MORAL DECISIONS ABOUT HUMAN GERM-LINE MODIFICATION

Technologies for human germ-line modification may soon enable humanity to create new types of human beings. Decisions about use of this power entail an unprecedented combination of difficulties: the stakes are immense, the unknowns are daunting, and moral principles are called into question. Evolved morality is not a sure basis for these decisions, both because of its inherent imperfections and because genetic engineering could eventually change humans’ innate cognitive mechanisms. Nevertheless, consensus is needed on moral values relevant to germ-line modification. These values could be based on characteristics of human beings that would remain constant regardless of revised genomes.     

BEFORE THE ORIGINAL POSITION: The Neo-Orthodox Theology of the Young John Rawls

This paper examines a remarkable document that has escaped critical attention within the vast literature on John Rawls, religion, and liberalism: Rawls's undergraduate thesis, “A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith: An Interpretation Based on the Concept of Community” (1942). The thesis shows the extent to which a once regnant version of Protestant theology has retreated into seminaries and divinity schools where it now also meets resistance. Ironically, the young Rawls rejected social contract liberalism for reasons that anticipate many of the claims later made against him by secular and religious critics. The thesis and Rawls's late unpublished remarks on religion and World War II offer a new dimension to his intellectual biography. They show the significance of his humanist response to the moral impossibility of political theology. Moreover, they also reveal a kind of Rawlsian piety marginalized by contemporary debates over religion and liberalism.     

THE ANIMAL BODY MULTIPLE: SCIENCE,RELIGION, AND THE INVENTION OF HALAL STUNNING

This article proposes a specific kind of ontological investigation in the field of science and religion. I argue that science and religion can create distinct practices that enact multiple realities, and thus they should be seen as more than different views of the same world. By analyzing the details of scientific experiments crucial for the invention of halal stunning, I demonstrate that religion and science are both permeable to the social, the biological, and to each other, and that seemingly incommensurable realities can co-occur in the body of an animal. Here, animals’ modes of existence are interdependent with the technologies being used, and with the web of interactions that they are drawn into. In the process of inventing halal stunning, it is not so much about the same animal body that is thought about differently as it is about animals spanning across multiple, physiological, realities as they are recruited into different webs of interactions to create a new slaughter method.     

A Theological Challenge: Coordinating Biological, Social, and Religious Visions of Humanity

This paper attempts two tasks. First, it sketches how the natural sciences (including especially the biological sciences), the social sciences, and the scientific study of religion can be understood to furnish complementary, consonant perspectives on human beings and human groups. This suggests that it is possible to speak of a modern secular interpretation of humanity (MSIH) to which these perspectives contribute (though not without tensions). MSIH is not a comprehensive interpretation of human beings, if only because it adopts a posture of neutrality with regard to the reality of religious objects and the truth of theological claims about them. MSIH is certainly an impressively forceful interpretation, however, and it needs to be reckoned with by any perspective on human life that seeks to insert its truth claims into the arena of public debate. Second, the paper considers two challenges that MSIH poses to specifically theological interpretations of human beings. On the one hand, in spite of its posture of religious neutrality, MSIH is a key element in a class of wider, seemingly antireligious interpretations of humanity, including especially projectionist and illusionist critiques of religion. It is consonance with MSIH that makes these critiques such formidable competitors for traditional theological interpretations of human beings. On the other hand, and taking the religiously neutral posture of MSIH at face value, theological accounts of humanity that seek to coordinate the insights of MSIH with positive religious visions of human life must find ways to overcome or manage such dissonance as arises. The goal of synthesis is defended as important, and strategies for managing these challenges, especially in light of the pluralism of extant philosophical and theological interpretations of human beings, are advocated.     

Cornell College: Program in Science and Religion

Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, has established a new interdisciplinary program in science and religion. One of the features of this program is an undergraduate major in science and religion that requires substantial course work in at least one of the natural sciences as well as course work in philosophy, religion, and history. As a result of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, Cornell College will offer a special course, God and Physics: From Aquinas to Quantum Mechanics (April 1998), and will sponsor an international symposium on creation and contemporary cosmology (April 1999). Opportunities exist for interested scholars to come to Cornell as Templeton Visiting Fellows in order to participate in these activities.     

Reviews

Thomas Ryba, The Essence of Phenomenology and Its Meaning for the Scientific Study of Religion
Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life
Edited by Clifford N. Matthews and Roy A. Varghese, Cosmic Beginnings and Human Ends: Where Science and Religion Meet     

Evaluation Study of Lawyers' Satisfaction with Expert Witness Reports

This study attempted to evaluate the satisfaction of personal injury lawyers with expert witness reports from psychologists and psychiatrists. A questionnaire was sent to 514 civil litigation lawyers and 79 (15.4%) were completed. It was found that most lawyers were satisfied with reports and that there was no difference between the standard and quality of expert reports of psychologists and psychiatrists. Criticisms were limited and focussed on the cost, length and lack of clarity of some of the reports. These criticisms are discussed within the context of the reforms within the legal aid system and it is concluded that expert reports are perceived by lawyers as being reasonably good value for money.     

A Christian for the Christians, a Christian for the Muslims! An Attempt at an Argumentum ad Hominem

Schmidt and Egler's critique of Christianity's exclusivist claimto truth rests on two suppositions: (a) that inter-religiouspastoral care for dying patients requires a respect for theircultural backgrounds which necessitates accepting the equalvalidity of their respective (non-Christian) religions, and(b) that exclusivism is incompatible with the Christian love-of-neighborcommandment. In opposition to this critique, (a) the authors'own "pluralist" understanding of Christianity is refuted ontwo levels. First, it leads to inconsistencies in the authors'own (and very adequate) understanding of pastoral care, especiallywith regard to their notion of intolerance, and second, it isirreconcilable with explicit New and Old Testament claims toabsoluteness. In addition, (b) the authors' understanding ofthe way in which "exclusivism" justifies intolerance and missionaryviolence is shown to rest, first, on a secularized reductionof Christianity, i.e., of Christians' own "religious identity"as well as of the Christian way of "helping those in need,"and second, on a merely theoretical (rather than also practical)view of Christians' commitment to God. As a corollary to thatrefutation, a reconsideration of the truly Christian sourcesof obedience and charity is recommended.     

Religion and Public Opinion Toward Same‐Sex Relations,Marriage, and Adoption: Does the Type of Practice Matter?

This study examines how religion's impact on Americans’ attitudes toward same‐sex practices varies by the type of practice being considered. We theorize that same‐sex romantic and family practices such as sexual relations, marriage, and adoption represent distinct practice types, differing in degrees of legality, cultural legitimacy, and in their internal power dynamics. Consequently, we expect that Americans view each practice type somewhat differently and their opinions on each may be influenced by religion in distinctive ways. Drawing upon national‐level data, we estimate and compare the relative net effects of a comprehensive battery of religious measures on support for gay sex, marriage, and adoption, both for the full sample and across religious traditions. Analyses demonstrate that public opinion toward gay sexual relations is more strongly related to religious practice and theological conservatism compared to attitudes regarding same‐sex marriage or adoption. Moreover, frequent religious practice and conservative theological beliefs about the Bible tend to be more strongly associated with attitudes toward same‐sex relationships for evangelicals, compared to mainline Protestants and, to a lesser extent, Catholics. Findings ultimately affirm that the type of same‐sex practice being considered (sex, marriage, or adoption) serves to moderate religions’ impact on Americans’ support for such practices.