Ethical and humanistic views of A. Schweitzer and J. Shihana: the experience of comparative analysis

Kannykin Stanislav Vladimirovich ORCID: 0000-0002-3250-4276 PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor; Department of Humanities; Starooskolsky Technological Institute named after A.A. Ugarov (branch) of NUST MISIS 309503, Russia, Belgorod region, Stary Oskol, Nikitsky, 6 stvk2007@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

To exalt the ideals of humanism in the modern world is what is urgently needed today.

A. Schweitzer "Peace or atomic war"

And if you measure the distance

Seconds, starting a long run,‒

The earth is your property, my boy.

And what's more, you're a human being!

R. Kipling "If"

In 2025, the 150th anniversary of the birth of Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) will be celebrated. This event, of course, will gain a worldwide scale – exactly the same as his personality, whose spiritual influence does not weaken with time. Biography of A. Schweitzer, born in Upper Alsace and inheriting German and French cultures, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, theologian, philosopher, musician and doctor ‒ this is the story of the life feat of an outstanding ascetic, who not only theoretically justified, but also actively affirmed the ideals of humanism by selfless service as a doctor in a hospital equipped at his own expense in the Gabonese village of Lambarene. A. Schweitzer survived two world wars (and during the First World War he was interned), witnessed the creation of atomic weapons and the confrontation of nuclear powers during the Caribbean crisis, he fully felt the grief of the destitute life of Africans – he missed all this not only through his mind, but also through his heart. The result of his worldview and worldview was a statement of the crisis nature of public life, manifested in its dehumanization, leading to the devaluation of life in general: society considers acceptable a military solution to political problems, in which human life turns from a shrine into a bargaining chip, instead of an end it becomes a means, and the possibility of nuclear war threatens the existence of life as such. It seems that it is to our contemporaries that A. Schweitzer from 1934 addresses: "there is a thoughtlessness among us, which is characterized by contempt for life. We have started a war over issues that could have been resolved with a reasonable approach. No one has won this war. The war has killed millions of people, brought suffering to millions, brought suffering and death to millions of innocent animals. Why was this possible? Because we did not possess the highest intelligence ‒ the intelligence of reverence for life" ^{[1, p. 489]}. In these words, there is a clear rebuke to the bearers of the "highest intelligence" ‒ the modern intellectual elite, since some of its representatives, having lost (and often sold) moral guidelines, became the newly–appeared "priests of Thanatos", justifying on the basis of religious fundamentalism, conservatism, statism and isolationism the possibility (and even the need) to trample on the highest humanistic values - first of all, human life, as well as his rights and freedoms. This is due both to their fantasies of an afterlife, and to the absolutization of state interests, primarily with the compulsion to like‒mindedness. Today, as in the time of A. Schweitzer, "any person who thinks independently and remains spiritually free is considered <...> as something inconvenient and even dangerous. <...> All corporate organizations see their strength today <...> in achieving the highest possible degree of cohesion and isolation. It is in this way that they hope to acquire the greatest power necessary for both offensive and defense" ^{[1, p. 131]}. A. Schweitzer is disgusted by any propaganda and idealization of war, the justification of its necessity by references to a burst of patriotic enthusiasm, the only possible self-defense, the ineradicable attraction of people to heroism and glory, etc. he advises the following: "Let them pass through cemeteries with many thousands of crosses, persecuted and tormented by the question: why, in fact, should those buried here suffer and die together? Patriotism must finally appear, more humane and more visionary than before" ^{[2, p. 372]}. Seeing the progress of society in the "softening" of the struggle for existence, in the support of all life, in expanding the "ethics of the love of Jesus" to the worldwide limits, A. Schweitzer sees only on this path the possibility of achieving Kantian eternal peace: "so that the issues dividing peoples are resolved not in wars, but in peaceful discussions" ^{[2, p. 372]}, wanting politics to obey the ideas of humanism, and rejecting war primarily for moral reasons, "because war places the blame on us for a crime against humanity" ^{[2, p. 416]}. Always faithful to the fundamental ethical principle of reverence for life, A. Schweitzer raised his voice not only against armed conflicts, but also against torture, inspired by his struggle against racism and other forms of discrimination, was an opponent of "popular entertainment" based on animal cruelty. Generally speaking, "put yourself in the right attitude to the phenomenon of life as such, as a whole ‒ It is the only thing worthy of an intelligent being <...> the task, which is based on religious and mystical intuitions, determined both Schweitzer's style of thinking and life path, which attracted the attention of educated people in various parts of the world with its originality and peculiar greatness" ^{[3, p. 5]}.

Of course, the philosophical and vital feat of A. Schweitzer is unique, moral authorities of this level are born infrequently, in the twentieth century, only L. N. Tolstoy and M. Gandhi can be put on a par with him. However, it is possible to trace how the humanistic views claimed by the Alsatian philosopher are developed and enriched in the ethical programs of thinkers close to him in spirit, which, for example, include a representative of the American philosophy of sports, a bright propagandist of running activity as a personally creative activity, George A. Sheehan (1918 ‒ 1993). Like A. Schweitzer, J. Sheehan was a doctor (his specialty is cardiology), a writer (he is the author of eight books, he was called the "voice" of the running boom of the 70s and 80s in the USA), a deeply believing Christian, no stranger to mystical experiences, a big fan of philosophical knowledge, who mentioned in some of his lectures about human development through running activity up to forty people close to him in spirit thinkers – from Plato to M. Foucault, and the preacher of the version of humanism created by him as the maximum possible bodily and spiritual integration for a person based on an attitude towards life akin to Schweitzer's reverence for it. The presentation of his biography and worldview is presented in ^[4]; in this work we will focus on tracing the connections between the ideas of man, ethics and society of J. Sheehan and A. Schweitzer in order to determine how an American researcher concretizes and enriches a complex of humanistic ideas, generically called Schweitzerianism. As far as we know, the books of J. The comparison of the ethical and humanistic views of A. Schweitzer and J. Schweitzer has not been translated into Russian. Shihana is being implemented for the first time. The research methodology is based mainly on a comparative approach, taking into account its genetic and typological forms.

