Christian Realism and Immigration Reform Victor C
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
The Christian Realist Perspective: the Political Theology of Augustine
The Christian Realist Perspective: The Political Theology of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Reinhold Niebuhr Tsoncho Tsonchev A Thesis in The Department of Theological Studies Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Arts (Theological Studies) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada July 2015 © Tsoncho Tsonchev, 2015 ABSTRACT The Christian Realist Perspective: The Political Theology of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Reinhold Niebuhr Tsoncho Tsonchev Christian political theology deals with the problems of the ultimate questions: the existence of God and the application of His law in the realm of human relations. Through exploring the political theology of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Reinhold Niebuhr, this study discusses the great issues of war and peace, the character of human nature, the necessity of political responsibility, the importance of moral choices, the functions of authority, and the meaning of history and progress. It argues that Christian realism withstands the serious critiques leveled against it, provided that the complementary strengths and weaknesses of these three figures is taken into account. iii Acknowledgements I would not have been able to write this work, if I had not had the opportunity to benefit from the knowledge and erudition of the scholars at Concordia University Department of Theological Studies. In the past three years, their open to discussion and debate seminars introduced me to the great works of religious thought and gave me the audacity to express my views. The people who helped me most in this rewarding intellectual journey are Dr Jean-Michel Roessli, Dr Christine Jamieson, Dr Marie-France Dion, Dr Paul Allen, and Dr Lucian Turcescu. -
1 Moral Realism Geoffrey Sayre-Mccord UNC/Chapel Hill
Moral Realism facts that peoples’ moral judgments are true or false, and that the facts being what they are (and so the judgments being true, when they are) is not merely a Geoffrey Sayre-McCord reflection of our thinking the facts are one way or another. That is, moral facts UNC/Chapel Hill are what they are even when we see them incorrectly or not at all. Introduction Moral realists thus all share the view that there are moral facts in light of People come, early and easily, to think in moral terms: to see many things which our moral judgments prove to be true or false. Yet they needn’t, and as good or bad, to view various options as right or wrong, to think of particular don’t, all share any particular view about what those facts are, and they might distributions as fair or unfair, to consider certain people virtuous and others well not be confident of any view at all. When it comes to moral matters, there vicious.[1] What they think, when they are thinking in these terms, often has a is no less disagreement among realists than among people at large and no large impact on their decisions and actions as well as on their responses to what incompatibility between being a realist and thinking oneself not in a good others do. People forego attractive possibilities when they think pursuing them position to know what the facts are. would be wrong, they push themselves to face death if they think it their duty, Furthermore, being a realist is compatible with holding a truly radical view they go to trouble to raise their kids to be virtuous, and they pursue things they of the moral facts. -
Saving Moral Realism: Against Blackburn's Projectivism
City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 5-2015 Saving Moral Realism: Against Blackburn's Projectivism Paul James Cummins Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/895 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] SAVING MORAL REALISM: AGAINST BLACKBURN’S PROJECTIVISM BY PAUL J. CUMMINS A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2015 © 2015 Paul J. Cummins All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted by the Graduate Faculty in Philosophy in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. David M. Rosenthal (Date) Chair of Examining Committee John Greenwood (Date) Executive Officer Steven M. Cahn Stefan Baumrin Rosamond Rhodes Supervisory Committee The City University of New York iii Abstract SAVING MORAL REALISM: AGAINST BLACKBURN’S PROJECTIVISM by Paul J. Cummins Adviser: Professor Steven M. Cahn In the argumentative dialectic between moral realists and non-cognitivist moral antirealists each side in the debate is typically thought to enjoy a different prima facie advantage over its rival. Moral realism gains plausibility from its truth-conditional semantics because it can explain the meaning of moral judgments on the same basis as ordinary propositions. -
When the Kingdom of God Became the Kingdom of Ends: Altruism’S Development Into a Normative Ideal
