bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Barnes & Noble as Synagogue
Authors: Fuller Robert C.
Published: October 2003

Those who consider themselves “spiritual, but not religious” have become a recognized part of the American religious landscape. Constituting a full 20% of the population, their unchurched approach to religion will likely continue to be the only viable option for a growing sector of the American population. Importantly, the interests and vocabularies of our unchurched seekers have even begun to influence the inner‐spirituality of many who still belong to America's established churches. A major conclusion of this book is that our unchurched seekers embrace a set of beliefs that is at least as mature and dynamic as their churched counterparts.
State Banking in Early America
Authors: Bodenhorn Howard
Published: October 2003

An outpouring of recent theoretical and empirical research places financial intermediaries center stage in the process of economic growth. Through their dealings with customers as depositors, borrowers, entrepreneurs, and shareholders, financial intermediaries have an advantage over other market participants in gathering and evaluating information on the likely success of many entrepreneurial projects. Despite this outpouring of work on the connection between aggregate economic activity and total financial intermediation, less attention has been paid to whether there is a best type of banking. Early America provides a valuable natural experiment because the decentralized federalist polity allowed for a great deal of financial experimentation. Distinct regional differences appeared. In New England, small, family‐owned banks appeared and a coherent system was knit together through the operation of the Suffolk system. In the Middle‐Atlantic region, two distinct experiments were conducted: deposit insurance and free banking. The former failed, but reappeared in various guises; the latter succeeded in that it influenced America's banking policy for the next 150 years. Banking in the South and West followed a number of paths, including state‐subsidized banks designed to offer long‐term mortgage credit, free banking, and branch banking. Branch banking was the most successful of these experiments. There was no single best banking system, but systems better adapted to local conditions.
Introduction
Authors: Bodenhorn Howard
Published: October 2003

Studies of modern banking systems focus on two issues: the efficiency of banks as intermediaries and the connection between financial intermediation and economic growth. Earlier banking systems should be judged on the same criteria. Each region of the U.S. developed a unique regional banking structure, which had implications for intermediation and growth. It was a period of experimentation, often labeled as free banking, that allowed states to create banking structures tailored to local needs.
Banking Theory and Banking Practice in Antebellum America
Authors: Bodenhorn Howard
Published: October 2003

Modern theories of financial intermediation begin from the premise that small, young firms, due to information asymmetries, will not have access to arm's length markets in bonds and commercial paper. Small and young firms must rely on financial intermediaries, principally banks, with whom these firms form long‐run relationships. Modern theory stands in contrast to the dominant contemporary theory of banking practice; namely, the real‐bills doctrine. Banks that followed the doctrine loaned only to established businesses with impeccable reputations. Had early American bankers adhered to the doctrine, they would not have been the engines of growth that they actually became. Banks mattered because they encouraged entrepreneurship by being entrepreneurial themselves.
Assessing America's Early Banks
Authors: Bodenhorn Howard
Published: October 2003

Early American banking grew in accordance with overall economic growth. The one exception was the early 1830s, when a speculative wave poured over the U.S. and the banking sector grew more rapidly than the aggregate economy. High credit demand drove up profits, which induced entry, induced capital investment, and increased capital leverage ratios. The speculative bubble burst in the late 1830s due to actions by the Bank of England. Banks failed in unprecedented numbers in the early 1840s. After 1843, banking and economic activity moved together. While the National Banking Acts of 1863 and 1864 rationalized the nation's banking system, they eliminated a number of the distinct regional attributes that had appeared under an earlier, more decentralized federalism.
Religion, Ethnicity, and Nationhood
Authors: Perica Vjekoslav
Published: October 2003

Introduces the book by discussing the symbolic destruction of churches, monasteries and other monuments and sacred places of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Catholic Church in Croatia and Bosnia‐Herzegovina, and the Yugoslav Muslim Religious Organization (Islamic community), and also in Albania that occurred during the various wars in the Yugoslav region in the 1990s. It then discusses myth in relation to the nation‐state. The last and main part of the chapter gives accounts of the four mainstream Yugoslav religious institutions (the Serbian Orthodox Church, Croatian Catholicism, the Muslim Religious Organization (Islamic community), and the Church and Nation of Macedonia), and also discusses the religious minority groups of the region (there are around 40, of which 14 are listed), and interfaith relations.
The Bosnian Ulema and Muslim Nationalism
Authors: Perica Vjekoslav
Published: October 2003

This chapter covers the period leading up to the birth of the Muslim national state of Bosnia‐Herzegovina within Yugoslavia in 1968, the frictions and difficulties associated with that birth, and the rebuilding and expansion of the new state up to the 1980s. The last part of the chapter discusses religious nationalism in Bosnia‐Herzegovina in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the role of the Bosnian and Herzegovinian ulema in this development.
Mary‐Making in Herzegovina
Authors: Perica Vjekoslav
Published: October 2003

