In this essay, it is demonstrated that the inception of the English Bible tradition began with the oral–aural Bible in Old English translated from Latin incipient texts and emerged through a continuous tradition of revision and retranslation in interaction with contemporary social reality. Each subsequent translation achieved a more complex state by adapting to the emergence of incipient text knowledge (rediscovery of Hebrew and Greek texts), emergence of the (meaning-making) knowledge of the incipient languages (Latin, Hebrew and Greek), (...) language change (Old, Middle and Modern English), mode of communication (hearing-dominant and text-dominant), style (literal or word-for-word) and products (oral-aural Bible, handwritten manuscript Bible and printed Bible). Historical sources indicate that there were translations of portions of the English Bible since 700 CE as handwritten manuscript Bibles in Old and Middle English and in print in Modern English – even before the retranslation associated with Tyndale (1526) and despite ecclesiastical opposition since 1408. This version and its revisions (1530–1531, 1534) are followed by subsequent revisions (Coverdale Bible, Matthew’s Bible, Great Bible, Geneva Bible and Bishop’s Bible). The next revision was the King James Version (1611), which replaced all its predecessors, and which was never replaced for the next four centuries – not even by its revisions.Contribution: Contrary to the fragmentation caused by ordering individual English Bibles either by period (e.g. 20th century) or according to their features (e.g. literal), it is demonstrated that the history of English Bible translation emerged rather as a translation complex, and its history must be understood in this way. (shrink)

In discussing the Bible as literature, I am simply going to assume that the Bible, particularly in the King James version, is great literature. I am also going to take for granted the fact that its stories and themes have continually sparked the literary imagination of the West. From the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden to that of the Resurrection we have a set of symbols, motifs, and themes whose reworking has been the (...) subject of the bulk of our literature. I am not going to discuss this influence, nor even discuss the Bible as a piece of literature, i.e., as a particular literary work. What I am going to do is to focus on what is involved in our taking it as literature. More particularly, I am going to look at how we approach questions of truth in a literary work. I am going to ask how far we can push this approach when we come to read the Bible. What are the limits in reading the Bible as literature? When does the notion of “truth” as it arises in a literary text begin to fail us. That it will fail us at a certain point is implicit in the Bible’s claim to be “sacred scripture” or “revelation.” If we take this claim seriously, we naturally have a special approach to the “truth” its text contains. But what precisely is this approach? This is what I want to explore. In other words, my goal in exploring the limits of the literary approach to the Bible is to gain some insights into the sacred character of its text and how we should approach it. §1. Truth and the literary text. The most common, if often overlooked feature of a successful literary work is that of presenting us with a world In a certain sense, it succeeds by having inherent standards for what can belong to it, of what fits in with its sense and what does not. Having such standards, it presents us with that unified sense that makes a world a world, that is, that makes it an ordered whole.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“A Child Has Been Born unto Us”Arendt on BirthAdriana CavareroTranslated by Silvia Guslandi and Cosette BruhnsIn The Human Condition, at the end of the dense chapter on action, Hannah Arendt reiterates that action, that is, the political faculty for excellence, “is ontologically rooted” in the fact of natality, “like an ever-present reminder that men, though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to (...) begin” (Arendt 1998, 246).1 To reinforce this argument, Arendt compares action to miracles, and makes an interesting and, as we will see, somewhat perplexing reference to the Bible:[The miracle] is, in other words, the birth of new men and the new beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born. Only the full experience of this capacity can bestow upon human affairs faith and hope, those two essential characteristics of human existence which Greek antiquity ignored altogether.…It is this faith in and hope for the world that found perhaps its most glorious and most succinct expression in the few words with which the Gospels announced their “glad tidings”: “A child has been born unto us.”(HC, 247)The citation is suggestive, but incorrect. In the Gospels, which do announce with true joy the birth of the child, the phrase as it is quoted here does not exist. It appears instead in Isaiah (9:6), translated into English both as “For to us a child is borne,” and, in the version of the King James Bible from which Arendt is plausibly drawing, as “For unto us a child is born.” The error, if indeed it is an error, is thus twofold (see Young-Ah Gottlieb 2003, 136ff.), since [End Page 12] both the passage referenced and the words cited are incorrect. That Arendt frequently cites from memory, and that the citations tend to be bibliographically incorrect, is known to her interpreters, but in this case the error ends up being quite significant. As is well known, the prophetic text carries a strong Messianic burden, and such a burden would trouble significantly the thesis that Arendt is here illustrating; the Gospels’ message creates instead fewer obstacles to her strategy of framing the meaning of birth within the mundane horizon that in her vocabulary takes the names of “world” or “worldliness.” Since “‘to live’ and to ‘be among men’” mean the same thing (HC, 7), the child, every newborn, that is, every human being that makes its entrance in the world, is not, according to the Arendtian vision, born to us, coming from elsewhere, but appears among us here. The scenario of birth, like that of action, whatever be the holy text that mentions or exemplarily validates them, is, for Arendt, a radically mundane scenario that does not call into question any transcendence or religious instance of salvation.Jewish, secular, and classically trained in Greek and Latin, Arendt, who had little familiarity with the Jewish language and tradition, met Christian thought primarily through Saint Augustine, to whom she dedicated her doctoral thesis (Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin, published in Berlin in 1929 and then in English in 1996 as Love and Saint Augustine), and who remained a constant point of reference throughout her work. A phrase from Augustine—initium ut esset homo creatus est—present in the thesis, appears, in fact, in Arendt’s later texts, including The Human Condition, indeed with obsessive repetitiveness in reference to the category of birth.2 In her monumental work The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951, a full seven years prior to The Human Condition, Arendt already writes: “Beginning, before it becomes a historical event, is the supreme capacity of man; politically, it is identical with man’s freedom. Initium ut esset homo creatus est, ‘that a beginning be made, man was created’, said Augustine. This beginning is guaranteed by each new birth; it is indeed every man” (Arendt 1973, 479). On the philosophically anomalous theme of birth, the contributions of the Christian tradition that Arendt does appreciate are predominantly two: the “glad tidings” that herald the coming of the child, and Augustine’s comments on the narrative of Creation.Natality, Birth, and the Human Condition of... (shrink)

