The title of Hare’s book refers to the gap between the demand that morality places on us and our natural capacity to live by it. Such a gap is paradoxical if we accept the “‘ought’ implies ‘can”’ principle. The solution, Hare argues, is that the gap is filled by the Christian God. So we ought to be moral and can do so—with divine assistance. Hare’s statement and defense of the existence of the gap combines a rigorously Kantian (...) notion of the moral demand with a rigorously Calvinist notion of human depravity. As such, many readers will find the gap exaggerated, but most people will admit that there is some sort of gap here to be faced, and any gap at all is a problem. (shrink)

Is morality too difficult for human beings? Kant said that it was, except with God's assistance. Contemporary moral philosophers have usually discussed the question without reference to Christian doctrine, and have either diminished the moral demand, exaggerated human moral capacity, or tried to find a substitute in nature for God's assistance. This book looks at these philosophers--from Kant and Kierkegaard to Swinburne, Russell, and R.M. Hare--and the alternative in Christianity.

My assigned task is to lay out the shape of my father's life and faith. This is daunting, but it is also a privilege because I loved him and admired him, and his life has been central in shaping my own. I am speaking also on behalf of my mother, my three sisters, Bridget, Louise and Ellie, and our children, Catherine and Andrew, Sam and Anisa, Hannah and Matty.

Kant both says that we should recognize our duties as God’s commands, and objects to the theological version of heteronomy, ‘which derives morality from a divine and supremely perfect will’. In this paper I discuss how these two views fit together, and in the process I develop a notion of autonomous submission to divine moral authority. I oppose the ‘constitutive’ view of autonomy proposed by J. B. Schneewind and Christine Korsgaard. I locate Kant’s objection to theological heteronomy against the background (...) of Crusius’s divine command theory, and I compare Kant’s views about divine authority and human political authority. (shrink)

This work is an exploration of divine command theory, which is the theory that what makes something morally obligatory is that God commands it.

_God and Morality_ evaluates the ethical theories of four principle philosophers, Aristotle, Duns Scotus, Kant, and R.M. Hare. Uses their thinking as the basis for telling the story of the history and development of ethical thought more broadly Focuses specifically on their writings on virtue, will, duty, and consequence Concentrates on the theistic beliefs to highlight continuity of philosophical thought.

_God and Morality_ evaluates the ethical theories of four principle philosophers, Aristotle, Duns Scotus, Kant, and R.M. Hare. Uses their thinking as the basis for telling the story of the history and development of ethical thought more broadly Focuses specifically on their writings on virtue, will, duty, and consequence Concentrates on the theistic beliefs to highlight continuity of philosophical thought.

Kant both says that we should recognize our duties as God’s commands, and objects to the theological version of heteronomy, ‘which derives morality from a divine and supremely perfect will’. In this paper I discuss how these two views fit together, and in the process I develop a notion of autonomous submission to divine moral authority. I oppose the ‘constitutive’ view of autonomy proposed by J. B. Schneewind and Christine Korsgaard. I locate Kant’s objection to theological heteronomy against the background (...) of Crusius’s divine command theory, and I compare Kant’s views about divine authority and human political authority. (shrink)

_God and Morality_ evaluates the ethical theories of four principle philosophers, Aristotle, Duns Scotus, Kant, and R.M. Hare. Uses their thinking as the basis for telling the story of the history and development of ethical thought more broadly Focuses specifically on their writings on virtue, will, duty, and consequence Concentrates on the theistic beliefs to highlight continuity of philosophical thought.

This paper starts with Immanuel Kant’s definition of “eudaimonism” (a term he created) as a single‐source account of motivation, and explains why he thinks the eudaimonist is unacceptably self‐regarding. In order to modify and improve Kant’s account, the paper then revisits the Christian scholastics. Scotus is distinguished from Aquinas on the grounds that Scotus has a more robust conception of the will that encompasses the ranking of the affection for advantage (for the agent’s happiness and perfection) and the affection for (...) justice (for what is good in itself, independent of this relation to the agent). This is a double‐source account of motivation. With these conceptual resources in hand, the paper goes on to examine Jean Porter’s defense of eudaimonism, urging that she begs the question against the Scotist view. Finally, the paper makes a conciliating suggestion that preserves most, but not all, of what the eudaimonist wants. (shrink)

