Previously, we introduced a capability approach to assess the responsible use of brain-computer interface. In this commentary, we say more about the ethical basis of our capability view and respond to three objections. The first objection holds that by stressing that capability lists are provisional and subject to change, we threaten the persistence of human dignity, which is tied to capabilities. The second objection states that we conflate capabilities and abilities. The third objection claims that the goal of using neuroenhancements (...) should be preserving capabilities, not altering them. (shrink)

Formal views of autonomy rule out substantive rational capacities (reasons-responsiveness) as a condition of autonomous agency. I argue that such views face a number of underappreciated problems: they have trouble making sense of how autonomous agents could be robustly responsible for their choices, face the burden of explaining why there should be a stark distinction between the importance of factual and evaluative information within autonomous agency, and leave it mysterious why autonomy is the sort of thing that has value and (...) ought to be promoted. Moreover, I argue that the alternative view that includes substantive rational capacities need not have the unacceptable political implications it is sometimes thought to have. (shrink)

The cardinal role that notions of respect and self-respect play in Rawls’s A Theory of Justice has already been abundantly examined in the literature. In contrast, it has hardly been noticed that these notions are also central to Michael Walzer’s Spheres of Justice. Respect and self-respect are not only central topics of his chapter “Recognition”, but constitute a central aim of a “complex egalitarian society” and of Walzer’s theory of justice. This paper substantiates this thesis and elucidates Walzer’s criticism of (...) Rawls that we need to distinguish between “self-respect” and “self-esteem”. (shrink)

The idea that respect for persons comprises the core of morality has long been associated with Kant and the ethics of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In particular, the second formulation of the categorical imperative , the Formula of Humanity as an End-in-itself – ‘So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means’ – is often glossed (...) as enjoining us to respect persons as such. On what I think may fairly be called the received view, the injunction to respect persons as such is thus, for Kant, co-extensive with morality itself. (shrink)

The article explores one prominent account of what makes discrimination morally bad (when it is) – the disrespect-based account. The article first reviews and clarifies the account, arguing that it is most charitably understood as the claim that discrimination is morally bad when the discriminator gives lower weight to reasons grounded in the moral status of the discriminatee(s) in her decision-making. It then presents three challenges to the account, and reviews a recent argument in defense of it. The first challenge (...) is the fact that intuitions that might support the disrespect-based account can also be explained by reference to the fact that disrespect reflects poorly on the moral character of the discriminator. The second challenge is that there are cases where disrespectful discrimination is not intuitively worse than non-disrespectful discrimination. The third challenge is that the disrespect-based account has difficulties explaining our intuitions about cases of “doing right for the wrong reasons”. Finally, pace a recent argument in its defense, cases of harmless and apparently morally bad discrimination are plausibly best explained by other factors than disrespect. In the light of this analysis, the article concludes that the disrespect-based account should be abandoned. (shrink)

The legislature and the judiciary have been a constant focus of contemporary political philosophy. However, the executive – ‘the government’ itself – has been comparatively neglected. Today, this is changing with a well-spring of new work that bears upon what we might call the ideal of ‘good governance’, that is, how governments (and/or their agents) should exercise their powers. This review paper begins by clarifying the concepts of ‘governance’ and ‘good’ governance (§1). It then highlights five sets of values, working (...) nominally from the most foundational constraints on the exercise of government power to those that should guide the exercise of discretion: legitimacy and rule of law (§2); respect and trustworthiness (§3); efficiency and rationality (§4); public participation and accountability (§5); and the public interest and fiduciary duties (§6). (shrink)

Biomedical research is increasingly globalized with ever more research conducted in low and middle-income countries. This trend raises a host of ethical concerns and critiques. While community engagement has been proposed as an ethically important practice for global biomedical research, there is no agreement about what these practices contribute to the ethics of research, or when they are needed.

