What is merit, that it can be transferred?
A concept of merit is used for spiritual accounting in many religious traditions, seemingly a substantial point of connection between religion and ordinary morality. Teachings of “merit transfer” (as in Buddhism and Roman Catholicism) might make us doubt this connection since they violate the princi...
| Auteur principal: | |
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| Type de support: | Électronique Article |
| Langue: | Anglais |
| Vérifier la disponibilité: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | En cours de chargement...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Publié: |
Springer Science + Business Media B. V
2021
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| Dans: |
International journal for philosophy of religion
Année: 2021, Volume: 90, Numéro: 3, Pages: 191-207 |
| Sujets non-standardisés: | B
Buddhism
B Familism B Roman Catholicism B Merit transfer B Merit B Desert |
| Accès en ligne: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Résumé: | A concept of merit is used for spiritual accounting in many religious traditions, seemingly a substantial point of connection between religion and ordinary morality. Teachings of “merit transfer” (as in Buddhism and Roman Catholicism) might make us doubt this connection since they violate the principle that merit must be earned. If we examine the structure of ordinary schemes of desert, however, we find that personal worth is posited for a variety of reasons; the basic requirement in this realm is not earning by individuals but rather a community’s program for cultivating desirable collaboration among its members. There are strong enough parallels between religiously envisioned merit transfer and socially normal conferrals and sharings of worth that we can conclude that the religious posits of transferred merit are indeed comprehensible as merit, whatever other problems of comprehensibility they pose. |
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| ISSN: | 1572-8684 |
| Contient: | Enthalten in: International journal for philosophy of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1007/s11153-021-09798-8 |