This paper describes and defends two arguments connecting ethics and religion that Kant makes in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. The first argument is that the moral demand is too high for us in our natural capacities, and God's assistance is required to bridge the resulting moral gap. The second argument is that because humans desire to be happy as well as to be morally good, morality will be rationally unstable without belief in a God who can bring (...) happiness and virtue together. The paper states and replies to three objections to each argument. (shrink)

Divine Command defends the thesis that what makes something morally obligatory is that God commands it, and what makes something morally forbidden is that God forbids it. John E. Hare successfully defends a version of divine command theory, but also shows that there is considerable overlap with some versions of natural law theory. Hare engages with a number of Christian theologians, most especially Karl Barth, and extends into a discussion of divine command within Judaism and Islam. The (...) work concludes by examining recent work in evolutionary psychology, and argues that thinking of our moral obligations as produced by divine command offers us some help in seeing how a moral conscience could develop in a way that is evolutionarily stable. (shrink)

Divine Command defends the thesis that what makes something morally obligatory is that God commands it, and what makes something morally forbidden is that God forbids it. John E. Hare successfully defends a version of divine command theory, but also shows that there is considerable overlap with some versions of natural law theory. Hare engages with a number of Christian theologians, most especially Karl Barth, and extends into a discussion of divine command within Judaism and Islam. The (...) work concludes by examining recent work in evolutionary psychology, and argues that thinking of our moral obligations as produced by divine command offers us some help in seeing how a moral conscience could develop in a way that is evolutionarily stable. (shrink)

In my book God’s Call1 I gave an historical account of the debate within twentieth century analytic philosophy between moral realism and expressivism. Moral realism is the view that moral properties like goodness or cruelty exist independently of our making judgements that things have such properties. Such judgements are, on this theory, objectively true when the things referred to have the specified properties and objectively false when they do not. Expressivism is the view that when a person makes a moral (...) judgment, she is expressing emotion or desire or will. I used the term ‘orectic’ to refer to these mental states, because we do not have in English a sufficiently general term. In God’s Call, I started with a moral realist whom I called a ‘platonist’, G. E. Moore, and then I traced the argument through the emotivists, A. J. Ayer and Charles Stevenson, and the prescriptivist, R. M. Hare, and Iris Murdoch, whom I called a ‘humble platonist’, and J. L. Mackie’s ‘error theory’, and John McDowell, whose theory I call ‘disposition theory’, and David Brink, the ‘new-wave realist’, and Allan Gibbard, who calls his own theory ‘ norm expressivism ’. My project was to collect together the concessions that the two sides of the debate have made to each other over the course of this history, and then to construct a position which molds these concessions into a single coherent theory. I called this theory ‘prescriptive realism’. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Problem of the Moral Gap Kant Kierkegaard Alternative Solutions to the Problem of the Gap The Traditional Doctrines Works cited.

The topic of the present article is a conceptualization of the notion of contemplation and will develop its reflection around three principal questions: What is the role of desire in contemplation? Is it we who contemplate, or the god who contemplates in us? What is the relation between contemplation and the rest of human life?

This book is about the work of the Holy Spirit in the world, as distinct from the Spirit’s work in the church. One traditional term for this work is ‘common grace’. The book argues that there are four kinds of unity that the Spirit is working to bring about, and it takes one example of each. After the first chapter which is introductory, the second chapter takes up the first kind of unity: unity between us and the material world. The (...) example chosen is our experience of the beautiful and the sublime, and Immanuel Kant’s treatment of how this experience takes us to a divine being who lies behind both our faculties and the beautiful and sublime things we experience. The chapter uses two pieces by Beethoven, including the first movement of his Eroica symphony, as illustrations of the kind of unity that Kant has in mind. The second kind of unity is unity within a human life, and the third chapter discusses the example of gender transition within the life of a person assigned female at birth. The third kind of unity is unity between human beings, and the fourth chapter discusses the example of love of our country (patriotism) and its relation to the ideal of cosmopolitanism. The fourth kind of unity is unity of human beings with God, and the fifth chapter discusses the unity we can achieve in contemplation. Finally, the sixth chapter discusses the nature of unity itself and its relation to the Spirit’s love. (shrink)

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better to be immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Since Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big Questions first appeared, David Benatar's distinctive anthology designed to introduce students to the key existential questions of philosophy has won a devoted following among users in a variety of upper-level and even introductory courses.