Previous scholars seem to assume that Mengzi’s 孟子 four sprouts are more or less homogeneous in nature, and the four sprouts are often viewed as some sort of desires for or instinctive inclinations toward virtues or virtuous acts. For example, Angus Graham interprets sìduān 四端 as “incipient moral impulses” to do what is morally good or right, or “spontaneous inclinations” toward virtues or moral good. However, this view is incompatible with the recently proposed more sound views that regard Mengzi’s four (...) sprouts as a particular type of emotions or feelings having some “cognitive” or “rational” aspects. In this essay I develop this new approach to Mengzi’s four sprouts, and specifically argue that respect in Mengzi should be considered neither as a moral desire nor as a behavioral tendency to do deferential acts but as some sort of ethical sensibility that is responsive to the relevant features of a worthy person. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to sketch and defend a novel conception of dignity. I begin by offering three desiderata that a theory of dignity should be able to satisfy: it should be able to explain why all human beings are owed respect, and what kind of respect we are owed; it should be able to explain how acts such as torture damage dignity, and what kinds of harms this brings about; and finally, it should be able to explain (...) why dignity is held to a higher degree by certain individuals. After demonstrating that the dominant, Kantian-inspired conception of dignity cannot fulfill these desiderata, I develop a novel conception of dignity that centers around the role of normative standards. Dignity, on this conception, involves being subject to, and then upholding, relevant normative standards; to violate someone’s dignity is to prevent them from upholding those standards. Importantly, these standards can have either a subjective or a communal source, which in turn explains both the agential and social harms that accompany dignity violations. I then draw on the idea of social dignity to explain human dignity. Unlike the dominant philosophical conception, I take human dignity to be a status that is conferred, rather than a status that is inherent. (shrink)

In this introductory paper, I discuss the second-personal approach to ethics and the theory of recognition as two accounts of the fundamental sociality of the human form of life. The first section delineates the deep affinities between the two approaches. They both put a reciprocal social constellation front and center from which they derive the fundamental norms of moral and social life and a social conception of freedom. The second section discusses three points of contrast between the two approaches: The (...) accounts differ in that the second-personal approach opts for a narrower conception of recognition focusing on mutual moral accountability, whereas recognition theory suggests a broader conception including relations of love, respect, and esteem. Secondly, the accounts differ as to how they conceive of the interrelation of the I-thou and the I-We relationship. Finally, they differ with regard to the way they think of struggles for recognition. Whereas the second-personal approach suggests that we can understand struggles on the basis of a transcendental infrastructure of second-personal address, the theory of recognition considers norms of recognition as themselves constituted by dialectical social struggles. The paper closes with a reflection on the ways in which both approaches can help us understand the social vulnerability of the human form of life. (shrink)

The paper develops a conception of marital love as a complex recognitive relation, which I articulate by juxtaposing it against other recognitive relations that figure in Hegel's theory of modern civil society (i.e., respect and esteem). Drawing on Hegel's early writings, I argue that, if love is to provide its unique sort of recognition, it must obtain between “living beings who are equal in power”—a peculiar form of equality that I name (drawing on Stanley Cavell's work) “dynamic equality.” I conclude (...) that it is by Hegel's own lights that we should reject his notorious conception of the sexual difference. However, I also offer reasons why, from Hegel's early 19th century perspective, he could consider the following two conditions as compatible: (1) equality within marriage and (2) sexual hierarchy outside marriage, namely, in civil society. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 943-960, September 2022.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

The paper reconstructs Hegel’s account of shame as a fundamental affect. Qua spiritual, the human individual strives for self-determination; hence she is ashamed of the fact that, q...

I defend the proposal that certain forms of work—specifically forms that are socially necessary but involve the imposition of considerable burdens—be shared between citizens. I argue that sharing burdensome work would achieve several goals, including a more equal distribution of the benefits and burdens of work, a greater appreciation of each other's labour contributions, and an amelioration of problematic inequalities of status. I conclude by considering three objections: that sharing burdensome work would (1) involve morally unacceptable constraints on freedom, (2) (...) be prohibitively inefficient, and (3) forbid mutually advantageous trades. I argue that none of these objections succeed. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the idea of meaning in life as I believe it has arisen in some discussions of ageing and death. I critically examine and compare the views of Atul Gawande and Ezekiel Emanuel, connecting their views to the idea of meaning in life. I further consider the relation of meaning in life to both the dignity of the person and the reasonableness of continuing or not continuing to live. In considering these issues, I evaluate and draw (...) on Bernard Williams’ distinction between categorical and conditional desires, Susan Wolf's work on meaning in life, and Jeremy Waldron's views on dignity in old age. (shrink)

