bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Conclusion
Authors: Haynes Stephen R.
Published: October 2003

The book's conclusion suggests that those who study the relationship of religion and racism must avoid the dual pitfalls of assuming that religious belief is irrelevant for comprehending contemporary social problems or assuming that religious traditions are intrinsically exclusivist.
Myth
Authors: Leeming David
Published: October 2003

Myths are living entities that continue to energize thought and action in the modern world. If ancient mythmakers conceived of the evident reality of creation in terms of character and events we associate with such works as Genesis or the Rig Veda, modern scientific mythmakers see it in terms of evolution and the Big Bang. Myth has always been intricately related to religion and new religious metaphors and energies are to be found in the new scientific myths. Modern works of literature reflect ways in which the modern mind uses the ancient Creation, Deity, and Hero archetypes to reveal new understandings.
Deity
Authors: Leeming David
Published: October 2003

The concept of Deity is central to the way humans see themselves and their societies; a strong father god reflects one kind of culture while a nurturing mother goddess reflects another. The way we think and act as individuals and as national and cultural entities is directly affected by our myths of deity. The question of gender has always been crucial to humankind's understanding of itself as a species. The ancient Mother Goddess of agricultural cultures gradually lost power to the patriarchal god of more warlike societies but is today beginning to regain a position of importance in our mythic metaphors and, therefore, in the way we think and behave. The nature of the gender struggle in deity mythology is beautifully revealed in Ceremony, a novel by Leslie Marmon Silko, a woman of the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico.
The Hero
Authors: Leeming David
Published: October 2003

Heroes are those humans who, in the mythological traditions, are in varying degrees infused with divine or superhuman qualities. Heroes reflect our priorities as individuals and as cultures. As analyzed archetypally in Joseph Campbell's “monomyth,” the hero reflects our priorities as a species, priorities involving the body's, the psyche's, and the soul's search for union. Warlike cultures create warlike heroes who seek the union of hegemony; heroes such as Jesus and the Buddha reflect the search for spiritual union; the hero pattern as a whole reflects our life's psychological journey toward wholeness. Modern thinkers have recognized new mythologies that reflect new understandings of reality based on, e.g., psychology, mysticism, ecology, and physics. New hero values have emerged from this modernist process, values perhaps reflected in William Carlos Williams's little poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow.”
A Historical Puzzle
Authors: Swenson Peter A.
Published: October 2003

Poses a historical puzzle about the timing of welfare state development in the U.S. and Sweden. The “big bang” in progressive social and labor policy occurred earlier in the U. S., during the Great Depression, although the left and labor seemed markedly weaker than in Sweden, where social democracy made its remarkable legislative strides only later in the 1940s and 1950s. This historical puzzle indicates that conventional theory about the welfare state, drawing on comparative analysis of class power and institutions, needs to be challenged because it wrongly presumes capitalist interests against the welfare state that are unchanging over time and invariant across countries.
Egalitarian Employers
Authors: Swenson Peter A.
Published: October 2003

This chapter wraps up the analysis of solidarism's development through the 1950s with historical evidence showing how employers strongly favored continued wage compression, a fact that thoroughly undermines the mythology that employers reluctantly traded centralized negotiation of an egalitarian structure of wages across firms and industries in exchange for the labor confederation's suppression of wage militancy. Wage solidarism and restraint, consensually pursued in multiindustry collective bargaining, generated endemic labor scarcity, which in turn gave rise to a profusion of welfare capitalist benefits offered by firms to attract and retain labor. The employers’ confederation proved unsuccessful in unilaterally suppressing this resurgent segmentalism, and these difficulties help explain employer support for welfare state politics during the 1940s and 1950s.
Cartelism and Market Control
Authors: Swenson Peter A.
Published: October 2003

This chapter returns to the analysis of twentieth century U.S. to explain the dual nature of its system of labor market governance in which cartelism, a centralized system of multiemployer collective bargaining, thrived alongside segmentalism in important sectors like bituminous coal mining, clothing, and building and construction. In these sectors, employers and unions joined in cross‐class alliance to prop up wages to stem destabilizing low‐standard competition. The regulatory alliance, distinct from Sweden's solidarism, which imposed ceilings instead of floors on wages, helped give rise to economic and political phenomena of an equally distinct nature, e.g., early ties between the Republican Party and the powerful miners’ union; corruption in building and construction (which was absent in Sweden); and ultimately, employer interests in the New Deal's labor and social legislation of the 1930s.
Expanding the Solidaristic Welfare State
Authors: Swenson Peter A.
Published: October 2003

