Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons^™

How Religion, Morality, And Worldview Impact Public Policy, Adam Opp

Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy: Briefs and Commentaries

It is important to examine the intersection between religion, morality, and worldview when analyzing the creation of public policy. Faith and spiritual beliefs play a key role in how an individual behaves as a policymaker and how they view the role of government. Religion considers the critical role of authority, which the government must analyze if the people have given it the authority to take a course of action. Morality asserts that the purpose of government is to maintain a system of justice that protects individual rights. Worldview highlights the framework individuals take in approaching the role of government and …

Safiyyah’ S War (2023) By Hiba Noor Khan & The Grand Mosque Of Paris (2009) By Karen Gray Ruelle & Deborah Durland Desaix, Maughn Rollins Gregory

Middle Grades Books

Suppose that somebody takes over your city and begins harming your friends and neighbors. How do you respond? When is it your responsibility to act, and what kinds of risks should you take? How do these new moral demands change your relations to your neighbors, people in authority, and even your family? How do you stay sane and resolved when your safety is under constant threat? Telling the story of how the Muslim community in Paris risked their lives to save hundreds of Jews when Germany invaded France in World War II, this middle-grades novel and picture book also tell …

Evaluating Bad Theology And Making A Case For The Ethical Priority Of Religious Diversity In Tolkien Studies, Nick Polk

Journal of Tolkien Research

Presented at Oxonmoot in 2024, the aim of this paper is to present a selection of theological Tolkien criticisms for the purpose of evaluating them through practical theologian Leah Robinson’s definition of bad theology. The point is argued that bad theology in Tolkien Studies needs to be identified and understood as unethical and replaced with the openness of theologian John Thatamanil’s criteria for religious diversity. Concluding will be a promotion of religious diversity as an ethical priority and evaluative tool for future theological engagements within Tolkien Studies.

Can Human Rights Be Reconciled With Citizenship: Reconsidering Marx's Zur Judenfrage Today, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay critically re-examines Marx’s youthful analysis of the separation of church and state and his complex views about the function of rights in the modern state. I argue that Marx’s condemnation of Christian nationalism and endorsement of citizenship for Jews is consistent with his view that the modern, secular state cannot emancipate itself entirely from religiosity, as evidenced by the continuing legacy of nationalism and cultural identity politics today. Although Marx correctly follows Hegel in identifying modernity with a structural differentiation between civil society and state, I argue that he misunderstands the nature of this separation and, along with …

Accounting For The Gift: Theology And Ethics In Accounting, Daniel Sebastian

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Accounting is often assumed to be a neutral presentation of the facts of economic activities and actions. Its double-entry system means that it is always in balance and comports to the rigor of mathematical formulas, and it is taken to be a matter of empirical counting that lends it certainty as well. The dissertation argues that this description of accounting is inadequate. Accounting is better seen as a political tool and technology for producing trust that can help resolve social conflicts. As such, accounting is not value-neutral but carries within it a particular sociality that has moral implications. These moral …

Eudaimonist Exemplarism And Saints, Brian C. Clark

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary moral philosophy tends to treat saints as either maximally moral and thus exemplary only for those who share their ideals or as so morally excellent that they are inimitable and “Other.” Thus, the saint is practically useless as a model for plain persons. Moreover, in the case of Christian saints, modern moral theories tend not to account for their religious and theological dimensions. As a remedy, this dissertation argues for thinking about the exemplarity of saints in eudaimonist and theologically naturalist terms. Christian saints exemplify what Christians consider human flourishing, revising natural accounts of human flourishing but preserving the …

Hawthorne’S Human Nature And Sin: Criticisms Of Puritanism And Progressivism, Oscar Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

One of America’s greatest authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in a time of rapid scientific, material, and intellectual advancement. However, unlike many of his peers who went all-in on utopian reform movements, Hawthorne took a cautious and reserved approach to progress even though he supported the idea abstractly. Using six tales written acrossHawthorne’s career, this work will examine what each has to say about Hawthorne’s belief in human nature and why he takes such a skeptical position against movements aiming to fundamentally reshape people and society. The tales from the 1830s, “The Gentle Boy,” “Young Goodman Brown,” and “The Minister’s Black …

James Madison, American Liberalism, And The Problem Of The “Gordian Knot”, Nicholas Marr

Compass: An Undergraduate Journal of American Political Ideas

Federal jurisdiction is virtually unlimited today and the strength and survivability of liberalism, our nation’s animating political philosophy, is hotly debated. These issues are connected and James Madison’s thinking provides some insight into exactly how that might be.

