Many people today believe that scientific and religious approaches to morality are mutually incompatible. Militant secularists claim scientific backing for their claim that the evolution of morality discredits religious conceptions of ethics. Some of their opponents respond with unhelpful apologetics based on fundamentalist views of revelation. This article attempts to provide an alternative option. It argues that public discussion has been excessively influenced by polemics generated by the new atheists. Religious writers have too often resorted to overly simplistic arguments rooted (...) in literalist approaches to the Bible and the religious traditions. More historically conscious methods can avoid implausible claims about both religion and science. (shrink)

This essay argues that the best starting point for discussions of the Principle of Discrimination (PD) is its most basic formulation: In wartime, certain enemy subjects should receive better treatment than others. Other formulations of the PD ? in particular, those centered on the concept of noncombatant immunity ? have sought to identify a single criterion that can be used as the basis for sorting enemy subjects into two (and only two) classes. However, a historical and legal analysis of the (...) principle indicates that three distinct criteria ? the conduct of individuals, their status, and their guilt or innocence ? have all been seen as relevant for determining the appropriate treatment of the enemy. In this essay, I formulate an expanded version of the PD, which calls for the proportionate treatment of enemy subjects based on evaluations of all three of these criteria. (shrink)