Tracing Moral Sensibilities

Moral Sense

By Anna Wierzbicka

The concept of ‘moral sense’ plays an important role in books on philosophy, psychology and popular science written by authors who write in English and who take the English language for granted. For example, in his recent book The God Delusion Richard Dawkins states that “we have a moral sense which is built into our brains, like our sexual instinct or our fear of heights”. Yet there is no expression like moral sense in other languages, not even European ones like Spanish or German, let alone non-European ones, like Chinese. Nor was there any moral sense in English before the phrase was invented by so-called “British moralists” – Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume. This paper traces the origins of the modern Anglo/English concept of ‘moral sense’ in the influence of Locke’s empiricist philosophy on the eighteenth-century ‘British moralists’, and through them, on the language of British natural scientists, and especially Darwin.

Thus, the paper argues that when contemporary scientists of the English language like Dawkins, Hauser, and others write about the ‘moral sense’ and present it as a panhuman characteristic evolved through biological evolution, they are looking at “human nature” and “human morality” through the prism of the English language. Seeing the phrase moral sense, and the discourse based on it, in a cross-linguistic and historical perspective can help us to stretch our imagination as to different possible conceptions of “morality” and to go beyond the culture-bound vision of what Dawkins calls “moral sense” and Hauser, a “universal sense of right and wrong”.

Read More: Here

Towards an Integral Feminism?

From IntegralWorld.Com:

In The Eye of Spirit (1997) Ken Wilber wrote: "There are today at least a dozen major schools of feminism (liberal, socialist, spiritual, eco, womanist, radical, anarchist, lesbian, Marxist, cultural, constructive, power), and the only thing they all agree on is that females exist" (p. 190).

There is more to that, writes Joyce Nielsen, Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, CO. She is author of Sex and Gender in Society: Perspectives on Stratification (1990).

In this paper she uses Wilber's outline of Integral Feminism, as sketched in The Eye of Spirit (1997, pp. 186-202), to put the many feminist approaches into perspective:

Feminist Fusion or Fission? Ken Wilber Meets Feminist Theory

By Joyce McCarl Nielsen

In this paper I present contemporary feminist theories in an attempt to synthesize, integrate, fuse them, if you will, but not in the sense of reducing or collapsing them into a single theoretical or conceptual dynamic. Rather, following Ken Wilber's lead, I assume that all are partial truths even though (and perhaps especially when) they conflict and have contradictory assumptions. Each approach clarifies gendered phenomena in at least one of Wilber's four quadrants, outlined in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution.

Read More: Here

Joyce values feedback on this article and can be reached at jnielsen@colorado.edu.

I Am The Other

Born half Bolivian, half Italian and bred in Switzerland, Denise Zabalaga possesses a unique sensitivity towards "otherness" and an ability to transcend many of the projections of fear and mistrust so commonly associated with strangers. After experiencing close up the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, Zabalaga’s travels as a photographer and photojournalist took her, a single woman, to territories of the Middle East and Afghanistan normally considered hostile or dangerous.

With a combination of determination, fearlessness and an incredible dedication to interacting with the language and culture of the lands she visited, Denise's experiences brought her again and again to a profound realization, "There is no separation from the other because I am the other."

When asked what has been most meaningful to her in all her travels she says, “most important is the incredible generosity that I experienced. Not only on a material level, but on a human level—all the times they accepted me and included me as a full human being.”

In this interview she shares more about her journeys, along with insights about our shared humanity and her powerful encounters abroad with generosity.

Read More: Here

The Scientific Exploration of Consciousness

The Scientific Exploration of Consciousness: Towards An Adequate Epistemology

By Willis Harman

The scientific exploration of phenomena and experience relating to consciousness1 has long been hampered by two obstacles. One is that subjective experience does not meet the commonly accepted criteria for data in a scientific analysis, in that it is not public, objective, and replicable. The other is that many consciousness-related phenomena do not appear to fit comfortably into the accepted scientific worldview. For instance, the common-sense assumption that conscious volition is causal — that my desire can cause things to happen — conflicts with the assumption of mainstream science that the universe operates according to causal laws which can be objectively known.

