable of self-determination and freedom. Hegel (1975, 126)
never rests in reminding us that Geist does not drift aimlessly amidst the superficial play of contingent
happenings, but it is in itself its determining factor; in its own peculiar destiny, it is completely proof against
contingencies, which it utilizes and controls for its own purposes.
We should take this rather seriously, because this is indicative of the way Hegel understands the mind.
Whatever the mind does, its workings and activity, they all bear the trace of its fundamental selfish
motivation: it needs what is other than itself (either natural or social) in order to gain self-understanding and
self-vindication. By doing so, the mind acts in favor of what it should become, i.e., it forms and transforms
itself in a paideutic process. However, this does not render the otherness of nature redundant or insignificant.
Hegel is not underestimating nature merely because he refuses to embrace an unconditional naturalism, or
547
because he stresses the immanent anxiety and need of human subjectivity (about which he speaks so fervently
in the Preface of the Phenomenology of Spirit) to reach knowledge and self-knowledge. Nature is indeed taken
up by human reason. Hegel affirms and respects their difference. Nature is simply the other, what lacks inner
purpose and self-control, what is contingent and capricious, as it is deprived of self-determination. Its truth does
not lie in itself, but in the mind which enables us to grasp what is true or essential about nature.
It seems that nature scores a second rate status, it is less privileged and waits always in its deafening
silence to be taken over by the mind. However, it seems that taking nature seriously, on Hegelian grounds,
means that we cannot get rid of nature, not simply because the minds triumph over nature depends on natures
being assimilated by the mind, but also and most importantly, because the mind depends on the natural
otherness, it wants to assimilate in order to enjoy self-recognition. The Hegelian Geist attains to concrete
being itself (Hegel 1971, para. 383A, 17), only because it has encountered and confronted nature. This means
that we come to terms with our self-identity as a primordial return from our encounter with nature. Knowledge,
for Hegel, is a limitation the mind sets for itself and, apparently, a known limitation is not a limit. At the level
of consciousness,7 it is impossible to deny this contradiction, because consciousness establishes itself in and
through this contradiction. It knows that its negative activity leaves no sheer immediacy. In the Logic, we are
told that even the simplest determinations of being are mediated and in the Philosophy of Nature, the picture
of nature as the empty corpse of the understanding has been dropped out of consideration (Hegel 1970, I,
para. 244A). Let us remember that it is only after Hegel said in the Encyclopaedia Logic that the [c]oncept is a
form that is infinite and creative, one that both encloses the plenitude of all content within itself and at the same
time it releases it from itself (Hegel 1991, para. 160A), that it becomes possible for him to maintain in the
subsequent Philosophy of Nature that [i]n mind mind and content are identical with each other (Hegel
1970, para. 383). Nature loses its strangeness through the forceful, self-determined imposition of the mind and
the mind comes out victorious, since it has converted the other into a being that corresponds to itself. Finally, in
the Philosophy of Mind, mind is the truth of nature as mind is a return out of nature.
On the one hand, to say that mind is the truth of nature, this tells us something about the mind. It does not
imply the denial of the reality of nature. It only means that the mind is able of attaining unity of what it is
in-itself and for-itself through the minds encounter with nature. Thus Hegelian idealism remains faithful to the
Kantian autonomy of reason, but it is also equally faithful to establishing the speculative possibility of the unity
of reason and nature through the self-instruction of the mind. On the other hand, to say that mind is the truth of
nature, this tells us something about what nature is. Hegel asks in the Philosophy of Nature: What is nature? ...
We find Nature before us as an enigma and a problem, the solution to which seems to both attract us and repel
us; it attracts us in that spirit has a presentiment of itself in nature; it repulses us in that nature is an alienation in
which spirit does not find itself (Hegel 1970, I, para. 244A). The task of a philosophy of nature, for Hegel, is
not the discovery of an exhaustive assessment of all natural phenomena (Hegel 1970, I, paras. 250R, 270A), but
the grasp of its simple essence. In addition, the question what is nature? need not and should not be addressed
to nature itself. If we made such a mistake, it would be, as if we were asking Proteus to speak out (Hegel 1970,
I, para. 244A). Proteus was a minor god with enormous knowledge and with the power to change his shape in
order to escape from the need to answer questions. One should manage to hold him steadfastly in order to make
him return to his true shape and speak. Presumably, the point of the parallel is to stress the need to make nature
talkative. This can only happen, on the basis of what we have said so far, if we abandon the view of nature as
the totality of dead objects with which a limited Verstand (understanding) is always engaged. We should
548
instead endorse the thinking approach which implicates nature in the dialectical strivings of reason to handle
it and force it to speak.
So, it comes out that nature abandons its silence and elusiveness, once it is handled in relation to human
reasoning, only if it is taken up by reason. Therefore, if we approach nature as thinking beings, we are able to
grasp our unity with nature through the incessant negative labor of the dialectic. In Hegels own words By
thinking things, we transform them into something universal (1970, para. 247A), we assimilate the
bewildering diversity and abundance of the richness of nature, until it has been replaced by the dull northern
fog, i.e., by the universalizing activity of reason (Hegel 1970, I, para. 244A). By saying that nature has
yielded itself as the Idea in the form of otherness (Hegel 1970, I, para. 247), not only is Hegel highlighting
the externality (as absence of self-determination) and the external necessity of nature, but he is, basically,