This conference is, in part, an expression of respect for Joseph Raz and his work from which we have all learned much. I thought it apt, then, to talk about Raz's (2001) views about respect as developed in chapter four of Value, Respect, and Attachment. Raz describes his views as having a Kantian origin. This might raise the eyebrow of some neo•Kantians or anyone inclined to interpret Kant as a formalist or as a constructivist. Nevertheless, I believe that Raz's views (...) and Kant's, properly interpreted and developed, have more in common than even Raz suspects. To bring this out, I will take up three questions that Raz raises concerning Kant's doctrine. (shrink)

Der Beitrag untersucht, ob das Konzept der Integrität auf pflanzliches Leben angewendet werden kann. Zunächst wird die Debatte um die „Würde der Pflanze“ rekapituliert, um daraus problematische Aspekte der Zuschreibung von „Integrität“ abzuleiten. Es wird argumentiert, dass das Konzept der Integrität durchaus geeignet ist, die Schwierigkeiten eines Konzepts des guten Pflanzenlebens zu überwinden, das die Eigenschaften der pflanzlichen Leben zu wenig respektiert. Abschließend wird verdeutlicht, dass für die sinnvolle Verwendung des Konzepts die Frage der Hintergrundannahmen entscheidend ist.

This paper develops a recognition-theoretical analysis of human dignity. I argue that a life with dignity requires social esteem (recognition for one’s contribution to socially shared goals) as well as respect (recognition of one’s equal status). I illustrate this through an empirically informed discussion of three aspects of the current social organization of labour which threaten human dignity: unemployment, precarity and low pay. I also argue that in class societies the assertion of dignity as a positional good can undermine its (...) general progressive appeal. (shrink)

While the term ‘glory’ appears most frequently in religious contexts, it is used to express concepts that are not fundamentally religious in character. Take what we consider to be our very best works of art, our most outstanding films, or our most impressive technological achievements. These are often acclaimed as being magnificent, dazzling, or spectacular. These notions are, if not quite synonymous with glory, close enough to justify the idea that the concept of glory is not far removed from common (...) ways of thinking about the world. For this reason, an analysis of glory promises to help illuminate concepts we commonly employ in thinking about highly valued aspects of our world. Nevertheless, concepts of glory also have a central place in religious thought, and even so little-to-no rigorous philosophical effort has been devoted to investigating concepts of glory in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. This paper aims to correct that and use the resulting accounts of glory to illuminate difficulties with a recent argument for atheism by Bayne and Nagasawa. (shrink)

Consider a binary afterlife, wherein some people go to Heaven, others to Hell, and nobody goes to both. Would such a system be just? Theodore Sider argues: no. For, any possible criterion of determining where people go will involve treating very similar individuals very differently. Here, I argue that this point has deep and underappreciated implications for moral philosophy. The argument proceeds by analogy: many ethical theories make a sharp and practically significant distinction between persons and non-persons. Yet, just like (...) in the binary afterlife, this involves treating very similar individuals very differently. I propose two ways out. The first is to deny that such theories are strictly speaking true, but to claim that it is practically best if people adopt them. The second is to modify such theories so as to allow for continuous variation in the scope and strength of the moral obligations arising from personhood. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

With some qualifications, this article endorses Brian Leiter’s argument that religious accommodation should not shift burdens from believers to non-believers. It argues that religious believers should take responsibility for their beliefs and for meeting the demands of their beliefs. It then examines the implications of that argument for British law on indirect discrimination as it relates to religion or belief: burden-shifting from believers to employers and providers of goods and services should be deemed acceptable only insofar as the burden incurred (...) by the employer or provider is ‘insignificant’. Legal exemptions should satisfy a similar test. Why should there be religious accommodation at all, even if it entails no significant burden-shifting? The author agrees with Leiter in finding the most plausible answer in the claims of conscience rather than in general theories of equality or features special to religion. Those claims can reasonably be made in respect of liberty of conscience but also when conscience is merely disadvantaged. (shrink)

This article provides an account of the ethical issues that arise when digital technologies and online spaces are structured by Big Data algorithms. We show that although the uses of Big Data may be new, traditional theological and ethical categories are still applicable, including “the sins of the fathers” from hamartiology and the scholastic concept of haecceity. Using these resources, we map the overall ecosystem in which digital technologies are developed and used, identifying the relationships between the individuals and organizations (...) involved. We show how these relationships are often characterized by various kinds of harm. We then argue for a reorientation of the tech ecosystem toward co‐liberation—and ultimately, joy. (shrink)

