ABSTRACTThis article interrogates Jean-Louis Chrétien’s phenomenological appreciation of prayer as a call to the transcendent other, by juxtaposing it with the style and content of Augustine’s Confessions. In the Confessions, prayer is less the contradiction of presence than it is the paradox of simultaneous presence-and-absence, God being both the most intimate and the most remote at the same time. It is concluded that Chrétien’s phenomenology fails to understand prayer as the reciprocity it claims to articulate because, despite affirming both the (...) presence and the absence of God to the one praying, phenomenology cannot hold both these propositions in tension but must continually resolve them into a contradiction in which the subject ‘discovers’ God only by falling back on the self. The question is one of style and genre: Augustine’s speech addresses someone whereas Chrétien’s does not. In as much as he follows the phenomenological style established by Husserl, Chrétien cannot value any spe... (shrink)

"My interest in [Max] Scheler's critique of Kant runs back nearly a decade.... The more I read of Scheler, the more I began to see the value of a project dealing with his critique of Kant in Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die Materiale Wetethik, which would possess the virtue of focusing in a single project three important strands of philosophical interest: phenomenology, Kantianism, and ethics.... "The study is divided into six chapters and two appendices. Each of the chapters (...) constituting the body of the work contains a brief analysis of the Kantian position or discussion of the basic questions at issue in it, an exposition of Scheler's critique of the Kantian position and its presuppositions, and a detailed appraisal of Scheler's critique." -- from the introduction by the author. (shrink)

To improve the efficacy of business ethics courses, the article recommends closer attention be paid to the religious motivations of students, which have for too long been ignored by most business ethics theory. By disconnecting the teaching of business ethics from the motivations driving business decisions, the theory that gets taught – and published in the textbooks – more strongly represents the philosophical tools of business ethicists than the moral resources business people claim to use. Through a community-based research study (...) that immersed students in the ethical issues business people face, an argument emerges for incorporating more religious ethics into teaching business ethics as this is the kind of moral resource business people claim is most important to them. Though the interviewees attested to the importance of religion, they were rarely able to articulate how their religious beliefs shaped their moral decisions, suggesting that much work could be done in the area of helping people better learn to apply their closely held religious beliefs in the workplace. (shrink)

Both Protestant theologians and “preference” economists believe that freedom is necessary for moral action, but such theologians and economists have seemingly irreconcilable accounts of freedom and, thus also, morality. Instead of learning from each other, they typically ignore each other or claim that one field reigns supreme over the other. This essay digs into the theological and economic traditions of each side to find points of similarity between them. It engages Adam Smith and Ernst Troeltsch to develop a view of (...) “ethical freedom” that pulls together the “libertarian freedom” emphasized by preference economics and the “egalitarian freedom” emphasized in much Protestant theology. The three-part view of freedom draws the disciplines together and opens possibilities for a more robust theory of moral action. (shrink)

This anthology offers an extraordinary illustration of the rich resources furnished by the philosophical tradition for anyone wishing to understand the basic and universal human concern of friendship. The book gathers together reflections from thirty different thinkers in a historically, culturally, ideologically and emotionally diverse group.

"My interest in [Max] Scheler's critique of Kant runs back nearly a decade.... The more I read of Scheler, the more I began to see the value of a project dealing with his critique of Kant in _Der Formalismus in der Ethik und die Materiale Wetethik_, which would possess the virtue of focusing in a single project three important strands of philosophical interest: phenomenology, Kantianism, and ethics.... "The study is divided into six chapters and two appendices. Each of the chapters (...) constituting the body of the work contains a brief analysis of the Kantian position or discussion of the basic questions at issue in it, an exposition of Scheler's critique of the Kantian position and its presuppositions, and a detailed appraisal of Scheler's critique." -- from the introduction by the author. (shrink)

Biblical prophetic writings display an unexplained interweaving of anti-idolatry themes with social justice themes. This article offers a link between these ethical foci by appealing to Thorstein Veblen's philosophical economics. Veblen and his more recent followers such as Fred Hirsch argue that upper classes glorify valueless expenditures and activities (conspicuous consumption and leisure) as a means of signaling predatory status. Veblen further theorizes that this process can manifest itself in religious practices and language, appearing when a deity is honored through (...) pointless aesthetics or through portrayal as a predatory entity. This article argues that such a depiction of the deity as predatory, or as worshipped through positional (wasteful) goods, is integral to idolatry, at least as the prophets framed it. Because the hallmark of social injustice is predation by an elite group upon another group, Veblen's paradigm provides a conceptual pathway between the prophet's opposition to idol worship and their disgust with powerful oppressors. Selected texts from Isaiah, Amos, and Jeremiah provide examples of this connection. (shrink)

The legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd, that colossus of reformational thinking, presents us not only with the gifts of his systematic genius, but also with the riddles of his unperfected work, which now have become a part of our own unfinished work. Not the least of these riddles and not the least of our unfinished work confront us in the legacy of Dooyeweerd’s anthropological reflections. As he indicates in the conclusion of his monumental New Critique, all of his previous investigations are (...) nothing but preliminaries that implicitly converge upon the ultimate problems of philosophical anthropology. The question of man, in effect, constitutes the fundamental implicit theme of Dooyeweerd’s philosophy. (shrink)

