When is one person entitled to sanction another for moral wrongdoing? When, instead, must one mind one’s own business? Stephen Darwall argues that the legitimacy of social sanctioning is essential to the very concept of moral obligation. But, I will argue, Darwall’s “second person” theory of accountability unfortunately implies that every person is entitled to sanction every wrongdoer for every misdeed. In this essay, I defend a set of principles for differentiating those who have the standing to sanction (...) from those who do not. (shrink)

The distinctive depth and seriousness of moral responsibility is often thought to stem from the seriousness of violating moral obligations. But this raises questions about being morally responsible for normative failure that does not belong to the deontic realm. This paper focuses on actions that we might, in the Aristotelian tradition, call ethical, and which concern how we order relations with ourselves; they concern certain fundamental conditions for agency. The paper provides a novel defense of the depth of self-directed aretaic (...) appraisal as intrapersonal responsibility; it also explains and provides a defense for Gary Watson’s claim that “Responsibility is important to issues about what it is to lead a life, indeed what it is to have a life in a biographical sense, and the quality and character of that life.” The depth of self-directed aretaic appraisal, I argue is a function of three features: its structure, the violation of normative standards and the reflective activity that it requires. Reflective human beings have an interest in leading lives that are rich, rewarding and expressive of our values and concerns. From the first-personal point of view, a life that is impoverished along any of these dimensions is defective in the aretaic sense. Protecting these interests requires discernment of these values and is accordingly a deep and serious form of appraisal. Because violation of these standards explains why at least one class of responsibility appraisal is deep and serious, depth and seriousness may have a plurality of explanations. (shrink)

Indifference is sometimes described as a virtue. Yet who is indifferent; to what; and in what way is poorly understood, and frequently subject to controversy and confusion. This paper proposes a framework for the interpretation and analysis of ethically acceptable forms of indifference in terms of how different states of indifference can be either more or less dynamic, or more or less sensitive to the nature and state of their object.

We draw on ancient Greek philosophy and contemporary psychosocial theorists to analyse the ethical implications of social policies implemented through the welfare state with the espoused objective of achieving social inclusion. We argue that many such policies establish a boundary between domains of inclusion and exclusion that perversely maintains the very problem such policies are designed to solve. They then also provide ?rationalisations? for social exclusion which imply that such states can be explained?that they are ethical, and so legitimate. We (...) illustrate our argument with reference to a specific area of social policy?Improving Access to Psychological Therapies?and discuss how it impacts on our own area of practice as state employed psychotherapists. We analyse how this policy frames aspects of social exclusion (un(der)employment?) as a ?psychological? problem: a move that grants the excluded a specific kind of identity and then locates the problem of exclusion in this identity. We invoke Plato's Republic to show how this offer of psychological ?help? subliminally suggests that these mental disorders result from individuals' failures to ?know their place? and to ?mind their own business?, rather than as a consequence of complex networks of social (dis)orders, exclusions and injustices within which we are all embedded. (shrink)

What justifies practices of “standing”? Numerous everyday practices exhibit the normativity of standing: forbidding certain interventions and permitting ignoring them. The normativity of standing is grounded in facts about the person intervening and not on the validity of her intervention. When valid, directives are reasons to do as directed. When interventions take the form of directives, standing practices may permit excluding those directives from one’s practical deliberations, regardless of their validity or normative weight. Standing practices are, therefore, puzzling – forbidding (...) giving reasons and, if given, permitting disregarding such reasons. What justifies standing practices are the values that they protect, including privacy, autonomy, independence, valuable relationships, and equal respect. These values count in favor of standing’s duty against certain interventions and, when these duties of non-intervention are breached, the values underpinning those duties count in favor of standing’s permission to discount or exclude those interventions from one’s practical deliberations – the normative weight of those interventions notwithstanding. (shrink)

