ETHICS and MORALITY Basic Ethical Concepts
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Retracing Augustine's Ethics: Lying, Necessity, and the Image Of
Valparaiso University ValpoScholar Christ College Faculty Publications Christ College (Honors College) 12-1-2016 Retracing Augustine’s Ethics: Lying, Necessity, and the Image of God Matthew Puffer Valparaiso University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/cc_fac_pub Recommended Citation Puffer, M. (2016). "Retracing Augustine’s ethics: Lying, necessity, and the image of God." Journal of Religious Ethics, 44(4), 685–720. https://doi.org/10.1111/jore.12159 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Christ College (Honors College) at ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Christ College Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at [email protected]. RETRACING AUGUSTINE’S ETHICS Lying, Necessity, and the Image of God Matthew Puffer ABSTRACT Augustine’s exposition of the image of God in Book 15 of On The Trinity (De Trinitate) sheds light on multiple issues that arise in scholarly interpretations of Augustine’s account of lying. This essay argues against interpretations that pos- it a uniform account of lying in Augustine—with the same constitutive features, and insisting both that it is never necessary to tell a lie and that lying is abso- lutely prohibited. Such interpretations regularly employ intertextual reading strategies that elide distinctions and developments in Augustine’sethicsoflying. Instead, I show how looking at texts written prior and subsequent to the texts usually consulted suggests a trajectory in Augustine’s thought, beginning with an understanding of lies as morally culpable but potentially necessary, and cul- minating in a vision of lying as the fundamental evil and the origin of every sin. -
Thinking, Relating and Choosing: Resolving the Issue of Faith, Ethics and the Existential Responsibility of the Individual
Indo-Pacific Journal of Phenomenology, Volume 9, Edition 2 October 2009 Page 1 of 5 Personal Reflection Thinking, Relating and Choosing: Resolving the Issue of Faith, Ethics and the Existential Responsibility of the Individual by Neil Alan Soggie Abstract Which is worse: Doing evil or being evil? If we are free to define ourselves through our choices, as existentialism posits, then the latter is worse. This paper attempts to resolve the issue of the difference between religious (group) ethics and the ethics of a person of faith that embraces individuals with an existential understanding. In the existential view, the individual (whether the self or the other) is the primary concern, and so the issue of personal relational morality supersedes religious narratives, social morality and popular ethics (White, 2002). If we think and choose, there is the possibility that we may occasionally make a mistake and do evil. However, if we do not think about our choices, and if the conventions we hold happen to be flawed in some way, then we become defined by a continual cycle of mistakes. Existentialism teaches that we become who we are in the process of making choices; therefore the difference between doing evil and being evil can be found in the small but important flow of thinking, relating and choosing. I was visiting with friends recently, and their In fact, it has been my experience that many people observations and comments sparked angst within my who embrace existentialism (in one form or another) soul. For this reason, I am writing on this topic of the are people of faith (Evans, 1995; Tillich, 1990; Wong, ethical life, whatever that may mean, and in so far as 1989; Wong & Fry, 1998). -
Bad Is Stronger Than Good
Review of General Psychology Copyright 2001 by the Educational Publishing Foundation 2001. Vol. 5. No. 4. 323-370 1089-2680/O1/S5.O0 DOI: 10.1037//1089-2680.5.4.323 Bad Is Stronger Than Good Roy F. Baumeister and Ellen Bratslavsky Catrin Finkenauer Case Western Reserve University Free University of Amsterdam Kathleen D. Vohs Case Western Reserve University The greater power of bad events over good ones is found in everyday events, major life events (e.g., trauma), close relationship outcomes, social network patterns, interper- sonal interactions, and learning processes. Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones. Various explanations such as diagnosticity and sa- lience help explain some findings, but the greater power of bad events is still found when such variables are controlled. Hardly any exceptions (indicating greater power of good) can be found. Taken together, these findings suggest that bad is stronger than good, as a general principle across a broad range of psychological phenomena. Centuries of literary efforts and religious pothesis that bad is stronger than good (see also thought have depicted human life in terms of a Rozin & Royzman, in press). That is, events struggle between good and bad forces. At the that are negatively valenced (e.g., losing metaphysical level, evil gods or devils are the money, being abandoned by friends, and receiv- opponents of the divine forces of creation and ing criticism) will have a greater impact on the harmony. -
