Pagan Ethics: Paganism as a World Religion
Language: English
Pages: 435
ISBN: 3319189220
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This book is the first comprehensive examination of the ethical parameters of paganism when considered as a world religion alongside Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. The issues of evil, value and idolatry from a pagan perspective are analyzed as part of the Western ethical tradition from the Sophists and Platonic schools through the philosophers Spinoza, Hume, Kant and Nietzsche to such contemporary thinkers as Grayling, Mackie, MacIntyre, Habermas, Levinas, Santayana, etc. From a more practical viewpoint, a delineation of applied pagan ethics is then presented in connection with current moral issues such as same-sex union, recreational drugs, environmental awareness, abortion and terrorism. Finally, overviews of sectarian pagan ethics (Shinto, Santeria, Heathenism, Druidry, Romuva, Slavic, Kemeticism, Classical and Wicca) provide both the general and pagan reader with an understanding of the provocative range and differentiation of pagan ethical thought. The book approaches the Western ethical tradition as an historical development and a continuing dialogue. The novelty of this approach lies in its consideration of paganism as a legitimate voice of religious spirituality rather than a satanic aberration or ridiculous childish behavior. The book is aimed at both the contemporary Western pagan and anyone with an interest in the moral dilemmas of our times and the desire to engage in the global ethical discussion. Among the more important features of the book are its presentation of a re-evaluation of idolatry, the notion of the virtue value, the richness of the pagan tradition, and the expansion of Western ethics beyond its Christian heritage.
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Recognizable contribution to the debate about the good.22 Consequently, to the degree that paganism follows Grayling’s secular humanism, it must put to the side its own preternatural biases and accept the contention of the non-necessity of metaphysical consideration in any search for the ethical. Rather than in metaphysics, morality is to be grounded on its own intrinsic worth.23 For Grayling, these grounding ethics are human needs and values, that is, the variety of human life in its social.
Abilities to exercise will – our capacity to wish and, finally, to bring that wishing to fruition. Our full freedom is the full process, but an important part of that process, indeed, I would argue, the most important part, is the initial will itself, the energy to wish and want. It is for this reason that desire is as central to the pagan ethos as it is. It is the heart of a pagan’s religion; it is his or her raison d’être; it is the locus within which a pagan finds liberty. But let us return.
Century bce, Hegesias argued that it is more important to avoid pain than to seek pleasure, but Anniceris, following more closely Aristippus and his emphasis on both bodily and intellectual pleasures, stressed the social pleasures of relationships: friendship, parents, fellow citizens, people in general. Anniceris even went so far as to suggest that one should be willing to suffer for the very pleasures of respect and gratitude. In this he represents a development away from the basic Cyrenaic.
Pleasures. He claims that the wise person can be happy even with few enjoyments. Anniceris also places a high value on such non-sensual pleasures as friendship. While Theodorus holds that the foolish are those who possess friends for their utilitarian purpose only and that the wise do not need friends at all, Anniceris like Aristotle recognizes the necessity for friendship if an intelligent person is to be pleasurably happy. In this he continues the line of thought of Epicurus himself who.
Christian emphasis on renunciation in the composer’s opera Parsifal. In 1869, Nietzsche was appointed to the chair of classical philology at Basel University. Perpetually plagued with poor health, he frequently is forced to take leave from teaching and eventually retires on a pension in 1879. Ten years later, in Turin, he collapsed and was admitted to the psychiatric unit at the University of Jena. He spent the rest of his life insane and paralyzed under first the care of his mother until her.