Showing papers on "Morality published in 1970"

Spinoza: Practical Philosophy

Abstract: Spinoza's theoretical philosophy is one of the most radical attempts to construct a pure ontology with a single infinite substance. This book, which presents Spinoza's main ideas in dictionary form, has as its subject the opposition between ethics and morality, and the link between ethical and ontological propositions. His ethics is an ethology, rather than a moral science. Attention has been drawn to Spinoza by deep ecologists such as Arne Naess, the Norwegian philosopher; and this reading of Spinoza by Deleuze lends itself to a radical ecological ethic. As Robert Hurley says in his introduction, "Deleuze opens us to the idea that the elements of the different individuals we compose may be nonhuman within us. One wonders, finally, whether Man might be defined as a territory, a set of boundaries, a limit on existence." Gilles Deleuze, known for his inquiries into desire, language, politics, and power, finds a kinship between Spinoza and Nietzsche. He writes, "Spinoza did not believe in hope or even in courage; he believed only in joy and in vision ...he more than any other gave me the feeling of a gust of air from behind each time I read him, of a witch's broom that he makes one mount. Gilles Deleuze was a professor of philosophy at the University of Paris at Vincennes. Robert Hurley is the translator of Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality.

Violence and the police: A sociological study of law, custom, and morality

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Justice and the Rule of Law

Abstract: Kant’s Metaphysical Elements of Justice (Rechtslehre) is largely devoted to what is surely the basic problem of political ethics: the nature and justification of coercion. And this is a problem which Kant, given his presentation of freedom as the basic value of morality, must come to grips with in a careful way. For Kant’s defence of freedom has in effect been an attempt to establish a formal principle for locating the burden of proof in discussions of coercion. Kant quite clearly believes that freedom does not stand in need of any positive justification, for it is good in itself. Rather it is coercion, bad in itself, which must be defended.1 The burden of proof lies on the man who would interfere with the freedom of another. But this is not yet to say very much of political substance; for, after locating the burden of proof, we still need to know when that burden has been successfully borne by the man who would advocate coercion.

The sexual scene

Abstract: "The new morality" has excited coun-tless public and private, formal and in-formal, scientific and non-scientific, sober and frankly provocative discus-sions. Those aspects related to sexual relationships and sexual behavior and the meaning of our "moral break-down" have been much discussed. The essays in this volume address themselves to a more subtle and po-tentially more meaningful question: What is the extent of deviance from traditional patterns of sexual rela-tionships, and what have been the legal and political implications of widespread transgression of legal and, for many, personal codes or mo-rality? This volume confronts the myths and the realities of the sexual revolution in America. As such it helps explain the limits as well as the goals of a new generation in search of new standards of conduct.

Student activism, moral development, and morality.

Abstract: Book reviewed in this article: A review of recent studies of the development of moral reasoning leads to a paradoxical conclusion about today's worldwide student protest movement. The research suggests optimism about the high level of moral development of many or most student activists, yet what is true for most is not true for all. And even the highest levels of moral reasoning do not alone guarantee truly virtuous behavior.

On Lawful Governments

Abstract: What is the meaning of sentences of the form 'X is the lawful government of the country Y,' and what kinds of statements are normally -made by using them? Most answers to these questions can be classified as legalistic, moralistic, or compromise solutions. The gist of the legalistic approach is that the lawful government is that authorized by the positive law of the land. Critics of the legalistic approach point out that disagreement about the lawful government is not always solved when agreement is reached about the positive law of the land. For example, two people may disagree as to whether the Colonels' Government is the lawful government of Greece, while being in complete agreement that the post-coup law is the positive law of Greece. From this fact, which indeed should be admitted and explained by any theory on the subject, the moralists conclude that the lawfulness of a government is a matter of morality and not of law. It is determined by moral rules, by personal commitments, etc. Those who favor a compromise solution claim that in certain contexts sentences about lawful governments are used to make legal statements, while in other contexts they are used to make moral statements or express moral positions or attitudes. In this paper I will first criticize one moralistic solution, that presented by R. M. Hare, and one compromise solution, the one put forward by J. G. Murphy, and then proceed to formulate and defend a variant of a legalistic position. Professor Hare' accuses previous writers on the topic of committing the sin of descriptivism. All of them assumed that "to explain the meaning of any predicate is to give the criteria or conditions which have to be satisfied by a subject before this predicate is correctly predicated of it" (p. 158). He divides his predecessors into two camps, those who favor non-empirical criteria of lawfulness (e.g., natural law theories, hereditary theories) and those who defend empirical criteria (e.g., might-isright theories, popular sovereignty theories). Non-empirical criteria are rejected because they are too indeterminate and slippery to be of any value in settling concrete disputes about the lawfulness of certain governments. Empirical criteria are rejected because they entail a statement of the form 'The lawful government is the government F' (where F is an empirical predicate), which is an analytic statement. For example, some statement like 'The lawful government is the effective government or the government which enjoys popular support' is analytic according to these theories. According to Hare, however, no statement of the form 'X is the lawful government but is not F' is a contradiction, although some such statements are, perhaps, false. Hare proceeds (pp. 163-64) to examine an ascriptive theory which he imputes to H. L. A. Hart.2 According to this theory, legal sentences are often used to make "inverted commas" state-