The article discusses the portrayal of Éowyn in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings in the light of the biblical tradition of the warrior woman. The author focuses on the scene in which Éowyn slays the Nazgûl Lord in the battle of the Pelennor Fields with the help of Meriadoc. This event is juxtaposed against the biblical descriptions of female warriors, in particular Jael and Judith. A detailed analysis of passages from the King James Bible and the (...) Douay-Rheims Bible, with which Tolkien was familiar, allows the reader to detect numerous affinities between his vocabulary and imagery, and their biblical antecedents. Filipczak contends that, by defending the body of the dying Théoden, Éowyn defends the whole kingdom; her action can be interpreted in the light of The King’s Two Bodies by Ernst Kantorowicz. Her threat to the Ringraith makes use of the verb that can be found in the descriptions of Jael and Judith in the Protestant and Catholic Bibles respectively. Furthermore, Éowyn’s unique position as a mortal woman who achieves the impossible and thus fulfills the prophecy paves the way for a comparison with the Virgin Mary, whose Magnificat contains elements of “a holy-war song” which were suppressed by traditional interpretations. Consequently, the portrayal of Éowyn blends the features of Jael, Judith and Mary with allusions to St. Joan of Arc. Moreover, her act of slaying the Ringraith’s fell beast reinterprets the story of St. George and the dragon. Filipczak argues that Éowyn’s uniqueness is additionally emphasized because she acts out Gandalf’s words from Minas Tirith and sends the Nazgûl Lord into nothingness. (shrink)

Three images of holiness have, at different times, enjoyed wide currency among American Protestants: holiness as pilgrimage, holiness as perfection, and holiness as pentecostal outpouring. Since the colonial era, confidence in the attainment of holiness has grown dramatically. Yet such assurance has not been matched by equal agreement on the content of the holy life.

