Can there be an objective morality without God? Derek Parfit argues that it can and offers a theory of morality that is neither theistic nor naturalistic. This book provides a critical assessment of Parfit's metaethical theory. Jakobsen identifies some problems in Parfit’s theory – problems concerning moral normativity, the ontological status of morality, and evolutionary influence on our moral beliefs – and argues that theological resources can help solve them. By showing how Parfit’s theory may be improved by the help (...) of theology, Jakobsen demonstrates the relevance of theology in philosophical and metaethical debates and argues that Christian theism offers a better explanation of morality than what Parfit’s non-naturalism does. (shrink)

This article is an examination of the moral complexity of the act of whistleblowing in the context of corporate corruption. Whistleblowing may be a morally admirable act underataken by morally ambiguous agents, but can only be fully understood in context. Using German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s essay “What Does It Mean to Tell the Truth?” This essay will examine how the kind of deception sometimes necessary in whistleblowing cases can be testimony to a larger and more profound truth.

This paper offers an assessment of the prospects for Christian engagement with public bioethical debates in a contemporary British context. One recent example, the debate provoked by proposed legislation for research involving human admixed embryos, is examined briefly. It is argued that this debate has some problematic features that are characteristic of public ethical debates in this context. Next, a proposal is offered as to how such bioethical questions may be approached from within a Christian theological tradition (specifically, a Reformed (...) Protestant tradition). This proposed approach makes use of four “diagnostic questions” to assess whether technological proposals and practices such as the creation of human admixed embryos can be consistent with the distinctive Christian narrative of creation, sin, salvation through Christ, and promised future hope. The final section offers some reflections on how Christians and churches might engage, on the basis of this theological approach, with public ethical debates such as the one about admixed embryos. (shrink)

Before being executed by the Nazis at the age of 39, Dietrich Bonhoeffer had produced enough material, according to Howell, to fill 16 volumes of theological reflections. Nevertheless, Howell noted, Dietrich Bonhoeffer is not a household name. That is unfortunate. One of Bonhoeffer's most inspiring efforts-from the perspective of mass media ethics-centered around his unfinished attempt to define "what is meant by telling the truth." As is often the case with truly outstanding thinkers, his reflections in this regard appear even (...) more timely today than when he composed them well over 50 years ago. (shrink)

Two types of Judeo-Christian perspective stress the imperative to act to relieve suffering and transcend violence: liberation theology and the "religious humanitarian perspective." Both link ethics and action; both influence political debate.

A lively exchange sparked by Ortmann and Hertwig's call to outlaw deception in psychological research was intensified by underlying differences in the meaning of deception. The conception held by Broder, who defended deception, would restrict research more than Ortmann and Hertwig's conception. Historically, a similar difference in conceptions has been embedded in the controversy over deception in research. The distinction between informational and relational views of deception elucidates this difference. In an informational view, giving false information, allowing false assumptions, and (...) withholding information are deceptive. In a relational view these failures to inform are not necessarily deceptive. Rather, relational criteria, including denial of right to the truth, betrayal of trust, and impairment of commerce with reality finally determine what is deceptive. Analyses reveal that fewer research procedures are deceptive on a relational view than on an informational view. Surveys of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology correspondingly show that a lower percentage of studies are deceptive on the relational view applied in this analysis than on the informational view applied by Sieber, Iannuzzo, and Rodriguez. If restrictions on deception keep increasing, more studies will be vetoed on the currently salient informational view than would be vetoed on a relational view. (shrink)

The German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer is not widely known for engaging with scientific thought, having been heavily influenced by Karl Barth's celebrated stance against natural theology. However, during the period of his maturing theology in prison Bonhoeffer read a significant scientific work, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker's The World View of Physics. From this he gained two major insights for his theological outlook. First, he realized that the notion of a "God of the gaps" is futile, not just in (...) science but in other areas of human inquiry. Second, he felt that an infinite universe, as considered by science, would be self-subsistent and could exist as if there were no God. Bonhoeffer replaced Barth's radical critique of religion with the even more extreme view that it is a mere passing phase in history that grown-up humanity can dispense with. At the same time Bonhoeffer began an important critique of Barth's reaction, namely, the latter's retreat to a "positivism of revelation." While Bonhoeffer did not go quite as far as one might like, his approach opened up hopeful avenues for an answer to "the liberal question" and even a revived place for some kind of natural theology. (shrink)

