Ten commandments of philosophical writing.

Power and authority in terms of the Ten Commandments (TCs) are discussed. The paper reviews the TCs in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The treatment and basis for power and authority in each religion are clarified. Implications of power and authority using the perspective of the TCs are provided. The paper suggests that in today's business environment people tend to be selective in identifying only with certain elements of the TCs that fit their interest and that the TCs should be (...) viewed as general moral guidelines. (shrink)

Because religious views are seen as sacred or holy, they are often protected from scrutiny more than other views. Simply, it seems that is not socially acceptable to say anything critical about them. While it is perfectly acceptable to argue over political views and human choices, we dare not critique religion in the United States. However, some religious assertions should be questioned: the morality of the Ten Commandments is such an assertion. In what follows, I argue that the (...) class='Hi'>Commandments are a poor guide to morality and do not deserve the respect they have been afforded. (shrink)

II. Attempts to redefine freedom will change the consequences neither of respecting it nor of failing to respect it.

This book review discusses You Bin’s intercultural approach to construct a Chinese version of catechism through the Ten Commandments as the vital content for both Chinese Christians and non-Christians in the Chinese context. It shows that integrating God’s Ten Commandments into Chinese traditional culture and social settings is not necessarily meant to compromise its biblical-theological essence with one’s self-critical awareness of culture. It suggests how this book might set an example for both theologians and practitioners to bring back (...) the catechism, to bear upon the needs of contemporary Christians in the non-Western setting. (shrink)

Disagreement in the sixteenth century on the meaning of the First Commandment prompted dissension over such related issues as the nature of the Lord's Supper, the authority of the Old Testament for the church and the pace of ecclesiastical reform—issues that are still in dispute.

With the Ten Commandments as a case, the overall focus of this article is how a reader’s a priori concept of a text influences how he or she allows textual content and interpretive context to interact. The frame of the article is the claim by the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda that they will establish a society built on the Ten Commandments, a claim that raises questions about what they mean with this reference to ‘Ten (...) class='Hi'>Commandments’. The article falls into two parts. The first part surveys some examples from the history of interpretation of the Ten Commandments, demonstrating contextual and terminological fluidity both in their biblical versions and in their postbiblical history of interpretation. With this insight, the second part discusses how LRA refers to the Ten Commandments in ways that demonstrate that the very concept ‘Ten Commandments’ is stronger than the details of their content. This enables the LRA to form ‘new commandments’ fitting with their ideology and struggle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:diacritics 33.2 (2005) 71-97 [Access article in PDF] The Subject of Religion Lacan and the Ten Commandments Kenneth Reinhard Julia Reinhard Lupton Despite Freud's Nietzschean unmasking of religion as ideology, psychoanalysis has frequently been attacked as itself a religion, a cabal of analyst-priests dedicated to the worship of a dead master. Such critics "do not believe in Freud" in much the same way as atheists "do not believe (...) in God," and their rejections of psychoanalysis in the name of the secular partake in the very structure of religious thought they claim to repudiate. In Seminar XXI: Les non-dupes errent, Lacan comments on the blindness of the atheistic insight concerning religion: "I know that you're not believers, right? But that doesn't mean that you aren't all the more conned... because even if you are not believers, you still believe in that aspiration [for the love of God]. I won't say that you suppose it; rather, it supposes you" [Dec. 18, 1973; our trans.]. In Lacan's analysis, it is not that secular intellectuals suffer from unexamined religious "suppositions" or assumptions, to be swept away through a little ideology-critique or time on the couch. The case is rather, in Lacan's strong formulation, that religious discourse supposes us—supports and underwrites our very structures of being, subjectivity, and social interaction. That is, the secular subject is produced by the religious discourses that precede and continue to speak through it; the challenge for the contemporary critic is not to silence or debunk those discourses, but rather to bring the modern subject to assume responsibility for their enunciation.Throughout the decades of his seminar, Lacan addressed the monotheistic foundations of Western subjectivity as a set of discursive ruptures or cuts which continue to scar and brand the modern subject beyond their secular abrogation. Distinguishing between Freud "the individual with his atheistic profession of faith" and "the Freud who was the first to acknowledge the value and relevance of [the] myth... we call the death of God" [S VII 192–93], Lacan insists that Freud regarded monotheism as an epochal divide that irrevocably altered all that came before and after it: "On the left of this [monotheistic] message, there are some things that are henceforth outdated, obsolete; they no longer hold beyond the manifestation of the message. On the right, things are quite different" [172]. What, in Lacan's analysis, is the difference that monotheism has made, both during its periods of dominance and after? The laws, narratives, and symbols of monotheism continue to undergird key fantasies of personhood, nationhood, and neighborhood in the modernity that purports to have supplanted them. In Lacan's formulation, monotheism "supposes" the subject of these fantasies, precipitating it from out of the expanse of signifiers and in relation to a sublime object of both unbearable enjoyment and social obligation. Moreover, it is the scandal and the gift of monotheism that it not only creates moments of traumatic singularity, but also thinks the singular as trauma, rending the fabric of an animistic nature which would unite every polarity of being in the fullness of a sexual relation. Unlike the gods of Greek philosophy, the monotheistic God is not part of the nature he creates. In its decisive thinking of singularity, monotheism elicits and eludes all rapprochement with philosophical conceptions of the One, whether in the guise of Hellenized Judaism, Pauline theology, or Arab Aristotelianism. Lacan extends the monotheistic project of thinking singularity [End Page 71] by insisting that "there is something of One" [il y a de l'Un]—not the self-identical One of Greek logic, mathematics, and cosmology, but the One of a violent rupture that creates subjects and their worlds around a void, an un that un-does the primacy it speaks.If, from the Lacanian vantage, the singular invention of the God shared by the People of the Book forever separates religion from philosophy, we would also insist that religion is not simply a subset of "culture," understood as the symbolic practices that unify a people... (shrink)

