Dear Members of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity,

On March 12 and13, Boston College hosted a conference on “The Rule of Law and the Common Good.” I only found out about it later when I read an article on it in the National Catholic Reporter. I watched the two panels of the conference available on YouTube, and I found them scholarly, provocative, at times brilliant, and with wonderful give and take between the panelists.

I have always been interested in natural law, human nature, and the common good. Although I thoroughly enjoyed the two sessions of the conference I saw on YouTube, I have been wondering ever since if the notion of natural law became any easier to grasp and substantiate or any more attractive and actionable. I also found that empathy–so central to our humanness–was completely missing. Is Christian unity possible if it is not rooted in empathy?

Who are we if we are made in the image and likeness of God? Whether in the culture or in the church, there is a seachange of difference between being an individual self or a relational self. The question is: are we each just a separate, defined-by-rationality, particle self inherited from the Enlightenment or are we alive and well, fully ourselves, and fully flourishing in seamless connection with whomever or whatever is other in a living, empathic, divine-human ecology that prizes and exalts the common good?

Peace,

John J. Shea, O.S.A., M.P.S., Ph.D., MSW (Fordham University, 1981-2002;  Boston College, 2003-2012)

Two attachments:

An Unfolding Morality of Natural Law (reprinted in full below);

A Paradigm of the Fully Human: Integrity and Mutuality, Care and Justice, Love vs Hatred and Peace vs Violence (reprinted in full below)

An Unfolding Morality of Natural Law

If our culture relies on a fixed individual morality of rationality, freedom, and autonomy (as it has in the West since the Enlightenment) but is unable to speak clearly and convincingly to us about “the common good” or about “us vs. them,”

And if our church also tends to rely on a rational and objective natural law morality that is aptly principled in good and evil but not easily applied and that—unless rationality and empathy are essentially one—has no clear foundation in a process of human growth and development, 

Then, it is time for the notion of natural law to be transformed and become a common sense, clearly relational, whole person, empathic-rational, three-fold process of human unfolding:

First, discovered in principle, as our integrity and mutuality are found developing together;

Then, made real in action, as our care and justice are found developing together;

Finally, ultimately flourishing, as our love and peace are found developing together, and thereby continuously confronting both hatred and violence.

A Fully Human Relational Self

In a nutshell, this unfolding process of the fully human can be described as:

A self that is integral and mutual—taken together—begets a self that acts in care and justice. Being caring and acting justly—taken together—begets a self that is loving and peaceful. Love and peace— taken together—is the epitome of the fully human; it is the self that is most prized and most powerful; it is the self actively opposing the hatred and violence in the world as well as in ourselves.  

Things to Notice in An Unfolding Morality of Natural Law

1. In becoming fully human, our maturing and our acting morally are inseparably together: to become fully human is to become fully moral; to become fully moral is to become fully human. Morality is no longer about how we could or should act. Morality is about who we are. It is inherent in our human nature. 

• It is not hard to find clear yet complementary definitions of integrity and mutuality, of care and justice, and of love and peace. The virtues of each of these binaries, although often thought of as opposites, go together quite well as a “both/and,” as a dynamic paradox. It is also not hard to see these three binaries naturally unfolding over time.

• A remarkable cultural debate occurring over the last few decades offers us an excellent opportunity to frame full humanness. From the heart of the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th centuries, we inherited an individual self, a standalone, particle self with hard-and-fast attributes of rationality, freedom, and autonomy that make us human. Critiquing this self, a good number of feminist thinkers offered us a relational self, a self of empathy, mutuality, and care. 

Stereotypically, the individual self is a masculine, “I-am,” fixed construct of agency, objective thinking, and control of what is seen as other. Stereotypically, the relational self is a feminine, “we-are,” developing-in-connection construct that speaks to concern for self and other together as well as to the development over time of personal intimacy, community, the common good, environmental consciousness, and cosmic awareness. This cultural debate allows us to wonder: Can the individual self gradually be subsumed into the relational self? Would not our full humanness need to find them functioning as one?

Drilling down on this debate, we find rationality vs. empathy at its core. The ability to reason has always been a hallmark of the individual self. Rationality is of “the mind,” untouched by “the emotions” that can only bring bias and distortion; in fact, this self is usually cast in opposition to the body. The ability to be empathic is a hallmark of the relational self. Sublating rationality, empathy is the rationally grasped and the emotionally tinged together. Moreover, it is “the mind-and-body” together and “the self-and-other” together. Empathy— affirmed by neuroscience yet completely misunderstood for centuries—is the self’s felt inside revealing itself and/or the felt inside of the other.¹ Connecting us inside and outside, it allows us to become whole, relational, fully human. 