The rash of high-profile accounting frauds involving internal corporate accountants calls into question the individual accountant’s perceptions of the ethical climate within their organization and the limits to which these professionals will tolerate unethical behavior and/or accept it as the norm. This study uses social cognitive theory to examine the antecedents of individual corporate accountant’s perceived personal fit with their organization’s ethical climate and empirically tests how these factors impact organizational attitudes. A survey was completed by 203 corporate accountants to (...) assess their perception of relevant variables. The results of the structural equation model indicate three significant antecedents relating to ethical climate fit: higher internal levels of locus of control; greater numbers of prior job changes; and higher perceptions of an increasingly better fit with the firm’s ethical climate. Our results also indicate that higher levels of perceived fit to the ethical climate of a firm are associated with higher levels of perceived job satisfaction and organizational commitment. We also theorize that perceptions of an organization’s ethical climate may be reflections of client narcissism and serve a potential indicator of fraud risk. This is an important topic of study, since current auditing standards call for auditors to examine organizational attitudes toward fraud, but offer minimal guidance in doing so. (shrink)

Next SectionPublic discourse in continental Europe gives a uniquely prominent place to human dignity. The European Christianities have always taken this notion to be an outgrowth of their theological commitments. This sense of a conceptual continuity between Christianity and secular morality contributes to the way in which these Christianities, especially (but not exclusively) in Germany, have perceived their public role. In an exemplary manner, this essay engages the secularized societal environment. In meeting the secular discourse on its own home ground, (...) it seeks to recapture the theological roots of that discourse's defining value commitments. The challenges that modern societies present for Christians are seen not as a threat that would destroy a presumed original societas Christiana. Instead, these challenges create an opportunity to transform the Gospel's message so as to have it conform to, but also allow it to criticize, contemporary scientific knowledge about the world and man. Bonhoeffer's rendering of the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms here makes it possible to link the Christian understanding of man as “in the image of God” with the secular affirmation of human dignity. As an intermediate concept, “incarnate reason” allows the bioethical discourse to preserve crucial aspects of the Christian tradition, while at the same time giving space to a constructive as well as critical exchange with secular discourse partners. (shrink)

I offer an argument for why torture, as an act of state-sponsored force to gain information crucial to the well-being of the common good, should be considered as a tactic of war, and therefore scrutinized in terms of just war theory. I argue that, for those committed to the justifiability of the use of force, most of the popular arguments against all acts of torture are unpersuasive because the logic behind them would forbid equally any act of mutilating or killing (...) in battle. I will also argue that looking at torture through the perspective of the just war tradition forces us to place strictures on the practice that make it hard to justify, helps us to see why torture should never be legalized, helps us to clarify when circumstances might justify torture, and suggests what sort of character is required to recognize when those circumstances have occurred. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One of the most perceptive and ambidextrous social commentators of our day, Augustinian scholar Jean Bethke Elshtain furnishes in ever fresh ways through her writings a bridge between the ancient and the modern, between politics and ethics, between timeless moral wisdom and cultural sensitivity. To read Elshtain seriously is to take the study of culture as well as the “permanent things” seriously. But Elshtain is no mere moralist. Neither is she content solely to dwell in the domain of the (...) theoretical. For it is Elshtain the citizen—the creatively engaged and contributing citizen—whom the reader encounters on virtually every page of her writings. But reader beware: Elshtain does not shy away from controversy. At the same time, she is anything but a controversialist. In the essay that follows, several prominent themes that emerge from Elstain's writings—civic responsibility, justice, gender, and war—are considered afresh. Whether one agrees with her positions or not, one is forced to confess in the end that she cares deeply about the common good. And this alone makes her required reading for any engaged citizen of the republic. (shrink)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Knud Ejler Løgstrup were WWII contemporaries: Lutheran theologians and religious figures in their respective German and Danish communities; both active in the anti-Nazi resistance. Being involved in the resistance, Bonhoeffer and Løgstrup were required to rethink what it meant to be ethical, in particular in relation to disclosure and the telling of truth, in a situation of war. In this paper, we consider the grounds on which both Løgstrup and Bonhoeffer acted, their belief in a duty or (...) requirement to resist, in light of the more general problem presented by resistance as action undertaken in a state of exception. We investigate the distinction between the normativity of ordinary or stable time, and action required in a state of exception, using the specific example of truth-telling as a normative demand and its conflict with the exceptional imperative to lie. The example of truth-telling raises important questions about the role of agency and phronetic judgment in a state of exception. In order to determine a foundation for such judgment, we turn to the framework adapted by both Bonhoeffer and Løgstrup to ground their requirement to lie: Luther’s concept of three estates. We consider how their respective concepts of mandates and laws of life/sovereign expressions of life both illuminate and highlight the more general problem of the relation between norm and exceptional action. (shrink)