A provocative, insightful explanation for why it is that belief—not religion—keeps us in a perilous state of willful ignorance In The Religious Case Against Belief , James Carse identifies the twenty-first century’s most forbidding villain: belief. In distinguishing religions from belief systems, Carse works to reveal how belief—with its restriction on thought and encouragement of hostility—has corrupted religion and spawned violence the world over. Galileo, Martin Luther, Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus Christ—using their stories Carse creates his own brand of (...) parable and establishes a new vocabulary with which to study conflict in the modern world. The Religious Case Against Belief introduces three kinds of ignorance: ordinary ignorance (a mundane lack of knowledge, such as ignorance of tomorrow’s weather or the reason why your stove is malfunctioning), willful ignorance (an intentional avoidance of accessible knowledge), and finally higher ignorance (a learned understanding that no matter how many truths we may accumulate, our knowledge falls infinitely short of the truth). While ordinary ignorance is common to all people, Carse associates the strongest manifestation of willful ignorance with the most fervent (and dangerous) of believers. He points to the historic conflict between Martin Luther and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V both to reveal this seemingly religious collision as a clash of belief and to identify belief ’s inherently destructive characteristics. From Luther to the contemporary Christian right, we learn that believers construct identity by erecting boundaries and by fostering aggression between the believer and the other. This is why belief systems choose—at great cost—to remain locked in bloody conflict rather than to engage in dialogue, recognizing the great deal they have in common. This is willful ignorance. In fierce contrast to willful ignorance, higher ignorance is an acquired state enhanced by religion. Those traveling the path to higher ignorance recognize faith teachings (such as the Bible) as poetry intended to promote contemplation, interpretation, and a sense of wonder. For evidence of religion’s deeply embedded rejection of singular truth and its acceptance of diverse dialogue, Carse looks to the many faces of Jesus presented in the books of the Bible and elsewhere. Uncontaminated by belief systems, religion rejects the imagined boundaries that falsely divide people and ideas, working to expand horizons. The Religious Case Against Belief exposes a world in which religion and belief have become erroneously (and terrifyingly) conflated. In strengthening their association with powerful belief systems, religions have departed from their essential purpose as agencies of higher ignorance. Carse uses his wideranging understanding of religion to find a viable and vital path away from what he calls the Age of Faith II and toward open-ended global dialogue. Far from abstract philosophical musing, The Religious Case Against Belief is required reading for our age. (shrink)

Although women’s words account for a small portion of biblical scripture, the Bible records two related prayerful songs that were sung by female prophets: the song of Hannah, in the Old Testament, and the Magnificat of Mary, in the New Testament. This essay uses typological methodology to explore the songs’ connections, including their shared literary precedents and nearly identical theological themes. Their fundamental similarities suggest Hannah’s song served as a harbinger of the Magnificat. Hannah and Mary’s shared blessing, divinely (...) ordained motherhood, and their shared inspiration, the Holy Spirit, explain the parallels of their prayerful verses and prophetic utterances, which were of great relevance for both covenants of the Judeo-Christian faith. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A RETURN TO THE SUBJECT: THE THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF CHARLES TAYLOR'S SOURCES OF THE SELF JAMES J. BUCKLEY Loyola College Baltimore, Maryland ECENT THEOLOGIANS have widely argued (or pve-. sumed) that modernity's 1turn to the subject creates deep p11ohlems for imagining, thinking about, or enacting who we m'e. These theologians do not aJwaJ"s agree on what constitutes "modernity." And they ra11e!ly agree on the 'alternative to " the (...) turn to the :subject.'' That is, some theologians airgue or presume that the turn from the subject ought to he baiekwa:rid, retrieving our sou11ces prior to what Vatican II and others c:a:lrl "the modeTn world;" others argue o'l.' presume tha:t the turn ought be forwavd to "post-modernity," either accommodating ourseh11es to the decentered selves of the post-modern secular avant garde or proclaiming the strange, new wo1'1d of the Bible. Hut neo-Augustinians and Thomists, liberation theologians and pragmatists, Wittgensrteinians and Barthians all roughly agree (in spite of deep disagx,eements) that we need to turn from the subject;1 Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity is a massivie challenge to these presumptions and argument1s.2 It is, we might s'ay, a call to re-turn to the :subjeict-;hut quwlified this time by a gl'e3.1ter sense of this subject 'is historiml context in the Enlightenment and Romantioism 1 For a summary of critiques of different turns to the subject, see David H. Kelsey, "Human Being," in Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks, ed. Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King, Second Edition (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985 [Firnt Edition, 1982]), Chapter 6. 2 Charles Taylor Sources of the Sdf: The Making of the JJiodern Identity (Harvard University Press, 1989), referred to in the body of this essay by page numbers in parentheses. 497 498 JAMES J. BUCKLEY a1s weU.as this subject's constant ternptaition to undermine the very world it mak!es. A rea1der's response to the book wilil depend not only on how one rea1ds Taylor (e.g., does he under- or over-qualify his ca11 to return to Lhe subject?) but also on where the reader finds heriseilf on the tlieological spectrum. However, the fact that T.aylor',s book has been greeted with critical enthusiasm by both theologiical 'agnostics and contempomry Augustinians and Thomists suggests tha1t it is a book whose power and scope will resonabe with very different sort1s of men and women.3 My aim here is not to summarize or 1 assess the riches of this book. Soumes of the Self is a book of such clarity, power, and 1scope that lit will takce some 1 time for rea;ders (or, ak least, this reader) fo absorb it a;nd to respond :to Taylor adequateJy. My aim is much more modest, nameJy, to pursue some of the connections between Tayl:or's proposal and theology. These connections vv:i.11 suggest some chores Taylor has discoveil'ed or crea;ted for theoilogians. I rea:lize that I risk doing an injustice to a book by a philosopher, not a theologian. Tayfor is candid about hls own theologica1l convictions, while not pretending fully to ddend or evcen fully expl~ca:te those convictions. Nonetihe1ess, I wiill show tha:t his theses challenge n1any of us in ways tha:t justify a foous on theo1ogica,l isisues.Je objecition to. Tayloi; rightly speaks of the "anti-humanism of much evange[ieail rie~ ligion today," bu:t I be1ievie he is mistaken when he fails to 1.2 He carefully distinguishes neo-Nietzscheans like Lyotard, Derrida, and even Foucault, from Nietzsche himself, who had a kind of "saving inconsistency " (489) in his simultaneous affirmation and denial of a " sense of the magnificent, of the categorically affi.rmable, of the infinitely worthy of love " (453). ON CHARLES TAYLOR 509 qualify lthis "murch" and also when he caMs "figures like Cardina1l Ra:tzinger" anti-humanistic (318). He!thinks that abortion debrutes a're not so murch deep disagreements as they are exceptionail disagreements that only provie h0:w suhs1tantial our agreements are (515). But Taylor... (shrink)