This chapter turns to the social democratic reforms of the 1940s and 1950s, rooted in cross‐class alliances that were ultimately to distinguish Sweden as the world's paragon social democratic welfare state. Looking first at its People's Pension and universal health insurance reforms, it shows how the Social Democratic government assisted organized employers in their efforts against welfare capitalism by relieving pressure on individual firms to use private social benefits to attract and retain labor under the labor scarcity associated with solidarism and strong expansionary macroeconomic pressures. It then looks at Sweden's renowned “active labor market policy” and its controversial pension legislation of 1959 to show how additional social democratic reforms directly served employers’ solidaristic interests in wage restraint, labor mobility, and the rationing of labor made scarce by collectively administered underpricing – all the while preserving capitalist domination of the investment process.
Reopening the Word
Authors: Sabin Marie Noonan
Published: October 2003

Knowing that the earliest Jesus traditions took shape in a Jewish milieu, Sabin sets the composition of the earliest gospel in the context of the theological discourse of first‐century Judaism. That discourse took the form of an exchange between current events and Scripture: contemporary persons and events were understood through the lens of the Hebrew Bible, while at the same time, the biblical word was reopened – i.e., reinterpreted – so as to reveal its relevance to the present faith community. Applying this kind of compositional process (which is related to Midrash) to the Gospel of Mark, Sabin uncovers a fresh reading of the Seed, Fig Tree, and Vineyard parables; of the various Temple scenes; of the foolish disciples and the wise women; and of the gospel's open‐ended ending. She highlights the results of her findings by juxtaposing them with interpretations of the same passages by various church fathers as well as by readings from modern critics. Sabin sees Mark as an original theologian shaping his material out of two primary Jewish traditions: the Wisdom traditions, with their emphasis on God's presence in daily life, and Creation theology, which imagined the End Time not as a catastrophe but as a return to the Garden. She thus offers a new way of understanding Mark's use of Scripture, his eschatology, and his presentation of Jesus. In conclusion, she argues that retrieving Mark's voice in the context of Early Judaism brings with it insights much needed in our day: of God's presence in the ordinary, of God's image reflected in female as well as male, of watchfulness as the way of wisdom, and of God's revelation as ongoing.
Scripture Interpreting Scripture: Reopening the Word
Authors: Sabin Marie Noonan
Published: October 2003

Sabin shows how Mark uses both direct citations and indirect echoes of Hebrew Scripture to construct a framework of interpretation. In particular, she shows how the opening word of Mark's Gospel, Beginning, as well as the other words of Mark 1, have enriched meanings in a Jewish context, and how the Seed Parables of Ch. 4 (i.e., the Parable of the Sower, the Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly, and the Parable of the Mustard Seed), if read in relation to one another as a midrashic lexicon, open up different insights about the meaning of God's kingdom than those derived from the reading‐frames of the church fathers or modern critics.
The Identity of the Markan Jesus: A Mashal
Authors: Sabin Marie Noonan
Published: October 2003

Sabin takes up the various identifying terms applied to Jesus in the Gospel of Mark – (1) Messiah, (2) the beloved son, (3) son of man, (4) son of David, and (5) son of Mary – and discusses their meaning in the context of Jewish tradition. In conclusion, Sabin argues that Mark identifies Jesus most of all with Wisdom, which Jewish tradition presents as the creative, nurturing, restorative aspect of God. Sabin finds Mark's Jesus to resemble Wisdom in his inclusive seeking out of followers, in his concern for feeding those around him, in his restorative acts of healing, forgiveness, and raising to new life. She argues that while Mark speaks of Jesus as an historical male, he describes him with the characteristics of Woman Wisdom. Finally, she sees that Mark, in presenting Jesus as God's Wisdom, also shows him to be God's “image and likeness,” a living parable (mashal) of “what God is like.”
The Unending Revelation: Mark 16:8 as a Theological Choice
Authors: Sabin Marie Noonan
Published: October 2003

Sabin argues that Mark 16:8 is the most appropriate ending to Mark's Gospel. She challenges the practice of printing in Christian Bibles verses 9–20, unanimously acknowledged to be a spurious ending, and of misleadingly ascribing it to Mark in the Christian lectionary, arguing that this practice undermines Mark's theology. She develops her argument for the fittingness of Mark 16:8 in terms of four different kinds of evidence, two external and two internal: (1) the textual or manuscript evidence; (2) the evidence from the canon; (3) the evidence from the literary structure of Mark's Gospel; (4) the evidence from Mark's theology. She compares Mark's ending at 16:8 with the endings of Matthew, Luke, and John, noting how the differences serve to highlight each evangelist's distinctive theological voice. She concludes that to add verses 9–20 to Mark's authentic ending is to blunt the voice that can reopen God's word for us today in many important ways: to the enriching Jewish context of the Christian Scripture; to lost traditions about the equality of women; to lost emphasis on the inclusiveness of the divine image in humanity; to a creative way of doing theology that allows God's revelation to be ongoing.
Desire and Belief
Authors: Bittner Rüdiger
Published: October 2003

