Jürgen Habermas’ Zugehen auf die Religion ist wohl das prominenteste Beispiel einer auch aktuell in der Philosophie häufig zu findenden Tendenz, eine affirmative Haltung zur Religion und den durch sie vertretenen Ansprüchen und Konzepten einzunehmen. Entscheidend ist dabei diejenige Haltung zu religiösen Wahrheitsansprüchen, die Habermas bisweilen als „nachmetaphysisch“, vor allem aber als „agnostisch“ bezeichnet. Dabei nimmt der Agnostizismus, wie sich am Beispiel Habermas’ exemplarisch zeigen lässt, ein Modell religiöser Erfahrung an, das dieser eine Sonderstellung zuweist – und das den Geltungs- (...) und Wahrheitsansprüchen der Religion und ihrer Vertreter nicht gerecht wird. Darüber hinaus ist zu prüfen, ob es philosophisch tragfähig ist. Denn dieses Modell kommt nicht ohne die implizite Annahme einer exklusiven Quelle religiöser Erfahrung, verschieden von Sinnlichkeit und Vernunft, aus – ohne gute Gründe für die Anerkennung oder auch nur Annahme einer solchen Quelle angeben zu können.Jürgen Habermas’s approach to religion is likely to be the most prominent example of a general tendency in current philosophy, which tends to an affirmative attitude towards religion and its claims on truth and validity. An attitude which Habermas sometimes calls “postmetaphysical” but primarly terms “agnostic” is thereby crucial to this position. As can be exemplified by Habermas’s arguments, agnosticism assumes a concept of religious experience which assigns to it an exceptional position in human life – and which, however, does not take the claims of truth and validity of religion and its agents at face value. Moreover, it is questionable if it presents a philosophically satisfactory account of religious experience. For this concept has to presume an exclusive source of religious experience, different from sense and reason – whereas it lacks the ability to present good reasons for its acknowledgement or even its assumption. (shrink)

Vor allem die philosophische Religionskritik fokussiert sich zu oft auf die Kritik an der Annahme der Existenz Gottes. Dabei gerät aus dem Blick, dass Religionen nicht allein in Überzeugungen bestehen, sondern komplexe soziale Praktiken darstellen, die das Leben ihrer Gläubigen strukturieren, orientieren, stabilisieren und/oder irritieren. Die hier versammelten Beiträge thematisieren diesen Aspekt von Religion in Auseinandersetzung mit dem von Rahel Jaeggi konzipierten Modell einer "Kritik von Lebensformen". Dieser Band liefert damit einen Beitrag sowohl zur Religions-, als auch zur Sozialphilosophie."-- Back (...) cover. (shrink)

This paper argues that the common argument, that a state’s monopoly of violence is a necessary condition for peace, is flawed. First, it rests on anthropological assumptions about violent tendencies in human nature that may be valid for our society but cannot claim to correctly picture the (universal) human nature. Secondly, monopolies of violence are in reality less functional than they would need to be; most importantly, their agents distribute more violence than necessary or legitimate. Given their structural and institutional (...) nature, this is hardly surprising, maybe even unavoidable. Therefore, the claim that a monopoly of violence is an indispensable or at least the best means to establish peace should be viewed more critically. For this reason anarchist proposals should not only not be scorned, they should rather be openly discussed and re-evaluated. (shrink)

This book contains the first complete interpretation of all aspects of Hobbes's philosophy which treat religious convictions and practices. Not only his philosophy of religion and his philosophical theology, but also his biblical theology are treated in extense. The main thesis is that, according to Hobbes, neither philosophy nor politics in any way need a religious fundament; but since religions establish institutions and thus accumulate means of power, they are necessarily an object of politics. It is for this reason that (...) religious convictions and practices are a - for a long time neglected - main topic of Hobbes's philosophy"--Publisher's pamphlet. (shrink)

In Hobbes scholarship, interpretations of his political philosophy as a liberal one have been substantiated with the argument that it contains a doctrine of toleration and defends the subjects’ liberty of conscience. I will argue that this argument is wrong. While Hobbes does accept a (limited) possibility of inner dissent, he rejects any right of citizens to openly declare their dissenting opinions and suggests means to influence these opinions and beliefs. While according to Hobbes the state should secure and use (...) a monopoly of public and political education this paper argues, drawing on recent scholarship, that this does not account for an unlicensed call to indoctrinate. Yet it also does not account for a doctrine of toleration, even if a limited liberty of conscience is granted. (shrink)

Challenging the traditional dichotomies between morals and law or between mores and law, this paper establishes a distinction between morals, manners and law as three distinctive types of social norms. They have to be distinguished, or so I argue, concerning the way they are created, concerning the way they are sanctioned and concerning the obligatory status we assign them. Lastly, each of these types has a peculiar function as regards the stabilization of behaviour in the respective society. The overall aim (...) of this paper is to argue in favour of a close scrutinization both of the function of manners and of normative criteria to answer the question which of the many different, historically and culturally contingent sets of manners should be embraced as truly good manners. (shrink)

A discussion of the nature of cruelty seems to be superfluous: it's infliction of pain for one's own pleasure. This definition is, however, problematic. Neither does it encompass all cases of cruel behaviour, nor is every suffering inflicted in favour of one's own pleasure cruel. Similarly, neither the disproportion of the suffering inflicted, nor the helplessness of the victim are good alternatives to es- tablish a more appropriate definition. In this paper I argue that while “cruelty" may be defined as (...) “disproportionate infliction or allowing of pain", it is an “essentially contested concept". Therefore, this definition is partially open and concrete cases are and will remain contested. (shrink)

