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Document Details : Title: On Love of Neighbour Author(s): MOYAERT, Paul Journal: Ethical Perspectives Volume: 1 Issue: 4 Date: December 1994 Pages: 169-184 DOI: 10.2143/EP.1.4.630064 Abstract : The Christian commandment of love of neighbour 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself' might rather easily give rise to what I would like to call, with the necessary reservations, ‘immoderate images’. If we examine the consequences of the commandment, we very soon run into a world of excessive obligations and exaggerated unselfishness which can trouble the imagination and stir up fantasies of desire. The commandment which some would say is irreconcilable with the natural limits of common sense, is nonetheless intriguing to both the imagination and the desire of the human person. Associations can easily be made with the peculiar and sometimes spectacular lives of certain saints, martyrs and impassioned mystics in which the boundaries between perversion, narcissism, selflessness, self-destruction and high moral standing are not always crystal clear. |
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