Can managers detect honest people’s lies in a handwritten message? In this article, I will briefly discuss graphology and a basic model of interpersonal communication. I will then develop a fundamental theoretical framework of eight principles for detecting lies based on the basic communication model, handwriting analyses, and the following assumptions: For most people, it is easier to tell the truth than to tell lies. This applies to handwritings also. When most honest people lie, they try to hide their stressful (...) emotions in the encoding process. As a consequence, they deviate from their own normal writing and violate their own personal moral standards. Interestingly enough, the art or science of detecting a lie in a handwritten sample is to focus not on what they write, but on how they write it. These 24 exhibits (cases) written in 11 languages—used in different parts of the world—help managers apply this important theoretical framework of interpersonal communication, understand the encoding process, pinpoint these sudden emotional changes, decode handwritten messages, unlock the secrets, reveal the message’s true meanings, and detect people’s lies. (shrink)

This book shows that atheism need not be only reactionary (against religion and God), but rather provides a clear set of constructive principles to live by that establish atheism as a positive worldview. The book encourages and guides the reader through the process of formulating his or her own set of personal beliefs.

Many have preached the need for business schools to "teach" ethics, but very few have considered that business schools should also adopt and implement their own codes. The authors' previous research indicates that there is a perceived need for a code of ethics for business schools. Currently, relatively few schools have in fact adopted codes of ethics applicable to all the constituents of the institution. Proposals made to businesses to help them determine which values should be included in a corporate (...) code do not appear to adequately address the distinctive issues faced in an academic environment. In an earlier survey, the authors identified general principles of conduct that seemed to encompass the values expressed by the respondents. Relying on research that has indicated that ideally a code of ethics should be inspirational and value oriented rather than prescriptive and proscriptive, the authors herein propose ten values and correlating definitions that would provide a framework for a business school code of ethics. (shrink)