Imperatives of physicality as a direction of personal self-improvement

It is obvious that A. Schweitzer largely relied on the teachings of A. Schopenhauer, positively assessing his ontology, in which the world is considered a manifestation of the will, but disagreeing with the pessimistic worldview of the German thinker, dating back to ancient Indian philosophy and denying the possibility of transforming society by ethical influence from the individual. One of A. Schopenhauer's innovations is an appeal to the "discourse of the body": "He was the first who boldly introduced physiology into metaphysics, noting the manifestations of his famous Will, blind stubborn attraction, generating phenomena, in yawning, sneezing, vomiting, convulsions, convulsions, erection, ejaculation, and interspersing arguments about morality with descriptions ganglion and spinal cord" ^{[5, p. 2]}. A. Schopenhauer believed that the conditioning of the world as a representation "is mediated by the body, whose states, as shown, serve the mind as a starting point for cognition of the world" ^{[6, p. 186]}; A. Schweitzer, apparently, radicalizes this position, arguing that "the spirit is mercilessly dependent on the body" ^{[7, p. 304]}. Reverence for life, in his opinion, includes three ideological components: humility, worldly and life affirmation, as well as ethics. It is significant that humility is put in the first place, since it represents the basis of a person's being ‒ "the spiritual and ethical affirmation of one's own existence" ^{[1, p. 138]}, which is based on Nietzschean amor fati – acceptance of one's own destiny. We note its initial manifestations in the body given to us, while the Alsatian thinker believes that only those who have passed through humility will be capable of life affirmation: "Schweitzer suggests perceiving your body not only as something finite, mortal, vulnerable and temporary, but, on the contrary, as something sacred, certainly important and unique, which deserves reverence the relationship of both spiritual and physical care" ^{[8, p. 83]}. Therefore, a person is not just a manifestation of the will to live, it is a manifestation of the will to live, primarily determined by the peculiarity of the body. This need becomes the main incentive for action, first aimed at self–knowledge, then at self-realization, and eventually at the transformation of society, in accordance with the words of Seraphim of Sarov: "Acquire the spirit of peace, and thousands will be saved through you." In this regard, it becomes clear why A. Schweitzer did not accept the Cartesian cogito as a criterion for verifying his existence: it is not thinking and cognition that constitute the essence of a person's connection with the world and himself, but experience as a bodily function, therefore the initial ‒ telocentric ‒ the position of A. Schweitzer's philosophy is formulated as follows: "I am the life that wants to live, among the life that wants to live" ^{[1, p. 96]}. To live your life means to reverently treat it as an incomprehensibly mysterious gift, elevating it to the main value, which is manifested in the active affirmation of the uniqueness and irreplaceability of each person as the author of his "life project". This attitude was inherent in A. Schweitzer himself, whose life "is a vivid example of eudemonic existence, the highest value of which is the realization of a unique inner potential" ^{[9, p. 5]}. It is also necessary to take into account the religious framework of A. Schweitzer's worldview: Christians expect not only the eternity of the soul, but also the resurrection of the flesh, according to their teaching, a person enters eternity whole. This elevation of the flesh to immortality is understood as a manifestation of divine love for people, besides, "we meet all spiritual life only within the limits of natural life" ^{[1, p. 139]}.

J. Sheehan also began his reflections on an ethically decent life, starting from the body. Before becoming a good person, one should become a good animal, he believed, following R. W. Emerson, which meant striving for the maximum realization of bodily potential. For J. Shihana will to live is the desire of every organism to achieve its highest perfection. The realization of this goal encourages a person to use one of the Delphic maxims – know yourself, "and the best way to know yourself is to analyze the structure of your body and how it moves" ^{[10, p.36]}. The connection between physique and personality is manifested in the fact that function is always derived from structure, hence J. Sheehan's interest in W. G. Sheldon's constitutional theory of temperament, according to which three types of physique (endomorphic, mesomorphic and ectomorphic) correspond to three types of temperament (viscerotonic, somatonic, cerebrotonic), and most people are characterized by complex combinations these types. W. G. Sheldon also determined that we consist of different ratios of three primary layers of embryo tissue: ectoderm (skin and nerve tissue), endoderm (intestines), mesoderm (bones and muscles). Depending on their proportions and the predominant type of tissue, he predicted physical abilities, a way of responding to stress, aesthetic preferences, temperament and the best lifestyle for representatives of these bodily types. J. Sheehan believed that "reading Sheldon means discovering a new world. And accepting Sheldon means accepting yourself and your own characteristics, learning to live in accordance with them and learning to live with the characteristics of others" ^{[10, p. 37]}. Dr. Sheehan is attracted by the elimination of Cartesian dualism of soul and body in the teachings of W. G. Sheldon, since temperament and bodily constitution are two attributes of the same substance, for him the structure of the body and human behavior form a functional continuum. The American thinker believes that the characteristics of the body determine not only the preferred lifestyle, but even the religious and philosophical views of a person, since some of us are created for flight, the second for fighting, and the third for negotiations, we justify our behavior with the worldview most appropriate to the body and temperament. Generally speaking, our bodies determine where our freedom and happiness are, as well as what are the ways to achieve them. The essence of the humanistic message of W. G. Sheldon J. Sheehan sees in the main purpose of his teaching: "to develop each person in accordance with his best potential, protecting him from false ambitions, the desire to be someone he can never become and, more importantly, should never be like that" ^{[10, p. 38]}. However, it is important to understand, says J. Sheehan believes that the body (with the exception of disability or any other deviations) does not limit our freedom, but defines for us the ways of the best self-realization that we are free to use. In the case of J. Schweitzer's life affirmation is manifested in the fact that a person does not suppress or enslave his body, but listens to it and strives to fully realize its potential, going back to his own truth of life, to its authenticity as a source of an optimistic worldview. He is convinced that for self-realization, the Self must be as physical as possible, and no life can be lived completely without maximizing oneself on a bodily level.