preparing the ground for a philosophy of nature, according to which the true essence of nature is derived not
from experience, but from the independence and infinite worth of the activity of the mind. By doing so, Hegel
prepares the ground for his philosophy of mind that understands mind through its reflective return from its
dialectical confrontations with nature. In the context of the Philosophy of Mind, nature is no longer silent,
elusive and capricious. It like mind is rational, divine, a representation of the Idea (Hegel 1971, para.
381A). This is of utmost importance for Hegelian idealism: it does not deal with the mind in terms of an
abstract self-relation (Hegel 1971, I, para. 382A), but in terms of its independence that ensues from its
confrontation with nature.
This conclusion has guided many commentators in their criticisms of Hegels philosophy of nature: It is a
conclusion that exalts Geist and its activity, whilst it speaks in a very compromising manner, to say the least,
about nature. In fact, Hegels stance towards nature has very rarely attracted the traditional concern of
commentators. The main issue was not whether Hegel views nature merely as a resource to exploit, failing thus
to capture our experience of the dynamism and interconnectedness evident in nature, or whether his philosophy
of nature offers a good vantage point for a thorough critical assessment of the ecologically destructive
paradigms. The truth is that Hegelian scholars have been primarily concerned with the compatibility or
incompatibility of the idealist and realist strands of Hegels system. Undoubtedly, there is a sense in which
Hegels philosophy subordinates nature, matter, and objectivity to what is entitled as conceptuality. We see the
power of this sense in the following Hegelian claim:
It is a mistake to assume that, first of all, there are objects which form the content of our representations, and then our
subjective activity comes in afterwards to form concepts of them, through the operation of abstracting that we spoke of
earlier, and by summarizing what the objects have in common. Instead, the Concept is the infinite form, or the free,
creative activity that does not need a material at hand outside it in order to realize itself. (Hegel, 1991, para.163A2, 241)
In the light of what has been said, it makes sense to suggest that a major concern in Hegels account of nature
was his interest in grasping the real essence of nature, endowing his account with some kind of a priori
orientation. Hegel approaches the study of nature a priori by first deducing the order and structure found in
nature on the basis of the internal dialectical logic of the Concept. All the discussions surrounding the issue of
the nature of his idealism fall precisely in this context.
We need to be very careful of attributing any extreme idealist implications of this thesis to Hegel. For,
although he claims that the concept is the inner principle of things, affirming thus, in contrast to all empiricist
accounts, the priority of the conceptual over the real, Hegel (1991, para. 213, 286) also claims that [t]he idea is
549
truth in itself and for itselfthe absolute unity of concept and objectivity, which is highly reminiscent of the
Hegelian imperative that we cannot get rid of nature. There is no doubt that Hegel is an idealist, but he can
also be placed in the realist camp because of the above stated identity of concept and object.8 It is on the basis
of this identity that we have seen Hegel claiming that nature is like mind rational and divine. So, it is
imperative to hold fast to his realist line of thought without doubting for a moment that he is a consistent and
uncompromising idealist. Once the realist line is secured, it becomes possible to maintain that Hegel endorses a
non-traditional view of nature, as he recognizes its inherent reason and value. Stone (2000) says characteristically:
Hegels overall position, therefore, is that nature originates in the logical ideas act of self-objectification. Nevertheless,
it is important to remark a crucial difference between nature and the objects of consciousness: consciousness only thinks of
exteriority, whereas the logical idea actually creates objective nature. Thus Hegel is not maintaining, in a rather Berkeleian
fashion, that the logical idea merely thinks of objective nature. (727)
In his famous Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel presents his understanding of idealism within the context of
a discussion of truth and development. We read: The True is the whole. But the Whole is nothing other than
the essence consummating itself through its development. Of the Absolute it must be said that it is essentially a
result, that only in the end it is what it truly is (Hegel, 1977c, para. 20, 11). According to this passage reality,
objectivity, nature, or external existence is itself a self-developing rational thought. Here, the idea of truth and
development is used by Hegel in order to explain the inherent rationality found in nature, Therefore, Hegel
thinks of utmost importance the need to stress the convergence between nature and the conceptions which
consciousness forms of external objects in that they both pass through a necessary succession of instructive
stages. Consciousness needs to see its relation to nature in the totality of its development, in an all
encompassing manner, in order to overcome the disunities and the contradictions it finds originally to exist
between itself as a subject capable of conceptual enterprises and a natural sphere quite unconnected to
conceptual thought. In fact, as consciousness proceeds further and further on to the subsequent stages, it
realizes that it is struggling to overcome the contradictions it has itself posed in the very beginning of the
process. Consciousness and nature undergo graduated courses of development culminating in identical points.
Once we have this objectively existing unity of concept and matter, this unity is called nature. To the question
Why do we have to overcome this original disunity?, we assume that Hegels reply is that we simply cannot
endure existence in a contradictory form. So although, in the Hegelian scheme of things, contradictions are
important, which really keeps the dialectical pendulum moving, it is also necessary to overcome contradictions
for existential and epistemological reasons. In other words, what Hegel needed in his philosophy was a subject
capable of knowing itself and nature, and attaining unity with itself and nature.
4. The Phenomenological Grasp of Nature