War Rights and Military Virtues: a Philosophical Re-Appraisal of Just War Theory
The University of Notre Dame Australia ResearchOnline@ND Theses 2014 War rights and military virtues: A philosophical re-appraisal of Just War Theory Matthew T. Beard University of Notre Dame Australia Follow this and additional works at: https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses Part of the Philosophy Commons COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Copyright Regulations 1969 WARNING The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further copying or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Publication Details Beard, M. T. (2014). War rights and military virtues: A philosophical re-appraisal of Just War Theory (Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)). University of Notre Dame Australia. https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses/96 This dissertation/thesis is brought to you by ResearchOnline@ND. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of ResearchOnline@ND. For more information, please contact [email protected]. War Rights and Military Virtues A Philosophical Re-appraisal of Just War Theory Doctoral Thesis Prepared by Matthew T. Beard School of Philosophy and Theology University of Notre Dame, Australia Supervised by Christian Enemark and Hayden Ramsay Supported by The Morris Research Scholarship Declaration I, Matthew Thomas Beard, declare that this PhD thesis, entitled War Rights and Military Virtues: A Philosophical Re-appraisal of Just War Theory is no more than 100,000 words exclusive of title pages, table of contents, acknowledgements, list of figures, reference list, and footnotes. The thesis is my own original work, prepared for the specific and unique purposes of this academic degree and has not been submitted in whole or part for the awarding of any other academic degree at any institution. -
War and Morality
WAR AND MORALITY Political Science 371, Spring 2019 Portland State University David Kinsella Department of Political Science Office: Urban Center Building, room 650L 503.725.3035 | [email protected] Office Hours: Monday & Wednesday 11:30-12:30 Description When states or other human groupings abandon less primitive means of resolving their conflicts, they resort to war. Although many wars have been terribly bloody and destructive, history provides relatively few examples of wars of total annihilation. Rather, for reasons involving both self-interest and ethical conviction, political leaders and warriors have often observed limits in their resort to war and the conduct of battle. This course examines the historical, moral, and legal foundations of these limits, and their enduring relevance despite ongoing changes in world politics and the transformation of modern warfare. Although we consider alternative perspectives, the course focuses primarily on the just war tradition, major elements of which are reflected in international law governing the legitimate resort to force and proper conduct during wartime. Topics include aggression and self-defense, genocide, humanitarian intervention, nuclear deterrence, noncombatant immunity, terrorism, treatment of prisoners, torture, and prosecution of war crimes. Discussion of these topics is informed by contemporary just war thinking as well as classical political and moral philosophy. Learning Objectives The general objective of this course is to develop the student's capacity to examine and judge -
DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS in the SUDAN: an EXAMPLE by TORENORD~NSTAM
DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS IN THE SUDAN: AN EXAMPLE by TORENORD~NSTAM The study of ethical beliefs in the Sudan is a fascinating and more or less unexplored field of research. The purpose of this paper is to give an introductory survey of some of the problems and possible lines of research \vithin this field. I shall first give a general outline of the nature of descriptive ethics, as I see it, then I shall highlight somc of the problems in the field by discussing onc particulnr exainple. Finally, I shall bricfly indicate why research of this nature is of speci~il importance in a developing country like the Sudan. The field of descriptive ethics Descriptive ethics can be defined as the description and analysis of the ethics of individuals and groups. Such a brief definition will introduce the nature of the field, but it certainly stands in need of further explanation. This applies partie- ularly to the key word in the definition, the term "ethics," which can be used in a variety of ways with more or less clear meanings. 1 propose to take the term "ethics" in a wide sense so that any view about what is right and wrong, good and bad, praiseworthy and blame~vorthywill count as a inoral vieu.. An individual's ethics is, then, the system comprising all his values and ideals, all his opinions about right and wrong conduct, all his beliefs about deserts and punishment, responsibility and free will, and so on. In short, an individual's ethics. in this sense, consists of his ideal of life: it is the sum total of his personality ideals, his social ideals, his political ideals, Iiis economic ideals, and so forth. -