Empathy does not mean we agree with how another person feels; it is simply feeling how another person and/or I am feeling. Empathy is not sympathy; it is inherently relational; it has clear boundaries yet is intimate; it welcomes dialogue and has a clear focus on the feeling of self and/or other. Empathy is present meaning as felt. For example, “You’re feeling lost and alone after the funeral” or “I’m feeling very worried about the endless bickering.” Sympathy need not be relational or intimate at all; typically, it is the feeling of self and/or others, for example, how we feel about “the serious accident several students were in,” or “the loss of the championship game.” While empathy is at the heart of a relational self, sympathy is the kindly felt sharing of an experience.

• Being integral and relating in mutuality together—the principle of the relational self—is a dynamic paradox: the one needing the other to be itself. Charles Taylor’s basic take on this is: “one is a self among other selves.”² Gabriel Marcel’s existential take on this is “others give me to myself.”³ Paulo Freire’s liberation take is: “No one can be authentically human while he prevents others from being so.”⁴ Jürgen Moltmann’s trinity-like take is: We are “in one another and with one another, from one another and for one another.”⁵ Catherine LaCugna says: we “are to know and be known, to love and be loved, to share life with other persons created”; we are “relational, created as ‘beingtoward-the-other,’ most free when living in right relationship with God and with all of creation.”⁶ 

• The individual self and the self turn out to be two very different versions of morality, two very different versions of who we are in actual practice.

The individual self is an autonomous, stand-alone self who relates with objective reason to “out there” reality. Our culture trains us to see ourselves as camera-like observers of what is real. Separation “defines and powers” this self.⁷ Although a major focus of the formative years, especially with relational our modern sciences and burgeoning technologies, an individual self remains incomplete and underdeveloped.  

The morality of an individual self is a power over whatever is other in separation and control. Although it is true that this self can be quite respectful of what is other, it is easy to observe that its power is prone to be self-focused, self-interested, self-concerned, and selfserving. 

The relational self is “an intimate relatedness between oneself and the world.”⁸ There is a felt connection with all of reality by an empathic, embodied relational self. This self—gradually felt, owned, and relying on metaphor—breaks “the spell of objectivity.”⁹ It puts outer and inner together, revealing the empirical world as interwoven with “worlds of meaning beyond ‘the facts.’”¹⁰

The morality of a relational self is a power with and for whatever is other in empathy and relatedness. In comparison with the individual self, it is far easier for this self to be adult and moral because as a relational self this is simply who we are. A “fully realized morally is in act relationship morality.”¹¹ 

If we and our culture continue to embrace an individual self, we resign ourselves to survive in a world shockingly divisive, a world of so many unacceptable differences. If we and our culture are transformed into a relational self, we have a far better chance of living in a world that honors integrity and mutuality, care and justice, loving and peace. If the power of an individual self easily begets a broken world, the power of a relational self easily begets a world of wholeness, authentic freedom, and a “common flourishing of all parties involved.”¹² Distinguishing these two selves could not be more critical.

If empathy brings the self and the other together into essential connection, then it is easy to see that it is the relational self that empowers democracy to form in its different guises and sustainability to flourish in its different settings. If we are a relational self, democracy is no longer about how we could or should act. Democracy is not just a better way to govern ourselves; it is about who we are. If we are a relational self, sustainability is no longer about how we could or should act. Sustainability is not just a smarter way to care for our environment; it is about who we are. 

6 Two things can be said about an individual self and a relational self in relation to becoming fully human and becoming fully Christian.

First, although what makes us fully human has a direct connec on on what makes us fully religious, we can be fully human and fully moral and not be fully religious at all. I suspect all of us know people who are salt-of-the earth human beings and have not a religious bone in their bodies. However, it seems impossible, in a developmental sense, to be fully religious person unless we are also fully human and moral. Adulthood, adult morality, and adult religion go together. Being fully religious is not an iden fica on; it is a rela onship. 

Second, it seems that an individual self is comfortable with literal thinking that lets us know God as supremely other, a knowledge about that may be quite deep and broad. A rela onal self, however, can experience God. The individual self, relying as it does on literal language, sees God and itself as separate en es; our literal, objec fying language easily truncates, bifurcates, and “thingi-

fies” reality. A rela onal self, however, o en relying on a language of paradox and metaphor, can find—especially in ritual—an unbroken connec on in and with the divine. What the individual self sees as twoness, a rela onal self knows as oneness. Diviniza on, the numinous, and mys cism are at hand.

