In a recent essay Robert Adams attempted to define a form of divine command ethics that would meet the typical philosophical criticisms of such an ethics. More recently, responding to new criticisms of the theory of meaning assumed in this essay and some details of the system he described there, Adams has redefined his position using the causal theory of meaning. The present essay examines Adam's fundamental position and the main lines of Jeffrey Stout's critique of it, then attempts to (...) assess the success of Adams' latest redefinition of divine command ethics. (shrink)

Throughout his career Paul Ramsey returned repeatedly to the seminal works of Augustine to clarify both the foundations of Christian moral thought and its application to problems of social ethics. The paper argues that in the course of developing his own thought Ramsey moved from merely using the insights of Augustine to a genuinely Augustinian theological position, balancing the pastoral responsibilities of the theologian to the community with the demand for faithfulness to the integrity of the Christian tradition. In the (...) process Ramsey produces a reading of Augustine both critically compelling in its own right and theologically promising for moral reflection in that tradition. (shrink)

In the debate over Spanish treatment of the natives of the New World, both sides regularly invoked Aristotle on natural slaves. This paper argues that the interpretation of the Spanish Dominican Domingo de Soto displays a greater understanding of Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition of justice than that of Juan Gines de Sepúlveda, the Spanish Humanist. The paper goes on to argue that it is the humanist tradition itself that disposes Sepúlveda to misconstrue Aristotle and the tradition of political justice.

Toward the end of Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, Philo catalogues the ‘frivolous observances’, ‘rapturous ecstasies’ and ‘bigotted credulity’ of ‘vulgar superstition’, concluding that ‘true religion, I allow, has no such pernicious consequences: But we must treat of religion, as it has com monly been found in the world’. This would be a mild enough sort of caveat were it not nigh on impossible to determine exactly what counts as true religion, and how it figures in Hume's argument. Typically, answers (...) to this puzzle have required identifying the positions of the discussants, and then arguing that one of them represents Hume's views. A catalogue of the options may prove instructive. (shrink)

Toward the end of Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion , Philo catalogues the ‘frivolous observances’, ‘rapturous ecstasies’ and ‘bigotted credulity’ of ‘vulgar superstition’, concluding that ‘true religion, I allow, has no such pernicious consequences: But we must treat of religion, as it has com monly been found in the world’ . This would be a mild enough sort of caveat were it not nigh on impossible to determine exactly what counts as true religion, and how it figures in Hume's argument. (...) Typically, answers to this puzzle have required identifying the positions of the discussants, and then arguing that one of them represents Hume's views. A catalogue of the options may prove instructive. (shrink)

Professor Vásquez, who has produced Spanish translations of the Philosophy of Right and Marx’s Critique, continues, in this volume, the studies of his earlier Dialéctica y Derecho en Hegel. Originally a series of articles, in the Revista Venezolana de Filosofia, the chapter titles suggest a miscellany: two on Hegel’s critique of Kantian ethics, five commenting on the first four chapters of the Phenomenology, one on the relation of Hegel to Marx and a concluding chapter on the Kantian origins of the (...) dialectic. This might suggest a collection only loosely connected, but such an impression would be misleading. There are, in fact, three concerns systematically developed in the book. First, Vásquez argues, the concept is central to all of Hegel’s work, determining the dialectical necessity of the key steps in the unfolding of self-consciousness, history, and spirit in general. Second, the centrality of the concept has been ignored or misrepresented by most commentators to such an extent that neither the dialectic in general, nor the particular works in which it is played out, can be made intelligible. Keeping in mind this second concern is important for a proper reading of Vásquez’s book, for in several places his discussion of Hegel’s text is directed not so much to a detailed analysis of that text, but rather to its use as a foil over and against other interpreters. The compressed nature of the arguments can be disconcerting unless you recall that the quarry is not so much Hegel as Hyppolite, Findlay, or Kojève. Finally, there appears to me an implicit moral claim being advanced, in the context of which these essays are not only exercises in the interpretation of Hegel, but the book as a whole an instance of Hegelian ethics. (shrink)