In the first book wholly concerned with divine authority, Mark C. Murphy explores the extent of God's rule over created rational beings. The author challenges the view—widely supported by theists and nontheists alike—that if God exists, then humans must be bound by an obligation of obedience to this being. He demonstrates that this view, the "authority thesis," cannot be sustained by any of the arguments routinely advanced on its behalf, including those drawn from perfect being theology, metaethical theory, normative (...) principles, and even Scripture and tradition. After exposing the inadequacies of the various arguments for the authority thesis, he develops his own solution to the problem of whether, and to what extent, God is authoritative. For Murphy, divine authority is a contingent matter: while created rational beings have decisive reason to subject themselves to the divine rule, they are under divine authority only insofar as they have chosen to allow God's decisions to take the place of their own in their practical reasoning. The author formulates and defends his arguments for this view, and notes its implications for understanding the distinctiveness of Christian ethics. (shrink)

After the Human explores how the strategies and methods of scientific as well as humanistic inquiry are converging to construct a relational view of the world. It evaluates Einstein's theory of relativity, quantum theory, information theory, cognitive neuropsychology, and evolution alongside the history of modern western philosophy, arguing that presumptions such as human exceptionalism and individualism are not only out of sync with scientific knowledge but also root causes of the critical issues facing the world--climate change, machine intelligence, ideological political (...) oppositions. How to think beyond anthropocentrism and binary oppositions--human/animal, sacred/profane--and acknowledge ourselves as entangled parts of larger ecologies is the aim of the book. The distinctive character of the book is its wealth of scientific insight; the opening chapter reveals the complex worlds of dirt, water, air, and fire and how humans have deformed them beyond recognition. Extraordinary advances in technology, with their promise of furthering a global village, have been derailed by economic individualism and hierarchy, prefigured in the atomism of Descartes and Newton. Not until Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg introduced relativity and quantum mechanics--less than a century after Hegel first proposed his dialogical worldview--did a relational account of reality begin to develop. The study of the natural world revealed a micro-universe of relations in which organisms and environments constantly adapt to one another; as Lynn Margulis puts it, "life is a verb," webs and networks of intelligences and emotions communicating within and across species and nonbiological life forms including AI. We have only to change not the world but how we see ourselves in it. (shrink)

In ancient China, a revered Taoist sage named Zhuangzi told many parables. In Existential Psychology and the Way of the Tao, a selection of these parables will be featured. Following each parable, an eminent existential psychologist will share a personal and scholarly reflection on the meaning and relevance of the parable for psychotherapy and contemporary life. The major tenets of Zhuangzi's philosophy are featured. Taoist concepts of emptiness, stillness, Wu Wei (i.e. intentional non-intentionality), epistemology, dreams and the nature of reality, (...) character building in the midst of pain, meaning and the centrality of relationships, authenticity, self-care, the freedom that can come from one's willingness to confront death, spiritual freedom, and gradations of therapeutic care are topics highlighted in this book. (shrink)

Where does my body begin? Where does it end? What is inside my body? What is outside? What is primary? What is secondary? What is natural? What is artificial? Science fiction has long imagined a future fusion of humanity with technology. Today, many of us—especially people with health issues such as autoimmune diseases—have functionally become hybrids connected to other machines and to other bodies. The combination of artificial intelligence with implants, transplants, prostheses, and genetic reprogramming is transforming medical research and (...) treatment, and it is now also transforming what we thought was human nature. Mark C. Taylor identifies this process as “intervolution” and explores how it is weaving together smart things and smart bodies to create new forms of life. Our wired bodies are no longer freestanding individuals, but interconnected nodes in worldwide networks. Recognizing this transformation overturns deeply entrenched distinctions and oppositions between minds and bodies. Intervolution reveals that we are already cyborgs, integral cogs in what will become a superorganism of bodies and things. (shrink)