Conclusion

Four things stand out for me in these pages: 1) the need to look with new eyes at empathy; 2) the differences between the individual self in which we are schooled and the relational self in which we find our true identity ; 3) the very real, very different moral consequences of these two selves for us personally and for the future of our world; and 4) the need for a natural law that is contemporary, an unfolding process, and naturally fully human.

Could it be that the integrity and mutuality, care and justice, love and peace that make us fully human are a three-in-one, not unlike the Father, the Son, and the Spirit? Could it be that all of us—no matter our gender, our ethnicity, or anything else—are made in the image and likeness of God?

A 2021 article, “A Paradigm of the Fully Human: Integrity and Mutuality, Care and Justice, Love vs. Hatred and Peace vs. Violence,” is enclosed.

Endnotes

¹ For the role of empathy, see in general:  Judith V. Jordan, “Relational Development Through

Mutual Empathy,” Arthur C. Bohart and Leslie S. Greenberg, eds., Empathy Reconsidered: New Directions in Psychotherapy, Washington, D.C., American Psychological Association, 1997, p.

343-351; Arthur P. Ciaramicoli, The Power of Empathy, New York, Dutton, 2000; Carl R. Rogers, “Empathic: An Unappreciated Way of Being,” Chapter 7, A Way of Being, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1980, p. 137-163;  Robert Selman, The Growth of Interpersonal Understanding: Developmental and Clinical Analyses, New York, Academic Press, 1980; Leonard Swidler, “Mutuality: The Matrix for Mature Living—Some Philosophical and Christian Theological Reflections,” Religion and Intellectual Life, 3, 1, p.105-119; Beverly Anne Musgrave, “The Ontogenesis of Empathy: The Heart of Intimacy,” Augustine Meier, ed., In Search of Healing, The Society for Pastoral

Counselling Research, Ottawa, Ontario, 2003, p. 43-60; Jerold D. Bozarth, “Empathy From the

Framework of Client-Centered Theory and the Rogerian Hypothesis,” Arthur C. Bohart and Leslie S. Greenberg, eds., Empathy Reconsidered: New Directions in Psychotherapy, Washington, D.C., American Psychological Association, 1997, p. 81-102;. Herbert Anderson, Edward Foley, Bonnie Miller-McLemore, and Robert Schreiter, Mutuality Ma ers: Family, Faith, and Just Love, Lanham, Maryland, Rowman & Li lefield, 2004; Shan Guisunger and Sidney Blatt, “Individuality and Relatedness: Evolution of a Fundamental Dialectic, American Psychologist, 49, 2, 1994, p. 104-111; Eugene T. Gendlin, Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning, New York, Academic Press, 1980; Eugene T. Gendlin, Focusing, New York, Bantam, 1981; John J. Shea, “The Development of Empathy: Adulthood, Morality, and Religion,” Augustine Meier, ed., In Search of Healing, The Society for Pastoral Counselling Research, Ottawa, Ontario, 2003, p. 61-76; John J. Shea, Adulthood, Morality, and the Fully Human: A Mosaic of Peace, New York, Lexington Books, 2018; Judith V. Jordan, “Relational Development Through Mutual Empathy,” Arthur C.

Bohart and Leslie S. Greenberg, eds., Empathy Reconsidered: New Directions in Psychotherapy, Washington, D.C., American Psychological Association, 1997, p. 343-351; For a history of empathy see, for example, Susan Lanzoni, Empathy: A History, Yale University Press, 2018; For empathy  and neuroscience, see, for example, Larry Stevens, ed., The Neuroscience of Empathy, Compassion, and Self-compassion, New York, Academic Press, 2018; Helen Riess and Liz Neporent, The Empathy Effect: Seven Neuroscience-Based Keys for Transforming the Way We Live, Love,

Work , and Connect Across Differences, Sounds True. Bulder CO, 2018; Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz, Born for Love: Why Empathy is Essential—and-Endangered, Boston, HarperCollins, 2010.   

• Judith V. Jordan, “Empathy and Self Boundaries,” Judith V. Jordan, Alexandra G. Kaplan, Jean Baker Miller, Irene P. Stiver, and Janet L. Surrey, Women’s Growth in Connection: Writings from the Stone Center, New York., Guilford, 1991, p. 69.

• Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 1989, p. 35.

• This may be my own quote or I may have seen it somewhere. I think it captures the personalist thinking of Marcel; see, for example, Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being, II, Faith and Reality, trans. René Hague, South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1977, where he talks about “a metaphysic of we are as opposed to a metaphysic of I think,” p. 9.

• Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 30th Anniversary Edition (New York: Continuum, 2009, 85. 

• Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, The Gifford Lectures1984-1985, Minneapolis, MN, Fortress Press, 1985, p. 17.