Pluralism As A Social Practice: A Pragmatist Approach To Engaging Diversity In Public Life, Mary Leah Friedline

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation lays a theoretical framework for rethinking the ways in which political and moral philosophers conceive pluralism and diversity in public life. I argue that many philosophers who write on the topic do not have a sophisticated understanding of religion, are not sufficiently attentive to historically produced power differentials, and/or do not adequately recognize the intersectional dimensions of diversity. Building on Jeffrey Stout’s notion of democracy as a social practice, and supplemented with Cornel West’s understanding of democratic faith, I use my more complex account of diversity to argue that pluralism is best approached as a social practice, instead …

Ephesians And Ecumenism, Toby Eisenberg

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Christian ecumenism has made great strides during the twentieth century but is now widely seen as needing a new path. Avery Dulles has proposed an “exchange of gifts” notion of dialogue in which the participant churches share their understanding of the Christian life and all of the reasons they have for holding their particular doctrines and practices, drawing on whatever normative sources they believe are appropriate. The approach enables the participants to bear testimony in love in the hopes that they may better understand and appreciate each other more fully, thereby opening a path to increased doctrinal consensus and thus …

Religious Principles In The Political Views Of Amir Temur, Tulkin Alimardonov

The Light of Islam

This article explores the balance between religion and state in the politics of the great commander and statesman Amir Temur. It is revealed that in his political activities he was an accomplished figure who managed to incorporate Islamic law into the principles of the secular state. It has been studied comparatively that the government has followed the teachings of its teachers in the creation of just instruments and methods, and these religious and philosophical views have served as an important theoretical principle in the development of the country. This political philosophy of Amir Temur’s national statehood as a great historical …

The Moral Argument, Existential Problems Of Evil, And A Non-Existential Alternative, Jonathan Smith

Senior Honors Theses

Within this paper, it is shown that certain ethical assumptions are implicit within the claim that certain kinds of evil exist. When taken in tandem with the moral argument for the existence of God, these assumptions can be arranged in such a way as to provide a contradiction. To avoid this contradiction, I posit a non-existential alternative to direct inductive arguments from evil, but the non-existential alternative gives rise to novel objections. When considering their respective ethical implications, both the existential and non-existential variations of direct inductive arguments fail. Since any direct inductive problem of evil must be either existential …

The Presbyterian Enlightenment: The Confluence Of Evangelical And Enlightenment Thought In British America, Brandon S. Durbin

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Eighteenth-Century British American Presbyterian ministers incorporated covenantal theology, ideas from the Scottish Enlightenment, and resistance theory in their sermons. The sermons of Presbyterian ministers strongly indicate the intermixing of enlightenment and evangelical ideas. Congregants heard and read these sermons, spreading these ideas to the average colonist. This combination helps explain why American Presbyterians were so apt to resist British rule during the American Revolution. Protestant covenantal theology, derived from Protestant reformers like John Calvin and John Knox, emphasized virtue and duty. This covenant affected both the people and their rulers. When rulers failed to uphold their covenant with God, the …

Determinism And The Role Of Moral Responsibility, Justin Edward Edens

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order to solve the apparent incompatibility between moral responsibility and determinism, it is necessary to understand moral responsibility in terms of the function it plays within moral systems, which is highly similar to the role played by laws within judicial systems. By showing that a conception of moral responsibility based upon desert is metaphysically untenable, a function-based conception will be showed to be much more likely. Furthermore, by considering why the desert-based conception has proven so resilient, insight into the moral responsibility/determinism debate may be possible. Lastly, this paper considers whether the problems with this conception can be solved, …

Relational Power, Music, And Identity: The Emotional Efficacy Of Congregational Song, Nathan Myrick

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Relational Power, Music, and Identity: The Emotional Efficacy of Congregational Song

The power of congregational song to unify (or divide) people along various lines is well documented. Yet, how this process of uniting or dividing is accomplished has proven necessarily difficult to document. This paper examines the complex and polyvalent factors that contribute to the meaningfulness of congregational music making, seeking to offer a synthetic, conceptual framework with which to engage this often murky milieu.

