The Nature of Human Beings and the Moral Regulation of Passions

Passionate human behavior should be regulated by moral instructions, teaching and practices. For explaining the issue, Rene Descartes in The Passions of the Soul and the Hindu traditions of Sāṁkhya are here considered. These two systems provide four-dimensional physical, mental/moral and spiritual descriptions of human nature and a mechanism of regulating passions. The first two parts of the paper are focused on the nature of human beings, its holistic and integrative character, and on understanding emotional behavior. The next two parts describe moral ways used to regulate passions on the basis of Samkhya’s eight steps, i.e., reasoning, hearing, studying, Pramod, Mudi-ta̅ and Modma̅n, respect and gratitude. Descartes’ concept of generosity as a basis of the inculcation of virtues like self-esteem, veneration, hope, courage and bravery, self-satisfaction, is also analyzed. In conclusion, the relevance of the aforementioned mech-anism is presented at the individual and social levels.