Ethics
Outlines to my ethical writings by way of a guide. Titles, links, abstracts, and tables of contents.
The Ecology of Good (2020)
Abstract
Mapping the substantive terrain of the good via a moral ecology.
Contents
1 INTRODUCTION
Under the shadow of Nihilism; Weber’s Cage, Nietzsche’s Dance and Marx’s Emancipation
2 ONTO-ECOLOGY
Nihilism as the Deepest Problem; Heidegger and Being in the World; Active Be-ing in the participatory universe;
3 RATIONAL FREEDOM
Recovering the Good Life – Rational Freedom; What is the Good Life?; Plato; Aristotle; Rousseau; Kant; Nietzsche
4 RATIONAL FREEDOM AND COMMON CONSTRAINT
Climate Change Is a Crisis We Can Only Solve Together ; How Individualist Economics Are Causing Planetary Eco-Collapse; Recovering the Common Ground and the Common Good; Who acts for the Common Good?; Rational Action and Good Government
5 THE SOUL OF THE OBJECTIVELY VALUABLE WORLD
Fact and Value, the world of science and the everyday lifeworld; Bridging the Gap between Theoretical Reason and Practical Reason; ‘Culture and the Death of God’; ‘The Soul of the World’;
6 THE ECOLOGY OF VALUES
The Ecology of Good and Bad; Defining Moral Values; Values, Virtues and Visions;
7 UNIVERSAL MORAL VALUES
A Short List of Universal Moral Values; The Case for and against Universal Values; Implications for Ethical Education
8 WHY TRUTH MATTERS
Deconstruction and Destruction; Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault
9 VIRTUE
Why I work in the virtue tradition; Character and character construction;
The Community of Morality; Pope Francis’s Radical Realism: Performance v. Ideology; Morality and the Inner Motives
10 ECO-PSYCHOLOGY
Per Espen Stoknes and eco-psychology; Psychology of Identity; Social Psychology; Evolutionary psychology; Fostering the Springs of Action
11 EUDAIMONICS
Creative Evolution; Eudaimonics
12 KEEKOK LEE AND ARTEFACTUAL NATURE
13 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS AND ECO-PRAXIS
Definition of praxis, Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, and Marx; Nature via nurture
14 THE UTOPIAN ANTHROPOLOGY OF BEING AND PLACE
Ecological utopias;
15 THE GREEN POLITY
16 ECOLOGY AND THE CRITIQUE OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
Alienation and Social Control; Virtue and Economic Life
17 FUTURES – THE COMEDY OF LIFE
Abstract
An examination of modernity as a great disembedding that separates human beings from their ethical, political, and physical commons. Removed further and further from the sources of human connection, denied an end-point, we are condemned to forever search for the sense of community, belonging, and meaning that gives purpose and direction and brings fulfilment. Examining the modern dis-at-ease at its source, this book goes on to consider the work of reconnection and restoration required to overcome this rootless and fruitless condition.
Contents
BOOK ONE : MORALITY AND MODERNITY
1 RATIONALE:
1 Re-enchanting the world; 2 Approaches; morality and modernity; the problematic of morality and modernity; 3 Moral and metaphysical reconstruction
2 COMMUNITY, INDIVIDUALISM, AND MODERN SOCIETY
1 Community and Modern Society; the search for community; 2 Modernity and the Quest for Community and Personality; Community and Personality – the loss and recovery of form; The constitution of communities of identity, meaning and belonging; The rationalized environment as ripe for the totalitarianism of external control – the totalizing force of surrogate community; The New Communitarian Vision; Recovering personality and community; Fostering the politics of self-government.
3 The Unit Ideas of Sociology and their Antitheses
The revolt against individualism; Liberalism, Radicalism, Conservatism; The critical view of liberal society, abstraction, and alienation; The unity of ethics and aesthetics; Conservatism, modernism, and nostalgia
4 The Loss of Community
Rationalisation/Modernism – the loss of community; Nietzsche, subjectivism, nihilism; Social theory and rationalistic desolidarisation; Modernity and its prophecies of doom and disaster; God and the moral framework.
3 CAPITALIST MODERNITY AND THE RATIONALIZATION OF THE WORLD
The non-academic philosophy of life against the tyranny and violence abstraction – against the rationalizations of social theory; The dialectics of hope and despair; The sociological critiques of modernity; Modernity and the future; Marx, Nietzsche and Weber; Marx and Weber on capitalist modernity; Marx, Nietzsche, and Weber – convergences and generational differences; Weber - rationalisation beyond capitalism – Fleurs du mal; Nietzsche and Weber and the fear of ersatz communities; Marx, Nietzsche, and Weber as key thinkers; Virtuous Communities fostering Habits of the Heart; Rehabilitating the ethical life as key to reinhabiting place; The tyranny and violence of abstraction; Prospects for Re-enchantment.