When the Kingdom of God Became the Kingdom of Ends: Altruism’s Development into a Normative Ideal A Senior Honor Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with distinction in Political Science in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences by Benjamin T. Jones The Ohio State University December 10, 2006 Project Advisors: John M. Parrish, Department of Political Science (Loyola Marymount University) Michael A. Neblo, Department of Political Science (The Ohio State University) Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iii Introduction 1 The Paradox at the Heart of Altruism 4 Defining Altruism and Normativity 6 What Are We Looking For? 11 Roadmap of What’s to Come 14 Part I Towards a Problem: The Ancient Debate over Public Life 17 Eudaimonia and Ancient Ethics 18 Plato and Aristotle 24 Epicurus and the Stoics 40 A Solution from an Unlikely Source 47 Augustine’s Reconciliation of the Two Cities 55 Conclusion 63 Part II Self-Love’s Fall from Grace: How Normative Altruism Developed out of the Augustinian Tradition 65 Entangled in Self-love: Augustine’s Normative Argument 67 Augustine Goes Secular 75 Kant’s Problematic Solution 83 Reworking Kant—And Altruism 89 Conclusion 91 Part III The Problems with Normative Altruism 93 Two Conceptions of Altruism 93 Evidence for Altruism on a Descriptive Level 95 Motivational Barriers to Normative Altruism 113 Changing the Way We Talk About Altruism 121 Conclusion 126 Bibliography 131 i Abstract In contemporary moral philosophy, altruism holds a place of prominence. Although a complex idea, the term seeps into everyday discourse, by no means confined to the esoteric language of philosophers and psychologists. -
The Politics of the Cross: the Theology and Social Ethics of John Howard Yoder
3377 Bayview Avenue TEL: Toronto, ON 416.226.6620 TYNDALE M2M 3S4 www.tyndale.ca UNIVERSITY Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Carter, Craig A. The Politics of the Cross: The Theology and Social Ethics of John Howard Yoder. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos Press, 2001. The Politics of THE Cross The Theology and Social Ethics of John Howard Yoder Craig A. Carter Brazos Press A Division of Baker Book House Co Grand Rapids, Michigan 49516 © 2001 by Craig A. Carter Published by Brazos Press a division of Baker Book House Company P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval sys tem, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copy right © 1973,1978,1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Scripture marked as “Phillips” is taken from The New Testament in Modern English. Copy right © by J. B. Philips 1996. Used by permission of Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carter, Craig A. -
From Neural 'Is' to Moral 'Ought'
PERSPECTIVES 34. Churchland, P. S. Brain-wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy Acknowledgements usual Humean and Moorean reasons. (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002). I thank P. M. Churchland and P. S. Churchland for their close 35. Churchland, P. M. Towards a cognitive neurobiology of reading of the manuscript and invaluable advice about its struc- Contemporary proponents of naturalized the moral virtues. Topoi 17, 83–96 (1998). ture and content. In addition, J. Greene’s sceptical remarks were ethics are aware of these objections, but in my 36. Wallis, J. D., Anderson, K. C. & Miller, E. K. Single extremely helpful. J. Moll also provided useful preprints of his neurons in prefrontal cortex encode abstract rules. team’s work in this area. opinion their theories do not adequately meet Nature 411, 953–956 (2001). them. Casebeer, for example, examines recent 37. Casebeer, W. D. & Churchland, P. S. The neural mechanisms of moral cognition: a multiple-aspect Online links work in neuroscientific moral psychology and approach to moral judgment and decision-making. Biol. finds that actual moral decision-making looks Philos. 18, 169–194 (2003). FURTHER INFORMATION 8 38. Moreno, J. D. Neuroethics: an agenda for neuroscience MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences: more like what Aristotle recommends and and society. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 4, 149–153 (2003). http://cognet.mit.edu/MITECS/ less like what Kant9 and Mill10 recommend. 39. Cacioppo, J. T. et al. (eds) Foundations in Social Neuro- limbic system | moral psychology | social cognition | theory of science (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002). mind From this he concludes that the available 40. Rachels, J. -
Toward a Better World: LBJ, Niebuhr, and American Human Rights, 1964-1966
