K. Whitehead on the Common Good and the Federal Government

Does Paul Ryan Threaten the Common Good? by Kenneth D. Whitehead

CNA: Moral theologians reject Catholic writer's defense of HHS mandate by Benjamin Mann

Paul E. Rorem

Professor Paul E. Rorem, Benjamin B. Warfield Professor of Medieval Church History at Princeton Theological Seminary will be giving a Boston Colloquy in Historical Theology lecture on "Love above Knowledge in the Dionysian Commentaries of Eriugena and Hugh of St. Victor."

The lecture will be held on Thursday, February 8, 2007, in Hovey House Library, Hammond St., 7:30 p.m., Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA.

faculty page
Google Books: Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works - Google Books Result
Oxford University Press: Hugh of Saint Victor: Paul Rorem

I have some notes on this lecture--if I can find them I should type them up...

BC Spring 2007 Philosophy Lecture Series

The Spring 2007 Philosophy Lecture Series is as follows:

** January 29, 5:00pm, Higgins 300: Our own colleague, Mary Troxell (Boston
College): "The Role of the Ideas in Schopenhauer's Metaphysics", with a
commentary by Prof. John Sallis (Boston College)

** February 9, 4:30pm, Higgins 300: Robert Bernasconi (Vanderbilt):
"The Policing of Race Mixing: When Racism Came under the Sway of Biopower."

** Feb 23, 4:30pm, Higgins 300: Claudia Barachi (New School
University): "On Friendship and the Polis"

** March 22, 7:00pm, Cushing 001 (note the change): Dr, Edmund Pelligrino,
(Chairperson Presidential Bioethics Commission): Annual LaBrecque Medical
Ethics Lecture: "Bioethics and Catholic Conscience"
-- followed by Seminar & luncheon, 12:00noon, March 23

** March 30, 4:30pm, Higgins 300: John Caputo (Syracuse University):
" Marion's Line: Overcoming Phenomenology's Neoplatonic Captivity"

** I Also Call Your Attention to: Our 8th Annual Graduate Student
Conference, "On Hegel,"
See website for information: http://fmwww.bc.edu/pl/grad/GradConf/Gradconf07/BC-PhilGrad.html

SCU Dept. of Philosophy News

here

Robert Audi coming to SCU... I don't think SCU will switch away from analytic philosophy back towards the Catholic intellectual tradition any time soon...

Professor Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, will be giving a series entitled, "Emotion and Motivation, Obligation and Virtue," on Tuesdays, Jan. 9th, 16th, 23rd, and 30th, 4-5 pm, Bannan Engineering, Room 325. Co-sponsored by the Dept. of Philosophy & the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Supported in part by the Fagothey Fund. Questions: Contact Janis Davis, jldavis@scu.edu, or David DeCosse, ddecosse @scu.edu.

Paul Hurley, Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Claremont McKenna College, will be the Austin J. Fagothey Professor in Spring quarter 2007. Professor Hurley was in the Dept. of Philosophy at Pomona College from 1988 until 2006. He is a three-time teaching award recipient. His specialties are Ethics, Political Philosophy, and Philosophy of Law.

Jurgen Habermas comes to BC

(source)

(source)

and gives a lecture... I should try to obtain a copy of the lecture, since I could not really follow it, partly due to the nature of the lecture itself, partly due to his accent...

I have not read much of his work, but he does seem to be a liberal and a internationalist... the Philosopher calls him a Marxist. He studied critical theory with Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno.

Illuminations: The Critical Theory Website
SEP entry on critical theory
Critical Theory resources
Horkheimer Archive
Horkheimer and the Philosophy of Education
SEP entry on Adorno
intro to Adorno
mythosandlogos page on Adorno
Adorno bio

Habermas Links:
Dual Layered Time: Reflections on T. W. Adorno in the 1950s
Towards a United States of Europe
Why Europe Needs a Constitution
The European Nation-State and the Pressures of Globalization
The Illusory "Leftist No"
Religion in the Public Sphere (html)
Bruno Kreisky Prize acceptance speech (Andrew Keen's blog entry)
Theorems of Legitimation Crisis
America and the World: A Conversation with Jürgen Habermas
Summary of The Philoosphical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures
wiki
EGS page
Publications
MIT Press
Northwestern page
Time profile
The Jürgen Habermas Web Resource
Habermas links
JH On Society and Politics
Theodor W. Adorno and Jürgen Habermas
The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas
A review of Religion and Rationality
Jürgen Habermas and the Public Sphere
more seconday lit

Jay Wexler, professor of law at BU

Judging Intelligent Design

He was at the Boisi Center last Thursday to give a critique of part of the Dover decision by Judge Jones. Click on link to see abstract, which lays out his major thesis well. Apparently Professor Wexler got a B.A. in East Asian Studies at Harvard. Center for Science and Culture coverage.

