The moral status of some particularly horrendous actions cannot be adequately captured by the concept of wrongdoing.See Daniel Haybron, “Moral Monsters and Saints,” Monist, Vol. 85 : p. 260; Paul Formosa, “Evil, Wrongs and Dignity: How to Test a Theory of Evil,” Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 47 : pp. 235–253; Eve Garrard, “The Nature of Evil,” Philosophical Explorations: An International Journal for the Philosophy of Mind and Action, Vol. 1 : pp. 43–45; Hillel Steiner, “Calibrating Evil,” The Monist, Vol. (...) 85 : pp. 183–185. For instance, sadistic torture and genocidal mass murder are not just wrong, or very wrong, or very very wrong. We need the concept of evil to make sense of the moral status of these actions. But what is evil? And how is it distinct from mere wrongdoing?In recent years, several theorists writing about the concept of evil have argued that the best way to proceed is to think reflectively about evil’s opposite. Call this the mirror methodology. .. (shrink)

This book offers a new paradigm for religious pluralism by exploring Indic insights of Jainism and the nature of paradox.

Socrates (469-399 BC) is one of history's most enigmatic figures. Our knowledge of him comes to us second-hand, primarily from the philosopher Plato, who was Socrates' most gifted student, and from the historian and sometime-philosopher Xenophon, who counted himself as a member of Socrates' inner circle of friends. We also hear of Socrates in one comic play produced during his lifetime (Aristophanes' Clouds) and in passing from the philosopher Aristotle, a student of Plato. Socrates is a figure of enduring interest. (...) He is often considered the father of Western Philosophy, yet the four most famous accounts we have of him present a contradictory, confusing picture. Just who was Socrates? A brilliant philosopher, at times confounding and infuriating, morally serious and yet ironic; the ever-worldly man, sometime mystic, and uncommon martyr depicted by Plato? Or did Plato conflate Socrates' views with his own startling genius, as Aristotle suggests? Was So rates instead the less impressive, more mundane man whose commonsense impressed the laconic Xenophon? Or was Socrates the charlatan, the long-winded phony of Aristophanes' play? The Socratic works of Diogenes Laertius (3rd century AD), Libanius (AD 314 -- c. 393), Maximus of 'Tyre (2nd century AD), and Apuleius (born c. AD 125) add important dimensions to the portrait of Socrates: Diogenes Laertius' Life of Socrates emphasizes Socrates' deep ethical nature and his extraordinary personality; Libanius' Apology of Socrates is based on sources now lost to us; Maximus of Tyre's Whether Socrates Did the Right Thing When He Did Not Defend Himself makes the star ling claim (against testimony of Plato and Xenophon) that Socrates never spoke athis own trial; from Apuleius' On the God of Socrates we hear at length of Socrates' infamous daimonion: the "divine sign" only mentioned elsewhere, the sign that warned Socrates against certain courses of action. In short, from these four texts we are reintroduced to Socrates, and new wrinkles are added to an already intriguing historical figure. (shrink)

Writing an accessible introduction to process theology is no easy task. As Roland Faber notes, “Process theology is a quite complex phenomenon”. Yet this is the task he sets out for himself in The Becoming of God: Process Theology, Philosophy, and Multireligious Engagement. While Faber describes his book as an introduction to process theology, it would perhaps be better described as an introduction to the thought of Alfred North Whitehead and its theological implications.In typical Faber fashion, this poetic introduction to (...) Whitehead is thorough, complex, and insightful. Ranging across issues of science, religious studies, theology, and philosophy, Faber tackles some of the most complicated thought problems... (shrink)

Introduction: Christian moral action -- Stanley Hauerwas -- Reinhard Hütter -- Common threads -- Thomas Aquinas -- Toward an ecumenical ethic of grace -- Conclusion: A community-centered ecumenical ethic of grace.

Narrative theology views the truths of scripture through an iconographic lens to indicate God's intimate involvement in human life. However, when narrative theology becomes "narrative theological ethics," the transformative power of narrative about God receives more emphasis than the power of God itself. Narrative theology quickly moves toward linguistic idolatry when God's grace is valued merely as an important facet of a powerful narrative rather than as the foundation of Christian moral action.

edited by Doris Schroeder, welcomes contributions on all health topics related to human rights and relevant generic contributions from the human rights debate. To submit a paper or to discuss suitable topics, please e-mail Doris Schroeder at [email protected]. a.