Striving for freedom from inauthenticity as an ethical act

The manifestation of a conscious bodily and spiritual uniqueness of a personality ("life affirmation") is inevitably associated with the rejection of "false life", gaining freedom from many dominant social attitudes ("life denial"), and the second is assumed by A. Schweitzer and J. Sheehan is a prerequisite for the realization of the first, since "ethics always opposes reality and finds itself in freedom from the world" ^{[11, p. 126]}. The reason for this confrontation with the world is the responsibility assumed by the individual – both for his existence and development, and, in the case of A. Schweitzer, for life in general. It follows that "our life is an eternal polemic of our will to live with the world, a polemic in which we constantly defend the thesis that we will never agree to belittle the will to live" ^{[7, p. 283]}. According to A. Schweitzer, the spirit of genuine humanism is found only in the individual, since the ethics of society is aimed at turning people into its slaves, who should not even have the thought of rebellion. This transformation is achieved by various ideological techniques, one of which is the introduction into the public consciousness of ideas about normality and correct goal-setting, for example, the "American dream". This is how this ideological complex is described by J. Sheehan, regarding a real American man: he must have the pioneering spirit, audacity, unbridled courage and adventurism that made America great, must "stand up to bullies, look his enemies in the eye and never back down. Americans are supposed to work 30 hours a day, 8 days a week; know what teamwork is and go from errand boy to president. The United States of America expects you to be a hero, to stand on your feet, to be reckoned with, to show everyone what you are made of" ^{[12, p. 17]}. Sheehan comes to the conclusion that what he is "made of" absolutely does not allow him to count on approaching the ideals of the brutal male from the "American dream": as, according to W. G. Sheldon, referring to somatotype 235 (mesomorphic ectomorphy), he is cowardly and very absent–minded, his pain threshold is at the level of a strong handshake, he will always prefer flight to struggle, and he also has a love of loneliness, an aversion to tactile communication and friendly familiarity, a passionate desire to be immersed in the world of thoughts as much as possible and a complete unwillingness to become someone else, "right", even the president. J. Sheehan tried to live as a that's all, he wanted to become a part of, as he himself puts it, "the herd, any herd": "We study the rules of the herd, the regulations of the herd, the morality of the herd, the ethics of the herd. We are becoming a part of society. Society must be preserved, therefore we accept the obligations that it imposes" ^{[13, p. 36]}. However, he never left the feeling of unacceptability of such a life for him, J. Sheehan realized that the basis of his interaction with others was a lie, so he never looked into the eyes of his interlocutors, fearing to be immediately caught in insincerity. This weighed on him very much, and here we again find correspondence with the position of A. Schweitzer, who wrote: "No less strong than the pursuit of truth should be our desire for sincerity. <...> Sincerity is the foundation of spiritual life" ^{[1, p. 133]}. A way of returning to the authentic self and to sincerity in interaction with others for J. Sheehan became a runner, in which he excelled as a student. Wanting to return to a youthful sense of fullness of life, at the age of 45, he began running around the perimeter of his house plot, where 26 laps made up a mile, since the "herd" in 1963 was not ready to see the father of 12 children running "in his underwear" on the streets of the patriarchal town of Ramson, a trustee of the Christian Brothers Academy and a respected the doctor has no doubt about his law-abiding and mental health. Five years later, Dr. Sheehan set a world record for 50-year–old athletes in the mile run - and really returned to the best version of himself, breaking out of the "herd" and realizing his bodily imperatives. Now he did not look away, communicating with others: "Running has made me free. It saved me from worrying about the opinions of others. He freed me from the rules and regulations imposed from the outside" ^{[10, p. 33]}. It can be concluded that J. Sheehan, as well as A. Schweitzer, "believes that the natural in an individual is a guarantee that a person can find meaning in life outside of social coordinates, despite the pressure of socio-historical circumstances" ^{[14, p. 111]}. J. Sheehan considered it right to listen to his body, and not to to other people, be inspired by F. Nietzsche's advice "don't mistake me for someone else" and recognize the fact that life can sometimes feel complete even in the absence of community with other people: "Live your own life. Success is <...> not the respect of colleagues, not the admiration of society and not the appreciation of patients. Success is a certain knowledge that you have become yourself, the person you were supposed to be. This is a sufficient reward" ^{[10, p. 132]}.

