This essay indicates how theology of a certain sort may contribute to the “human humanities” as Willem B. Drees understands them, but also that there is no single entirely satisfactory solution to the question of how to give due attention to the intensely self‐involving character of plural religions. The best we can do is to undertake theology, religious studies, and philosophy of religion in proximity to one another. This helps to maintain the sense that, in the humanities generally and the (...) study of religion specifically, we not only develop comparative and disciplined reflections that aspire to a measure of neutrality, but also invite persons to undertake inherently self‐involving and reflexive inquiries, including theological ones. (shrink)

Ethics and Advocacy considers the connections and differences between critical reflection or moral arguments or narratives and advocacy for particular issues regarding justice and moral behavior and dispositions. The chapters in this volume share an interest in overcoming polarizing division that does not enable fruitful give-and-take discussion and even possible persuasive justifications. The authors all believe that both ethics and advocacy are important and should inform each other, but each offers a divergent point of view on the way forward to (...) these agreed-upon ends. Our shared goal is to avoid academic withdrawal and to speak relevantly to the important issues of our day while halting--or at least mitigating--the disruptive discourse--almost shouting--that characterizes our polarized current society. (shrink)

This essay argues that H. Richard Niebuhr's classic book, Christ and Culture, is best understood as a typology of moral theologies. Each of Niebuhr's five types may be regarded as a patterned resolution of four theological relations: reason and revelation, God and world, sin and goodness, and law and gospel. Many of his evaluative comments reflect his preference for what he calls a transformationist or conversionist pattern. However, it is not difficult to imagine evaluative comments on the several types, including (...) the transformationist one, made from the perspective of a different preferred resolution of the four theological relations. Moreover, Niebuhr's scheme remains useful for analyzing more recent texts in theological ethics, such as Gustavo Gutierrez's A Theology of Liberation. Thus, while the book is not without its flaws and while readers may wish to enter some emendations and revisions, Christ and Culture is still worth reading because the categories it presents for analyzing moral theologies remain unsurpassed in their richness, usefulness, and suggestiveness. (shrink)

THIS ESSAY PRESENTS THE ARGUMENT THAT A THEOLOGICAL ETHIC CAN be Christian if it is shaped by a Christian theology or a reflective attempt to articulate a Christian worldview in the service of the life of faith. But there is no generic Christian theology, only historical varieties, many of which shape our ethics differently and also include distinctive self-critical resources. Therefore, although theology is not all you need, you must also be your own theologian to be a critical, interesting, and (...) ecclesially relevant Christian ethicist. (shrink)

The story of theology and ethics at Union Seminary from 1812 to the present illustrates the critical relationship between theology, ethics, and historical circumstances. In a distinctive fashion, it also reflects both the wider story and current challenges of theology and ethics in American Protestantism.

Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr developed different stances in theological ethics as well as contrasting interpretations of important circumstances and events. Despite their differences, however, when it came to the idea of responsibility, they shared a fundamental insight about the situated character of human agency. Their insight points to a substantial if also flexible Niebuhrian legacy in theological ethics, and promising and problematic features of this legacy have continued to engage the critical and constructive energies of diverse thinkers, including James (...) M. Gustafson, Gordon D. Kaufman, Robin W. Lovin, and William Schweiker. (shrink)

Our theological pictures of God, the world, and ourselves sometimes change in order to take account of scientific findings, ideas, and beliefs. How might they alter in response to recent ideas about the cosmos and the place of us humans in it?