Nowadays, when Hegel succeeds in gaining some praise for the relevance of his theory, it is precisely on
the basis of his investing nature with reason and meaning. Hegel embarks upon the re-enchantment of nature on
two levels: The first level rests on an ethical argument according to which Hegels philosophy captures a sense
of natures intrinsic value in a way that our current scientific paradigm does not.9 Building on the Hegelian
assumptions, we would have to formulate the ethical argument like this. A strict scientific approach of nature is
an approach that treats natural objects as dead and unconnected objects, ready for our application of
measurements and quantification, consumption, exploitation, even destruction. In the Hegelian account, nature
is invested with value and goodness, because it is invested with meaning. It is invested with meaning, because
550
it is suffused with reason, for this is the only way that human reason operates, as an all-embracing and
all-encompassing power. Hence, nature is intrinsically worth of our respect. In a rather generous spirit, we
could indeed embrace the Hegelian position wholeheartedly. Had Hegel offered us an account of the duties, we
would, or rather should, have toward nature subsequently. This would have to be some kind of duties that go
beyond our dialectical strivings with nature as part of our theoretical and practical Bildung. In other words, this
would have to be some kind of duties the realization of which would benefit nature itself and not our quest for
knowledge, self-knowledge, and self-vindication. Unfortunately, in a fashion strongly reminiscent of Proteus,
Hegel remains silent on this issue. This does not prevent us, however, from advancing our reconstruction even
further and endorse more recent ecologically sensitive concerns in our specification of the duties in question.
We will not take this argumentative course here. Instead, we will address a more promising line of thought,
according to which Hegel appeals to a phenomenology of sense experience that captures a pre-scientific
experience of nature and renders a less alienated picture of nature possible. Moreover, this is the context that
reveals the educational interplay of reason with nature.
On the second level, Hegel is not silent, although the argument about the phenomenological grasp of
nature cannot be found as such in one of his texts. Nevertheless, a case can indeed be made, if we work in a
rather reconstructive than exegetical fashion and focus on Hegels hints and suggestions in the Philosophy of
Mind. In this work, the discussion of Bildung is about the education of the human mind as such, not about the
particular instruction received on the individual level. Acton (1985, 122) plausibly remarks that Hegels
account of mind is his account of what is human in mankind Hegel thought of Bildung as a paideutic inquiry
that renders us capable of overcoming the duality between reason and nature. The desired unity is the starting
point of the inquiry, but we must become aware of it in the course of experience and history. Hegel develops a
theory of the human subject as an embodied perceiver, an organism of the particular human kind. It was
important for him to show that the paideutic process has natural roots which cannot be eradicated in the name
of rational self-mastery. More specifically, in the first part of this work, entitled Anthropology, Hegel puts
forward the idea that our faculty of sensibility offers a pre-scientific experience of nature, a kind of an
experience that cannot be described or explained in rational but in proto-rational manner. There is no doubt that
Hegel has a theory of sensible experience as a specific protoconceptual understanding of nature (Stone,
2005a, 121). In his Reason in History, he explicitly denies our picture as beings immersed in blind nature: in
the human animal, sensations occupy a place in its cognitive system, and therefore, they are no longer mere
passive sensations, but what Hegel calls feelings. Feelings together with knowledge and cognition mark all
that is truly human, as distinct from animal (Hegel 1975, 25). According to the same theory, our natural
instincts and talents have the power to be tempered and educated by reason. In an evidently anti-Kantian
manner, Hegel is clearly suggesting that we should re-think the traditional conceptualizations of human nature
and understand the latter not in antagonistic terms with reason, but as being able to be imbued and enlightened
by reason. Alison Stone, who makes this case in her Petrified Intelligence (2005), draws a parallel between
Hegels developmental model of practical Bildung (education) as a rational development of natural desires and
his theoretical account of nature which is alleged to cohere with our sensible experience of it. Human nature,
through an account of the phenomenology of sense experience, is given the space to preserve its natural
elements; they are given the opportunity to be articulable in the language intelligible to the most advanced and
sophisticated stages of reasoning.
551
There are other specific examples that Hegel uses as cases that enable us to translate nature into the
idiom of reason. For example, whilst he defends the implicit rationality of the feeling soul, he speaks of the
unconscious unity (bewusstlose Einheit) of the mental and the natural in the anthropological sphere (Hegel
1971, para. 413Z, 154). Any differences existing between the mental and the natural have a meaning only for
the reflective consciousness, which is conscious of them and the significance of the negative relationships it
creates between them. This is because consciousness (as contrasted to the feeling subjectivity) is aware of its
nature through which it realizes itself, i.e., by negating, mediating the natural and raising to the universality of
reason. Also, in the case of feelings, he even goes one step further by saying that the feelings and the affections
of the natural soul are able to invoke certain meaningful responses in us, something that proves that the
non-reflective, prior to the I think, life is not empty but a rich geistiges Innere. In this case, Hegel refers to
the universal sentiments of justice, beauty, truth, religion, and morality as objects of both ones heart and ones
mind (Hegel 1971, para. 400). The discussion of habit is another instance that marks, for Hegel, the more
decided rupture between the soul as simple self-concentration and its earlier naturalness and immediacy (Hegel
1971, para. 142). Habit is said to constitute mans second nature (zweite Natur): nature because it is an
immediate being of the soul; a second nature because it is an immediacy created by the soul (Hegel 1971,
para. 410, 141). Lastly, it is worth mentioning the discussion of the body as constituting the immediate
oneness (unmittelbaren Einsseins) of the mind with mans corporeal nature (Hegel 1971, para. 387Z, 27). Late
views, like those of Jean-Paul Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, owe their views to Hegels expressivism regarding the
body.
