Compensation for Historical Emissions and Excusable Ignorance

This article defends the idea of applying principles of corrective justice to the matter of climate change. In particular, it argues against the excusable ignorance objection, which holds that historical emissions produced at a time when our knowledge of climate change was insufficient ought to be removed from the equation when applying rectificatory principles to this context. In constructing my argument, I rely on a particular interpretation of rectificatory justice and outcome responsibility. I also address the individualism objection by showing why we should view states as relevant agents of climate change. This argument is built on the assumption that states are institutions set up to coordinate and regulate human interaction, so as to protect their citizens from the unwanted consequences of such interaction.     

第三个历史决议蕴含的历史辩证法

党的十九届六中全会审议通过的第三个历史决议,在叙述和评价中国共产党百年奋斗的重大成就、历史意义和历史经验时,蕴含丰富的历史辩证法,是新时代历史辩证法的中国表达。就历史主体而言,既强调党的领导作用,更强调人民的创造作用;就历史过程而言,既注重历史发展的阶段性与过程性,又注重历史发展的连续性与整体性;就历史成就而言,既重视总结理论成就,更重视总结实践成就;就历史意义而言,既高度评价党的百年奋斗对于实现中华民族伟大复兴的贡献,又高度评价党的百年奋斗对于人类文明发展的贡献;就历史经验而言,既关注对过去的把握与提升,更关注面向现实和未来的规范与引领。     

Historical relativism and the essence of Christianity

This article is a series of reflections by a historian who is also a theologian on some of the theological challenges raised by historicism and the historical study of Christianity. In particular, the question is raised as to whether it is still meaningful to speak of Christianity as having some form of normative “core” given at some point in the past, or an unchanging normative “essence” by which all forms of Christianity can be evaluated. The article begins with a brief look at Adolf von Harnack’s lectures on the essence of Christianity from 1900, before moving into reflections on historical change, relativity and normativity. The author rejects the idea of a religion having an unchanging normative core or essence. Like any other human institution, Christianity has been continually changing and adapting to new contexts, even though its representatives might claim an unchanging continuity. The article concludes with some reflections on the possible contours of a modest theology informed by these historicist reflections.     

Historical materialism and Capital

It is commonly supposed that Marx's Capital is part and parcel of his theory of historical materialism. It is argued here, however, that this view is incorrect, and that Capital is distinguished from the more general theory of historical materialism in its standing as a work of social science. This conclusion rests on several grounds. First, Capital is substantially more specialized than the theory of historical materialism, since it is concerned only with one aspect of one mode of production. As a result, Capital provides a more rigorous treatment of its subject matter. Second, Capital is based on a fund of empirical evidence which is substantially more detailed than that offered in support of the theses of historical materialism. And third, given the preceding points, Capital is a developed empirical theory, whereas historical materialism is best construed as a general program of research. For these reasons Capital is epistemically distinct from historical materialism: unlike the latter, it is a substantive contribution to social science.     

Patriarchy and Historical Materialism

Why does the world have the pattern of patriarchy it currently possesses? Why have patriarchal practices and institutions evolved and changed in the ways they have tended to over time in human societies? This paper explores these general questions by integrating a feminist analysis of patriarchy with the central insights of the functionalist interpretation of historical materialism advanced by G. A. Cohen. The paper has two central aspirations: first, to help narrow the divide between analytical Marxism and feminism by redressing the former's neglect of the important role female labor has played, and continues to play, in shaping human history. Second, by developing the functionalist account of historical materialism in order to take patriarchy seriously, we can derive useful insights for diagnosing the emancipatory challenges that women face in the world today. The degree and form of patriarchy present in any particular society is determined by the productive forces it has had at its disposal. According to historical materialism, technological, material, and medical advances that ease the pressures on high fertility rates (such as the sanitation revolution, vaccinations, birth control, and so on) are the real driving forces behind the positive modulations to patriarchy witnessed in the twentieth century.     