Employing interdisciplinary research techniques drawn from sociology, ritual studies, and ethnomusicology, I construct a conceptual framework with which to understand the profoundly formative power of …

Centralization And Its Discontents: Exploring The Relationship Between Measures Of Moral Development, Happiness And Technology Driven, Centralized Ways Of Being, Kirsti Svendsen

Ph.D. Dissertations (Open Access)

This interdisciplinary, qualitative dissertation offers an exploration into possible intimate relationships between recently expanding, technology driven forms of centralization of our social institutions and a supposed decline in moral development and happiness among Americans today.

According to Jacques Ellul, technology in itself is not the problem. Instead, he believes the tragedy is that the new idea or spirit of technique , technical efficiency and economic progress, which may have started with the Industrial revolution, and has become the western world s new "religion", the new salvation for humanity. Ellul and other thinkers suggest that the single-minded focus on material progress …

A Teleological Exploration Of The Plausibility Of Moral Knowledge, Kevin Lebel King Jr.

Masters Theses

Natural selection seems to offer a compelling case for the development of evaluative judgments independent of evaluative facts. If such a case can be made, then how do moral judgments correlate to moral facts? It seems that there would be no tight connection from judgments to truth and moral judgments would be unwarranted. Gilbert Harman realized the implications of a probable non-moral genealogy. Richard Joyce goes on to provide a probable non-moral genealogy that would epistemically undermine moral judgments as Harman thought. Joyce argues that in a naturalistic world natural selection can account for moral judgments, but that the truth …

Prediction Theories Of Law And The Internal Point Of View, Michael S. Green

San Diego Law Review

In my remarks here, I will try to defend Claus’s iconoclastic tone by identifying the important difference between prediction theories of law and Hart’s. I start with a number of distinctions. By a prediction theory of law I mean a theory under which a statement about the law, such as “The Securities Exchange Act is valid law,” is a prediction of the behavior and attitudes of people in a community. In addition to offering this theory, Claus tacks on what I will call a prediction theory of lawmaking, under which the words uttered or written by lawmakers are themselves essentially …

Maker's Breath: Religion, Magic, And The 'Godless' World Of Bioware's Dragon Age Ii (2011), Kristin M.S. Bezio

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

The core conflict of BioWare’s 2011 digital role-playing game Dragon Age II places the Christianesque Chantry in opposition to both the hierarchical Qunari and the Circle of Magi. In Dragon Age II religious beliefs, particularly those of the Chantry, prove destructive; by demonstrating the chaos of religious conflict, the game guides the player to recognize the danger inherent in extremist devotion to religion, and argues that interpersonal relationships should form the basis of our ethics. In Dragon Age II, the player-character, Hawke, is evaluated by each of his (or her) non-player companions; the mechanic forms the basis for a …

Kant's Change Of Heart: Radical Evil And Moral Transformation, Christina Drogalis

Dissertations

In Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (1793), Kant makes the claim that all humans are radically evil, both by nature and through a free choice. This radical evil, which is the state of having a Gesinnung (disposition) that commits oneself to prioritizing incentives of inclination above incentives of duty, throws into question whether humans can ever become morally good. For this reason, many commentators have dismissed the Religion as not cohesive with Kant's corpus and do not consider it to play an important role in his ethical theory, in particular. Contrary to this traditionally-held interpretation, I show in …

A Blueprint For Buddhist Revolution: The Radical Buddhism Of Seno’O Girō (1889–1961) And The Youth League For Revitalizing Buddhism, James Mark Shields

Faculty Journal Articles

In the early decades of the twentieth century, as Japanese society became engulfed in war and increasing nationalism, the majority of Buddhist leaders and institutions capitulated to the status quo. One notable exception to this trend, however, was the Shinkō Bukkyō Seinen Dōmei (Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism), founded on 5 April 1931. Led by Nichiren Buddhist layman Seno’o Girō and made up of young social activists who were critical of capitalism, internationalist in outlook, and committed to a pan-sectarian and humanist form of Buddhism that would work for social justice and world peace, the league’s motto was “carry the …

Historical Perspectives On Attitudes Concerning Death And Dying, David San Filippo Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Beliefs and practices concerning death have changed throughout human history. In pre-modern times, death at a young age was common due to living conditions and medical practices. As medical science has advanced and helped humans live longer, attitudes and responses to death also have changed. In modern Western societies, death is often ignored or feared. Changes in lifestyles and improved medical science have depersonalized death and made it an encroachment on life instead of part of life. This has left many people ill equipped to deal with death when it touches their lives.