In this article, I identify a distinctive form of injustice—ontic injustice—in which an individual is wronged by the very fact of being socially constructed as a member of a certain social kind. To be a member of a certain social kind is, at least in part, to be subject to certain social constraints and enablements, and these constraints and enablements can be wrongful to the individual who is subjected to them, in the sense that they inflict a moral injury. The (...) concept of ontic injustice is valuable in three main ways: it draws our attention to the role played by social kinds in enacting wrongful constraints and enablements; it clarifies our options for developing accounts of the ontology of particular social kinds, such as gender kinds; and, along with the related concept of ‘ontic oppression’, it helps us to understand and respond to oppression. (shrink)

Neurorights were first articulated in response to perceived threats from advances in neurotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI). They purport to protect people’s cognitive capabilities agains...

Theoria, Volume 88, Issue 3, Page 666-678, June 2022.

If we are to assess whether our attitudes towards nature are morally, aesthetically or in any other way appropriate or inappropriate, then we will need to know what those attitudes are. Drawing on the works of Katie McShane, Alan Holland and Christine Swanton, I challenge the common assumption that to love, respect, honour, cherish or adopt any other sort of pro-attitude towards any natural X simply is to value X in some way and to some degree. Depending on how one (...) interprets ‘value’, that assumption is, I contend, either false or vacuous. I argue that to assess the appropriateness of a person’s pro-attitudes towards a natural entity one must in some cases appeal to the concepts of status and/or bond, and not just that of value. To develop my argument, I appeal to the works of two nature writers – Robert Macfarlane and J. A. Baker. (shrink)

Self‐esteem is traditionally regarded as an important human good. But it has suffered a number of injuries to its good name. Critics allege that endeavours to promote self‐esteem merely foster narcissism or entitlement, and urge that we redirect our efforts elsewhere. I argue that such criticisms are symptomatic of a normative decline in how we think and theorize about self‐esteem rather than a defect in the construct itself. After exposing the shortcomings of alternative proposals, I develop an account of self‐esteem (...) that reflects what its supporters have in mind: a valuable form of self‐appraisal worth fostering in others and ourselves. (shrink)

Theories of recognition have largely neglected the question of whether “struggles for recognition” might permissibly use violent means. In this article I explore the question of whether and how it is possible to show proper respect for the victim of one’s violence. Focusing on self-defense as the paradigmatic case of justified violence, two questions arise: (1) What renders an agent liable to violent action? (2) If she is liable, what is the appropriate, i.e., proportionate, degree of defensive violence that still (...) expresses respect for her? I claim that – in order to answer these questions – three dimensions of what is defended must be distinguished: goods, rights and one’s moral status. Clarifying their relationship allows me to argue that persons become liable to defensive violence if they directly pose (or intentionally and significantly contribute to) an unjustified threat to important goods protected by the rights of another person, even if they, as “attackers “or “threats “are innocent, i.e., do not display disrespect. I argue that those accounts which claim a moral symmetry between innocent attackers or threats on the one hand and innocent bystanders on the other hand, misunderstand the role of (dis) respect in a theory of justified violence. Moreover, when it comes to considerations of proportionality the dimension of (dis) respect has to be taken much more seriously than is usually the case. Here, instead of focusing mainly on the importance of goods we should pay more attention to (especially political) relationships of intersubjective (dis) respect. (shrink)

According to the received view, formalism – interpreted as the thesis that mathematical truth does not outrun the consequences of our maximal mathematical theory – has been refuted by Goedel's theorem. In support of this claim, proponents of the received view usually invoke an informal argument for the truth of the Goedel sentence, an argument which is supposed to reconstruct our reasoning in seeing its truth. Against this, Field has argued in a series of papers that the principles involved in (...) this argument – when applied to our maximal mathematical theory – are unsound. This paper defends the received view by showing that there is a way of seeing the truth of the Goedel sentence which is immune to Field's strategy. (shrink)

