Agape

i came across a word i'd forgotten existed 'agape'.

Altruism is other-regarding, either with regard to actions or motivations; altruistic
love adds the feature of deep affirmative affect to altruism; agape is altruistic love
universalized to all humanity

Agape is the Greek word appropriated by the writers of the New Testament to
present a form of unlimited altruistic love that has its rough equivalents in Judaism,
Buddhism, and other great religious traditions. Agape love is other-regarding
love as defined previously but elevated by an overwhelming sense of equal regard
derived from a spiritual belief in the love of the Supreme Being for all
humanity. Agape, when manifest, expands the scope of love to the enemy (although
what action this implies, especially when the lives of innocent others are
imperiled, is an exceedingly complex matter), makes all strangers into neighbors,
and extends affective presence and care to persons with severe derangement, dementia,
or retardation.

this part reminds me of a point i've been meaning to make for a long time. i may have already made it, but i will make it here again.

i think that religions, and the morals and virtues etc they promote have a lot to offer contemporary society, and their systems should not be so readily dismissed.
although, i think a lot of them are also rife with hypocrisy, they still have a lot to offer. lessons like non-materialistic beliefs, selflessness, humbleness, thrift, empathy, altruism, equality, universal love etc are all things which we could do with a bit more of, and which aren't really focused on in ethical egoism, infact, as i've already said, strong egoists would argue that even love is infact selfserving, something that most people would find very hard to agree with, but even harder to argue. I think though is where religions fall short though, even though they promote universal altruism/love, is that, historically speaking, this has not really been practiced. Religions tend to be quite judgmental of others. (not all people therein, obviously) But just because they MIGHT fail at walking the talk, doesnt mean the talk is wrong. universality is where its at, and the responsibility that comes with acting everyone else 'in a way you'd wanna be treated yourself'.

this next quote reinforces one of these points:

However much religions and their historically related
moral philosophical developments refer to universality of moral standing,
none have ever achieved a real world of universal concord and unlimited love.


Niebuhr felt
that such universalism provided the ultimate ethical norm and that it has a corrective
relevance to human natural propensities but that its realization remains an
“impossible possibility."

but perhaps, like Kant suggests, the pursuit of this good is good, so we should try.
in other words agape/universal altruism is the "highest
norm despite the impossibility of its full human realization"

"In the Christian tradition, agape is modeled after kin altruism writ
large to all humanity."
so, like the unconditional love of a mother for child, for all humanity.

Agape love will leap over in-group barriers when the sense of belonging to all
humanity

this is what's exciting about it, if realised this would stop discrimination and the 'using'/exploitation of people, all people.

religion offers this analogy:
sibling relationships under a common parental God
Sevren Suzuki (see earlier post) calls people "a family some 6 billion strong" and perhaps even more pertinently, "30 billion(?) species strong" suggesting moral beahviour should extend to all forms of life.

"The genius of this agape love is its family design."
as universal brothers and sisters. Local boundaries of blood relationship are transcended

We have to “get a feel for the preciousnessof all human beings,” argues Vacek (1994, p. 8), and develop this set of affections through the contemplation of narratives and through rights of passage that lead us to see worth.

the author goes on to question:

usually arguing that
no such love exists in human nature. Contrary to Thomas Henry Huxley’s famous
assertion that ethical progress depends on combating the “cosmic process” of evolution,
which such theologians celebrate, can we rather argue that human nature
is biologically fine-tuned through evolution to take the leap into universality?

he argues
Altruistic love in humans is [possible] as capacities evolved in the context of
kin altruism.

this brings me to an interesting thought i had when considering Dawkins' idea of evolving memes
PERHAPS WHAT LOVE IS NOW, ESPECIALLY WITH ADVANCED COMMUNICATIONS, EVOLVES SEPERATE FROM OUR BIOLOGICAL SELVES IN A THOUGHT-SPACE, AND IN THIS WAY LITERALLY EXISTS. (in the same way that Cartesian Laws of mathematics are argued to actually exist.

one final rebuttal to egoism: Even if Group altruism is self serving because it helps the group it "does not explain the capacity to love the outsider."


I'll leave it at that for now, this post is getting way too long. sorry its so incoherent.

this is from the same book as the last few posts