In all cases, Hegel re-positions us in relation to nature and restores also successfully the unity and
continuity of the mind: on the one hand, what we usually regard higher and more sophisticated mental activities,
they actually have a purely affective state in one of the earlier phases of the process. Consider, for example, the
case of the universal sentiments mentioned earlier. On the other hand, the earlier phases listen to the voice of
reason and are instructed by it, considering the case of sensations, feelings, the habituation process, and the use
of the body. In any case, human Bildung does not rely solely, or exclusively, on dry reasoning or on nature
devoid of reason. The content of the natural soul is gradually eroded by reason and out of its life of sensation
and impulse the world of the true and the good is created. Hegel rejects the picture of an empty or incapable
natural soul. The complexity of the human condition strikes Hegel not as a tragedy from which we suffer but as
a condition receptive of completion. Completion requires self-knowledge as what we essentially are (of what
is essentially true and realof mind as the true and essential being (Hegel 1971, para. 377, 1). This is not
tantamount to an escape from the tyrannical influence of ignoble nature and the experience of autonomy in
terms of noumenal causation (as Kant would prefer). Instead, it amounts to the self-instruction of the mind:
[b]ut in the philosophic theory of mind, mind is studied as self-instruction (sich bildend) and self-education
(sich erziehend) in very essence; and its acts and utterances are stages in the process which it brings forward to
itself, links it in unity with itself and so makes it actual mind (Hegel 1971, para. 387, 26). For Hegel, man is
not an original or bare nature suffering the impediments imposed by the transcendental perspective.
Re-defining the concept of human nature meant that bare nature is a construction of thought, an arbitrary
fabrication we draw from the standpoint of Bildung. It is on this basis that we must understand the Hegelian
claim that nature is imbued with reason, or reversely, that spirit begins in a state of infinite potentiality (1975,
131).
552
In one of his cryptic phrases, whilst discussing the ultimate purpose (die absolute Tendenz) of all human
Bildung, and indeed of philosophy itself, Hegel (1971, para. 384, 18) says that this is to grasp the meaning and
the burden of the following definition: The Absolute is Mind (Das Absolute ist der Geist). In the Philosophy
of Mind, it becomes clearer than ever before that, for Hegel (1975, 33, 48; 1977c, paras. 22 and 32; 1991, para.
34Z), the mind is the result of its self-constituting activity in order to reach complete self-consciousness of
itself as such. Confronting the Other (whether this is nature or society) which involves always mediation,
negation, conflict, alienation, the incessant need to surpass all self-inflicted dichotomies. The dichotomy of
reason and nature is not the ultimate tragic predicament that describes the human condition. Being a human
subject and having an active mind is all that is required to overcome this opposition. The education of the mind
is the pathway that renders this possible: Being capable of self-education, it means that we are essentially
capable of understanding ourselves in terms of integrity. A culminating mark is the emergence of the conscious
I that starts from a natural or non-reflective level of life, the natural soul. Hegel describes it as the sleeping
of the mind (der Schlaf des Geistes), the passive nous of Aristotle which is potentially all things (Hegel
1971, para. 389, 23, 43). In the Phenomenology of Spirit, the awakening of the I constitutes an experience of
joy (Hegel 1977, para. 404, 242, 300). The natural soul is not the type of an educated mind, or a conscious ego
capable of entertaining the speculative possibility of the identity of reason and nature. Whenever we confront
nature as natural souls, or as empirical beings, nature remains silent and elusive. We must approach nature as
thinking beings, i.e., we must see ourselves as a return out of nature through the labor and activity of thought.
By saying that nature has yielded itself as the Idea in the form of otherness (Hegel 1977, para. 247), Hegel
is not simply highlighting the externality of nature. As we have stressed in the previous section, Hegel is
preparing the ground for a philosophy of nature according to which the true essence of nature is derived from
the activity of the mind. It is on this basis that he says: External nature, too, like mind is rational, divine, a
representation of the Idea (Hegel 1977, para. 381Z).
The unity of reason and nature means that there is no reality found to begin with. There is no original,
mysterious, and inarticulable nature which precedes self-consciousness and receives the informative influence
of the activity of self-consciousness. Michael Inwood (1985, 152) has so wisely expressed this: there no
longer stands, on the one side, an activity external to the object, and on the other side, a merely passive object:
but the spiritual activity is directed to an object which is active in itself so that in the activity and in the
object, one and the same content is present. Hegel renders the collapse of bald naturalism and Kantian
transcendental philosophy, of empirical psychology and rational psychology the stepping stone to his theory of
the active mind (Geist) and its education (Bildung). With his emphasis on the implicitly universal forms of
apprehension (such as sentience, feeling, or emotional sensitivity and habituation) as general modes of
non-reflective acting (or levels of habitually structured experience) out of which the ego itself finally emerges,
Hegel imbues nature with reason. It is only the obstinacy of Verstand (understanding) that cannot see the
natural determinations of the mind in unity with reason. The educated consciousness that has achieved integrity
throws off completely all acts of separation (Trennung) (Hegel 1971, para. 471, 230).
There is no need to deny the honest motivation that guided Hegel in all parts of his system in his attempt
to restore the unity of human nature and reason. This had to be done without giving in to bald naturalism,
without betraying the autonomy of reason. That is why the criticism exercised against Hegel on grounds of
circularity is unfair. Daniel Dahlstrom (2005, 17), for example, contends that the very notion of
protoconceptuality seems to presume natures rationality, its susceptibility to the pretensions of philosophy of
553
nature. First of all, in the context of Hegelian phenomenology, it is impossible to specify a conscious state (our
experience of nature) without mentioning the object of the conscious state, as it is really exists in the external
natural world. If consciousness of us, as rational beings, is essentially constituted by relations to the world, it is
then impossible to completely specify the nature of human reason without reference to the world. In addition, if
nature cannot be susceptible to the operations of the mind, not only the phenomenological grasp but also any