Commanders gain authority from obedience and lose authority from disobedience. We should expect commanders to therefore devise commands that reduce the probability of disobedience. To aid recognition of these techniques for reducing the risk of disobedience, I focus on the extreme of case of commands that reduce the probability to zero. Each of my ten commandments illustrates a logical technique for engineering out disobedience. Once you master these safety measures, you can confidently legislate your own universal maxims. Your innovations (...) will be good news for Immanuel Kant’s characterization of morality in terms of categorical imperatives. The commandments also raise interesting questions about responsibility for necessities and the nature of rule following. (shrink)

The paper describes the biblical understanding of God’s commanded law in its indispensable political form, i.e. the law of God’s people. This is distinct from a confinement of God’s commandments to a moral code independent from that political context as it is present as the ‘political worship’ of God’s people.This worship has to be seen as the ground for ethics. From here follow consequences for human laws and legislation concerning human life forms. That disposition of theological ethics has been (...) elaborated in a particular form by the Lutheran-Reformed tradition especially in its concepts of God’s twofold regiment and the estates. (shrink)

Assuming divine command theory is true, there are no moral limits on the commands God can issue. Nevertheless there are no possible worlds in which divine command theory is true and God commands cruelty for its own sake or the sacrifice of ten-year-olds in a gruesome ritual, or anything of the kind. The main conclusion of the argument is that God cannot command the morally horrible not because of God's moral perfection or God's lack of power, of God's kindness, etc., (...) but because commanding the morally horrible entails a contradiction. I show that the argument is an instance of a valid and uncontroversial counterfactual sequent. Divine command theory entails that there are commands that even an omnipotent and morally unconstrained being cannot issue. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Setting the Task Constructing Yahweh The Ten Commandments: An Evolutionary Interpretation Conclusion: The Evolved Law.

The Decalogue is the ten commandments which are a covenant between God and His people. Written on two tablets of stone, this Decalogue is apodictive (unconditional command and prohibition). It expresses the love between God and His people and between members of the people. This article shows that in the Pentateuch there are two versions of the Decalogue (Ex. 20:1-17 and Deut. 5:6-21) with some differences between them. Deuteronomy 5:6-21 contains additions to Exodus 20:1-17. Ex. 20:1-17 was spoken by (...) God himself to the Israelites at Mount Sinai; Deut. 5:6-21 by Moses in the plains of Moab when quoting Ex. 20:1-17. The commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy in Ex. 20:8-11 is motivated by God’s rest on the seventh day of creation; in Deut. 5:12-15 it is motivated by Israel’s liberation from slavery in the land of Egypt. Ex. 20:13-17 contains fi ve social commandments in no apparent order; Deut. 5:17-21 contains six social commandments inparallel arrangement. The Decalogue, as a law does not guarantee its implementation. And the Israelites repeatedly violated or disobeyed the law. Therefore, God Himself takes the initiative and intervenes toensure its implementation. After the destruction of the city of Jerusalem as an outward sign of the end of the Old Covenant, the prophet Jeremiah prophesied the New Covenant at the initiative of God to bewritten in the hearts, so that previously impossible loyalty would now become a reality (Jer. 31:31-34). Thus, the New Covenant is not different from the Sinai Covenant, but rather a renewal of YHWH’s faithfulnesswhich is rebuilt and deepened continuously so that it becomes a “covenant without end” (Lam. 3:22-23). Abstrak Dekalog adalah sepuluh fi rman yang merupakan pernjanjian antara Allah dengan umat-Nya, tertulis dalam dua loh batu. Dekalog yang bersifat apodiktif (perintah dan larangan tanpa syarat) mengungkapkankasih antara Allah dengan umat-Nya dan antarumat Allah. Artikel ini menunjukkan bahwa dalam Pentateukh terdapat dua versi Dekalog (Kel. 20:1-17 dan Ul. 5:6-21) dengan beberapa perbedaan. Ul. 5:6-21 memuat beberapa tambahan yang tidak terdapat dalam Kel. 20:1-17. Kel. 20:1-17 diucapkan sendiri oleh YHWH kepada bangsa Israel di gunung Sinai; Ul. 5:6-21 diucapkan oleh Musa di dataran Moab dengan mengutip isi Kel. 20:1-17. Perintah kuduskanlah hari Sabat dalam Kel. 20:8-11 bermotifkan istirahat Allah pada hari ketujuh saat penciptaan; dalam Ul. 5:12-15 bermotifkan pembebasan bangsa Israel dari perbudakan di tanah Mesir. Kel. 20:13-17 memuat lima perintah sosial tanpa urutan yang jelas; Ul. 5:17-21 memuat enam perintah sosial yang disusun paralel. Dekalog sebagai undang-undang tidak menjamin pelaksanaannya. Berulangkali bangsa Israel telah melanggar atau tidak setia pada penjanjian tersebut. Maka, Allah sendiri yang berinisiatif dan campur tangan demi terjaminnya pelaksanaan perjanjian-Nya. Sesudah penghancuran kota Yerusalem sebagai tanda lahiriah berakhirnya Perjanjian Lama, Nabi Yeremia menubuatkan Perjanjian Yang Baru atas prakarsa Allah yang akan ditulis dalam hati manusia, sehingga kesetiaan yang tadinya mustahil akan menjadi kenyataan (Yer. 31:31-34). Dengan demikian Perjanjian Yang Baru itu tidak berbeda dengan Perjanjian Sinai, tetapi lebih berupa pembaruan kesetiaan YHWH yang dibangun kembali dan diperdalam terus-menerus sehingga menjadi “perjanjian yang tak berkesudahan” (Rat. 3:22-23). (shrink)