Nietzsche’S Aphoristic Turn, Steven Michels

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Nietzsche’s use of the aphorism has most often been taken as evidence of his esotericism. Nietzsche was less than clear in his writings, it is claimed, because he did not want his true teaching to be available to just anyone. This article contends the opposite—that is, that Nietzsche wrote aphoristically for the very purpose of being read, and understood, by the widest possible audience. Moreover, this change in style had a marked impact on the nature of his philosophy. Unburdened by conventional methods, Nietzsche’s critique of modernity became more exact and his own positive philosophy became more radical.

Ethics Of Euthanasia: A Cross Cultural Perspective, Aneesh Goyal

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

The Place Of Religious Argument In A Free And Democratic Society, Robert Audi

San Diego Law Review

This Article provides an account of the notion of a religious argument, distinguishes several roles of religious arguments in a liberal democracy, and defends a set of principles for their proper use in such a society. The author argues that it is appropriate that citizens apply a kind of separation of church and state in their public use of religious arguments, especially in advocating laws or public policies that restrict liberty. More specifically, the author contends that whatever religious arguments one may have in such cases, one should also be willing to offer, and be to a certain extent motivated …

Liberalism, Religion And The Unity Of Epistemology, Larry Alexander

San Diego Law Review

This Article focuses on the relation between liberalism and religion. Professor Alexander argues that liberalism is itself just a sectarian view on the same level as the religious and other views that it purports to be neutral about and to tolerate. The Article shows that liberalism is a rejection of all illiberal religious tenets. It further contends that liberalism cannot make out its case for excluding religious arguments from shaping public policy. It concludes that to the extent liberalism is defined by or rests on the insulation of public policy from religious views, liberalism is undermined by its failure to …

Love And Power: The Rule Of Religion And Morality In American Politics, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

Perry, Michael J. Love and Power: The Rule of Religion and Morality in American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. viii + 218 pp. $29.95

The author's introduces this sequel to his Morality, Politics, and Law as an extended gloss on John Noonan's statement that the "central problem of the legal enterprise is the relation of love to power." The renown of its author ensures that Love and Power will become a focal point in legal academic discussion of its central concern: the proper relation between morality, particularly religious morality, political choice, and public deliberation "in a morally …

Humans And Other Animals: A Biological And Ethical Perspective, Ashley Montagu

Attitudes Towards Animals Collection

What I have been hoping to do in this talk is to provide the scientific basis for the biological kinship of humans with other animals in particular and the whole of nature in general, and to show that the ethical perspective to which such a demonstration leads is inherent in the very nature of nature, that cooperation, love, not conflict and aggression, as we have long been led to believe, is the dominant principle by which living creatures are designed to live with each other. It was not Darwin, but the muscular Darwinists, like Herbert Spencer, who wasn't a biologist …

Is Man's Infliction Of Suffering On Animals Immoral?, Robert Welborn

Attitudes Towards Animals Collection

If it is believed that man is properly in dominion over the earth and that he may do with it and all things on it as he will, then the first definition is sufficient. If generally accepted ideas in man's community are to the effect that man's infliction of suffering on animals is right, then such is not immoral.

If it is believed, however, that life, all life, as it has evolved in its beauty and complexity is the consideration upon which conduct should be judged, then the second definition must apply. Man being the dominant species that consciously and …

The Question Of Atheism And Communism In The Animal Welfare/Rights Movement, Michael W. Fox

Animal Welfare Collection

Just as economics has increasingly been employed as a political weapon, so religion is now being used to further self-serving goals. Agribusiness spokespersons not only use fallacious economic arguments to justify the "factory" farming of animals; they have also stated that any questioning about man's Godgiven right to exploit animals is atheistic, and perhaps an actual affront to God's will. Furthermore, taking an egalitarian attitude toward animals, and proposing that they have rights or should be given equal and fair consideration, is regarded as the inspiration of some covert communist conspiracy that is constantly working to restructure and thereby destroy …