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better if we were immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Life, Death, and Meaning brings together key readings, primarily by English-speaking philosophers, on such 'big questions.'.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Can original philosophy be done while simultaneously engaging in the history of philosophy? Such a possibility is questioned by analytic philosophers who contend that history contaminates good philosophy, and by historians of philosophy who insist that theoretical predecessors cannot be ignored. Believing that both camps are misguided, the contributors to this book present a case for historical philosophy as a valuable enterprise. The contributors include: Todd L. Adams, Lilli Alanen, Jos? Bernardete, Jonathan Bennett, John I. Biro, Phillip Cummins, Georges (...) Dicker, Daniel A. Dombrowski, Daniel Garber, Josiah Gould, Jorge J.E. Gracie, Daniel Graham, Charles Griswold, James Lawler, Rudolf Luthe, Edward H. Madden, George Mavrodes, Gerald E. Myers, Jonathan R?e, Frithjof Rodi, Kenneth L. Schmitz, Vladimir Shtinov, David G. Stern, Robert Turnbull, James Van Cleve, Frederick Van De Pitte, Henry Beatch, and Richard Watson. (shrink)

History witnesses alternative approaches to “the proposition”. The proposition has been referred to as the object of belief, disbelief, and doubt: generally as the object of propositional attitudes, that which can be said to be believed, disbelieved, understood, etc. It has also been taken to be the object of grasping, judging, assuming, affirming, denying, and inquiring: generally as the object of propositional actions, that which can be said to be grasped, judged true or false, assumed for reasoning purposes, etc. The (...) proposition has also been taken to be the subject of truth and falsity: generally as the subject of propositional properties, that which can be said to be true, false, tautological, informative, inconsistent,etc. It has also been taken as the subject and object of logical relations, e.g. that which can be said to imply, be implied, contradict, be contradicted, etc. Prima facie, such properties and relations are non-mental and objective. It has also been taken to be the resultants or products of propositional operations, usually mental or linguistic; e.g. judging, affirming, and denying have been held to produce propositions called judgments, affirmations, and negations, respectively. Propositions have also been taken to be certain declarative sentences. Finally,propositions have been taken to be meanings of certain declarative sentences. This essay is an informal, selective, and incomplete survey of alternative approaches to “the proposition” with special attention to the views of the late American philosopher Peter Hare (1935–2008)and of those who influenced him. DOI: 10.5007/1808-1711.2011v15n1p51. (shrink)

Establishes the importance of Husserl's phenomenology for Levinas's ethics.

Designed to fill a large gap in American philosophy scholarship, this bibliography covers the first four decades of the pragmatic movement. It references most of the philosophical works by the twelve major figures of pragmatism: Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, George H. Mead, F.C.S. Schiller, Giovanni Papini, Giovanni Vailati, Guiseppe Prezzolini, Mario Calderoni, A.W. Moore, John E. Boodin, and C.I. Lewis. It also includes writings of dozens of minor pragmatic writers, along with those by commentators and (...) critics of pragmatism. It encompasses literature not only concerning pragmatism as an alliance of philosophical theories of meaning, inquiry, belief, knowledge, logic, truth, ontology, value, and morality, but also as an intellectual and cultural force impacting art, literature, education, the social and natural sciences, religion, and politics. This bibliography contains 2,794 main entries and more than 2,000 additional references, organized by year of publication. 2,101 of the references include annotation. Its international scope is focused on writings in English, French, German, and Italian, though many other languages are also represented. Peter H. Hare contributed the Guest Preface. The introduction contains an historical orientation to pragmatism and guides to recent studies of pragmatic figures. This work is extensively cross-referenced, and it has exhaustive and lengthy author and subject indexes. (shrink)

What can we learn from reading Levinas alongside postcolonial theories of difference? With that question in view, Drabinski undertakes readings of Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha, Edouard Glissant, and Subcommandante Marcos in order to rethink ideas of difference, language, subjectivity, ethics, and politics. Through these philosophical readings, he gives a new perspective on the work of these important postcolonial theorists and helps make Levinas relevant to other disciplines concerned with postcolonialism and ethics.