• Mary Catherine Hilkert, “The Mystery of Persons in Communion: The Trinitarian Theol-ogy of Catherine Mowry LaCugna, Word & World, 18, 3, Summer 1998, p 240.

• Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982, p. 164.

• Andras Angyal, ”The Convergence of Psychotherapy and Religion,” Journal of Pastoral Care, Vol. 5, I, Winter, 1952, p.5. 

¹⁰Mary Schaldenbrand, “Metaphoric Imagination: Kinship Through Conflict,” Studies in the Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, ed. By Charles E. Reagan, Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1979, p. 61.

1. Frans Jozef van Beeck, “A Very Explicit Te Deum: A Spiritual Exercise, To Help Overcome Trinitarian Timidity,” Horizons, 25, 2, 1998, p. 279.

1. Dawn M. Nothwehr, Mutuality: A Formal Norm for Christian Ethics, San Francisco, Catholic Scholars Press, 1998, p. 5.

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A PARADIGM OF THE FULLY HUMAN: INTEGRITY AND MUTUALITY, CARE AND JUSTICE, LOVE VS. HATRED AND PEACE VS. VIOLENCE

John Shea

Independent Scholar

This article is a paradigm of full human development that is holistic, inherently relational, and morally mature. Integrity and mutuality, foundationally human as a process-paradox (each characteristic unique yet evolving together) is the essence of the fully human. Care and justice together, foundationally human as a process-paradox, is integrity and mutuality in action. Love and peace together, foundationally human as a process-paradox, is the enduring effect of care and justice that is an ongoing negation of hatred and violence. This interrelated developmental paradigm—at times simple, at times profound, at times challenging, at times courageous—has implications of for all of our concerns and endeavors—for relationships micro to macro, for human rights, citizenship, democracy, sustainability, and most crucially, for the choices we continuously make in pursuing either love and peace or hatred and violence.

Keywords: fully human, morality, integrity, mutuality, care, justice, love, peace, hatred, and violence

Introduction

We may believe that human development is important to understand, but rarely do we describe this development in its fullness. We think that being adult and being moral are included in maturity, but rarely do we see these two notions entailing each other. We talk about the human in particle-self, non-developmental terms like rationality, autonomy, and freedom, but rarely do we define its fullness as a living process of wholeness and relatedness together, each involving, evoking, sustaining, and furthering the other. We may easily consider both justice and care as essentially human, but rarely do we acknowledge the primacy of care. We may come to value love and peace as perhaps the two most de- sired things in life, but rarely do we see them in the light of development, let alone as the epitome of the fully human. We may be very concerned about the amount of hatred and violence in the world, but rarely do we see love and peace vs. hatred and violence as a dialectic at the core of human development.

This article proposes a paradigm of the fully human as a three-in-one interactive pro- cess. Being integral and relating mutually to the other—paradoxically together—allows us to act in care and justice. Acting in care and justice—paradoxically together—allows us to embody love and peace. Being loving and peaceful—paradoxically together—is the pinnacle of the fully human that actively negates hatred and violence (see Shea, 2018).

Angyal (1941/1972), an early holistic thinker, talks in Foundations for a Science of Personality about life as a process that takes place “between the organism and the environment” (p. 31-2; see also Blasi, 1976). Human development lies in two basic trends. The first is the trend toward autonomy, “a tendency to achieve, dominate, and master the environment” (p. 48). The second is the trend toward homonomy (a “law of likes”), a need for connection to something larger than the self, be that represented “by a social unit—family, clan, nation—by a cause, by an ideology, or by a meaningfully ordered universe” (Angyal, 1974, p. 45). Angyal finds that although autonomy and homonomy seem to be a “dichotomy of diametrically opposed forces,” paradoxically they only develop in harmony with each other (1972, p. 173).

In “Naturalistic Conceptions of Moral Maturity,” Walker and Pitts (1998) describe two over-all characteristics people use to de- scribe the mature moral person. On the one hand, this person has “a range of strongly held values and principles” together with “a strong sense of self or personal agency” as part of “the integrity” regarded as essential to moral excellence. On the other hand, this person has “notions of communion” and an “other-orient- ed compassion and care” entailing “consider- ate action and the nurturing of relationships through faithfulness and reliability” (p. 414- 415). The authors are describing a profound paradox of moral maturity: “integrity” goes together naturally with “other-oriented com- passion and care” (see also Frimer & Walker, 2008; Frimer, Walker, Dunlop, Lee, & Riches, 2011; Guisinger & Blatt, 1994; Surrey, 1991).