This is the initial volume in a new series entitled Ars medicinae: The Science of Medicine and Human Salvation. The name of the association behind the series is Initiative Gesundheit, which is made up of physicians, researchers, and university teachers working in the sciences and the humanities. This first publication is designed to reflect the broad range of subjects to be addressed in the volumes to come, the immense variety of which has prompted the editors to opt for a format (...) that will do justice to this multiplicity.The leitmotif for the first installment is "health," a concept that both delineates the boundaries of the topics envisaged and provides an introduction to the issues and problems involved.In line with the interdisciplinary approach adopted by Initiative Gesundheit, the essays assembled in this volume approach the subject from the perspectives of medicine, medical history, philosophy, theology, and philology. Historically, the purview extends from antiquity to the present day. (shrink)

In the last few years it has become fashionable to 'rethink′ the heritage of the western secularist modernity and claim that it is, basically, Christian. One possibility of proving this thesis is to show that the founding fathers of secularism themselves argued from an – at least implicitly – Christian point of view, above all when setting up the normative standards for politics. One such deliberately secular founding father is Thomas Hobbes, and contrary to Christian or religious interpretations of his (...) political philosophy two things can be shown: firstly his political philosophy doesn′t depend upon religion or religious commitments and, furthermore, the underlying systematic arguments in favour of a political theology are not plausible, let alone effective. (shrink)

In the last few years it has become fashionable to 'rethink' the heritage of the western secularist modernity and claim that it is, basically, Christian. One possibility of proving this thesis is to show that the founding fathers of secularism themselves argued from an - at least implicitly - Christian point of view, above all when setting up the normative standards for politics. One such deliberately secular founding father is Thomas Hobbes, and contrary to Christian or religious interpretations of his (...) political philosophy two things can be shown: firstly his political philosophy doesn't depend upon religion or religious commitments and, furthermore, the underlying systematic arguments in favour of a political theology are not plausible, let alone effective. (shrink)

Trotz der wiederholten Kritik an ihm scheint Johan Galtungs Begriff der „strukturellen Gewalt“ durch die Verbindung von sozialwissenschaftlicher Analyse und normativer Kritik komplexer sozialer Strukturen wie gemacht zu sein für die Analyse epistemischen Unrechts. Während andere Autor:innen deutlich klarer definierte und abgegrenzte Begriffe der strukturellen oder „institutionalisierten“ Gewalt vorgeschlagen haben, fehlt hier meist eine Diskussion der entsprechenden Phänomene, die den Begriff des „epistemischen Unrechts“ einbezieht. In diesem Aufsatz will ich unter Einbeziehung jüngerer Arbeiten zum Begriff der Gewalt zum einen zeigen, (...) dass die bisweilen zu findende Rede von „epistemischer Gewalt“ sich unter Rückgriff auf einen engen Gewaltbegriff klarer bestimmen lässt: als seelische Gewalt, die durch direktes Zeugnisunrecht ausgeübt wird. Zum anderen möchte ich zeigen, dass der Begriff epistemischen Unrechts ein meist fehlender, aber notwendiger Bestandteil einer Analyse jener sozialen Strukturen ist, die als „institutionalisierte Gewalt“ bezeichnet werden müssen. Denn strukturelles „silencing“, „testimonial smothering“ und hermeneutisches Unrecht von bzw. gegen Opfer von Gewalt sind in den meisten Fällen ein essentieller Bestandteil institutionalisierter Gewalt. (shrink)

In this essay, Robin May Schott criticizes leading proponents of just war theory and introduces the notion of justifiable but illegitimate violence. Instead of legitimating some wars as just, it is better to acknowledge that both the situation of war and moral judgments about war are ambiguous. Schott raises the questions: What are alternative narratives of war? And what are alternative narratives to war? Such narratives are necessary for addressing the concepts of evil and of witnessing in the ethical discourse (...) after Auschwitz. (shrink)

Agents are often assumed to have degrees of belief (“credences”) and also binary beliefs (“beliefs simpliciter”). How are these related to each other? A much-discussed answer asserts that it is rational to believe a proposition if and only if one has a high enough degree of belief in it. But this answer runs into the “lottery paradox”: the set of believed propositions may violate the key rationality conditions of consistency and deductive closure. In earlier work, we showed that this problem (...) generalizes: there exists no local function from degrees of belief to binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions of rationality and non-triviality. “Locality” means that the binary belief in each proposition depends only on the degree of belief in that proposition, not on the degrees of belief in others. One might think that the impossibility can be avoided by dropping the assumption that binary beliefs are a function of degrees of belief. We prove that, even if we drop the “functionality” restriction, there still exists no local relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs that satisfies some minimal conditions. Thus functionality is not the source of the impossibility; its source is the condition of locality. If there is any non-trivial relation between degrees of belief and binary beliefs at all, it must be a “holistic” one. We explore several concrete forms this “holistic” relation could take. (shrink)

Called by Karl Barth the brilliant Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, this book is finally being recognized as Bonhoeffers magnum opus and one of the most important works of Christian ethics of the last century.