kind of grasp of nature is impossible. Also, if the reason is unable to retain its autonomy in the process, then it
is impossible for it to steer a purposeful course of learning and knowledge.
Yet, a question might still remain raising nagging doubts about the credibility of our experience of the
mediating link between the operations of human reasoning and the expressions of nature, or about the adequacy
of the phenomenological grasp of nature. Why should we think that this sort of experience of the mediating link
has anything to do with the way nature really operates? Why should we also think that the phenomenological
grasp is better than the grasp that one would acquire through the traditional pathways of scientific inquiry?
Hegel would respond by saying that such a question retrogresses back into the lures of either the Kantian
inaccessible noumenon or scientific naturalism that his speculative methodology and the retrospective use of
our phenomenological experiences should have really absolved us by now from such reservations and doubts.
Besides, the fact that all human sensibility has itself undergone the effects of evolution in an attempt to secure
the survival of our species does not prove that reason has somehow overcome its need to engage in dialectical
confrontations with nature, nor does it mean that nature has been increasingly imbued with less reason.
Consequently, the question can we legitimately claim that our evolutionary journey has also secured for us a
true grasp of the natural world? misses the point of the Hegelian phenomenological project. Apparently, Hegel
found the idea that we may be able to reconstruct our natural condition from the standpoint of reason really
helpful in singling out what belongs to this primordial, natural and un-reflective stage. What Hegel has been
saying about these early stages makes sense only as our retrospective creation from the standpoint of reason. In
other words, Hegel has been all along urging us to accept our natural condition in a way that does not require
from us to see ourselves as peculiarly bifurcated.
A similar defense of the phenomenological grasp of nature as contrary to the purely and rigidly scientific
picture may be found in post-Hegelian philosophy, in the phenomenology of Husserl, and Merleau-Ponty (1962,
vii), who developed phenomenology as not an empirical science, but by all means a rigorous science. Surely,
there are many differences between the phenomenological journey upon which the Hegelian Geist embarks and
the turn phenomenology takes in the writings of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. In this light, our bringing them
together in the context of the present discussion intends to: (1) trace the development of the phenomenological
grasp of nature in a space deeply and clearly defined by the expressivism of Hegelian anthropology and
phenomenology (the acts of the human subject are self-expressive as they are acts of self-externalization); and
(2) uncover, thereby, the internal integrity (or unity) of nature and reason in human subjectivity. The Hegelian
analysis shows that the human subject is inescapably immersed in nature and that it is also an immanent feature
of the natural root of human subjectivity to actualize inner potentialities, find meaningful responses into the
natural and reach more advanced and sophisticated spheres of the mind. In the Philosophy of Mind, when the
natural soul consummates all its unsuccessful attempts to rely upon immediacy, Hegel re-names this type of
selfhood actual soul (die wirkliche Seele, para. 411). At that point, when the unity of all the natural impulses
and feelings becomes apparent to consciousness, the latter attempts to express itself and thereby to know itself
through the use of the body. The body, as the outer sign (Zeichen) of the self, manifests the achievement of a
554
less incomplete sense of self-certainty. This is the last example Hegel uses, in the context of his Anthropology,
in order to prove that it is possible to translate nature in the idiom of reason.
Many years after Hegel in The crisis of European sciences and transcendental Phenomenology Edmund
Husserl, the seminal figure of phenomenology castigates the malign rationalization of the modern human world
and the subsequent destructive adoption of naturalistic reductionism in human and social sciences, anticipating
the recent developments in modern culture: a robust amalgam of the quantification of learning and knowledge
dominates over an incapable modern consciousness to determine reflectively its experiences and practical
autonomy. In the Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty intensifies this critique by recapturing the
original spontaneity of the human embodied subject and enthrones individual experience on a special status, as
this develops in and through a system of intricate relationships with the social world. Husserls, and
Merleau-Pontys (1962, ix) phenomenological projects invested on: (1) our being-in-the-world; and (2) the
possibility and credibility of phenomenological experience. Merleau-Ponty says of phenomenology: [i]t tries
to give direct description of our experience as it is, without taking account of its psychological origin and the
causal explanations which the scientist, the historian, or the sociologist may be able to provide (Merleau-Ponty
1962, viii).
Phenomenological is not any approach that simply embraces subjective experience. But again, the
phenomenological grasp of nature is impossible without holding fast to human subjectivity. This is a lesson that
Hegel was determined to teach and a lesson upon which subsequent phenomenologists have built their views on
human subjectivity and consciousness. The view common to transcendental and existential phenomenology is
that we should be rather pessimistic about the credibility and the success of an explanation of human thought
and action on the model of the natural sciences. They operate on a basis that enables them to explain the
objective world, but they can tell us nothing about human subjectivity, and consequently, about the essentially
human grasp of the natural world. We read again in the Phenomenology of Perception: I am not the outcome
or the meeting point of numerous causal agencies which determine my bodily or psychological make-up. I
cannot conceive of myself as nothing but a bit of the world, a mere object of biological, psychological or
sociological investigation. I cannot shut myself up within the realm of science (Merleau-Ponty 1962, viii); and
a bit further down: The whole universe of science is built upon the world as directly experienced
(Merleau-Ponty 1962).
The phenomenological approach and method have received extensive criticism for their non-positivistic
epistemology and the emphasis on the phenomenology of sense experience that creates the conceptual space
necessary for the re-enchantment of nature. Of course, there have also been welcoming receptions that present
Husserlian transcendental phenomenology to be offering a natural foundation for the constitution of