In this first original collection of essays on Catholic Biblical Ethics ever done in English, renowned Jesuit moral theologian James Keenan brings together distinct voices from numerous cultures and language groups. The result is a volume representing a truly global community of Catholic ethics scholars. The Bible and Catholic Theological Ethics deepens contemporary understandings of the relationship between the Holy Bible and the world of Catholic ethical reflection. Like the four other books in the prestigious CTEWC (...) Series, this volume aims at offering a more systematic, comprehensive, and global perspective than typical Anglo-centric or North American-focused offerings. (shrink)

THE SOCRATIC ELENCHUS has the potentiality of occasioning a fundamental reorientation in an individual's values which, using Callicles' image, might even be likened to a moral conversion. In this connection the question arises, what does the individual who would remake himself morally do regarding his past? Should he, for instance, condemn his prior life? Excuse it? Ignore it? It appears that self-blame would be a very natural response on the part of the morally serious person toward the life he led (...) previous to the radical reorientation in his values. I claim that self-blame constitutes an unnoticed problem in the Socratic project of inducing men to pursue virtue. In what follows I sketch out this problem and investigate whether the doctrines commonly associated with Socrates afford him the resources for meeting it. My thesis is that to understand the Socratic treatment of the problem of self-blame we must add to the moral theory traditionally counted as Socratic. But like many would-be innovations, this one turns out to have been before our eyes all along, for it is possible to show that one of the formulations of the Socratic Paradox maps quite satisfactorily onto the terms of the problem of self-blame. Thus, the addition I propose we make to Socratic moral theory is not a new doctrine but a new interpretation of an old doctrine, one which renders a paradox perhaps a little less paradoxical. (shrink)

James VI and I united the crowns of England and Scotland. His books are fundamental sources of the principles which underlay the union. In particular, his Basilikon Doron was a best-seller in England and circulated widely on the Continent. Among the most important and influential British writings of their period, the king's works shed light on the political climate of Shakespeare's England and the intellectual background to the civil wars which afflicted Britain in the mid-seventeenth century. James' (...) political philosophy was a moderated absolutism, with an emphasis on the monarch's duty to rule according to law and the public good. Locke quoted his speech to parliament of 1610 approvingly, and Hobbes likewise praised 'our most wise king'. This edition is the first to draw on all the early texts of James' books, with an introduction setting them in their historical context. (shrink)

