In Perplexity in the Moral Life Santurri discusses how situations of moral perplexity are to be construed and how the interpretation of these situations might be constrained by the presuppositions of Christian ethics.

The author provides explicit philosophical terminology to clarify Kierkegaard's notion of a "teleological suspension of the ethical." He claims that the feature of Abraham's act that placed it beyond the sphere of the ethical was the impossibility of describing it as part of a way of life that one is prepared to commend to others. Thus, the only appropriate response to Abraham is silence.

In "The Law of Peoples" John Rawls casts his proposals as an argument against what he calls "political realism." Here, I contend that a certain version of "Christian political realism" survives Rawls's polemic against political realism sans phrase and that Rawls overstates his case against political realism writ large. Specifically, I argue that Rawls's dismissal of "empirical political realism" is underdetermined by the evidence he marshals in support of the dismissal and that his rejection of "normative political realism" is in (...) tension with his own normative concessions to political reality as expressed in "The Law of Peoples." That is, I contend that Rawls, himself, needs some form of political realism to render persuasive the full range of normative claims constituting the argument of that work. (shrink)

Aquinas holds that human actions are directed to a last end which is the supreme good and the complete satisfaction of the agent’s desires. He confronts serious difficulties in explaining how morally wrong or sinful choices and renunciatory acts are possible and in avoiding psychological egoism. The distinction that he makes between the concept of the last end as the fulfillment of desire and the object (God) in which that ful fillment is found enables him to alleviate these difficulties but (...) still leaves him with a predominantly instrumental view of morality. (shrink)

The author notes an unclarity in David Novak's defense of Reinhold Niebuhr against Stanley Hauerwas's critique and identifies some issues left unsettled in the exchange between Novak and Hauerwas over Niebuhr's ethics. Specifically, the author proposes that the Barthian-Hauerwasian communitarian rejection of Niebuhrian natural theology and natural law ignores the historical abuse of biblical theology in the German Christian response to the Nazis, fails to account for the fact of general moral revulsion against Nazism, and flirts itself with a conventionalist (...) form of nihilism. (shrink)

In response to Meilaender’s critique of my earlier work, I argue that Rawlsian and Augustinian ‘liberalisms’ are closer in spirit than Meilaender allows. Rawlsians and Augustinians can agree that the concern to preserve temporal peace under modern pluralistic conditions affords a warrant for political arrangements that require allegiance to no particular all-encompassing world view. This agreement on a certain kind of political neutrality extends to constitutional essentials but does not prohibit appeals to particular comprehensive visions in political debate so long (...) as such appeals are consistent with maintaining the social peace that liberal institutions are designed to preserve. (shrink)

Virtue and the Moral Life brings together distinguished philosophers and theologians with younger scholars of consummate promise to produce ten essays that engage both academics and students of ethics. This collection explores the role virtues play in identifying the good life and the good society.

Virtue and the Moral Life brings together distinguished philosophers and theologians with younger scholars of consummate promise to produce ten essays that engage both academics and students of ethics. This collection explores the role virtues play in identifying the good life and the good society.

This volume examines some of the most contentious social justice issues present in the corpus of Augustine's writings. Whether one is concerned with human trafficking and the contemporary slave trade, the global economy, or endless wars, these essays further the conversation on social justice as informed by the writings of Augustine of Hippo.

The Novum Organum, (or Novum Organum Scientiarum - "New Instrument of Science"), is a philosophical work by Francis Bacon, originally published in 1620. The title is a reference to Aristotle's work Organon, which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. In Novum Organum, Bacon details a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known as the Baconian method.

Edmund Husserl is the founder of phenomenology. The Logical Investigations is Edmund Husserl's most famous work and has had a decisive impact on the direction of twentieth century philosophy. This is the first time both volumes of this classic work, translated by J.N. Findlay, have been available in paperback. They include a new introduction by Dermot Moran, placing the Logical Investigations in historical context and bringing out its importance for contemporary philosophy.