In Robust Ethics, Erik Wielenberg criticizes all theistic ethical theories that explain creaturely value in terms of God on the basis that all such formulations of theistic ethics are committed to the denial of the existence of creaturely intrinsic value. Granting Wielenberg’s claim that such theistic theories are committed to the denial of creaturely intrinsic value, this article considers whether theists should take such a denial to be an objectionable commitment of their views. I argue that theists should deny the (...) existence of creaturely intrinsic value, and that such a denial is not an objectionable commitment of theism. (shrink)

Mark C. Murphy addresses the question of how God's ethics differs from human ethics. Murphy suggests that God is not subject to the moral norms to which we humans are subject. This has immediate implications for the argument from evil: we cannot assume that an absolutely perfect being is in any way bound to prevent the evils of this world.

I offer a reading of the role of freedom in Descartes’ Meditations and other writings that sees freedom’s role in “assenting to ideas” as a matter of psychological possibility, and its role in acti...

The desert has long been a theme in Mark C. Taylor’s work, from his inquiries into the religious significance of Las Vegas to his writings on earthworks artist Michael Heizer. At once haunted by absence and loss, the desert, for Taylor, is a place of exile and wandering, of temptation and tribulation. Bones, in turn, speak to his abiding interest in remnants, ruins, ritual, and immanence. Taylor combines his fascination in the detritus of the desert and its philosophical significance (...) with his work in photography in Mystic Bones. A collection of remarkably elegant close-up images of weathered bones—remains of cattle, elk, and deer skeletons gathered from the desert of the American West—Mystic Bones pairs each photograph with a philosophical aphorism. These images are buttressed by a major essay, “Rubbings of Reality,” in which Taylor explores the use of bones in the religious rituals of native inhabitants of the Western desert and, more broadly, the appearance of bones in myth and religious reality. Meditating on the way in which bones paradoxically embody both the personal and the impersonal—at one time they are our very substance, but eventually they become our last remnants, anonymous, memorializing oblivion—Taylor here suggests ways in which natural processes can be thought of as art, and bones as art objects. Bones, Taylor writes, “draw us elsewhere.” To follow their traces beyond the edge of the human is to wander into ageless times and open spaces where everything familiar becomes strange. By revealing beauty hidden in the most unexpected places, these haunting images refigure death in a way that allows life to be seen anew. A bold new work from a respected philosopher of religion, Mystic Bones is Taylor’s his most personal statement of after-God theology. (shrink)

Although the commonly accepted view is that there are such things as natural talents, more than 20 years of research suggests the opposite. What passes for talented is attributable to a combination of social and environmental factors. If the current research on this topic holds true, then there are implications not only for various theories of distributive justice, but there are also serious implication for real world distributions. In this article I will argue that talent is not innate and that (...) our belief in its innateness has serious theoretical and practical implications for distributive justice. Many of these implications can be seen in the ways resources and opportunities are distributed; particularly in the way they affect distributions to children. (shrink)

Does God's existence make a difference to how we explain morality? Mark C. Murphy critiques the two dominant theistic accounts of morality--natural law theory and divine command theory--and presents a novel third view. He argues that we can value natural facts about humans and their good, while keeping God at the centre of our moral explanations.

Integrating victim precipitation theory with the belongingness perspective of work meaningfulness, this study investigates the interplay among employee perceived overqualification, peer overqualification, and peer ostracism and examines how peer ostracism, in turn, leads to subsequent reduced work meaningfulness. In Study 1, a time-lagged field study of 282 employees, we found that employees who felt overqualified, while working with peers who were less overqualified, experienced more ostracism, which was associated with reduced levels of work meaningfulness. These findings were replicated in Study (...) 2, using time-lagged multi-source data collected from 300 employees working in 51 teams. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings and identify directions for future research. (shrink)

This article examines morality and divine authority in the context of the question of whether God – that is, God's existence, nature, or activity – explains morality. It begins with some clarifying remarks about the meaning of ‘God’, ‘morality’, and ‘explains’. The article then evaluates the Theistic Explanation of Morality: for every moral fact, there is some fact about God that explains it. Defences of this thesis might appeal to rather different sorts of relationship between moral and theistic facts, and (...) some of those differences are discussed. (shrink)

