In Justice in Love, Nicholas Wolterstorff argues for a unique ethical orientation called “care-agapism.” He offers it as an alternative to theories of benevolence-agapism found in Christian ethics on the one hand and to the philosophical orientations of egoism, utilitarianism, and eudaimonism on the other. The purported uniqueness and superiority of his theory lies in its ability to account for the conceptual compatibility of love and justice while also positively incorporating self-love. Yet in attempting to articulate a “bestowed worth” account (...) of human dignity—in which dignity is given by divine love and respected in acts of justice—Wolterstorff leans on an unstable characterization of how love and the good are conceptually interwoven. As a result, his reader cannot be sure about the theoretical superiority of care-agapism. Moreover, Wolterstorff's attempt to value self-love and at the same time reject eudaimonism depends on a dubious interpretation of Augustine carried over from Justice: Rights and Wrongs, which itself further depends on a mischaracterization of the possible varieties of eudaimonism. This mistake is unfortunate because, on a closer reading of Augustine, one finds an agapistic account of eudaimonism that could have significantly helped Wolterstorff's overall account of the complementary relation of love and justice. (shrink)

The article deals with the social pragmatist approach to the political conception of community, especially in light of the challenges posed by the tendency to view democracy without community and blur the problem and boundaries between conflict and reconciliation. KEY WORDS – Community. Conflict. Democracy. Pragmatism. Reconciliation.

The article considers the development of the ideas of Christian realism as a philosophical and ethical concept of Reinhold Niebuhr. The background of the development of Christian realism’s ideas is described. It is noted that the most impact had Niebuhr’s personal attitude to philosophy and epistemology, as well as the practical experience of serving in Detroit. The methodological approach of Niebuhr is defined as a contrast between the ideal and the real, with the subsequent solving of the conflict between them. (...) It is noted that from the Niebuhr’s point of view, the transforming power of Christianity is rooted in moral and metaphysical dualism, where ethics subordinates metaphysics and gives strength to social and cultural transformations of humanity. It turned out that the ethical concept of Christian realism includes the classification of people as idealists, realists and cynics. Idealists are people who are mainly focused on idealistic concepts that are not represented in the real world. Idealists usually have distorted worldview because they deny taking into account the realities of the world. That also makes them vulnerable to manipulation of cynics. Realists are people who take into account all factors and all known sources of power in the real world, and have a pragmatic position, which is based on moral and ethical qualities. Cynics are those who have a pragmatic position to the world and relations with others, but they guide themselves only by personal interest and egoistic needs, and do not bother with moral restraints. In addition, the relationship of Niebuhr and other neo-orthodoxy theologians is described. Among them there are Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, Emil Brunner and Rudolf Bultmann. The polemic between Niebuhr and Bart is noted. It is shown that the main difference between Bart and Niebuhr was in the theological perspective: for Bart it was mostly dogmatic, and for Niebuhr - ethical and apologetical. The most similar to the theological position of Niebuhr is Brunner's theology, but the differences between them are in relation to the natural law. It is noted that the discrepancy between Niebuhr and Bultmann was an interpretation of the concept of myth. Finally, the contribution of neo-orthodoxy to the development of theology of the twentieth century is considered. It consists of five main achievements: the definition of theology of revelation as a concept of knowledge of God, the rethinking of biblical texts as carriers of kerigma, the historical contextualization of theological tradition, the rethinking of the Reformation’s ideas, and the ecumenical emphasis in theology. (shrink)

У статті розглянуто роль релігії, як суспільної ідеології, з точки зору християнського реалізму Рейнхольда Нібура. Досліджено вплив релігії на суспільство через зміну системи цінностей окремих індивідів. Встановлено, що суспільна користь релігії визначається проявом духу каяття, який запобігає індивідуальному егоїзму і гордості. Описано роль любові як підсилюючого чинника у близьких суспільних відносинах. Встановлено, що через індивідуалістичний характер відносин між Богом та індивідом релігія має обмежений вплив на суспільство. Причиною обмеженості релігії є більша сила колективного егоїзму, порівняно з індивідуальними чеснотами. Визначено, що (...) ідеалістичні релігійні спільноти у суспільстві демонструють три основні моделі поведінки: індиферентність, поразництво та сентиментальність. Продемонстровано релігійний характер міленіальних та апокаліптичних очікувань у всіх ідеологіях. (shrink)