Most scientists have improvised ways of dealing with these two obstacles, so that for much of practical science they don’t get in the way. For example, research on the effectiveness of analgesics, such as aspirin, goes on in spite of the fact that pain is basically a subjective experience; similarly, effective research has been accomplished on topics like imagery, emotions, dreams, etc. which depend for data on subjective self-reports. The conscious will of the experimenter would seem at one level to be a causal factor in the findings, in that he/she devises the experiment; nevertheless most scientists share a deep faith that volition can, in principle, be explained in terms of scientific laws, im-plying determinism (at least in a statistical or quantum-mechanical sense). “Paranormal” or anomalous phenomena, in which consciousness-related events appear to contradict both scientific and conventional pictures of reality, are typically explained away on the basis of non-replicability, assumed faulty observation, possible collusion or fraud.

Nevertheless, the situation can hardly be considered satisfactory. “Downward causation,” causation-from-consciousness, is for the most part considered unacceptable as a scientific concept in spite of the fact that it is one of the most impressive facts in our practical experience. Psychic phenomena, near-death experiences and insights of a spiritual or mystical nature have the power to change a person’s life; yet they tend to be explained away or otherwise disposed of when serious scientific investigation is proposed. The attention medical researchers give to the role of unconscious processes in placebo effects, psychoneuroimmunology, or spontaneous remission of life-threatening illness is curiously meagre considering how importantly medical practice might be affected by their thorough understanding.

Read More: Here

___________________________________________________________
Originally published in Journal of Consciousness Studies 1 (1), 1994, pp. 140–148.

And reproduced in ANTIMATTERS 2 (3) 2008

Exploring the Technium

From IntegralLife.Com:

Exploring the Technium: Technology, Evolution, and God

A Dialogue between Kevin Kelly and Ken Wilber

Wired magazine’s own “Senior Maverick” talks with Ken Wilber about some of the ideas behind Kevin’s blog The Technium, which explores the various ways humanity defines and redefines itself through the interface of science, technology, culture, and consciousness. Kevin also shares some of his own thoughts about the role of spirituality in the 21st century, going into considerable depth around his own spiritual awakening several decades ago.

Listen to this groundbreaking dialogue: Here

August issue of the Integral Leadership Review available online

Integral Leadership Review,
Volume VIII, No. 4 - August 2008

From the Website:

The Integral Leadership Review is the world’s premier publication of integrated approaches to leadership. It serves leaders, professionals and academics engaged in the practice, development and theory of leadership. The Integral Leadership Review offers a comprehensive framework that provides insights and tools leaders can utilize to solve problems. Appropriate guidance is a key to solve the challenges of the world. Today’s approaches are fragmented, incomplete, and inadequate for the world’s multidimensional, multilayered global issues. The Integral Leadership Review supports you in meeting those challenges.

Read the Latest Issue: Here

Mindfulness and Cognitive Flexibility

Mindfulness meditation has been shown to enhance emotional awareness and psychological flexibility, as well as induce overall well-being and emotional balance. And scientists and consciousness researchers are increasingly examining how meditation influences all kinds of brain functions.

This February, 28 2008 Google Tech Talk explores the effect of mindfulness meditation practice on the brain systems in which psychological functions such as attention, emotional reactivity, emotion regulation, and self-view are instantiated. The lecture also discusses how different forms of meditation practices are being studied using neuroscientific technologies and are now being integrated into clinical practice to address symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress.

The presenter is Philippe Goldin. Goldin is a research scientist and heads the Clinically Applied Affective Neuroscience group in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. Goldin spent 6 years in India and Nepal studying various languages, Buddhist philosophy and debate at Namgyal Monastery and the Dialectic Monastic Institute, and serving as an interpreter for various Tibetan Buddhist lamas. He then returned to the U.S. to complete a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Rutgers University.

Goldin’s National Institute of Health funded clinical research focuses on (a) functional neuroimaging investigations of cognitive-affective mechanisms in adults with anxiety disorders, (b) comparing the effects of mindfulness meditation and cognitive-behavioral therapy on brain-behavior correlates of emotional reactivity and regulation, and (c) training children in family and elementary school settings in mindfulness skills to reduce anxiety and enhance compassion, self-esteem and quality of family interactions.

