The Role of a Merit Principle in Distributive Justice

The claim that the level of well-beingeach enjoys ought to be to some extent afunction of individuals' talents, efforts,accomplishments, and other meritoriousattributes faces serious challenge from bothegalitarians and libertarians, but also fromskeptics, who point to the poor historicalrecord of attempted merit assays and theubiquity of attribution biases arising fromlimited sweep, misattribution, custom andconvention, and mimicry. Yet merit-principlesare connected with reactive attitudes andinnate expectations, giving them some claim torecognition and there is a widespread beliefthat their use indirectly promotes thewell-being of all. After critically evaluatingarguments for and against assigning a prominentrole to merit in a distributive protocol, it isargued that an entitlement to the ``doubtful andspeculative' but not the ``known andpresumptive' components of well-being can flowfrom perceived relative merit. However,statistical equality of outcome with respect togroups is mandatory. Semi-meritocracies aredefensible institutions, but existing rewardschemes by and large do not meet the conditionsof social justice.     

On the survival of humanity

Abstract

What moral reasons, if any, do we have to ensure the long-term survival of humanity? This article contrastively explores two answers to this question: according to the first, we should ensure the survival of humanity because we have reason to maximize the number of happy lives that are ever lived, all else equal. According to the second, seeking to sustain humanity into the future is the appropriate response to the final value of humanity itself. Along the way, the article discusses various issues in population axiology, particularly the so-called Intuition of Neutrality and John Broome’s ‘greediness objection’ to this intuition.     

John Nash: Three Phases in the Career of a Beautiful Mind

This article is the Helen Flanders Dunbar Lecture presented at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City in 2002, the centennial year of her birth. It focuses on three periods in the evolution of Nash’s mental illness, the predelusional, delusional, and postdelusional periods, and provides a psychoanalytic interpretation of each. Donald Capps is Professor of Pastoral Psychology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His books include Men, Religion, and Melancholia (1997), Living Stories: Pastoral Counseling in Congregational Context (1998), Social Phobia: Alleviating Anxiety in an Age of Self-Promotion (1999), Jesus: A Psychological Biography (2000), Giving Counsel: A Minister’s Guidebook (2001), Men and Their Religion: Honor, Hope, and Humor (2002), and A Time to Laugh: The Religion of Humor (2005). He has served as President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and has an honorary doctorate in theology from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Correspondence to Donald Capps, joan.blyth@ptsem.edu     

Toward a New Pragmatist Politics

In A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, I launched a pragmatist critique of Deweyan democracy and a pragmatist defense of an alternative view of democracy, one based in C. S. Peirce's social epistemology. In this article, I develop a more precise version of the criticism of Deweyan democracy I proposed in A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, and provide further details of the Peircean alternative. Along the way, some recent critics are addressed.     

Holy Movement and Holy Place: Christian Pilgrimage and the Hajj

Abstract : This article uses a comparative theological model to explore the concept of pilgrimage—holy movement and holy place. It examines Christian pilgrimage exemplified by John Paul II's pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 2000 and Islamic pilgrimage exemplified by the Hajj. It then re‐visions Christian pilgrimage by suggesting how three features of the Hajj (danger and hardship, ritual nature, and gathering) can be used to deepen the Christian experience and understanding of pilgrimage.     

Forgiveness,the Gift,and Ecclesiology

Abstract: This article responds to the work of George Lindbeck and John Milbank while putting forth a new position on the theology of gift and forgiveness. Saarinen constructs a rudimentary theological anthropology, focusing on God and human beings as givers. As an example of applying this “giver‐oriented perspective” he outlines a fourfold typology of forgiveness as (1) negative giving, forgetting; (2) negative and positive giving, forgetting; (3) negative giving, forgetting and remembering; (4) negative and positive giving, forgetting and remembering.     

The “Reversal of Generations” Phenomenon as Illustrated by the Lives of John Henry Newman and Abraham Lincoln

The psychoanalytic concept of the “reversal of generations,” in which one identifies with a grandparent as the primary parental authority in one’s life, is used to shed light on the role that John Henry Newman’s paternal grandmother played in his decision to become a priest in the Church of England and in his subsequent conversion to the Church of Rome; and on the role that Abraham Lincoln’s maternal grandfather played in his understanding of a husband’s obligation of faithfulness to his wife and of his presidential role in combating Southern secession but avoiding retribution. The writings of Erik H. Erikson are used to explore the role of the grandparent in legitimating critical acts of self-determination.     

Adult Survivors of Child Abuse: An Application of John Gottman’s Sound Marital House Theory

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between child abuse and dysfunctional adult relationship patterns. John Gottman’s Sound Marital House Theory describes different dysfunctional adult relationship patterns including Negative Sentiment Override (NSO), Flooding, and the Distance and Isolation Cascade. In the present study, data analysis indicated that child abuse predicts the experiencing of NSO, NSO predicts the experiencing of flooding, and flooding predicts the experiencing of the distance and isolation cascade. Analysis showed that a subscale of child abuse, negative home environment predicts NSO, flooding, and the distance and isolation cascade.     

Feasibility and Stability in Normative Political Philosophy: The Case of Liberal Nationalism

Arguments from stability for liberal nationalism rely on considerations about conditions for the feasibility or stability of liberal political ideals and factual claims about the circumstances under which these conditions are fulfilled in order to argue for nationalist conclusions. Such reliance on factual claims has been criticised by among others G. A. Cohen in other contexts as ideological reifications of social reality. In order to assess whether arguments from stability within liberal nationalism, especially as formulated by David Miller, are vulnerable to a comparable critique, the rationale for their reliance on factual claims is discussed on the basis of a number of concerns in John Rawls’s political liberalism. The concern with stability in liberal nationalism differs from stability in Rawls’s work, mainly because of the stronger non-ideal or ‘realist’ focus of the former. In so far as the ‘realism’ of arguments from stability for liberal nationalism is recognized, they are not vulnerable to the reification charge. But if the arguments are construed as realist, this at the same time makes for other tensions within liberal nationalism.