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 50, Issue 1, Page 7-19, March 2022.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Theology for Liberal Protestants: God the Creator by Douglas F. OttatiRubén Rosario RodríguezTheology for Liberal Protestants: God the Creator Douglas F. Ottati GRAND RAPIDS, MI: EERDMANS, 2013. 377 PP. $38.00Douglas Ottati offers the first volume of a two-volume systematic theology that is firmly and unapologetically grounded in the nineteenth-century liberal Protestant tradition. To paraphrase Gary Dorrien, Ottati's work can be categorized as among (...) those contributors to the discipline of theology, like Kathryn Tanner, seeking to bridge the longstanding gap between Yale postliberalism and Chicago liberalism. In other words, the absolute rejection of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Adolf von Harnack, and Ernst Troeltsch by neo-orthodox theologians early in the twentieth century no longer serves as an adequate typology, thus necessitating the need for a different narrative—one that sees greater continuity between Protestant liberalism, its neo-orthodox opponents, and the narrative and postliberal theologies that have sprouted from the fertile soil of this supposed discontinuity.Ottati defends and reclaims use of the term "liberal" through an appeal to the Reformed theological tradition within which he stands (along with supposedly irreconcilable rivals Schleiermacher and Karl Barth) by recognizing the place of John Calvin as an advocate for compassionate civil discourse and cooperation grounded in distinctly Christian piety and praxis. Accordingly, "A liberal Protestant is one whose piety and sensibility join Protestant convictions about Bible, tradition, church, history and truth with sustained attention to critical argument and scientific inquiries, a developed historical consciousness, and a commitment to social criticism and reform" (14). He then reconceptualizes the discipline of Christian theology through a series of axiomatic propositions that locates the theologian within a particular faith community yet in continuous dialogue with the surrounding culture; confronts the radical plurality of our current age by pursuing comparative theological discourse; and is receptive to scientific, literary, and philosophical world views (even when these world views prove hostile to a Christian perspective) as naturally flowing from the Christian's pious submission "to God as Creator, Judge, and Redeemer" of all humanity in its many varied manifestations. In other words, Ottati presents diversity, tolerance, and cooperation as distinctly Christian virtues that can and ought to help Christians build bridges with differing religious and philosophical perspectives on the basis of a shared humanistic foundation that is nevertheless biblically and theologically grounded.This systematic theology intentionally follows Calvin's organizing schema in the Institutes of the Christian Religion (1559) of the twofold knowledge of God as [End Page 214] Creator and Redeemer; it greatly admires and respects its theological ancestors, including Augustine, Martin Luther, and Schleiermacher, yet offers a critical evaluation—and, when needed, rejection—of these same forebears. Like Katherine Sonderegger's recent Systematic Theology (a projected three-volume work), Ottati's contribution stands as a corrective against the twentieth century emphasis on a Trinitarian doctrine of God that often excludes classical reflection on the attributes of God. Whether or not he is avoiding classical Trinitarian language because he wants to avoid idle speculation about the Triune God (à la Calvin) will become more evident in the second volume when (if?) he addresses the work of the Spirit as part of God's act of reconciliation in Christ. This first volume is the work of a brilliant thinker who is guided by a pastoral sensibility that will find an audience in the church, in the seminary, and—perhaps most surprisingly—in the university classroom in great part because it takes very seriously the call to make the Christian faith intelligible and relevant in the face of external criticism of Christian piety and practice. In the end, what it offers is a rediscovery of the concept of wonder at the Creation and its infinitely mysterious source to a radically pluralistic and increasingly agnostic culture.Rubén Rosario RodríguezSaint Louis UniversityCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

A young scientist and mathematician explores the mystery and complexity of human thought processes from an interdisciplinary point of view.

Extraterrestrial Altruism examines a basic assumption of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI): that extraterrestrials will be transmitting messages to us for our benefit. This question of whether extraterrestrials will be altruistic has become increasingly important in recent years as SETI scientists have begun contemplating transmissions from Earth to make contact. Technological civilizations that transmit signals for the benefit of others, but with no immediate gain for themselves, certainly seem to be altruistic. But does this make biological sense? Should we (...) expect altruism to evolve throughout the cosmos, or is this only wishful thinking? Is it dangerous to send messages to other worlds, as Stephen Hawking has suggested, or might humankind benefit from an exchange with intelligence elsewhere in the galaxy? Would extraterrestrial societies be based on different ethical principles, or would we see commonalities with Earthly notions of morality? Extraterrestrial Altruism explores these and related questions about the motivations of civilizations beyond Earth, providing new insights that are critical for SETI. Chapters are authored by leading scholars from diverse disciplines—anthropology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, cosmology, engineering, history of science, law, philosophy, psychology, public policy, and sociology. The book is carefully edited by Douglas Vakoch, Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute and professor of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. The Foreword is by Frank Drake. This interdisciplinary book will benefit everybody trying to understand whether evolution and ethics are unique to Earth, or whether they are built into the fabric of the universe. (shrink)

This book provides a critical overview of the entirety of Marcuse's work and discusses his enduring importance. Kellner had extensive interviews with Marcuse and provides hitherto unknown information about his road to Marxism, his relations with Heidegger and Existentialism, his involvement with the Frankfurt School, and his reasons for appropriating Freud in the 1950s. In addition Kellner provides a novel interpretation of the genesis and structure of Marcuse's theory of one-dimensional society, of the development of his political theory, and of (...) the role of aesthetics in his critical theory. (shrink)

This book identifies 25 argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning and matches a set of critical questions to each.