The Morality of Deterrence

Abstract: Deterrence, both general and special, is one of the traditionally accepted aims of the criminal law. This article will consider only general deterrence: the deterrent effect of the threat of punishment. This concept will be used in its broad sense, including the so-called moral or educative effects of criminal law,' thus corresponding to the continental term "general prevention." Legislators as well as criminal courts often base their decisions on considerations of general deterrence. But punishment on this ground has been attacked time and again in the literature as unjust. Bittner and Platt, for example, contend that "punishment on the basis of deterrence is inherently unjust. For if an example is made of a person to induce others to avoid criminal actions then he suffers not for what he has done but on account of other people's tendency to do likewise."'2 This criticism, frequently raised, seems to rest on Kant's moral principle that man should always be treated as an end in himself, not only as a means for some other end.3 Ethical questions cannot be conclusively resolved by analysis and

Abortion: Law, Choice and Morality

Abstract: This book reviews the medical, legal, and theological aspects of abortion as they exist in the various parts of the world. In a fourth section, entitled "Implementing a Social Position," Callahan reflects on the way a knowledge of these facts can help both the individual and her counsellor (and society as well) find a more satisfactory solution for unwanted pregnancies than that of abortion. In the medical section, the author reviews the biological and psychological problems leading to requests for abortion, citing the changing frequency and usage of these designations in support of the termination of pregnancy. He then traces the changing attitudes of society as reflected in the legal codes regulating abortion practice. It is of interest to note that several societies (Eastern Europe and Japan) which were the first to develop relatively unrestrictive laws have subsequently moved toward a more restricting position, partly on the basis of a

The Rationality of Morality

Abstract: The rigorous employment of his empirical method led Bergson to the discovery that there are two distinct and irreducible moralities in the life of man — the closed or static, and the open or dynamic These two are not merely different aspects of a single morality since there is a difference of kind between them and not merely one of degree. Bergson traced each of the two moralities to a separate cause: the closed morality to social pressure, the open morality to aspiration. He found the first to be rooted in instinct and habit, and the second in the experience of moral heroes and mystics. Human beings behave as they do morally (I) because nature, acting through society, constrains them to do so, and (2) because certain heroic souls have had visions of a spiritual destiny for man and have inspired them with these visions. Social pressure and aspiration — these are the facts that must be taken into account in any inquiry into the nature and evolution of morality.

The Social Contract and the Idea of Sovereignty in Rousseau

Abstract: An organic character in the work of most great thinkers makes it extremely difficult to isolate a part and explain it without multiple references to the whole. This problem is, I believe, especially acute in the case of Rousseau, and a failure to recognize it is the probable cause of so many unsatisfactory and even absurd interpretations of his basic principles. As he said, "All my ideas hang together, but I cannot expound them all at once."'1 In this article I propose to present some of the interrelations that closely unite Rousseau's ideas on the social contract, sovereignty, moral or political obligation, and on one aspect of the general will. Because of the organic nature of his thought, a comprehensive analysis in article form is impossible. For example, no attempt has been made to include his detailed justifications of the positions given below, and his treatment of various kinds of freedom has been omitted. It is hoped, however, that this article will help the reader to deal more satisfactorily with some of the simplistic interpretations of Rousseau's work. In the religious tradition of the West the idea of sovereignty was well known even if under other terms. God's will, whether interpreted voluntaristically or not, was binding law from which no appeal could be taken. In this sense sovereignty implied legitimacy and morality as distinguished from naked force. By analogy Bodin invested the king with this property. But since the right inherent in the idea of sovereignty seemed too dangerously absolute, he rather unclearly limited it by natural law. With a more rigorous logic Hobbes removed all limitations, though it must be added that he believed that the sovereign would in fact be limited by pragmatic considerations. Since there is no distinction between sovereign de facto and sovereign (le fure, this version reduces moral