Recent critiques of normative universalism have helped entrench a dichotomy between formalist universal egalitarian claims (typical of the liberal tradition) and particularist attention to cultural difference (in contemporary communitarianism, and in more or less postmodernist approaches). Focusing on the work of Richard Rorty and Iris Marion Young, this article explores whether, and how, we might find space for a universalism which avoids problems encountered by the formalist model. I argue that, while both Rorty and Young reject ‘Enlightenment’ universalism, the approaches (...) of both contain covert universalist assumptions. They thus represent different forms of ‘soft’ universalism: approaches which are fallibilist about current moral knowledge but which hold out the possibility of genuinely inclusive pan‐human normative frameworks. The trouble with both is that neither, in the end, provides a persuasive basis for their own position – one which avoids an ultimate arbitrariness about the winning out of one normative conception (be it humanitarian or not) over another. I suggest that recourse to ontology, and the kinds of metaphysical claim deemed outmoded in the mainstream of social and moral philosophy, provide such a basis. I argue too that a conception of human being as relational, and of the flourishing of the individual as requiring relations with others, is the best‐placed candidate to do the work required. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sophocles’s Enemy Sisters: Antigone and IsmeneWm. Blake Tyrrell (bio) and Larry J. BennettAt the core of the Oedipus myth, as Sophocles presents it, is the proposition that all masculine relationships are based on reciprocal acts of violence. Laius, taking his cue from the oracle, violently rejects Oedipus out of fear that his son will seize his throne and invade his conjugal bed. Oedipus, taking his cue from the oracle, (...) does away with Laius, violently rebuffs the sphinx, then takes their places—as king and “scourge of the city,” respectively. Again, Oedipus, taking his cue from the oracle, plots the death of that unknown figure who may be seeking to usurp his own position. Oedipus, Creon, and Tiresias, each taking his cue from the oracle, seek one another’s downfall.All these acts of violence gradually wear away the differences that exist not only in the same family but throughout the community.—René Girard, Violence and the SacredRené Girard does not include feminine relationships in his assessment of the Oedipus myth, yet the same redundancy that characterizes the males marks the females.1 Jocasta conjoins in one person multiple and redundant social roles: she is the mother and wife of the same person, for which she [End Page 1] hangs herself, leaving for Oedipus “many pains that a mother’s furies fulfilled” (Homer Odyssey 11.279–80). Her daughters, their father’s sisters, manifest kinship redundancy in two persons. Incest produces circularly, reverting to a sibling of the parent rather than moving forward with a descendant. The absence of linear progression from one generation to the next creates a sameness and equilibrium that thwart separation and individuality. Oedipus’s brothers/sons fail in their adult roles, because neither can overcome the other’s right to the throne of Thebes and the mastery of its royal household. They are enemy brothers locked in reciprocal violence.2 Antigone and Ismene have escaped notice not only as enemy sisters but even as products of the same incest. Audiences for Sophocles’s Antigone have viewed them as “normal” women and cooperated with his characters in emphasizing the differences between them. They have assumed from Antigone’s betrothal to Haemon and resistance to Creon that she is the elder, more mature sister.3 They tend to accept without question that Antigone engages in burial rituals with Polyneices’s corpse (241–58) and returns to it (442–35).4 Bernard M. W. Knox’s critically powerful concept of the “Sophoclean hero” has bolstered this view of Antigone while reducing Ismene to a foil, and abetted the tendency of modern producers of the play to cast an older or more famous actress in the role of Antigone.5 Naturalistic readings like that of C. M. Bowra—“seeing that Ismene is her only close relative in the world, Antigone is remarkably cold to her”6—have masked the source and hence the vehemence of Antigone’s fury.That the reciprocity of the violence between Ismene and Antigone has gone unnoticed is understandable in view of the familiarity of the conflict between their brothers. Males in Greek society pursued difference by striving to excel as aristoi (best) in competition for prestige, wealth, and power.7 Whenever Eteocles and Polyneices came together, each asserted a right to Oedipus’s household and throne that was equally matched, and violence ensued from the equilibrium. On the other hand, Greek women were not supposed to compete with one another for distinction. They wove wool for clothes, maintained the household, and cared for the children, the sick, and the dead, activities that required cooperation away from public view.8 Proximity to other women was the norm and desideratum. Moreover, lawgivers like Solon based their funeral legislation on the premise that every woman wanted to participate in mourning.9 For the sake of public tranquillity, legislators tried to limit the numbers of women participants by imposing restrictions according to degrees of kinship, for instance, to children of fifth cousins. In this context, women were interchangeable, and the places they held during birth, coming of age in wedding ceremonies, and death, [End Page 2] were open to more than one woman. Closeness and... (shrink)

William James répond le 19 mars 1902 à la proposition que lui a faite Joseph Segond de traduire les Principles of Psychology. Il l’invite à se mettre en relation avec d’autres candidats à cette traduction et suggère de traduire plutôt le Briefer Course dont il prépare une nouvelle édition.

The structural representation (S-representation) account provides an increasingly popular way of understanding the role and value of representation in cognitive science. Yet critics remain unconvinced that the account has the resources to rescue representationalism. This paper reviews problems faced by the S-representation account. In doing so, it offers a novel taxonomy that divides objections into two broad camps that ought to be disambiguated: ‘conceptual’ and ‘empirical’. It further shows how these objections can be met, bolstering existing responses in the literature (...) with novel solutions, thus strengthening the S-representation account. Finally, this paper suggests that the types of objections identified provide a generalisable taxonomy for a better understanding of any version of anti-representationalism. Thus, this review is of value to the representation debate more broadly. (shrink)