consciousness, obliging both philosophy and science to descend to lower levels for the investigation of their
origins (Delivoyatzis 2002, 107), or Merleau-Pontys phenomenological critique of science and positivist
philosophy as essentially correct and a valuable contribution to human thought that needs to be endorsed in
the twenty-first century (Priest 2003, 27 ).
5. Concluding Remarks
We should have no doubt that in the Hegelian system the main protagonist is Geist which is activity and
exists in and through its dependency on the other, whether this is the natural or the social world. We have seen
Hegel (1971, para. 381A) claiming: firstly, it is the same eternal idea that dwells in nature and mind, so that
555
[t]he transition from nature to mind is not a transition to something wholly other. Secondly, human beings
retain the autonomy of their reasoning, preserving thus the irreducibility of their minded dimension. Thirdly, we
are capable of exhibiting mindedness, because there is a prior dimension of rationality or conceptuality that
exists within nature. Stone (2005b, 25) expresses nicely this assumption by arguing that [p]resumably, this is
because Hegel thinks that it would be inexplicable how we could have minds unless there existed some
relatively undeveloped analogue within nature of which mind can be seen as the fullest realization. Fourthly,
an autonomous metaphysics of nature which deviates from the scientific understanding of nature would exploit
our phenomenological familiarity with the rationality found in nature and would secure our ethical
considerations regarding nature. On this generous reading, the Hegelian description of nature as rational does
not aim to subordinate nature to mind but to situate mind within nature. So, for Hegel, taking nature seriously,
means situating ourselves within nature, asserting our naturalness whilst remaining irreducibly geistige beings.
But is this enough? Today, there is an ever growing desire to reconstruct a countertradition of ecological
sensitivity. We have seen Hegel in a sincere attempt to re-enchant nature. As a result, we can understand the
interest that his philosophy of nature has generated, although many critics remain still suspicious of its
adequacy. The question still remains, whether we can legitimately place Hegel in this tradition. If Hegel
subordinates nature to mind, how much credible is his implicit attribution of intrinsic value to nature?
Sometimes, commentators go as far as to deny that Hegel has a place on the good side of environmentalism.
Dalhstrom (2005, 20) detects in Hegel some sort of anthropomorphism which could be debilitating and
environmentally pernicious. Nature is seen as valuable and good to the extent that it bears the trace of the
mind. Its value lies in its rationality not in its materiality. It remains voiceless until it is forced to speak the
voice of reason, or until the voice of reason becomes its own voice. Judith Norman writes in an outspoken
manner:
And even if Hegel could be shown to display some level of moral ambiguity with respect to our responsibility towards
nature, what would follow? There remains the broader question of whether the intellectual grounds for respecting nature
really come from a metaphysics of nature formulated in isolation from scientific procedure and political reality. The fact
that environmental destruction harms not just nature but economically disadvantaged people as well as future generations
suggests that ecological sensitivity is a symptom of a much greater problem than an inadequate metaphysics of nature.10
The spirit of such criticism is obviously to stress that taking nature seriously today should mean something
more than situating ourselves within nature. The Hegelian imperative makes sense only if the space within
which Hegel urges us to situate ourselves is safe and sound.
Closing, there are indeed grounds for being critical of the Hegelian project, especially because Hegel
remains silent on our duties towards nature for the sake of nature. However, it is also important to stress that
Hegelian phenomenology can be a more fruitful conceptual framework that prepares the ground for: (1) a
different account for understanding human nature and nature in general; and (2) a phenomenology of sense
experience that grasps nature in terms other than the scientific and positivistic paradigm. The phenomenological
grasp of nature proves to be an act of the highest educational significance for human subjectivity.
Notes
1. In all references to Hegels works standard English translations are normally cited along with the original, with German
pagination following English pagination. Additions are indicated by an A.
556
2. A detailed analysis of this new model of the mind may be found in Vasiliki Karavakou (1998), Reason and Nature in
Hegels Theory of Bildung. Chapter 3 on Nature and Spirit.
3. This is what Hegel styled as a cruel dissection, a painful cutting off of an essential part of the wholeness of man
(Hegel 1977b, 66. Werke 2, 300), Faith and Knowledge. Man is now an amphibian animal that lives in two contradictory
regions, the region of rational reflection and the region of empirical particularity and contingency (Hegel 1993, 59, Werke 13, 80),
Introductory Lecture on Aesthetics. The Introduction to the Vorlesungen ber die Aesthetik is published separately as
Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics, Trans. Bernard Bosanquet. Cited by page number.
4. Characteristic examples are the papers included in the excellent edition by Stephen Houlgate (1999) and the more recent
powerful and provocative book by Alison Stone (2005a).
5. There is an extensive discussion of this particular aspect of mind in the Preface and the Introduction of Hegel (1977),
Phenomenology of Spirit, in Hegel (1971), the Introduction and the section on Anthropology of the Philosophy of Mind and
also in the Introduction to Hegels Lectures on the Philosophy of World History (Hegel 1975).
6. This is discussed in detail in V. Karavakou (1998), Chapter 3.
7. We should not forget that in the Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (Hegel 1971, para. 381A), the I is defined as
the primary and simplest determination of the mind.
8. Kenneth Westphal has argued more extensively that Hegel is a realist (1989) and Thomas Wartenberg, who undeniably
says that Hegel is an idealist, insists that his form of idealism can be consistent with a version of realism (1993, p.128).
9. The best example in this case is Alison Stones Petrified Intelligence: Nature in Hegels Philosophy (2005a).
10. The passage is from Judith Normans review of Alison Stones Petrified Intelligence: Nature in Hegels Philosophy
(2005).
Works Cited
Acton, Harry B. Hegels Conception of the Study of Human Nature. Hegel. Ed. Michael Inwood. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1985.
Dahlstrom, Daniel. Rationality, Anthropomorphism and Hegels Metaphysics of Nature: Remarks on Alison Stones Petrified
Intelligence. Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 51.52 (2005): 13-21.
Delivoyatzis, Socrates. The Natural and the Human. (in Greek) Thessaloniki: Erodios Publications, 2002.