Political And Legal Obligation

Abstract: At a point in history marked by dramatic challenges to the existing political and social order, the question of legal and political obligation emerges as a focal point of international concern. Amid the clamor for radical change in the established order, theories of political obligation demand renewed examination. In this volume, eighteen leading specialists in the legal, philosophical, and political science aspects of the question offer their views on this timely topic. Part I examines the nature of moral, legal, and political obligation. The first essay presents a set of definitions that denies the very existence of obligation. While the second essay disagreeing particularly with respect to the relationship of political to moral tenets, and the third discussing the highly complex interplay between law and morality. The following essay approaches obligation as existing in the context of an established political and legal system and stresses the importance of evaluating the negative consequences of challenges to the law as well as those arising from the absence of challenges. The next paper maintains that political obligation is so complex that its very existence depends upon rational deliberation in particular contexts. The fifth, explores four significant theories but accepts only the one based on the broadest definition of obligation. While the final essay in this part considers political obligation a unique and generalized moral obligation. Part II takes up the conditions of obligation and of obedience. The first essay in this part discusses the conditions necessary to generate a "felt obligation." The second paper, concentrates on exposing key obstacles to empirical proof that behavior is or is not motivated by "felt obligation." While the third draws upon a large body of literature and court decisions dealing with compliance to the law. The forth essay is a case study of Rome probes the role of obligation during that city's seven centuries of existence without a police force, and the ultimate breakdown of the system. Against the background of the thinking of Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, and particularly Aristotle, the final essay in this section propounds the theory that any specific form of government has a direct bearing on the obedience of those governed. Part III highlights ethical considerations that arise out of civil disobedience. The first essay proposes a rather restrictive definition of civil disobedience, and then embarks on a surprising examination of his subject in the light of the traditional arguments for "just war." Following that a broader examination of disobedience, emphasizing a contextual approach and applying as a test the likelihood of public good that will result from disobedience is explained in the second paper. The third, points out the inadequacy of many traditional tests and definitions of civil disobedience, and warns against possible oversimplification that conceals significant issues that warrant exposition. While the forth evolves a theory that limits the obligation of alienated residents. Immediately following this the next essay explores civil disobedience in the unusual context of the totalitarian regime. In the final chapter, the essays consider the ideas and thought of Gandhi and their relevance to Western politics. Scholars and students in the areas of law, philosophy, and political science will find this volume a vital addition to their libraries..

