略论托马斯·斯坎伦的契约主义

托马斯·斯坎伦是以约翰·罗尔斯为首的平等的自由主义阵营内一位重要政治哲学家,面对《正义论》发表以后所遭受的各方面的批评,他在罗尔斯道德契约论的基础上,转变罗尔斯专注于宏观社会基本制度的学术走向,提出了一种实质性的契约主义,从微观角度来论证个人道德的本质,论证人们为什么要关注正当和不正当的问题,论证为什么正当和不正当对其它关怀和价值具有优先性。从而发展了罗尔斯道德理论的契约形式,对罗尔斯强于制度美德而疏于个人道德论证的缺陷做了有益补充,在伦理学界引起了较大反响。     

Plumbing the Depths: A Recovery of Natural Law and Natural Wisdom in the Context of Debates about Evolutionary Purpose

I argue that the theological traditions of natural law and wisdom offer helpful meeting points in discussions about evolutionary “purpose” and contingency in relation to theological purpose, and serve to form the basis for a theology of nature. Natural law offers a way of describing the ordered action of God toward complexity in a contingent world without using the language of either “design” or “progress.” The theological tradition of wisdom as implicit in the natural world, learned in the human community, and received as gift of grace offers a further means of interconnecting biological reality with spiritual experience, while retaining distinctions. Wisdom and natural law intersect inasmuch as natural law is participation in Eternal Wisdom, although the latter makes sense only from the prior perspective of faith.     

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.     

Aquinas and the Natural Law

Recent decades have seen a shift away from the traditional view that Aquinas's theory of the natural law is meant to supply us with normative guidance grounded in a substantive theory of human nature. In the present essay, I argue that this is a mistake. Expanding on the suggestions of Jean Porter and Ralph McInerny, I defend a derivationist reading of ST I‐II, Q. 94, A. 2 according to which Aquinas takes our knowledge of the genuine goods of human life and their proper ordering to one another to be self‐evident only to the wise who are able to discern the truth about our God‐given human nature. I then show that this reading provides a better account of Aquinas's view than two recent alternatives: John Finnis's brand of inclinationism and Daniel Mark Nelson's virtue‐based interpretation.     

THOMAS AQUINAS BETWEEN JUST WAR AND PACIFISM

Some recent authors have argued that Aquinas deliberately integrated a pacifist outlook into his just war theory. Others, by contrast, have maintained that his rejection of pacifism was unequivocal. The present article attempts to set the historical record straight by an examination of Aquinas's writings on this topic. In addition to Q. 40, A. 1 of Summa theologiae II–II, the text usually cited in this connection, this article considers the biblical commentaries where Aquinas explains how the Gospel “precepts of patience,” especially Matthew 5:39, “Do not resist evil,” should be interpreted in light of the doctrine of just war. The article concludes that Aquinas formulated a two‐stage theory whereby pacifism was rejected as a suitable form of agency for the state (respublica), while it was affirmed as the appropriate response to evil for the agency of the church (ecclesia).     

Odysseans of the Twenty-First Century

In his book Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies—and What It Means to Be Human (2005), author-journalist Joel Garreau identifies four technologies whose synergistic activity may transform humankind into a state transcending present human nature: genetic, robotic, information, and nano (GRIN) technologies. If the GRIN technologies follow Moore's Law, as information technology has done for the past four decades, Homo sapiens and human society may be unimaginably different before the middle of this century. But among scientists, futurists, and other pundits there is no agreement on the nature and ramifications of this transformation. Based on dozens of interviews, Garreau sees three possible scenarios for our species. The Heaven Scenario foresees enhanced bodies and minds in a disease-free world, perhaps even immortality; the Hell Scenario warns of losing our identity as a biological entity and perhaps the demise of liberal democracy; the Prevail Scenario predicts that we will muddle through the GRIN technology revolution basically intact, as we have prevailed during past technological upheavals. In this review, these scenarios are examined in the context of Kuhn's “normal” versus “extraordinary” science and in the context of current understanding about gene function.     

CONCEIVABILITY AND MODAL KNOWLEDGE

Abstract: This article is a discussion of Hume's maxim Nothing we imagine is absolutely impossible. First I explain this maxim and distinguish it from the principle Whatever cannot be imagined (conceived), is impossible. Next I argue that Thomas Reid's criticism of the maxim fails and that the arguments by Tamar Szábo Gendler and John Hawthorne for the claim that “it is uncontroversial that there are cases where we are misled” by the maxim are unconvincing. Finally I state the limited but real value of the maxim: it does help us, in certain cases, reliably to make up our minds. Along the way I show that Reid, his criticism of the maxim notwithstanding, actually employs it, and I furthermore argue that the principle What is inconceivable, is impossible is spurious.     

THE SECULARIZATION OF CHANCE: TOWARD UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF THE PROBABILITY REVOLUTION ON CHRISTIAN BELIEF IN DIVINE PROVIDENCE

This article gives a brief history of chance in the Christian tradition, from casting lots in the Hebrew Bible to the discovery of laws of chance in the modern period. I first discuss the deep‐seated skepticism towards chance in Christian thought, as shown in the work of Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin. The article then describes the revolution in our understanding of chance—when contemporary concepts such as probability and risk emerged—that occurred a century after Calvin. The modern ability to quantify chance has transformed ideas about the universe and human nature, separating Christians today from their predecessors, but has received little attention by Christian historians and theologians.     

Defining Muslims on the Afghan Frontier: T. P. Hughes and His Dictionary of Islam

ABSTRACT

Christian missionaries working in India in the nineteenth century made numerous important contributions to European and North American understandings of Islam. One such contribution was the Dictionary of Islam compiled by the Anglican missionary Thomas Patrick Hughes, who was serving in Peshawar on the border between British India and Afghanistan. Drawing upon sources such as collections of Hadith, he provided both brief definitions and some longer analyses of a wide range of aspects of Muslim beliefs, practices and history. However, his compilation was not entirely based on textual sources, but was also informed by daily contact with Muslims in and around Peshawar, particularly Maulavi Ahmad of Tangi. Hughes combined his interest in defining Islam with a passion for exploring and explaining Afghan culture and politics to his readership in Britain. Although situated on ‘the edges of empire’, Hughes nonetheless found himself at the centre of world events as the intrigue between Britain and Russia resulted in the Second Anglo-Afghan War. Although located in what some considered a minor province on the periphery of the Muslim world, he nonetheless produced a major reference work on Islam that is still in print.     

“You knit me together in my mother’s womb”: a theology of creation and divine action in light of intersex

ABSTRACT

Some Christian theologians and intersex Christians maintain that intersex is part of God’s good and intended creation, in contrast to those who view intersex as a pathological result of fallen nature. The former claim that intersex bodies “are how God made them” and that “God does not make mistakes;” however, these statements risk implying a belief in special creation or divine intervention, two theological positions which have been challenged by evolutionary theory and contemporary natural sciences. This paper provides a more nuanced theology of creation and divine action as a foundation for a positive theology of intersex. Drawing from the work of Thomas Aquinas on primary and secondary causality, the author argues that God, as primary cause, creates the intersex person through the free interplay of secondary causes, in the same way and to the same extent that God acts in the creation of every other person.