Examines the desire‐belief‐theory, as presented, for example, in the work of Donald Davidson, which holds that a reason for which somebody does something is a combination of a desire and a belief of the agent. Widely accepted, this theory is seldom defended, the most explicit argument being due to Michael Smith. However, not only is his argument found wanting on a number of counts but the desire‐belief‐theory also gives desire and belief incompatible roles to fulfill. Desire is asked both to set a goal and to provide the impulse for pursuing it, and, correspondingly, belief is held to give the agent guidance both in the sense of informing and in the sense of directing him or her.
Sources of the Desire/Belief Thesis
Authors: Bittner Rüdiger
Published: October 2003

Explores the ancestry of the desire‐belief‐theory. It is generally assumed to derive from David Hume's conception, epitomized in his statement that the impulse for action does not arise from reason, but is only directed by it. In fact, though, this view is not credibly supported by argument and must rest, rather, on traditional assumptions. Their source is Plato: the doctrine of the soul in Phaedrus expounds, contrary to many scholars’ opinion, essentially the understanding of action that we are familiar with from Hume. What made this understanding of action attractive becomes also apparent in considering Plato: if reason gives desire direction, there can be action in accordance with what there is. Nevertheless we should drop the idea: it brings with it domination within the soul.
Acting on Principle
Authors: Bittner Rüdiger
Published: October 2003

Examines an alternative understanding of doing things for reasons, Kant's conception of acting on a maxim. Having explained the Kantian idea of maxims and having defended the claim that this is indeed Kant's conception of agency, the chapter tries to find viable accounts of, first, holding a maxim and, second, acting on a maxim, in either case without success. How the agent who holds a maxim differs from an agent who does not cannot be made out. As for acting on a maxim, Kant's texts support two accounts, the one relying on the practical syllogism, the other on the faculty of judgment. Notoriously, however, the practical syllogism does not yield action; and a faculty of judgment, it is argued here, does not in fact exist.
The Explanatory Force of Reason Explanations
Authors: Bittner Rüdiger
Published: October 2003

The chapter asks how such a conception of reasons for which people do things can account for the fact that explanation of action is provided by indicating the reasons for which the thing in question was done. The answer is that reason explanations are a subclass of historical explanations. Historical explanations, however, do not hold explanatory force just by being historical explanations, but by following some more specific pattern. Reason explanations form one such pattern. While they are not strong enough to support corresponding predictions and counterfactuals, the understanding they provide should not therefore be contrasted, as in the traditional distinction between explanation and understanding, with the understanding gained from explaining phenomena by reference to general laws.
Any State or Event May Be a Reason for Which Somebody Does Something
Authors: Bittner Rüdiger
Published: October 2003

Given that reasons for which people do things are states of affairs and events in the world, are there additional restrictions on what can be a reason for what? Many writers have claimed that there are, arguing that actions and the reasons for which they are done derive from particular systems of meaning. The pivot on which their argument turns is the notion of a constitutive rule, introduced by Rawls and taken up by writers like Charles Taylor and Searle; i.e., the notion of a rule such that without it the activity in question could not exist. The chapter argues, by contrast, that there are no constitutive rules, and that it is purely an empirical matter to figure out what is a reason for what action. This does not bar from reason status rules, customs, obligations, and similar things deemed to involve meanings.
Reasons for Which People Do Things Are Normally not Qualities of the Agent
Authors: Bittner Rüdiger
Published: October 2003

What selects the reasons for which people actually do things from the vast array of what could be such a reason? The chapter argues that it depends on the qualities of the agent, on things like her eagerness, belief, and expectation, and what is the reason for which she does something. It does not follow, though, and typically it is not true that such qualities of an agent as eagerness, belief, and expectation themselves are the reasons for which she does something. We are reason selectors, but the reasons are still “out there”; they are not mental entities. A serious problem is presented by the case of the agent in relevant error, but such an agent does not in fact do for a reason what he does; he only took himself, mistakenly, to be acting for a reason.
Stronger Reasons
Authors: Bittner Rüdiger
Published: October 2003

We compare the reasons one has in terms of strength, and the task of the present chapter is to explain what it is for one reason to be stronger than another. Raz offered a criterion, but that is shown to yield unsatisfactory results. The explanation proposed here is this: stronger reasons are states of affairs or events more important to the agent, the notion of importance deriving from Frankfurt's explication of what we care about. This proposal does not reduce the strength of reasons to the strength of the relevant desires. Contrary to Frankfurt's view, however, it does away with the difference between the order of reasons and the order of caring.
Doing Things for a Purpose, Doing Things for Fun
Authors: Bittner Rüdiger
Published: October 2003

The chapter tries to account for two kinds of cases that raise difficulties for the present conception of reasons for which people do things, namely, things done for a purpose, where the reason seems to be a future state or event, and things done for fun, which do not seem to be supported by reasons at all. As for things done for a purpose, it is argued here that we do not need teleological explanation as a special kind of explanation of action, and that these cases can be accommodated on the present conception by taking the reason for the action to lie, not in the end state the agent is said to be aiming at, but in the current state of affairs that prompts the agent to change or, as the case may be, to preserve it. As for things done for fun, it is argued that they are indeed done for a reason, which lies, generally speaking, in the special character of what it is like to do them.
The Cultural Premises
Authors: Cavalieri Paola
Published: October 2003