This chapter discusses the cult of the Virgin Mary in Herzegovina as it developed from the vision of a Croatian‐speaking Madonna at Medjugorje, western Herzegovina (an overwhelmingly Catholic Croat area), in 1981. Attitudes to this Marian apparition and later ones at the same place are discussed, and the politics of the visions analyzed. The last part of the chapter discusses the Marian apparitions at Medjugorje and other places in relation to the Yugoslav crisis of the 1980s, when Catholic–Orthodox tensions were reignited. They are viewed as a prelude not to a peace and prayer movement but as a prelude to partition, war, and genocide in Bosnia‐Herzegovina.
Flames and Shrines
Authors: Perica Vjekoslav
Published: October 2003

The chapter starts with a brief account of Albanian anti‐Serbian activities (attacks on Serbian sacred places and monuments, said to be fuelled by religious hatred) in Kosovo in the 1980s. It then goes on to discuss shrines as a powerful symbolic energizer to the Serbian nationalist movement of the 1980s, with accounts of the building of the new cathedral in Belgrade, and notes on the construction of Serbian churches in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. Next an account is given of the Milošević era, including his initial pacification of Kosovo (which enabled more restoration and building of Serbian sacred sites, and a program of pilgrimages, jubilees, etc.) and his pilgrimage to the thirteenth‐century Hilandar monastery at the holy mountain of Athos in Greece, which paved the way for a new role of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Serbian nationalist movement.
Responses to Auschwitz and the Literary Imagination
Authors: Morgan Michael L.
Published: October 2003

The views of various American liberal intellectuals and Jewish writers on the Nazi death camps are discussed, starting with Lionel Trilling, a postwar New York literary critic, who addressed the issue of the death of the novel and the impotence of the mind in relation to the horror of the Nazi camps. The main part of the chapter is devoted to a discussion of the testimonies of three death camp survivors – Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi, and Jean Améry. Levi's viewpoint of the camps is not that of a religious Jew, but as a scientist and secular humanist, and he discusses the fact that normal prisoners (like Wiesel and Améry) were perhaps not in the best position to report on the camps, while those who held privileged positions (like himself) perhaps were.
The Early Stage: The Sixties
Authors: Morgan Michael L.
Published: October 2003

This chapter examines the way in which post‐Holocaust Jewish thought began to emerge in the 1960s and its role within Jewish religious thought. These post‐Holocaust Jewish thinkers did not constitute a school, nor did they have common views, except in some fairly general ways, and in the fact that they all confronted the Holocaust. The five main thinkers in particular (Richard Rubinstein, Eliezer Berkovits, Irving Greenberg, Arthur Cohen, and Emil Fackenheim) did not believe that responsible and honest Jewish self‐understanding could proceed, and yet ignore, the horrors of the death camps. The thinkers whose work is discussed in this chapter are Richard Rubinstein (the earliest Jewish theologian to write about the importance of the death camps for the Jewish faith), Emil Fackenheim, Irving Greenberg, Moredecai Kaplan, and Steven Schwarzchild.
The Six Day War and American Jewish Life
Authors: Morgan Michael L.
Published: October 2003

