The reductionist conclusions of some evolutionary theorists are countered by appealing to the transformation of feeling-traces from our evolutionary origins. Presupposed to the science of evolutionary biology is the capacity to get at the truth of things, and to live by values, which Rahner terms “spirit”; its appropriation comes about through the process of moral and intellectual “conversion” (Lonergan), extended into the realm of feelings and the psyche (Doran). This allows a non-supernaturalistic way of understanding the saving interpersonal transaction at (...) the heart of Christian belief; framed as a personal journey, it implies a less conceptual and more imaginal approach to faith. (shrink)

Marcel Gauchet argues that whatever impulse previously gave rise to religion is now fully translated by the values of representative politics, empirical method, future orientation and productivity as an end in itself. The good and productive citizen replaces the dutiful Christian. His foundational thesis is twofold: (a) religion is the surrender of human autonomy to a power other than human beings, issuing in a hierarchical social structure thought to be given by nature; and (b), paradoxically, religion has at the same (...) time been the impulse to move away from religion. Christianity in particular is “the religion to exit from religion”, propelling society, particularly in the West, toward a disenchanted world-view, one that is non-supernaturalistic and implies non-hierarchical social arrangements. In recounting his argument, I conclude by agreeing with (b) but disagreeing with (a). I suggest that what Gauchet terms “religion” is better thought of in terms of Sartre’s concept of “bad faith”. In this project, Sartre’s – and Gauchet’s – concept of human freedom in terms of the power of “refusal” may well be complemented by the understanding of the person as empowered through interpersonal solidarity. I argue that this supplies a corrective to Gauchet’s interpretation of Christianity, and, further, is a reason to move away from his liberal idea of the state as neutral towards religions. As the secular and humanist re-articulation of religious traditions, the democratic state of its nature challenges rival interpretations of those traditions, whether fundamentalist or reductionist. (shrink)

The secularisation idea is that modernity leaves religion behind. But for Gauchet, modernity just is religion transformed, without remainder. The Axial Age discovery of the inner world of the psyche and its symbolic expressions, was at the same time a growth in understanding of God as creator, transcendent and incommensurable with all of creation. Henceforth, religion would be in the key of personal struggle and symbolic transformation, putting aside heteronomy. Taylor adds a caveat: the self-image of the self-sufficient, autonomous individual (...) subtracted from the canopy of 'higher' mythological entities obscures the basic human need for recognition and identity. This issues in an unhelpful politics of mobilization and manipulation. Likewise, Voegelin sees both liberal modernity and present-day religion as largely gnostic, closed and ideological versions of the traditions. Secular public policy types the religions as sects. But the autonomy of self-determination arises out of religion and a plausible secularisation thesis would see contemporary culture as containing within it the possibility for a secular expression of the authentic religious tradition - including resistance to sect-like religiosity. The revisionist history suggested here entails a rethink of the image of modernity in terms of a complete break with the pre-secular culture and entails a re-positioning of religion within secular society. (shrink)

Any notion of a god that is of relevance to us must show how it makes a difference in the world. But this idea of an interventionist god doesn’t make sense for a secular and scientific mentality such as ours. I take Brenda de Wet’s five sticking points for any religious believer that seem to fail to make the grade of intellectual integrity (2008), and argue that starting from creedal and popular formulations of the notion of a god, as she (...) does along with most standard textbooks in the philosophy of religion, reveals an oversight of self-knowledge characteristic of much modern philosophy. Uncovering similar inadequacies in the secularized Deist account of god (which has given rise to the problem of the relevance of the god) opens up questions to do with the contingent intersubjective conditions of possibility for the development of the power of knowing and acting in the sense implied in the notion of intellectual integrity. But, I argue, free self-determination, and the contingency of its actualization, suggests the reality of a non-finite source of this freedom, and indeed this being manifest in an unavoidably historical, particularistic way. Along these lines I argue for an intellectually coherent notion of particular divine action but in a non-interventionist model. (shrink)

Drawing on Bernard Lonergan's Method in Theology (1972) I argue that theology can be taught because personal knowledge, of which it is an instance, is at the heart of academic inquiry; and it should be taught because critical engagement with basic ways of taking one's life as a whole (religion in a broad sense) furnishes a critique of the typical oversights of contemporary culture. The appropriation of one's subjectivity entails an awareness of an existential dialectic that pushes towards a decisive (...) option for affirming the possibility and worth of growth in one's powers of self-determination and self-transcendence. Thus conversion—precisely defined in terms of this dialectic—has moral and intellectual dimensions whose promotion goes to the heart of the academic enterprise. By separating out those disciplines (systematics, for example) which are mediated by the existential stance taken by the scholar, Lonergan allows theology to be seen as one world view among others. (shrink)