Integrity and Mutuality

In The Grace of Great Things, Grudin (1990) offers a three-fold definition of integrity that is a nuanced understanding of its meaning. First, integrity is “an inner psycho- logical harmony, or wholeness” (p. 73). This definition is primary. In becoming integral, we become our own cohesive, felt-from-within, self-reflective, self-authoring whole. Integrity, as Blasi (2005) puts it, is about a “the organized unity in the sense of self” (p. 95). Not made up of isolated, disconnected, or un- acknowledged parts, an integral self “owns all of its pieces—the loved and the unloved, the comfortable and the uncomfortable, the good and the bad” (Shea, 2018, p. 10). Integrity as owning all the pieces can often be a challenging personal drama, its “is” and “is not” in intimate struggle. Integrity is not righteousness or perfection; “we are always, in effect,” says Beebe (1992), “restoring our integrity from some attempt at compromise” (p. 40). Vulnerability is included in integrity (Noam, 1993; McCoy, 2013; Brown, 2012) as is knowing that we can suffer from the “undigested lumps of life” (Mahedy, 1986, p. 48). “It is always the job of integrity,” says Beebe (1999), “to embrace the limitations of character” (p. 624).

Second, integrity, is “conformity of personal expression with psychological reality—of act with desire, of word with thought, of face with mind, of the outer with the inner self” (Grudin, 1990, p.73). Although this definition is popular in the culture, it is secondary and derivative. When integrity is seen as the outer revealing the inner, the focus remains on the individual. We admire a person’s hones- ty, sincerity, authenticity, or courage, but we may not see how inherently relational these characteristics are; it is easy to miss how they implicate, support, and confirm the other. Schlenker, Miller, & Johnson (2009) find that “integrity is uniquely important across situations as a lynchpin for social interactions” (p. 321). Genuine integrity, notes Parizeau (1999), always “provides the basis for reliance, trust, friendship and love” (p. 165). Integrity, Rayner (1999) points out, necessarily “steers the individual to behave with truth, humanity, fairness or responsibility when dealing with issues that impact on other people” (p. 193). In other words, integrity is a process-paradox with mutuality (Shea, 2003). The fully human does not develop as a separate self. It is al- ways an integral self-in-mutuality.

Third, integrity is “an extension of whole- ness and conformity in time, through thick and thin” (Grudin, 1990, p. 74). Over time, the different “pieces” of the self must be owned and kept connected. Over time, the outer must be in harmony with the inner. Integrity is the challenge to “stand for something and remain steadfast when confronted with adversity or temptation” (Paine, 2005, p. 248). “Acting morally,” notes Noam (1993), “involves taking a stand, often an unpopular one.” (p, 219). An integral self is able “to stand on its own two feet,” “to be its own person,” “to have its own voice.” In concluding his three-fold definition, Grudin (1990) states: “integrity may be defined as psychological and ethical wholeness, sustained in time” (p.74). The human and the ethical develop together. If owning all of one’s pieces makes us adult, it also—surprisingly perhaps—makes us moral (Shea, 2018).

Is mutuality a process-paradox with integrity? This question is critical for developmental theory, especially in a culture that tends to see selfishness and aggression as evolutionary inheritance and that at the same time tends to see the person as a stand-alone self-needing to relate to a surrounding world of others in what is known at the self-other dichotomy. Normally, mutuality means a basic respect and appreciation of one self for the another, an empowering exchange, a back-and-forth, a dialectic that tends to further the other even as it furthers the self. “Mutuality,” says Olthuis (1997), “is attunement of expression, recognition, and desire, a dance in which the differing gifts and needs of each person are simultaneously honored, recognized, and often met. We recognize each other, seek each other’s good, identify-with each other—in the process loving the other as we love ourselves.” (p. 147).

“The basic premise of self-in-relation,” observes Huff (1987), “is that persons in a mutual, empathic relationship evolve in the context of that relationship, and that complete selves can evolve only in such growth-enhancing relationships” (p. 161). Similarly, Nothwehr (1998) holds that mutuality is “the sharing of ‘power with’ by and among all parties in a relationship” and it “recognizes the wholeness and particular experience of each participant toward the end of optimum human flourishing” (p. 233). Both writers see mutuality as: a) essential to human development; b) going together with integrity; and c) entailing empathy and only flowing from it. Mutuality can be understood as a process-paradox with integrity in which other and self implicate, evoke, strengthen, and further each other. The fully human is best understood as a mutual self-in-integrity.

