Spinoza and Kant are considered to be polar opposites with respect to ethics. The radical difference between them is supposed to consist in Spinoza’s ethical egoism, or interest-based Strebensethik, and Kant’s duty-cantered, deontological Sollensethik. I challenge this opposition and argue that both in Kant and Spinoza we deal with a notion of the self’s realization that is “interest”-based and therefore does not involve self-sacrifice. I show, on the one hand, that the streben in Spinoza’s Strebensethik consists in realising one’s essentially (...) human interest, which resides in ethical-rational action, and, on the other hand, that sollen in Kant’s Sollensethik is in fact a streben of the Kantian “proper self” (eigentliches Selbst) after the realization of its ethical-rational interest. (shrink)

While Spinoza’s political philosophy is often described as liberal, it is not always clear what this label means or whether it is warranted. Calling Spinoza ‘liberal’ implies that he belongs to a historical tradition of political philosophers, who formulated and defended claims, which later became identified as central to political liberalism. Consequently, clarifying how Spinoza is a liberal requires specifying precisely which liberal views he articulated and defended. This paper, first, examines the various ways that commentators have interpreted Spinoza as (...) defending liberal commitments. This examination shows that most commentators describe Spinoza as liberal on the grounds that his politics defends the value of individual political freedom, specifically of speech and thought. The paper, second, considers whether he upholds a claim that is important to contemporary liberalism, what is sometimes called the fundamental liberal principle. The paper concludes that Spinoza does not, which suggests that he does not sit as easily in the liberal tradition as some scholars have suggested. (shrink)

Postliberal theology has been a topic of considerable theological debate over the past few decades. In his 2011 book Another Reformation, Peter Ochs deploys a postliberal theological model for the purpose of developing a sophisticated understanding of the future of interreligious relations. Ochs argues that postliberal theology is a reparative theology focusing on alleviating human suffering. He argues that the Christian idea of supersessionism may be the most challenging for Christians to confront as they explore avenues for making interreligious dialogue (...) more effective. Ochs critiques the Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder's understanding of Zionism as Jewish Constantianism for being an instance of an ostensibly postliberal theology losing its way. In this essay, I offer a critique of Ochs's reading of Yoder, claiming that Yoder's view actually mirrors an important intra-Jewish debate about the relationship between political power and piety, and retrieves an ingenious contribution of both early Judaism and early Christianity that is effaced in today's growing Constantinian approach to Christian imperialism and Jewish nationalism. (shrink)