Throughout his excellent book One Body, Alex Pruss relies upon the view that there is a requirement of universal love: each and every one of us is required to love each and every one of us. Although he often appeals to revealed truth in making arguments for his various theses, he supports the requirement of universal love primarily through a philosophical argument, an argument that I call the “argument from responsiveness to value.” The idea is that all persons bear a (...) sort of nonrelational value, and because this value gives every agent reasons to respond to it positively, each and every person is bound to love each and every person. The aim of this paper is to criticize this argument. Pruss’s argument has two important gaps, one concerning the sort of reasons that the value of persons gives and one concerning whether the required response is the response of love. (shrink)

I want to begin by expressing misgivings about a standard way of making out a claim for the dependence of morality on God, misgivings that I do not have about a somewhat less standard way of arguing for this dependence. I will then consider a guiding maxim for how to proceed along this less standard way, a maxim that I draw from Suárez’s account of the relationship between divine activity and the activity of secondary causes. I then sketch one way (...) of conceiving the dependence of morality on God that fits well with this Suarezian maxim. (shrink)

Vaccine mandates can take many forms, and different kinds of mandates can implicate an array of values in diverse ways. It follows that good ethics arguments about particular vaccine mandates will attend to the details of individual policies. Furthermore, attention to particular mandate policies—and to attributes of the communities they aim to govern—can also illuminate which ethics arguments may be more salient in particular contexts. If ethicists want their arguments to make a difference in policy, they should attend to these (...) kinds of empirical considerations. This paper focuses on the most common and contentious vaccine mandate reform in the contemporary United States: the elimination of nonmedical exemptions (NMEs) to school and daycare vaccine mandates. It highlights, in particular, debates about California's Senate Bill 277 (SB277), which was the first successful recent effort to eliminate NMEs in that country. We use media, secondary sources, and original interviews with policymakers and activists to identify and evaluate three ethics arguments offered by critics of SB277: parental freedom, informed consent, and children's rights to care and education. We then turn to one ethics argument often offered by advocates of SB277: harm prevention. We note, however, that three arguments for mandates that are common in the immunization ethics literature—fairness/free-riding, children's rights to vaccination, and utilitarianism—did not play a role in debates about SB277. (shrink)

OSNE is an annual forum for new work in normative ethical theory. Leading philosophers advance our understanding of a wide range of moral issues and positions, from analysis of competing normative theories to questions of how we should act and live well. OSNE will be an essential resource for scholars and students working in moral philosophy.

Children’s Rights and Moral Parenting offers systematic treatment of a variety of issues involving the intersection of the rights of children and the moral responsibility of parents.