“Crucial to a mature sense of mutuality,” insists Jordan (1991b) “is an appreciation of the wholeness of the other person, with a special awareness of the other’s subjective experience” (p. 82). Being mutual involves having empathy enough for the self’s and the other’s “pieces” to be caring and just (Jordan, 1991a, 1997; see also Aragona, Kotzalidis, & Puzella, 2013; Ciaramicoli, 2001; Rogers, 1980; Selman, 1980). Often, how- ever, an empowering exchange that furthers the self is not guaranteed. In fact, mutuality need not be symmetrical at all—as may be the case, for example, in parent-child inter- actions or with someone severely impaired. Mature mutuality involves “a generosity of spirit” (Makoff & Read, 2017, p. 252). It is an inner welcoming, a hospitality, a caring attitude, a respect for the other’s needs (see Erikson, 1963; McAdams, 2015). It may involve taking a risk; it may involve sacrifice (Kunz, 1998); it may be “quite different in form, quantity, or degree for each party” (Aron, 1996, p. xi). When mutuality extends to different societal groups or the ecosystem (Phillips, 2019), it is still an empathic relating in care and justice.

Care and Justice

Although we can see that justice and care are at the heart of maturity and flow naturally from integrity and mutuality, how we define these notions is critical for understanding human-moral development. Over the last forty years, there has been a serious debate about the meaning and place of justice and care. Characterizing them in terms of relationship, Ruddick (1995) says: “From the perspective of justice, relationships require restraint of one’s own aggression, intrusion, and appropriation and respect for the autonomy and bodily integrity of others” (p. 204). This justice perspective, setting the debate’s parameters, was associated primarily with the reasoning-thinking of Kohlberg (1981, 1984) and was seen to be more prevalent in men than in women. “From the perspective of care, relationships require attentiveness to others and response to their needs (Ruddick, 1995, p. 204). A clear alternative to Kohlberg, this care perspective was found in the related- ness-thinking of Gilligan (1982, 1984) and a host of feminist thinkers (for example, Baier, 2005; Benhabib, 1987; Kittay, 2011; Tronto, 1993; Walker, 1992). This relatedness-thinking was seen as more prevalent in women than in men.

Although justice as restraint and respect and care as attentiveness and response are appropriate descriptions, in the culture and in academia these two notions often remain framed in dichotomy (Blum, 1988; Held, 1995). Justice—highly valued as an excellent description of morality and maturity—is impartial, disembodied, and guided by fixed principles that are universal. It is expected, in fact, that justice be abstract, objective, rational, and impersonal. Care—bodily particular, taken for granted, and not that important—is seen as a familiar virtue, a kindly response to the physical needs of those who cannot help themselves. A pale moon to justice’s powerful sun, care is said

to be concrete, subjective, emotional, and personal. In the culture and academia, both justice and care—connected as opposites— are stereotyped and quite skewed.

In maturity, however, care and justice are rightsized, somewhat reversed, and much easier to recognize. They are also gender inclusive, clearly distinct, yet intimately connected. Ruddick (1995) observes: “neither can be replaced by or subsumed under the other” (p. 204). Hekman (1995) says, they “inhabit” each other (p, 32). In empathy, understood as “the emotionally tinged and the rationally grasped,” care and justice seem to naturally surface together (Shea, 2018, p. 162; see Hoffman, 2000). A fully human self is a caring justice or a just caring. In family life and in all other relating, the more whole we become the more caring-separated-from-justice lies on a continuum with imposition at one end and horrific exploitation at the other. Likewise, the more whole we become the more justice-separated-from-caring lies on a continuum with disrespect at one end and horrific dehumanization at the other. This understanding of care and justice together resonates with the principled morality of Kohlberg (1984) and with adult development thinking on post-formal operations (Basseches, 1984; Commons, Sinnott, Richards, & Armon, 1989; Labouvie Vief, 2015; Souvaine, Lahey, & Kegan, 1990).

In its fullness, “care is attending to the needs, rights, and freedoms of the self and the other for wholeness” (Shea, 2018, p. 79). Needs are the “quintessential object” of care, and they stretch from micro to macro in human affairs, “from child-rearing practices and intimate relationships, to social services and education and political deliberations” (Sevenhuijsen, 1998, p. 137; see Held, 2006; Mahon & Robinson, 2011). To care, says Mayeroff (1972), “I must understand the other’s needs and I must be able to respond properly to them” (p. 19). Caring adults, observes

Hollway (2006), are: a) capable of “reciprocal, interdependent care receiving and care giving”; b) provide the “the non-negotiable, asymmetrical” care required of mothers, fathers, and others; c) are capable of “self care”; and d) extend their care “to both human and non-human objects” (p. 18). In full adulthood, finds Erikson (1964): “Care is the widening concern for what has been generated by love, necessity, or accident; it overcomes the am- bivalence adhering to irreversible obligation” (p. 131). In maturity, the need for care is the reason for care.