Hegel, Georg W. F. Werke in zwanzig Bnden: Theorie Werkausgabe. Hsgb. Michel, Karl Marcus and Eva Moldenhauer, Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970. Cited by volume.
---. Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie, Werke 2.1979. Cited by volume and page number.
The Difference between Fichtes and Schellings System of Philosophy. Trans. Henry S. Harris, and Walter Cerf. Albany,
New York: SUNY Press, 1977a. Cited by page number.
---. Glaube und Wissen, Werke 2. Cited by volume and page number. Faith and Knowledge. Trans. Henry S. Harris and Walter
Cerf. Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 1977b. Cited by page number.
---. Phnomenologie des Geistes. Werke 3. 1979. Cited by volume. Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. Arnold V. Miller. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1977c. Cited by paragraph and page number.
---. Philosophie der Logik. Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften I. Werke 8. Cited by volume and paragraph. The
Encyclopaedia Logic. Trans. Theodore F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting, and Henry S. Harris. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett
Publishing Company, Inc., 1991. Cited by paragraph and page number.
---. Philosophie der Natur. Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften II. Werke 9. Cited by volume and paragraph.
Philosophy of Nature. Ed. and Trans. Michael John Petry. New York: Humanities Press, 1970. Cited by paragraph and page
number.
---. Enzyklopdie der philosophischen Wissenschaften III. Werke 10. Cited by volume, paragraph and page number. Hegels
Philosophy of Mind. Trans. William Wallace and Arnold V. Miller. Oxford: OUP, 1971. Cited by paragraph and page
number.
---. Vorlesungen ber die Philosophie der Geschichte. Werke 12. Cited by volume and page number. The Philosophy of History.
Trans. John Sibree. New York: Dover, 1956. Cited by page number.
---. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History; Introduction: Reason in History. Trans. Hugh Barry Nisbet (from the German
edition of J. Hoffmeister). Cambridge: CUP, 1975. Cited by page number.
---. Vorlesungen ber die Aesthetik, Werke 13-15. Cited by volume and page number. The Philosophy of Fine Art. Trans. F. P. B.
Osmarton. New York: Hacker, 1975.
Houlgate, Stephen. ed. Hegel and the Philosophy of Nature. New York: SUNY Press, 1999.
Inwood, Michael. Hegel. London: Routledge, 1983.
557
Karavakou, Vasiliki. Reason and Nature in Hegels Theory of Bildung. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. University of London. United
Kingdom, 1998.
Norman, Judith. Philosophy Reviews Alison Stone. Petrified Intelligence: Nature in Hegels Philosophy. New York: SUNY
Press, 2005. <http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?3801>
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Colin Smith. New York: Humanities Press, 1962.
Rand, Stephen. The importance and relevance of Hegels Philosophy of Nature. The Review of Metaphysics 61.2 (2007),
379-400.
Priest, Stephen. Merleau-Ponty. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Stone, Alison. Hegels Philosophy of Nature: Overcoming the Division between Matter and Thought. Dialogue 39.4 (2000):
725-43.
---. Ethical implications of Hegels Philosophy of Nature. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 10.2 (2002): 243-60.
---. Petrified Intelligence: Nature in Hegels Philosophy. New York: SUNY Press, 2005a.
---. Response to Halper and Dahlstrom. Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain 51/52 (2005b): 22-27.
Wartenberg, Thomas. Hegels idealism: The logic of conceptuality. In The Cambridge Companion to Hegel. Ed. Frederick
Beiser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Westphal, Kenneth. Hegels Epistemological Realism. Dortrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989.
Chief Editor:
Geoffrey George Karabin (Neumann University, USA)
Editorial Board Members (alphabetically):
Abraham Olivier (University of Fort Hare, South Africa)
Amir Horowitz (Open University, Israel)
Antnio Pedro Mesquita (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal)
Arto Mutanen (Finnish National Defence University, Finland)
Babu Thaliath (Humboldt University Berlin, Germany)
Charley Ejede Mejame (Michigan Technological University, USA)
Christopher Pynes (Western Illinois University, USA)
Cullan Joyce (Melbourne College of Divinity University, Australia)
David J. Yount (Mesa Community College, USA)
Denisa Butnaru (CNRS/Universit de Strasbourg, France)
Dimitria Electra Gatzia (The University of Akron Wayne College, USA)
Dirk-Martin Grube (University of Utrecht, The Netherlands)
Donald V. Poochigian (University of North Dakota, USA)
Francesco Fronterotta (Sapienza Universit di Roma, Italy)
Geoffrey B. Frasz (College of Southern Nevada, USA)
Georgia Warnke (University of California, USA)
James Jeffrey Tillman (Wayland Baptist University, USA)
Jari Palomki (Tampere University of Technology, Finland)
Jennifer Ang Mei Sze (Singapore Institute of Management University, Singapore)
John Koolage (Eastern Michigan University, USA)
John Ryan (Edith Cowan University, Australia)
Jorge de Almeida Goncalves (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal)
Kathleen Wilburn (St. Edwards University, USA)
Konstantin G. Korotkov (Saint-Petersburg Federal University of Physical Culture and Sport, Russia)
Kurt Rttgers (Deutsche Sporthochschule Kln, Germany)
Lus Antnio Umbelino (University of Coimbra, Portugal)
Lydia B. Amir (The College of Management Academic Studies, Israel)
Mahmoud Masaeli (Saint Paul University, Canada)
Makoto Usami (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan)
Marco Segala (ITEM-CNRS/ENS, France)
Marie Santiago (University of Lausanne, Switzerland)
Mevlt Uyanik (Hitit University, Turkey)
Michael Alexander Cerullo (University of Cincinnati, USA)
Michael David Dahnke (Drexel University, USA)
Michael Davis (Illinois Institute of Technology, USA)
Michael Schulz (Universitt Bonn, Germany)
Mischa Beckett (Simmons College, USA)
Mohammed S. Wattad (The International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Science, Italy)
Nevad Kahteran (University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Olga Louchakova-Schwartz (Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, USA)
Panos Eliopoulos (National Kapodistriakon University of Athens, Greece)
Raffaela Giovagnoli (Pontifical Lateran University, Italy)
Raquel Anna Sapunaru (UFVJM, Brazil)
Ral Eduardo Zegarra (Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, Per)
Richard A. S. Hall (Fayetteville State University, USA)
Ronny Miron (Bar Ilan University, Israel)
Salahaddin Khalilov (Azerbaijan University, Azerbaijan)
Stephen C. Dilley (St Edwards University, USA)
Susan Gordon (National University, USA)
Timothy Alexander David Hyde (Stony Brook University, USA)
Tomas Kaerauskas (Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania)
Veton Latifi (South-East European University, Republic of Macedonia)
Wendy Elgersma Helleman (University of Jos, West Africa)
Yolanda Espia (Catholic University of Portugal, Portugal)