Every year, millions of students in the United States and around the world graduate from high school and college. Commencement speakers—often distilling the hopes of parents and four years of messaging from educators—tell graduates that they must do something grand, ambitious, or far-reaching. Change the world. Disrupt the status quo. Every problem in the world is your problem, awaiting your solutions. -/- This book is an antidote to that advice. It provides a clear-eyed assessment of three types of (...) people who tend to believe and promote a commencement speaker’s view of the world: the moralizer, who imposes unnecessary social costs by inappropriately enforcing morality; the busybody, who thinks the stranger and close friend merit equal shares of our benevolent attention; and the pure hearted, who equates acting with good intentions with just outcomes. The book also provides a bold defense of living an ordinary life by putting down roots, creating a good home, and living in solitude. A quiet, peaceful life can be generous and noble. It’s OK to mind your own business. (shrink)

Drawing upon the latest insights from the fields of performance psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, as well as case studies from their own coaching clients, New York Times bestselling authors Michael Hyatt and Megan Hyatt Miller explore the power of ideas to shape superior outcomes, not only in business but in the rest of life.

Sometimes we should mind our own business. But at other times it would be wrong to mind one's own business. This paper explores the tension between these two claims by presenting a tendency to mind one's own business as an Aristotelian-style virtue. It is furthered argued that this is a different virtue than tolerance.

Starting from Proust’s distinction between the self-attributive and self-evaluative views on metacognition, this paper presents a third view: self-mindshaping. Based on the notion of mindshaping as the core of social cognition, the self-mindshaping view contends that mindshaping abilities can be turned on one’s own mind. Against the self-attributive view, metacognition is not a matter of accessing representations to metarepresent them but of giving shape to those representations themselves. Against the self-evaluative view, metacognition is not blind to content but relies (...) heavily on it. We characterize our view in terms of four issues that, according to Proust, distinguish the previous approaches, namely, whether metacognitive mechanisms are the same as those employed to access other minds, whether metacognitive control requires conceptual representation, whether metacognition is propositional, and whether metacognitive access is linked to mental action. After describing some of the mechanisms for self-mindshaping, we show how this view regards metacognition as grounded on social interaction mechanisms, conceptually driven, possibly, but not necessarily, propositional, and engaged in the practical regulation of mental states. Finally, we examine the prospects for the primacy of self-mindshaping as the primary metacognitive function. We argue that self-attributive processes typically subserve the practical goals emphasized by the mindshaping view, and that the evaluative role played by procedural metacognition can be grounded on social cues rather than on experiential feelings. Even if this is not enough to claim the primacy of self-mindshaping, it still appears as a third kind of metacognition, not reducible to the other two. (shrink)

What is it to “know your own mind”? In ordinary English, this phrase connotes clear headed decisiveness and a firm resolve but in the language of contemporary philosophy, the indecisive and the susceptible can know their own minds just as well as anybody else. In the philosopher’s usage, “knowing your own mind” is just a matter of being able to produce a knowledgeable description of your mental state, whether it be a state of indecision, susceptibility (...) or even confusion. What exercises philosophers is the fact that people seem to produce these descriptions of their own mental lives without any pretence of considering evidence or reasons of any kind and yet these descriptions are treated by the rest of us as authoritative, at least in a wide range of cases. How can this be? (shrink)

The topic of self-awareness has an impressive philosophical pedigree, and sustained discussion of the topic goes back at least to Descartes. More recently, selfawareness has become a lively issue in the cognitive sciences, thanks largely to the emerging body of work on “mindreading”, the process of attributing mental states to people (and other organisms). During the last 15 years, the processes underlying mindreading have been a major focus of attention in cognitive and developmental psychology. Most of this work has been (...) concerned with the processes underlying the attribution of mental states to other people. However, a number of psychologists and philosophers have also proposed accounts of the mechanisms underlying the attribution of mental states to oneself. This process of reading one’s own mind or becoming self- aware will be our primary concern in this paper. (shrink)

Even with the rich inventory of GVV cases available, faculty may want to develop their own teaching materials. One option is to add GVV questions onto current teaching notes for existing cases to bring in an ethical dimension or to flesh out the complexity of a decision. Another option is to write your own case entirely. This article discusses the benefits of both paths, and shares best practices for doing so.