4 THE MORAL SOCIOLOGY OF NOSTALGIA
The Problem of Nostalgia; Nostalgia – the story of loss; The Sociological Tradition; Sociology and the Nostalgic Frame; Nostalgia and German Social Thought; Nietzsche and nostalgia; Nietzsche’s concern with an authentic morality; Tonnies; Simmel; Weber in the context of social theory; Critical Theory; Martin Heidegger; Michel Foucault and Modernism; The Religo-moral Problem and the Post-modernist Crisis; The relation between society and religion; Conclusion on social theory
5 NIETZSCHE, THE DEATH OF GOD; OR NIHILISM AND THE DEATH OF LIBERALISM
Why Nietzsche?; Nietzsche and the end of the moral and metaphysical standpoint; Statement of the problematic – why Marx, Nietzsche, and Weber – Nietzsche’s influence throughout social theory; An Overview; The universal-transcendent essentialist ethic incarnated in time and place; Liberalism, Nihilism and the Loss of Community; Ideology, Morality and Values; The nostalgic frame – the loss of unity and its recovery; Nietzsche against the nostalgic frame; Nietzsche and the practical truth of being and knowing; Nietzsche and the machine; Nietzsche’s life philosophy – Nietzsche’s cultural politics; Practical truth against abstract blueprints; Morality after god; Nietzsche's provocations; Organicism as a life philosophy; The ethic of embodiment; Nietzsche as a critic of modernity; The criticism of liberalism and the liberal ontology – the abstract individual and the abstraction of society; Personality and the autonomous individual; The Doctrine of the Little Things.
6 GOD, REASON, VALUES, GROUNDS
Modernity and the loss of an authoritative moral and metaphysical standpoint]
BOOK TWO : WEBER, MACINTYRE, AND MUMFORD
7 UNDER THE SHADOW OF MODERNITY
Modernity, Subjectivity and Politics; Weber’s political sociology and ethics; Modernity, Politics, and Max Weber; Weber’s methodological individualism; The division between fact and value; Capitalism and Rationalization; Maturity and Politics; Politics, means, and force; Habermas, Reason and Faith; Habermas and authoritative standards; Anti-Prophetic Prophecy, Pessimism and Hope.
8 PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND HOPE FOR AN ETHICAL POLITY
Weber as the perfect interlocutor; The Appropriate Human Regimen - Philosophical Anthropology; Weber’s concern with the appropriate human regimen; The New Dark Age; Refusing complicity with the Beast; Alasdair MacIntyre; Freedom that Enslaves; Transformative Practice and the Good of Human Beings; Eudaimonics – the appropriate regimen for the human good - MacIntyre in criticism of Weber and the modern moral condition; The Politics of Local Community; MacIntyre, ethical polity, the politics of local community; Engaging MacIntyre Critically: Flourishing, Modernity and Political Struggle; MacIntyre – critique of MacIntyre’s politics of local community; Closing Reflections: Politics and Strategy in the Present; Politics and community in the aftermath of Weber; Key themes – A Conclusion by Way of Introduction.
Reaffirming transcendent norms, truths and values vs conventionalism and sophism; Reaffirming transcendent standards against conventionalism; Essentialist politics – responding to criticisms; The problematic dualism of local community and public community.
BOOK THREE: LEWIS MUMFORD AND THE QUEST FOR WHOLENESS
PREPARATORY CONSIDERATIONS ON LEWIS MUMFORD
CHAPTER ONE THE INTEGRAL VIEW
1 The Reason why
The ethical commitment; Three Paths; The Quest for Community; A Moral and Social psychology vs pathology; Humanistic Ethics; The myth of the machine; Politics
CHAPTER TWO – THE PHILOSOPHY OF MAN
Humanist Ethics; Objections
CHAPTER THREE: THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
CHAPTER FOUR: THE HOME OF MAN
CHAPTER FIVE: PHILOSOPHY IN THE CITY
The Moral Dimensions of Urban Space; Democracy – the Ecopolis; The Critique of existing political institutions; Democratic Experimentalism
CHAPTER SIX: FREEDOM LOST – THE CRITIQUE OF THE MEGAMACHINE
Social Character; Authoritarianism; Destructiveness; Alienation; Progress?