Works on Giambattista Vico in English from 1884 Through 2009
Works on Giambattista Vico in English from 1884 through 2009 COMPILED BY MOLLY BLA C K VERENE TABLE OF CON T EN T S PART I. Books A. Monographs . .84 B. Collected Volumes . 98 C. Dissertations and Theses . 111 D. Journals......................................116 PART II. Essays A. Articles, Chapters, et cetera . 120 B. Entries in Reference Works . 177 C. Reviews and Abstracts of Works in Other Languages ..180 PART III. Translations A. English Translations ............................186 B. Reviews of Translations in Other Languages.........192 PART IV. Citations...................................195 APPENDIX. Bibliographies . .302 83 84 NEW VICO STUDIE S 27 (2009) PART I. BOOKS A. Monographs Adams, Henry Packwood. The Life and Writings of Giambattista Vico. London: Allen and Unwin, 1935; reprinted New York: Russell and Russell, 1970. REV I EWS : Gianturco, Elio. Italica 13 (1936): 132. Jessop, T. E. Philosophy 11 (1936): 216–18. Albano, Maeve Edith. Vico and Providence. Emory Vico Studies no. 1. Series ed. D. P. Verene. New York: Peter Lang, 1986. REV I EWS : Daniel, Stephen H. The Eighteenth Century: A Current Bibliography, n.s. 12 (1986): 148–49. Munzel, G. F. New Vico Studies 5 (1987): 173–75. Simon, L. Canadian Philosophical Reviews 8 (1988): 335–37. Avis, Paul. The Foundations of Modern Historical Thought: From Machiavelli to Vico. Beckenham (London): Croom Helm, 1986. REV I EWS : Goldie, M. History 72 (1987): 84–85. Haddock, Bruce A. New Vico Studies 5 (1987): 185–86. Bedani, Gino L. C. Vico Revisited: Orthodoxy, Naturalism and Science in the ‘Scienza nuova.’ Oxford: Berg, 1989. REV I EWS : Costa, Gustavo. New Vico Studies 8 (1990): 90–92. -
Evil in the Personal Experience of St. Augustine
RUCH FILOZOFICZNY LXXVI 2020 2 Agnieszka Biegalska University of Warmia and Mazury, Olsztyn, Poland ORCID: 0000-0002-5653-9684 e-mail: [email protected] DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/RF.2020.024 Our heart is restless until it rests in you. St. Augustine, Confessions* Evil in the Personal Experience of St. Augustine The most disturbing issue that permeates all of St. Augustine’s work is the question of the existence of evil, experiencing it and inflicting it. Giovanni Papini claims that Augustine, “before he found himself in finding God, […] had to exhaust the experience of evil to the very depths”.1 This remark redirects our thinking about Augustine’s under- standing of evil from the field of theoretical considerations to the realm of his personal experience of evil, where his philosophical and theologi- cal thought seems to be rooted. For many years, Augustine experienced evil and inflicted it himself. In the Confessions we read: “our life was one of being seduced and seducing, being deceived and deceiving, in a vari- ety of desires. Publicly I was a teacher of the arts which they call liberal; privately I professed a false religion – in the former role arrogant, in the latter superstitious, in everything vain”.2 A sense of persistence in false- hood and iniquity, noticed by Augustine quite late, a few years before his death in 430 (if one can consider his Confessions as a testimony to this important moment) and his desire to know the truth about himself, * Saint Augustine, Confessions, transl. with an introduction and notes by Henry Chadwick (USA: Oxford University Press, 1991), 1, i (1). -
A Priori Rules: Wittgenstein on the Normativity of Logic
A Priori Rules: Wittgenstein on the Normativity of Logic Peter Railton The University of Michigan Introduction Like many, I have long been uneasy with the category of the a priori. Perhaps I have simply misunderstood it. It has seemed to me, at any rate, that asserting a claim or principle as a priori is tantamount to claiming that we would be justified in ruling out alternatives in advance, no matter what the future course of experience might hold. Yet in my own case, I have felt it would be mere bluffing were I to lodge such a claim. I certainly could not discover in myself any sense of the requisite authority, nor even any clear idea of where to look for guidance in forming it. Contemplating widely-used examples of "propositions true a priori" did not remove my worry. For a start, there was the shadow of history. A claim like "logical truth is a priori" or "the attribution of rationality is a priori in intentional explanation" kept sounding, to my ears, as if they echoed "the Euclidean geometry of space is a priori" or "the principle of sufficient reason is a priori in physical explanation". And these echoes awakened just sort of the worry that had initially unsettled me: I would pronouce myself satisfied that certain claims, at least, were safe from the threat of contrary experience, just on the eve of developments in our on-going view of the world that would lead a sensible person to want to reopen the question. So I would emerge looking like the (perhaps apocryphal) fellow who claimed, in the wake of the great inventions of the nineteenth century, that the US Patent Office could now be closed, since all the really new ideas had been used up. -