This book begins with the assumption that no one can achieve a rational selection of values for his life-style unless he first understands the major modern and contemporary formulations of alternative moral ideals. To assist the reader in determining which values are more basic and deserve his loyalty, the author explores and evaluates the different value systems defended by a wide range of thinkers viz. James, Dewey, Ayn Rand, Hugh Hefner, Marx, Freud, Erich Fromm, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Barth, Tillich, Cox, (...) Fletcher, Bishop Robinson, Brunner, Reinhold Niebuhr, Ramsey, G E Moore, A J Ayer, Toulmin and R M Hare. (shrink)

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

We present a simple distributed concept that appears to insinuate SWARM behavior in a collection of mobile platforms. The control is based on the inter-mobile platform communication links’ signal-to-noise ratio. This double use of communications is a natural linkage for SWARM behavior.

Spanning 1200 years of intellectual history – from the 6th century BCE emergence of philosophical enquiry in the Greek city-state of Miletus, to the 6th century CE closure of the Academy in Athens in 529 – Philosophy of Mind in Antiquity provides an outstanding survey of philosophy of mind of the period. It covers a crucial era for the history of philosophy of mind, examining the enduring and controversial arguments of Plato and Aristotle, in addition to the contribution of the (...) Stoics and other key figures. Following an introduction by John Sisko, fifteen specially commissioned chapters by an international team of contributors discuss key topics, thinkers, and debates, including: the Presocratics, Plato, cognition, Aristotle, intellect, natural science, time, mind, perception, and body, the Stoics, Galen, and Plotinus. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of mind, ancient philosophy, and the history of philosophy, Philosophy of Mind in Antiquity is also a valuable resource for those in related disciplines such as Classics. (shrink)

Examines Adam Smith's main principles in Wealth of Nations as the basis for effective policymaking. Adam Smith proposed several principles that would help mitigate or eliminate some of the problems we face as a nation today. Many assume that our current laissez-faire capitalism applies his principles. But, in contrast to the libertarianism of the United States, Smith's recipe to increase everyone's wealth and happiness was justice, liberty, and equality. This book examines Adam Smith's main principles in Wealth of Nations as (...) the basis for effective policymaking. Adam Smith wanted to increase happiness through this formula for a good life: equality, liberty, and justice. Free market interpretations of Smith, the book argues, grossly misrepresent his thought, emphasizing only liberty and not also equality and justice. This book suggests policies that combine all three in order for happiness to be maximized. (shrink)

Extols the virtue of small liberal arts colleges and the liberal arts tradition.

In dialogue with key theorists of catastrophe and trauma--including Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, George Lamming, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Derek Walcott, as well as key figures in Holocaust studies--Glissant and the Middle Passage hones a sharp sense of the specifically Caribbean varieties of loss, developing them into a transformative philosophical idea. Using the Plantation as a critical concept, John E. Drabinski creolizes notions of rhizome and nomad, examining what kinds of aesthetics grow from these roots and offering reconsiderations of (...) what constitutes intellectual work and cultural production.Glissant and the Middle Passage establishes Glissant's proper place as a key theorist of ruin, catastrophe, abyss, and memory. Identifying his insistence on memories and histories tied to place as the crucial geography at the heart of his work, this book imparts an innovative new response to the specific historical experiences of the Middle Passage. - from the publisher. (shrink)

State ownership, worker ownership, and household ownership are the three main forms in which productive assets (firms) can be held. I argue that worker ownership is not wise in economies with high capital-labor ratios, for it forces the worker to concentrate all her assets in one firm. I review the coupon economy that I proposed in 1994, and express reservations that it could work: greedy people would be able to circumvent its purpose of preventing the concentration of corporate wealth. Although (...) extremely high corporate salaries are the norm today, I argue these are competitive and market determined, a consequence of the gargantuan size of firms. It would, however, be possible to tax such salaries at high rates, because the labor - supply response would be small. The social-democratic model remains the best one, to date, for producing a relatively egalitarian outcome, and it relies on solidarity, redistribution, and private ownership of firms. Whether a solidaristic social ethos can develop without a conflagration, such as the second world war, which not only united populations in the war effort, but also wiped out substantial middle-class wealth in Europe - thus engendering the post-war movement towards social - insurance is an open question. (shrink)