There has been a renewed interest, in the academy and in the church, in the teaching of the Church Fathers on social and economic questions, and in particular on the proper distribution of material goods. This article attempts to provide an overview of the social teaching of Origen of Alexandria, with a special focus on the question of distributive justice. It explores Origen’s view of the relationship between justice and charity, of the moral burdens of riches and the spiritual benefits (...) of poverty, on the roles of the wealthy and the poor in the church, and on the obligations of all believers to ensure a distribution of material goods which is in accord with the demands of justice and charity. This article concludes that, even if Origen never systematizes his own answers to these questions, his occasional and frequent reflections on them are consistent enough to provide a profound and well-balanced teaching on distributive justice, which exerted an undeniable influence on later thinkers. (shrink)

Adam Smith writes history to teach people how a plurality of forces informs our moral and economic actions. He employs the stadial theory—prevalent in his day—to explore four different states, or kinds of society, but he does not intend to use these to write a simple, linear history of the ‘stages’ of human progress. This article employs Smith’s typological method for writing history to create a four-fold typo­lo­gy of how contemporary scholars have interpreted Smith’s use of history. By using an (...) approach, drawn from Smith’s historiography, to understand his later interpreters, this article demonstrates that Smith’s approach to history is about telling a story that embraces plurality, holds differences in tension, and resists simplification. (shrink)

Recent ethical literature has called attention to subtle yet profound difficulties in determining what types of generosity are moral, and what situations call for generosity. This article contributes to this discussion by advancing a perspective drawn from Christian theology, according to which philanthropic endeavours must follow a downwards trajectory, modelled on God’s self-donation. Once this model is understood, potentially problematic rhetorical frameworks of generosity—such as that of Anselm of Canterbury—can be identified. This article further argues that the downwards trajectory of (...) generosity has important implications for institutions that use philanthropic rhetoric in their fundraising, as well as for philosophers seeking to establish conditions for ethical generosity. (shrink)

Recent ethical literature has called attention to subtle yet profound difficulties in determining what types of generosity are moral, and what situations call for generosity. This article contributes to this discussion by advancing a perspective drawn from Christian theology, according to which philanthropic endeavours must follow a downwards trajectory, modelled on God’s self-donation. Once this model is understood, potentially problematic rhetorical frameworks of generosity—such as that of Anselm of Canterbury—can be identified. This article further argues that the downwards trajectory of (...) generosity has important implications for institutions that use philanthropic rhetoric in their fundraising, as well as for philosophers seeking to establish conditions for ethical generosity. (shrink)

Although religious ethicists commonly assess the content of public communication to determine its merits, this article argues that the style and techniques of communication deserve similar analysis. Propaganda often employs rhetorical techniques that impress the recipient through persuasive sleight-of-hand or emotional appeal. Drawing on the church fathers’ suspicion of classical rhetoric, as well as Augustine's guarded defense of a specific type of rhetoric, the author formulates two principles of ethical propaganda that may assist public communicators in persuading ethically. These two (...) principles are the procedural movement of beauty from truth, and the use of caritas as a primary motivator in persuasion. (shrink)

I dispute Scheler’s view that good and evil cannot be willed as such; that moral value is always an inevitable and indirect by-product of willing other ends; that every act of willing yields a moral value; and that moral value attaches only to persons. I argue that moral value attaches to a variety of objects of willing (including one’s own moral worth), and that, although all acts have moral implications, not all acts are typologically moral. Those that are, I suggest, (...) typically involve a transactional categoriality where we take another’s good or bad as our own. Those that are not may yield various values of personal willing whose positive or negative value is typologically non-moral. I also deny that obligation is diminished by value-insight or that all norms are categorially moral. (shrink)

This essay compares Scheler’s view of the person in his last (“pantheistic”) period with the views of Keiji Nishitani, a Buddhist representative of the Kyoto School of phenomenology. Scheler eschewed a “substantialist” concept of the person, as did Nishitani in view of the Buddhist “non-self” (muga) doctrine. Both had experienced spiritual crises in their lives. Why did Nishitani turn to the Buddhist concept of “absolute nothingness”? Why did Scheler turn from theism to pantheism? Both saw traditional Christianity and its understanding (...) of the person as intellectually inadequate, though for different reasons. Nishitani focuses on the inadequacies of secondary influences (like Cartesianism) in the Western concept of person, while Scheler focuses on problems of theodicy stemming from the problem of evil and of volition (divine and human) as the source of evil. Both abandon the Christian meaning of personhood. (shrink)

This essay compares Scheler’s view of the person in his last (“pantheistic”) period with the views of Keiji Nishitani, a Buddhist representative of the Kyoto School of phenomenology. Scheler eschewed a “substantialist” concept of the person, as did Nishitani in view of the Buddhist “non-self” (muga) doctrine. Both had experienced spiritual crises in their lives. Why did Nishitani turn to the Buddhist concept of “absolute nothingness”? Why did Scheler turn from theism to pantheism? Both saw traditional Christianity and its understanding (...) of the person as intellectually inadequate, though for different reasons. Nishitani focuses on the inadequacies of secondary influences (like Cartesianism) in the Western concept of person, while Scheler focuses on problems of theodicy stemming from the problem of evil and of volition (divine and human) as the source of evil. Both abandon the Christian meaning of personhood. (shrink)

Sartre attacks the "illusion" that mental images are "immanent" in consciousness. After comparing sartre with husserl, I develop his view that mental images are non-Perceptual phenomena involving a relationship with something non-Present. From the impoverished, Unworldly view that results, I suggest that sartre's own view is still too attached to the perceptual analogy and conclude with the richer, Alternative view of ricoeur that imaginal fiction has a constructive role in shaping reality.