A distinction is made between imagination in the narrow sense and in the broad sense. Narrow imagination is characterised as the ability to "see" pictures in the mind's eye or to "hear" melodies in the head. Broad imagination is taken to be the faculty of creating, either in the strict sense of making something ex nihilo or in the looser sense of seeing patterns in some data. The article focuses on a particular sort of broad imagination, the kind that (...) has to do with creating, not a work of art, a scientific theory or a political vision but one's own life. We shape our lives through our actions, and these actions not only influence our future—a commonplace—but also determine our past, which is a new and more controversial perspective. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Chapter One: Wrong Question, Right Answer -- Exercise 1: Getting right into it -- Exercise 2: Watching your hand -- Exercise 3: Marking practice -- Chapter Two: Realistic Drawing -- Exercise 4: Picking an object to draw -- Exercise 5: Attentive looking -- Exercise 6: Noticing awareness -- Exercise 7: Marking from the sense of sight -- Exercise 8: Simple rendering -- Exercise 9: Try perspective -- Exercise 10: Working inward -- Chapter Three: Systematic Drawing (...) -- Exercise 11: The circular arrow - a visual mantra -- Exercise 12: Improvising between two points and finding the world in between -- Exercise 13: Thought as art -- Exercise 14: All four pixel images -- Exercise 15: Book of compositions -- Chapter Four: Improvisational Drawing -- Exercise 16: Going outside the box -- Exercise 17: Not-breath awareness -- Exercise 18: Growing improvisation -- Exercise 19: Chasing the Coltrane Effect -- Exercise 20: Drawing to reveal inner conditions -- Exercise 21: Noticing Intuition -- Exercise 22: You are the universe drawing -- Chapter Five: Reading the Drawings -- Exercise 23: An exact physical description -- Exercise 24: Feeling the meaning -- Exercise 25: The story we tell ourselves -- Exercise 26: Connecting our story to a larger story -- Chapter Six: The Search for the Source of Creativity -- Exercise 27: Priming the source -- Exercise 28: Sitting still at the origin -- Exercise 29: Embedded sources -- Exercise 30: Mindful of the path -- Chapter Seven: Meta-Drawing -- Exercise 31: Sharing with yourself -- Exercise 32: Sharing with a trusted friend -- Exercise 33: Sharing with the world. (shrink)

Hohwy (Hohwy 2016, Hohwy 2017) argues there is a tension between the free energy principle and leading depictions of mind as embodied, enactive, and extended (so-called ‘EEE1 cognition’). The tension is traced to the importance, in free energy formulations, of a conception of mind and agency that depends upon the presence of a ‘Markov blanket’ demarcating the agent from the surrounding world. In what follows I show that the Markov blanket considerations do not, in fact, lead to the (...) kinds of tension that Hohwy depicts. On the contrary, they actively favour the EEE story. This is because the Markov property, as exemplified in biological agents, picks out neither a unique nor a stationary boundary. It is this multiplicity and mutability– rather than the absence of agent-environment boundaries as such - that EEE cognition celebrates. (shrink)

Jim Edwards; VIII*—Interpreted Logical Forms and Knowing Your Own Mind, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 99, Issue 1, 1 June 1999, Pages 169–190.

A great saint and a remarkable poet, Muni Kshamasagar had such self-awareness and dedication that he analyzed his own spiritual journey in its minutest detail. Born in an affluent Jain family, and growing up to become a technologist, Virendra Kumar (Muni Kshamasagar’s birth name), decided to give up all worldly pleasures and material belongings, and became a renunciate at a relatively young age of only twenty-three! He attained sainthood with the blessings of his guru at the age of twenty-five. Exceptionally (...) well read and a deep thinker, he kept a strict disciplined approach in his own life, yet always expressed extreme care and compassion toward others. His knowledge, approachability, and kindness frequently brought people close to him. His speaking style was very simple and touching, and often left the audiences spellbound. His intellect with its logical approach helped bring science and religion together to make them complementary rather than contradictory. This approach is well reflected in the present book, which is a collection of his discourses. The aim of this book is to make people realize that their own actions (karmas) are the root cause of their suffering or happiness. To attain inner peace and have a blissful present and tomorrow, they need to act correctly, and if they want to know how to do this, this book is for them. (shrink)