The impact of the Six Day Israeli–Arab War of May–June 1967 on American Jewish life and especially in the way American Jews perceived Israel and the Holocaust is considered. The events of that summer and the changing character of American life shaped the constituencies for the post‐Holocaust Jewish thinkers; they also helped to shape them and their work. The chapter discusses the reactions of the young Jewish radicals, and the various (sometimes bizarre) groupings of thinkers that emerged. To some, the Six Day War enabled the Holocaust to move to a central focal location in Jewish identity, so that by the mid‐1970s, the Holocaust and the Israeli victory of 1967 were intertwined with Jewish pride and sense of responsibility to respond to threat with strength and self‐confidence.
Richard Rubenstein and the New Paganism
Authors: Morgan Michael L.
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, and in the next four, an analysis and examination is made of the writings of the major American Jewish thinkers/theologians. The thinker addressed in this chapter is Richard Rubinstein, a prominent Jewish theologian, but not institutionally tied to one of the denominations of American Judaism; he was a Hillel rabbi and then an academic. Citations of each thinker's work earlier in the book are capitalized on in order to explore the theme of history and identity as it occurs in their work, and it is shown that these figures struggled with very deep and pressing problems not only about God and the Jewish people, and about human nature and moral purpose but also about the very nature of Jewish belief and its understanding of the world, history, God, and much else. They realized the dangers that accompanied their sensitivity to the Holocaust and their unconditional commitment to a honest and probing encounter with the death camps, and at the same time, they refused to abandon Judaism. In some ways, they appear like other intellectuals of the current era, who realize that we cannot transcend history nor can we be overwhelmed by it, but in other ways, they appear unlike them, for their sense of value and purpose arises out of the horror of the death camps.
Eliezer Berkovits and the Tenacity of Faith
Authors: Morgan Michael L.
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, and in Chs. 6, and 8–10, an analysis and examination is made of the writings of the major American Jewish thinkers/theologians. The thinker addressed in this chapter is Eliezer Berkovits, an orthodox Jewish theologian and philosopher. Citations of each thinker's work earlier in the book are capitalized on in order to explore the theme of history and identity as it occurs in their work, and it is shown that these figures struggled with very deep and pressing problems not only about God and the Jewish people, and about human nature and moral purpose but also about the very nature of Jewish belief and its understanding of the world, history, God, and much else. They realized the dangers that accompanied their sensitivity to the Holocaust and their unconditional commitment to an honest and probing encounter with the death camps, and at the same time, they refused to abandon Judaism. In some ways, they appear like other intellectuals of the current era, who realize that we cannot transcend history nor can we be overwhelmed by it, but in other ways, they appear unlike them, for their sense of value and purpose arises out of the horror of the death camps.
Emil Fackenheim: Fidelity and Recovery in the Post‐Holocaust Epoch
Authors: Morgan Michael L.
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, and in Chs. 6–9, an analysis and examination is made of the writings of the major American Jewish thinkers/theologians. The thinker addressed in this chapter is Emil Fackenheim, a Jewish theologian and philosopher, who has radically changed his thinking since 1967. Citations of each thinker's work earlier in the book are capitalized on in order to explore the theme of history and identity as it occurs in their work, and it is shown that these figures struggled with very deep and pressing problems not only about God and the Jewish people, and about human nature and moral purpose but also about the very nature of Jewish belief and its understanding of the world, history, God, and much else. They realized the dangers that accompanied their sensitivity to the Holocaust and their unconditional commitment to an honest and probing encounter with the death camps, and at the same time, they refused to abandon Judaism. In some ways, they appear like other intellectuals of the current era, who realize that we cannot transcend history nor can we be overwhelmed by it, but in other ways, they appear unlike them, for their sense of value and purpose arises out of the horror of the death camps.
The Reception of Post‐Holocaust Jewish Thought
Authors: Morgan Michael L.
Published: October 2003

An examination is made of some of the responses to the work of the five main Jewish thinkers/theologians, which was addressed in Chs. 6–10, and to the work of other post‐Holocaust Jewish thinkers. This is done by looking at the popular response (that of ordinary Jews), the response of young Jewish radicals, and that of Orthodox Jewish thinkers. The dissenting thoughts of various thinkers as to the centrality and use of the Holocaust in Jewish America are discussed.
Between Exaltation and Infamy
Authors: Haliczer Stephen
Published: October 2003

Within a culture of male domination, women in the period of the Counter‐Reformation achieved recognition and status as mystics, and their influence extended to all realms of society, including the aristocracy. A mystic's acceptance, however, was predicated upon her strict adherence to ecclesiastical orthodoxy and hierarchy. Further, her childhood and adult convent life were marked by excessive austerity and, in many instances, abuse. If the mystic had a proper pedigree, succeeded in building a support system of male authorities, and could demonstrate her divine favor through visions and miracles, then she had the potential to become canonized. While women mystics did not challenge male authority within the church and indeed often were willing supporters of it, they did serve as inspiration to their male contemporaries and to generations of women who followed.
Beyond Junk Bonds
Authors: Yago Glenn , Trimbath Susanne
Published: October 2003

Since financial myths exploded in the 1980s, the perspective of time creates a unique opportunity to update and expand the analysis begun in Glenn Yago's 1991 book, Junk Bonds: How High Yield Securities Restructured Corporate America (OUP). When first published, Junk Bonds drew controversial responses, but some 12 years later, enough time has passed to allow this dispassionate empirical analysis to shear away the hype and hysteria that surrounded the Wall Street scandals, Washington controversies, and media frenzy of the time. In retrospect, the evidence clearly casts favorable light on the role of high‐yield securities (junk bonds), and the research presented in this book demonstrates how financial innovations enabled capital access for industrial restructuring, capital and labor productivity gains, and improved global competitiveness. The book provides a one‐stop data, reference, and case study presentation of firms and securities in the contemporary high‐yield market in the USA (and elsewhere), and of the financial innovations that spurred growth in the 1990s and will continue to finance the future. The high‐yield market incubated successive waves of financial technologies that now proliferate beyond junk bonds to all the dimensions and dynamics of global debt and equity capital markets. The book charts the recovery of the market in the 1990s, the wave of fallen angels, distressed credits and defaults in 2001–2002, and suggests how the high‐yield market will be recreated in the global market of the twenty‐first century. It also explicates the linkages between the high‐yield market and other credit and equity markets in managing a firm's capital structure to execute its business strategy. Anyone active in corporate finance, financial institutions, or capital markets will find this book useful for interpreting and understanding the recent history of both the high‐yield marketplace and its interaction with private equity, public equity, and fixed‐income markets. The material presented is arranged in 11 chapters and four appendices. The latter provide definitions of junk bonds, some technical material from Ch. 4, a “tools of the trade” glossary, and a literature review containing short summaries of seven topics (bond ratings, macroeconomic relationships, regulation, use of proceeds, Drexel Burnham Lambert – a bond underwriter, default rates, and risk) with associated references, a table of annotated references, and further references.
Where Do We Go from Here?
Authors: Yago Glenn , Trimbath Susanne
Published: October 2003