Jean Gebser, Aurobindo and Human Consciousness

Evolution of Consciousness According to Jean Gebser

By Ulrich J. Mohrhoff

“Everything that happens to us, then, is only the answer and echo of what and how we ourselves are.” -- Jean Gebser

This article introduces and summarizes The Ever-Present Origin, the magnum opus of cultural historian and evolutionary philosopher Jean Gebser, largely in his own words. According to Gebser, human consciousness underwent a series of mutations each of which has enriched reality by a new (qualitative) dimension. At present humanity is again undergoing such a mutation: this time from the mental, perspectival structure of consciousness to the integral, aperspectival structure or, using the terminology of Sri Aurobindo, from mind to supermind. The integrality of this consciousness consists in part in its ability to integrate the preceding consciousness structures, rather than suppressing them (as the mental structure does) and hence being adversely affected by them. The article concludes with a brief account of the Mother’s personal experience of this mutation.

Read More: Here

Profile: Boulder Integral

From the Boulder Integral:

Boulder Integral is a community of shared philosophical agreement and committed practice. We believe that we are poised at the beginning of a new turn in the spiral of human history, where for the first time all constructions of human knowledge and forms of beneficial practice are available.

We hear the next octave of a new Renaissance, where entirely new structures of thought, new reality frames, new ways of being human, and new stages of development await us, supported by a vastly clearer view of the great contributions of the past, as well as its pathologies. At Boulder Integral we stand in this confluence, eager to aid in the creation of the next wave of development: The Integral Age.

The Integral Age is in its infancy. Boulder Integral is among the first walk-up, embodied integral communities in the world. We are an experiment in community that strives to do more than reflect commonly held values. Our experiment in living is drawn toward something new, something “explicitly integral”. What this phrase means for us continues to evolve and do not claim that we have fully lived into this new suit of values. Yet we know that we must learn to live a new way; to find a path to the highest states of consciousness and stages of development; to commit in full to our own potential, and turn in love and service to humanity. So as we turn and turn again in full commitment toward a new human possibility, we have come to believe that the following values and capacities are among those that could be called “explicitly integral”, and as such represent an important advance at this moment in history.

Read More: Here

An Introduction to Boulder Integral :

Welcome to Boulder Integral from Jason Lange on Vimeo.

Upcoming Events at Boulder Integral:

-Friday 9/12: KenWilber Study Group
-Friday 9/12: A Deeper Life, with Robert Augustus Masters & Diane Bardwell
-Saturday 9/13: Integral Life Practice Book Launch Party, featuring co-authors Terry Patten, Marco Morelli and Adam Leonard (and maybe Ken Wilber himself!)

“At Boulder Integral we seek to enact and embody the promise of the emerging integral vision, which we see as an unfolding stage of human evolution. Our 7000 square foot facility is home to a community of people who are pioneering new forms of human transformational practices -- integral practices -- that promise powerful results in all areas of life.”

Healing the Whole

The Relationship Between Personal Trauma, Social Oppression, and the Transformative Nature of Trauma Healing (A Biopsychosocial Approach)

By Brad J Kammer

This study demonstrates how unresolved trauma affects individuals' capacity to create healthy, functional lives. It describes the foundational relationship between personal trauma and social oppression that creates a cycle of dependence on lower functioning physiological, psychological, and social mechanisms.

This 'Cycle of Devolution' has its origin in humanity's disconnection from its greatest resources including, basic life rhythms, mutually-enhancing relationships, sustainable communities, and ancestral wisdom. At the very roots of modern civilization, unresolved personal trauma has impacted the social systems that shape modern life including, child-rearing, family, education, religion, and culture. However, this trauma-induced cycle shifts as individuals successfully renegotiate traumatic experiences, altering the way they relate to themselves, their families, and the world.

This paper relies on the science of Somatic Psychology to unravel the mystery of trauma and oppression. Specifically, Peter Levine's model of Somatic Experiencing is explored in its use of healing trauma as a vehicle for personal and social transformation. Working with the thwarted physiological responses to trauma, this approach awakens individuals' creative impulses and self-regulatory functioning. In this way, healing from trauma provides an opportunity to reorganize personal and social life.

Read More: Here

Dreaming the Future

This year The International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) celebrates its twenty-fifth year as the premiere organization for dream study and dream activities in the world. The IASD is a non-profit, international, multidisciplinary organization dedicated to the pure and applied investigation of dreams and dreaming.