But what if in order to save 0nc’s life one has to ki]1 another person? In some cases that is obviously permissible. In a case I will call Villainous Aggrcssor, you are standing in :1 meadow, innocently minding your own business, and 21 truck suddenly heads toward you. You try to sidestep the truck, but it tums as you tum. Now you can sec the driver: he is a mam you know has long hated you. What to do? (...) You cannot outrun thc truck. Fortunately, this is not pure nightmare: you just happen to have em antitank gun with you, and can blow up the truck. Of course, if you do this you will kill thc driver, but that does not matter; it is morally permissible for you to blow up thc truck, driver and 211, in defense of your life. (shrink)

Gray takes an information-processing paradigm as his departure point, invoking a comparator as part of the system. He concludes that consciousness is to be found “in” the comparator but is unable to point to how the comparison takes place. Thus, the comparator turns out not to be an entity arising out of brain research per se, but out of the logic of the paradigm. In this way, Gray both reinvents dualism and remains trapped in the language game of his own (...) model – ending up dealing with the unknowable. (shrink)

An attractive semantic theory presented by Richard K. Larson and Peter Ludlow takes a report of propositional attitudes, e.g 'Tom believes Judy Garland sang', to report a believing relation between Tom and an interpreted logical form constructed from 'Judy Garland sang'. We briefly outline the semantic theory and indicate its attractions. However, the definition of interpreted logical forms given by Larson and Ludlow is shown to be faulty, and an alternative definition is offered which matches their intentions. This definition is (...) then shown to imply that Tom does not know his own mind, a result without intuitive support. A third definition is offered to deal with this problem. (shrink)

The evidence of your own eyes has often been regarded as unproblematic. But we know that people make mistaken observations. This can be looked on as unimportant if there issome class of statements that can serve as evidence for others, or if every statement in our corpus of knowledge is allowed to be no more than probable. Neither of these alternatives is plausible when it comes to machine or robotic observation. Then we must take the possibility of error seriously, (...) and we must be prepared to deal with error quantitatively. The problem of using internal evidence to arrive at error distributions is the main focus of the paper. (shrink)

The philosophical risks of politics -- Reflective simplification: the questions of a philosophical life -- Poverty eternal -- Life near the bone -- Wildness: the phenomenology of freedom -- How to mind your own business -- The fullness of life.

A superb new edition of Epictetus’s famed handbook on Stoicism—translated by one of the world’s leading authorities on Stoic philosophy Born a slave, the Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus taught that mental freedom is supreme, since it can liberate one anywhere, even in a prison. In How to Be Free, A. A. Long—one of the world’s leading authorities on Stoicism and a pioneer in its remarkable contemporary revival—provides a superb new edition of Epictetus’s celebrated guide to the Stoic philosophy of life (...) along with a selection of related reflections in his Discourses. Freedom, for Epictetus, is not a human right or a political prerogative but a psychological and ethical achievement, a gift that we alone can bestow on ourselves. We can all be free, but only if we learn to assign paramount value to what we can control, treat what we cannot control with equanimity, and view our circumstances as opportunities to do well and be well, no matter what happens to us through misfortune or the actions of other people. How to Be Free features splendid new translations and the original Greek on facing pages, a compelling introduction that sets Epictetus in context and describes the importance of Stoic freedom today, and an invaluable glossary of key words and concepts. The result is an unmatched introduction to this powerful method of managing emotions and handling life’s situations, from the most ordinary to the most demanding. (shrink)