This short introductory chapter provides a brief analysis of the high‐yield (junk bond) market in the USA in 2001 and 2002, discussing the multitude of influences upon it, including the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It notes that any attempt to compare the impact of these attacks with previous historical events will be flawed because the combination of an act of war committed in the USA at the time of a recession has never before occurred. A table is presented that attempts to sort out the positive and negative effects of individual events and circumstances on the market for high‐yield securities, and a summary is given of the immediate damage to the credit markets in September 2001. It is suggested that there is at least anecdotal evidence of large cash positions sitting on the sidelines globally, so that any recovery could be significant.
Junk Bonds Then and Now
Authors: Yago Glenn , Trimbath Susanne
Published: October 2003

This chapter first presents a brief history of the high‐yield securities market in the USA since the 1970s. It then discusses the etymology of the term ‘junk bonds’, and goes on to describe critical events in the high‐yield market from the period 1989–1990 – which has often been characterized as the time of the beginning of the end for the market. The next part of the chapter discusses the capital access and high‐yield financial innovations that led to the development of the high‐yield securities market from the late 1970s, giving a comparative breakdown of the distribution of the main uses of high‐yield proceeds in the periods 1983–1989 and 1990–1999, and a year‐by‐year breakdown of the use of proceeds from 1983 to 2000. Last, the junk bond situation in 2000–2002 is contrasted with that in the 1990s, giving comparative year‐by‐year data for the distress ratio, the percentage of Rule 144A (which permits private placements to be freely traded among qualified institutional buyers (QIBs)) new issues, and high‐yield default rates from 1990 to 2002; data on high‐yield supply for 2000–2002 are included.
The End of the Beginning
Authors: Yago Glenn , Trimbath Susanne
Published: October 2003

An account and analysis is given of the largely unanticipated decline of the US high‐yield market in 1989 and 1990, and its subsequent rallying in 1991 and 1992. Structural and cyclical factors affecting the high‐yield market are discussed by looking at the economic factors that influence changes in its supply and demand, and returns: aspects addressed are the default rate on high‐yield debt, higher spreads, credit conditions, stock prices, and repayment. A test developed by Brown, Durbin and Evans (1975) is used to analyze the level and month‐to‐month changes in returns and the number of high‐yield issues from 1985 to 1991, and this shows that structural stability was not part of the landscape. In other words, the functional economic relationships between cyclical factors, credit/quality defaults, competitive market yields (etc.) that drove the high market during the 1980s changed considerably – apparently as a result of the dramatic increases in government regulatory intervention in that market – but appear to have been restored by late 1991 as the market recovered from regulatory destabilization and responded to more economic fundamentals in the marketplace. The remainder of the chapter discusses the cause and consequences of financial distress in companies, the fact that some industries are more sensitive to economic conditions than others, company restructuring for economic recovery, and challenges and opportunities in 2001 and beyond; Appendix B gives details of the technical material used in the chapter.
Participants in the Recovery
Authors: Yago Glenn , Trimbath Susanne
Published: October 2003

The previous chapter discussed the factors that triggered the price collapse of the high‐yield market in the USA in 1989 and 1990. This chapter turns to the question of when and how the first movers returned to the market in 1991 and renewed it from then on with an activity that far surpassed high‐yield bond issuance and performance over previous decades. Year‐by‐year data are presented on the recovery for the US market, which is discussed in detail by economic industries and sectors, and by reference to individual companies. Separate analyses are given of high‐yield bonds during the transition years of 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994. The chapter ends by briefly discussing the developing non‐US issuance market in the 1990s.
Extended Markets and Innovative Extensions
Authors: Yago Glenn , Trimbath Susanne
Published: October 2003