Focuses on the recent cultural changes that have contributed most to the revival of the debate on the animal question. The first area I consider is the political discussion of the principle of human equality; in this area the prohibition both of group discrimination and of hierarchies based on perfectionism paved the way to the idea that equality cannot be confined to our own species. The second area is bioethics, in which the criticisms of the sanctity‐of‐life doctrine, by eliminating the ambiguity between being human in the biological sense and being human in the philosophical sense, deprived mere species membership of any moral relevance. Finally, I turn to the disciplines that are today grouped together under the label of cognitive sciences – a field that has produced a wealth of evidence that, contra any behavioristic beliefs, animal minds not only do exist, but are much more like human minds than we ever thought.
The Traditional Accounts
Authors: Cavalieri Paola
Published: October 2003

In order to understand how we got where we are, I consider the main ways questions of moral status have been dealt with by mainstream Western philosophy. Descartes's defense of an ontological distinction between human and nonhuman animals is examined first, and contrasted with the contemporary paradigm of evolutionary continuity. Kant's confinement of respect to human beings, with the attendant doctrine that we only have indirect duties toward animals, is rejected insofar as it is attained at the cost of a series of surreptitious shifts in the meaning of the notions involved. Finally, Bentham is credited with abandoning the traditional bias in favor of moral agents, and with consistently introducing animals, as conscious beings, into the moral community. Classical utilitarianism is, however, criticized for not tackling the problem of the comparative status of humans and nonhumans in a theoretically satisfactory way.
Speciesism
Authors: Cavalieri Paola
Published: October 2003

Despite bioethical discussions of its moral irrelevance, membership in the species Homo sapiens is still appealed to as a criterion for access to superior moral status. Along the lines of the authors who have equated ”speciesism” with racism and sexism, I challenge this view on several grounds. I claim that biological characteristics cannot carry direct moral weight. I maintain that species membership cannot be referred to as a mark of a more complex mental endowment because some nonparadigmatic human beings are not so endowed. Finally, I argue that relational defenses of the moral relevance of species membership are either prejudiced or circular.
Welfare and the Value of Life
Authors: Cavalieri Paola
Published: October 2003

The way being open to reconsider in an impartial way the moral status of the members of other species, I offer a critical survey of the main attempts to do so within the field of animal liberation ethics. After distinguishing between obligations concerning welfare and obligations concerning the continuation of life, I examine Peter Singer's utilitarian stance, Tom Regan's deontological view, and David DeGrazia's mixed approach. Though agreeing with these authors as far as equal consideration for the interest in welfare is concerned, I raise doubts about their settling on unequal consideration for the interest in life, and I point to difficulties with formulating an acceptable theory of overall moral status. I end the survey with a discussion of the notion of personhood, which is found unable to overcome such difficulties.
Concepts of Evidence, or How the Electron Got Its Charge
Authors: Achinstein Peter
Published: October 2003

Using as an example the results of Hertz's experiments on cathode rays in 1883, in which no electrical effects of these rays were observed, four concepts of evidence are introduced: ES (epistemic situation), subjective, potential, and veridical. It is argued that although all four types are used in science, veridical evidence, which is entirely objective and requires the truth of the hypothesis, is the most important for scientists.
Two Major Probabilistic Theories of Evidence
Authors: Achinstein Peter
Published: October 2003

Two standard probabilistic theories of evidence are introduced: increase‐in‐probability (positive relevance) and high‐probability. These theories must be augmented by some definition of probability if a full theory of evidence is to be formulated and evaluated. Four popular theories of probability are presented: Carnap's a priori theory, the frequency theory, the propensity theory, and the subjective theory. It is shown how each yields a different concept of evidence.
Objective Epistemic Probability
Authors: Achinstein Peter
Published: October 2003

A new concept of probability ‐ objective epistemic probability ‐ is introduced and defended. It is epistemic because it is a measure of the degree of reasonableness of believing something; it is objective because it is independent of the beliefs of any person or group. The view is contrasted with several others, including the subjective Bayesian theory of probability, which is epistemic but not objective; with the propensity theory, which is objective but not epistemic; and with Carnap's view, which, like the view defended, is both epistemic and objective but, unlike it, is relativized to a potential epistemic situation.
Evidence, High Probability, and Belief
Authors: Achinstein Peter
Published: October 2003

It is argued that evidence must supply a good reason for belief, and that the latter requires that the objective epistemic probability of the hypothesis on the evidence be greater than half. Conflicting views are examined and rejected, including a standard Bayesian view that associates probability with degrees of belief, the likelihood view of Richard Royall, Deborah Mayo's error‐statistical account, and a view of Mark Kaplan that divorces belief from probability.
The Explanatory Connection
Authors: Achinstein Peter
Published: October 2003