The Doomsday Mystery Play: An Eschatological Morality

Abstract: supernatural, or representative characters. Yet these three ways of influence are identical with the key features distinctive of the Doomsday play, the very features that mark it off from the preceding mystery plays. Thus it seems clear that both the Doomsday play and the early moralities were influenced by the same source 25 A third conclusion regarding character development could be drawn: that the Doomsday play developed, by means of anonymous crowds and representative types, the universal character (Everyman) that the moralities were to continue until his typicality was overshadowed by the particularity of o her characters in the moralities. This same character eventually disappeared (along with personifications) into sixteenth-century political allegory and historical drama. See Spivack, pp. 62-63, 93-94. 26 MacKenzie tried to eliminate all inadequate definitions suggested in his day. For instance he opposed E. K. Chambers's contention that all morality characters were abstractions. He also disagreed with A. W. Ward's notion that morality characters are "personified abstractions. . . enforcing a moral truth." MacKenzie also rejected J. P. Collier's claim that such "characters are allegorical, abstract, or symbolical." His own definition discounts God, angels, and individuals as characters in moralities: "A Morality is a play, allegorical in structure, which has for its main object the teaching of some lesson for the guidance of life, and in which the principal characters are personified abstractions or highly universalized types" (pp. 2-9). Craig claims the essential of a morality is "dramatized allegory," but does not clarify what this means (English Religious Drama, p. 338). Spivack stresses the role of the psychomachia as the essence of English moralities (p. 72-73). Salter in his Medieval Drama at Chester (Toronto, 1955) describes a morality as a "play in which all the characters are abstractions" (p. 10). David Bevington tries to capture the genre with this description: "The genre was characterized primarily by the use of allegory to convey a moral lesson about religious or civil conduct, presented through the medium of abstractions or representative social characters" (From Mankind to Marlowe [Cambridge, Mass., 1962], p. 9). Kolve gives no definition but distinguishes moralities from mysteries by the focus of the former on "ethical choice" and the use of representative type characters (pp. 3, 224). 27 In this light, MacKenzie's and Bevington's definitions seem most satisfactory, as long as "religious conduct" and "guidance oflife" are wide enough to include the eschatological dimension. 28 See Owst, pp. 526-45; Craig, English Religious Drama, p. 342; A. P. Rossiter, English Drama from Early Times to the Elizabethans (New York, 1950), pp. 81 ff.; Salter, pp. 1011; Williams, pp. 142 ff. 29 Owst, pp. 526-27, 537-40, 544. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.100 on Thu, 25 Aug 2016 05:33:47 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE DOOMSDAY MYSTERY PLAY 221 (medieval sermons) in the same three ways. This seems more than a hint that they are basically the same type of play. But within dramatic tradition itself, critics are strangely silent about the dramatic sources of morality plays. Some point to a twelfth-century Latin Antichristus play with a few personifications (and no extant consequences) or to lost Paternoster plays that a leading critic has claimed were actually miracle plays.30 If the five elements of the Doomsday play are as cle ly distinctive as I have tried to show (and the influences from sermons corrobora e the evidence), then the puzzle about dramatic sources for the moralities is not a mysterious as cri ics imply. Not that we would be able to prove by documents chron logical causality, but our conclusio s mer ly show that the eschatological all gory of the Last Judgment, as performed in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, held within itself the conditions for the development of a full-fledged morality play. These became actualized within the cycles themselves in the Ludus Coventriae and outside them in the early moralities. But grounding the transition was the play of the Last Judgment, the ultimate in English morality drama. 30 Craig, English Religious Drama, p. 342. Even if it could be shown that the Tegernesee Antichristus play or the Limoges Sponsus influenced English moralities by means of their use of personification, it would still fit in with the general thes s of my article. For both the Sponsus and the Antichristus are eschatological plays. The Sponsus dramatizes a scene from Matt. 25:1-13 which is a symbolic variant on the resurrectionjudgment process; the Antichristus, as Karl Young notes, is based on the "general speculative notion of a battle between God and the devil at the end of time" (The Drama of the Medieval Church [Oxford, 1933], p. 369). The Antichrist is a familiar apocalyptic figure who was given many interpretations, both historical and nonhistorical, in Jewish and Christian theology.

Judicial Doctrines Of Religious Rights In America

Abstract: Centering his study on what the courts have said about religious liberty, Torpey tells the story of the struggle in the courtrooms toward the present situation in America in which church and state are almost completely separated politically, but where the church furthers the morality of the state and the state protects the integrity of any and all churches. Originally published in 1948. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

The Ontological Status of ‘The Living Dead’ in Post Modern African: A Discourse in Existential Metaphysics

Abstract: This paper re-examines the place of the ancestors in post-modern Africa societies. It critically analyses the ontological status of the ‘living-dead’ in pre-colonial Africa society. This is predicated on the incursions/advent of proselytizing religions, nay Christianity and Islam and the force and pace of globalization. It is the contention of this paper that since these religions cum globalization have a lot of converts in Africa, little or no regard is now been paid to the ancestors. This is because most of the converts prefer their new relationships (religion and globalization) instead of venerating their departed, which they now see as belittling and fetish. On the other hand, the civilizing tendencies of Asia and the West, particularly the globalizing forces, like the media and ICT, fostered this high disregard for the ancestors. This paper concludes that since the living don’t even reflect the moral sanctity Africa was once known for, as a result of avarice, consumerism, materialism plus the alluring strings of globalization, the so-called ‘moral paragon’ should be allowed to really rest in peace. Key words : African religion, ancestors, worship, globalization, post-colonial, morality.