Ancient Greece provided the setting for the first detailed, recorded hypotheses about the causes of human activity. In the search for first principles of life, tentative explanations included: The naturalistic orientation of the Ionian physicists Democritus, Heraclitus, and Parmenides looked to some basic physical element in nature as this first principle. A biological orientation, developed by Alcmaeon, Hippocrates, and Empedocles, held that bodily physiology is the key. Pythagoras held that life is transcendent of the material world and found in the essential coherence of mathematical relationships. The Sophists posited a pragmatic orientation that denied the value of trying to seek out first principles, relying instead on observations of life as it is lived. Finally, Anaxagoras and Socrates, rejecting the Sophists, proposed the existence of a soul that defines humanity. This humanistic orientation developed the notion of the spiritual soul that possesses the unique human capabilities of the intellect and the will. The soul was elaborated as the central element in the interpretation of life offered by Plato and Aristotle. By the end of the Greek era the critical themes and issues of psychology as well as the methodological approaches were well identified and structured.

This first chapter introduces the connection of music to wellness as we age. It underscores that music is a pervasive influence, found in all cultures, and embodies the heart and soul of a people. We describe a well society, and discuss how music may be beneficial to both the person and society. Further, we establish the phenomenological-humanistic orientation of music, wellness, and aging. This approach recognizes social connection as a basic need, and self-actualization as an essential human motivation. Self-actualization refers to a need for personal growth, where there is the expression and fulfillment of the upper limits of one’s abilities, talents and greatest possibilities, and the essence of who we are that is reflected in creative activities such as music. We further note that the process of self-actualization is central aspect of our well-being throughout the life course.

In this chapter, I demonstrate the problem to which the rest of this book proposes a solution: namely, the need for more careful deontic reasoning. I will focus on certain distinctive habits of reasoning that have often recurred in ICL, which have a tendency to undermine compliance with deontic principles.

All legal systems sometimes generate doctrines that appear to conflict with stated principles. However, in national systems, the clash tends to be openly between liberal principles and ‘law and order’ considerations. I argue that ICL discourse often features an additional and interesting dynamic. In ICL, the distortions often result from habits of reasoning that are progressive and appropriate in human rights law and humanitarian law, but which become problematic when transplanted without adequate reflection to a criminal law system. I highlight three kinds of such reasoning: interpretive assumptions, substantive and structural assumptions, and ideological assumptions. These habits of reasoning were more prevalent in the early days of the renaissance of ICL than they are today. It is still valuable to discern and dissect these habits of reasoning, because their legacy continues, because they still recur today, and because they help show the value of attending to reasoning.