Although necessary for evidence, a probability of the hypothesis on the putative evidence greater than half is not sufficient. What is required, it is argued, is that there be a probability greater than half that there is an explanatory connection between the hypothesis and the evidence, given the evidence. The concept of an ”explanatory connection” is defined, and it is shown how this condition yields a good reason to believe and avoids counterexamples against standard probability views of evidence.
Final Definitions and Realism
Authors: Achinstein Peter
Published: October 2003

A final definition of ”potential evidence” is proposed, and it is shown how veridical, ES‐, and subjective evidence can all be defined using the concept of potential evidence. Hempel's ”conditions of adequacy” for a definition of evidence are examined to see which ones are appropriate. Finally, it is shown that the definitions of the evidence proposed commit one to scientific realism, and that instrumentalist interpretations of evidence that employ the concept of an ”explanatory connection” will not be possible.
Evidence for Molecules: Jean Perrin and Molecular Reality
Authors: Achinstein Peter
Published: October 2003

Jean Perrin's argument for the existence of molecules on the basis of his 1908 experiments with Brownian motion is examined. Various interpretations of that argument, including hypothetico‐deductive, Wesley Salmon's common‐cause idea, and Clark Glymour's bootstrapping claims, are examined and rejected. The argument is reconstructed as an eliminative‐causal one, and it is shown how it conforms to the requirements of potential evidence. It is also argued, against antirealist interpretations of Perrin, that Perrin himself was applying a realist argument to the existence of unobservable molecules rather than an instrumentalist one to the truth of the observational consequences of the molecular theory.
Killing and Letting Die: Methodology of Comparable Cases and Conceptions of Moral Equivalence
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: October 2003

Begins by considering the methodology of comparable cases used to test for the Thesis of the Moral Equivalence of Killing and Letting Die (Thesis E). Consideration is given to how to create cases that are properly equalized for all factors besides killing and letting die, analysing how this is done standardly, and also how it might be suggested that it should be done non‐standardly by equalizing cases cross‐definitionally as well as contextually. Arguments are presented against using non‐standardly equalized kill and let‐die cases as test cases for Thesis E, and distinctions are made between a strong and a weak version of that thesis. In addition, consideration is given to whether terminating aid is killing or letting die, and an examination made of Joel Feinberg's views on the right to be aided.
Objections and Conceptions of Moral Equivalence
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: October 2003

The first section of Ch. 3 is concerned with objections and alternatives to the arguments and analyses presented in the first two chapters on the moral equivalence of killing and letting die. Two issues are dealt with first: the issue of self‐ownership and the negative/positive rights distinction, and the issue of per se moral differences only sometimes making a difference in kill and let‐die cases depending on contexts. The relation that there might be between the killing/letting‐die distinction and the intention/foresight distinction (whose moral significance is described by the Doctrine of Double Effect) is considered. Particular attention is paid to the objections Shelly Kagan has made to the author's proposals and to the alternative views on positive and negative agency that Warren Quinn developed. The second section of the chapter returns to examine the stronger and weaker notions of per se moral equivalence, their differential relation to the moral equivalence of cases, and what they reveal about explanation in ethics and aesthetics.
Killing and Letting Die in Standardly Equalized Cases
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: October 2003

Presents four different tests to use on standardly equalized kill and let‐die cases to determine the truth of Thesis E (Thesis of the Moral Equivalence of Killing and Letting Die). The first is the Post‐Efforts Test, (which is contrasted with the defeasibility test); results obtained from this test are considered on varied cases, including cases where there are no wrong acts (this is related to issues of strict liability and agent regret); objections to the test are also examined. Second is the Pre‐Efforts Test, which requires foregoing benefit, making sacrifices, or being imposed on to prevent behaviour; after showing how this test might distinguish morally between killing and letting die, objections raised to it by Bruce Russell and Joel Feinberg are considered; consideration is also given to what moral difference is being measured by both the Post‐Efforts and the Pre‐Efforts tests — a difference in moral objectionableness or in some other moral property — and to the significance of not imposing losses on someone when he is dependent on some people but independent relative to others. The Choice Test comes third; this is in some ways more sensitive than the first two tests and may also yield different results; it gives the first indication that there are (at least) two different measures for the stringency of prohibitions on acts — an efforts measure and a precedence measure (this issue is also addressed in Ch. 12); again, the question arises as to whether the tests measure differences in moral objectionableness of killing and letting die or some other morally significant property (i.e. one related to how much we may require people to do). The final test presented is the Good Motive Test; this considers killing and letting‐die cases in which we act either for greater good or for paternalistic reasons (e.g. in euthanasia); Philippa Foot's views on the contrasting virtues of justice and charity are also considered here.
Constraints and You
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: October 2003

