For Kant’s moral universalism, contingent religious law is legitimate only when it serves as a means of fulfilling the moral law. Though Kant uses traditional theological resources to account for the possibility of “statutory ecclesiastical law” in historical religions, he denies this possibility to Jewish law. Something like Kant’s logic appears in the work of some of his intellectual successors who continue to define Christianity in terms of its moral superiority to Judaism while attempting to excise remaining “Jewish” elements (...) from it. A more adequate account of the Hebrew Bible, Judaism, and the origins of Christianity exposes deficiencies in Kant’s universalizing logic which seems to deny any intrinsic value to historical religions. A possible alternative may lie in a modified account of the relationship between the moral law and religious law, perhaps nourished by Jewish thought, including the rabbinic tradition of the Noachide commandments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval IslamTamara AlbertiniDemonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. By Jacob Lassner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Pp. xv + 281.Jacob Lassner gives a fascinating account of the fate of the Queen of Sheba in both Judaism and Islam. (...) After a careful review of postbiblical Jewish and medieval Islamic sources, the author examines the ways in which Islam appropriated the biblical story of the legendary meeting between the Queen of Sheba (the koranic Bilqis) and King Solomon, and also how Islamized narratives of that same meeting found their way back into Judaism. Following the transformation of the original biblical theme, the reader is led to discover a consensus rarely reached in the history of the two religious communities. It appears that both traditions ended up agreeing that the self-confident biblical Queen of Sheba posed a challenge to the natural, that is, male-dominated, order. Instead of focusing on the Queen's political astuteness, Judaism and Islam eventually viewed her as a subtle seductress and, hence, as (morally) inferior to Solomon. Sometimes the sexual cleverness of the female biblical figure is explained by inventing her a jinn (demon) for mother. Whatever outstanding qualities are left, these can then be imputed to the Queen's superhuman origin. Lassner concludes his book with a rich appendix including valuable Jewish and Islamic source materials in English translation.One wishes Lassner had been aware of the virulent debate kindled by Sheikh Ghazali's book on The Traditions of the Prophet (Beirut, 1990) when Lassner was gathering the materials for Demonizing the Queen of Sheba. Sheikh Ghazali, one of today's leading Muslim scholars, justified female political rule on the basis of a koranic verse referring to the Queen of Sheba: "Lo! I found a woman ruling over them, and she hath been given (abundance) of all things, and hers is a mighty throne" (XXVII.23). Today, Bilqis may go through yet a new metamorphosis and help shape modern Islamic feminism. [End Page 322]Copyright © 2001 University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

This article presents the ethnographically driven multi-method research perspective of vernacular religion and analyses its potential to contribute to the theoretical advancement of Jewish studies. The ongoing discussion on religion and change within the study of religions in gen­eral and Jewish studies in particular is outlined and structured around three ‘turns’ identified in the re­search on vernacular religiosity. To exemplify these theoretical and methodological considerations, a recently initiated research project focusing on vernacular Judaism in Finland is presented. This project (...) seeks to examine central ideas of boundaries as they are negotiated and interpreted among Finnish Jewry, to compare the emerging patterns with Nordic counterparts and thus contribute to a more nuanced perception of Jewish identities in these contexts. The article concludes with a discussion on the advances of such an approach, pointing to the relative novelty of research into vernacular religion within Jewish studies and the exceptionality of the Finnish Jewish context. (shrink)

The initial problem for feminist Jewish theology has been its very definition as theology. Whereas, from its beginning, Christian feminism has defined the transformation of theology as a major goal, the nature and boundaries of the Jewish feminist project have been more amorphous. In part, this is because the theological tradition to which Christian feminists react is highly systematized. The nature and methodology of theology are more open questions in Judaism. Biblical and rabbinic Judaisms embody a variety of (...) theologies in narrative, prayer, law, and textual exegesis. While in every period of postbiblical Judaism there have been influential theologies utilizing philosophical forms and categories, there is no standard way of systematizing their Jewish content. That is because Jewish philosophical theologies serve dual purposes. (shrink)

The doctrine of reincarnation is usually associated with Buddhism, Hinduism and other Eastern religions. But it has also been developed in Druzism and Judaism. The doctrine has been used by these traditions to explain the existence of evil within a moral order. Traversing the boundaries between East and West, we explore how Jewish mysticism has employed the doctrine to help answer the problem of evil. We explore the doctrine particularly as we respond to objections against employing it in (...) a theodicy. We show how it supplements traditional punishment, free will and soul-building theodicies, and helps these theodicies avoid various objections. (shrink)

Despite the supreme political and economic significance of boundaries--and ongoing challenges to existing national boundaries--scant attention has been paid to their ethics. This volume explores how diverse ethical traditions understand the political and property rights reflected in territorial and jurisdictional boundaries. It is the first book to bring together thinkers from a range of traditions, both religious and secular, to discuss the ethics of boundaries. Each contributor represents a tradition's views on questions surrounding the use of (...) boundaries to delimit property and political rights. What does it mean to own something? What resources should not be privately owned? What justifies the erection of political boundaries between one people and another? How ''hard'' should such boundaries be? What rights extend to minorities within a state? Should territorial boundaries coincide with social ones? Does national autonomy have an ethical basis, or is it an aspect of modern power politics? Should we aim for a more inclusive community than that afforded by modern nation-states? Cross-chapter dialogue and a substantive conclusion draw out similarities and differences among the traditions represented, traditions that include Christianity, classical liberalism, Confucianism, international law, Islam, Judaism, liberal egalitarianism, and natural law. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Nigel Biggar, Joseph Boyle, Joseph Chan, Russell Hardin, Will Kymlicka, Loren Lomasky, Robert McCorquodale, Richard B. Miller, David Novak, Sulayman Nyang, Michael Nylan, Raul C. Pangalangan, Daniel Philpott, Jeremy Rabkin, Hillel Steiner, M. Raquibuz Zaman, and Noam J. Zohar. (shrink)

