These are a big group of four when it comes to understanding Culture. It tis important to understand what it means to be a person. Just a person. It is not their mind body, it is embodiment, we cannot have parts of them, it needs to exist as whole to be an Embodied Person.
And once we wrap our minds around that (not brains) we add the layers of Morals, Ethics and Politics to Culture and we really need a greater understanding of ourselves.
Ethics: These are the systemic moral philosophy of a person, group or organisation. These stand in distinction to personal morality.
Personhood is one of the most important foundations of SPoR. What follows is an extract from the SPoR Handbook but is so important it must be presented in full: How do we define the human person? The following defines the nature of personhood. (Concepts highlighted in bold indicate essential capacities of personhood).
- A person is first and foremost a social subject. Personhood can only be understood in relation to others socially and psychologically. We participate in Socialitie (the holistic resonance of all humans with other humans ) and can only be defined intercorporeally (Fuchs).
- As embodied persons we are affected by all that happens in, to, around and for us. Interaffectivity, (Fuchs) determines all our actions and limits any sense of autonomy. Whilst human persons have a degree of autonomy this is incomplete and relative to identity, context and the collective unconscious. Individuality is only confirmed in relation to Socialitie.
- As embodied persons we act as agents in decision making. Most human decisions affect others and involve a degree of self-consciousness, however, this is not complete either.
- Humans are conscious, subconscious (deficit – Freud), non-conscious (Damasio) and unconscious (positive – Jung).
- As self conscious knowers we don’t know all things, humans are fallible and limited as agents. In this sense, persons are unable to anticipate all things (mortal) and so cannot anticipate many consequences of their limited ability to choose (finite). Yet despite this, as embodied persons, humans possess an essential unity. Human persons are identified with their body and their soul/spirit/personality.
- Humans are not just rational beings but also moral, emotional and unconscious beings. They are not objects nor machines in a system, they are participants in their own ecology.
- As self-conscious limited agents humans discover, imagine and create not just physically but semiotically, in language, discourse, sign systems, metaphor, poetics, aesthetics and creation of meaning and purpose (semiosis).
- As choosers human persons are valuers, for to choose is to value. Most importantly, human persons dream and enter into knowing unconsciously including: the creation of music, art, dance, religion and Poetics.
- A critical capability of personhood is the making of meaning and purpose through language and semiotics (sign and symbols systems).
- Personhood is strongly anchored to feelings and e-motions and these are expressed through language, semiotics, reasoning, metaphor and moral action. Persons are able to discover, initiate, create and initiate language and behaviours with and without determination/necessity.
- All of these qualities and capabilities mean that a human person lives and acts in dialectic with their environment, culture, embodiment and fallibility.
- Persons cannot sit at anytime in absolutes neither can they know perfection. Everything persons do is contingent on their Socialitie and humanity. A critical aspect of human personhood is coming to grips with fallibility, vulnerability and uncertainty and the nature of learning, development and risk.
- Persons are also teleological, that is, they are shaped and formed by their ends. Humans know that when they bury their dead they are viewing their own death and so this facilitates the creation of meaning, even religious meaning in living. Benner (2016) uses the metaphor of the Russian nested dolls in an effort to explain how all these qualities integrate and define personhood. All of these sit within another and one cannot dissect human personhood like a machine/object and find the seat of personhood in just: sentience, brain or intelligence. Personhood is very much embodied.
Moral philosophy is the branch of philosophy that contemplates what is right and wrong. It explores the nature of morality and examines how people should live their lives in relation to others.
Politics is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among persons, such as the distribution of resources or status.
Hopefully this brings up a lot more questions!
Enjoy.
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