Examines the question of whether it is morally permissible to treat people in ways ruled out by the Principle of Permissible Harm (PPH; this was introduced in Ch. 7 and provides an account of certain restrictions/constraints on killing) only for the sake of minimizing violations of the PPH itself, or whether there is a constraint on doing this. Ch. 9 examines further one approach to the Selection Problem introduced in Ch. 8 that arises in justifying restrictions/constraints, namely, agent differentiation: the fact that something would be done by me rather than by someone else. Traditional victim‐focussed views (the victim's right or the inappropriateness of the relation in which he would stand to those for whom he would be sacrificed constrain and make it wrong for the agent to kill) are contrasted with four revisionist (agent‐relative and agent‐focussed) views on dealing with cases in which one person is killed in order to save others from being killed. Different notions of the self, act‐scenes, negative factors to be avoided, temporal dimensions, doomed victims, and degrees of self‐indulgence are examined in relation to the problem of justifying the constraint. One revisionist view is shown to bear a crucial similarity to the traditional view.
Agreements
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: October 2003

If it is in one way in people's interest that there be constraints on killing (because it gives them a more sublime and elevated status), is it still possible for them to agree ex ante to alienate those rights for the sake of other interests they have? Can we do away with constraints protecting an individual not because it is for the greater good of others, but because ex ante it is in his own interest for there to be no constraints? This is the question that prompts Ch. 11. Both agent‐focussed objections and victim‐focussed objections to agreements to use oneself at one time for one's own good at another time are addressed, although the emphasis is on victim‐focussed reasons against such agreements, and on the limits to a strategy of founding morality on agreements and allowing duties to be overridden by agreements. The outline is plotted of the types of agreements permitted by ‘common‐sense morality.’
Supererogation, Obligation, and Intransitivity
Authors: Kamm F. M.
Published: October 2003

Returns to a problem first raised in Ch. 8, namely, reconciling the existence of prerogatives not to maximize overall good (allowing for some such acts to be supererogatory) with restrictions on the pursuit of one's personal good. This problem becomes especially pressing since, despite the earlier emphasis on the existence of restrictions to pursuing the greater good, it is sometimes the case that greater good may permissibly take precedence over restrictions, for example, negative and positive duties (obligations) or rights; if personal good may take precedence over greater good (allowing some acts for greater good to be supererogatory), and these supererogatory acts may take precedence over restrictions, why may not personal good take precedence over restrictions — why does transitivity fail here? An attempt is made to prove each premise in this argument separately, and the associated objections and duties are presented. The third section of the chapter considers whether the intransitivity arises only because different factors account for precedence relations in each step of the argument, or whether the results obtained in the first two sections of the chapter are more general, and, indeed, another instance of the Principle of Contextual Interaction; consideration is also given to whether the intransitivities discussed share the cycling property characteristic of other intransitivities. Concludes by applying these results to a further discussion of those who never allow duty to be subordinated to supererogation, to Scheffler's Hybrid Theory, and to Parfit's problem of the Repugnant Conclusion.
The Bonds of Freedom
Authors: Miles Rebekah L.
Published: October 2003

Feminist theologians have commonly identified Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian realism as a prime example of a patriarchal theological ethic that promotes domination. In this study, the author claims that Niebuhr's thought can be usefully appropriated and revised in service of a new ethic – a feminist Christian realism. This new ethic is offered as an answer to the loss of moral grounding and critical judgment within some North American feminist theologies. She contends that an increasingly radical feminist emphasis on divine immanence and human boundedness has undercut key assumptions upon which feminism rests. Niebuhr's realism, she believes, can be the source of a necessary correction. Feminist theologians. Miles argues, would be better served by using the categories of Christian realism to retrieve critically, a more positive understanding of divine transcendence and human self‐transcendence while maintaining their emphasis on human boundedness and divine presence. This position is developed by drawing together the contributions of Niebuhr, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Sharon Welch (two prominent feminist theologians). Ruether's turn to creation and Welch's turn to community together provide an important corrective to Niebuhr's Christian realism.
Freedom and Boundedness
Authors: Miles Rebekah L.
Published: October 2003

This introductory chapter starts by describing the setting within which the book was written, and provides an outline of the main contents. It the next two sections, it goes on to give the historical background to and definitions of Christian realism, and describe the assumptions and methodology used. The next section sketches a general argument about transcendence and immanence that is common to many, but not all, Christian theologies, and the following one argues that common feminist rejections of radical human self‐transcendence are bad for feminism because they undercut that which makes the feminist experience possible. The last four sections of the chapter discuss feminists on freedom, feminists on divine transcendence, Reinhold Niebuhr as a feminist resource, and feminist Christian realism as it emerges in the book from a mutually critical interaction among Niebuhr, Rosemary Radford Ruether, and Sharon Welch.
What's So Bad About Reinhold Niebuhr?
Authors: Miles Rebekah L.
Published: October 2003

