When someone is poised to fail to fulfil a moral duty, we can respond in a variety of ways. We might remind them of their duty, or seek to persuade them through argument. Or we might intervene forcibly to ensure that they act in accordance with their duty. Some duties appear to be such that the duty-bearer can be liable to forcible interference when this is necessary to ensure that they comply with them. We’ll call duties that carry such liabilities (...) enforcement-apt. Not all duties seem to be enforcement-apt. Some, for example, accept that a person in a monogamous marriage has a moral duty to refrain from infidelity, but deny that a spouse can be compelled to comply with their duty to be faithful without transgressing her rights. More controversially, some think that our duties to assist others in severe need are not enforcement-apt. What could explain the contrast between duties that are enforcement-apt while and those that are not? We’ll call this the puzzle of enforceability and our paper considers three broad strategies for responding to it. The first strategy takes the form of identifying some substantive feature or features that are necessary and/or sufficient for a duty to possess some enforcement status. We consider a range of candidate explanations of this sort but find that none are plausible. The second strategy rejects the idea that there are genuinely enforcement-inapt duties and instead seeks to explain why there can nonetheless be marked differences amongst duties concerning how they can be enforced and who can enforce them. We find that this strategy too is largely unsuccessful. The third strategy offered seeks an explanation of differences in enforcement status by appeal to the broader social costs of enforcing certain kinds of duties. We find that this approach holds some promise but note that it requires adopting a controversial set of moral commitments. We conclude by considering our options in the absence of a solution to our puzzle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:David Hume and the Danish Debate about Freedom of the Press in the 1770sJohn Christian LaursenWhen the reception history of David Hume’s political writings is written, there will have to be some discussion of their fate in “peripheral” countries like Denmark. Hume’s “Of Liberty of the Press” was translated into Danish as early as 1771. It is not widely known that Denmark was the first country officially to declare (...) freedom of the press and that a lively debate broke out once such freedom was declared. Hume’s essay was put to work in that debate. The story of this translation provides insights into the influence of Hume’s ideas in peripheral countries in Europe, and of Denmark in continental European ideas. Among other things, here we have an example of Hume’s work used in a concrete propaganda battle.The Danish translation of Hume’s essay was published as the last of three supplemental essays in a 31-page pamphlet entitled Mr. F. A. de Voltaire’s Letter to His Majesty the King of Denmark concerning freedom of the press in his states, together with some essays of relevant content. 1 A copy can be found at the Royal Library in Copenhagen in volume twenty of the forty-five bound volumes of pamphlets and booklets from 1770 to 1773 which make up Luxdorph’s Collection of Press Freedom Writings. 2 These pamphlets, in German, French, and (mostly) Danish, were collected at the time by Bolle Willum Luxdorph, a Danish man of letters and court counselor. [End Page 167]The occasion for Voltaire’s letter and our pamphlet was King Christian VII’s declaration of freedom of the press in his territories (the Kingdoms of Norway and Denmark and the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein) on 4 September 1770. It was in the form of a Cabinet Order to his Danish Chancellery, in the following words:We are fully convinced that it is as harmful to the impartial search for truth as it is to the discovery of obsolete errors and prejudices, if upright patriots, zealous for the common good and what is genuinely best for their fellow citizens, because they are frightened by reputation, orders, and preconceived opinions, are hindered from being free to write according to their insight, conscience, and conviction, attacking abuses and uncovering prejudices. And thus in this regard, after ripe consideration, we have decided to permit in our kingdoms and lands in general an unlimited freedom of the press of such a form, that from now on no one shall be required and obliged to submit books and writings that he wants to bring to the press to the previously required censorship and approval, and thus to submit them to the control of those who have undertaken the business until now of inspecting them; so have we graciously revealed and made known this our will concerning our kingdoms to our Danish Chancellery. Given at Friedrichsberg, the 4 September 1770. Christian. 3The foregoing cabinet order was largely the idea of Johann Friedrich Struensee, court physician and soon to be Prime Minister for Christian VII. 4 Less than ten years earlier, two periodicals he was involved with when he lived in Danish Altona had been suppressed, 5 and when he came to power by a series of accidents, one of his first acts was to arrange for the king to declare freedom of the press. [End Page 168]Response to this declaration was immediate. In Denmark it led to a flurry of pamphlets on a myriad of topics, including the high cost of living and the salaries of ministers, 6 monopolies and trade issues (vol. III), coinage (vol. IV), civil servants, the public debt, the agricultural economy (vol. V), the abolition of tenant farmers’ work obligations (vol. VI), the Iceland trade (vol. VII), marriage law, breweries (vol. VIII), banks, lotteries (vol. IX), soldiers’ and sailors’ pay (vol. X), the Norwegian economy (vol. XI), the universities and academies (vol. XII), the power of women (vol. XIII), irreligion and impiety (vol. XIV), prophecies of doom (vol. XV), fables, allegories and libels (vols. XVI–XVIII), and the eternity of hell (vol. XIX).Many pamphlets discussed press freedom... (shrink)