Financial innovation is the engine driving the financial system toward improved performance in the real economy. The conventional view of financial instruments is based upon the categorical distinction between debt and equity, but financial innovations have evolved less as distinct categories than as a range of financial technologies involving characteristics of both, and in the high‐yield market, innovative debt securities have emerged, which have added value by various means. During the US recession and credit crunch of 1974, many companies (especially small and medium‐sized enterprises and emerging firms) learned that capital access was no longer guaranteed on the basis of profits or success. With dramatic changes in the world economy, companies required innovative securities to provide them with the financial freedom necessary to survive and grow, to enhance their flexibility in managing the capital structure of their firms in changing times, and to finance their objectives for accomplishing corporate growth strategies. These issues are addressed in different sections of this chapter as follows: The corporate finance revolution; Financial innovation and growth; Categorizing financial innovations – an elaboration of some of the more recent and innovative financial instruments that have evolved with and from the high‐yield market; The rise of the placement market: Rule 144A – which permits private placements to be freely traded among qualified institutional buyers (QIBs); Efficiency gains from Rule 144A; Implications of the ‘aircraft carrier’ proposal – a proposal to overhaul US securities laws and reduce private placements by encouraging companies to issue stocks and bonds through public offerings; Structured finance: collateralized debt obligations; Collateralized loan obligations; and Collateralized bond obligations.
Why Capital Structure Matters: The Corporate Finance Revolution
Authors: Yago Glenn , Trimbath Susanne
Published: October 2003

The chapter starts by presenting a brief history of capital structure theory and research. After that it goes on to discuss the corporate finance revolution, which was catalyzed by the rise of the high‐yield securities market, and demonstrated that a company could reduce its cost of capital and raise its stock price by increasing the liquidity of its securities. Solving the capital structure puzzle – how a company divides its capital along the debt‐to‐equity continuum to support its business strategy and activities in a way that maximizes current company value – became central to the financial and business strategy in setting the leverage ratio; furthermore, substituting debt for equity has been shown to add value. The rest of the chapter discusses the high‐yield market and the real economy in light of the facts that the relationship between financial markets, complex capital structure, and economic growth has become increasingly apparent, and that the linkages between the means and methods of financing firms and the future of the economy as a whole have become increasingly clear. It ends by discussing the implications of recent developments in the high‐yield market.
The 1980s Users' Performance in the 1990s
Authors: Yago Glenn , Trimbath Susanne
Published: October 2003

Case studies are presented of five high‐yield US companies and the strategies they have pursued to maximize the value of their assets, labor force, products and markets. The examples show how businesses have responded to the pressures of economic change by modifying their strategies, adopting new technologies, and changing their supply chains and distribution channels; they also show how high‐yield issuers have responded to increasing competition in both domestic and international markets. A common story appears to repeat itself throughout the case studies: in utilizing the high‐yield market, companies not only went beyond traditional sources of capital but also created functions that went beyond traditional industrial categories. The companies are placed in the historical context of their foundations to give a sense of their place in their industries and in the economy as a whole, and these histories show that innovation was not new to any of them; they are Stone Container, McCaw Cellular, Viacom Incorporated, the Chrysler Corporation, and Medco Containment Services. The last part of the chapter discusses the use of high‐yield bond financing to improve efficiency by mergers and acquisitions.
Financing the Future
Authors: Yago Glenn , Trimbath Susanne
Published: October 2003

While this book was being written, the US economy hovered between recession and recovery, and the global economy remained increasingly polarized and endangered by economic stagnation, instability, and inadequate job and capital formation; in this context, extending the logic of financial innovation to new markets and assets is a significant challenge. This final chapter addresses the application of the logic and practice of high‐yield financial innovations to the future, and in doing so, recounts what has been learned in the book and discusses how the means and methods of high‐yield finance might be applied to future challenges. The first three sections of the chapter are as follows: What have we learned? Yield gaps and the role of the high‐yield market; and Toward global market development. The fourth section, Missing markets, identifies several key issues as emerging global risks to sustainable growth and the capacity of the global economy to finance its future, noting that these are the markets that financial innovations and high‐yield markets, and capital markets in general, must address; they are negative capital flows to developing and transition economies, inadequate demand growth, and the absence of middle‐class development in the developing world, and lack of markets to allocate capital adequately and efficiently for entrepreneurial markets and economic growth. The remaining sections of the chapter are as follows: Capital flows; The importance of financial infrastructure; Emerging domestic markets [EDM]; Structured finance for EDM; Environmental finance; and Intellectual capital securitization.
The Last Word
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

In this discussion of where justification and understanding come to an end, Nagel undertakes to refute various forms of subjectivism. Defending rationalism, he argues that there are some thoughts that we simply cannot get outside of; thoughts that we cannot regard as mere psychological dispositions. The last word on philosophical disputes about the objectivity of any form of thought must lie in some unqualified thoughts about how things are. In the domains of logic and mathematics, certain basic propositions are immune to doubt being central to the framework of everything we can think. In the domains of ethics, science, or history, resistance to the external or subjective viewpoint comes from within these domains themselves. First‐order thoughts about ethics, science, and history are the decisive factor in response to any second‐order thoughts about their psychological character. Any criticism of the reasoning within these domains necessarily involves reasoning carried out at the same level of inquiry. Questions about how the capacity for rational thought is possible for a species like ours generate a pernicious fear of religion that Nagel seeks to dispel.
Introduction
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