This volume examines comparatively the views and principles of seven prominent ethical traditions on one of the most pressing issues of modern politics - the making and unmaking of state and national boundaries. The traditions represented are Judaism, Christianity, Islam, natural law, Confucianism, liberalism and international law. Each contributor, an expert within one of these traditions, shows how that tradition can handle the five dominant methods of altering state and national boundaries: conquest, settlement, purchase, inheritance and secession. (...) Written by a distinguished group of international specialists this volume is unique in providing both in-depth normative and comparative perspectives on a troubling question that will offer readers real insight into inter-tradition conflict. Those readers will range from upper-level undergraduates to scholars in such fields as philosophy, political science, international relations and comparative religion. (shrink)

The contributors to this special issue of _Tikkun_ seek to redefine the boundaries of political and ethical responsibility by crediting a worldview in which we are held to account for the well-being of everyone who has “passed through our city,” if only momentarily. Their conclusions challenge the ethos of materialism that _Tikkun_ believes is at the root of globalized capitalism and, alternatively, articulate a social justice ethos derived from the Jewish tradition of “accompaniment,” the call to take care of (...) those who enter our common space. Contributors from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish traditions bring an interfaith perspective to the foundations of social responsibility, laying the groundwork for a new global notion of justice. Drawing on a model from Rabbinic Judaism, one contributor discusses homelessness in Los Angeles, calling us to adopt a new, radical sense of obligation in relation to our neighbors. Another offers challenging insights from the point of view of one who grew up homeless. An essay from the Christian tradition expands this model by comparing our mutual relationships to body parts that all belong to the same whole. Another essay extracts from medieval Islamic texts a vision of the state as a caregiver and then compares this vision to life in Vancouver, where citizens’ taxes underwrite robust social services for those in need. Contributors:_ _Rumee Ahmed, Aryeh Cohen, Estelle Frankel, Jill Goldberg, Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, Peter Laarman, Ana Levy-Lyons, Alexia Salvatierra Michael Lerner is editor of _Tikkun_ and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun; his writings have appeared in many national publications. Alana Yu-lan Price is managing editor of _Tikkun_. Aryeh Cohen is a contributing editor to _Tikkun_. (shrink)

This essay retells the stories of four exemplary women from Confucianism and Judaism, hoping that the tension these stories exhibit can teach us something about women’s lives within the boundaries of tradition, then and now. It refers to two ideal “family caretakers”: M eng Mu 孟母, who devoted her life to her son’s learning, and Rachel, who devoted her life to her husband, the famous Rabbi Akiva. Then it tells the stories of two almost completely opposing exemplary figures: (...) The sages B an Zhao 班昭 and Bruriah, who dedicated their lives to learning and self-cultivation. It stresses that there is more than one dichotomized resolution to inner conflicts within the traditional framework in both Confucianism and Judaism, and, moreover, the plurality of resolutions is inherent in the traditions. Through reading a story and appreciating the complexities in others’ lives, while reflecting on our own, we can attain a level of abstraction that enables better sensitivity and more responsibility for the life we live. (shrink)

Ceci est un eruv -- Porte et pont -- Sur la légitimité des frontières -- Dedans et dehors -- Entre-soi -- La tradition dans la modernité -- Droit et Loi -- Orthodoxie libérale -- Question de principes -- La compétition des ordres -- La partie et le tout -- Sur la justification de reruv -- Modèles de tolérance -- Espace et territoire -- À l'ombre de la ville -- Question de souveraineté -- Question d'intention -- Nouer?

Jewish vegan and vegetarian movements have become increasingly prominent in recent decades, as more Jews adopt plant-based lifestyles. In this book, scholars, rabbis, and activists explore the history of veganism and vegetarianism among Jews and present compelling new directions in Jewish thought, ethics, and foodways. Jewish Veganism and Vegetarianism asks how Judaism, broadly considered, has inspired people to eschew animal products and how those choices have enriched and defined Jewishness. It offers opportunities to meditate on what makes Jewish veganism (...) and vegetarianism particularly Jewish and to pursue the intellectual, religious, and historical roots of those movements. It also tests their boundaries, examines connections to other movements, and calls attention to divisions among Jewish vegans and vegetarians and to the resistance they have faced. In part one, "Studies," authors present Jewish veganism and vegetarianism in historical, literary, and sociological context: from the time of the Talmud until the present, in North America, Europe, and Israel, and among rabbis, chefs, artists, activists, punks, and farmers. Part two, "New Directions," is focused on contemporary currents in Jewish vegan and vegetarian thought. The authors represent the cultural, theological, and ideological diversity among Jews invested in such conversations and introduce prominent debates within their movements. As a whole, the volume presents a wide-ranging survey of the place of veganism and vegetarianism in Judaism past and present. (shrink)

Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his "horrible heresies" and "monstrous deeds." Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. The First Modern Jew provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious (...) outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. Daniel Schwartz shows that in fashioning Spinoza into "the first modern Jew," generations of Jewish intellectuals -German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists- have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish culture and a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day."--Jacket. (shrink)