This book offers a collection of contributions on medieval, early modern, and contemporary perspectives on social ontology. Since the 1990s, social ontology has emerged as a vibrant research area in contemporary analytical philosophy. Questions concerning the nature and properties of social groups, institutions, facts, and objects like money and marriage, have been thoroughly discussed. However, the historical perspective has been largely neglected. One of the central aims of this volume is to show that relevant views on social ontology can (...) be found in medieval and early modern philosophy (ca. 1200-1700 C.E.), when, for example, the ontological status of money, law, and the sacraments was hotly debated. We see, furthermore, diverging positions between Aristotelian-inspired authors, who resort to a more naturalistic view of the emergence of the social realm, and authors like Olivi and Ockham, who emphasize the role of human free will and contractualist agreements. This book is the very first to address historical and contemporary social ontologies. Both historians of philosophy and philosophers will benefit from this juxtaposition, which fosters a better understanding of historical positions and approaches by using today’s conceptual and analytical tools, and allows the contemporary debate to gain new perspectives by confronting its own medieval and early modern history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Stories in One: Literature as a Hidden Door to the History of Seventeenth-Century FranceChristian Jouhaud (bio)Translated by Cynthia J. Koepp (bio)I would like to take you into the history of seventeenth-century France through a narrow door—a door that is not only narrow but hidden. Why should we struggle to squeeze through this passage? Well, there are at least two reasons. First, it is an attempt to experience a (...) disorienting perspective on a landscape that we believe we already know completely; and second, the narrowness of the path underlines its particularity and in that way elicits a comparison with other paths elsewhere. This narrow passage is a text, perhaps an insignificant one, written by a seventeenth-century author. After making a few observations concerning its mechanics, I will use this text as a model to interpret something else, to understand it as something that stimulates thinking about historiographical hypotheses: as a convenient tool to shake up the political history of seventeenth-century France. In other words, I propose to utilize literature as a hidden door in order to enter the arena of political history, where we usually do not find any door at all.Deux histoires en une, or Two Stories in One, is a brief text by Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, a work of uncertain status, published among dozens of other pieces in a collection known by two titles: Moral Treatises and Conversations. Guez de Balzac, who lived between 1595 and 1654, does not appear on the short list of the most celebrated writers of seventeenth-century France: Molière, Racine, Corneille, La Fontaine, Sévigné, Bossuet. At the time, however, he occupied center stage in French literary life. He was perhaps the first author recognized as a grand écrivain; he was widely admired, celebrated, criticized. At the center of protracted literary debates, Guez de Balzac exercised an immense critical authority in the world of belles lettres.Since I first began working on the question of the birth of literature as a specific social space in seventeenth-century France, I have not stopped reading and rereading Balzac’s Two Stories in One. This text resists interpretation—even comprehension. It gives the reader the feeling—to be honest, an exasperating feeling—of extraordinary richness and also of an extraordinary capacity to steal away from view. The importance of this text for the comprehension of something other than itself, however, has become clear to me. This leapt out at me, by chance, when I was reading it for the nth time—at nearly the same time that I was rereading several pages of Marcel Proust. Not that the author of À la recherche du temps perdu had any connection at all to Guez de Balzac. Rather, it was Proust’s evoking, in his way, two stories in one—or rather one story in two parts—that for me rendered suddenly palpable something of the force of Balzac’s text.At the beginning of À l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, Proust meditates on the story of Swann before and after his marriage. He emphasizes our incapacity to think of two successive states in the history of our life at the same time: for example, that of a jealous lover and that of an appeased husband. If one succeeds in thinking both things at once, the two moments then cease to appear distinct to us, and are mixed up one in the other. If the [End Page 92] mind wants to distinguish them, it loses the ability to think them both at once. I would like to propose an hypothesis that the import of Balzac’s Two Stories in One, contrary to Proust, is an attempt to open up to speculation an improbable space, a space imperceptible to sensory experience. This space lies at the interstice of “both at once” and “separately.” Thus Balzac attempts to escape the dilemma of superimposition (that is to say, fusion) or of succession (that is, separation). He attempts to subvert the elementary rule of logic that states that “a” is either different from “b” or is the same as “b.”What is striking when one first reads Two Stories in... (shrink)

Quantum gravity--the marriage of quantum physics with general relativity--is bound to contain deep and important lessons for the nature of physical time. Some of these lessons shall be canvassed here, particularly as they arise from quantum general relativity and string theory and related approaches. Of particular interest is the question of which of the intuitive aspects of time will turn out to be fundamental, and which 'emergent' in some sense.