The game as a sphere of concentration of life, self-knowledge and heroism

J. Sheehan believed that the sphere of being, which concentrates on expressing the fullness of life, is play as a practice carried out for its own sake, without a utilitarian, external goal: "Play is where life lives" ^{[13, p. 47]}, thereby associating with the opinion of X. Ortega y Gasseta: "Life itself, including organic and biological life, ultimately cannot be understood through benefits, but can be explained as a grandiose sporting phenomenon" ^{[15, p. 96]}. Dr. Sheehan identified three aspects of the game as the most important: body exercises, bringing joy to life, and self-discovery. He repeatedly points out the importance of treating amateur running as a game ‒ this is when running is not in order to lose weight and (or) strengthen the cardiovascular system, but because people like the very process of running locomotion and the state of body and spirit provided by it, i.e. the main thing here is not the result, but the process itself, the beneficence of which is described as follows: "I am ready to found a new religion, the first law of which says: "Play regularly." An hour of play a day makes a person whole, healthy and long-lived. Exercises should be in the form of a game, otherwise they will bring little benefit" ^{[10, p. 99]}. Running as an out-of–game fitness practice is rational, practical and physiological, it is most often practiced without any desire, forced, despite their inclinations, because it is necessary for health, such running is hard forced labor, increasing the split between body and spirit. On the contrary, running as a game is irrational, mystical and psychological – it is a voluntarily chosen and seemingly absurd way for uninvolved people to intensify life, improve its quality, achieve peak experiences when there is a sense of unity with oneself and the world, as well as a return to one's authenticity and "original splendor": "Run only if it is impossible without it. If running is an urgent need that comes from within you, not from your doctor. Otherwise, listen to the inner call of your own game. <...> do what you do best and what you feel best about. Something that you would do just like that. Something that gives you confidence, self-acceptance, a sense of completion, and even moments when you merge with your universe and your Creator. When you find something like this, build your life around it. <...> That's why I run and will always run. I organized my day and my life around running" ^{[10, p. 100]}. It is in the game run as the center of attraction of personal existence (i.e. practically) that the world- and life-affirmation of J. R.R. Tolkien takes place. Sheehan, which contrasts with the position of A. Schweitzer, according to which such a thing is achieved theoretically, in a free optimistic worldview. J. Sheehan is sure that in man as a whole, the mind desires truth, the soul – goodness, and the body – games as spontaneous self-expression, where the animal, child and adult, of which we are composed, integrate.

J. Sheehan would agree with A. Schweitzer that the will to live should first of all be self-aware: "The will to live, striving to know the world, plays the role of a shipwrecked man; the will to live, striving to know oneself, plays the role of a brave sailor" ^{[7, p. 281]}. The best environment for self-knowledge of J. Sheehan considers the game because, as F. Schiller wrote, each of us "... is completely human only when he plays" ^{[16, p. 125]}. It is in the game that a person determines what he does best, based on the structure of his body and the characteristics of his temperament: is he an attacker, a passer or a defender? Is he the most capable of aggressive confrontation, flight, or negotiation? The player tests himself in stressful situations, chooses individual or team sports, tries to specialize in endurance, speed, strength, coordination or intellectual competitions – generally speaking, it is in the game that a person becomes himself, revealing his essence to himself and the world, and also integrates body and spirit, gaining integrity, optimism and fully experiencing the taste of life, which is at its "root, i.e. in what is the most important and most intimate <...> consists not only of Nothing and "longing", but also of endless sporting joy" ^{[15, p. 317]}.

Another important aspect of the sports game is that it sometimes allows its participants to feel like heroes, because it reveals in a person a potential that he may not have suspected. J. Sheehan considered heroism to be the highest human need and considered sport not as an outlet for aggression and violence (the "equivalent of war"), but as an arena where a person demonstrates the best that is in him, as a theater that reveals courage, endurance and dedication to a goal, where we, even for a short time, see a person as he should be. The following arguments of William James were close to him: "We feel that the supreme secret of life is hidden in the feat, and people who are incapable of heroic deeds in any case of life seem insignificant to us" ^{[17, p. 285]}. According to Dr. Sheehan, there are two kinds of sports heroes: a hero for others and a hero for yourself. The first type of heroes amazes society with their achievements, setting, for example, world records in the fight against rivals of approximately equal strength. For the second type of heroes, outstanding results are unattainable, they struggle only with themselves, this is a kind of "inner heroism" that does not need anyone's recognition, but it is also very important because it is publicly available, and most importantly - "when we stop being heroes, we cease to really exist" ^{[13, p. 10]}. In order not to stop feeling like a hero, J. Sheehan took part in running competitions weekly for about 25 years, which he could reach by car from his house on a weekend, having run, for example, more than 60 marathons. Returning to running at the age of 45, he considered himself his main rival in his youth, perceiving the pain of training and competition as a guide on the path to perfection and being, in the words of A. Schweitzer, "a hero of self-denial and suffering." At the age of about seventy, already seriously ill with inoperable cancer and undergoing exhausting courses of chemotherapy, J. Sheehan participated in a five-mile race. About halfway through the race, he saw that he was running last ‒ this happened to him for the first time in his life, and he clearly realized the great drama of the Greek tragedy, when the hero becomes the one who fights primarily with his fate, even if this struggle is not visible to the uninitiated. Dr. Sheehan did not lose the race: fate, albeit for a while, was defeated. The last participant in a marathon or super marathon – the most difficult and most heroic test for runners, finishing the distance after the official end of the competition, in the dark and alone, no longer running, but hobbling to the finish line and disqualified in absentia for exceeding the time limit – is a hero no less than the winner. Affirming the spirit of heroic individualism in one's life is, of course, what unites J. Sheehan and A. Schweitzer.

Religion and Mysticism as the foundations of spiritual life

Protestant theology professor A. Schweitzer was far from Orthodox Christianity, since he denied the divine essence of Christ and even considered some of his ideas erroneous, in particular about the end of the world, which would follow immediately after the death of the Messiah. Of all the apostolic interpretations of the personality and teachings of Jesus, A. Schweitzer was most attracted by Paul's point of view about the mystical "abiding in Christ" (co-dying and co-resurrection with Christ) as a necessary step to "being in God": "In Jesus Christ, God revealed himself as the will to love. In unity with Christ, unity with God is realized in the only form available to us" ^{[1, p. 467]}. The divine principle in Christ appears as active love, in the world as a creative force, and in man as an ethical will that forms the core of our personality. According to A. Schweitzer, every deep worldview in search of goodness and truth is forced to cross the boundaries of a world that is neither good nor reasonable. The desired values, as evidenced by reason, turn out to be transcendent, therefore, thinking that has reached the edge of existence opens the way to a mystical experience of the divine: "entry into the super-earthly and eternal is now carried out by an act of thinking" ^{[1, p. 186]}. These experiences reveal existence as a manifestation of the "mysterious infinite will to life" deified by A. Schweitzer, and ethics as reverence for this will, which presupposes concern for all life forms accessible to human knowledge and influence. This attitude is, as it were, commanded to us by the deity, who appears in the form of the universal will, since "we treat the primary basis of being, which opens in us as the will to love, as an ethical person" ^{[1, p. 143]}. Thus, the source of ethics, concentrated in the "elementary" and logically impeccable, according to A. Schweitzer, the rule of reverence for life, is not nature and society, where the destruction of life in the war of all against all is put on stream; this source is the divine world will, which transmits to the individual an ethical message in a mystical act, the road to which is paved by deep, consistent thinking. The very word "reverence" (as reverence for holiness) shows that A. Schweitzer's worldview has a peculiar, but certainly religious character: ethics is born from mysticism and is not limited to people, because "with its help we achieve a spiritual connection with the Universe" ^{[7, p. 9]}.

