Jeff's Courses Flashcards
Gustafson’s four modes of ethics
analytical (moral justification for specific actS),
public policy ethics, narrative ethics, prophetic ethics
3 limits of religious discourse in public setting according to Courtney Campbell
interdisciplinary - constructing moral lang for broad audience.
Theological - in translating, you risk compromising theological concepts.
Political - there’s social interests of preserving sep of Church/state.
*Still, he concludes rel can help raise existential interest in death and values typically overlooked by bioethics.
How does Nietzsche think theologically? How does this mentality surface within transhumanist thought?
when he discusses the eternal return of the same - eternal recurrence is not just the way that the totatlity of entities exists, but their highest mode of existence. –> becoming is an ontology for Nietzsche, and the moment of the return of the same is the highest moment of existence. it’s an eternal circulation of power. (Jeff’s article argues that transhumanists pick this up to argue for deliberate selection/enhancement evolution. this ordering force that will drive the emergence of the posthuman is the transhumanist’s theology.)
Heidegger on technology and Jeff on politics/science
not just a bringing forth, but also a challenging forth. it coerces what is not present into being, it’s manipulating and manufacturing. — “Nature becomes what nature is set up to become by the techniques that are applied.” – Jeff argues that maybe it’s not that politics corrupts science (bc Nazi experiments would be horrible even without the political), but that there is a metaphysics of technology that leads to problematic abuses.
Heidegger on the being of entities
typically, W Eur has been guided by Q “What is an entity?” which asks what it means for an entity to be and elicits a response about being. But, the answer is not only about what entities are, but how they are. it’s a q about the “being of entities”. His thesis is that metaphysical postulates about the being of entities take the same form throughout the history of metaphysics. »_space; ONTOLOGY: what is an entity? the essence, what makes it the entity it is? this is the exemplary entitty that explains all the others. ground giving unity. bottom up. THEOLOGY the totality of entities, the way an entitty is an entity; existence, thatness. these form ontotheological character of metaphysics. founding unity. top down.
–“The being of entities is thus thought of in advance as the grounding ground.” this is the way that we ground metaphysics. THE BEING OF ENTITIES DOUBLY GROUNDS ENTITIES.
_But, what grounds the being of entities? Being as such (something beyond the entity that makes possible the postualtes of the being of entities) or a self-grounding. –> This is an epistemological suspension between foundation and abyss. ‘
-ontotheology exists outside of different epochal differences. there is something the same beneath differences, and what is the same is being as such. the same gives rise to our worlds of meaning without ever being exhausted buy them. this is “the enigma,” a “metaphysical foundationalism.”
Was the ontotheological structure of metaphysics necessary or contingent?
To answer, Heidegger had to give an account of how it happened that ontotheo became linked. It began in the 7th C BCE with presocratic thought. Formalized by Aristotle through the diff btw primary (whether something is; the singular, the presence in the primal sense) and secondary substances (what something is). Leads to diff btw essence and existence (based on Plato’s whatness and thatness). So Plato already had brought the two ideas together and subordinated thatness to whatness. Aristotle takes Plato and says: “what a thing is depends on our awareness that it is.” But, Heidegger lays the responsibility for ontotheo at feet of Aristotle, bc he inscribes diff btw prim/sec substances.
Was this contingent? Well, it happened bc the being manifests as a groun that is both bottom up and top down. phenomenologically, there’s an implicit difference btw the dynamic showing (presencing) and the passive lasting (presence) of entities. to split the ontological and theological, we have to freeze the presencing of presence. when we did this, ontotheo becomes possible. it was not historically necessary bc the being underdetermines the metaphysical understanding that emerged.
–Another way to imagine would ahve been as emergence and disclosure, being as temporally dynamic, unfolding, emergence. but we have a metaphysics of SUBSTANCE.
virtuosi
came out of a theological tradition of Natural theology. these are the people we call scientists (called themselves natural philosophers or virtuosi). science was seen as a religious task, defended God and the pattern of dviine in everything. religion was about intellectual demonstration.
What are four ways of relating religion and science?
(Barbour)
CONFLICT - sci materialism and biblical literalism are opposites. both seek knowledge with a pure foundation, and both can’t be right.
INDEPENDENCE - religion and science are autonomous, each has its own domain and methods. (sci is about observation and reason, theo is about divine revelation)
DIALOGUE - relationships btw sci and rel, sci is justified and doesn’t need rel’s legitimacy. but, sci has Qs it can’t answer. it shows order is rational. Rahner is here – sci and theo are independent but have points of contact. God can be dimly known as the infinite horizon within which we apprehend finite objects. Tracy is also here. sees a religious dimension in science, traditional doctrines may be refined based on contemporary philosophy.
INTEGRATION - integration of rel and sci is possible. our understanding of nature impacts understanding of God; nature is dynamic and evolutionary process. God creates in and through it. Process philosophy.
**Barbour is in favor of dialogue model or certain versions of “integration.”
scientism and existentialism
scientism - sci meth is only real epistemology; existentialism - we can only know authentic human existence by our experiences. Religion is an i-thou exp, but sci is an i-it.