Toward a Better World: LBJ, Niebuhr, and American Human Rights, 1964-1966 JARED MICHAEL PHILLIPS In the fall of 1964, President Lyndon Baines Johnson had his first op- portunity to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Among those he choose to recognize was the scholar, activist, and theologian Re- inhold Niebuhr. Although the gruff and profane Johnson would ap- pear to have little in common with the cerebral pastor turned theologian, the President employed the teachings of Niebuhr to for- mulate and articulate his attempts to remake both the nation—War on Poverty and Civil Rights legislation—and the world—making hu- man rights the cornerstone of American foreign policy. Niebuhr’s Christian realism influenced policy makers and presidents for nearly thirty years, but it found its most forceful practitioner in Johnson, who praised Niebuhr for invoking the “ancient insights of Christian- ity to illuminate the experience and fortify the will of the modern age.”1 By clasping to the pragmatic Christian realism articulated by Nie- buhr, Johnson set out to establish social justice for America and then the world. The President’s consistent call for the reformation of so- ciety helped refocus liberal America’s mindset toward the beginning of a credible human rights policy, both at home and abroad. Presi- dent Johnson had politically come of age as Niebuhr’s influence was 1 “Remarks at the Presentation of the 1964 Presidential Medal of Freedom Awards,” September 14, 1964, Public Papers of the Presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson [hereinafter cites as PPLBJ] (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), 2:1065. Jared Michael Phillips is a graduate student at the University of Arkansas. -
Natural Law and Christian Realism Thomas C. Berg*
Draft Sept. 8, 2005. © Thomas C. Berg John Courtney Murray and Reinhold Niebuhr: Natural Law and Christian Realism Thomas C. Berg* During the two decades after World War II, the cover of Time magazine twice featured Christian academic theologians. As you may know, framed prints of the Time cover paintings are now available for purchase online, and some are quite striking pieces of art. On the cover of the March 8, 1948 issue, Protestant ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr gazes sharply across a dark, cloudswept landscape with a small cross radiating light on a bleak hill in the background.1 The picture, captioned “Man’s story is not a success story,” dramatically captures Niebuhr’s “Christian realist” vision of human beings beckoned by the ideals of Christlike love, but beset by pride and a host of other sins in the very course of pursuing those ideals in society. Twelve years later, on Dec. 12, 1960, in the wake of the election of America’s first Catholic president, the cover on “U.S. Catholics and the State” portrayed John Courtney Murray, S.J., in front of the title page of a classic sixteenth-century theological treatise by Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine.2 The illustration no doubt aimed to reflect the claim in Murray’s newly-published collection of essays, We Hold These Truths, that America’s public philosophy necessarily rested on a set of natural-law principles nurtured and sustained to a large extent by the Catholic tradition – and that therefore Catholicism was not just compatible with the American project but essential to it.3 As their appearances on Time’s covers suggest, from World War II through the mid-1960s Murray and Niebuhr were America’s most prominent Christian theologians concerning the relation between religion and public life. -
David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and the Possibility of an Inclusive Moral Dialogue
[Intellectual History Archive 7, 2018] Comez, Inclusive moral dialogue DAVID HUME, IMMANUEL KANT, AND THE POSSIBILITY OF AN INCLUSIVE MORAL DIALOGUE Çağlar Çömez1 Boğaziçi University I. Introduction Immanuel Kant and David Hume developed moral theories that diverged from each other in many respects. Hume famously claimed that reason is the slave of passions and it cannot provide a motive for the human will to attain an end. Kant explicitly rejected this claim and equally famously argued that pure reason by itself can be practical and determine the will independently of our passions. Besides the power reason has to determine the will, the two philosophers also disagreed about the nature of moral judgment. Hume believed that our moral judgments arise from feelings of approbation and disapproval. According to him, when a moral agent reflects on an action, she develops certain sentiments about the moral value of the action and makes a moral judgment. Kant, however, believed that because there is a moral law we can appeal to regardless of our inclinations in order to identify the moral value of an action, we can make moral judgments that do not reflect our sentiments. My first main aim in this paper is to show that Hume’s anti-rationalist sentimentalist account of moral judgment faces an important problem. Hume’s account leads us to a point where a moral dialogue in which moral agents with conflicting sentiments about a morally significant situation can be included is impossible. I argue that Hume’s sentiment-based theory of moral judgment fails to lay the basis for an inclusive moral dialogue for moral agents who do not share the same set of sentiments with respect to a moral issue due to differences about the social contexts of their upbringing and education. -
Christian Realism and the Rise of Islamic Fascism