Who can say "I am Jewish?" What does "Jew" mean? What especially does it mean for Jacques Derrida, founder of deconstruction, scoffer at boundaries and fixed identities, explorer of the indeterminate and undecidable? In _Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint_, French feminist philosopher Hélène Cixous follows the intertwined threads of Jewishness and non-Jewishness that play through the life and works of one of the greatest living philosophers. Cixous is a lifelong friend of Derrida. They both grew (...) up as French Jews in Algeria and share a "belonging constituted of exclusion and nonbelonging"--not Algerian, rejected by France, their Jewishness concealed or acculturated. In Derrida's family "one never said 'circumcision'but 'baptism,'not 'Bar Mitzvah'but 'communion.'" Judaism cloaked in Catholicism is one example of the undecidability of identity that influenced the thinker whom Cixous calls a "Jewish Saint." An intellectual contemporary of Derrida, Cixous's ideas on writing have an affinity with his philosophy of deconstruction, which sought to overturn binary oppositions--such as man/woman, or Jew/non-Jew--and blur boundaries of exclusion inherent in Western thought. In portraying Derrida, Cixous uses metonymy, alliteration, rhyme, neologisms, and puns to keep the text in constant motion, freeing language from any rigidity of meaning. In this way she writes a portrait of "Derrida in flight," slipping from one appearance to the next, unable to be fixed in one spot, yet encompassing each point he passes. From the circumcision act to family relationships, through Derrida's works to those of Celan, Rousseau, and Beaumarchais, Cixous effortlessly merges biography and textual commentary in this playful portrait of the man, his works, and being (or not being) Jewish. (shrink)

The relationship between food and religion is a lived activity formed by the dynamics of both tradition and adaption. Religious commitments to food are influenced by various factors, ranging from personal spirituality and experiences to social patterns of belonging, ethical, polit­ical and doctrinal convictions. _Challah_, _gefilte_ _fish_, _blintzes_ – these are just a few of the traditional Finnish Jewish meals that are still prepared by members of the community. The originally Eastern European dishes are one of the last living links (...) that connect assimilated Finnish Jews with their Orthodox Jewish ancestors mainly from Russia, Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania. The current paper aims to present the conceptions and reflections relating to boundaries of identity connected with the multi-ethnic culinary traditions of Jews living in Finland as well as their ways of coping with the requirements of _kashrut_. The article is based on ethnographic data from interviews as well as personal encounters, informal conversations and home visits. (shrink)

This paper was presented at the conference ‘The Marrano Phenomenon: Jewish Hidden Tradition and Modernity’, Warsaw, 16–19 September 2019. It considers the case of Marcus Ehrenpreis, chief rabbi of Stockholm. Ehrenpreis followed in the tradition from Antiquity of Philo of Alexandria, who expressed his Jewish philosophy in Greek, and Moses Mendelssohn, who attempted to bring the principles of the Englightenment to German Jews and to promote an understanding of Judaism among non­Jews. Ehrenpreis sought to follow a similar path among (...) the Swedes, not least in making Swedish his preferred language of writing. Although the Marrano phenomenon relates primarily to the concept of ‘borderline’ Jewishness, of which Ehrenpreis was not an exponent, it nonetheless proves fruitful to consider him from a Marrano perspective in order to extend our understanding of him as an innovative figure who sought to achieve greater understanding across the religious and cultural boundaries between Judaism and non­-Judaism. (shrink)

Humanistic management theory and religiously grounded business ethics are both important research avenues for the study of business management. This paper links these two domains by examining to what extent a religiously grounded business ethics can potentially contribute to the broad and burgeoning literature on humanistic management through an exploration of the case of Jewish business ethics. Specifically, this paper examines three distinct ways of doing Jewish business ethics. These three ways are labeled here as traditionalist, integrationist, and constructivist. Each (...) of these distinct paths begins with a different conception of the fundamental relationship between Judaism and business. Traditionalists believe that the creation of wealth is a legitimate practice, but only because Judaism says so. Integrationists, by contrast, consider wealth creation as a legitimate practice on its own terms. From this perspective, wealth creation is viewed as a positive human activity, independent of its grounding in religious thought. Judaism contributes to wealth creation by setting and guarding its appropriate boundaries and limits and by serving as an external source of morality and meaning, often invoking broad aspirational Jewish values like tikkun olam. Finally, constructivists agree with the integrationists about the stand-alone value of wealth creation. Constructivists push even further, though, and assert that business is not only a legitimate practice, but it is a potentially meaningful one. Business is imagined as an ongoing and open-ended constructive project, one that includes a broad and complex set of human values including wealth creation, but potentially other values like covenantal leadership, kindness, everyday redemption, and other higher purposes. Here, business is no longer viewed merely as a source of material wealth for society but business is envisioned as a potentially important location and source of human meaning and fulfillment. For the constructivists, the role of Jewish business ethics is not to judge business from the outside, but it is to actively participate and contribute to an expansive dialogue with other business ethics voices, centered on the construction of new and evolved forms of business as a human enterprise. (shrink)