The public defence of science has never been more important than now. However, it is a difficult task with many pitfalls, and there are mechanisms that can make it counterproductive. This article offers advice for science defenders, summarized in ten commandments that warn against potentially ineffective or even backfiring practices in the defence of science: Do not portray science as a unique type of knowledge. Do not underestimate scientific uncertainty. Do not describe science as infallible. Do not deny the (...) value-ladenness of science. Do not associate with power. Do not blame the victims of disinformation. Do not aim at convincing the anti-scientific propagandists. Do not contribute to the legitimization of pseudoscience. Do not attack religion when it does not conflict with science. Do not call yourself a “sceptic”. (shrink)

In his ethical writings, Duns Scotus emphasized both divine freedom and natural goodness, and these seem to conflict with each other in various ways. I offer an interpretation of Scotus which takes seriously these twin emphases and shows how they cohere. I argue that, for Scotus, all natural laws obtain just by the natures of actual things. Divine commands, such as the Ten Commandments, contingently track natural laws but do not make natural laws to be natural laws. I present (...) textual evidence for this claim. I also show how this view of Scotus on the natural law is consistent with a number of troubling passages. Scotus’s ethical theory implies that there are genuinely moral reasons for acting which are not absolutely binding (because subject to a divine command or permission otherwise) and also some moral reasons for acting which are absolutely binding (because not thus subject). (shrink)

