Power, Value, and Conviction constructs a realistic Christian ethic while tackling the twin challenges of our time -- namely, moral pluralism in a time of globalization, and increased human power by means of technology.

Global dynamics and the integrity of life -- Pluralism in creation -- Reconsidering greed -- Timing moral cosmologies -- Love in the end times -- From toleration to political forgiveness -- Sacred texts and the social imaginary -- Comparing religions, comparing lives -- On moral madness -- Presenting theological humanism.

This volume also includes "Metaphysics and Ethics," a classic essay by Iris Murdoch.

The purpose of this book is to formulate a way of thinking about issues of power, moral identity, and ethical norms by developing a theory of responsibility from a specifically theological viewpoint; the author thereby makes clear the significance for Christian commitment of current reflection on moral responsibility. The concept of responsibility is relatively new in ethics, but the drastic extension of human power through various technological developments has lately thrown into question the way human beings conceive of themselves as (...) morally accountable agents. It is this radical extension of power in our time which poses the need for a new paradigm of responsibility in ethics. Schweiker engages in an informed way with what is therefore a highly topical discussion. By developing a coherent theory of responsibility, and inquiring as to its source, the author demonstrates the unique contribution of Christian faith to ethics in our time. (shrink)

Now available in paperback, this is a rich resource for understanding the moral teachings and practices of the world’s religions Includes detailed discussions ...

This essay outlines a new preface for ethics demanded by the massive developments of the global age. It does so in and through the comparative use of "myths" to explicate the lived structure of experience. The essay begins by isolating main features of global dynamics, including proximity, the compression of the world and the expansion of consciousness, and also global, cultural reflexivity. In the second step of the "preface," it is argued that globality itself is a moral space in which (...) peoples must orient their lives. It is a moral space defined by the massive extension of human power in the modern world. In light of the challenge that global dynamics and the extension of human power now pose, the essay then isolates, methodologically, options for developing a global ethics, and advocates a distinctly hermeneutical approach. This approach is practiced in the last section of the "preface" by engaging ethically the biblical "myth" of creation and its reinterpretation in an epitome of Jesus's Torah teaching. The intention is to show how current religious thought can speak to massive challenges in a distinctive way. It is, again, to offer a preface to ethics. (shrink)

This book argues that a basic problem in thinking about understanding, temporality, and selfhood is due to “imitative” modes of thought found in much traditional Western philosophy and theology. Given this, the book examines the complex role that “image” and “imitation” play in understanding and its world of meaning, the import of language and narrative for configuring human temporality, and the existence of self. The author’s contention is that when critically understood, mimesis, with its roots in performative enactment, holds resources (...) for reconsidering these basic dimensions of human life beyond imitative paradigms of thought. (shrink)

This response offers an interpretation of James Gustafson's “Participation: A Religious Worldview,” which thinks with Gustafson on the theme of “participation,” while highlighting points where my own thoughts diverge from his. The essay begins by drawing the reader's attention to Gustafson's style, arguing that the simple elegance of his writing constitutes part of his larger claim about the need to remove ourselves from the center of our thought. Next, the essay analyzes Gustafson's use of “participation” by putting it in context (...) and connecting it with his broader methodology. Finally, I draw the reader's attention to important loci in the text in order to show how Gustafson's essay helps address various extant misinterpretations of his thought but also to point to ways in which my “thinking with” Gustafson leads me to think otherwise than he does. (shrink)

This book is the result of years of collaboration between the authors on work in religious ethics. The collaboration started when we published the first edition of The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics with William Schweiker as editor and David Clairmont as project assistant. Through the encouragement of our publisher, Rebecca Harkin of Wiley-Blackwell, it was decided that a basic text was needed on the meaning and method of religious ethics, and, further, a book that could be used (...) in connection with the Companion at several levels of academic instruction: undergraduate, graduate, and in the training of religious leaders. Religious Ethics: Meaning and Method is that book. It elaborates and expounds the account of religious ethics developed by William Schweiker as a multidimensional theory of the religious and moral life for our global times. (shrink)

This essay outlines a new preface for ethics demanded by the massive developments of the global age. It does so in and through the comparative use of “myths” to explicate the lived structure of experience. The essay begins by isolating main features of global dynamics, including proximity, the compression of the world and the expansion of consciousness, and also global, cultural reflexivity. In the second step of the “preface,” it is argued that globality itself is a moral space in which (...) peoples must orient their lives. It is a moral space defined by the massive extension of human power in the modern world. In light of the challenge that global dynamics and the extension of human power now pose, the essay then isolates, methodologically, options for developing a global ethics, and advocates a distinctly hermeneutical approach. This approach is practiced in the last section of the “preface” by engaging ethically the biblical “myth” of creation and its reinterpretation in an epitome of Jesus's Torah teaching. The intention is to show how current religious thought can speak to massive challenges in a distinctive way. It is, again, to offer a preface to ethics. (shrink)