The Anthropocene denotes the impact of human activity on Earth systems, resulting in mass extinctions of plant and animal species, pollution of oceans, lakes and rivers, and altering of the atmosphere. The Anthropocene signifies the mass control of nature by humans, the erasure of boundaries between humanity and nature, and the threat to human existence by human-made technology. How can biological humans flourish, if their physical environment, the very condition of their existence, is destroyed? What does it mean to (...) thrive as a human in an age when human-made machines threaten to make humanity obsolete? How does human flourishing relate to human history? This essay argues that the monotheistic traditions, and Judaism in particular, offer meaningful religious imaginaries for the Anthropocene because they envision human flourishing as embodied, ecological and historically grounded. In contrast to secular imaginaries, which either declare the “end of nature” or envision the obsolescence of biological humanity, the Judaic religious imaginary honors the interconnectedness and interdependence of all creatures, while recognizing human responsibility toward the well-being of the natural world. Viewing nature as divinely created, and, thus “enchanted” by the divine presence, the Judaic religious imaginary offers a vision of human flourishing based on the ethics of care and responsibility that enables humanity to respond and perhaps even prevent further ecological collapse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Why Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion—and Vice Versa by Thomas A. LewisAndrew ForsythWhy Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion—and Vice Versa Thomas A. Lewis OXFORD: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015. 177 PP. $34.95Thomas Lewis's emphasis in Why Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion—and Vice Versa is chiefly the "Vice Versa" of his book's title. Philosophy of religion (untenably tied to Christianity and Judaism, he (...) claims, and unduly limited to well-worn questions of theism's rationality and the like) must learn from the field of religious studies, and most particularly from its pluralism and twenty-first-century attention to the historical and cultural construction of the category of "religion." Philosophers of religion fail today if they treat as self-evident the building blocks of their discipline.In a series of essays, Lewis diagnoses the malaise, ably sketches "promising signs" of a different paradigm, and prods the discipline to "belong more clearly in religious studies" (vii). More specifically, he treats normativity in religious studies; the place of history (and the history of "religion") in philosophy of religion; the centrality of comparison in religious ethics and philosophy of religion; and the proper—self-conscious—use of categories in the study of religion. Taken one by one, Lewis's essays are elegant and thought-provoking. "On the Role of Normativity in Religious Studies," for example, merits inclusion in any Theories and Methods syllabus, teasing out, as it does, problematic presuppositions that only theology makes normative claims, and that "faith" is juxtaposed with "reason."Taken as a whole, however, Lewis's book will trouble Christian ethicists committed to conversation with religious studies. To begin, philosophy of religion most often "matters," in Lewis's telling, when it clarifies current trajectories of scholarship in religious studies. As a result, the organizing disciplinary presuppositions of religious studies go mostly unchallenged. Second, in Lewis's telling, religious studies becomes a surprisingly narrow enterprise. While the whole sweep of "religious thought, people, movements, practices, materials, etc." (7) is the apparent purview of religious studies, the golden thread running through Lewis's various essay interventions is scholarship on "religion" as a constructed, nonnatural category. This has been a generative pursuit for two decades, but scholarly concern for "religion" risks becoming tediously in-house, despite Lewis's fine articulation of the negative public policy ramifications of simplistic alternatives. No doubt Lewis uses the category of "religion" as just one example of potential work in religious studies, but the example's ubiquity in [End Page 209] the book flows from Lewis's vision of the field: religious studies shares the same kinds of evidence as those used throughout the humanities and social sciences, and excludes work reliant on unassailable authorities (scriptures, traditions) or private forms of justification (experience). Neither tracking a particular natural phenomenon, then, nor employing its own particular methods, discourse on the use of the category of "religion" becomes ever more central.Finally, the relationship between what might be called Lewis's "broader" and "narrower" visions of philosophy of religion is left somewhat unclear. Lewis's broader position is inclusive of positions he does not hold but that are not excluded by his understanding of the boundaries of the field. His narrower position is a take on Hegel, its details outlined in the concluding essay. Hegel's thought, Lewis tells us, offers the greatest potential for "simultaneously acknowledging the historical situatedness of our own viewpoint, exposing the hidden operation of power, and providing a rational justification for our normative commitments" (159–60). While Lewis's impulse throughout Why Philosophy Matters is for wider, broader work in philosophy of religion, his narrower Hegelian vision of the field, it turns out, has no place for "extra-conceptual grounding, whether in empiricist or transcendent accounts" (156). Are only Hegelian and pragmatist accounts sufficient? Philosophers must make a case for what they think is true, of course, but there is still some irony that a work that helpfully seeks to expand philosophy of religion beyond the "parochial" (23, 28) ends by excluding so much.Andrew ForsythYale UniversityCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