Nagel outlines his project to defend rationalism against subjectivism. In his view, no matter how sophisticated they may be, all forms of subjectivism and relativism either are clearly false or collapse into self‐contradiction or vacuity. Where justification and understanding come to an end, there is, he argues, a category of thought with universal authority that we cannot get outside. It is reason. The question is, How is access to this universally valid method of objective thought possible for a biological species like ours? Addressing this question in relation to different fields of inquiry is Nagel's primary concern in subsequent chapters.
Logic
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

Nagel argues that there is no room for skepticism about basic logic or mathematics since thoughts like 2 + 2 Í 4 cannot be dislodged by any other propositions. Such examples of reason are immune to doubt and must be recognized by all as having universal validity. Nagel rejects as unintelligible Descartes’s idea that God, with his omnipotence and ultimate responsibility, could have made the truths of logic and mathematics other than they are. For Nagel, doubts about reasoning cannot avoid using some form of reasoning, and certain forms of reasoning cannot intelligibly be doubted because they form the irreducible framework of everything we can think about the world and ourselves.
Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion
Authors: Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

Rationalism bears a closer association with religion than empiricism does; the former offers a conception of the world that links the deepest truths of nature to the deepest thoughts of the human mind in a way that makes many people nervous. Nagel reassures defenders of atheism that they have no more reason to fear fundamental and irreducible mind–world relations than fundamental and irreducible laws of physics. Although Nagel endorses (in part) Robert Nozick's evolutionary explanation of human reason, which reverses the Kantian dependence of facts upon reason, Nagel argues that an evolutionary story about reason must be coupled with an independent basis for confidence in reason. To be justified in trusting our reasoning capacity as a product of Darwinian natural selection, we must be justified in trusting it simply in itself in virtue of the content of its arguments. To the question, How can a biological species shaped by the contingencies of natural selection have access to self‐justifying reason?, Nagel offers the defensive reply that we do not know how biological possibilities and their likelihood of actualization are constrained by fundamental laws of nature.
The Myth of Ownership
Authors: Murphy Liam , Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

In a capitalist economy, taxes are the most significant instrument by which the political system can put into practice a conception of economic justice. But conventional ideas about what constitutes tax fairness--found in the vigorous debates about tax policy going on in political and public policy circles, in economics and law--are misguided. In particular, the emphasis on distributing the tax burden relative to pretax income is a fundamental mistake. Taxation does not take from people what they already own. Property rights are the product of a set of laws and conventions, of which the tax system forms a central part, so the fairness of taxes can’t be evaluated by their impact on preexisting entitlements. Pretax income has no independent moral significance. Standards of justice should be applied not to the distribution of tax burdens but to the operation and results of the entire framework of economic institutions. The result is an entirely different understanding of a host of controversial issues, such as the estate tax, the tax treatment of marriage, “flat” versus progressive taxes, consumption versus income taxes, tax cuts for the wealthy, and negative income taxes for the poor.
Introduction
Authors: Murphy Liam , Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

Taxation arouses strong passions, fueled not only by conflicts of economic self-interest, but by conflicting ideas of justice or fairness. Though empirical questions and questions of economic theory are inescapable in responsible discussion of tax policy, so too are philosophical questions of social and economic justice. But the topic has been neglected by philosophers, especially by comparison with such legal issues as abortion and freedom of expression. This book aims to make a start at filling this gap.
Redistribution and Public Provision
Authors: Murphy Liam , Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

Taxation has two primary functions. First, it determines how much of a society’s resources will come under the control of government, for expenditure in accordance with some collective decision procedure, and how much will be left in the discretionary control of private individuals, as their personal property; call this public-private division. Second, it plays a central role in determining how the social product is shared out among different individuals, both in the form of private property and in the form of publicly provided benefits; call this distribution. Though these functions are typically run together in political discussion--by the use of slogans such as “big government”–they are conceptually and normatively distinct. It is difficult, however, to address the two policy issues separately, since the two functions are mutually interdependent in practice.
Progressivity
Authors: Murphy Liam , Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

Considerations of fairness have no direct bearing on the issue of progressivity in tax rates; there is no genuine issue of vertical equity. Whether a proportional, progressive, or a regressive tax rate scheme is to be preferred on ethical grounds depends upon the justice of the outcomes the different schemes tend to promote. It is clear that this instrumental question requires a good deal of empirical information for its answer. While it is often claimed that high marginal tax rates greatly deter work (which is bad according to most theories of justice), this is not the consensus among economists.
Inheritance
Authors: Murphy Liam , Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

Setting aside spurious considerations about double taxation and fairness to donors, the real moral question concerning taxation and inheritance is whether gratuitous transfers require special tax treatment on the ground of equality of opportunity. Some place such a high value on personal responsibility that confiscation of all such transfers has ethical appeal. A more appealing view holds that opportunities need not be strictly equal, so long as they are adequate for all. On such a view there is no ground for the confiscation of gratuitous transfers, but neither is there ground for the current exemption of such transfers from the tax base of donees.
Tax Discrimination
Authors: Murphy Liam , Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