Those in the Gricean tradition take it that successful human communication features an audience who not only arrives at the intended content of the signal, but also recognizes the speaker’s intention that they do so. Some in this tradition have also argued that there are yet further conditions on communicative success, which rule out the possibility of communicating by luck. Supposing that both intention-recognition and some sort of anti-luck condition are correctly included in an analysis of human communication, this article (...) asks what the value of events satisfying these conditions is. I present a puzzle concerning the value of intention-recognition which is analogous to the Meno Problem in epistemology, but ultimately argue that this puzzle is solveable: the signaling-relevant value of intention recognition can be vindicated. However, I argue that the version of this puzzle that concerns the further proposed luck-proofing conditions on communication can not be answered. I argue therefore that communication, as analyzed by many, is no more valuable qua signal than a proper subset of its conditions. Human communication is thennot a uniquely valuable signaling event. (shrink)

Faith in the universal moral equality of people enjoys close to unanimous consensus in present moral and political philosophy. Yet its philosophical justification remains precarious. The search for the basis of equality encounters insurmountable difficulties. Nothing short of a miracle seems required to stabilize universal equality in moral status amidst a vast space of distinctions sprawling between people. The difficulties of stabilizing equality against differentiation are not specific to any particular choice regarding the basis of equality. To show this, I (...) will provide a general diagnosis of the difficulty together with its application to the arguably best attempt at a solution, namely to ground moral equality in a form of subjectivity. In his recent book Equality for Nonegalitarians, George Sher advances the view that “we are moral equals because we are equally centers of consciousness. …The fact that we are equals in this respect—that each is a world unto himself—…explains why each person’s interests are of equal moral importance”. Yet the worlds we are unto ourselves can no more withstand the force of differentiation than previous candidates suggested in the literature, and the reasons why run deeper than even some critics have recognized. The prospects for vindicating universal moral equality remain bleak. (shrink)

Faith in the universal moral equality of people enjoys close to unanimous consensus in present moral and political philosophy. Yet its philosophical justification remains precarious. The search for the basis of equality encounters insurmountable difficulties. Nothing short of a miracle seems required to stabilize universal equality in moral status amidst a vast space of distinctions sprawling between people. The difficulties of stabilizing equality against differentiation are not specific to any particular choice regarding the basis of equality. To show this, I (...) will provide a general diagnosis of the difficulty together with its application to the arguably best attempt at a solution, namely to ground moral equality in a form of subjectivity. In his recent book Equality for Nonegalitarians, George Sher advances the view that “we are moral equals because we are equally centers of consciousness. …The fact that we are equals in this respect—that each is a world unto himself—…explains why each person’s interests are of equal moral importance”. Yet the worlds we are unto ourselves can no more withstand the force of differentiation than previous candidates suggested in the literature, and the reasons why run deeper than even some critics have recognized. The prospects for vindicating universal moral equality remain bleak. (shrink)

This essay examines the function of the concept of human dignity (both as an inherent feature of human existence and as an ideal achievement) in the United Nations's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It explains why the key framers of the document affirmed an inherent human dignity in order to provide an explanatory basis for the validity of universal human rights while eschewing any religious or metaphysical justification for this affirmation. It argues that the key framers, while aware of (...) the Christian anthropology informing the modern Western concept of the dignity of the person, grasped (1) that the Declaration, to be ratifiable, would need to be free of religious reference, and also (2) that the notion of inherency suffices to suggest heuristically not only a universal human nature but also, crucially, a transcendent reality in which all persons participate. (shrink)

This paper is an examination of the concept of recognition and its connection with identity and respect. This is related to the question of how women are or are not adequately recognised or respected for their achievements in sport and whether eliminating sex segregation in sport is a solution. This will require an analysis of the concept of excellence in sport, as well as the relationship between fairness and inclusion in an activity that is fundamentally about bodily movement. I argue (...) that attempts to address the problem of women’s recognition in sport need to do so in ways that neither eliminate sport as a fairness regulated system for developing individual excellence in bodily movement nor that prevent women’s achievement of sporting excellence, with the regard that belongs to them. Doing this requires us to decide whether sport is about champions or about individual excellence. (shrink)