The Encyclopedia of Religious Ethics introduces readers to basic issues in moral inquiry, a selection of moral traditions, and surveys a range of moral issues. Each of the three volumes covers one of these three elements of religious ethics, with Volume I focusing on moral inquiry. What distinguishes "religious" ethics from other approaches to ethics is, first and foremost, its connection to the religions. While there is much debate in modern scholarship about the precise meaning of the term "religion" there (...) is at least a widely shared conviction that there are such things as religions, by which is meant social groups and traditions of thought and practice that are in one way or another about the deepest human questions and the ultimate goal(s) of human life, including but not limited to reverence for a divine being or beings. Thought about or practice in relation to what is held to be ultimately real and important seems to be a longstanding feature of human life across historical periods, geography, and cultural traditions. (shrink)

In many cultures and societies, there has been, at least intuitively, some connection between what is believed to be sacred and divine and the highest ideals of the good, justice, and the right. Moral beliefs and values are often sensed to have ultimate importance, as somehow holy, and thus the examination of those beliefs, values, and sensibilities would be a proper starting point for natural theology. The inverse is also true: reflection on and the experience of evil and viciousness have (...) provoked many to explore the negation of the holy and divine, namely, the demonic, in order to avert moral scepticism and despair that evil might prevail. This chapter, which examines an approach to natural theology undertaken with respect to morality, begins by clarifying what is meant by approaching natural theology through ethics. It then discusses ethical approaches to natural theology, theistic ethics, ethical theism, aspiration and ethics, and mediating theology, and concludes with prospects for future thought. (shrink)

This essay explores ‘responsibility’ within moral theory and around the question of God’s relation to the world and to acting and suffering human beings. Advancing reflection beyond the outlooks of twentieth-century theologians, the inquiry outlines a multidimensional position that interweaves different rationalities crucial to orienting responsible life. Actions and relations are responsible which respect and enhance the integrity of life. Responsibility is thereby not in itself the object or norm of the ethics but the form of moral existence. This account (...) enables current thought to weave together previous arguments in Christian ethics in a way productive for our global times. (shrink)

In this essay, I ask what the precise relation is between Laudato si's theology and its claims about our individual and corporate responsibility for the environment and the plight of the poor. To do so, I first clarify the relationship between the theological claims and its account of moral norms, situating the text within the history of western ethical theory. I then turn to reconstruct the submerged theology of the encyclical, focusing on Pope Francis's accounts of the techno‐economic paradigm and (...) the possibility of an “integral ecology” paradigm. I end by assessing the text in terms of the coherence and plausibility of its argument as an ethical and theological statement. (shrink)

The following essay seeks to outline the direction for »evangelical ethics« in the 21st century. The article begins by exploring the contemporary moral and religious situation in terms of dominant global dynamics. In the light of this novel situation, the remainder of the essay presents an account of theological ethics in terms of responsibility for the integrity of life from the perspective of theological humanism. Throughout the article the continuities and discontinuities between this approach to theological ethics and previous forms (...) of Protestant ethics are explored and explained. (shrink)

This article explores the interrelations among religious, moral and political power in an analogy to the Christian concept of ‘perichoresis’ of the Trinity. Starting with beliefs about power, the endoxa, the article explores, first, moments in Western thought to show how power has been grounded in God or gods and in the vitalities of nature. In each case, ultimately speaking, ‘might makes right’. Within this history the article also charts the ‘axial breakthrough’ in Christianity that places ‘ethical’ limits on religious (...) and political power. In a second step, the works of Reinhold Niebuhr and Stanley Hauerwas are explored in order to show that current Christian ethics is caught in an aporia: it asserts the reality of power in history and the ‘world’, but also the ultimate claim of Christian love. The article concludes that Christian ethics needs a differentiated conception of power and a renewed conception of ‘conscience’ as the mode of moral being within complex social systems. (shrink)

What does it mean that understanding is the primary mode of human being in the world? How can new symbols refigure human temporal possibilities and narrative understandings? How do we interpret life, and what can be claimed as "truth"? These and related questions are explored by a collection of distinguished scholars from a variety of disciplines in Meanings in Texts and Actions. These essays constitute a critical encounter with the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, who - along with Hans-Georg Gadamer - (...) was largely responsible for the postwar emergence of a new hermeneutics. Having engaged in critical debates with thinkers in virtually every humanistic discipline, Ricoeur has managed to create a conversation among them, as this collection attests. Volume contributors - representatives of a range of disciplines including literary theory, theology and religious studies, comparative literature, film studies, history, political philosophy, ethics, and global studies - take up Ricoeur's questions and pose questions of their own in return. In so doing, they work toward new formulations in our thinking that address the contemporary challenges of deconstruction and postmodernism and pay particular attention to theology and its relation to humanistic culture. (shrink)

Here, some of the most influential thinkers in theological and philosophical ethics develop new directions for research in contemporary moral thought. Taking as their starting point Ricoeur's recent work on moral anthropology, the contributors set a vital agenda for future conversations about ethics and just community.

