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Some may first ask why we should support research
on generous love and service, rather than the programs that implement
these ideals in practical ways. We
believe that both these areas are vitally important. Yet leading edge science
can demonstrate the benefits of such kindness not only for recipients,
but also for those who live unselfishly, and thereby convey
to the wider culture
in concrete terms an empowering image of the human good. Because love is
so central to human moral, spiritual, and political concerns,
and because science
continues to have a dominant impact on our images of human flourishing,
those probing the contemporary love-and-science symbiosis are
engaging in matters
of enormous importance to the human future.
While considerable ongoing scientific
research of the highest caliber is focused on negative psychological
states,
personality disorders,
and mental illness,
relatively little high-level research is focused on positive states of psychological
health and personality. For example, more than 100,000 scientific studies have
been published on depression and schizophrenia, but no more than a few dozen
significant studies have been published on other-regarding love. Yet among the
universally lauded human traits are a cluster of parallel phenomena including
love, care, compassion, kindness, generosity, and benevolence. The dignity of
the human species demands that this imbalance in scientific focus be corrected
by providing an alternative to the “disease model.” Moreover, the
information to be gained from the new science of unlimited love must be interpreted
by leading scholars and educators, as well as widely disseminated. We owe this
to the human future.
While the Institute is not solely dedicated to research,
but also to dialogue and pedagogy, without scientific progress in
our understanding of love and unlimited love, and of its effective
transmission through pedagogy, the human future will be increasingly
imperiled by egoism and hatred. Just as human beings endeavor
to understand and harness the power of the wind, the atom, and gravity,
they might also endeavor to understand and facilitate the energies
of unlimited love.
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