1. He didn't address the question of whether the Constitution prevents states from establishing religion--perhaps he goes along with a more centralist interpretation of the Constitution. I suspect it would not have gotten anywhere...

Dalbert (1972?) -- establishes Federal rule of evidence--how is scientific evidence to be presented and weighed, etc.

2. Apparently the court must decide whether there is an agenda of promoting a religion--they need to look at various things and guess. Now, if Christians wanted to promote the teaching of philosophy and "philosophical" proofs for the existence of God (along with the counterproofs) in public schools, would the implementation of that program count as a "violation" of the First Amendment? And how does the court distinguish between religion and philosophical theism? Does an atheist have to be the one advocating such a program? So Christians would not be allowed to advocate the study of their intellectual patrimony in a public school? If this is the case, do we need any more evidence to show that the public schools are not only secular, but hostile to religion and to authentic Western culture, as those in control are being unreasonable?

Malcolm Pringle, who's doing research over at MIT and was present last week for Dr. Behe's talk was also at the lucheon colloquium. He argued that it's the job of science teachers to teach students how to think, not the conclusions.

Uhhuh, give them critical thinking skills. What teacher doesn't emphasize this, especially in a statement of teaching? And what teacher actually has taken a step back to examine whether they have these critical thinking skills, and if they are justified?

What else could critical thinking skills be but the art of logic? And both formal and material logic?
How many people are really qualified to teach logic, as opposed to their own system of drawing conclusions? Can they evaluate the certitude of propositions?

The hypothetical-deductive method surely requires a critical look, along with the principle of falsifiability. Should not one also discuss "scientific" positivism? (If one says this is proper to the philosophy of science and not science I ask then why one should accept the scientific method as it is, and see what sort of fallacious arguments are presented, including the old stand-by of pragmatic value.)

Can it be shown that something that is posited as a formal or efficient cause is insufficient for the task? And can it therefore be evidence that there must be something greater? (But would it be going to far to suggest that this something greater is God? Only if the thing requires something less?) How can one show that the explanation does not meet the principle of sufficient reason?

Principle of sufficient reason
"Principle that there must be a sufficient reason - causal or otherwise - for why whatever exists or occurs does so, and does so in the place, time and manner that it does."

Quentin Smith, A Defense of a Principle of Sufficient Reason

A Restricted Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Cosmological Argument
Alexander R. Pruss

Should secondary schools really be teaching science? And if it's only teaching the "method," and not the conclusions, how does one measure whether a school is doing an adequate job? Standardized tests don't judge critical thinking skills (unless it happens to be something like the logic section of the GRE, which was done away with).

Besides, what if some of the conclusions are actually wrong, though assumed to be true and unchangeable dogma? How does a teacher know if he is guiding a student to a true conclusion, as opposed to the conclusion that he endorses?

Personally I do think public schools should get out of teaching science--there aren't enough qualified individuals to staff all of the public high schools in the United States. (And it is the case that very few academic scientists or research scientists have looked at their method of reasoning critically. This might be left to the philosophers of sciences, but how many scientists pay attention to them?) Better to leave students in ignorance then to indoctrinate them with opinion that is not critically examined and to foster a sense of pride, when they actually don't know that they don't know. But this isn't going to happen, because too many people have a lot at stake.
If they should try to teach anything, it should be logic, but that would still be problematic, since modern logic is so dominant. (As it is, not many public secondary schools teach logic.)

Note: Eric Rothschild's arguments for the plaintiff are not to be found online, as far as I know. Dr. Behe claims that a comparison of those arguments with the decision written by Judge Jones will reveal a lot of "similarities."

Dr. Garcia on virtue-based moral theory

Dr. Garcia gave an outline of virtue-based moral theory, harnessing the opinions of others and engaging them through dialectic to present his own account.

