Pontifical University of the Holy Cross

This is the editorial article of the Research Topic Emotional Regulation and Human Flourishing: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives, containing 14 articles. Emotion regulation is not merely a cognitive process but a fundamental aspect of what it means to live well. By integrating perspectives from diverse disciplines, this Research Topic paves the way for a richer understanding of how emotions influence our lives.

The notion of person has a long history both terminologically and conceptually. Even if it has its roots in Greek thought, it was primarily forged in Late Antiquity between Eastern and Western traditions and between Philosophy and Theology. An important milestone in this process was the Boethius’s formula individua substantia rationalis naturae, but its development in large part took place in Middle Ages, mainly with Thomas Aquinas. Both Boethius and Aquinas intended to unite Eastern and Western contributions, and perhaps this was the key to the success of their proposals. Aquinas considers the person as an individual with a peculiar dominion of its own acts on account of its rationality. Following Neoplatonic inspiration, he describes rationality as a mode of being able to perform an activity that gives the subject a special unity by returning into itself (reditio completa in seipsum). In this paper I propose that, for Aquinas, the “returning” of personal being (reditio) is not only reached through knowledge, but also through love. In this way, the being of a person is not only conserved, but it is increased in its intrinsic perfection.

In Late Antiquity, the word persona acquired its own theological identity from common speech. One step along this path was the application of prosopological exegesis to biblical texts, a form of interpretation developed by Hellenistic scholars aimed at identifying the “voices” of the “characters” in a poem. A comparison between Origen of Alexandria’s and Tertullian’s use of this kind of exegesis shows at what stage of specialization both the term and the concept of persona were in the third century.

Today’s medical ethics involve two different viewpoints based on how we understand the role of conscience in medicine and the purpose of healthcare. The first view, called the health-directed model, sees medicine as a way to improve health and promote healing, while also respecting the values of both patients and doctors. In this model, doctors need some discretionary space to decide how to achieve the best health outcomes in their practice. On the other hand, the service-provider model sees the main goal of medicine as providing a service, especially healthcare, with a strong focus on protecting patient autonomy. In this view, doctors are required to provide care even when it goes against their personal beliefs. The goal of this article is to explore the foundations and arguments of these two medical models. Understanding the key ideas behind these models is important for deciding whether to support or oppose conscientious objection in medical ethics. Additionally, the article aims to figure out which model makes a stronger case and to offer advice on how to engage with the opposing view from a virtue ethics perspective.

The article is dedicated to the architectural works in Viterbo commissioned by the pope Pius II (1458–1464) to prepare the city for the solemnity of Corpus Christi (June 17th 1462). These works will be presented in the context of relations between popes and the capital of Tuscia in the 1450s and 1460s. The aim of the paper is to present their symbolic dimension which was used by the Pope to manifest his domination over Viterbo.

Algunos autores como Hans Boersma critican la doctrina tomista sobre la visión beatífica porque consideran que en ella la mediación cristológica es totalmente irrelevante, sea cuando hace referencia al medio como al objeto de la visión de Dios que los santos tienen en la gloria. La postura de Boersma ha dado lugar a un debate que, sin embargo, se ha centrado sobre todo en la Suma de Teología. Sin embargo, en el último tiempo se ha redescubierto la riqueza que contienen los comentarios bíblicos del Aquinate. Por eso, el objeto del presente artículo es considerar el rol de Cristo glorioso y del Espíritu Santo en la visión beatífica del cristiano según estos comentarios, para así iluminar el debate contemporáneo.

This chapter analyses subsidiarity from a historical and theological point of view, starting from Scripture and the Patristic age, through the Middle Ages, and up to contemporary times, with its formulation in the context of the Social Doctrine of the Church. The analysis will then be read in terms of relational ontology and anthropology to show the deep connection of subsidiarity with freedom and gift, not only in moral, but foremost in ontological and syntactic terms, which are essential for interreligious dialogue and cooperation in the post-modern framework.

