The decision to get married, as well as choosing whom to marry, is of the utmost importance to most people. This decision consists of many amoral considerations, but an ethical relationship arises when a promise is made, especially a vow that binds for a lifetime and affects oneself, one’s spouse, one’s children, and society. This essay provides an account of ideal romantic marriage, arguing that John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty provides an excellent foundation for constructing such an account. Neither dead (...) dogma nor living truth is a healthy model for marriage, so a hybrid model of marriage, living dogma, is developed. The importance of the marital vow becomes apparent as the living dogma account is revealed, and this examination yields a model for how to decide when and whom to marry. (shrink)

This article proposes a direction—inspired by a reading of Heidegger’s reflections on sculpture— in which thinking enriched by artistic experience can unfold an alternative mode of being-in-the-world. Heidegger points out that, in contrast to a scientific understanding of space as an empty container, the special character of space in sculpture is characterized by a clearing-away (Räumen), which presupposes and points to an open, receptive attitude toward experience that is necessary for dwelling to take place. From Heidegger this article proceeds to (...) reflect on artworks by Eduardo Chillida and Janet Echelman. These offer concrete examples of how a thinking of sculpture can apply to different notions of place. While Chillida’s sculptures present a sense of place as rooted and embedded in the landscape, Echelman’s artworks explore an expanded notion of place through a multisensory sense of immersion. Applying Heidegger’s meditations on Räumen, it turns out that the differences between these artworks are of greatest significance in illustrating the breadth of the experiential space that they share: an openness to dwelling and a receptivity toward being-in-the-world. In this way, Heidegger’s reflections on sculpture are unfolded in a contemporary context and the potential of sculpture for a thinking of experience is established. (shrink)

Abstract What sense are we to make of the promise of love against the contingency of human life? I discuss two replies to this question: (1) the suggestion that marriage, based on the probable success of this kind of relationship, is a more or less worthwhile endeavour (cf. Moller and Landau), and (2) Martha Nussbaum's Aristotelian proposal that we only live life fully if we embrace aspects of life, such as loving relationships, that are vulnerable to fortune. I show that (...) both responses, in different ways, depend on the presupposition that the sense of our promises to love is dependent on our ability to make predictions. The philosophers I discuss assume an epistemological standpoint from which we may attempt to judge whether it is in our general interest to love. I argue that embracing such a perspective by itself leads our attention away from the kind of personal and moral engagement in other people of which our promises to love are expressive. From the perspective of love, the attempt to calculate the risks and gains of loving itself appears as a moral failure to be present to the reality of other people. (shrink)

Much has been written about the general moral duty to love one’s neighbors. In this article, I explore the specific application of this moral duty in the work setting. I argue from a secular perspective that individuals have the moral duty to love their stakeholders. Loving one’s stakeholders is an affective valuing of the stake-related values these stakeholders pursue and as such is the real recognition of one’s stakeholders as stakeholders and of oneself as a stakeholder of one’s stakeholders. This (...) moral concept of stakeholder love offers promising contributions to stakeholder theory, leadership theories, and ethical theories in general and business ethics theories in particular. (shrink)