"_The Moment of Complexity_ is a profoundly original work. In remarkable and insightful ways, Mark Taylor traces an entirely new way to view the evolution of our culture, detailing how information theory and the scientific concept of complexity can be used to understand recent developments in the arts and humanities. This book will ultimately be seen as a classic."-John L. Casti, Santa Fe Institute, author of _Gödel: A Life of Logic, the Mind, and Mathematics_ The science of complexity accounts (...) for that inscrutable mix of chaos and order that governs our natural world. Complexity explains how networks emerge and function, how species organize into ecosystems, how stars form into galaxies, and how just a few sequences of DNA can account for so many different life forms. Recently, the idea of complexity has taken the worlds of business and politics by storm. The concept is used to account for phenomena as varied as the behavior of the stock market, the response of voting populations, and the effects of risk management. Even Disney has used complexity theory to manage crowd control at its theme parks. Given the startling development of new information technologies, we now live in a moment of unprecedented complexity, an era in which change occurs faster than our ability to comprehend it. With _The Moment of Complexity_, Mark C. Taylor offers a timely map for this unfamiliar terrain opening in our midst, unfolding an original philosophy through a remarkable synthesis of science and culture. According to Taylor, complexity is not just a breakthrough scientific concept, but the defining quality of the post-Cold War era. The flux of digital currents swirling around us, he argues, has created a new network culture with its own distinctive logic and dynamic. Drawing on resources from information theory and evolutionary biology, Taylor explains the operation of complex adaptive systems in social and cultural processes and captures a whole new zeitgeist in the making. To appreciate the significance of our emerging network culture, he claims, we need not only to understand contemporary scientific and technological transformations, but also to explore the subtle influences of art, architecture, philosophy, religion, and higher education. _The Moment of Complexity_, then, is a remarkable work of cultural analysis on a scale rarely seen today. To follow its trajectory is to learn how we arrived at this critical moment in our culture, and to know where we might head in the twenty-first century. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Nature does not begin, as we expect, with nature. Instead, Hegel describes the practical and theoretical approaches we make to nature as philosophers; that is, in thought and, metaphorically, with our teeth. This ledge on the climb into nature is often overlooked as we rush from the logic into space and time. There may be two reasons for this. The first is a natural expectation that a philosophy of nature begin by describing natural phenomena, not our approaches (...) to them. The second is that the terms ‘practical’ and ‘theoretical’, familiar from the Logic and Philosophy of Spirit, may seem at first glance to be out of place here. Whatever the reason, these paragraphs have not been discussed at any length in the secondary literature. (shrink)

Thirty hands-on lessons provide students opportunities to learn and practice self-regulation strategies. Students today face many challenges that did not exist a generation or two ago, and rates of emotional disorders (including anxiety and depression) have increased steadily over the years. Students must also manage an overwhelming amount of information. With today’s reliance on technology and social media, they have fewer opportunities to develop effective self-regulation strategies and interpersonal and stress management skills. Helping students understand their emotions and behavior when (...) they’re young will set them on a path to being successful learners and empathetic people throughout their lives. With thirty easy-to-implement, skill-based lessons and activities, Teaching Kids to Pause, Cope, and Connect provides educators with strategies to help students: manage and reduce their anxiety with healthy coping skills understand and regulate physical responses to stress separate emotions from actions respond mindfully (rather than impulsively) to difficult situations improve social skills, social awareness, and self-regulation develop empathy and compassion Digital cont(more...). (shrink)

Kids are experiencing stress at unprecedented levels. But helping them understand their emotions and behavior when they're young will set them on a path to being successful students and empathetic people throughout their lives. With more than seventy easy-to-implement lessons and activities, this book provides educators proven techniques to help students: manage and reduce their anxiety; separate emotions from actions; stop impulsive reactions and respond mindfully to difficult situations; improve social skills, social awareness, and academic performance; and develop empathy.

In _Leviathan Hobbes offers an argument for the conclusion that one is bound to obey one's sovereign even when one judges that obedience to the sovereign's command would require one to disobey a law of God. The basis for Hobbes's argument is his contention that the covenant that institutes sovereignty includes the renunciation of the right to act in accordance with one's private conscience. In this paper I show that Hobbes's argument fails because one that takes the law of the (...) sovereign to be contrary to the law of God should, by Hobbes's lights, see the provision of the covenant requiring renunciation of conscience as void. (shrink)

The journey to the cemetery is always solitary even when I am with people who are closest to me. In the graveyard, the we is dispersed and the I stripped bare." In Grave Matters, Taylor's ghosts become our own.

_Business Ethics: The Big Picture_ asks students to focus on the assumptions underlying the activity of business. Why does society provide special protections for businesses? What is the purpose of a corporation? What do businesses owe society? And are there some things that shouldn’t be distributed by the free market? These questions are addressed through classic readings from such central figures as Adam Smith and Karl Marx, in addition to contemporary selections from Milton Friedman, R. Edward Freeman, Debra Satz, and (...) others. A number of compelling real-world case studies are also included. (shrink)