The Appeal of a Good Conscience 21Baptism, Which Corresponds To
The Appeal of a Good Conscience 21Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. 1 Peter 3:21-22. Peter says that the physical act of baptism does not save a person, but like eight souls were saved through water in the ark, baptism saves in the same way. If it is not the act what is it? I believe verse 22 tells us the secret. Jesus is at the right hand of the Father in heaven with angels and authorities and powers in subjection to him obeying what He says. He’s the one who commanded baptism for the remission of sins in Mark 16:15-16. Therefore, baptism is the appeal commanded by Jesus who is now Lord of lords and King of kings. When a person obeys Jesus in his baptism. God responds with salvation for that person’s good conscience in his or her obedience. Ananias said to Saul who was to become Paul, “Why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on His name” (Acts 22:16). Ananias was speaking of Jesus who commanded that men be baptized as an appeal for salvation. It is calling on Jesus to save us because He said do it and a Christian has become subject to the Lordship of Jesus. -
Post-Continental Philosophy: Its Definition, Contours, and Fundamental Sources
Post-continental Philosophy: Its Definition, Contours, and Fundamental Sources NELSON MALDONADO-TORRES It is no accident that the global geographical framework in use today is essentially a cartographic celebration of European power. After centuries of imperialism, the presumptions of a worldview of a once-dominant metropole has become part of the intellectual furniture of the world…. Metageography matters, and the attempt to engage it critically has only begun. Martin W. Lewis and Kären W. Wigen, The Myth of Continents.1 or several decades now the contours of legitimate philosophy have been drawn by advocates of F so-called analytic and continental philosophies. Analytic philosophy is often referred to as a style of thinking centered on the question of whether something is true, rather than, as continental philosophy, on the multiple factors that constitute meaning.2 Analytic philosophy is also said to be closer to the sciences, while continental philosophy has more affinity with the humanities.3 One of the reasons for this lies in that while analytic philosophy tends to dismiss history from its reflections, continental philosophy typically emphasizes the relevance of time, tradition, lived experience, and/or social context. Fortunately, this situation is slowly but gradually changing today. A variety of intellectuals are defying the rigid boundaries of these fields. Some of the most notable are Afro- American, Afro-Caribbean, and Latina/o scholars using the arsenal of these bodies of thought to analyze and interpret problems related to colonialism, racism, and sexism in the contemporary world.4 These challenges demand a critical analysis of the possibilities and limits of change within the main coordinates of these different styles or forms of philosophizing. -
Rosalind Hursthouse, on Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999
Rosalind Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. x, 275. Reviewed by Gilbert Harman, Department of Philosophy, Princeton Univer- sity Virtue ethics is atype of ethicaltheory in which the notion of virtue or good character plays a central role. This splendid new book describes a “program” for the development of a particular (“Aristotelian”) form of virtue ethics. The book is intended to be used as a textbook, but should be read by anyone interested in moral philosophy. Hursthouse has been a major contributor to the development of virtue ethics and the program she describes, while making use of the many contributions of others, is very much her program, with numerous new ideas and insights. The book has three parts. The first dispels common misunderstandings and explains how virtue ethics applies to complex moral issues. The sec- ond discusses moral motivation, especially the motivation involved in doing something because it is right. The third explains how questions about the objectivity of ethics are to be approached within virtue ethics. Structure Hursthouse’s virtue ethics takes as central the conception of a human be- ing who possesses all ethical virtues of character and no vices or defects of character—”human being” rather than “person” because the relevant char- acter traits are “natural” to the species. To a first approximation, virtue ethics says that a right action is an action among those available that a perfectly virtuous human being would charac- teristically do under the circumstances. This is only a first approximation because of complications required in order accurately to describe certain moral dilemmas.