There are two alternative approaches to accommodating an agent-centered restriction against, say, φ-ing. One approach is to prohibit agents from ever φ-ing. For instance, there could be an absolute prohibition against breaking a promise. The other approach is to require agents both to adopt an end that can be achieved only by their not φ-ing and to give this end priority over that of minimizing overall instances of φ-ing. For instance, each agent could be required both to adopt the end (...) of minimizing their own promise-breakings and to give this end priority over that of minimizing promise-breakings overall. The former is what I’ll call the side-constraint approach, and the latter is what I’ll call the teleological approach. In this chapter, I argue that, when it comes to accommodating restrictions, we should (1) favor the teleological approach over the side-constraint approach, (2) favor an act-consequentialist approach over a non-consequentialist, teleological approach (such as Rossian pluralism), and (3) favor a Kantsequentialist approach over other act-consequentialist approaches, where Kantsequentialism is a version of act-consequentialism that holds that persons are ends-in-themselves who are inherently and unconditionally valuable and are, thus, owed our respect. (shrink)

In this volume, Douglas Yoder uses the tools of modern and postmodern philosophy and biblical criticism to elucidate the epistemology of the Tanakh, the collection of writings that comprise the Hebrew Bible. Despite the conceptual sophistication of the Tanakh, its epistemology has been overlooked in both religious and secular hermeneutics. The concept of revelation, the genre of apocalypse, and critiques of ideology and theory are all found within or derive from epistemic texts of the Tanakh. Yoder examines how philosophers (...) such as Spinoza, Hume, and Kant interacted with such matters. He also explores how the motifs of writing, reading, interpretation, image, and animals, topics that figure prominently in the work of Derrida, Foucault, and Nietzsche, appear also in the Tanakh. An understanding of Tanakh epistemology, he concludes, can lead to new appraisals of religious and secular life throughout the modern world. (shrink)

Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation presents the basic tools for the identification, analysis, and evaluation of common arguments for beginners. The book teaches by using examples of arguments in dialogues, both in the text itself and in the exercises. Examples of controversial legal, political, and ethical arguments are analyzed. Illustrating the most common kinds of arguments, the book also explains how to evaluate each kind by critical questioning. Douglas Walton shows how arguments can be reasonable under the right dialogue conditions (...) by using critical questions to evaluate them. The book teaches by example, both in the text itself and in exercises, but it is based on methods that have been developed through the author's thirty years of research in argumentation studies. (shrink)

Fragmented thinking, broken world -- Toward recovery of wholeness: the radical humanities and traditional wisdom -- Toward recovery of wholeness: another look at science -- Insight-imagination -- Living thinking, living world: toward an education of insight-imagination.

Vol. presents a method for critically evaluating relevance in arguments based on case studies & a new relevance theory incorporating techniques of argumentation theory, logic & artificiaI intelligence. For scholars/students in argumentation & rhetoric.

In this paper, I take it for granted both that there are two types of blameworthiness—accountability blameworthiness and attributability blameworthiness—and that avoidability is necessary only for the former. My task, then, is to explain why avoidability is necessary for accountability blameworthiness but not for attributability blameworthiness. I argue that what explains this is both the fact that these two types of blameworthiness make different sorts of reactive attitudes fitting and that only one of these two types of attitudes requires having (...) been able to refrain from φ-ing in order for them to be fitting. (shrink)