Because Reinhold Niebuhr has been so widely criticized by feminist theologians, a critical retrieval must first examine the extensive charges against him. To this end, this chapter outlines feminist criticisms of Niebuhr and develops a framework for a feminist reappropriation of Niebuhr that takes into account these criticisms. It is suggested that feminist criticisms of Niebuhr's understanding of gender roles do not fundamentally challenge Niebuhr's model of the free and bound self (human self‐transcendence and boundedness). Indeed, these criticisms actually exemplify the need to recognize the moral significance of both our given bodily reality and our human freedom partially to transcend and transform that givenness. Niebuhr's understanding of human moral experience provides a framework for that recognition.
Freedom for the World
Authors: Miles Rebekah L.
Published: October 2003

This chapter begins with Reinhold Niebuhr's claim that human experience is both bound and free (human boundedness and human self‐transcendence), and goes on to examine the broader ethical implications of this claim for feminist theologians and others. Though Niebuhr is drawn on as the primary resource for this position, the alternative offered is not simply Niebuhr dressed up in feminist vocabulary or feminism disguised by Niebuhrian concepts. Niebuhr's “hermeneutic of suspicion” creates a greater ambivalence about the moral status of the natural world and human communities than is necessary in a realist position. Instead, the alternative, a feminist Christian realism, accounts both for feminist criticisms of Niebuhr and for feminism's positive contributions to a realist ethic.
Dueling Realisms
Authors: Miles Rebekah L.
Published: October 2003

This final chapter points toward an alternative position that critically retrieves the realisms of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sharon Welch, and Reinhold Niebuhr, and finds a middle way between the idealistic realism about moral grounding found in Ruether and some early feminists, and the radically relative political realism of Welch and some other postmodern feminists. This alternative joins an appeal to human self‐transcendence and divine transcendence with an affirmation of human boundedness and divine presence. At the same time, it takes seriously, Ruether's turn to creation and Welch's turn to community. In this alternative model – a feminist Christian realism – the author hopes to maintain both substantive grounding for moral claims and critical judgment of them.
Introduction
Authors: Nasr Seyyed Vali Reza
Published: October 2003

Most studies of Islamism have focused on the role of oppositional forces. Increasingly, states are also important Islamist actors. States pursue Islamization not only in reaction to Islamist challenges but also because in Islamism they see the opportunity to address the inherent weaknesses of the postcolonial state structure, and to significantly increase the power and capacity of the state. This trend is most evident in Pakistan and Malaysia where both the weakness of the postcolonial state and the opportunity inherent in Islamization have been greatest. These cases deviate from other models of state formation in the Muslim world, and provide new insights not only into state formation in the Muslim world but also into the study of the role of religion in state expansion in comparative politics.
The Islamist Challenge in Malaysia and Pakistan
Authors: Nasr Seyyed Vali Reza
Published: October 2003

The 1970s was a period of Islamic resurgence in Malaysia and Pakistan. In Malaysia, ABIM and dakwah movements, and in Pakistan, the Jama`at‐i Islami spearheaded Islamist challenge to the secular state. These movements grew in popularity, and became the voice of the disgruntled political elements. They also floated new and powerful political concepts and ideas that quickly gained in popularity and framed public debates and influenced political culture.
Pakistan, 1977–1997
Authors: Nasr Seyyed Vali Reza
Published: October 2003

The Zia ul‐Haq regime adopted state‐led Islamization to shore up waning state power. It adopted aspects of Islamist ideology to reshape the country's judicial and political structures. This strategy expanded state power after years of domestic strife and at a time when Pakistan was involved in the Afghan War. The policy was also used to legitimate military rule, providing a justification for its continuation as demands for democratization grew. The Islamization strategy firmly entrenched the postcolonial state in Islamic ideology and allowed the military to ally itself with Islamist forces to achieve its goals.
Conclusion
Authors: Nasr Seyyed Vali Reza
Published: October 2003

Why did only Malaysia and Pakistan adopt state‐led Islamization as a strategy for expansion of state power? How did this strategy serve their interests? What was the impact of this strategy on these countries and their societies? In the end, Islamization did serve state interests, but at the cost of laws and procedures that were neither viable in the long run nor were they socially beneficial. Furthermore, Islamization strategy ultimately proved untenable as interests of the state and those of Islamist actors began to diverge, especially with the onset of the Asian Financial Crisis, and implementation of IMF reforms.
Lessing's Philosophy of Religion and the German Enlightenment
Authors: Yasukata Toshimasa
Published: October 2003