When people talk about religion, most soon mention the major religious traditions of our times, but then, thinking further, most mention as well the religions of Indigenous peoples and of such vanished civilizations as ancient Greece and Egypt and Persia. That is, we have come to understand that there are-and have been-many different religions; anthropologists estimate the total in the thousands. They also estimate that there have been thousands of human cultures, which is to say that the making of a (...) culture and the making of its religion go together: each religion is embedded in its cultural history. True, certain religions have attempted, and variously succeeded, in crossing cultural boundaries to "convert the heathens," but the invaded cultures usually put their unmistakable stamp on what they import, as evinced by the pulsating percussive Catholic masses sung in Africa. In the end, each of these religions addresses two fundamental human concerns: How Things Are and Which Things Matter. How Things Are is articulated as a Cosmology or Cosmos: How the natural world came to be, how humans came to be, what happens after we die, the origins of evil and tragedy and natural disaster and love. Which Things Matter becomes codified as a Morality or Ethos: the Judaic Ten Commandments, the Christian Sermon on the Mount, the Five Pillars of Islam, the Buddhist Vinaya, the Confucian Five Relations, and the understandings inherent in numerous Indigenous traditions. The role of a religion is to integrate the Cosmology and the Morality, to render the cosmological narrative so rich and compelling that it elicits our allegiance and our commitment to its attendant moral understandings. As a culture evolves, a distinctive Cosmos and Ethos appears in its co-evolving religion. For billions of us, back to the early humans, the stories, ceremonies and art associated with our religions-of-origin have been central to our lives. I stand in awe of these religions. I have no need to take on their contradictions or immiscibility, any more than I would quarrel with the fact that Scottish bagpipe ceremonies coexist with Japanese tea ceremonies. And indeed, the failure of Soviet Marxism to obliterate Russian Orthodoxy, and of Maoism to obliterate Buddhism, Confucianism, or Daoism, and of Christianity to obliterate Indigenous understandings, reminds us that projects designed to overthrow religious traditions face strong headwinds. (shrink)

What would happen if you made your business decisions by the book? By the Bible that is. This updated version of the best-selling Business by the Book offers radical principles of business management that go beyond the Ten Commandments and other biblical maxims. Business by the Book is a step-by-step presentation of how businesses should be run according to the Creator of all management rules: God. Larry Burkett, founder and president of Christian Financial Concepts, provides business principles from his (...) own experience as well as what God’s Word says on topics such as: Hiring and Firing Decisions Pay Increases and Promotions Management Selection Employee Pay Decisions Borrowing and/or Lending Decisions Forming Corporations and Partnerships Business Tithing Retirement Whether you are the owner of a business, a corporate executive, or a manager, this best-selling classic is for you. (shrink)

At the core of Kant's ethics lies the claim that if there is a supreme principle of morality then it cannot be a principle based on utilitarianism or Aristotelian perfectionism or the Ten Commandments. The only viable candidate for such a principle is the categorical imperative. This book is the most detailed investigation of this claim. It constructs a new, criterial reading of Kant's derivation of one version of the categorical imperative: the Formula of Universal Law. This reading shows (...) this derivation to be far more compelling than contemporary philosophers tend to believe. It also reveals a novel approach to deriving another version of the categorical imperative, the Formula of Humanity, a principle widely considered to be the most attractive Kantian candidate for the supreme principle of morality. This book will be important not just for Kant scholars but for a broad swathe of students of philosophy. (shrink)