Is the flavor of mint reducible to the minty smell, the taste, and the menthol-like coolness on the roof of one’s mouth, or does it include something over and above these—something not properly associated with any one of the contributing senses? More generally, are there features of perceptual experiences—so-called novel features—that are not associated with any of our senses taken singly? This question has received a lot of attention of late. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the question (...) of what it means to say that a feature is associated with a sensory modality in the first place. Indeed, there is only one fully developed proposal in the literature, due to Casey O’Callaghan. I argue that this proposal is too permissive to inform the debate over novel features. I go on to argue that all attempts to formulate a better proposal along these lines fail. The corollary of my arguments is that the question of the existence of novel features is poorly formed. Furthermore, the problem generalizes, with the result that we should not rely on our pre-theoretical notions of the senses as the basis of theorizing about the features of perceptual experiences. (shrink)

Second edition of the introductory guidebook to the basic principles of constructing sound arguments and criticising bad ones. Non-technical in approach, it is based on 186 examples, which Douglas Walton, a leading authority in the field of informal logic, discusses and evaluates in clear, illustrative detail. Walton explains how errors, fallacies, and other key failures of argument occur. He shows how correct uses of argument are based on sound strategies for reasoned persuasion and critical responses. This edition takes into (...) account many developments in the field of argumentation study that have occurred since 1989, many created by the author. Drawing on these developments, Walton includes and analyzes 36 new topical examples and also brings in work on argumentation schemes. Ideally suited for use in courses in informal logic and introduction to philosophy, this book will also be valuable to students of pragmatics, rhetoric, and speech communication. (shrink)

The finding that women are attracted to men older than themselves whereas men are attracted to relatively younger women has been explained by social psychologists in terms of economic exchange rooted in traditional sex-role norms. An alternative evolutionary model suggests that males and females follow different reproductive strategies, and predicts a more complex relationship between gender and age preferences. In particular, males' preferences for relatively younger females should be minimal during early mating years, but should become more pronounced as the (...) male gets older. Young females are expected to prefer somewhat older males during their early years and to change less as they age. We briefly review relevant theory and present results of six studies testing this prediction. Study 1 finds support for this gender-differentiated prediction in age preferences expressed in personal advertisements. Study 2 supports the prediction with marriage statistics from two U.S. cities. Study 3 examines the cross-generational robustness of the phenomenon, and finds the same pattern in marriage statistics from 1923. Study 4 replicates Study 1 using matrimonial advertisements from two European countries, and from India. Study 5 finds a consistent pattern in marriages recorded from 1913 through 1939 on a small island in the Philippines. Study 6 reveals the same pattern in singles advertisements placed by financially successful American women and men. We consider the limitations of previous normative and evolutionary explanations of age preferences and discuss the advantages of expanding previous models to include the life history perspective. (shrink)

Blame is multifarious. It can be passionate or dispassionate. It can be expressed or kept private. We blame both the living and the dead. And we blame ourselves as well as others. What’s more, we blame ourselves, not only for our moral failings, but also for our non-moral failings: for our aesthetic bad taste, gustatory self-indulgence, or poor athletic performance. And we blame ourselves both for things over which we exerted agential control (e.g., our voluntary acts) and for things over (...) which we lacked such control (e.g., our desires, beliefs, and intentions). I argue that, despite this manifest diversity in our blaming practices, it’s possible to provide comprehensive account of blame. Indeed, I propose a set of necessary and sufficient conditions that aims to specify blame’s extension in terms of its constitution as opposed to its function. And I argue that this proposal has a number of advantages beyond accounting for blame in all its disparate forms. For one, it can account for the fact that one’s having had control over whether one was to φ is a necessary condition for one’s being fittingly blamed for having φ-ed. For another, it can account for why, unlike fitting shame, fitting blame is always deserved, which in turn explains why there is something morally problematic about ridding oneself of one’s fitting self-blame (e.g., one’s fitting guilt). (shrink)

Media argumentation is a powerful force in our lives. From political speeches to television commercials to war propaganda, it can effectively mobilize political action, influence the public, and market products. This book presents a new and systematic way of thinking about the influence of mass media in our lives, showing the intersection of media sources with argumentation theory, informal logic, computational theory, and theories of persuasion. Using a variety of case studies that represent arguments that typically occur in the mass (...) media, Douglas Walton demonstrates how tools recently developed in argumentation theory can be usefully applied to the identification, analysis, and evaluation of media arguments. (shrink)