(1) He maintains that it is a fundamental characteristic of a virtue ethics (or, a virtues-based moral theory, which he prefers) that the virtues are basic. All other moral claims are justified and explained on the basis of the virtues.

(2) Now, there are different versions of virtue ethics. Dr. Garcia's version is role-centered, in that role-relationships are fundamental in defining the moral life, and explaining the rest of moral claims.

(3) Also, in his virtues-based moral theory, moral reasoning is patient-focused. That is, it is focused on the needs of the other upon whom I act, not mine. There si an objective element to evaluation; it is not purely subjective.

(4) In addition, in examining action we can look at the output (the outcome or effect) and also the input--the desires, intentions that feed into the action. Consequentialism focuses on outputs; VBMT also looks at the intentions.

Now, with respect to moral vocaulary, there are three families of terms.
1. Concepts or claims about what is desirable/valuable (prominent in consequentialism/teleological ethics)
2. Concepts about what is obligatory/forbidden--deontic value notions (prominent in deontological ethics)
3. Concepts about virtuous good-making and vices

In a VBMT, the virtues are fundamental. What is desirable or right/wrong is understood in terms of the virtues.

What is the right thing to do? --> What is virtuous.

Virtue ethics is usually presented as an alternative to deontological and teleological theories. Still, the nature of virtue ethics is unclea and disputed--it seems that any adequate moral theory will have some account of the virtues.

There are two possibilities.
(1) virtues are autonomous/independent from what is desirable or right
(2) virtues are fundamental--that is to say, everything else is understood in terms of the virtues

(contrast with Richard Brandt, and utilitarian virtue ethics)

Virtues are foundational
(1) Focus of the moral agen'ts attention
(2) Focus of the theorist's attention

Dr. Garcia wishes to focus on (2).

One version makes use of value theory -- claims about intrinsic value--what is suitable/appropriate to choose, consent to, endorse, want, favor, etc.

(value theory: Garcia's reference to Scheler, Brentano[SEP], and Winan(?); my links: what is phenomenology; the philosophy of value in the 21st century )

In a virtues ethic, character/being is central, while doing is peripheral. Rules are crude maps, not precise guides or standards.

Then he responded to various ethical theorists (mostly analytics?), including Christine Korsgaaard [publications, interview], Henry Richardson, Judith Thompson, Rosalind Hursthouse [on virtue ethics], Michael Slote.

Virtues/virtuous acts help roles, bring about the good in which the role consists. Virtues make us good, but not in a causal sense; it is not an effect that virtue brings about, but it counts towards it. To be a good friend, for example, is to be trustworthy. It is constitutive, not causal.

One judges actions to be wrong by linking them to the voices or to moral inputs. Even if actions are judged to be right or wrong in terms of the moral laws or rules, laws are a crude way of talking about what is vicious.

Talk of acting from virtue is ambiguous--is one talking about from character or virtuous motivation?
Is a virtuous action would be virtuously motivated? Or generally or likely to be virtuously motivated?

A familiar case/counter-example: certain actions are virtuous, others are vicious. One doesn't need to refer to anything else in the agent's motiviation to make an evaluation.

An example from Judith Thompson, whom Dr. Garcia considers to be an ally rather than an adversary on this point--if someone is drwoning, their life is in danger. If one is passing by and sees a life preserver handy, it is right to toss it to the drowning person. The external action has certain objective characteristics.

Still, one needs to look also at the motivation or intention to evaluate.
M. Slote: right act expresses a virtuous motive (it is what a virtuous agent would do)
R. Hursthouse: right action is what a virtuous agent would do if fully informed (knowledge of circumstances)
(later view: what a virtuous agent would characteristically do)

One does need to look at the concrete aspect of situation--rightness is dependent upon what is actual, not hypothetical features of a situation. Utilitarians also look at counterfactuals; deliberation seems to be about action that has not yet come to be.

I spoke with Dr. Garcia afterwards; he said that if he were to include a discussion of community, it would fall under role-relationships--how the individual relates to the community, etc. He did not have a definition of the common good ready.