In its fullness, “justice is respect, fairness, and equity in caring for the needs, rights, and freedoms of the self and the other for whole- ness” (Shea, 2018, p. 80). As an adult and moral person, to be just means to be evenhanded in attending to the self and to the other, and it means that we are all equal when it comes to the consideration our needs, rights, and freedoms deserve. Nuancing equality, equity sees that the actual needs for wholeness that each of us has may be different and that, as Piaget (1965) says, the “real situation” of the self and of the other must be taken into account (p. 383). “Justice,” says Caputo (1993), “is there, on the spot, in the individual situation” (p. 98). It is never done to “abstractions,” notes Bubeck (1995), but to “concrete, real people” (p. 215). The respect, fairness, and equity of justice are merely idealized concepts unless they are rooted in care for an actual self and an actual other—my relating to myself, to this person, this institution, this animal, this aspect of the ecology.

Mature care and justice—together as a process-paradox—is a dialectic in which each notion retains its meaning while also implicating, evoking, strengthening, and furthering the other. Care is the reason for justice, and justice is the measure of caring; caring gives meaning to justice, and justice brings order to care. Held (2006) notes: “unless we have strong motives to care about our fellow human

beings and unless we value this caring, we will not care whether their rights are respect- ed or not” (p. 89). Heidegger (1962) sees care as the essential “source” of our humanness (1962, p. 243). Agreeing, Noddings (2005) says: “It is the mark of being human” (p. 18). Justice, with its standard of equal rights, could not be more quintessentially human (Cohen, 2008). Asked what he understood wisdom to be, a seventy-five-year-old participant in the Harvard Grant Study on men’s development responded simply: “Empathy through which one must synthesize both care and justice” (Vaillant, 2012, p. 186).

If we are fortunate enough—and many of us are not—care and justice are bedrock in human development from birth. Erikson (1963) shows that we begin to embody these two hallmarks of the human from those who first attend to our needs. Later, as we begin to relate to the other, Piaget (1965) shows that care and justice naturally go together, that fairness is a calculus for care. If we had siblings, for example, we may have cried in early indignation: “He got a bigger piece than I did!” Much more foundational than just two virtues among many, care and justice tutor each other from the beginning as we make our way toward being mature and moral. It is this embodied care and justice—the backbone of personal responsibility—that begets integrity and mutuality, and it is integrity and mutuality, negotiated together, that begets care and justice. If human fullness and human strength go together, a case can be made that there is nothing more humanly powerful than care and justice acting in concert (see, for example, Afuape, 2011; Pearlman, 2012; Sullivan & Tifft, 2008; Zehr, 2005).

Love vs. Hate, Peace vs. Violence

How can we understand the love and peace that together are the epitome of the fully human? How can we understand the hatred and violence that together are so destructive

of that development? If we are concerned about ourselves, our institutions, our plan- et, and the future of humanity, these are the question that we must seriously pursue. The best answer to these questions—the answer most human, most relational, and most developmentally informed—is that to understand care and justice is to understand love and hatred as well as to understand peace and violence. The connections could not be clearer. The seeds of hatred and violence lie in failure to receive, experience, trust in, or pursue the care and justice that makes for wholeness in the self and mutuality with the other. The active meaning of love and peace surfaces in the care and justice that makes for wholeness in the self and mutuality with the other.

Love and peace—going together—is our humanness at its best, and it serves social justice, the common good, and the promise of human survival and flourishing. Hatred and violence—going together—is always a rejection of care and justice for the self or the other. Failing to take hatred and violence into account as anything more than incidental, or embarrassing, or an unfortunate occurrence, or a strange aberration not only flies in the face of reality, but it leaves us without a way of responding developmentally and intelligently to these two devastating arrests of the human.

Hatred—contempt, loathing, vilification, or out-and-out rage wanting to obliterate its object—is passion that is usually self-justifying, easily irrational, and often quite contagious. Its aim is, as Rempel and Burris (2005) say, “diminishing or destroying the object’s well-being” (p. 300). Haters, suggests Havel (1996), believe that “an evil world and nasty people refuse to yield them what belongs to them by right” (p. 21). Hatred feeds on it- self, mushrooms in a group, and can become powerful to the point of being unstoppable. It goes together with violence; where there is violence hatred is already in the room.

Discounting empathy, haters make them- selves immune to care and justice for the other and then for the self. As the opposite of love, hate is an inversion of the care and jus- tice essential for holding onto and furthering our humanness. Over time, hate hollows out the integral and mutual self.