English summary: The fact that rationalization and self-reflection were possible even across denominational boundaries is one of the fascinating characteristics of the period of enlightenment. This often led to a more flexible understanding of the concept of religion, which proved to be very open to being integrated into the debate. In his study, Bjorn Pecina develops just such an understanding of religion by evaluating the works of two outstanding scholars: Moses Mendelssohn and Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem. German description: Es (...) gehort zu den faszinierenden Merkmalen des Aufklarungsjahrhunderts, dass sich hier Rationalisierungs- und Selbstreflexionsprozesse uber konfessionelle Grenzen hinwegzusetzen vermochten. Dies fuhrte nicht selten zu einer Offnung des Religionsbegriffs, der sich als ungemein integrationsfahig erwies. Bjorn Pecina entfaltet in der vorliegenden Untersuchung ein solches Religionsverstandnis, indem er sich dem Werk besonders zweier herausragender Gelehrter zuwendet: Moses Mendelssohn und Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Jerusalem. Jerusalem ist reprasentativ fur das Aufklarungsjahrhundert. Er eignet sich gut, die Epoche nach ihrem religionstheoretischen Profil darzustellen, zugleich aber auch Kontinuitaten sichtbar werden zu lassen. Mendelssohn, auf den die Studie ihr Hauptaugenmerk richtet, gelingt es, aparte Religion und aufgeklarte Religionsphilosophie in eine Balance zu bringen. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The philosophical tradition approaches to morals have their grounds predominantly on metaphysical and theological concepts and theories. Among the traditional ethics concepts, the most prominent is the Divine Command Theory (DCT). As per the DCT, God gives moral foundations to the humankind by its creation and through Revelation. Morality and Divinity are inseparable since the most remote civilization. These concepts submerge in a theological framework and are largely accepted by most followers of the three Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, (...) and Islam: the greatest part of the human population. Holding faith and Revelation for its grounds, the Divine Command Theories are not strictly subject to the demonstration. The opponents to the Divine Command conception of morals, grounded in the impossibility of demonstration of its metaphysical and religious assumptions, have tried for many centuries (albeit unsuccessfully) to devalue its importance. They held the argument that it does not show material evidence and logical coherence and, for this reason, cannot be taken into account for scientific nor philosophical purposes. It is just a belief and, as so, should be understood. Besides these extreme oppositions, many other concepts contravene the Divine Command theories, in one or another way, in part or in full. Many philosophers and social scientists, from the classic Greek philosophy up to the present date, for instance, sustain that morality is only a construct, and thus culturally relative and culturally determined. However, this brings many other discussions and imposes the challenge to determine what is the meaning of culture, which elements of culture are morally determinant, and finally, what are the boundaries of such relativity. Moral determinists claim that everything related to human behavior, including morality, is determined, once free will does not exist. More recently, modern thinkers argued that there is a strict science of morality. However, the scientific method alone, despite explaining several facts and evidence, cannot enlighten the entire content and full meaning of ethics. Morals’ understanding requires a broader perception, and an agreement among philosophers, which they have never achieved. All of these questions have many different configurations depending on each philosophical strand, and start complex analysis and endless debates, as long as many of them are reciprocally conflictive. The universe and the atmosphere involving this thesis are the dominions of all these conceptual conflicts, observed from an objective and evolutionary standpoint. Irrespective of this circumstance and its intrinsic importance, however, these questions are far distant from the methodological approach of an analytical discussion on objective morals, what is, indeed, the aim and scope of this work. We should briefly revisit these prominent traditional theories because this thesis shelters a comparative study, and its assumptions at least differ profoundly from all traditional theories. Therefore, it becomes necessary offering direct and specific elements of comparison to the reader, for the right criticism, dispensing interruptive researches. However, even revisiting the traditional theories, for this comparative and critical exposure purpose, they will be kept by the side of our main concerns, as “aliena materia.” Irrespective of the validity of any or all of the elements of this discussion, and their meaning as the philosophical universe of this thesis, the purpose of this work is demonstrating and justifying the existence and meaning of prehistoric moral archetypes arisen directly from the very first social needs and efforts for survival. These archetypes are the definition of the essential foundation of ethics, its aggregation to the collective unconscious and corresponding logic organization and transmission to evolutionary stages of the human genome and different relations space-time, irrespective of any contemporary experience of the individuals. The system defined by these archetypes composes an evolutionary human social model. Is this a metaethical position? Yes, it is. Moreover, as in any metaethical reasoning, we should look carefully for the best and coherent routes, as the Analytical Philosophy offers them. Thus, this work should reasonably demonstrate that morals are not a cultural product of the civilized men or modern societies and that despite being subject to several cultural relative aggregations and subtractions, its essential foundations are archetypal and have never structurally changed. This reasoning induces that morality is an original attribute of the “homo sapiens”; it is not a property and nor an accident: it integrates the human essence and belongs to the realm of the ontological human identity. The human phenomena is a continuing process, playing its role between random determination and free will, and we need to question how morality began and how did it come to us in the present. (shrink)

Metaphysics is a field where the positions of Kant and Mendelssohn differed significantly, from the essays for the Academy of Sciences right up to their last works. While Kant is increasingly doubtful of the objective validity of metaphysics and comes to admit only its subjective significance as a reflection of insuppressible human need, Mendelssohn continues to defend its objective validity with respect to sciences and natural theology. After reducing the valid proofs for the existence of God to the ontological argument, (...) Kant refuses this argument by means of his conception of existence as a position. Meanwhile, Mendelssohn upholds the legitimacy of such an argument and sees it as a bulwark against scepticism and Kant's paradox of the thing-in-itself. Notwithstanding these differences, they are allies in the defence of reason against visionary exaltation, as becomes apparent in the debate on spinozism between Hamann, Jacobi and Wizenmann on the one hand; and Mendelssohn on the other. The profound and pertinent dialogue between the two philosophers lasted more than 20 years and touched upon many subjects; such as the different methods in mathematics and philosophy, the philosophical meaning of intensive magnitude, the evidence, certainty and probability in metaphysics, natural theology and morals, reason, feeling and moral sense, pure religion and historical faiths, the meaning of human history. They agreed on attributing a fundamental role to freedom and on evaluating religions accordingly. Kant acknowledged the importance of M's Jerusalem for human emancipation. However; he criticised Judaism as a religion for slaves in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and so misunderstood M's affection for his own faith. They were also at variance over the progress of the human race; while Kant subscribed to the optimistic point of view and linked the efforts for human betterment to confidence in the progressive improvement of the human race even in the moral sphere, Mendelssohn rejected this evolutionary scheme and insisted upon the originality and diversity of human beings in different civilisations and times. Their differences were far from being resolved and the interest in Mendelssohn's thought during the Idealist period and later gives clear evidence of that. (shrink)