Since the distribution of tax burdens has no intrinsic moral significance, there is no genuine value of horizontal equity. Favorable tax treatment of owner-occupied housing is not intrinsically unfair, though it may be objectionable for contributing to social inequality. And a “marriage penalty” is not unfair, though it may be arbitrary. However the tax system can have discriminatory effects; for example, a combination of joint filing and graduated rates results in a disincentive for second earners (at present mostly women) to seek work.
Conclusion: Politics
Authors: Murphy Liam , Nagel Thomas
Published: October 2003

What politically feasible results might be drawn from the foregoing reflections? Self-interest does set limits to what is politically feasible, but most people defend their views about taxation in moral language. So much would be gained from the wholesale rejection of the morally obtuse but tenacious ideas of everyday libertarianism. Increasingly widespread understanding of how capitalism works may help. We may hope that most people are coming to believe that even under capitalism the organization of the economy and the allocation of its product between public and private control is a legitimate object of continual collective choice, and that this choice must be made on grounds that justify it not only economically but morally, and by a democratic procedure that legitimizes it.
Self‐Control and Belief
Authors: Mele Alfred R.
Published: October 2003

Examines the etiology of motivationally biased beliefs that manifest akrasia, as in some cases of self‐deception, and argues that it is possible to avoid such beliefs by exercising self‐control. Empirical work on belief formation and hypothesis testing is reviewed, and accounts of akratic belief and its opposite are developed. Other topics include belief‐regulating principles and modes of acceptance of such principles.
The Upper Reaches of Self‐Control and the Ideally Self‐Controlled Person
Authors: Mele Alfred R.
Published: October 2003

Examines the place of self‐control in effective critical reflection on one's principles and values, develops an account of an ideally self‐controlled person, and presents a preliminary argument that even perfect self‐control combined with frequent and thorough critical reflection is not sufficient for autonomy. The preliminary argument features a kind of brainwashing that produces values that guide an agent's practical reasoning. Accounts are offered of values, valuing, identification with a desire, compulsiveness, and mental health.
Darwin's Legacy in America
Authors: Witham Larry A.
Published: October 2003

The debate between creationists and evolutionists stems from America's view of God and nature, of science, and of attitudes toward social elites and taxes. This chapter looks at events in Massachusetts, Virginia, and Tennessee. It compares the life of England's Charles Darwin and America's William Barton Rogers. It looks at the rise of “creation science” and the contemporary strategies of evolutionists.
The Two Books
Authors: Witham Larry A.
Published: October 2003

Using the theme of “two books” – nature and the Bible – this chapter surveys a century of contact between Christianity and evolutionary biology in the U.S., beginning with the antievolution crusades of the 1920s. It closes with the century‐end science‐and‐religion dialog, the new creationists, and new interest in ecology. It details developments in the theory and profession of evolutionary biology and the Protestant and Catholic responses.
Hearts and Minds
Authors: Witham Larry A.
Published: October 2003

The cultural side of the evolution–creation debate, playing out in religion and mass media, is illustrated by the lives of Eugenie Scott and Phillip Johnson. Scott is the director of the anticreationist National Center for Science Education. Johnson is a Berkeley law professor, an anti‐Darwinist, and an intelligent design leader. Against the backdrop of an Arkansas court case and California debates, here is a history of the Center's work, rooted in the 1970s, and Johnson's prominence since the 1990s.
Nature Alone: Evolutionists
Authors: Witham Larry A.
Published: October 2003

Here are biographical profiles of six evolutionists who see no God behind nature: Joseph McInerney, a biology educator and a textbook publisher; Ernst Mayr, a preeminent evolutionist; Michael Ruse, a philosopher of evolution; Francisco Ayala, a top geneticist; Niles Eldredge, a “punctuated equilibrium” theorist; and David Raup, a paleontologist expert on mass extinctions.
God and Nature: Creationists
Authors: Witham Larry A.
Published: October 2003

Here are biographical profiles of scientists who do see God behind nature: Kurt Wise, a young‐earth paleontologist; John Wiester, a geology educator and an activist; Henry Morris, an engineer and a “creation science” founder; Howard Van Till, a physics professor; Owen Gingerich, a Harvard astronomer; and Michael Behe, a biochemist and an intelligent design theorist.
Politics
Authors: Witham Larry A.
Published: October 2003

Politics has followed evolution debates since Darwin's era, and this chapter looks at contemporary manifestations in America. It covers federal science spending, public school policy, evolution in election years, and the “culture war” over values. It touches on standards‐based education reform, the 2000 elections, and the Kansas School Board vote in 1999.
Higher Education
Authors: Witham Larry A.
Published: October 2003