Payment of bride price is a popular tradition in Nigeria as in most parts of Africa. However, in Nigeria, the practice has virtually lost its traditional purpose of marriage validation and honouring because of the commercialisation by many parents. For this reason, some critics have called for a cancellation of the custom, as it has turned women to commodities to be bought and sold. This article examined the purpose of bride price in the traditional African setting, the changes that (...) have crept into the practice over time, and the desirability or non-desirability of bride price payment for Christians in Nigeria. The article employed the exegetical method for the study of the relevant texts and, using the descriptive approach, it gathered and utilised material relevant for bride price payment, as practised in Nigeria. The author found that payment of bride price is not prohibited in the Bible. In the traditional African society, bride price served mainly as the legal exchange that validated marriage. It was discovered that charging exorbitant bride prices by Nigerian parents obliterated the original purpose of the custom. Commercialisation of bride price in this way is partially responsible for the increasing rate of late marriages and non-marriages amongst Christians. The inability to pay high bride prices had created a situation whereby young Christian men and women cohabit without legally getting married. Exorbitant bride price sometimes leads to domestic violence against women. It is for these reasons that some have considered payment of bride price unchristian, whilst others have called for its abolishment. Nevertheless, this study concluded that as payment of bride price is not prohibited in the Bible, it is not wrong for Christians to pay and receive bride prices. Moreover, if its traditional purpose is adhered to, payment of bride price need not cause women abuse. Its cancellation would amount to doing away with the original purpose of the practice, particularly the legitimisation and honouring of marriage. Therefore, rather than abolishing bride price, one would call for a return to its original purpose. More than recognising the value of bride price, the church in Nigeria has the responsibility to educate Christian parents on the adverse implications of charging exorbitant bride prices. Contribution: This article is a contribution in ethics of Christian marriage. It is relevant for educating Nigerian Christian parents against charging excessive bride prices. (shrink)

This article engages with Goldenberg's desire to abandon transcendence since it is the enemy of autonomy and to once more encounter corporeality as the site of immanence. The author is in agreement with Goldenberg but attempts to show that the negative outcomes associated with a reliance on transcendence are not necessary and have been produced by a false understanding on the part of Christianity.

The greatest mandate which God entrusted to human beings since creation is keeping and sustaining the creation. Human beings are responsible towards making the creation glorify God the creator. Another important task is to bring forth other human beings—children—who will also become responsible towards creation in their adulthood. It means that the responsibility of humanity towards creation is continuous. Children are gifts from God through marriages and have to be reared to adulthood in order for them to become fully responsible (...) to God’s creation. This article examined the perceptions of church leaders and normal Christians towards child-rearing in both African traditional and Christian settings. Being guided by Ainsworth and Bowlby’s Attachment Theory, the article addressed the following questions: How is child-rearing understood and practiced in the research area? Is there any laziness in the rearing of children that hinders their proper development to adulthood? In response to these questions, a qualitative study was conducted at Isongole Ward, Ileje District, Songwe region in Tanzania. Interviews were conducted to eight research participants selected purposefully after their informed consent. Data were analyzed qualitatively to obtain themes which were the basis for the presentation and interpretation of findings. Results indicated that laziness to rear children properly was one of the major hindrances for children to realize their adulthood potentials in the future. The article suggests that to have an ethical church and ethical society, child-rearing basing on proper Christian foundation is of paramount importance. (shrink)

Nowadays, in the face of the breakdown of established social, ideological, economic and political relations, the family is, in essence, the only self-regulating structural unit. It, to a certain extent, models and reproduces practically all spheres of life, social relations and functions of society, is a natural social form of preservation, processing and transmission of original ethno-cultural information, embodied in family culture, national archetype, ritual and folklore. The family shapes the inner world of the individual, determines the structure of his (...) perception. (shrink)