CHAPTER SEVEN: REGAINING FREEDOM: TOOLS FOR (RE)CONSTRUCTION
CHAPTER EIGHT: BIOTECHNIC CIVILISATION
One World Civilisation; The Conditions for Human Solidarity
CHAPTER NINE: THE LIFE ECONOMY
Work, Production, Consumption; The tyranny of the clock and the reality of cog work; The humanization of work; Humanistic Planning and Design; Reclaiming Life in Work; Consumption and the Loss of Self; Sane Consumption;
CHAPTER TEN CONCLUSIONS
Abstract
This book is a collection of essays written in the past two years. I was prompted to gather these essays in one place by the publication of Matthew Crawford’s article How Race Politics Liberated the Elites (December 14 2020). Crawford’s argument dovetails neatly with the issues I have sought to raise in recent times, attempting to reconstitute the liberatory politics of the Left around a substantive ethic. My consistent point has been that the Left’s case and cause in politics is explicitly normative and that the failure to secure that normative basis invites not merely the loss of the point and purpose of leftist politics but its inversion in practice. You cannot have your transcendent cake and eat it too: once it is gone, it is gone for good, leaving nothing but self-created values as a function of power. Without transcendent standards of truth and justice, all that there is is a power struggle, precisely the anarchy of the rich and powerful which socialism seeks to supplant. The lack of moral clarity on the Left will be its undoing.
Contents
Introduction; How the Sophist Politics of the ‘New Left’ Liberates the Ruling Class; An Easter Prayer; Pleonexia and Public Life; Redeeming Empty Promises; Good-bye to Statues, Good-bye to You; And good-bye to the common good; For Civility, Public Life, and Reason; A Positive and Lasting Peace in the Presence of Justice.
Abstract
An Auto-Bibliographical essay which establishes and links the basic themes of my work over the years. Contains links to my books, papers, and essays.
Contents
1 Rational Freedom; 2 Marx as the Realization of Rational Freedom; 3 I am Very Hegelian; 4 The Abolition/Realization of Philosophy and the Permanence of Transcendent Standards; 5 Transcendent Standards beyond the endlessness politics of Power/Resistance; 6 Being at Home; 7 Reconciling Nature and Will; 8 Mapping the Ecology of Good; 9 The Nihilistic Fragmentation of Modernity and the Threat of Universal Hatred; 10 The Politics of Love and Friendship; 11 The Overweening Hubris of Progress and Perfectibility; 12 Sophist Morality, Sophist Politics – Power trumps Love and Friendship (and vice versa); 13 The Moral Terrain and the Rational Tradition; 14 Rational Freedom: Environmental Implications and Applications; 15 Under the Shadow of Deicide; 16 Nihilism and the Irreducible Moral Game; 17 Rational Freedom, Transcendent Standards, and the Quest for the Good Life; 18 The Descent into a Fractured Public and Moral Life; 19 Cultivating the Virtues to achieve the Public Good; 20 The Necessity of Soul Care and Ethical Cultivation; 21 The Need for Rational Restraint; 22 Cultivating the Virtues: Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Tocqueville; 23 Overcoming the Crisis of Communication; 24 The Communicative Community of Jürgen Habermas; 25 Individualism as a Personal Self-Alienation from God; 26 Standards - Horizontalizing the Vertical – the immantisation and abolition of the transcendent as a self-abolition; 26 The Rehabilitation of Transcendent and Normative Discourse; 27 The Recognition and Contemplation of the Divine; 28 The Dangers of Disenchanting Analysis and Misplaced Concreteness; 29 Power and Humility: Beyond Possession; 30 The Merging of Blank Sheet Individualism and Darwinian Group- Level Collectivism; 31 Civic Republicanism and Council Republicanism; 32 The Moral Architectonic: Rehabilitating the Ethical Life; 33 Ethical Conflict and Toleration as Moral Failure; 34 The Rational Moral Science of the Human Order; 35 Disclosure and Imposition: Partners in Creation; 36 Proving the Truth: Bridging the Gap between Contemplation and Action; 37 The Synergy of Moral Motives, Metaphysical Ideals, and Material Interests; 38 The Quest for the Ultimate Good.
Contents
1 Sky Gazing; 2 God and Nature – locating wisdom; 3 Meaningless and Despair; 4 The Fabric of the Universe; 5 Faith and Reason – Pascal’s Night of Fire; 6 The Paradox of Man – Pascal and human wretchedness; 7 Hope in a Seemingly Hopeless Condition; 8 Pascal’s Wager; 9 Finding the Best Explanatory Framework to See the Big Picture; 10 To be Pieces of the Big Picture; 11 The Love of Truth, the Quest for Wisdom; 12 The Grand Narrative of Our End; 13 God, Psychology and Physics; 14 On philosophy; 15 Embodying Physics, Bodying-forth Truth; 16 A Conclusion.
