Opening : Suffering Relational and Redemptive (original) (raw)
Related papers
A Redemptive Analysis of Suffering
Philosophy Study, 2015
The notion of suffering carries with it aspects which are private and individual on the one hand, and social and lingual on the other. I would pay attention to the latter part of the suffering notion, where the notion of suffering is recognized to be primitive by almost all the theories of human values. This primitive character allows a commensurable basis on the basis of which most plural theories share something in common to talk objectively to each other. In this paper, I would like to offer three arguments in order to advance a thesis that one's suffering is redemptive of others. First, the conservation law of mass says that matter of a closed system can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may be differently rearranged. This may be applied to the experience of suffering, to allow the conservation law of suffering: My unjust self-interest costs pains in others to the level of the same amount but if I voluntarily suffer a sacrifice, others will have their pains lightened to the analogous level. Second, notion of yin-yang helps to support the redemptive thesis of suffering. The notion says that all things in the reality consist of two complementary opposite capacities that interact within a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system. Then, my acceptance of suffering and the decrease of other's pain are two complementary capacities of one reality. Third, any person is responsible for his own act, so is a society as a whole. Then, as an individual restores his damaged person, when he commits a crime, by being suffered or punished, a society restores itself to its own proper state, when any member of the society is wronged, by suffering communally in one way or other.
On the conservation of human suffering
Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems, 1993
Affairs of society which in the past were largely governed by traditions or norms have been taken over by technology in modern times. One can observe, however, that whatever the means of governance, the overall human suffering remains the same, though its domain and intensity gets transformed. This leads to the proposition that a principle of the conservation of human suffering is in operation in some form. Various issues leading to and arising out of it are discussed.
Problems of Suffering. The Philosophical Perspective compressed (1)
International Journal of Religion and Culture, A Journal of the Association of the African Theologians, 2015
Abstract This work aims at looking at suffering and the problems of suffering from a philosophical perspective. Suffering or pain in a broad sense is an individual basic affective experience of unpleasant things and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm. It might be qualified as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity from mild to intolerable. The work has at the same time, looked at what causes suffering from the point of view of religion and cultural beliefs to back up the philosophical beliefs on this. The implications and or impacts of suffering on the sufferer and the society have been highlighted. Another interesting aspect of this work that is given attention to is the reason why suffering persists; whether God is unable to avert suffering in a world He created and then seek for ways it can be mitigated or eradicated. Also, suggestions are n1ade where necessary.
This essay proposes a critical investigation of the notion of suffering as a premise and warning for the Social and Political domains. Drawing from the writings of the contemporary French philosophers Levinas, Marion, Ricœur and Blanchot, comprising a corpus I refer to as “The Ethics of Suffering”, it treats this issue in four stages of analysis: terminological, phenomenological, ethical and political. The phenomenological analysis first reveals the tension resulting from the double nature of “Suffering”, defined both as a feeling and a long lasting condition. This duality leads then to question our social ability to simply apply suffering based on the fact that it is widespread and known to all, showing that the lack of a permanent substance or single essence causes its political prevention or propagation to remain totally arbitrary. On this account, the positive outcome of the ethical and phenomenological investigations consists in offering a standard ground for bridging between individual and social suffering while sustaining the tension coming from its dual nature. At the same time, their definition of suffering as a basis for solidarity (suffering is always ‘suffering with the others’) while insisting on the solitary mode of torment reveals a problematic double bind. Taking up the work of Adi Ophir on the evil, the essay goes as far as showing how this double bind affects the political thought and action, when exposing its rather limited power of manipulating the human threshold and using suffering as a political instrument. The paper thus seeks to contribute to the social and political discussion by examining our ability to regulate our conduct in the public and the political spheres through the understanding of suffering and by examining whether we can actually protect ourselves and cope with the danger of controlling individuals through the control of their suffering.
What does it mean to suffer? How are we to understand the sufferings we undergo? Etymologically, to suffer signifies to undergo and endure. Is there a sense, a purpose to our sufferings or does the very passivity, which they etymologically imply, robs them of all inherent meaning? In this paper, I shall argue against this Levinasian interpretation. My claim will be that suffering, exhibits a meaning beyond meaning, one embodied in the unique singularity of our flesh. This uniqueness is, in fact, an interruption. It signifies the suspension of all systems of exchange, all attempts to render good for good and evil for evil. It is in terms of such suspension that suffering—particularly as found in selfless sacrifice—finds its “use.” This “use” involves the possibility of forgiveness.
The Problem of Suffering: The Exemplarist Theodicy
Studies in Christian Ethics, 2023
This article aims to provide a response to the problem of suffering through an explication of a new theodicy termed the Exemplarist Theodicy. This specific theodicy will be formulated in light of the moral theory provided by Linda Zagzebski, termed the Exemplarist Moral Theory, the notion of transformative experience, as explicated by L.A. Paul, Havi Carel and Ian James Kidd, and the virtue-theoretic approach to suffering proposed by Michael Brady, which, in combination with some further precisifying philosophical concepts-namely, compensation, total empathy, and infinitely valuable connections-will provide us with a possible, morally sufficient reason for why God allows individuals to experience suffering.
THE SENSE OF SUFFERING* Better to suffer than to die: that is mankind's motto
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 1986
Medical practice is animated by the intention to cure; it aims to relieve the immense variety of sufferings to which human beings are subject in virtue of the conditions of their embodied existence. My purpose here is to demonstrate how a philosophical analysis of the formal structures and kinds of human suffering provides an essential foundation for determining certain ethical dimensions of the physician's relation to his suffering patient. Can paternalism in medical practice be justified by the aim of relieving suffering? What are the scope and limits of the patient's responsibility for his suffering, and what difference does this make in the physician's response to it? How is the suffering that medical treatment itself exacts in the name of cure to be justified? Such questions can be answered only by an analysis of the sense or value of suffering in human life.
The World According to Suffering
The Philosophy of Suffering, 2019
On the face of it, suffering from the loss of a loved one and suffering from intense pain are very different things. What makes them both experiences of suffering? I argue it’s neither their unpleasantness nor the fact that we desire not to have such experiences. Rather, what we suffer from negatively transforms the way our situation as a whole appears to us. To cash this out, I introduce the notion of negative affective construal, which involves practically perceiving our situation as calling for change, registering this perception with a felt desire for change, and believing that the change is not within our power. We (attitudinally) suffer when negative affective construal is pervasive, either because it colours a large swath of possibilities, as in the case of anxiety, or because it narrows our attention to what hurts, as in the case of grief. On this view, sensory or bodily suffering is a special case of attitudinal suffering: the unpleasantness of pain causes pervasive negative affective construal. Pain that doesn’t negatively transform our world doesn’t make for suffering.