Some right acts have what philosophers call moral worth. A right act has moral worth if and only if its agent deserves credit for having acted rightly in this instance. And I argue that an agent deserves credit for having acted rightly if and only if her act issues from an appropriate set of concerns, where the appropriateness of these concerns is a function what her ultimate moral concerns should be. Two important upshots of the resulting account of moral worth (...) are that (1) an act can have moral worth even if it doesn’t manifest a concern for doing what’s right and that (2) an act can lack moral worth even if it is performed for the right reasons. (shrink)

Argumentation, which can be abstractly defined as the interaction of different arguments for and against some conclusion, is an important skill to learn for everyday life, law, science, politics and business. The best way to learn it is to try it out on real instances of arguments found in everyday conversational exchanges and legal argumentation. The introductory chapter of this book gives a clear general idea of what the methods of argumentation are and how they work as tools that can (...) be used to analyze arguments. Each subsequent chapter then applies these methods to a leading problem of argumentation. Today the field of computing has embraced argumentation as a paradigm for research in artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems. Another purpose of this book is to present and refine tools and techniques from computing as components of the methods that can be handily used by scholars in other fields. (shrink)

A "slippery slope argument" is a type of argument in which a first step is taken and a series of inextricable consequences follow, ultimately leading to a disastrous outcome. Many textbooks on informal logic and critical thinking treat the slippery slope argument as a fallacy. Walton argues that used correctly in some cases, they can be a reasonable type of argument to shift a burden of proof in a critical discussion, while in other cases they are used incorrectly. Walton identifies (...) and analyzes four types of slippery slope argument. Walton presents guidelines that show how each type of slippery slope argument can be used correctly or incorrectly, using over fifty case studies of argumentation on controversial issues. These include abortion, medical research on human embryos, euthanasia, the decriminalization of marijuana, pornography, and censorship, and banning of American flag burning. (shrink)

Media argumentation is a powerful force in our lives. From political speeches to television commercials to war propaganda, it can effectively mobilize political action, influence the public, and market products. This book presents a new and systematic way of thinking about the influence of mass media in our lives, showing the intersection of media sources with argumentation theory, informal logic, computational theory, and theories of persuasion. Using a variety of case studies that represent arguments that typically occur in the mass (...) media, Douglas Walton demonstrates how tools recently developed in argumentation theory can be usefully applied to the identification, analysis, and evaluation of media arguments. He draws upon the most recent developments in artificial intelligence, including dialogical theories of argument, which he developed, as well as speech act theory. Each chapter presents solutions to problems central to understanding, analyzing, and criticizing media argumentation. (shrink)

Recent work in artificial intelligence has increasingly turned to argumentation as a rich, interdisciplinary area of research that can provide new methods related to evidence and reasoning in the area of law. Douglas Walton provides an introduction to basic concepts, tools and methods in argumentation theory and artificial intelligence as applied to the analysis and evaluation of witness testimony. He shows how witness testimony is by its nature inherently fallible and sometimes subject to disastrous failures. At the same time (...) such testimony can provide evidence that is not only necessary but inherently reasonable for logically guiding legal experts to accept or reject a claim. Walton shows how to overcome the traditional disdain for witness testimony as a type of evidence shown by logical positivists, and the views of trial sceptics who doubt that trial rules deal with witness testimony in a way that yields a rational decision-making process. (shrink)

Introduction -- Context -- Overview of themes -- Reading the text -- Reception and influence.

We know we have thoughts, but are we aware that we have styles of thought? This book, written by one of the most gifted and celebrated social thinkers of our time, is a contribution to understanding the rules of the different styles of thinking. Author Mary Douglas takes us through a range of thought styles from the vulgar to the refined. Throughout this fascinating journey, Thought Styles shows us how the different styles work and how outsiders can learn the (...) styles of insiders. The discussion ranges from the style of folklore to the styles of therapy, shopping, religion, and animal rights. The result is a book full of insight. Readers will find themselves thinking in new ways about the mechanics of communication in everyday life. Professionals and researchers in sociology, communication, and anthropology will especially appreciate this auspicious new book. (shrink)

IN THIS PAPER, I make a presumptive case for moral rationalism: the view that agents can be morally required to do only what they have decisive reason to do, all things considered. And I argue that this view leads us to reject all traditional versions of act‐consequentialism. I begin by explaining how moral rationalism leads us to reject utilitarianism.

This reader-friendly book examines philosophies and philosophers using an engaging, non-condescending approach that speaks to you at your level.