Connectedness: A Transformative Feeling and Spiritual Virtue

Abstract

This paper develops an account of one trait involved in living the spiritual life well and argues that this trait can be recognized by both the religious and non-religious as a virtue. The virtue, which I call “spiritual excellence,” involves making skilled use of a worldview for which one has ambiguous evidence or better in order to cultivate transformative experiences of connectedness. I begin by describing the experience of connectedness and considering its value. Taking my cue from recent psychological research on awe and related phenomena, I explain how connectedness relates to other experiences, including mystical experiences of ego dissolution and I consider its potential instrumental and non-instrumental values. I then consider the relationship between religion and spirituality and experiences of connectedness. I explain how religious worldviews provide fertile resources for cultivating experiences of connectedness, although non-religious worldviews can also serve this role. I develop my account of spiritual excellence in detail, showing how the account attractively integrates various features included in other leading accounts of what is involved in living the spiritual life well, and responding to objections to thinking that what the account identifies is a virtue.