J. Sheehan, like A. Schweitzer, was a very religious man. Calling himself a "theological animal," the American thinker wrote: "The answer to the question of my existence must somehow contain God" ^{[10, p. 326]}. Just like A. Schweitzer, he recognizes that accepting Christ does not necessarily mean following dogma, "all living things are holy" ^{[10, p. 333]}, "the meaning of life is beyond reason" ^{[10, p. 169]} and, like A. Schopenhauer, takes the will beyond the boundaries of matter and spirit, believing her to be their progenitor and unifier, J. Sheehan, placing running in the context of a religious worldview, coincides with the requirement of A. Schweitzer's life and world affirmation, since, referring to thinkers of the past who used the metaphor of running, chooses quotes in which the runner goes to the world, life, God, and does not run away from them, thereby thereby demonstrating an optimistic attitude. For example, he cites the following judgment of Meister Eckhart: "Run towards the world! A person who runs, who is in a state of running, aspiring to the world, is a holy person. He constantly runs and moves and seeks peace in running" ^{[12, p. 270]}. J. Sheehan is characterized by a religious attitude to running practices, for which M. Heidegger's categorical apparatus is best suited: on their foundation a lifestyle is built based on "hearing" the "call of being" in the process of running meditation, existing at the ontic level and accessible thanks to Dasein's "cancellation of remoteness". This is achieved by the asceticism of the runner, as well as the belief in the possibility through the development of the body to reach a new level of self-awareness and the world, which allows you to "witness the truth" and feel connected with the Absolute. Dr. Sheehan was also close to Christian anthropology, according to which a person consists of a body, soul and spirit. Amateur stayer running was especially appreciated by him for, firstly, integrating these three parts, and secondly, developing in them what is available to this process: "The mystic acts methodically. His progress is from purification to enlightenment and unity. The same thing happens to me in the process of running: purification in movement, effort and perspiration; and in this purification I find that I become whole physically and allow the possibility of further movement towards enlightenment and unity. Because running is not only a movement of the body, but also a movement of the soul. This movement of the soul is the essence of running, a religious act" ^{[12, p. 271]}. Thus, running cleanses the body with well-directed suffering, enlightens the soul and mystically connects the human spirit with the Absolute: "My running has become my offering. <...> I was a child in front of my Father, offering what I did best. I ask that my Father be satisfied. To be accepted by Him. And I found myself, this little child, with tears streaming down my face, running along the road that runs along the river, back to the city. Few happy people have known all this. We have known this acceptance. We start with the body and end with the body" ^{[10, p. 341]}. Sheehan considered the physical dividends of running to be negligible compared to the spiritual ones, which is why "some people run for philosophical reasons, and not to the finish line. Running is an entrance to another world, a path to experiences that cannot always be expressed in words. Whether you call it peak experiences or mystical events, runners continue to strive for them" ^{[13, pp. 243-244]}. The specific content of these experiences and the mechanism of their generation are presented in ^{[4, 18]}, here we only note that the movement towards mystical states, according to J. According to Shihan, it is carried out not by the depth of thinking, as in A. Schweitzer, but through bodily practice: through a long rhythmic running movement, the interaction of the body, conscious and unconscious, is harmonized, which ensures a high susceptibility to the Absolute (or "peak existential experiences") and generates the same reverence for all things that A. Schweitzer experienced before life"Kindness, truth and beauty suddenly take over me. I am amazed by the overwhelming joy, filled with delight, and I have no choice but to rejoice with tears in my eyes" ^{[10, p. 334-335]}. This is very similar to the state that F. Nietzsche called "Rausch" ‒ literally "noise" (in the head), an altered state of consciousness is akin to mild intoxication, when the perception of the world is aggravated and something is revealed in it that is not accessible to normal consciousness. Here is how the German philosopher describes this state, which arose in him from many hours of walking in the vicinity of Sils Maria: "... during my walks I cried a lot, and these were not sentimental tears, but tears of exultation; moreover, I also sang and muttered incoherent speeches, filled with a new vision, which is only open so far I'm the only one" ^{[19, p. 137]}. Just as A. Schweitzer endowed the world will manifested through us with ethical content, J. Sheehan considered "something more than ourselves" discovered in the personality of running to be the best part of man, with which "we reach the highest principle operating in the universe" ^{[12, p. 271]}. Thus, both A. Schweitzer and J. Sheehan drew their optimism, as well as life and world affirmation in the form of reverence from religious and mystical experience, but used different ways of entering it: intellectual and bodily, respectively.