Though this paper acknowledges the progress made in business ethics over the past several decades, it focuses on the challenges and limits of global business ethics. It maintains that business ethicists have provided important contributions regarding the Evaluative, Embodiment, and Enforcement aspects of business ethics. Nevertheless, they have not sufficiently considered a fourth part of a theory of moral change, an Enactment theory, whereby the principles and values business ethicists have identified might actually be followed. Enactment theory argues that appeals (...) to ethical leadership, moral imagination, and communicative participation have been insufficient to the task of closing the gap between what businesses do and what they ought to be doing. To address this problem, a theory of moral change focusing on the relations of power within which individuals and businesses operate needs to be developed. Drawing on the work of John Gaventa, the paper sketches some directions in which business ethics should proceed to help diminish this gap. The upshot is that business ethics needs greater connection with economic, social, and political theories. It also suggests that there are important limits to fostering the ethics of global business. (shrink)

William Booth's 'On the Idea of the Moral Economy' (1994) is a scathing critique of the economic historians labelled as 'moral economists', chief among them Karl Polanyi, whose The Great Transformation is the groundwork for much of the later theorizing on the subject. The most devastating of Booth's criticisms is the allegation that Polanyi's normative prescriptions have anti-democratic, Aristotelian and aristocratic undertones for being guided by a preconceived notion of 'the good'. This article presents an attempt to rescue Polanyi from (...) this charge by reinterpreting his view of the relationship between the economic and the political, while elucidating the practical meaning of a moral economy. (shrink)

У статті розглянуто розвиток ідей християнського реалізму як філософської та етичної концепції Рейнхольда Нібура. Описано передумови розвитку ідей християнського реалізму, серед яких особисте ставлення Нібура до філософії та епістемології, а також практичний досвід служіння у Детройті. Визначено методологічний підхід Нібура як протиставлення ідеального та реального, з подальшим усуненням конфлікту між ними. Зазначено, що з точки зору Нібура перетворююча сили християнства коріниться у етично-метафізичному дуалізмі, де етика підпорядковує собі метафізику та дає силу до соціокультурних перетворень людства. З’ясовано, що етична концепція християнського (...) реалізму включає в себе поділ людей на ідеалістів, реалістів та циніків. Ідеалісти – це люди, які переважно зосереджені на ідеалістичних концепціях, які у реальному світі не відтворюються, і небажання враховувати реалії світу викривлює світогляд ідеалістів, а також робить їх вразливими до маніпуляцій. Реалісти – це люди, які враховують всі чинники та всі відомі джерела впливу у реальному світі, і мають прагматичну позицію, що базується на морально-етичних якостях. Циніки – це ті, хто має прагматичну позицію стосовно світу та відносин з іншими, але вони беруть до уваги тільки особистий інтерес та егоїстичні потреби, і не обтяжують себе моральними обмеженнями. Крім того, описано відношення Нібура та інших теологів неоортодоксії: Карла Барта, Пауля Тілліха, Еміля Бруннера та Рудольфа Бультмана. Згадано полемічні відносини між Нібуром і Бартом. Зазначено, що головна розбіжність між Бартом і Нібуром полягала у відношенні до теологічної перспективи: для Барта вона була переважно догматичною, а для Нібура – етичною та апологетичною. Найбільш близькою до теологічної позиції Нібура є теологія Бруннера, але розбіжності між ними полягали у ставленні до природного закону. Зазначено, що розбіжність між Нібуром та Бультманом полягала в інтерпретації концепції міфу. У підсумку розглянуто внесок неоортодоксії у розвиток теології ХХ століття, який складається з п’яти головних досягнень: визначення теології одкровення як концепції Богопізнання, переосмислення біблійних текстів як носіїв керигми, історична контекстуалізація теологічної традиції, переосмислення ідей Реформації, екуменічний наголос у теології. (shrink)

There are many things that can be done to educate young people about controversial topics - including historical monuments - in schools. At the same time, however, we argue that there is little warrant for optimism concerning the educational potential of classroom instruction given the interpretative frame of the state-approved history curriculum; the onerous institutional constraints under which school teachers must labour; the unusual constellation of talents history teachers must possess; the frequent absence of marginalized voices in these conversations; and (...) finally, the not unlikely indifference - if not outright hostility - expressed by far too many members of the dominant group. For these reasons, we think it best to expand the scope of educational possibilities one is willing to consider. (shrink)

Using Dewey's critics' own arguments that purport to show Dewey intentionally, or naively, disregarded the role of power in the relations of communities, Westbrook brings examples to reinforce the contrary view.