An analysis of the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity at work in standard introductions to philosophy reveals an oversight of self-knowledge and tracing the move from a common-sense culture to a scientific one throws up the idea of self-appropriation as the hidden heart of modern thought. The aftermath of the rise of modern physics has been a picture of reality as alienated from our commonly experienced sense of purposes, aims, and intentions as defining our everyday lives, what we may call (...) our “subjectivity”. The existentialist reaction to this has been stifled by this Cartesian dichotomy but the non-sceptical neo-Thomist approach of Bernard Lonergan uncovers the element of self-reflective judgment in knowledge and grounds an act of self-affirmation, thematizing responsibility and agency. I present, with critique, influential moments in the genesis of the received notions of objectivity and of subjectivity, and argue for the inadequacy of Nagel’s problematization of these categories of contemporary thought. With the aim of suggesting a rethink of how philosophy questions are framed in our syllabus I argue two recent papers by colleagues exhibit this very oversight of self-knowledge. (shrink)

This chapter is a preliminary to the development of a philosophy of mind and world that has learned from the African traditional understanding of the human person. The objective is to frame the discipline by reference to the norms internal to philosophy as a social practice, thus facilitating dialogue across traditions. The obstacle lies in the oversight of such normative framing in the more dominant Analytic approach to the philosophy of mind, for which science and scientific method is paradigmatic. By (...) the nature of things, there is in the framework of science no resources for thematizing the one doing the science, the person or agent treated not as one object among others but presupposed to science as a human project. The key point is the determination of ‘objectivity’, which is, in that tradition, contrasted with the subjective world that is the reality of the human person as they experience themselves. The African insights into how persons grow (as subjects) through the natural and personal environment undercut this dualism. To show this, and to mitigate a misrepresentation of the African insight into the spiritual reality of the person in terms of a dualism, the African traditional categories of mind and world, predating the rise of science, have to be translated into a register that is self-consciously in dialogue with a scientific and secular culture. I take as my example the Thomism-influenced African philosophy of mind of Placide Tempels. (shrink)

Suvremena multikulturna društva velikim se dijelom okviruju u smislu proceduralne prije nego supstantivne etike, naglašavajući ispravnost umjesto dobrote, te uzdižu toleranciju kao ključnu vrijednost. No to ne može sâmo zamijeniti supstantivnu i motivacijsku normu dobroga života te se može iskusiti kao gubitak, otuđenje građana. Isto tako neće uspjeti suočiti se s granicama prihvatljivog djelovanja, neuvjetovanošću povezanom s moralnim gledištem. Klasična tradicija u etici, koja predlaže normu ljudskog blagostanja, može se ponovno izraziti kako bi iznijela na vidjelo ovu neuvjetovanost. Ukazat ću (...) na korisnost suprotne tradicije etičkog rasuđivanja u vidu proporcionalnosti, primjerice u slučaju ratne etike, te razmotriti alternativni koncept demokracije ne pod vidom formalnih i supstantivnih prava, nego etike participacije.Contemporary multicultural societies for the most part frame themselves in terms of a procedural rather than substantive ethics, by emphasizing rightness rather than goodness, and elevate tolerance to key value. But this cannot of itself replace a substantive and motivating norm of the good life and can be experienced as a loss, disaffecting citizens. It will also fail to confront the limits of acceptable action, the unconditionality associated with the moral point of view. The classical tradition in ethics, proposing a norm of human flourishing, can be re-expressed to bring out this unconditionality. I point to the counter tradition of ethical reasoning in terms of proportionality, exampled in the case of war ethics, as useful and draw on an alternative concept of democracy in terms not of formal or substantive rights but of an ethic of participation.Gegenwärtige multikulturelle Gesellschaften gestalten sich zumeist unter dem Aspekt der eher prozeduralen als materialen Ethik, indem sie die Richtigkeit anstelle der Güte herausheben, und werten die Toleranz zum Schlüsselwert auf. Dies per se vermag es immerhin nicht, die materiale und motivierende Norm des guten Lebens zu ersetzen, dagegen kann es als Verlust, als Bürgerentfremdung verspürt werden. Es versagt desgleichen in der Konfrontierung mit den Limits des akzeptablen Handelns, mit der moralitätsbetreffenden Bedingungslosigkeit. Die klassische Gepflogenheit in der Ethik, welche einen Maßstab der Menschheitsblüte nahelegt, kann wieder dargetan werden, um auf diese Bedingungslosigkeit Nachdruck zu legen. Ich deute auf die Nützlichkeit einer Gegentradition der ethischen Erwägung hin, aus der Perspektive der Proportionalität, exempli causa in der Angelegenheit der Kriegsethik, und stelle ein alternatives Demokratieschema auf, nicht im Sinne der formalen bzw. substantiven Rechte, sondern von der Ethik der Partizipation her. (shrink)