"Ethical programs" and the humanistic ideals of A. Schweitzer and J. Shihana

It is important to emphasize that humanism and reverence for life as ethical principles go back, according to A. Schweitzer, to individual ethics, which he opposes to public ethics. The first, based on a mystical sense of the sanctity of life and love as its highest manifestation, asserts that a person should never be forced by external forces to sacrifice himself for any purpose; society considers it acceptable to sometimes sacrifice the lives and well-being of individual members in order to solve collective tasks, "his ethics are basically inhumane" ^{[7, p. 291]}. Thus, a conflict arises between these ethical systems, when the voice of a person's conscience is drowned out and subordinated by the "perverted ethics" of society to conformism, which requires not only unanimity, but also the widest self-denial for the sake of society, which is seen as the "highest destiny of man." Therefore, according to A. Schweitzer, a morally mature person is inevitably in conflict with the ethics of society. The main way to implement this ethics is to create conditions unfavorable to one's own thinking and discredit its results. This is achieved by placing a person in a situation of diverse material dependence and overemployment, which does not give him the opportunity to focus on his spiritual world, and the avalanche-like increase in knowledge does not allow him to check and understand most of them, which also undermines confidence in his thinking abilities. As a result, people do not formulate ethical ideals by the efforts of their minds, with the help of which society is transformed (the "spirit of idealism"), but obey the "spirit of practical realism", because everything real, according to Hegel, is already reasonable in itself, therefore, "having discarded all hopes for the independent discovery of truth, people will accept as the truth is what is imposed on them through authority and through propaganda" ^{[1, p. 132]}. It should be noted that such an "external" truth, not born of independent thinking, does not penetrate into the depths of a person's being, therefore propagandists can manipulate the consciousness of other people, easily changing the "truths" in it in accordance with the political conjuncture.

To counter this kind of ethics, a person needs a deep philosophical understanding of the essence of the world as a whole inaccessible to science, which, according to A. Schweitzer, is expressed in the fact that the world is a manifestation of the will to live, as well as in awareness of the "basic principle of morality" ‒ reverence for life, according to which good is all that which contributes to its preservation and development. On this basis, a personality requires social ethics to bring its requirements to a person in accordance with the specified principle: "To the extent that society assumes the character of a moral personality, its ethics becomes the ethics of a moral society" ^{[7, p. 292]}. In our opinion, a kind of "program" for the ethical development of A. Schweitzer's personality and society should include four stages: (1) passive self‒improvement of the personality on the basis of liberation from the world, self-knowledge; (2) active self-improvement of the personality through building a "man-man" relationship; (3) the achievement of such moral strength by the personality when its impact passes from individuals to society and exceeds its influence on the personality, which gives hope for transformation society in the environment of preserving and developing the spiritual and moral inclinations of man as the basis of cultural progress; (4) the transformation of the ethics of reverence for life based on sacrificial Christian love into a kind of religion (biotheism as a combination of Christian orthodoxy and a naturalistic worldview ^{[20, p. 205]}): "this ethics, deep, universal, acquires the meaning of religion. It is religion" ^{[1, p. 489]}, and societies turn into an active force ("the organ of God") aimed at creating good as the preservation of all life and the environment of its existence.

This program was embodied in the life of the thinker himself, who, being a deeply religious person, realized that he needed to develop his abilities not to achieve personal comfort in the form of a secure, prosperous existence, but to serve people as a response to Christ's call to active love. He was engaged in preparing for this ministry until the age of 38 in Europe, improving as a philosopher, theologian, musician and doctor. The second stage (it can rightfully be called heroic) is the beginning of independent medical practice in very difficult conditions in Africa; the third stage can be counted from 1923, when his main work "Philosophy of Culture" was published, justifying a new vision of ethics based on reverence for life and understanding of man as the highest value; the fourth The stage is the emergence of social forces inspired by the ideas of A. Schweitzer in the form of public organizations and movements whose activities are aimed at caring for life in all its diversity. Thus, A. Schweitzer proved by his example that "the only possible, meaningful, constantly, vividly and concretely polemicizing principle of ethics states: self-denial for the sake of life out of reverence for life" ^{[7, p. 304]}.

J. Sheehan believed that the main reason motivating him to run was the desire for perfection, for the maximum realization of his potential. As an argument, he could well use A. Schweitzer's statement that "everywhere it (the will to live – S.K.) strives to achieve its inherent perfection. In everything that exists, there is a force striving for the ideal. <...> We must follow this aspiration if we want to remain faithful to the mysterious will to live inherent in us" ^{[7, p. 282]}. The desired perfection in relation to a person must necessarily contain an ethical component, since it introduces her to the highest values, including goodness. In this regard, J. Sheehan noted that the sports experience consists of three parts: training (ascesis), competition (agon) and the main goal of sports practices – virtue (arete): "If you want to become a saint or a metaphysician, you must first become an athlete. <...> asceticism is practiced by weightlifters, football players and long-distance runners, as well as saints and philosophers" ^{[10, p. 69]}. The American thinker was convinced that long-term systematic training, carried out in accordance with the "laws of the body", form such ethical qualities as prudence and moderation, and competitions teach you to win not so much rivals as yourself, to overcome fear, despair and insecurity. A person striving for perfection is always aware of his ideal character, like a horizon that cannot be approached. However, the movement towards the ideal itself is beneficial, so J. Sheehan believes that it is important to form such a lifestyle (fronesis), which is based on this constant movement towards perfection until the end of human days, and he made running and running competitions the center of such a life for himself. According to Aristotle, fronesis is a principle of life that orients all human activity to achieve good and benefit, practical wisdom, which is the basis of virtue; M. Heidegger used this word to denote an active interest in the proper organization of one's life, the practice of Dasein moving towards achieving authenticity, a form of being‒in-the-world that arose on the basis of care ^{[18, p. 65]}. Even ecstatic states that sometimes arise during running have an ethical basis, since they do not come from the world and are devoid of its attributes: "ethics can leave space and time alone," A. Schweitzer writes ^{[7, p. 288]}; "during my daytime run, I suddenly went beyond time and space. I became the perfect runner, moving easily, confidently and effortlessly towards infinity. My ten years of almost daily running have brought me to that area of consciousness, to that level of being that I didn't even know existed. For a runner, running has always been a form of contemplation and meditation; an activity with saving grace <...>, a time when the movements of his body in accordance with his mind and heart gave him the opportunity to appreciate what was good, true and beautiful" ^{[10, p. 308]}, ‒ testifies J. Sheehan. Such morally oriented states of J. Sheehan perceived it as proof of the existence of God, and in the teachings of A. Schweitzer, the divine world will is ethical.

