THE ESCHATOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

In this essay, I show how Thomas Aquinas circumscribes epistemological questions concerning both the possibility and character of our knowledge of God within a larger eschatological framework that acknowledges the beatific vision as the ultimate good that we desire as well as the ultimate end for which we were created. Thus, knowledge of God is possible and actual on Aquinas's view because it is eternally rather than merely temporally indexed—that is, properly attributable to the blessed in heaven and only derivatively attributable to persons of faith. I further argue that interpreting Aquinas's account of faith in the light of his account of the beatific vision allows us to carve out polemical space for the theologically realist claim that there can be and in fact is objectivity in our knowledge of God, whether that knowledge comes through faith (in this life) or the beatific vision (in the next life).     

Corporate Responsibilization

This article examines the conditions for responsibilizing corporations. When we responsibilize an agent, we hold him responsible for his choices – although we are aware that he is not yet fully fit to be held responsible – in order to induce in him the relevant characteristics for being fit to be held responsible at a later time. I find that the conditions of responsibilizability are not identical to the conditions for responsibilization we usually and reasonably apply. Typically, we only responsibilize agents who do not only meet the comparably weak conditions of responsibilizability, but who also fulfil additional criteria, as for example having demonstrated first signs of normative reasoning. I argue that corporations do not only meet the minimum threshold of responsibilizability, but also a comparably higher threshold, which allows us to engage in particularly effective forms of responsibilization. Basically, we may permissibly responsibilize the overwhelming majority of corporations in the same way parents responsibilize their growing children.