"Whether we are to live in a future state . . . is the most important question which can possibly be asked. . . . Yet strange perplexities have been raised about the meaning of that identity or sameness of person, which is implied in the notion of our being now and hereafter. . . ." These words, written by the Anglican Bishop Joseph Butler, concisely summarize the crux of the problem which renowned philosopher Antony Flew tackles in this profoundly (...) thoughtful book. Despite the perennial hope of life beyond the grave, Flew shows that there are insuperable difficulties in elucidating postmortem survival on a rational basis. He analyzes the three ways that philosophers of the past have attempted to get around these difficulties: the "reconstitutionist way" (miraculous reassembly of our deceased bodies at some future time, such as the Last Judgment); the "way of the astral body" (a sort of duplicate, undetectable "body," which detaches itself from the material body after death); and the "Platonic-Cartesian way"(an incorporeal mind or soul containing a person's identity which lives on after death). The main problem, says Flew, is the impossibility of logically demonstrating how a person surviving death in any imagined altered state could identify him- or herself as the same person who had previously lived a flesh-and-blood life on the Earth. Flew reviews both the classic arguments of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Descartes, as well as the modern findings of parapsychology, elucidating this complex issue with logical rigor and engaging wit. (shrink)

A guide to retelling your personal, family, and cultural stories to transform your life, your relationships, and the world [bullet] Applies the latest neuroscience research on memory, brain mapping, and brain plasticity to the field of narrative therapy [bullet] Details mind-mapping and narrative therapy techniques that use story to change behavior patterns in ourselves, our relationships, and our communities [bullet] Explores how narrative therapy can help replace dysfunctional cultural stories with ones that build healthier relationships with (...) each other and the planet We are born into a world of stories that quickly shapes our behavior and development without our conscious awareness. By retelling our personal, family, and cultural narratives we can transform the patterns of our own lives as well as the patterns that shape our communities and the larger social worlds in which we interact. Applying the latest neuroscience research on memory, brain mapping, and brain plasticity to the field of narrative therapy, Lewis Mehl-Madrona and Barbara Mainguy explain how the brain is specialized in the art of story-making and story-telling. They detail mind-mapping and narrative therapy techniques that use story to change behavior patterns in ourselves, our relationships, and our communities. They explore studies that reveal how memory works through story, how the brain recalls things in narrative rather than lists, and how our stories modify our physiology and facilitate health or disease. Drawing on their decades of experience in narrative therapy, the authors examine the art of helping people to change their story, providing brain-mapping practices to discover your inner storyteller and test if the stories you are living are functional or dysfunctional, healing or destructive. They explain how to create new characters and new stories, ones that excite you, help you connect with yourself, and deepen your intimate connections with others. Detailing how shared stories and language form culture, the authors also explore how narrative therapy can help replace dysfunctional cultural stories with those that offer templates for healthier relationships with each other and the planet. (shrink)

An Insiders¿ Style Guide to Mind and Spirit ¿ Every Decade Should Be the Best Decade of Your Life by Natalie Logan is a fun and entertaining short read. Miami Florida ¿ Miami has long been a premier tourist destination, acclaimed for its physical beauty and its excellent climate. Year round, the fabled white-sand beaches and clear blue waters lapping Miami Beach have beckoned visitors to America¿s 'Riviera¿. Others are lured by Miami¿s world-class shopping and cosmopolitan dining and (...) its international culture. Mind and Spirit content:Personal Life CoachQuiet Your Inner CriticConfidence ¿ Keep Your Head High and Own Everything You Do and Do It BigBeauty and Happiness Feel Fabulous Tricks Must HavesWell Read Commit Random Acts of KindnessRe-Claim Your WeekendsManage Stress Aauvi Insiders¿ Style Guide Series ¿ There is something great about A-list living and Mind and Spirit, the ninth book of a twenty-one book series, is another step to achieving such an extraordinary life. You should be bursting with energy, and feeling you have an incredible motor inside you. There¿s still so much you want to do. You live more passionately now and savor every second. You think that¿s what happens when you grow up. (shrink)