The IASD is currently promoting this year's PsiberDreaming Online Conference which celebrates the accomplishments of a dedicated group of dreamers by asking participants to consider the future of dream studies.

PsiberDreaming Conference 2008:
Dreaming the Future of Dreaming
Sunday, September 21 - Sunday, October 5

The theme of IASD’s PsiberDreaming Conference 2008 will be 'Dreaming the Future of Dreaming'. Co-hosts Jean Campbell and Rita Dwyer decided it would be very interesting to look back at the dreamwork of the past several years and a look forward to what our dreams suggest the future might bring.

Visit the Conference Website: Here

Integral Life Practice – Available Today!

Integral Life Practice: A 21st-Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening

by Ken Wilber, Terry Patten, Adam Leonard, Marco Morelli

Product Description from Amazon.com:

At last, a complete guide showing how to use Ken Wilber’s acclaimed Integral approach to design a personal program of transformational practice. Integral Life Practice (ILP) is a customizable, user-friendly approach to spiritual practice that meets the needs of the whole person by including not only spiritual activities like meditation and prayer but also exercises for body, mind, and “shadow” (any part of ourselves that we repress or deny).

ILP allows practitioners to choose the practices that most suit them, in a mix-and-match style, adapted to whatever belief system or religion they may already be following. With its combination of exercises, explanations, theory, examples, personal stories, and illustrations, Integral Life Practice will be the bible of a truly integrated approach to practice for years to come.

Early Comments & Reviews:

"At once challenging and uplifting, tender yet assertive, this provocative and accessible book is the source text for a new movement in post-metaphysics and life transformation. This book is the definitive roadmap for your journey to an awakened life." —Anthony Robbins

"Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory has created a road map. Now Terry Patten, Adam Leonard, and Marco Morelli have added a GPS (Global Practicing System) with Integral Life Practice. Travelers on the spiritual path will find this book indispensable." — Brother David Steindl-Rast,

"Ken Wilber and the authors of this clearly written, sensible, well-informed book are fellow explorers with George Leonard and me in the development of integral transformative practices. Such practices grow out of a philosophic vision dawning across the world that joins our aspiration for personal and social transformation with both science and the contemplative traditions. This book will advance this developing worldview and the disciplines needed to actualize it." —Michael Murphy

Buy the Book Today at: Amazon.com

Of Synthesis and Social Psychology

Why do people think, feel and act as they do? What is human nature? What are the fundamental relationships between the individual and society? For centuries these questions have fascinated great thinkers and ordinary humans alike.

In The Cultural Animal: Human Nature, Meaning, and Social Life (2005), eminent social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister not only summarizes what the field of psychology has come to know about human psychology, but also turns conventional wisdom on its head by arguing that culture is an inextricable part of human nature, and has shaped human evolution for at least 50,000 years.

Written at the peak of Baumeister’s career, The Cultural Animal offers a coherent, easy-to-understand, though radical synthesis of social psychology and argues against theories that depict the individual's relation to society as one of victimization, endless malleability, or just a square peg in a round hole, and proposes that the individual human being is designed by nature to be part of society.

Moreover, Baumeister argues that we need to briefly set aside the endless study of cultural differences to look at what most cultures have in common - because that holds the key to ‘human nature’. Culture, he argues, is in our genes, although cultural differences may not be. This core theme is further developed by a powerful tour through what Baumeister sees as the main dimensions of human psychology.

Read The Entire Book: Here

The Biopsychosocial Model of Health & Illness

Ideas never happen in isolation. Many people in the Integral Movement like to think of Ken Wilber's work as a stunningly original approach in Western culture and thinking; however, many significant ideas within science and theory have developed over the years which also tap into the deeper 'integral' zeitgeist present in human cultures since before even the Ancient Greeks.

In the article below the author briefly outlines the Biopsychosocial approach to medicine pioneered by George Engel in the mid-seventies, right around the time Ken Wilber was writing The Spectrum of Consciousness.

From BrainBlogger:

The Biopsychosocial Model of Health & Illness
By Shaheen E Lakhan

Health is traditionally equated to the absence of disease. A lack of a fundamental pathology was thought to define one’s health as good, whereas biologically driven pathogens and conditions would render an individual with poor health and the label “diseased”. However, such a narrow scope on health limited our understanding of wellbeing, thwarted our treatments efforts, and perhaps more importantly, suppressed prevention measures.