It may come as a surprise to some, but the Bible has a great deal to say about the environment and its conservation some 20 centuries since it was written. Perhaps among the most surprised will be Bible-toting church goers who may have never heard a sermon related to the "environmental crisis" which has become such a concern to so many around the world. This lack of attention by Christians is especially perplexing since many of our environmental problems (...) are rooted in the Christian faith, according to some scholars. However, by examining the doctrine of Christianity, the basic text of the faith, the Bible, we find an entirely different message. The purpose of this discussion is to present the entire portion of Scripture which relates to environmental principles whereby we may develop a Bible-based, 21st Century prescription of environmental conservation. Some 2,463 verses have been topically organized into nine sections. Four appendices present the full-text of this collection in addition to selected hymns, which have been instrumental in teaching the truths of Scripture over the years. This compilation of verses constitutes approximately eight percent of the Bible. The Authorized Version, also known as the King James Version, was used in the preparation of this collection due its widespread distribution and influence since 1611. Based on the Bible, Christianity’s positive contribution to environmental conservation is consistent with its positive contributions to other fields such as literature, art, music, education, health, and science. (shrink)

Richetti finds Locke, Berkeley, and Hume to be appropriate for a literary study on his claim that for these three philosophers writing was itself a special problem. Since their works were still addressed to a general, not a professional audience, each gave much consideration to the manner of the presentation of his thought, attempting to close the emerging gap between literary creation and technical writing. Further, because these authors dealt in the abstruse, sometimes in the paradoxical, finding a literary voice (...) that establishes community with the reader without abandoning the demands of philosophic discourse posed a sizable challenge. (shrink)

Starting in the mid-seventies down through 1991, John Rawls made Kant the centerpiece of his undergraduate ethics course. Class notes prepared and updated by Rawls or by his assistants were made available privately to students. Barbara Herman has edited and published those notes and added two lectures on Hegel based on Rawls’ personal notes. The result is quite suitable for use as a textbook on Kant’s ethics.

In 1941 Norman Kemp Smith argued that Hume was not a sceptic but a proponent of a doctrine of natural belief. He supported this thesis by saying that Hume embraced Hutcheson's doctrine of the the subordination of reason to passion in the area of morals and extended it to all matters of belief. Against this unified interpretation Norton contends that there are in effect two Humes: a sceptic in matters of belief but not a sceptic in moral matters. Norton develops (...) his interpretation through historical research on the problems to which Hume was responding in his philosophical writings. The first Hume opposed the Hobbesian negation of real moral standards with his positive, commonsense based moral theory; the second Hume opposed the dogmatisms of his day with a thoroughgoing philosophical scepticism. (shrink)

In 1611 the King James Bible was printed with minimal annotations, as requested by King James. It was another of his attempts at political and religious reconciliation. Smaller, more affordable, versions quickly followed that competed with the highly popular and copiously annotated Bibles based on the 1560 Geneva version by the Marian exiles. By the nineteenth century the King James Bible had become very popular and innumerable editions were published, often with emendations, (...) long prefaces, illustrations and, most importantly, copious annotations. Annotated King James Bibles appeared to offer the best of both the Reformation Geneva and King James Bible in a Victorian context, but they also reignited old controversies about the use and abuse of paratext. Amid the numerous competing versions stood a group of Victorian scholars, theologians and translators, who understood the need to reclaim the King James Bible through its Reformation heritage; they monumentalized it. (shrink)

Although many portions of this book have been published previously, their collection here, with some re-editing by the author, is valuable not only because the journals and studies in which they appeared are unlikely to be accessible but because they combine to make a smooth flowing, unified and well written book. Hart's mastery of the entire opus is as befits an editor in the new series of Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. His focus on jurisprudence and philosophy of law affords (...) both a wealth of information about Bentham's under-appreciated contributions, and the insights of the foremost contemporary expositor of this emerging discipline. The book also includes a critical assessment of the work of recent writers in the field--e.g., Lyons, Hacker and of course Dworkin. (shrink)

In addition to complexity deriving from the notion of the possibility of a ‘better world,’ the anti-theist argument from evils may possess the appearance of greater effectiveness than critical analysis should recognize it. If the moral language employed in the argument is accepted according to some forms of emotive, intuitive or theonomous interpretations, the so-called problem will vanish - and the question of the existence or nonexistence of God (so far as it is thought to depend on this argument) will (...) be found to be settled, or at least appear settled, on the grounds simply of the usages involved. If it is stated in utilitarian language, on the other hand, the problem of evil has the logical status of a genuine problem. Since we are to affirm that the question: Is it evil that there are evils? is a legitimate question, we shall do best, I believe, to interpret the question in utilitarian language. So interpreted, the problem is such that both the theist and anti-theist should have to work at proving their respective claims regarding the evils in the world. Whether either should ever succeed, it seems that the meta-ethician will profit by analyzing the language in which the attempt (more strenuous for the theist, I should think) will be made. (shrink)