The so-called «mind-brain relationships» are shown to be a privileged place for understanding the human being in a unitary way in its biological and psychic aspects. This reveals the need for an interdisciplinary approach to understand the human being in an integral way. This approach can be carried out, at least, in two directions, taking as a model the dialogue between neuroscience and philosophy. The first one goes from neuroscience to philosophy and covers, above all, the subject of knowledge, mainly in the so-called inner senses. The second extends from philosophy to neuroscience by exploring topics such as attention, memory and habits. From this vision, an understanding of mind-brain relationships arises in which the interdisciplinary approach is extremely important. From it, we propose a possible application of these relationships to the ethical sphere, inspired by the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre in his analysis of human vulnerability in a context of social co-dependence.

Developing virtues requires attending to the affective and cognitive components of virtue. The former component implies cultivating apt emotional responses to specific situations. The cognitive part requires the (meta) virtue of phronesis. In dealing with “Phronesis in educating emotions,” this article attends to the nature of emotions and phronesis as its role in cultivating good action habits and virtuous emotional habits. It understands emotion regulation as one of the functions of phronesis. In the broader sense, phronesis includes elements other than deliberation, such as dialectics and rhetoric, which can be helpful to induce a certain suspicion or to persuade somewhat since our affectivity is susceptible to persuasion (i.e. Aristotle’s political dominion of emotions). As a topic in the intersection of moral psychology and moral philosophy, we get valuable insights into a psychologist’s work, Magda Arnold’s (1903–2002) emotion theory. Her understanding of emotion elicitation elucidates the relation between phronesis and emotions. The article focuses on one of the central elements of emotion elicitation, the appraisal. This piece can make the education of emotions for virtue development more understandable. At first glance, our initial appraisal may be hasty and inaccurate, leading to emotional reactions. However, with careful reflection, we can correct and improve upon our initial appraisal and subsequent emotions. If our initial assessment was flawed, this second, more thoughtful evaluation can be enhanced through phronesis. Due to the appraisal’s spontaneity, cultivating educated emotions requires values’ teaching, learning, and thus, appraising good things. With the development of virtues, intuitive estimates become adequate, so emotional responses are more attuned to diverse situations.

References to the divine have been frequent in the history of Christian art. As examples, this article surveys the symbolism of light and gold, the rhetoric of gesture, and the theatricality of the pictorial space. Sacred art is closely linked to biblical, liturgical and theological texts which are full of metaphorical expressions of transcendent realities. Since artists, patrons and viewers considered these texts authoritative, they must be consulted to interpret artworks correctly. This study argues that Catholic theology and the magisterium have constantly called for references to the divine. As a theoretical framework, this image theology helps to interpret the art-historical data with new questions that tourists and communicators today usually do not ask. This is because Christian art mediates the meaning of divine revelation, which is not self-explanatory. It needs to be decoded with a method interested in both images and texts. Erwin Panofsky has presented such a method. His ‘iconology’ consists of three steps for describing, analyzing and interpreting images. This article claims that the interpretation of Christian art is a prime example of the ongoing applicability of Panofsky’s method as a tool for decoding iconography in pastoral, academic and social media communications, and examines a selection of best practices in such communications.

The new biomedical technologies have raised the possibility of intervening in the decision-making capacity regarding good and evil, that is, in the evaluation of the morality of human acts. Although these interventions (genetic or neurological) do not intend to alter the identity of the individual, their approaches do not rule it out. Consequently, the dilemma between therapy and improvement, in the moral context, acquires special relevance. Although the therapy would try to restore the individual capacity to decide between good and evil, biomedical enhancement raises other objectives for which it is necessary to address the foundations of the human entity, in particular some philosophical concepts such as identity and autonomy. From moral philosophy, the development of the individual must be structured outside the technological field and approach a perspective that considers the relational factor and the existence of the other as a fundamental element to achieve the fullness of the human being.