When should we interfere in the course of a stranger’s life? While philosophers have discussed at length extreme cases of assisting poor people in famine stricken countries, much less attention has been given to casual, everyday episodes. If I overhear two people discussing a place they are about to visit, and know that it is closed for renovation, should I interfere and tell them so? If I stand next to a customer who has not been given enough change in the (...) supermarket, should I point that out or mind my own business? Using the Kantian notions of love and respect, I answer such questions. I claim that Kant’s terminology is ill-suited for instructing us how to deal with others with whom we are personally involved, but is important for our encounters with strangers. I suggest that we take seriously Kant’s claim that we are “united in one dwelling place”. When around others, keep an open eye to the possibility that they might need help. If there is good reason to suppose that you may help, knock on their door. Let them decide whether they want to open it. They are totally entitled to decline the offer, but should keep in mind that it was given as part of the joint venture of living together with others. The interference should therefore not be regarded as an infringement of privacy. (shrink)

"Children live in a realm of direct experience, engaged with their senses and absorbed in events as they occur. But as adults, we've come to depend on our acquired skills of language, logic, and familiar thinking strategies to get things done and get through our days. For decades, innovative neuroscience educator Dee Joy Coulter has been treasure-hunting for fresh insights into learning that we can actually use-to transform the way we perceive, think, feel, and learn. Original Mind guides us (...) into her expansive vision for unfolding our natural brilliance. Applying the findings of scientists, artists, and cultures across the globe-and illuminated with stories and hands-on practices from her own work-readers will explore:. How to see, listen, feel, and taste again with childlike wonder. The oral tradition-reclaiming the cognitive power of storytelling and metaphor. Problem-solving and learning at the deepest levels. Empty mind -the art of rejuvenation as taught by the Buddha, composers and artists, and children across the globe. Boredom, Complexity, Ambiguity, Permeability, and Novelty-five tolerances essential to fulfillment. Surfing the edges of inner chaos-the theta-gamma states of inspired genius, and many other topics Readers both new and well-versed in brain training, meditation, and stress reduction will find here a wealth of inspiration to amplify the richness of their perceptions, intuition, creativity, emotional balance-and the untapped wonder hidden within each moment of our lives."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

The proposed new geological era, The Anthropocene (aka Age of Humans, Age of Man), marking human domination of the planet long called Mother Earth, is truly The Age of the Motherfucker. The ecocide of the Anthropocene comes from Man, the Western- and masculine- identified corporate, military, intellectual, and political class that masks itself as the exemplar of the civilized and the human. The word motherfucker was invented by the enslaved children of White slavemasters to name their mothers' rapist/owners. Man's strategic (...) motherfucking, from the personal to the planetary, is invasion, exploitation, spirit-breaking, extraction and toxic wasting of individuals, communities, and lands, for reasons of pleasure, plunder, and profit. Ecocide is attempted deicide of Mother Nature-Earth, reflecting Man's goal to come the god he first made in his own image. The motivational word Motherfucker further reveals the Anthropocene with a flip side signifying an outstanding, formidable, and inexorable force. Mother Nature-Earth is that "Mutha'" -- one defying translation into heteropatriarchal classifications of gender, one capable of overwhelming Man and not the other way around. Drawing upon Indigenous and African American scholarship, ecofeminism, ecowomanism, green activism, femme, queer, and gender non-binary philosophies, literature and arts, Afrofuturism, and popular culture, Call Your "Mutha'" contends that the Anthropocene is not evidence of Man's supremacy over nature, but that Mother Nature-Earth, faced with disrespect, is going away. It is imperative now to call the "Mutha'" by decolonizing land, bodies, and minds, ending rapism, feeding the green, renewing sustaining patterns and affirming devotion to Mother Nature-Earth. (shrink)