Whether the sensible knave can take pride in herself is a question not merely curious but potentially devastating for Hume's moral theory. Hume assuredly classifies knavery a vice, but given his doctrine that it belongs to virtue to produce pride, then if she can take pride in herself qua knave, the knave is positioned to claim that knavery is, and ought to be recognized as, a virtue. And if this is true, then either Hume is mistaken to have classified knavery (...) as a vice or, if he is not mistaken, his moral theory yields incoherencies— the same quality being both a virtue and a vice. (shrink)

The uncertainty response adds an important new dimension to conventional animal learning and memory studies. Although the uncertainty response by monkeys and dolphins resembled that of humans, parsimony alone does not necessarily indicate that the monkeys and dolphins had a full self-awareness. However, the uncertain response may be an index of an evolutionary precursor to full self-awareness of uncertainty and a theory of mind.

Current scholarship has focused on analyzing how Arendt's storytelling corresponds to her political arguments. In following up this discussion, I offer a closer examination of the unusual myth Arendt uses to explain the condition of the modern age, a myth she refers to as the ?political nature of history.? I employ literary terms along with the standard vocabulary of political theory in shaping this reading of Arendt. Following Robert C. Pirro, I also consider Arendt's story as a tragedy, but in (...) the broadest sense, that of a collision of two goods, freedom and security. By describing Arendt's thought in this manner, I hope to reveal another way in which Arendt represents the call to action that she believes so crucial to humanity, as a summons to we flawed antiheroes through the device of a heroic myth. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:32. HUME'S CLASSICAL THEORY OF JUSTICE1 Let me begin by formulating a broad distinction between two sorts of theories of justice. I shall stipulate that a modern theory of justice is one which treats justice as a moral quality, in fact as one moral quality among a multitude of moral virtues, and which accordingly takes the obligation tö' be just as pre-eminently a moral obligation. On this approach the (...) philosophical appreciation of justice requires that we interpret it in terms of a moral theory, and correspondingly any viable moral theory is expected to afford a framework within which the virtue of justice is to be understood. The important philosophical question to be asked about justice concerns the moral obligation to abide by the conventions and rules of justice. By a classical theory of justice I mean one which treats this quality not as one moral virtue among many others but as fundamental to morality itself. Here justice would have to be explained before one could develop a satisfactory account of morality. Questions about the moral obligation of justice are on this approach not as important philosophically as questions about the basis of justice itself. The modern and the classical theories are distinguished by the relationship each posits between justice and morality. In the modern approach, the account one offers of morality conditions the account one can offer of justice, while in the classical theory the account one offers of justice conditions the account one can offer of morality. As exemplifying a classical theory of justice one might cite Plato's Republic or, closer to the present topic, Hobbes' De Homi ne. While there seems to be no definitive interpretation of Hobbes ' overall moral and political theories, in this work he maintains that the development of a settled morality is subsequent to the establishment of civil society and therein, of course, also of the order of justice. The following passage from the De Homine shows how the order 33. of civil justice plays a foundational role relative to the moral order. Eut whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate and aversion, evil; and of his contempt, vile and inconsiderable. For these words of good, evil, and contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common rule of good and evil, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from the person of the man, where there is no commonwealth; or, in a commonwealth, from the person that representeth it; or from an arbitrator or judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the rule thereof. 2 Attributing to Hobbes the view that the account one gives of justice and the civil order conditions and serves as a necessary presupposition to the account one can give of a settled morality permits us to count Hobbes among those thinkers who have offered a classical theory of justice. Because Hume seems in so many ways to deserve the appellation of thoroughly modern philosopher, it is not surprising that he is naturally construed as sharing in the modern conception of justice. I want to argue that this way of interpreting Hume is mistaken and that he is in fact a classical theorist of justice. I shall contend, furthermore, that getting clear about the kind of theory of justice Hume offers allows us to resolve a problem in his moral theory—specifically a problem relating to the correction of the moral judgment. In view of these aims, the paper has three parts: (1) investigation as to what kind of theory of justice Hume offers; (2) exploration of a quandary inherent in the modernist interpretation which serves as an objection to the thesis of this paper; and (3) resolution of this objection and conclusion as to the character of Hume's theory of morality. At the end I shall explore a few corollaries 34. of the thesis that Hume is a classical theorist of justice. 