Sherman presents a slightly revised definition of empathy, in which empathy is the cognitive ability to place oneself in the world of another, imagining all of the realities, feelings, and circumstances of that person in the context of their world.

The apparent tension between the moral codes of the Old and New Testaments constitutes a perennial problem for Christian ethics. Scholars who have taken this problem seriously have often done so in ways that presume sharp discontinuity between the Testaments. They then proceed to devise a system for identifying what is or is not relevant today, or what pertains to this or that particular social sphere. John Howard Yoder brings fresh perspectives to this perennial problem by refuting the presumption of (...) intratestamental discontinuity. Throughout multiple scattered works on the Old Testament, Yoder offers a coherent and provocative narration that culminates in the way of Christ and establishes the ethical continuity of the entire biblical canon. This essay presents the basic parameters of Yoder's Old Testament narration, suggests points where revision is needed, and highlights several implications for social ethics. (shrink)

The current philosophical debate on just international trade has moved away from purely idealistic theorizing into the direction of non-ideal theory. At the same time most philosophical thought on just trade is still rather idealistic and the main argument of the paper is that some philosophical reasoning about international trade justice should be more realistic. The paper develops in three steps. In a first step I will give a short overview over normative questions that arise with respect to international trade. (...) I will then highlight a proposal brought forward by Leif Wenar, because he is aware of the realist challenge and tries to counter it. In a second step I will discuss why it is important to integrate a realist perspective into philosophical considerations of international trade justice. Trade agreements are embedded in political contexts that influence the normative perspective one should take on trade justice. This leads to the third part of the article, where I will explore how a realist approach can go along with more idealistic perspectives, which leads to a weakly realist perspective on trade justice. (shrink)

Political realism is frequently criticised as a theoretical tradition that amounts to little more than a rationalisation of the status quo and an apology for power. This paper responds to this crit...

Political realism is frequently criticised as a theoretical tradition that amounts to little more than a rationalisation of the status quo and an apology for power. This paper responds to this criticism by defending three connected claims. First, it acknowledges the moral seriousness of rationalisation, but argues that the problem is hardly particular to political realists. Second, it argues that classical International Relations realists like EH Carr and Hans Morgenthau have a profound awareness of the corrupting effects of rationalisation and (...) see realism as an antidote to this problem. Third, it proposes that Carr and Morgenthau can help us to recognise the particular ways in which realist arguments may nonetheless rationalise existing power relations and affirm the status quo by default, if not by design. (shrink)

Christian realism has provided a theological understanding of politics that identifies the limits within which all political choices are made. Those limits are set by a theological understanding of judgment, which reserves the ultimate meaning of history to divine judgment, and by a theological understanding of responsibility, which gives proximate meaning to the choices between greater and lesser goods that are available to human politics. The assessments of global politics offered by Reinhold Niebuhr and other Christian realists during the Second (...) World War and the Cold War which followed owe their influence partly to an astute and historically informed reading of events, but primarily, their influence is due to this basic theological understanding of politics. While the world has changed in ways that clearly reveal limitations in the original formulations of Christian realism, the theological principles of judgment and responsibility continue to provide an understanding of global politics adequate to the new realities of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

The late influential American intellectual Michael Novak was a self-declared devotee of Reinhold Niebuhr, arguably the foremost twentieth-century American theologian. Novak’s The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (1982) was an attempt to fill the political-economic lacuna in Niebuhr’s thought. The present article offers a Niebuhrian irony–focused response to Novak’s democratic capitalism in view of climate change as probably the greatest threat facing humanity. Novak quite successfully extended Niebuhrian ideas into a theology-based vision of democratic capitalism as the only political-economic system effective (...) in widely lifting people out of poverty. Yet he failed to acknowledge human-induced climate change as beyond reasonable doubt and rooted in the predominantly American invention of a fossil energy–based capitalist political economy. This article’s thesis is that Novak’s democratic capitalism entails Niebuhrian irony: the virtue it displays about resources becomes a vice due to Novak’s irresponsible post–Spirit of Democratic Capitalism attempt to represent democratic capitalism as innocent of any dangerous climate-change implications. (shrink)