This article aims to revise a common interpretation of V. Turner's concept of communitas in the context of the dialogical philosophy of М. Buber, whose influence has been mostly overlooked by researchers. Communitas is usually seen from the Durkheimian perspective and his notions of the sacred, solidarity and especially effervescence; it is conventionally defined as a transgressive collective experience when individual identities are supposed to submerge into a collective whole. Turner himself, however, has repeatedly noted that communitas is based on (...) the ideas of the “I-Thou” relationship and the “essential We” developed by Buber. A reconstruction of the notion in question together with a recap of Buber's dialogical philosophy allow to clarify the key characteristics of communitas which make it distinct from other similar concepts of community. The main feature of communitas lays in its inherent idea of individualized community where individuals preserve their independence and relate to each other as “totalities”. The notion of “totality” traces back to Buber's concept of “synthesizing apperception” which means the perception of the Other in full wholeness of his/her irreducible personal uniqueness. The “synthesizing apperception” as well as the “I-Thou” relationship require “the primal setting at a distance” which allows an individual not to lose his/her distinctiveness and personal “self”. Other characteristics of communitas, which are making it similar to the “I-Thou” relationship and the “essential We”, include its transience and instability, the dissolution of all inner and outer group boundaries, and its ethical component, which was found to be ideologically rooted in Judaism. Spontaneous communitas and the “I-Thou” relationship (“essential We”) turn out to be almost identical in Turner's descriptions, who incorporated the dialogical vision of relationships between “I” and the Other into the anthropological theory of group interactions in a community. (shrink)

The rhetoric of Amos includes a wonderful mixture of humour and threat, sarcasm and irony, hyperbole and prediction. Holding the fabric of this conversation together is Amos's place within the prophetic minority - the Yahweh-only party. Making use of sociolinguistics, and particularly the idea of anti-language, I take a closer look at Amos, including his use of overlexicalisation, insider-humour and all the shades of irony one might expect. Typically of a member of an anti-society, Amos exaggerates the differences between insider (...) and outsider, in this case, speaking of 'ivory houses', 'the cattle of Bashan' while appealing to his successful attempts to save the rich from the wrath of God. The offenses of the outsiders are sometimes crystal clear and at other times shrouded in metaphor, and so too is the fate of these people. In reading Amos, we are constantly in danger of falling victim to the persuasive power of his rhetoric. We are drawn into the world of Amos, quickly accepting his boundaries and the ideology of his anti-society, his depiction of reality and his stark caricature of the rich. The rhetoric is persuasive and the irony is divisive forcing a choice of black and white, believer and unbeliever, rich and poor, oppressors and oppressed. We struggle to swim against the current and instead long to respond to Amos's invitation to live - perhaps even to discover that elusive hope at which the book hints: Most of history has been the forging of structures of security and appropriate loyalty symbols, to announce and defend one's personal identity, one's group, and one's gender issues and identity. (shrink)

Recent work in the philosophy of religion has broken through disciplinary boundaries and ventured into new areas of inquiry. Examining aspects of the rationality of faith or bringing philosophical techniques to bear on particular religious texts or doctrines, this collection deepens our understanding of the connections between faith and reason.

Who can say "I am Jewish?" What does "Jew" mean? What especially does it mean for Jacques Derrida, founder of deconstruction, scoffer at boundaries and fixed identities, explorer of the indeterminate and undecidable? In _Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint_, French feminist philosopher Hélène Cixous follows the intertwined threads of Jewishness and non-Jewishness that play through the life and works of one of the greatest living philosophers. Cixous is a lifelong friend of Derrida. They both grew (...) up as French Jews in Algeria and share a "belonging constituted of exclusion and nonbelonging" -- not Algerian, rejected by France, their Jewishness concealed or acculturated. In Derrida's family "one never said 'circumcision'but 'baptism,'not 'Bar Mitzvah'but 'communion.'" Judaism cloaked in Catholicism is one example of the undecidability of identity that influenced the thinker whom Cixous calls a "Jewish Saint." An intellectual contemporary of Derrida, Cixous's ideas on writing have an affinity with his philosophy of deconstruction, which sought to overturn binary oppositions -- such as man/woman, or Jew/non-Jew -- and blur boundaries of exclusion inherent in Western thought. In portraying Derrida, Cixous uses metonymy, alliteration, rhyme, neologisms, and puns to keep the text in constant motion, freeing language from any rigidity of meaning. In this way she writes a portrait of "Derrida in flight," slipping from one appearance to the next, unable to be fixed in one spot, yet encompassing each point he passes. From the circumcision act to family relationships, through Derrida's works to those of Celan, Rousseau, and Beaumarchais, Cixous effortlessly merges biography and textual commentary in this playful portrait of the man, his works, and being Jewish. (shrink)