1. Hume: A Classical Theorist of Justice There are... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:53 HUME ON ARTIFICIAL LIVES with a Rejoinder to A.C. Maclntyre The variety of human cultures fascinated Enlightenment thinkers and evoked certain problems for philosophical discussion. Wide experience of other societies, as well as the study of history, disclosed moral systems interestingly different from modern European mores. Also a student of other cultures, historical and contemporary, David Hume is a moderate pluralist on the matter of alternative moral systems. (...) He acknowledges that there are systems of values other than that shared by his readers which qualify as moralities; but more interestingly, he also holds that there are some such systems which, despite the claims of their adherents, fail to qualify as moralities. Thus Hume opposes forms of relativism that allow any system which a community deems to be a moral code has to be acknowledged as constituting a genuine morality. In this paper I address the question of how Hume can discriminate among value systems and declare some to be moralities, some not. Given the design of his philosophical approach to morals, addressing this question is a matter of some importance for Hume, since he maintains that moral reflection takes its departure from everyday moral beliefs and sentiments. This being the case, we might expect that what should count as 'everyday moral beliefs and sentiments' would be whatsoever any individual or group puts forward as a morality, and that Hume's pluralism impedes him from raising a critical challenge to any system advanced, no matter how strange it might be. But Hume holds that certain systems advanced for the guidance of life which are sharply opposed to 54 everyday beliefs and sentiments do not constitute a morality, even if they number many as adherents. It is instructive to observe that A.C. Maclntyre believes that Hume's position is deeply flawed. He asserts that the treatment of rival tables of the virtues constitutes a most serious weakness in Hume's 2 theory of morals. Maclntyre contends that Hume's spurning of the monkish virtues, for instance, or his preference of Cicero's Offices over the Christian Whole Duty of Man, is devoid of theoretical justification and amounts to a matter of personal idiosyncrasy and eighteenth-century class elitism. Thus this seems a problem worthy of discussion. In what follows I shall: (a) lay out the problem of artificial lives as it arises in A Dialogue; (b) describe five points of differentiation between artificial lives and nonartificial lives; (c) review some less than fully satisfactory solutions to the problem; (d) introduce what I take to be the chief considerations supporting Hume's rejection of artificial lives; and finally (e) discuss whether Maclntyre 's objections to Hume's treatment of artificial lives are sustainable. 1. The Context of the Problem Hume deals with diversity of morals most expressly in A Dialogue, the short work appended to the second Enquiry. The essay records an exchange between one Palamedes, a lover of the novel and the striking, and his interlocutor, referred to merely as "I". Palamedes confounds the interlocutor by narrating a story about a distant people (the inhabitants of 'Fourli") whose mores include practices, apparently deemed moral by them, which sharply offend his, and presumably our, moral A sensibilities. Having elicited the interlocutor's 55 felt disapproval of those practices, Palamedes delights in revealing that the people of whom he has been speaking in cloaked terms are none other than the interlocutor's beloved Greeks of classical antiquity. Not satisfied with astonishing the interlocutor, he goes on to draw a strongly relativist conclusion about morals in general. The interlocutor confronts the choice of either abandoning his moral admiration of the civilization of the Greeks or of accepting some measure of the relativism in morals that Palamedes is advocating. The interlocutor does neither. He distinguishes between the principles of moral approbation or disapprobation and specific examples of approval or disapproval (E 333). He grants that there are examples of practices of which the ancients apparently approved and contrariwise we disapprove, but he denies that the existence of some such instances warrants the serious sort of relativism that Palamedes would foist on him. Obviously the number of such discrepancies cannot be overwhelming, otherwise the... (shrink)

The following essay involves a discussion of four theories about lying and their application to a specific circumstance, the Nazi-Jew situation, as found in Kant, Aquinas, Pruss, and Guervin. By examining their thoughts on this particular situation, we may draw out, by the use of “right reason,” ways to handle everyday situations that causes us to face the tragic choice between two goods that lying presents. The argument is that, if approached in a certain way, the tragic choice lying presents (...) may be avoided. (shrink)