The identified ethical program of J. Shihana is very similar to the program of A. Schweitzer that we have reconstructed. The American thinker begins his path to conscious, practical virtue based on running activities with knowledge of the characteristics of his body and liberation from the ideological attitudes of the "herd": "when I run, I necessarily become a good animal, but for less obvious and even mysterious reasons I also become a good person" ^{[12, p. 174]}. The second stage is building relationships with other people based on the results of self–knowledge: if earlier it was avoiding people, the desire to hide the truth about myself from them, then after realizing and accepting my special union of flesh and spirit, achieving inner peace and tranquility through running, "I am able to show myself to another human being, wanting to give my love and receive his love" ^{[10, p. 53]}; with the help of running, "we really move inward, but only in order to later move outward, to unity with others" ^{[12, p. 37]}. The third stage is the promotion of running activity by J. Sheehan, which began in the form of newspaper articles and magazine columns devoted first to the medical aspects of stayer running, and then developed into deep philosophical essays, where Dr. Sheehan, based on his experience and mainly based on American transcendentalists and pragmatists, described the personal development of a runner and his achievement of a sense of completeness and correctness of his life. All this happens in full accordance with what A. Schweitzer wrote about: "Then a person radiates peace and tranquility and introduces other people to the sacrament, which consists in the fact that all of us in our actions and sufferings must preserve freedom in order to live our lives correctly" ^{[7, p. 283]}. The pinnacle of this stage was the world-famous book by J. Sheehan's "Running and Being: a cumulative experience" (1978) ^[10], the main idea of which is expressed as follows: "Do not worry about adding a few years to your life with running or exercise, take care to add life to your years" ^[21]. A. Schweitzer believed that the value of any philosophy is ultimately measured by its ability to turn into a living popular philosophy–and J. Sheehan managed to do this, and this book became a bestseller, which spurred the running boom of the 70s and 80s of the XX century and made running even more attractive to intellectuals.

Dr. Sheehan graduated from his medical practice in 1984 to devote himself entirely to public speaking, book writing, training, and competition. He was a charismatic speaker who lectured several times a week for almost the rest of his life, his record being five speeches in one day. He perceived the running community as a religious brotherhood, treasured interaction with it very much and was happy with its recognition, thereby confirming A. Schweitzer's reflections: "As an active being, a person comes to a spiritual connection with the world due to the fact that he does not live for himself alone, but feels one with the whole life that is in his sphere of influence. <...> he will give her the greatest help he can; and if he manages to do something to preserve and maintain life, it will be the greatest happiness for him..." ^{[1, p. 138]}. Already in the terminal stage of the disease, J. Sheehan began to write his last book, which he could not finish due to death: "Overcoming the distance: one man's journey to the end of his life," which contained the following words: "My thoughts are not focused only on death. I think about the people I will leave behind and my responsibility for them ^{[22, p. 117]}. It is important to note that the American running community treated the educational activities of J. P. with great love and gratitude. Sheehan. Here is what US President Bill Clinton, who was passionate about running, wrote to him in April 1993, seven months before the doctor's death: "With your books and more than two decades of publications in the World of Runners magazine, you have inspired many of us. As the guru and philosopher king of running, you informed us and motivated us to follow your teachings. We realized that we are all heroes in our own way. You have shown us that we run best when we run with simple childish joy, and that training and competitions give us a chance to become who we already are by Design."^[23]

The last – the fourth stage – is associated with the development of the inspired by the works of J. Sheehan personally created amateur stayer running after his death. In describing this stage, as well as in relation to the ethical views of A. Schweitzer, one can use religious connotations, since the preached by J. Sheehan's humanistically oriented running "so enriched those whom he taught that they worshipped him (J. Sheehan – S.K.) as a saint" ^{[10, p. 17]}, and running itself became "... a way of life, a national hobby of Americans, from college to old age, the gospel that they carried into the world" ^{[24, p. 38]}, it is not for nothing that three of the six most massive and prestigious world major marathons (Boston, Chicago, New York) are held in the USA. The grateful memory of J. Sheehan is immortalized financially – in the form of a modern athletics complex named in his honor and built on the territory of the Catholic Academy of the Christian Brothers in Lyncroft (New Jersey), where J.'s sons studied. Sheehan and whose trustee he was. In the spiritual sphere, the ideological legacy of J. Shihana is preserved and developed within the framework of the emerging running philosophy in the USA. For example, in 2007 the collective monograph "Running and Philosophy. Marathon for the mind" ^[25], prepared by American running philosophers who teach at universities (among whom there are those who have been running daily for several decades), who largely relied in their reflections on the impact of running on the spiritual sphere of personality on the views and experience of J. Sheehan.

Returning to A. Schweitzer, it should be noted that the running community actively approves the complex of his ideas associated with reverence for life, humanism and ethical progress of society. Perhaps this is one of the most receptive social groups to the teachings of A. Schweitzer, and not the least role in this was played by the philosophical equipment of amateur running, provided by the works of J. Sheehan. Thus, the life-affirming nature of running activity is manifested in the fact that individually each runner finds the optimal balance between his body, spirit and the external environment, which is an important skill to ensure the parity of nature and society. Mass running competitions of amateur stayers are often charitable in nature, aimed at raising funds to help sick people, take care of animals, prevent abortions, and solve environmental and social problems. Running competitions, which have a non-contact nature, have since ancient times formed a semantic background associated with the absence of violence: The Olympiads of Antiquity, which initially included only running, stopped wars in ancient times, and today anti-war runs are not uncommon; running was an important element of cheerful folk carnival culture; modern multi-thousand marathons unite people of different cultures with a common runner identity: "Come to the finish line of any mass run – and you will be amazed by the atmosphere of goodwill, universal agreement, everyone's willingness to share everything with everyone, even a complete stranger – from the last precious sip of fruit juice in the heat to advice on the most important issues of life. Perhaps you have never met so many kind people at once. Running gives us the opportunity to put ourselves through a difficult test, and after enduring it, a person feels stronger, better, more confident in relationships with others, and therefore more friendly" ^{[26, p. 22]}. In an existential aspect, stayer running forms the basis of an optimistic worldview, since it leads to a reassessment of the perception of pain and suffering: it is on the basis of on the basis of long-term resistance to their effects, personal growth is carried out, psychological stability is gained and there is an understanding that despair should never overshadow hope; runners theoretically and practically select the most effective and universal adaptive skills.