According to the doctrine in Christianity and the church in West Sulawesi, especially in Kalumpang and Bonehau areas, men and women who are legally married have the right to live together in a home. However, in the context of the tradition of the Tanalotong tribal community in West Sulawesi, there was still a traditional procession that must be followed by married couples. The couple would be separated for a certain period of time after the wedding party is over. This (...) traditional procession is called Ma’parappo. The researcher used a qualitative approach to present a theological interpretation of the implementation of the Ma’parappo tradition in Christian marriage. Therefore, this type of research is theological and ethnographic. Based on this interpretation, the researcher concluded that theologically, the Ma’parappo tradition is a traditional procession that is loaded with values and norms that govern the integrity of a marriage. This tradition is not a cultural ritual that goes against the teachings of the Bible. Therefore, Christians and churches in Kalumpang and Bonehau should not be antipathetic to the implementation of Ma’parappo in marriage. Contribution: This study also aims to reveal the positive values contained in the marriage tradition of the Tanalotong tribe which can benefit religion and churches in West Sulawesi, especially in Bonehau and Kalumpang sub-districts. Therefore, the findings of this article can contribute to the development of the encounter between Christianity and the culture of the Tanalotong tribe. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Till Death Do Us Part”? Buddhist Insights on Christian MarriageWioleta PolinskaHigh divorce rates and declining marriage rates in Western societies draw the attention of many scholars to the fragility of contemporary marriages.1 Rampant individualism, permissive divorce law, and softening stance on divorce by mainstream Christian denominations are all listed as culprits responsible for the current marriage crisis.2 These conventional accounts, however, overlook important insights gathered by historians (...) of marriage, insights that point to a dramatic shift in the concept of marriage that occurred more than two hundred years ago. According to Stephanie Coontz, “the invention of the historically unprecedented idea that marriage should be based on love and mutual affection” 3 is responsible for greater fragility, but also for creating good, satisfying marriages that bring much happiness to people’s lives.4 Thus, the very source of fragility (the search for love and mutual affection) is also a source of deep connections and lasting relationships. While the fragility accompanying contemporary marriage is here to stay, our efforts to build strong unions need to be carefully evaluated. In what follows, I will address Christian and Buddhist approaches that aim at protecting the stability of marriage. To strengthen marriage, Christianity, from early on, focused on the permanence of marriage whether understood as a sacrament or, later on, as a covenant. Christian wedding vows that promise love, care, and enduring partnership “till death do us part” capture well the prevailing theology of Christian marriage. In contrast, Buddhism employs a concept of impermanence that implies an ever-changing reality that warrants no finality. Recent studies in psychology of mindfulness meditation show that such Buddhist concepts can translate well into effective skills for those in loving relationships. I will suggest that Christian theology might become more successful at preserving the stability of marriage by becoming less focused on the finality of couples’ bonds, and instead attending to the present reality of couples’ relationships.It is well documented that before the seventeenth century marriages were arranged by parents and fulfilled primarily political, economic, and social functions rather than individual needs. Marriage was seen as a means of enlarging one’s economic enterprise, acquiring powerful in-laws, strengthening military alliances, or (for the less [End Page 29] privileged) enlarging the family’s labor force.5 This is not to say that the notion of romantic love was unknown until the seventeenth century, but that it was not closely associated with marriage.6 In aristocratic courts of southern France, for example, romantic love appeared between an unmarried man and a married woman, and it should have been either unconsummated or adulterous.7 As late as the eighteenth century, a “sudden falling head over heels in love, although a familiar enough psychological phenomenon, was thought of as, a mild form of insanity” and an unreasonable basis for marriage.8 Romantic love became widely accepted only in the nineteenth century under the influence of Enlightenment thought, ideals of the French and American Revolutions and of the romantic movement.9Romantic love as an expression of an individual’s desire for fulfillment has its dark side, as it can unleash selfish concerns. Thus, Robert A. Johnson, a Christian theologian, defines romantic love as “airy, fantasy, projections, and an evanescent high. It is fundamentally egotistical—fixated on its own wants and whims. It can never lay the foundation for personal commitments.” 10 The Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh (b. 1926) states that love can become a kind of sickness when it forms an attachment, similar to drug dependency. When we are under its spell, we are preoccupied with the object of our love and we desire to control and possess the other. To Ven. Hạnh, this is not true love since “it is only the willingness to make use of the other person in order to satisfy our own needs.” 11 Both Johnson and Ven. Hạnh while criticizing romanticized concepts of love are not giving up on possibility of intimate love. Johnson calls this intimate connection with another person a “human love,” a love that affirms and appreciates another person as she or he actually is, in their totality. Instead of prizing... (shrink)

Ten years after over half a million Christians signed their names to a statement of conscience clarifying where they stood, the three issues dealt with in the Manhattan Declaration are of more cultural importance than ever. The main difference now, as opposed to then, is the state has since claimed authority, not only over life, but also over marriage and religious liberty." -- Amazon.com.