An authoritative and accessible book by a qualified scientist, showing incredible proof of the mind-body connection. There is no longer any doubt that the way we think affects our bodies: countless scientific studies have shown this to be true. For former pharmaceutical scientist Dr David Hamilton, the testing of new drugs highlighted how profoundly the mind and body are connected. Time and time again, the control group of patients in drug trials improved at similar rates to those who (...) actually received the medicines. Astounded, Dr Hamilton decided to change the direction of his work to explore the relationship between the mind and the body. This bestselling acclaimed book was first published 10 years ago. In it, Dr Hamilton explores the effect of visualization, belief and positive thinking on the body, and shows how using our imagination and mental processes can stimulate our own defences and healing systems to combat disease, pain and illness. In this new edition, Dr Hamilton has added four new chapters to discuss the latest cutting-edge information and extraordinary new techniques. These include using imagery to stimulate the immune system - a method that can benefit cancer patients undergoing conventional treatment - effectively using the mind to speed up rehabilitation from stroke, and powerful visualization strategies to help facilitate recovery from injury and illness. (shrink)

Suzan Colon, yoga teacher and former senior editor at O, The Oprah Magazine, digs deep into the spiritual philosophy behind yoga and distills thirty essential components to enrich your practice and revolutionize your life from the inside out. We live in an increasingly stressful world, and we know about the hazardous effects stress can have on our health. But meditating and mindfulness can sometimes seem elusive, unattainable, and impossible to fit into our busy days. Even the word “yoga” (...) usually makes many people think of complicated, twisty poses—but that’s not everything. In its complete sense, yoga is a collection of life lessons for wellness and well-being and a spiritual technology from ancient times that is now more relevant, and necessary, than ever. In Yoga Mind, Suzan Colon shares thirty essential components to increase self- awareness and inner balance to use throughout your day—in traffic, on the train, at your job, and home. She outlines how we can use yoga to cultivate resilience in challenging times, reduce stress, and enrich our relationships with family, work, and ourselves. This guide contains a 30-day program designed to create subtle yet powerful shifts in awareness and attitude that lead to real, lasting change. Whether you’re a hardcore yogi or a beginner to the practice, Yoga Mind can help you unite your body, mind, and heart to become your best self and cultivate lasting happiness in your life. (shrink)

At the center of much contemporary work on self-knowledge of our attitudes is a debate between Agentialists and Empiricists. Empiricists hold that first-person knowledge of one’s own attitudes possesses a broadly empirical basis, such as observation or inference. Agentialists insist that an account of self-knowledge must make sense of the intimate connection between knowing one’s attitudes and actively forming them in response to reasons. But it is plausible to suppose that a psychologically realistic account of self-knowledge will emphasize both active (...) and passive elements. Focusing on the idea that we form self-ascriptions of belief on the basis of active deliberation, this paper outlines such a middle ground position. (shrink)

What part does reason play when we share our beliefs with others? And how can using our God-given intellect help in our own spiritual development?

What do we do when a loved one is seriously messing up her life? While Kantianism describes the predicament nicely as a tension between love and respect, it is not well-suited to resolving it. Kantian respect prevents minding another’s business in cases where love demands it. Virtue ethics can readily explain the predicament as a tension between the virtues of sympathy and humility. Moreover, by changing the focus away from the other as a setter of ends and toward the (...) would-be-benefactor’s own degree of practical wisdom, virtue ethics permits a more nuanced set of loving responses to self-destructive people. (shrink)

Leaders working in diverse spheres of societal influence including medicine, healthcare, public health, legal services, education, and business are increasingly interested in the potential role of mindfulness practice for experiencing, appreciating and living their lives more fully at work and at home. The discipline of mindfulness meditation practice may offer leaders an effective means of actualizing in their lives an enhanced ability to know themselves more directly and, also, to learn how to use, in skillful ways, both the routine (...) and extraordinary work-related demands and challenges they face as a means of cultivating latent yet innate human qualities necessary for effective leadership. Based upon direct experience as a leader facing a significant, protracted crisis, the author details his experience of integrating mindfulness practice into his life and leadership-related decision-making. (shrink)