Euthanasia

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Euthanasia

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Philosophy Study

Volume 3, Number 6, June 2013 (Serial Number 22)

David Publishing Company

David Publishing Company

Sylwia Maria Olejarz

Hasan Bolkhari Ghehi

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

Developmental Programming of Ethical Consciousness:

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

1. Introduction: The Heritability of Ethics

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

2. Human Brain Programming and the Evolution of Ethics

2.1. Ethics: Our Biological Heritage

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

2.3. The Neurobiology of Trust and Empathy

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

3. Education: Whose Responsibility?

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

4. Evaluating the Impact of Education

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

5. Summary and Conclusions

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAMMING OF ETHICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

Prospective Consensus Building-Ethical Consideration on

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

2. Consensus Building in Medicine

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

2.2. Stakeholders and Interests

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

2.3. Complex Situations and the Decision-Making Process

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

2.5. Principle of Consensus

2.5.1. Shared Interest

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

2.5.2. Dialogue towards Clear Intention

2.5.3. Creative Communication

3. Prospective Consensus Building

Fig. 1. Structure of Prospective Consensus Building.

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

a patients physical and mental

Expectations, hopes fears, anxieties

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

4. Meaning of the Prospective Consensus Model

Physician and patient

Physician and patient

Evidence of the time of

4.1. Diachronic Depth and Width of Interest

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

4.2. Distribution of Risks

4.3. Method of Decision-Making Appropriate for Ever-Changing and Complex Situations

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

4.4. Several Issues in Developing Consensus Model

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

PROSPECTIVE CONSENSUS BUILDING -ETHICAL CONSIDERATION ON HISTORY

Philosophy Study, ISSN 2159-5313

Bodies, Persons, and Respect for Humanity: A Kantian

BODIES, PERSONS, AND RESPECT FOR HUMANITY

2. Treating Merely as a Means and Disrespecting Humanity

BODIES, PERSONS, AND RESPECT FOR HUMANITY