The view that acting morally is ultimately a question of treating others with respect has had a profound influence on moral and legal philosophy. Not surprisingly, then, some scholars forcefully argue that the modes of punishment that the states mete out to offenders should not be disrespectful, and, furthermore, it has been argued that obliging offenders to receive neurological treatment is incompatible with showing them their due respect. In this paper, I examine three contemporary accounts of what showing respect for (...) offenders in our sentencing practices would amount to: that it involves not interfering with offenders’ capacities for rationality and autonomy, that it should not undermine offenders’ prospect of reform, and that it amounts to treating offenders as if opaque. I then critically discuss whether any of these accounts plausibly imply that mandating neurointerventions to some offenders is necessarily morally wrong. I argue that they do not. (shrink)

Jerkish speech on online platforms is at risk of being overlooked as a result of being comparatively insignificant next to the existence of explicit hate speech or other online harms. In this paper I approach online jerkish speech from a republican perspective. I discuss two ways in which republicans can account for jerkish speech. First, jerkish speech could amount to micro-domination, referring to instances of domination that are relatively inconsequential by themselves but problematic when considered in aggregate. Second, jerkish speech (...) can be considered an instantiation of systemic domination, where groups and members are structurally subordinated. I briefly discuss the role of regulatory bans on jerkish speech, before suggesting that Suzanne Whitten’s proposal for critical civility—as an appropriate answer to jerkish speech in online environments—might be too demanding. This might be alleviated by leveraging the role of online platforms. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIs Confucian democracy philosophically justifiable? In recent decades, prominent Confucian theorists have answered this question in the negative, arguing that the political system that is c...

In this paper I consider the possibility that failing to fulfill the Kantian obligation to protect one’s rational nature might actually vitiate future instances of this obligation. I respond to this dilemma by defending a novel interpretation of Kant’s views on the relation between the value we have and the respect we are owed. I argue, contra the received view among Kant scholars, that the feature in virtue of which someone has unconditional and incomparable value is not the same feature (...) in virtue of which she is owed the respect that constrains how she may be treated. So, even though someone who fails to attempt to protect her rational nature fails to respect herself in the right way, and even though this moral failing does make her lose a certain kind of value, her obligations to respect herself do not go away. (shrink)

The essay considers what respect demands and what trust demands when one person trusts another. What respect requires in responding to trust is substantial but limited, ranging from the sharply proscriptive to the mildly prescriptive. What trust requires is, in a sense, unlimited, its content depending on the extent to which the person who trusts, and more importantly the person who is trusted, seek to build a relationship characterised by trust and trustworthiness.

How should we characterize the interaction between moral and aesthetic values in the context of environmental aesthetics? This question is important given the urgency of many environmental problems and the particular role played by aesthetic value in our experience of environment. To address this question, we develop a model of Environmental Virtue Aesthetics (EVA) that, we argue, offers a promising alternative to current theories in environmental aesthetics with respect to the relationship between aesthetics and ethics. EVA counters environmental aesthetic theories (...) that focus more narrowly on scientific knowledge and ground aesthetic value in ways that obfuscate pluralistic modes of appreciation of and relationships with natural and semi-natural environments. To develop EVA, we work with a revised notion of respect and engage with ideas concerning the development of aesthetic sensibilities, care, and virtuous aesthetic appreciation. EVA has the potential to support forms of human-nature co-flourishing, as well as constituting an aesthetic grounding for ecological citizenship. (shrink)

ABSTRACT One of the promises of the internet was its power to unite individual knowers with one another, democratizing knowledge and spurring our collective efforts toward truth. In what sense is our current epistemic life a collective effort? This article examines the idea of the epistemic community. I contrast epistemic community with a collection of individual epistemic agents aiming for truth. I propose that this latter conception of epistemic life permits neglecting our epistemic and moral duties. I argue that healthy (...) epistemic community requires joint commitments to truth and epistemic trust, and where epistemic trust requires conditions of mutual epistemic respect. (shrink)

Traditional views of grace assert that God owes us nothing. Grace is undeserved, supererogatory and free. In this paper I argue that while this is an accurate characterization of creating grace, it is not true of saving grace. We have no right to be created as spiritual beings whose true good is found in relationship with God. But once we exist as spiritual beings, God does owe us a genuine offer of the salvation that constitutes our highest fulfillment. Creating grace (...) is undeserved. Saving grace is deserved (being based on our inherent worth and vital interests as spiritual beings) but unearned (it is not based on anything we have done). (shrink)