Some reflections
It seems that much of what Dr. Garcia is writing can be reconciled with Aristotle and Aquinas, though he is not sure if one needs a robust account of nature and teleology (such as found in Aristotle) to make virtue-based ethics work--but he suspects that it is the case and inevitable.
Aristotle's ethics, after all, is eudaimonistic, and it seems to go against popular understanding of human action and motivation (even if its only implicit and must be drawn out through questioning) to exclude considerations of happiness from ethics.

The focus on input is the same as the Thomistic understanding of the importance of the intention for the evaluation of the morality of human action. It does not suffice for an action to be virtuous if the external act is good--one must look also at the intention. It is virtuous if it is done out of virtue.

On the other hand, the emphasis on the patient reminds of the Thomistic teaching on the morality of the external act--one does not evaluate human action based on intention alone, but must look at the goodness (or lack thereof) intrinsic to the external act. This applies not only to justice, but to all the other virtues which order our relations to others.

One can also agree that rules, being general in nature, can take one only so far in moral reasoning; ultimately one must develop the virtue of prudence to determine what action to take.

It may seem to academics (and Dr. Garcia holds this opinion) that Aristotle and Aquinas do not talk much about roles. (Though Dr. Garcia does recognize that Aristotle wants to say that the virtues will differ among people as their function differs.) I think Aristotle and Aquinas can be read in light of "common-sense" undestandings of role differentiation. Aquinas after all distinguishes between particular justice and the potential parts of justice, and the order of charity--how we are obligated to different people in different ways, based on how they are related to us.

While one can reconcile value with the classical moral tradition's conception of the good (if one is willing to postpone the discussion of the "epistemology" that underlies and justifies the use of the word value--it would seem that there is a divide between phenomenology and Aristotelian or moderate realism on this point), I would not be so quick as to say that virtue is always prior to all notiosn of the "good." I think that some notions of "good" are prior to virtue, as the New Natural Law theorists make explicit in their writings. Which good? Not good as it is predicated of an action, but of an end. Virtues, and the actions which flow from them, are desirable for their own sake, but also for the sake of the end to which they are ordered, and these ends are prior, as final causes.

Finally...
The following is not directed to Dr. Garcia in particular, but to academic philosophers, especially those of a certain school. It is not clear to me why virtue ethicists are trying to reinvent the wheel, rather than submittingto a tradition. For Catholics, Aeterni Patris can be interpreted in this light, to call Catholic philosophers to immerse themselves in the Thomistic tradition, to making it living so as to be able to engage "modern questions" but more importantly, their contemporaries. Perhaps the overt religious character of the medieval tradition is an obstacle; that's too bad. Certainly those who are turned away from the medievals must read Aristotle as if no one read him in the two millenia who separates him from the moderns.

There is a need among many philosophers to be "original", to discover things on one's own -- is this attributable to a malaise called modernity? Or just to pride? If one is still an inquirer and a learner, what can one pass on to students? The art of thinking? But there is more to philosophy than logic--do we discard what has been left for us by our predecessors? One would expect a teacher to be a little bit more advanced on the road to knowledge and wisdom. Perhaps academic philosophers think they are more advanced, but if they do, many are rather deluded.

If we do not understand what they are saying, then should we not be silent instead of passing judgment? On the other hand, if we disagree with what they are saying, do we have a solid foundation for our own opinions? Now some may recognize that there is a value to studying previous texts, but often they read these texts in light of their philosophical preconceptions, or they are merely looking for proof texts for their own positions, either as a (secondary) argument from authority or to show that others are agreeing with what they are saying. (Or to show that those ancients were not that wrong after all, though still a bit wrong...)

Jorge Garcia to speak on Monday, September 18

"Moral Virtues and the Moral Law," presented by Prof. Jorge Garcia, Philosophy Department, on Monday, September 18, at 4:30 p.m., in Higgins 310. Comments by Prof. Arthur Madigan, Philosophy Department. Reception to follow. Sponsored by the Philosophy Department. 617-552-3847.

see also the department of philosophy's official announcements page

I'm planning to be in attendance; I'll write some comments afterwards, and I'll see if I can get a copy of the paper and response.

Michael Behe coming to B.C.

First lecture for the philosophy undergraduate majors, organized by Fr. Tacelli, S.J.

Should be interesting--I'll try to attend and read up on the responses to Dr. Behe. (And if I have his book, of course I'll ask him to sign it.)

ARN authors page
Lehigh University faculty page
Discovery Institute page