The humanistic orientation of running practices has a very wide range – from the factor of anthropogenesis, which ensured the survival and development of mankind in the early stages of its history, to modern applications with recreational (game running for pleasure), revitalizing (running as an element of therapeutic or preventive physical culture), personally developing (running aimed at gaining a special experience that opens up to a person through prolonged cyclical bodily tension, in other words meditative running), political (transgressions of runners as a demonstrative confrontation with unacceptable "social entities" like doping; resistance of runners as a humanistically oriented extension of ideas about the "normal", for example, the participation of women in marathon races together with men) and sports (aimed at achieving records in this type of locomotion) goals.

In the context of the ethical progress of society, which is so important for A. Schweitzer, running as a social practice can be considered as a sphere of affirmation of values such as democracy (in the sense of the accessibility of running self-improvement), equality (non-discrimination and inclusivity); individualism (self-reliance, self-expression in running), honesty (objectivity of determining winners in contrast to from sports, where it is determined by the vote of the judges), the positive significance of human physicality and heroism without violence against rivals.

A. Schweitzer and J. Sheehan devoted their lives, each in their own way, to the exaltation of the ideals of humanism, seeing in this a manifestation of the spiritual power of the individual and finding support for their views in an optimistic, life- and world-affirming philosophy. The testament of A. Schweitzer, with which J. Schweitzer could fully agree. Sheehan, is as follows: "We certainly will not be able, under any circumstances, to recognize as ethics the meaningless ideals of power, nation, and political preferences offered to us by pathetic politicians and fanned by intoxicating propaganda. We must measure all the principles, beliefs and ideals that arise in society extremely pedantically by the measure of the absolute ethics of reverence for life. We should only approve of what is consistent with humanity. First of all, we are obliged to sacredly protect the interests of human life and happiness. We must once again raise the sacred human rights to the shield" ^{[7, p. 326]}. It can be concluded that the boundless ethics of A. Schweitzer has become a new stage in the development of humanism, and one of the social forces actively asserting the complex of his ideas today is the amateur running community, the expression of the humanistic spirit of which is J. Sheehan.

Conclusions

1. A. Schweitzer and J. Sheehan is united by finding the meaning of his own existence in affirming the existence of a bodily expressed life – both in the fullness of its presence (A. Schweitzer) and in the form of individual human physicality (J. Sheehan).

2. Their attitude to life is ethically loaded and manifests itself in the form of reverence, which means recognizing its value as supreme and internal (i.e. non-instrumental).

3. In relation to individual human life, reverence means the development of its unique bodily deterministic potential ("life for oneself"), which requires the achievement of freedom from society, which seeks to subordinate the individual to its interests, as well as to dispose of her life in accordance with them.

4. The task of the individual is to form an individual ethics, which, in the interests of human development, would be characterized by life and world affirmation, as well as optimism. Both A. Schweitzer and J. Sheehan believes that the source of such ethics is not society and nature, but religious and mystical states of connection with the Absolute, which are achieved by two paths: consistent and deep thinking, flawlessly justifying the ethical ideal inspired by the world Will (A. Schweitzer) and bodily (in particular, running) practices (J. Sheehan), the stages of ascent which to the Absolute are as follows: The game is suffering – In and out.

5. After acquiring this type of ethics, a person must move into the mode of active service to the good ("life for others"). First of all, this means finding forms of self–preserving, but at the same time altruistic interpersonal interaction based on the metaphysical "will to love" ascending to Christ; then - moral influence on society in order to transform it into an environment of development of human bodily, spiritual and moral inclinations as the basis of cultural progress (without sacrificing oneself to society). In the case of A. Schweitzer and J. Sheehan was influenced primarily by his personal heroic behavior, as well as by public speeches and philosophical texts that received worldwide recognition.

6. The ethical and humanistic views of A. Schweitzer and J. Shihana, meeting the spiritual demands of society and finding a wide response, after their death provided these thinkers with a transition from glorification of their personalities to reverence akin to religious, as well as an increasing number of adherents. The ideological legacy of A. Schweitzer has grown to an unlimited "ethics of the far" as a concern for the preservation of life in general, in all its diversity ("environmental ethics", "ecological humanism"). One of the social forces actively affirming the complex of his ideas associated with reverence for life, humanism and ethical progress is the running community, and not the least role in this was played by the philosophical equipment of the doctrine of holistic personality-developing amateur running, provided by the works of J. Sheehan.

7. The life-affirming nature of running activity is manifested in the fact that mass competitions of amateur stayers are often charitable in nature, aimed at raising funds to help sick people, taking care of animals, preventing abortions, solving environmental and social problems. Running competitions are associated with the absence of violence; running was an important element of the cheerful folk carnival culture; modern multi-thousand marathons unite people of different cultures with a common runner's identity. The humanistic orientation of running practices has a very wide range – from the factor of anthropogenesis, which ensured the survival and development of mankind in the early stages of its history, to modern applications with recreational, healing, personal development, political and sports goals. In the context of the ethical progress of society, running as a social practice can be considered as a sphere of affirmation of values such as democracy, equality, individualism, honesty, the positive significance of human physicality and heroism without violence against rivals.