Regardless of unpredictable and contingent geopolitical events such as last year’s surprising rejection of the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands, this coming year will certainly witness a large surge in patriotism. The Winter Olympics in February, and the World Cup in the summer, both promise to whip national sentiments into a fever pitch. One other thing is certain, though: journals of philosophy and ethics will continue to debate the virtues of cosmopolitanism, as this number of Ethical Perspectives does (...) through its contributions below.Why is this? Why do philosophers and academics hold on to this idea of cosmopolitanism, an idea utterly lacking in the convictions of the general public? Is it perhaps because the first cosmopolitans were in fact philosophers? The first to identify himself as a cosmopolitan was Diogenes the Cynic, and Plato’s dialogues paint many of the Sophists in cosmopolitan hues. Although people generally support the idea of internationalism as far as it promotes trade, travel, and football tournaments, once it begins to meddle in internal affairs, as it does with outsourcing and transnational constitutions, they tend to fall back upon the patria. They killed Socrates for corrupting the youth of Athens, not the youth of the world.Whether it is the service and manufacturing industries of Asia and India ‘stealing’ American jobs, or widespread fears of Brussels’ legendary bureaucrats, the non-academic public consistently turns from its tepid embrace of cosmopolitanism to patriotism whenever threatened. Are we too quick to label this as self-interest or even selfishness? Or is there something else at work in the debate between cosmopolitanism and patriotism? Some approaches to cosmopolitanism are certainly guilty of an absolute removal of difference, of wishing away the nation state, of replacing it with an international body based on purely universal principles, and of wiping away the competencies of nations on many levels. The call for the world state can come across as an appeal for an anodyne and internationalist homogeneity based on a clinical morality that, for all its sensitivity, runs roughshod over the well-engrained cultural, legal, and social beliefs of many peoples.Clearly, this is what many Europeans fear, and to a large degree, Americans as well in their dislike for the International Court of Justice. Even the economic hegemony of outsourcing removes national power, and replaces it with pure economic rationality.Our contributors below do not advocate these reductions, although some may point to them. Key to each contribution below is sensitivity to the world as it is, to its need for difference even in the face of an ever-increasing globalisation that sometimes is connected with cosmopolitanism. Yet, every proponent of cosmopolitanism must sketch how it is possible in practice. Of course, an obvious problem is how to dwell consequently as a cosmopolitan. Not many contemporary cosmopolitans would be prepared to follow Diogenes’ commitment to rootlessness: living in exile after having been included in a forgery conviction aimed at his father, the ascetic Diogenes called a barrel his home. Such was his drive to live a levelled life that he cast away his only bowl upon seeing a poor peasant boy drinking from cupped hands. Today’s cosmopolitan leads a much more prosaic life, and hence the problem with cosmopolitanism begins as something mundane. Does not a cosmopolitan still pay national taxes? Does not a cosmopolitan still need a national passport and second country visas? But, the questions quickly turn ontological: how can one shed oneself of one’s nationality, of one’s belonging, as if it is just an accident of one’s own constitution, instead of as an important property of one’s own constitution? In other words, belonging is important: a citizen of the world still values citizenship. Clearly, the absolute cosmopolitan reduction is an absurdity: one is always rooted, in some sense. Even cosmopolitanism is rooted in a specific Western mindset, and is no self-evident preference of human existence.As Rudi Visker’s contribution so clearly shows through an investigation of the narcissism of minor differences, these questions revolve around the question of confrontation with alterity. What I am, in no small way plays off what I am not. I cannot be everything, if I am something. Freud’s analysis of minor differences reveals that members of a group identify with that group on the basis these minor differences. What is self-evident to a particular culture marks that culture off from another culture, a culture that by definition does not share the same set of the self-evident. To be a foreigner, as any ex-patriot can attest, is to stand outside of the self-evident, whether this means interpreting gestures, understanding commercial practices, or, as Freud would have it, staying on the correct side of national taboos. There is thus a dialectic of inner and outer, a dialectic which refuses a reduction of one to the other. As Visker puts it, recognising the stranger within oneself is quite different than recognising the stranger outside of oneself, and to confuse these as being the same is not only to misunderstand the very issue at stake, it is also a dangerous trivialisation of difference.But clearly, there is something viable and laudable in the idea of cosmopolitanism, since it stresses the universal moral community of humanity. Cosmopolitanism is an attempt to see all human subjects as subject to the same moral law. Indeed, the sort of federation to which cosmopolitanism leads, at least in a modified Kantian expression as Bert van Roermund tells us, even gives us good grounds to recognise the legitimacy and moral equivalence of states. Importantly, the international legal order does not draw its power from any supranational force, but from the choice of independent national actors to recognise it. Hence, this cosmopolitan order depends on nationhood, and good standing within this order depends on the degree to which a country decides to participate. Again, the universal here depends on well-rooted particularity, a particularity able to choose for the universal.What do we do, then, with outlaw nations, those nations that are hostile to the choice for the universal? Through a clear reading of Hegel, Paul Cobben proposes that the metric for a state’s legality is the measure to which it permits the moral freedom of its citizens to bloom. A free person requires a free legal order; only in such can a person obtain the full measure of human rights due. States that do not permit this blooming are illegitimate; they contradict the nature of the human person, and citizens dwelling under the yoke of these have the right to ask for outside assistance in removing this illegitimate power above them. However, for this plea to be met, two conditions must obtain: the oppressed people must have the wherewithal to form a political order after the removal of the illegitimate state, and the action must be grounded in the principles and support of a legal community, which in essence would be a world federation of states. In fact, it is morally incumbent upon all legal states to aim at such a world federation, upon pain of contradiction.Our duty to others does not end with the politically oppressed; the economically oppressed also lay a moral claim upon us. So, as Toon Vandevelde asks in his contribution, what about the global poor? The poor are hungry and in need of shelter and a future, but to address these issues at the level of rights is in a way heartless: what good does it do to legislate that everyone has the right to food, when this right can never be called upon, or enforced, in any meaningful sense? Moreover, approaches that demand non-prioritised generosity not only ignore the fundamental economic fact of scarcity, they also run the risk of creating the moral hazard of dependence on charity. The true cosmopolitan approach is the recognition of our common humanity and of our concomitant duty to help others as far as this help does not endanger us. This duty is compounded by the marginalisation of the poor through globalisation, a globalisation that they did not ask for. The extent of our help is indeterminate, but its direction is clear: it must aim to integrate those poor who wish it within our international systems, and so to ease their own transitions from poverty.Both Gil Anidjar and Maria Bonnafous-Boucher continue this theme of economy, but each from a highly specific viewpoint. Indeed, their contributions are perhaps somewhat darker, delving into an aspect of the unspoken underneath the choice for the universal. Anidjar begins with the relation between religion and economy within the interplay of Judaism and Christianity, whereas Bonnafous-Boucher focuses on the development of political economy through a Foucaultian lens. Although highly distinct contributions, both share the insight that the economy is now the central theme of our power structures, and that economy, isolated from questions of morality or justice, must likewise play a decisive role within the structure of cosmopolitanism, or, at minimum, the political unity of peoples. For, national government long ago ceded to a promiscuous mix of governance, and religion to economy. This nexus enthrones governance as an economic rationale stripped of all other trappings, and inscribes any possible cosmopolitanism within a framework of an aggressive capitalism, a kind of economic theology, a kind of hegemony in which state boundaries are essentially liquefied. Capital, after all, knows no boundaries. (shrink)