Critical realism according to Barbour
rel models are serious but not literal. this is what he defends. The elements of rel exceed those of sci, but rel is also stories and eritual, not literal always. Barbour argues that rel can’t claim to be science or to conform to science; however, there are overlaps in sci and rel and their spirits of inquiry. dialogue is appropriate!
Engelhardt’s on Secular humanism
thesis: We cannot establish a morality based on what we share as humans, but we can and should have a secular bioethic that occurs in a space that enables peaceable negotiation among moral strangers.
Secular can mean three things: 1) that which is opposed to religious. 2) the place where people meet to fight about ideas in neutral terms. 3) a constructive space wherein we can meet to talk and come to shared agreement.
secular humanism = a cluster of philosophy, and other ideas associated with humanism apart from religion. Secular Humanism = beliefs of those associated w organized humanist movements.
in general, sec hum can be a kind of natural law morality. sec hum bioethics tries to recapture universal sense of NL and make moral arguments to ppl of diff traditions. aslo can be seen as opposite to rel bioetx or mediator bc sec/rel bioetx.
Engelhardt: Seven senses of the secular
- Morally neutral framework through which believers and non-believers can collaborate.
- Clerics who aren’t bound by religious vows, who then place themselves under the rule of an order. (here he means in modern day, that the “secular cleric is the one who governs a secular morality)
- Secularization as a process by which a member of a religious order becomes a secular cleric (diocesan) or a thing is owned by a secular claric.
- the process by which the title to church property is transferred to public/private hands.
- the attempt to limit powers, immunities, influences of the Church.
- A movement aimed at establishing secular societal structures.
- transformation of rel/transcendent to immanent/worldly.
yuppies and cosmopolitans
yuppie = prophet of the secular tradition for hc. ppl who don’t belong to anyone/thing but humanity. prioritize tolerance. rooted in commericial culture.
cosmopolitans = inds who don’t see themselves as bound by history/tradition; suff has no meaning, humans manipulate in any way. no transcendent moral content.
Cosmopolitan portrays the secularity of modern times and leads to the kinds of practices we have today that are devoid of transcendent values.
9 meanings of humanism
1) humanitas - refined learning, cultivated taste.
2) humane as philanthropic / humanitarian.
3) humanity as nobility - collective term for morally/intellectually praiseworthy traits
4) esp in the 15c, the humanist as teacher/scholar/student.
5) humanities –> liberal arts.
6) Humanism as scholarship - interest in lit of ancients.
7) Humanism as poise/balance; sense of proper bearing through intuition.
8) Humanism as a creed - visio of human nature with certain values.
9) Humanism as a philosophical basis for common moral understanding and negotiation btw strategers.
Brought together under 3 main clusters:
humanism as humane concern, humanism as a context for learning, and humanism as a phil/moral theory.
What is at stake in Engelhardt’s suggestion for a common secular morality?
if the attempt for a content full CM fails, it’s just tradition vs tradition, intuition vs intuition, and the grounds for respecting people fall. it’s the abandonment of rational argumentation. We need to see ethics as “the commitment to resolving controversies btw moral strangers without primary recourse to force but with a common moral authority.” we can only do this with peaceable negotiation, and this requires mutual respect (recognition that the other WANTS to act ethically, not that we’re the same). THUS, A COMMON MORALITY CAN COME INTO EXISTENCE FROM A COMMON WILL, THE WILL CAN SET NIHILISM ASIDE!
“secular humanism offers a way of converting this fragmentation of humanity into a pluralism understood within a common moral lang that can span and tolerate contrary assertions about the meaning of human life, health, illness, death.”
With this common morality, IC is crucial, market solutions are not problematic, inequalities will remain.
According to Plato, what kinds of goods exist and which kind is justice?
goods we want for their own sake (joy), for their own sake AND bc of what comes from it (health and JUSTICE), and for the sake of soemthing else (medicine)
Plato - the myth of the metals
people should be ordered according to this myth. All must be indoctrinated with it.
All were boren out of the earth, and have a duty to patriotism and to each other. each has a metal mixed into his soul. Gold - those fit to rule/rulers. Silver - auxilaries. Bronze - laborers. if bronze/silver rules, city will be destroyed.
USuallly, two golds have a gold, two silvers a silver. Occassionaly silvers have a gold or golds a silver; taht child has to be taken and given immediately to the appropriate rank.
Those fit to rule = guardians. shouldn’t be wealthy.
The purpose of Plato’s city
the purpose of the city is to make the city, moreso than individuals, happy. but, if the city is just, individuals also reflect the justice of the city’s structure. a just man does not differ from a just city in regards to the form of justice. thus, the ind has three parts to be like the city - appetites, rational, spirited. (rational is highest, appetitive is lowest) these correspond to the producers, guardians, and rulers in the kallipolis. The just city and soul both have proper structure, the ordering of parts. Justice is the harmony of the three parts.
