Buddhism, Alcohol, and Tea in Medieval China

Benn, James A.

doi:10.1057/9781403979278_11

Cited by 21 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Puritanical values appear to have increased in ancient Rome between the late Republic and the early Empire (Duby, Pantel, Thébaud, & Perrot, 1994;Norena, 2007;Rousselle, 2013;Veyne, 1978; see also . In China, although bodily pleasures appear less restricted in antiquity (Goldin, 2017;Hinsch, 1994;Wells & Yao, 2018), starting with the Tang and continuing through the Song, the Yuan, the Ming, and the Qing, selfdiscipline, bodily pleasures, and asceticism are increasingly moralized (Benn, 2005;Sommer, 2000;Suiming, 1998;Wells & Yao, 2018;Yü, 2021). In medieval Europe, historical work similarly documents an increasingly strict policing of lack of self-control, sexual misconducts, alcohol consumption, and lax religious observance, culminating in the moralistic religious movements of the early modern period (Burke, 1978;Ingram, 1990Ingram, , 1996.…”

Section: Outstanding Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Purity is still a problem

DiMaggio,

Gray,

Kachanoff

2023

Behav Brain Sci

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Our recent review demonstrates that “purity” is a messy construct with at least nine popular scientific understandings. Cultural beliefs about self-control help unify some of these understandings, but much messiness remains. The harm-centric theory of dyadic morality suggests that purity violations can be comprehensively understood as abstract harms, acts perceived by some people (and not others) to indirectly cause suffering.

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Section: Outstanding Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Purity is still a problem

DiMaggio,

Gray,

Kachanoff

2023

Behav Brain Sci

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“…Puritanical values appear to have increased in Ancient Rome between the late Republic and the early Empire (Duby et al, 1994;Norena, 2007;Rousselle, 2013;Veyne, 1978; see also Gaca, 2003). In China, while bodily pleasures appear less restricted in Antiquity (Goldin, 2017;Hinsch, 1994;Wells & Yao, 2015), starting with the Tang and continuing through the Song, the Yuan, the Ming and the Qing, selfdiscipline, bodily pleasures, asceticism are increasingly moralized (Benn, 2005;Sommer, 2000;Suiming, 1998;Wells & Yao, 2015;Yü, 2021). In medieval Europe, historical work similarly documents an increasingly strict policing of lack of self-control, sexual misconducts, alcohol consumption, and lax religious observance, culminating in the moralistic religious movements of the Early Modern period (Burke, 1978;Ingram, 1990Ingram, , 1996Martin, 2009;McIntosh, 2002).…”

Section: Outstanding Questionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral disciplining: The cognitive and evolutionary foundations of puritanical morality

Fitouchi

André²,

Baumard³

2022

Behav Brain Sci

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Why do many human societies morally condemn apparently victimless and pleasurable behaviors, such as lust, gluttony, drinking, drugs, gambling, or even music and dance? Why do they morally praise temperance, chastity, sobriety, decency, and piety? While this puritanical morality often appears as an exception to the cooperative function of moral cognition, we propose that it stems, like other moral concerns, from moral judgements targeting cooperative challenges. Specifically, we propose that it consists of preemptive moralizations of behaviors perceived as risk factors for uncooperative self-control failures, impeding people's ability to resist the short-term temptations naturally conflicting with cooperative motivations.

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“…Whereas alcohol clouded the mind and made a person more likely to do things that would damage her virtue, tea aided mental clarity and facilitated the focus necessary to meditate for long periods. For Buddhists, tea thus served as an aid to virtuous living (Benn, 2005, 2015).…”

Section: Food and Health In Pre‐modern Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

Food, health, and nutrition in Chinese history

Smith

2021

History Compass

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This essay explores the relationships between food and health in Chinese history, from ancient times to the present.It briefly reviews how historians have written about dietary knowledge in China's past, from a midcentury focus on discoveries that prefigured those of modern nutrition science to a more expansive recent understanding of healthy eating.From there, the piece draws on scholarship from the past 2 decades to highlight the complexity of pre-modern Chinese ideas about food and its connection to ritual, social order, moral rectitude, pleasure, and physical and emotional well-being, all of which factored into dietetic prescriptions and prohibitions. Finally, the last section focuses on the modern period. It suggests that while Western foods and nutrition science acquired great prestige in early twentiethcentury China, by the early 21st century both had lost some of their luster, and interest in classical and folk understandings of diet-inflected by the postsocialist political and economic order-was again flourishing.

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Buddhism, Alcohol, and Tea in Medieval China

Cited by 21 publications

References 15 publications

Purity is still a problem

Purity is still a problem

Moral disciplining: The cognitive and evolutionary foundations of puritanical morality

Food, health, and nutrition in Chinese history

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