The University of Chicago hosted the 1959 Darwin Centennial, showing evolution's place in U.S. higher education. This chapter looks at the academic freedom case of biology professor Dean Kenyon, compares treatment of evolution at two schools – Liberty University and Virginia Tech – and samples religion‐founded schools, and debates over creationists holding science Ph.D.s.
Museums and Sanctuaries
Authors: Witham Larry A.
Published: October 2003

Natural history museums and churches are public arenas for evolutionist and creationist stories. This chapter gives their numbers, educational roles, and histories of handling this topic. Major museums, such as the Smithsonian, are sampled and “cladistic” displays are discussed. The views of U.S. seminaries, theological responses to museum exhibits, and sermons on Creation are reviewed.
The Great Debate
Authors: Witham Larry A.
Published: October 2003

Legendary public debates over evolution began with Thomas H. Huxley in 1860 and raged through the 1920s and 1970s to the present, featuring debaters such as biologists Kenneth Miller (pro‐evolution) and Duane Gish (pro‐creation). This chapter looks at key figures in this history, strategic arguments, campus debates, radio and television, and the rhetorical approach of “intelligent design.”
Search for the Underdog
Authors: Witham Larry A.
Published: October 2003

Public events of 2000 illustrate the continuing social debate. The “intelligent design” movement emerges. Two predictions are made: (1) A sociological split over middle‐class values will swing the distribution “knowledge” class to evolution, the family‐based production class to creation; (2) Both apocalyptic creationism and orthodox Darwinism will decline. While both sides have challenges – evolutionists to justify morals and creationists to fit God to science – both may be appreciated as underdogs.
The Forgotten Comes to Parable Studies
Authors: Oldenhage Tania
Published: October 2003

In the mid‐1980s, Marie Luise Kaschnitz's poem “Zoon Politikon” reappeared in Wolfgang Harnisch's book on the parables of Jesus. Harnisch argues that the parables should be understood as metaphorical narratives. In order to illustrate his metaphor theory, Harnisch discusses the metaphors deployed by Kaschnitz in her poem. Thereby, Harnisch largely avoids the poem's actual theme of Holocaust remembrance in postwar Germany. Oldenhage argues that Harnisch's reduction of this Holocaust poem to form is emblematic of the state of Holocaust remembrance in Germany of the 1980s. While Germans in the 1980s and 1990s are often very familiar with the basic facts and events of the Holocaust, this familiarity often prevents them from really thinking through these facts and events as a legacy that concerns themselves.
Joachim Jeremias and the Historical‐Critical Approach
Authors: Oldenhage Tania
Published: October 2003

Introduces Joachim Jeremias's book The Parables of Jesus, which was first published in 1947 and strongly shaped the postwar scholarly discourse on New Testament parables. Oldenhage clarifies how the assumptions of historical criticism led to Jeremias's search for the parables’ first historical setting. In the second part of the chapter, Oldenhage discusses recent critical responses to the anti‐Judaism that is a part of the Jeremias's scholarly rhetoric. New research on the historical Jesus seeks to integrate Jesus within his Jewish context and seeks to understand Jesus’ parables as part of the tradition of Judaism.
“In View of Catastrophe”
Authors: Oldenhage Tania
Published: October 2003

Historicizes Joachim Jeremias's work on the parables of Jesus and its anti‐Jewish rhetoric by attending to the time and place of the book's first publication, Germany in 1947. Oldenhage shows that the book is symptomatic not so much of Christian anti‐Judaism in general but, much more specifically, of the difficulties of responding to the Holocaust in Germany shortly after the events. The chapter draws from Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlichs's thesis of an “inability to mourn” as well as from more recent discussions of German responses to the Holocaust.
Historical Criticism and the Return into History
Authors: Oldenhage Tania
Published: October 2003

Discusses the implications of understanding Joachim Jeremias's anti‐Jewish rhetoric as a post‐Holocaust phenomenon. With a special focus on interpretations of the parable of the wicked husbandmen, Oldenhage discusses recent revisions of Jeremias's work on the parables of Jesus that reject anti‐Jewish interpretive patterns while still operating within the framework of historical criticism. By reducing the challenge of the Holocaust for biblical scholarship to the problem of anti‐Judaism, Oldenhage argues, historical critics fail to deal with important questions of Holocaust remembrance that Jeremias's scholarship poses.
John Dominic Crossan and the Literary Turn in Biblical Studies
Authors: Oldenhage Tania
Published: October 2003

Moving to the U.S. in the 1970s, Oldenhage discusses the ways in which biblical scholars in America challenged the assumptions of historical criticism and proposed a literary turn in biblical studies. Informed by literary criticism, these scholars started to take seriously the form and language of the parables and turned them from ancient artifacts into artful literature. The focus of the chapter lies on the work of John Dominic Crossan, who in the 1970s was arguably the most influential proponent of a literary approach to the parables. Oldenhage outlines Crossan's hermeneutics by emphasizing his creative engagements with postmodernism as well as his continuing interest in the first historical context of the parables of Jesus.