The law is an extremely complex phenomenon. It is very difficult to determine it precisely as the complete comprehension and ultimate definition of the law are beyond human capabilities. Also, the law never coincides with its concept, nor does the concept of the law coincide with its definition. This fact shows that the real human capabilities for the comprehension, determination and definition of the law are very limited and the limits are unreliable. The concept of the law is relative as (...) well, which is why all the definitions of the law are also relative. The concept and the definition of the law are also relative because they are of necessity subjective. It is for this reason that they are never truthful. However, even when they are not truthful, they are always useful. Because of these essential cognitive shortcomings and limitations, the law is determined and defined realistically – in a conventional and operative manner – whenever it is possible to do so. Additional difficulties are created by the fact that the number of conventional concepts and definitions of the law is almost limitless. Fortunately, only a number of them, considered operative, are used in the law. And all this because of a possible usefulness. Should the law be useful, then its realistic concept can be determined by the establishment of its common characteristics. On the basis of having at its disposal the mentioned common characteristics, the concept of the law can be operationally determined in both the expanded sense and the restricted sense. Also, it is possible to tell the difference between the three main layers in the concept of the law: complete , incomplete and unfinished law. Obviously, the realistically determined concept of the law is not one-sided, nor is it monolithic, but complex, detailed and as a whole composed of layers of different degrees of being legal. They are used to finely tune the ordering of the relationships between different importance and the degree of the conflict and, which is also important, to legally regulate even those social areas that would otherwise be exclusively regulated with the state or with the social norms. Otherwise, even the Ten Commandments alone would be insufficient to regulate all human relationships. However, the law did not come into being out of leisure time, but out of dire human need to protect the society from self-destruction. Contrary to the realistic concept of the law, there also exist its idealistic, idealized and ideal concepts. However, the idealistic concept of the law is inoperative, the idealized concept of the law is not correct, while the ideal concept of the law is out of human reach.Das Recht stellt ein immens vielfältiges Phänomen dar. Ihn präzise festzulegen entpuppt sich als unsäglich schwierig, denn eine lückenlose Erkenntnis sowie endgültige Definition des Rechts liegt jenseits des menschlichen Vermögens. Zudem geht weder das Recht mit dessen Begriff konform, noch tut es der Begriff des Rechts mit eigener Bestimmung. Dieser Tatbestand lässt durchblicken, die wahre menschliche Befähigung zum Erkennen, Determinieren sowie Definieren des Rechts sei höchst begrenzt, wobei sich ebendiese Schranken als unzuverlässig erzeigen. Die Notion des Rechts ist ebenso relativ, weswegen hiernach sämtliche Begriffsbestimmungen des Rechts relativ sind. Der Begriff einschließlich der Definition des Rechts ist auch aufgrund der ihnen notwendigerweise innewohnenden Subjektivität relativ. Aus diesem Grund sind sie niemals wahrheitsgetreu. Allerdings, auch wenn sie der Wahrheit nicht entsprechen, sind sie stets von Nützlichkeit. Wegen der angebrachten essenziellen erkenntnismäßigen Unzulänglichkeiten und Limitierungen wird das Recht realistisch bestimmt und definiert – in einer konventionellen bzw. operativen Manier – wann immer dies durchführbar ist. Zusätzliche Erschwernisse werden von der Tatsache geschaffen, dass die Zahl der gebräuchlichen Begriffe und Definitionen des Rechts schier unermesslich ist. Glücklicherweise werden lediglich etliche, als operativ angesehene, im Bereich von Recht eingesetzt. Und all dies der denkbaren Nützlichkeit halber. Sollte das Recht nützlich sein, dann lässt sich dessen realistischer Begriff per Gründung seiner gemeinsamen Wesenszüge festsetzen. Auf der Basis der vorhin angeschnittenen, ihm zu Gebote stehenden angehörigen Merkmale, kann der Begriff des Rechts operational determiniert werden, sowohl im erweiterten als auch im engeren Sinne. Ebenfalls ist der Unterschied erkennbar zwischen drei Hauptschichten in dem Begriff des Rechts: vollständiges Recht , unvollständiges Recht und unvollendetes Recht . Augenscheinlich ist der realistischerweise bestimmte Begriff des Rechts weder einseitig noch monolithisch, stattdessen ist er komplex, detailliert und als Ganzes aus Schichten von ungleichem Rechtlichkeitsgrad zusammengestellt. Man gebraucht sie zur Feinabstimmung der Beziehungsordnung zwischen der unterschiedlichen Wichtigkeit und dem Grad des Konflikts, und, was genauso Gewicht hat, um sogar jene Gesellschaftszonen rechtmäßig zu regeln, die anderenfalls ausschließlich seitens der staatlichen bzw. gesellschaftlichen Normen geregelt würden. Ansonsten würden selbst die Zehn Gebote nicht genügen, um menschliche Verhältnisse in ihrer Gänze zu ordnen. Jedoch ist das Recht nicht als Freizeitaktivität entstanden, sondern im Gegenteil als unentbehrliches menschliches Bedürfnis nach Bewahrung der Menschheit vor Selbstauflösung. Der realistischen Notion des Rechts entgegengesetzt existieren parallel dessen idealistische, idealisierte und ideale Begriffe. Dabei gilt der idealistische Begriff als inoperativ, der idealisierte als inkorrekt, während der ideale Begriff außerhalb der menschlichen Reichweite liegt. (shrink)