Whereas professional persuasion is a means to an immediate and instrumental end, ethical persuasion must rest on or serve a deeper, morally based final end. Among the moral final ends of journalism, for example, are truth and freedom. There is a very real danger that advertisers and public relations practitioners will play an increasingly dysfunctional role in the communications process if means continue to be confused with ends in professional persuasive communications. Means and ends will continue to be confused unless (...) advertisers and public relations practitioners reach some level of agreement as to the moral end toward which their efforts should be directed. In this article we advance a five-part test that defines this moral end, establishes ethical boundaries that should guide persuasive practices, and serves as a set of action-guiding principles directed toward a moral consequence in professional persuasion. The TARES Test consists of five principles: Truthfulness, Authenticity, Respect, Equity and Social Responsibility. We provide checklists to guide the practitioner in moral reflection and application of TARES Test principles. (shrink)

For more than a thousand years, Islam has been the hostile `other' of the West. Not only does the West feel threatened by Islam, but also many Muslims feel threatened by the West. The dialectical relationship between Islam and the West has gained a new impetus since the destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in Manhattan on September I Ith, 2001. A central issue in this dialectic is what is perceived and understood by `Islam' by both (...) Muslims themselves and by non-Muslims. Whilst conflict may suggest support for Samuel Huntington's `Clash of Civilisations' thesis, with Islam as the prime candidate for this clash, this thesis will aim to show that such a clash is a consequence of only one of many understandings of Islamic identity. Islam and the West, it will be argued, are not as incompatible in a civilisational or ideological context as history might suggest. Compatibility can be better appreciated by examining what are regarded by Muslims as key paradigms that make up Islamic identity: that of the Qur'an, Muhammad, Medina as the first `Islamic state', and the four `rightly-guided' (rashidun) caliphs. To be Muslim is to accept certain archetypes as central to belief. This is not what is in contention. However, what is a matter of contention is how one approaches these paradigms, particularly amongst such renowned Islamic revivalist scholars as Mawlana Mawdudi, Muhammad Iqbal, Sayyid Qutb, and Jamal alDin Afghani. This thesis argues that the approach has been dominated by what is termed the `Transhistorical': mythologizing the paradigms to the extent that they have become `idols' which its adherents are unwilling to question or even, if necessary, to shatter. The Muslim philosopher Mawlana Mawdudi will be represented as symbolising this Transhistorical approach. However, another approach can be usefully adopted, that of the Historical, that perceives the paradigms within the context of time and place, thus allowing for flexibility of constant renewal and reassessment. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche can be helpfully employed in examining the Historical approach. Whilst Nietzsche rarely spoke specifically about Islam, his admiration for it as a religion is in sharp contrast to his criticism of Christianity. Whilst Nietzsche was addressing an audience of a different culture and age, this thesis aims to show that his philosophy can make an important contribution to the dialectical understanding between Islam and the West. `Returning' to Islam in what is perceived as its Golden Age is nothing original nor would be seen by Islamists as unorthodox. However, Nietzsche's own originality, creativity, and psychological, philological and historical insights allow for a fresh and enlightening approach to key Islamic paradigms that show that Islam and the West are quite capable of ideological and civilisational reconciliation. (shrink)