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81) is held in high esteem as one who marks the cutting edge of the German Enlightenment. He was the very first German to achieve a spiritually and intellectually mature state of being, the hallmark of which is independent and responsible use of one's own reason. He also stands as a key figure in German intellectual history, a bridge joining Luther, Leibniz, and German idealism. Yet despite his well‐recognized importance in the history of thought, and despite a substantial body of in‐depth studies, Lessing as theologian or philosopher of religion remains an enigmatic figure. Even today, his theology or philosophy of religion is a subject of dispute. With regard to the genuine core of his theological or religious‐philosophical thought, researchers hold diametrically opposed interpretations. It is not without reason that scholars refer to the “riddle” or “mystery” of Lessing, a mystery that has proved intractable because of his reticence on the subject of the final conclusions of his intellectual project. Confronted with this perplexity in Lessing studies, this book seeks to resolve the enigma. On the basis of intensive study of the entire corpus of Lessing's philosophical and theological writings as well as the extensive secondary literature, it leads the reader into the systematic core of Lessing's highly elusive religious thought. From a detailed and thoroughgoing analysis of Lessing's developing position on Christianity and reason, there emerges a fresh image of Lessing as a creative modern mind, both shaped by and giving shape to the Christian heritage.
The Roots of Reference
Authors: McCarthy Timothy , McCarthy Timothy
Published: October 2003

Applies the ‘Conformal Framework’ developed in Ch. 2 to some problems of the classical theory of reference, namely, to the question of how the reference of expressions in specific problem categories, in particular, proper names, observational predicates, and natural kind terms, is determined. McCarthy proposes interpretationally motivated accounts of the reference of these terms that cut across the conflicting accounts presented by causal and descriptive theories of reference. The striking feature of these accounts is their ‘local holism’: in each of the three cases under consideration, the answer provided takes the form of saying how the reference of expressions of the given sort is fixed relative to the interpretations of expressions in one or both of the other sorts. The reference mechanisms suggested stand in a dialectical relation to the Conformal Framework, in the sense that they are justified by the latter and at the same time lend support the Framework's constitutive principles proposed in Ch. 2.
The Ground of Logic
Authors: McCarthy Timothy , McCarthy Timothy
Published: October 2003

Applies the Conformal Framework to the philosophy of logic, and, in particular, to what McCarthy calls the Interpretation Problem for Logic, i.e. the problem of characterizing the logical devices of a language, as opposed to its descriptive expressions, paradigm examples of which include observational predicates and natural kind terms, on the basis of the data provided by an interpretation of its speakers. An extension of the Conformal Framework is given that facilitates a general solution to the interpretation problem: a logical constant, on McCarthy's account, is an operator whose semantic role is invariant under structure‐preserving transformations defined across situations, which are epistemically possible for the idealized intentional system interpreted. Such a characterization results in a relative determinacy: the interpretations of the logical terms in the intentional system's language are fixed by the role they play in stories describing worlds that are epistemically possible for the system, which in turn is fixed by the system's inductive method.
The Atrocity Paradigm
Authors: Card Claudia
Published: October 2003

Taking atrocities as paradigms of evil, this book develops the theory that evils (plural) are foreseeable, intolerable harms produced by culpable wrongdoing. It places this theory in relation to others put forward by historically influential philosophers (Jeremy Bentham, Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant, the ancient Stoics), places the concept of evil in relation to other ethically important concepts (such as justice and equality), and considers case studies: rape in war, domestic violence, child abuse, and “gray zones” understood as certain predicaments of people who are at once victims and perpetrators.

Contesting Nietzsche's rejection of the concept “evil,” this book holds it important to distinguish as evils the very worst wrongs and show how they differ from ordinary wrongs (which are bad but do not make lives intolerable); it finds the concept “evil” rooted not in the envy of the impotent (as Nietzsche thought) but in the belief in entitlement to decent treatment. On the atrocity theory, the nature and severity of harm, rather than degrees of perpetrator culpability, distinguish evils from ordinary wrongs. Intermediate between stoicism and utilitarianism, the atrocity theory treats both wrongful willing and harm as essential components of evils but finds neither all wrongful willing (but only what produces intolerable harm) nor all intolerable harm (but only what issues from wrongful willing) to be evil. Like Kant (in the Stoic tradition), it treats evil as an ethical concept, but it extends Kant's moral psychology in reexamining the possibility (which he rejected) of what he called “diabolical evil,” namely, doing evil for evil's sake.

Unjust inequalities need not be evils, although they are wrong; to be an evil, an injustice must be intolerably harmful, not merely exhibit arbitrary inequality. Hence, political activists, including feminists, should prioritize addressing genuine evils (such as war rape) over eliminating such inequities as the arbitrary exclusion of women from certain occupations. Two chapters examine legacies of past evils, considering forgiveness, mercy, gratitude (for mercy or forgiveness), guilt, and punishment in reflecting on how best to live with evils we have not escaped suffering or avoided perpetrating. The final chapter uses Primo Levi's concept of “gray zones” to construct an all‐too‐human account of diabolical evil, namely, the deliberate and successful pursuit of moral corruption of others as an alternative to the conception Kant rejected.