Growth in human happiness seems to do in part with insights gained through attentive emotional engagement with fictional characters and their identities. For this reason it is important to pay attention to the critique that founding ethics on what we cannot but affirm of ourselves, our identity (rationality and sociability, in Nussbaum’s reading of Aristotle), amounts to a moral elitism, excluding those who fail to meet these marks of human identity. This objection throws light on the importance of the shift (...) towards thematizing ‘subjectivity’ in modern and contemporary philosophy. Ethics takes place at the level of the deliberating subject, intending the good. The foundational element is grasped through moral commitment and not at all ‘neutrally’, in a disengaged attitude alien to human aspirations – something disturbingly overlooked in much normative ethics today. The criteria picked out as essential to our humanity are clarifications of this commitment, and involve an attitude of inclusivity. In our own non-classical philosophical framework this needs spelling out, in a manner not made clear in Nussbaum’s ‘self-validating’ arguments, in terms of the exigencies of self-enactment and personal identity. This also answers critics who would disallow the conflation of identity and judgments of value. (shrink)

In traditional African ethics the emphasis is on respect and hierarchy. This is underpinned by a conception of the person as normative, developmental, and communitarian. But in this conception the person is only problematically unified. Further elaboration is needed on how one’s motivational structure is critically integrated if the tradition is to be reformulated so as to meet the challenges of a liberal, and often relativist, global culture. The psychological and intersubjective conditions for such personal growth need to be spelled (...) out. Here I draw upon the writings of a contemporary South African Thomist writer, Augustine Shutte, on the emergence, development, and fulfillment of our powers of self-enactment, which are given their proper intersubjective dimension. (shrink)

Standards of excellence in the sphere of work are often taken to be at odds with our ethical obligations in general. In an age of commerce little attention is paid to how the manner in which things are done impacts on the agent's character. Jane Jacobs' phenomenology of our moral intuitions about the public world of work reveal two frameworks, the 'commercial moral syndrome' stressing fairness, and the 'guardian moral syndrome' emphasizing loyalty. In the latter set of values we have (...) a way of countering the bias of contemporary culture. This is best understood as a modified Aristotelian approach. The example of adversarial advocacy in the legal profession is taken as an illustration. (shrink)

Standards of excellence in the sphere of work are often taken to be at odds with our ethical obligations in general. In an age of commerce little attention is paid to how the manner in which things are done impacts on the agent's character. Jane Jacobs' phenomenology of our moral intuitions about the public world of work reveal two frameworks, the 'commercial moral syndrome' stressing fairness, and the 'guardian moral syndrome' emphasizing loyalty. In the latter set of values we have (...) a way of countering the bias of contemporary culture. This is best understood as a modified Aristotelian approach. The example of adversarial advocacy in the legal profession is taken as an illustration. (shrink)

I approach environmental ethics here through an appeal to the human capacity for appreciating value wherever it is found, contesting the supposed disunity of person and external world that is arguably at the root of the global disrespect for the natural environment. In the more dominant non-anthropocentric approach attention is drawn to the overarching eco-system equalizing the functional roles of both human and non-human. But this seems self-undermining, as appeal is necessarily made to that human moral and rational consciousness whose (...) regulating role is at the same time being called into question. Drawing on an Aristotelian/Thomist metaphysics, congruent with the African traditional idea of “vital force” running through natural and social reality, I argue that organisms—human or otherwise—are not functional elements in the ecosystem but historically viable co-determinants thereof. The role of the human organism is that of co-determining through narrative and history. Human subjectivity is not, pace Nagel, confined to a species-perspective but there is a supra-biological patterning of experience intending understanding and true value. However, the development of these powers of agency, and sympathy, are stultified by a picture of self-determination as the most absolute independence from the “other”. In contrast, the African traditional value of ubuntu posits a normative development of agency through others that can be unpacked to apply beyond simply social custom. The contribution this cultural tradition brings is enhanced if the metaphysics of “force” or “spirit” is interpreted non-dualistically and without appeal to a supernaturalism. (shrink)

Thinking of an academic discipline in terms of a ‘social practice’ (MacIntyre) helps in formulating what the ideal captured in the slogan ‘African scholarship’ can contribute to the discipline. For every practice is threatened by the attractiveness of goods external to the practice – in particular, competitiveness for its own sake – and to counter this virtues of character are needed. African traditional culture prioritizes a normative picture of the human person which could very well contribute here to upholding the (...) values internal to scholarship. I argue, contrary to Matolino, that for these purposes Tempels’ notion of the transactional process of becoming more of what you are by virtue of the human insertion in nature, is a useful starting point. But the dominant way philosophy is framed today, the human person outside of ‘nature’, omitting the key notion of presence-to-self, disallows this dialogue between the dominant tradition and African thought culture. I show, by interrogating what I take to be an impoverished understanding of objectivity in the dominant philosophical approach, how the idea of personal, subjective, growth is crucial to introductory philosophy if the project of African scholarship is to find purchase. As an example I look at rival ways of understanding the value of justice, procedurally or, alternatively, substantively and hence foregrounding participation. (shrink)