The Nature of Physical Reality

This account of the dynamical theory of chaos leads to a metaphysical picture of a world with an open future, in which the laws of physics are emergent-downward approximations to a more subtle and supple reality and in which there is downward causation through information input as well as upward causation through energy input. Such a metaphysical picture can accommodate both human and divine agency.     

Medieval Consideration and Moral Pace

This essay examines the relationship between virtue and understandings of time through a comparative examination of two medieval Christian writers, Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas. By locating temporal dimensions of virtue primarily in discussions of prudence, this essay compares Thomas's account of the virtue of counsel as preparatory to prudent judgment with Bernard's earlier account of consideration as an integrating virtue that coordinates an examination of physical surroundings and social responsibilities with an examination of one's own inner life and history of moral decisions. The essay argues that accounts of virtue ethics focusing on tradition‐specific views of the human good and practical reasoning are insufficient if they do not also examine how practical reasoning interprets and responds to religious interpretations of time that disclose the distinctive kinds of moral problems arising in each historical period.     

WHY RIGHTS? WHY ME?

That Jews are concerned about human rights is distinct from why Jews should be concerned about rights in the first place. This project analyzes the reasons Jews in the twentieth century put forward to convince co‐religionists to take rights seriously. Focusing on the content of these arguments facilitates dividing the proffered rationales into three broad categories—the temporal, the innate, and the philosophical. Analysis of each category reveals subdivisions, reflecting the many ways Jews try to persuade each other to care about human rights. This taxonomy, unlike others, highlights the different ways in which Jews conceptualize the burning ethical questions of our day: of how and why to be Jewish and modern. These rationales therefore are understood to function as moral reasons and, as such, can be assessed by their relative claims.     

WHAT CAN PIAGET OFFER LONERGAN'S PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY?

In Insight, Bernard Lonergan provides, albeit schematically, a unique philosophy of biology which he takes as having “profound differences” with the world view presented by Darwin. These turn on Lonergan's idea of “schemes of recurrence” and of organisms as “solutions to the problem of living in an environment.” His lapidary prose requires some deciphering. I present the broad lines of his philosophy of biology and argue that Jean Piaget's structuralism can shed light on Lonergan's intentions in virtue of his use of cybernetics and the isomorphism between biology and knowledge. In turn, Piaget draws on Waddington's restatement of epigenesis and I suggest that the result, “process structuralism,” is a viable alternative to the modern Darwinian synthesis.     

Genetic Moral Enhancement? Yes. Holiness? No

As moral human beings, we deplore our violence and try to rein it in through moral suasion and post-hoc restraint. Could genetic engineering help? Moral enhancement through genetic engineering might predispose us to performing good acts, good deeds. However, good acts alone, theologically speaking, do not count as either morality or holiness. Becoming a good and holy person-in-community is a process of freely chosen character development. While re-creating ourselves genetically to eliminate aggressive acts is not insignificant, such interventions constitute a starting point, not the endpoint, of living a meaningful life in relation to God. Bernard Lonergan’s notion of moral agency requires moral conversion and religious conversion, neither of which could be achieved through gene expression alone. Conversion requires free and intentional participation in moral character development. Finally, we note that salvation according to Christianity is not earned, regardless of a person’s good acts or good moral character.     

The undesired: on nudniks in Jewish American fiction

This essay discusses the recurring preoccupation in Jewish literature with the character of the nudnik, a popular figure in Jewish culture but a rather neglected one in scholarly studies. Even though the nudnik appears in many stories throughout the years, from Sholem Aleichem’s, through Franz Kafka’s, to Isaac Bashevis Singer’s stories and novels – nowhere was he more prominent than in post–World War II Jewish American fiction, more specifically in the short stories and novels of Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud. Both Roth and Malamud depict the nudnik as an embodiment of a generational divide, between the tormented Americanized young and the tormenting “Ostjuden” old. And yet, while Malamud’s nudniks serve as a critique on the fate of Jewish culture and tradition in post-Holocaust America, Roth identifies the character of the nudnik as a contaminating element that will forever haunt the younger individual. By discussing the Yiddish term “nudnik” and its ambivalent and unsettling nature in these writers’ texts, this essay will highlight the cultural impact on modern Jewish identity of the nudnik within each story.     

The Science and Art of Integrating Psychodrama and Bernard’s Discrimination Model

This article presents the useful technique of Jacob L. Moreno’s psychodrama in counselor education supervision training. This article addresses how psychodrama can be used with student supervisors who are not sure which of Bernard’s discrimination model roles they are using in supervision. Bernard’s model uses three roles that help supervisors function successfully in their relationships with supervisees. Psychodrama may help student supervisors decide what action would be the most appropriate in a given supervision session. Student supervisors may also benefit from psychodrama in processing internal conflict they may experience in their supervisory role. Faculty members training new supervisors may use these techniques to help their student supervisors gain more awareness on how they view their relationships with supervisees.     

Descartes,Scientia and Pure Enquiry

In Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry, Bernard Williams supplies an interpretation of Descartes's Meditations in which the meditator's clean sweep of initial beliefs is justified by a stance that abrogates all practical pressures: the stance of pure enquiry. Otherwise, Williams explains, it would not be reasonable to set many of the initial beliefs aside. Nowhere, however, does Descartes assert that his approach is in this sense ‘pure’. It would of course be preferable if the meditator's rejection of all the initial beliefs did not require an abrogation of the conditions that govern everyday belief-formation and assessment. I supply a reading that accomplishes this. The key to this reading is recognition that Descartes is a thinker of his time, a time when the pre-modern worldview was being systematically rejected. I show, in this regard, that when Descartes characterizes a belief as ‘uncertain’, this has the implication that the belief is false. And, certainly, the rational policy, without need for any special stance, is to reject falsehoods.     

Against the Tedium of Immortality

Abstract

In a well-known paper, Bernard Williams argues that an immortal life would not be worth living, for it would necessarily become boring. I examine the implications for the boredom thesis of three human traits that have received insufficient attention in the literature on Williams’ paper. First, human memory decays, so humans would be entertained and driven by things that they experienced long before but had forgotten. Second, even if memory does not decay to the extent necessary to ward off boredom, once-satisfied desires often return after a sufficient period of time. Eternity would always contain sufficient time for our desires to rejuvenate. Third, even if too many of our desires were satisfied but not yet rejuvenated, we can expect that human ingenuity would continue to invent new pursuits, pastimes, careers, and ways of life that would prevent us from becoming bored as we moved from one to another. Finally, I consider and respond to several objections, including the claims that as much variety as I propose to be put into an eternal life is inconsistent with having one character throughout one’s life and that the sort of character change and memory decay I postulate is inconsistent with personal identity.