O 2 0 0 7 L ect U re S eries N . 02 THE GHOSTS OF APPEASEMENT CHRISTIAN REALISM AND THE RISE OF ISLAMIC FASCISM BY JosePH loconte THE JOHN JAY INStitUTE FOR FAitH, SOCIETY & LAW LECTURE SERIes “To see things as they are, to estimate them aright, and to act accordingly, is to be wise.” John Jay AN INTRODUCTION Among the principal founders of the American republic, John Jay was arguably the most religious and socially conservative. His life and public service bear witness to a man motivated and animated by an ethic of neighbor-love. Evidence of his selfless dedication and duty to his country is demonstrated by his continuous public service from his entry into national politics at the First Continental Congress in 1774 to his retirement from public life in 1801. Jay’s resumé includes service as a Member of Congress, Chief Justice of New York, President of the 2nd Continental Congress, Minister to Spain, Peace Commissioner, Foreign Secretary of the Congress, Chief Justice of the United States, Special Diplomatic Envoy to Great Britain, and Governor of New York. [ the john jay institute ] 01 Jay’s public service however, did not end with government service. Throughout his career and to the end of his life he was active in many religious, moral, and charitable causes including: the abolition of slavery, the reorganization of the Anglican Church in America, and the distribution of Bibles throughout the world by the American Bible Society. The John Jay Institute for Faith, Society & Law was founded to foster and perpetuate the legacy of its namesake by developing leaders like Jay for the future. -
Moral Realism in Spinoza's Ethics
Moral Realism in Spinoza’s Ethics Colin Marshall University of Washington One of Spinoza’s apparent goals in the Ethics is to revise commonsense morality. This raises a question: do Spinoza’s revisions show that he thought morality was somehow unreal? In this chapter I argue that, despite his revisionism, Spinoza's metaethical views in the Ethics are a form of moral realism, even though they contain anti-realist elements.1 In so arguing, I hope to bring Spinoza’s commentators and contemporary metaethicists into better conversation with each other. The terms “moral realism” and “moral anti-realism” entered the standard philosophical vocabulary only in the late 20th century, and many interpretive issues about Spinoza can be adequately discussed without using any contemporary metaethical categories. I hope to show, however, that attempting to classify Spinoza metaethically both raises important interpretive questions and shows that Spinoza’s views bear on various general metaethical issues. Many commentators, I believe, could benefit from closer attention to the details of contemporary metaethics, but contemporary metaethicists could also benefit from closer attention to the complexities of Spinoza's metaethics. Metaethicists use the moral realism/anti-realist distinction to characterize a debate that supposedly goes back at least to Plato. I begin, therefore, by discussing the contemporary understanding of that distinction (§1), which has received limited attention from Spinoza scholars. I then survey common reasons for anti-realist readings of Spinoza (§2), before describing the moral realist elements of his views (§3). I then consider the metaethical significance of his revisionism (§4), and conclude by saying why, all things considered, Spinoza is best classified as a moral realist (§5). -
Moral Realism and Arbitrariness Moral Realism Is Extremely Attractive. It
Moral Realism and Arbitrariness (published in Southern Journal of Philosophy 43 (1):109-129 (2005); http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.2041-6962.2005.tb01946.x) Moral realism is extremely attractive. It seems to capture several of our important moral intuitions. It provides for the cognitivism which seems implicit in most commonsense moral discourse. It allows for genuine moral disagreement. Perhaps its most attractive feature is that it appears to offer us a way for us to say that (e.g.) the Nazis were objectively wrong - not just from our culture's perspective, or because of typical human emotional responses, but truly wrong. They are out of accord with the facts of the world. We can show them that they are wrong, and that if they came to understand the universe properly they would see that their actions are immoral and, further, that this gives them reason to stop performing them. They would be just as mistaken as if they declared that 2+2=5, that water is HCL, or that whales have gills. In this paper I argue that the appeal of moral realism, particularly with respect to this last virtue, is largely illusory. I focus on moral realism, but intend the arguments raised to apply equally to other normative realisms. I argue (i) that choosing to abide by such normative facts would be as arbitrary as choosing to abide by the mere preferences of a God (a difficulty akin to the Euthyphro dilemma raised for divine command theorists); in both cases we would lack reason to prefer these standards to alternative codes of conduct.