1. In chapter eighteen--"Beyond Enlightened Self-Interest" of the book Religious Experience and Process Theology, edited by James Cargas and Bernard Lee(NY, NY: Paulist Press, 1976), Charles Hartshorne is concerned to answer the question, "What is loving others beyond enlightened self-interest?"
2. Hartshorne's answer is "to care for others beyond enlightened self-interest...is not just a requirement of the gift of grace--it is a command of reason."1)
3. Hartshorne's method of teaching us is by first showing us what is "the illusions of egoism"2)(pp. 302-13), what is "ethics and freedom"3)(pp. 313-6), what is "man, the obligated animal"4)(pp. 316-8), what is "the aesthetic basis of ethics"5)(pp. 318-20), and finally what is "ethics and reform"6)(pp. 320-2).
4. Hartshorne maintains that the significance of understanding "Beyond Enlightened Self-Interest" is that the self-interest theory of ethical motivation is "bad psychology, even bad biology, and bad ethics and metaphysics"7) because "the basic principle is the appeal of life for life, of feeling for feeling, experience for experience, consciousness for consciousness--and potential enjoyment for actual enjoyment,"8) that "qualified determinism"9) is required for ethical responsibility because "conditioning is a fundamental reality,"10) that a man is "either ethical or unethical--it cannot be neutral, or simply nonethical"11) because all (higher) animals are "in some sense and degree social"12) and "interested in other animals,"13) that "to be ethical is to seek aesthetic optimization of experience for the community"14) because an ethically good act...contributes to harmony and intensity of experience both in agent and in spectators,"15) and finally that the social and political reform is "an ethical imperative"16) because we should "be creative and foster creativity in others."17)
5. My own opinion is this.
According to Hartshorne, religious love as social awareness and action from social awareness is not simply self-love but also altruistic love. It is by our love that we can contribute to others welfare. This is our ethical responsibility, which is not only a religious imperative but also a command of reason. In aesthetical respect, our good acts contribute to "harmony and intensity of experience both in agent and in spectators."18) In conjunction with social and political problems, reform of socio-political injustices is an ethical imperative. It can be, thus, said that our ethical motivation and responsibility is social.
If so, our love does not remain at "a mere emotional glow towards others"19) but goes further to a social power which increases cosmic harmony by contributing other's welfare and by reforming the unjust socio-political structures--such as poverty, racism, sexism, and etc.. And also our metaethical framework can illuminate our or other religious intuitions without conceptual and logical absurdities.
1) p. 301
2) p. 302
3) p. 313
4) p. 316
5) p. 318
6) p. 320
7) p. 304
8) pp. 302-5
9) p. 314
10) p. 316
11) p. 316
12) Ibid.
13) Ibid.
14) p. 319
15) Ibid.
16) p. 320
17) Ibid.
18) p. 319
19) Charles Hartshorne, Man's vision of God and the Logic of Theism(Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964) p. 166