This essay presents an apology for theological humanism drawn from Christian sources as the most adequate ethical stance for respecting and enhancing the integrity of human and nonhuman life into the global future. After clarifying the meaning and task of an apology, the essay begins with the ethical challenge posed by global dynamics and then explores the endangerment to future life by the expansion of human power. In order to formulate an ethics in this fraught context, the essay then explores (...) the relation between the discourses of identity and responsibility as two dominant patterns of thought in current ethics and argues that claims about “identity” must be situated within an ethics of responsibility. The apology concludes by uncovering the ethical meaning of theological humanism in terms of Christian affirmation of being fully alive in love through Christ and before God. (shrink)

Biomedical technologies capable of sharply reducing or ending human aging, “radical life extension”, call for a Christian response. The authors featured in this article offer some preliminary thoughts. Common themes include: What kind of life counts as a “good life;” the limits, if any, of human freedom; the consequences of extended life on the human species and on the Earth; the meaning and value of finite and vulnerable embodied life; the experience of time; anthropological self-understanding; and human dignity. Notably, all (...) four authors share serious concerns about RLE’s potential effects. (shrink)

This volume brings together eminent theologians, philosophers and political theorists to discuss such questions as how religious understandings have shaped the moral landscape of contemporary culture; the possible contributions of theology and theologically informed moral argument to contemporary public life; the problem of religious and moral discourse in a pluralistic society; and the proper relationship between religion and culture.

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 50, Issue 1, Page 7-19, March 2022.

Ethics and Advocacy considers the connections and differences between critical reflection or moral arguments or narratives and advocacy for particular issues regarding justice and moral behavior and dispositions. The chapters in this volume share an interest in overcoming polarizing division that does not enable fruitful give-and-take discussion and even possible persuasive justifications. The authors all believe that both ethics and advocacy are important and should inform each other, but each offers a divergent point of view on the way forward to (...) these agreed-upon ends. Our shared goal is to avoid academic withdrawal and to speak relevantly to the important issues of our day while halting--or at least mitigating--the disruptive discourse--almost shouting--that characterizes our polarized current society. (shrink)

This book addresses the interrelation between theological thinking and the complex and diverse realms of human ideals. What are the ideals appropriate to our moment in human history, and how do these ideals derive from or relate to theological reflection in our time? In Theological Reflection and the Pursuit of Ideals internationally renowned scholars from a range of disciplines engage with these crucial questions with the intention of articulating a new and historically appropriate vision of theological reflection and the pursuit (...) of ideals for our global times. (shrink)

مداخلة مترجمة عن الفرنسية للفيلسوف الفرنسي جيل دولوز.

Sections include: experiments and generalised causal inference; statistical conclusion validity and internal validity; construct validity and external validity; quasi-experimental designs that either lack a control group or lack pretest observations on the outcome; quasi-experimental designs that use both control groups and pretests; quasi-experiments: interrupted time-series designs; regresssion discontinuity designs; randomised experiments: rationale, designs, and conditions conducive to doing them; practical problems 1: ethics, participation recruitment and random assignment; practical problems 2: treatment implementation and attrition; generalised causal inference: a grounded theory; (...) generalised causal inference: methods for single studies; generalised causal inference: methods for multiple studies; a critical assessment of our assumptions. (shrink)

The Gifford Lectures were established in 1885 at the universities of St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh to promote the discussion of 'Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term - in other words, the knowledge of God', and some of the world's most influential thinkers have delivered them. The 1901–2 lectures given in Edinburgh by American philosopher William James are considered by many to be the greatest in the series. The lectures were published in book form in (...) 1902 and have been reprinted many times. James, who was educated in the United States and Europe, and spent much of his career teaching philosophy at Harvard, was very influential in the development of modern psychology, and in these twenty lectures he explores the personal experience of religion. Some of the topics include religion and neurology, 'the sick soul', saintliness, and mysticism. (shrink)

In this foundational work in contemporary political theory, William Connolly makes a distinctive contribution to our understanding of the relationship between ...

Liberal thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were alert to the political costs and human cruelties involved in European colonialism, but they also thought that European expansion held out progressive possibilities. In Progress, Pluralism, and Politics David Williams examines the colonial and anti-colonial arguments of Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and L.T. Hobhouse. Williams locates their ambivalent attitude towards European conquest and colonial rule in a set of tensions between the impact of colonialism on European states, the possibilities (...) of progress in distant and diverse places, and the relationship between universalism and cultural pluralism. In so doing he reveals some of the central ambiguities that characterize the ways that liberal thought has dealt with the reality of an illiberal world. Of particular importance are appeals to various forms of universal history, attempts to mediate between the claims of identity and the reality of difference, and the different ways of thinking about the achievement of liberal goods in other places. Pointing to key elements in still ongoing debates within liberal states about how they should relate to illiberal places, Progress, Pluralism, and Politics enriches the discussion on political thought and the relationship between liberalism and colonialism. (shrink)

Second, there is a form of ampliative inference that has come to be called ‘inference to the best explanation,’ or more briefly ‘explanatory inference.’ Roughly: From the fact that a certain hypothesis would explain the data at hand better than any other available hypothesis, we infer with some degree of confidence that that leading hypothesis is correct. There is no question but that this inference is often performed. Arguably, every human being performs it many times in a day, perhaps without (...) letup. (shrink)