Counterfactuals and Historical Possibility

We show that truth conditions for counterfactuals need not always be given in terms of a vague notion of similarity. To this end, we single out the important class of historical counterfactuals and give formally rigorous truth conditions for these counterfactuals, employing a partial ordering relation called “comparative closeness” that is defined in the framework of branching space-times. Among other applications, we provide a detailed analysis of counterfactuals uttered in the context of lost bets. In an appendix we compare our theory with the branching space-times based reading of counterfactuals recently proposed by Belnap.     

An Historical Perspective on the Church and the Elderly

Summary

Historically, the roles of church and society have changed with respect to the treatment of the elderly. These changes are traced. Beginning with the New Testament times, the shifts are reviewed in the Roman period, the Germanic invasions, the High Middle Ages, and the urbanized industrial times which reach into the present.     

斯宾诺莎对圣经的历史批判与诠释

斯宾诺莎的<神学政治论>,在圣经诠释历史上堪称是里程碑式的著作.他通过质疑作为真理之标准与公众法律之来源的圣经,倡导思想、言说与著述的自由.他对圣经研究最具原创性的贡献,并不在于其探求真理所坚持的理性主义标准,而在于对圣经文本自身及其内容所进行的历史理解.本文将简介斯宾诺莎对圣经诠释的历史批判方法,并兼及述评.     

马克思与历史唯物主义的修辞问题

历史唯物主义的修辞研究,不在于思考文饰性的或表演性的修辞要素,而在于思考行事性的修辞要素。这种要素在于教人、娱人并感人,从而诱发行动,包括历史性的行动。以肇始于亚里士多德的修辞学三要素人格(作者)-道理(文本)-情感(受众)为参照,历史唯物主义的修辞问题根本在于马克思太过强调道理这一要素,把人格和受众困于这一要素中,以致需要从历史唯物主义的写作(解释世界)向历史唯物主义的行动(改变世界)转化的时刻,马克思之后的马克思主义者们不得不寻求修辞上的转换,以激发现实的社会运动。在这个意义上,后续的马克思主义(运动)势必发生——实际上根本无法避免——难以规范的各种变异。     

Historical Contingency and the Impact of Scientific Imperialism

In a recent article in this journal, Steve Clarke and Adrian Walsh propose a normative basis for John Dupré's criticisms of scientific imperialism, namely that scientific imperialism can cause a discipline to fail to progress in ways that it otherwise would have. This proposal is based on two presuppositions: one, that scientific disciplines have developmental teleologies, and two, that these teleologies are optimal. I argue that we should reject both of these presuppositions and so conclude that Clarke and Walsh's proposal is insufficiently warranted for it to provide a normative basis for criticisms of scientific imperialism.     

Data Trimming, Nuclear Emissions, and Climate Change

Ethics requires good science. Many scientists, government leaders, and industry representatives support tripling of global-nuclear-energy capacity on the grounds that nuclear fission is “carbon free” and “releases no greenhouse gases.” However, such claims are scientifically questionable (and thus likely to lead to ethically questionable energy choices) for at least 3 reasons. (i) They rely on trimming the data on nuclear greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGE), perhaps in part because flawed Kyoto Protocol conventions require no full nuclear-fuel-cycle assessment of carbon content. (ii) They underestimate nuclear-fuel-cycle releases by erroneously assuming that mostly high-grade uranium ore, with much lower emissions, is used. (iii) They inconsistently compare nuclear-related GHGE only to those from fossil fuels, rather than to those from the best GHG-avoiding energy technologies. Once scientists take account of (i)–(iii), it is possible to show that although the nuclear fuel cycle releases (per kWh) much fewer GHG than coal and oil, nevertheless it releases far more GHG than wind and solar-photovoltaic. Although there may be other, ethical, reasons to support nuclear tripling, reducing or avoiding GHG does not appear to be one of them.