CELL AND PSYCHE THE BIOLOGY OF PURPOSE By EDMUND W. SINNOTT. PREFACE TO THE TORCHBOOK EDITION: SINCE the publication of this little book, as the McNair Lectures at the University of North Carolina, the author has written two others, as well as a number of papers, on the same gen eral theme. Though these elaborate the argument a little further, the essence of it is in Cell and Psyche. This is admittedly a specula tion, but one based solidly on (...) biological fact. It has been regarded as rather visionary and metaphysical by some people, but others have been attracted to it by the suggestion it offers for a better understanding of the ancient problem of how mind and body are related to each other. This problem is of such paramount impor tance, not only for a knowledge of what man really is but for the construction of a satisfying life philosophy, that any light thrown on it should be welcome. The suggestion that man's physical life grows out of the basic goal-seeking and purposiveness found in all organic behavior and that this, in turn, is an aspect of the more general self - regulating and normative character evident in the development and activities of living organisms, is at least worth serious consideration. If we are to avoid a dualistic idea of man's nature and to construct a true monism that does not require the sacrifice of the significance of either mind or body, some such conception as this seems a rea sonable means of doing so. It is to be hoped that the wider distri bution now made possible for the present book may result in a more general consideration of this particular relationship between biol ogy and philosophy* E. W. S. CONTENTS: Introduction. i I. Organization, the Distinctive Character of All Life 15 II. Biological Organization and Psychological Activity 43 IIL Some Implications for Philosophy 75 Suggested Readings. 112 Index. 117. INTRODUCTION: IN THE CLAMOR and confusion of our times one fact grows ever clearer beliefs are important. One of the major problems with which men now are faced per haps, indeed, the most important one is the wide dis agreement which still exists in their fundamental philos ophies. What course a man will follow, or a nation, is set in no small measure by his basic creed, by what he really thinks about the true nature of a human being his personality, his freedom, his destiny, his relations to others and to the rest of the universe; by the judgments lie makes as to what qualities and courses of action are admirable and should command his allegiance. These are not academic questions merely. They arc ancient mys teries which long have troubled human hearts and seem today almost as far as ever from solution. The answer a ny* n gives to them is the most significant thing that one can know about him. We may be tempted to under estimate the importance of these inner directives and turn instead to outer influences, to economic and social factors, as more decisive for our actions. But when we look at what the philosophy of Marx has done to set one half the world against the other, at the basic divergence between the thinking of East and West, and at so many other differences in political and religious beliefs which now divide mankind, we can hardly doubt the profound practical import of men's philosophies. It is still true today that as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. In the minds of men are the most fateful battles fought. Against those ideologies we condemn, force in the end will fail. If our opponents cannot be convinced, or their ideas reconci. (shrink)

Ce texte de Husserl a ete publie une premiere fois en 1962, puis une seconde fois en 1968 par W. Biemel dans le tome XI des Husserliana sous le titre: Phanomenologische Psychologie, Vorlesungen Sommersemester 1925. La presente traduction comprend donc les lecons eponymes du volume qui remontent au semestre d'ete 1925, ainsi que differents textes non traduits jusqu'alors dont, en particulier, la quatrieme version de l'article pour l'Encyclopedia Britannica et les Conferences d'Amsterdam. Le statut de la psychologie dans l'economie de (...) la demarche phenomenologique apparait au premier abord extremement embrouille, et il semble difficile de conferer un sens univoque a l'idee de psychologie phenomenologique. Aussi l'un des merites des lecons de 1925 reside-t-il sans doute dans la presentation systematique de cette psychologie dont Brentano et Dilthey sont pour Husserl les precurseurs. A quels traits distinctifs reconnait-on la psychologie phenomenologique? Celle-ci repose-t-elle sur la seule analyse eidetique des vecus intentionnels? Si le deploiement de la phenomenologie transcendantale est inseparablee de la reduction, la psychologie phenomenologique n'exige-t-elle pas a son tour une attitude specifique distincte des attitudes naturelle et transcendantale? Telles sont les questions que cet ouvrage permet de poser, sans peut-etre toujours y repondre. (shrink)