Violence—abuse, bullying, greed, torture, rape, murder, or genocide—is our humanity in its developmental failure. Taking hatred’s lead, violence sabotages empathic connection. It divides, splits apart, tears down, severs, and dismembers. Human violence “does not know,” says Sartre (1992), “how to put things together” (p. 173). A black hole at the heart of the human, violence attacks our wholeness directly—physically, psychologically, and morally—doing whatever it can either to break apart the “pieces” of our integrity or to keep them from coming together in the first place. At the same time, it destroys mutuality—at best treating the other with indifference or disdain and at worst obliterating the other in total destruction. In the Rwandan genocide of 1994, the Tutsi, ostensibly separate from the Hutu, were said to be “cockroaches” and then systematically exterminated. “Living tissue of connection and difference must be cauterized,” says Michael Ignatieff (1997), “before a neighbor is reinvented as an enemy” (p.53-54). As the opposite of peace, violence annihilates integrity and mutuality, literally making our wholeness and relatedness to be nothing.

Love—an eager quest for the wholeness of the self and the other—is perhaps the best description we have of care and justice working together to bring about integrity and mutuality. Anderson, Foley, Miller-McLemore, & Schreiter (2004) point out that “the aim of all genuine love” is brought about “by closely attending to one another” (p.6). Dominian (1985) says: “Mutuality requires that all love, including sacrificial love, be mutual in so far as greater and more complete

mutuality is its goal” (p. 267). Love affirms and fosters the other’s fullness of life even as it affirms and fosters the self’s fullness of life. Love in practice is care and justice together. “Love,” says Angyal (1974), “is not ‘blind’ but visionary: it sees into the very heart of its object, and sees the ‘real self’ behind and in the midst of the frailties and shortcomings” (p. 47). This love—impossible without self-empathy and empathy for the other—is attentive and respectful, intelligent and informed, and felt as inner and relational. It responds to the needs of the self and the other and it does this with careful attending and respect. When love is present, hatred has no opening, no foothold in the human. Love risks for the sake of human possibility. As the opposite of hatred, it nourishes and transforms all on the journey of integrity and mutuality.

Peace—an at-oneness within and with- out—flows naturally from the care and justice we offer and receive (Shea, 2018). Peace is care and justice together, and it is alive in wholeness and mutuality. Along with love, peace is always inner and relational. As the opposite of violence, peace comes from the self’s careful attending and respect for the self and the other. Made real by all the myriad ways we engage in taking care and being just, peace is a felt connection, a sense of rightness, aweness, a harmony, a calmness, a confirming satisfaction the responsible self often experiences as incomparable. Being adult, being moral, and being a peaceful and loving person are together as one. Acting in care and justice is the best strategy—and perhaps the only strategy—that counteracts hatred and violence and allows the fully human to thrive (see Danesh, 2013; Galtung, 2010; Staub, 2003, 2018; Zembylas, 2013). The power of love and peace is the power of care and justice, and the power of care and justice is the power of integrity and mutuality.

Conclusions

First, this holistic and relational paradigm lets us see integrity and mutuality not only as the goal of becoming fully human but also as the process leading to that goal. In practice as well as in theory, human wholeness is only pursued by relating in mutuality to whomever or whatever is other. The way to full humanness lies in integrity and mutuality developing together.

Second, integrity and mutuality as a process-paradox of the fully human has profound implications for all our human endeavors including: education, ethics, politics, psychotherapy, anthropology, psychology, economics, business, spiritualty, and religion.

Third, care and justice—the lynchpin of the fully human—describes responsibility at every level, from the intrapersonal, to the intimate, to the social, to the communal, to the national, to the international, to the glob- al and beyond. It is care and justice together that brings us together, holds us together, and lets us move forward together in responsive human connection in a way nothing else can.

Fourth, knowing that morality is intrinsic to the fully human is without price. What we think of as morality in the culture—often an imposed moralism or an inherited super-ego—may be part of growing up, but by itself it is not a generous guide as we continue to mature. Adult morality is neither about the law, nor about cultural norms, nor about universal moral principles. These are helpful as examples for reflection, but they do not make for moral maturity. Living morality is about empathy-rooted integrity and mutuality working together.

Fifth, seeing love as an eager quest for the wholeness of the self and the other and seeing peace as an at-oneness within and without are definitions that are practical as well as foundational. When we are loving and peaceful, we are fully human. It should not be surprising that the things we often come to value most in

life are also the hallmarks of our humanness. Amazingly powerful, love and peace is ultimately what being human is about.

Sixth, it is a mistake to talk about human-moral development without taking hatred and violence structurally into account. Hatred and violence together assures the loss of the human within the human. In becoming fully human, we confront such dehumanization.

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