There is an increasing awareness that we are living in a global village, which demands a global ethics. In this article, I shall explore what contributions Confucianism, particularly its conception of love, can make. It has often been claimed that Confucian love is love with distinction, as a natural feeling, and as merely human love and so it is inferior to the Christian love, which is universal, commanded, and based on divine love. Drawing on the resources of the Cheng brothers' (...) neo-Confucianism, I shall explore how Confucianism can make creative responses to such criticisms and thus make a unique Confucian contribution to the emerging global ethics. (shrink)

How can reformational philosophy help us reconceptualise the notion of security? In the field of Security Studies, theoreticalismsabound, each of them rooted in a different philosophical tradition. One of these approaches, “securitization theory”, portrays security in connection to five “sectors” that seem to reflect some of the basic aspects of the cosmos analysed by reformational philosophy. I consider the potential of this theory in an initial attempt to introduce a reformational approach to Security Studies. I also briefly consider some of (...) its shortcomings. Finally, I reflect on the basic elements of a reformational notion of security. At this stage I am not offering a new theory of security but merely beginning to sketch a new concept of security in light of reformational philosophy. (shrink)

Dewey's theory of happiness goes against the grain of much contemporary psychologic and popular thought by identifying the highest form of human happiness with moral behavior. Such happiness, according to Dewey, avoids being at the mercy of circumstances because it is independent of the pleasures and successes we take from experience and, instead, is dependent upon the disposition we bring to experience. It accompanies a disposition characterized by an abiding interest in objects in which all can share, one founded upon (...) a dynamic inner harmony and evolving adjustment to the world. The marks of such an expansive disposition are "stability of character, braveness of soul, and equanimity of soul," and the key to the development of these traits is what Dewey calls "ethical love." We conclude with consideration of three potential criticisms of Dewey's view of happiness and possible Deweyan rejoinders. (shrink)

This paper argues that ‘dirty hands’ (DH) scenarios, where an agent is forced to do wrong in order to do right, are conceptually coherent. The charge of incoherence is a widespread and common criticism made by deontologists and consequentialists alike. They argue that DH theorists erroneously assume the existence of real moral dilemmas and then compound this error by claiming that it is possible to engage in justified moral wrongdoing. However, such critics argue that there are only _prima facie_ moral (...) dilemmas and hence it is not only irrational and obtuse to argue for DH scenarios, but also undermines our search for sound moral judgments in very difficult situations. Given the gravity of these charges, surprisingly little has been written in defence of DH as a coherent and necessary part of our moral vocabulary. If there can be no successful defence of the possibility of DH, then all talk of such scenarios become futile. This paper responds to two influential and what initially appear to be strongly plausible arguments used by critics of DH. I call these the ‘Arguments from Deontic Logic’ and the ‘All-Things-Considered Argument’. I present three responses which seek to raise serious doubts about their efficacy. I then support the possibility of DH by exploring what we can learn about our moral reality from the moral emotion of ‘tragic remorse’. This approach endorses the role of emotions in determining moral knowledge. It also rejects the view that ethical theories ought to dismiss DH experiences as incoherent in favour of questionable theoretical a priori assumptions, which seek a reductionist account of our moral reality. (shrink)

Social evil is any pain or suffering brought about by game-theoretic interactions of many individuals. This paper introduces and discusses the problem of social evil. I begin by focusing on social evil brought about by game-theoretic interactions of rational moral individuals. The problem social evil poses for theism is distinct from problems posed by natural and moral evils. Social evil is not a natural evil because it is brought about by the choices of individuals. But social evil is not a (...) form of moral evil because each individual actor does not misuse his free will. Traditional defenses for natural and moral evil fall short in addressing the problem of social evil. The final section of this paper discusses social evil and virtue. I begin by arguing that social evil can arise even when individual virtue is lacking. Next, I explore the possibility of an Edwardsian defense of social evil that stresses the high demands of true virtue. In this context, I argue that social evil may arise even when all the participants are truly virtuous. The conclusion of this paper is that social evil is problematic and provides new ground for exploring the conceptual resources of theism. (shrink)