Digital technologies have become an integrated part of everyday life, and this development has not left relationships untouched. A need exists for theological reflection on the interaction between the dynamic contexts of the digital age and Christian marital relationships. The relational implications of the digital age are quite vast; therefore the focus of the article will be limited to online identity formation as a particular challenge of the digital age. Employing the method of a literature study within the scientific field (...) of practical theology, this article explores the interplay between online identity formation and Christian marriage. It suggests that online identity formation exists around a reciprocal interaction with two prominent qualities of Christian marriages: The expansion of the self and one-ness. When considering the interplay between online identity formation and Christian marriage, awareness can be created regarding the marital implications of spouses' online engagements, which may enhance contextual pastoral care with a relational focus within the digital age. CONTRIBUTION: The article contributes to practical theological reflection on challenges posed to Christian marriages by the digital age. It is aimed at stimulating pastoral thinking regarding online identity formation and its adverse effects on so-called one-ness in Christian marriages that can enhance pastoral care with a view on the flourishing of couples in the digital age. (shrink)

Between Christ and Caliph: Law, Marriage, and Christian Community in Early Islam. By Lev E. Weitz. Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. Pp. viii + 340. $65.

In this article I seek to address some misunderstandings in arguments about same sex-marriage. I do this by evaluating several views on homosexuality and marriage. My central aim is to show that a rejection of same-sex marriage does not depend upon the view that homosexual acts are immoral or disordered. Rather, one must examine sexual acts in light of public goods that are at stake. I also argue that the Christian understanding of marriage and sexuality offers (...) more than a set of prohibitions against certain sexual acts. Rather, it offers reasonable principles by which to evaluate the relationship between sexual acts and the public good. (shrink)

Divorce is not the biggest threat to marriage. Discouragement is. You’ve probably heard the grim facts: Half of all marriages end in divorce. The divorce rate inside the church is the same as outside. Most marriages are just holding on. But what if these “facts” are actually myths? In The Good News About Marriage, best-selling author Shaunti Feldhahn presents groundbreaking research that reveals the shocking, incredibly inspiring truth: · The actual divorce rate has never gotten close to 50 (...) percent. · Those who attend church regularly have a significantly lower divorce rate than those who don’t. · Most marriages are happy. · Simple changes make a big difference in most marriage problems. · Most remarriages succeed. For too long, our confidence in marriage has been undermined by persistent misunderstandings and imperfect data. This landmark book will radically change how we think and talk about marriage—and what we can dare to hope from it. “Shaunti takes aim at marriage myths that have spread like a cancer through our culture–myths that have become self-fulfilling prophecies. This book is packed with game-changing revelations. Like this one: Not only are most people staying married, they are happy in their marriages!” –Emerson Eggerichs, best-selling author of Love and Respect. (shrink)

In this article I seek to address some misunderstandings in arguments about same sex-marriage. I do this by evaluating several views on homosexuality and marriage. My central aim is to show that a rejection of same-sex marriage does not depend upon the view that homosexual acts are immoral or disordered. Rather, one must examine sexual acts in light of public goods that are at stake. I also argue that the Christian understanding of marriage and sexuality offers (...) more than a set of prohibitions against certain sexual acts. Rather, it offers reasonable principles by which to evaluate the relationship between sexual acts and the public good. (shrink)

As is well known, marriage was frequently employed as an instrument of diplomatic policy in premodern Europe. Dynastic leaders used the marriages of their own family members to create or confirm alliances with other ruling houses. Peace was often the aim and the outcome of such agreements, but the reality of marital politics was far more complicated. Arranging a marriage could be a statement of enmity by two families toward a third party. Attempts to dissolve or prevent marriages (...) already arranged by one's rivals amounted to viable political tactics. During the twelfth century, as rules around the formation and dissolution of Christian marriage were in flux, opportunities for manipulation of accepted practices abounded. This article examines a series of marriages between members of the Anglo-Norman and Angevin ruling families, focusing especially on the reign of Henry I, to demonstrate the complexity of marital practices and their links to peace and war. Literary works of the age, notably Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, offer further cultural perspectives on the nature of political marriages. Whereas short-term tactical considerations meant that marriages were often tied to episodes of conflict and rivalry, from a longer-term perspective the usefulness of marriage as a means of securing and maintaining peace remained an important element of premodern diplomacy. (shrink)