Religion-state issues are particularly contentious in the Israeli context and they are often resolved by litigation before the Supreme Court in its capacity as the High Court of Justice. A recent controversy that reached Israel’s High Court of Justice in 2005 involved a petition to recognize the validity of non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism. This paper examines the role of the press in constructing the controversy and the image of the High Court of Justice by analyzing all the reports and (...) editorials in both an elite and in a popular newspaper, published from a week before the decision was issued until to 1 month afterwards. It looks at the visual, inter-textual and linguistic features of the articles and analyzes the frames used in representing the Court, the petitioners, and the controversy. We found that two distinct frames were used by the papers to convey the essence of the controversy in the Tushbeim case. While the organizing idea in Haaretz, the elite newspaper, was one of Israel as a civic state, Yediot, the popular newspaper, emphasized the religious dimension of Israeli nationhood. Moreover, contrary to widespread perceptions of the popular press, it presented a wider range of views than did the elite newspaper, which tended to praise the Court and to support the decision. However, both papers avoided challenges to the basic issue of whether religious authorities should control the definition of the character of Israel as a Jewish State. Thus, the media in effect defined the terms of the struggle over the Jewish identity of the state within consensual boundaries. (shrink)

Are mysticism and morality compatible or at odds with one another? If mystical experience embraces a form of non-dual consciousness, then in such a state of mind, the regulative dichotomy so basic to ethical discretion would seemingly be transcended and the very foundation for ethical decisions undermined. Venturing Beyond - Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism is an investigation of the relationship of the mystical and moral as it is expressed in the particular tradition of Jewish mysticism known as the (...) Kabbalah. The particular themes discussed include the denigration of the non-Jew as the ontic other in kabbalistic anthropology and the eschatological crossing of that boundary anticipated in the instituition of religious conversion; the overcoming of the distinction between good and evil in the mystical experience of the underlying unity of all things; divine suffering and the ideal of spiritual poverty as the foundation for transmoral ethics and hypernomian lawfulness. (shrink)

This paper argues that professionals who make boundary-related decisions should be guided by relationship-based practice. In our roles as service users and professionals, drawing from our lived experiences of professional relationships, we argue we need to move away from distance-based practice. This includes understanding the boundary stories and narratives that exist for all of us – including the people we support, other professionals, as well as the organisations and systems within which we work. When we are dealing with professional boundary (...) issues, we should centre relationship-building skills that are central to many other aspects of our work. Skills that foster relationships at all levels – between professionals, service users, and services – need to be revalued. Our final recommendation is to create, develop, and foster safer spaces within and outside of organisations, as well as inter-professionally, for the discussion and exploration of boundary-related issues and practice. We are interested in hearing from those with experiences of being marginalised by boundaries so that they can inform a reshaping of our collective ideas around boundary related practices. To foster relationship-based practices in organisations, we have outlined several recommendations here; however, we recognize that these do not go far enough, and that collective action is needed to inform systemic change. (shrink)

This book is a collection of eleven essays by one of the most interesting moral philosophers currently writing. It examines challenges to liberal thought posed by the changing circumstances of the modern world such as the conflicting tendencies toward global integration, and greater ethnic and communal identification. The author considers whether liberal principles of justice can accommodate social and global interdependencies while reaffirming the importance of individual responsibility and acknowledging the significance of people's diverse personal and communal allegiances.

In this short essay, I tackle, yet again, the question of the nature of inference and elaborate on the agential conception of inference that I've been pursuing (Boghossian 2014, 2016 and forthcoming). What's new in this essay is a better way of setting up the issue about the na- ture of inference; a better identification of the concerns that lie at the back of this way of thinking about the topic; and a response to some important criticisms that have been (...) made of the agential view I've been advocating. (shrink)

This paper poses a new challenge to control-based theories of moral responsibility. Control-based theories – as defended, for instance, by Aristotle and John Martin Fischer – hold that an agent is responsible for an action only if she acted voluntarily and knew what she was doing. However, this paper argues that there is a large class of cases of unreflective behavior of which the following is true: the persons involved did not have the kind of control required by control-based theories, (...) yet we intuitively take the persons involved to be morally responsible. (shrink)

Boundaries have gained analytical prominence in sociology of science. Notably, there have been studies on how academics differentiate themselves from outsiders in order to secure their legitimacy. In university departments, scholars engage in boundary work to defend their intellectual communities and institutional resources. While boundary struggles are characteristic of academia, they rarely result in departmental restructuring. This article examines a case where a theoretical divide between social and cultural anthropologists and biological anthropologists led to a departmental split. The study (...) reveals a shift from peaceful coexistence to a full-blown conflict between two intellectual communities and asks, what circumstances gave rise to the activation of a latent intellectual boundary? Drawing on interview data, I demonstrate how changes in the distribution of faculty and the alignment of intellectual, seniority, and gender differences activated the latent boundary. After its activation, scholars engaged in boundary work and expressed their intellectual differences in faculty meetings and interactions with colleagues, which led to arguments about the department’s identity that hampered the unit’s operation. The study shows how boundary work among scholars can pull apart the fabric of a department, causing intellectual identities to diverge and the organization to split. (shrink)