Many institutions and medical doctors have managed to incorporate a holistic view of health in sound medical application, primarily based on the Biopsychosocial (BPS) Model of Health and Illness. The concept of wellness is particularly stressed, where the state of being in good health based on the biopsychosocial model is accompanied by good quality of life and strong relationships.

In 1977, American Psychiatrist George Engel introduced the major theory in medicine, the BPS Model. The model accounted for biological, psychological, and sociological interconnected spectrums, each as systems of the body. In fact, the model accompanied a dramatic shift in focus from disease to health, recognizing that psychosocial factors (e.g. beliefs, relationships, stress) greatly impact recovery the progression of and recuperation from illness and disease.

Engel eloquently states:

To provide a basis for understanding the determinants of disease and arriving at a rational treatments and patterns of health care, a medical model must also take into account the patient, the social context in which he lives and the complementary system devised by society to deal with the disruptive effects of illness, that is, the physician role and the health care system. This requires a biopsychosocial model.

Today, individuals are living with diseases that would have taken their lives in the past. We see health and wellness is a broader forum. Medical practitioners are more frequently adopting the biopsychosocial form in their clinician practice.

The following outline compares the presentation, diagnosis, and treatment used by Physicians who follow the biomedical and biopsychosocial model.

Read More: Here

In the past 25 years, Engel’s portrayal of the biopsychosocial model has attempted to significantly redefine psychiatry, medicine, and psychology. The more humanistic view of healthcare has observationally improved patient quality of life and wellness, but long-term empirical studies are necessary to fully solidify the role of 'integrated health' treatments and models. Social workers, health professionals and psychologist of all kinds would do well to promote such studies and help move healthcare practices and policy discussions towards more holistic and comprehensive approaches.

[See Also: The Increasing Influence of Biopsychosocial Medicine]

Integral Leadership In Action

Announcing the 3rd Integral Leadership in Action Collaborative: Leading from Goodness Truth and Beauty, Oct 9 - Oct 12, 2008 in Boulder, Colorado.

The program will feature presentations and workshops from: Steve McIntosh, Diane Hamilton, Jeff Salzman, Elizabeth Debold, Terry Patton, Robb Smith, Michael Garfield and many others.

The focus of this interactive conference is on "building community with many opportunities for sharing, socializing, and exploring how we can all lead ever more integrally from within our own unique expressions of 'The Good, The True, and The Beautiful.'" And participants are encouraged to learn to "creatively apply integral leadership concepts to your every day (professional, personal, family and community) life. Be an every day integral leader - from parenting children to managing employees, to organizing a neighborhood watch group – be prepared to lead through an integral lens."

More Information: Here

Psychotherapy’s Executioner?

Below is an article we have been wanting to share for some time. In it the author explores how after decades of cautionary tales and advances in theories of consciousness much of mainstream clinical psychology is still opertating from a reductionist, materialistic and ultimately Cartesian perspective. Let's hope that as brain science matures so too will an appreciation for the more qualitative and 'interior' (phenomenological) dimensions of human psychology.

From BrainBlogger:

Neuroscience: Psychotherapy’s Executioner?

By Jared Tanner

Within the field of psychology more and more research is based on the functioning of the brain. Even in fields such as social psychology, which traditionally was opposed to looking at the relationship between brain and behavior, is neuroscience growing. More and more psychological disorders are being explained in relation to neurological function or dysfunction. Depression is caused by too few or too many neurotransmitters. Schizophrenia is caused by a “mis-wired” brain. Anxiety is caused by a hyper-reactive sympathetic nervous system (and possibly an abnormal amygdala). We are overweight because of hypothalamic problems and can’t sleep because our reticular activating systems are out of whack.

All psychopathology is now being described in neurological terms. Many believe this implies that all psychopathology is now treatable and curable by medication because all psychopathology has a biological basis. Cartesian dualism is alive and well; in fact, it’s never been stronger.

Read More: Here

It is amazing and saddening to think that, at least in certain respects, our brightest minds are being stunted and misdirected by an impoverished and limited view of nature, self and society. We obviously still have many changes to make in our scientific, academic and educational systems if our civilization is ever going to become all that we know it can be.