Volume 3 of Socialism from Within
Abstract
Volume 3 of Marx's Socialism from Within. Here I examine the necessity for transcendent standards vs conventionalism, checking relativism, subjectivism and scepticism. I address Nietzsche's 'death of God' and its moral implications with respect to politics. I close with a substantial chapter on Alasdair MacIntyre's virtuous communities of practice, arguing for the necessity of political community in order to extend these communities on a large scale to achieve the widespread social and moral transformation required in the modern diremptive world.
Contents
1 The Darkness of Disinheritance;
2 Nietzsche on interpretation;
3 Foundations, Facts and Interpretations;
4 God and Evil;
5 God and Man: Partners in Creation;
6 Service, Sacrifice and Love: The Humility of Religious Experience;
7 Men as Gods: The Dangers of an Idolatrous Humanism;
8 Radicals, Traditionalists, Conservatives and Liberals;
9 MacIntyre and Virtuous Communities of Practice
Tolkien and the Fellowship of all Living Things: The Politics of Proximity, Person, and Place (2017)
Abstract
Tolkien’s words on ‘fighting the long defeat’ are wonderful and endlessly inspiring – he gives us a ‘hope without guarantees.’ And a long defeat that, in acts of love and kindness and solidarity, gives ‘glimpses of final victory.’
There’s a lot of discussion on what it takes to motivate people to act at the moment. Tolkien’s environmental concern came years before environmentalism as a movement, and is really a Christian stewardship. Many would consider him nostalgic, reactionary even, anti-technological – but he saw the impacts of industrialisation and urbanisation and didn’t like them, thought that they drew us away from the right way of relating to each other and to the world. The tyranny of abstraction that Tolkien feared has brought us to a situation in which global problems require global solutions, and I argue strongly for concerted and effective action in that respect. But I’ll keep on arguing that large scale ambitious projects need to be grounded in small-scale reasoning, communities of practice and love of place – a Hobbit like existence in which the ordinary actions of the little people knit communities together and create the warm and affective bonds between us, making us prepared to act to defend the places and persons we love and value. That’s where motivation comes from. And that’s the source of active hope. I develop these themes at length in this Tolkien piece. It’s a personal statement on my part, urban Hobbit as I am, someone who argues for material sufficiency and virtuous action within right relationships, pottering away in my little community, engaging in solidary exchange, creating bonds and links. We need the facts and figures and the right policies and policy framework – and my deep concern is to avoid opening a democratic deficit in climate action. We need an environmentalism that gives the ‘little folk’ a material and moral stake. If we are Hobbits at heart, and if we create the Hobbit habits of the heart, then we will have the motivation to act and don’t need to be persuaded, still less forced by way of authoritarian imposition.
And here I show how the protagonists in the Lord of the Rings put everything on the line and throw their whole heart and soul into the struggle. Everything they hold dear is at stake, the people and places they love, everything they hold true and know to be right. They long to preserve these things and are prepared to sacrifice themselves for their protection. That’s some love.
I develop Tolkien's natural anarchy and pacifism. He's been accused of escapism, and he accepted the charge, he is escapist in the truest sense, he said, in the sense of a man escaping prison. Weber's "iron cage" of a rationalized, routinised, bureaucratised world that proceeds "without regard for persons" rings a bell in this respect. We are all in prison in the world of capitalist modernity, confined within a world of anonymous collective force imposed externally to such an extent we lose the personal touch. We need to escape.
‘My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) … the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity… The mediævals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari [I do not want to be bishop] as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop.’ (J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter to his son Christopher, Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Humphrey Carpenter.)
For a world without bosses and without bossing.
Contents
1 Introduction
2 Literary Ecology: The Power of Story; Tolkien’s environmentalism; Tolkien’s underlying philosophy; The case for literary ecology; The disconnection and reconnection of all things; Regaining a clear view; Ecophenomenology – the relation of self to setting
3 Promethean and Orphic Approaches to Nature: The inner consistency of reality; Industrial encroachment; Middle Earth – Promethean and Orphic relating to the natural world; Under the shadow of rationalisation; Technology; Tolkien the Hobbit; Heidegger, building and dwelling in the fourfold.
4 From technological rationalisation to biospheric politics: The invisible magic; Elves and magic – Elvic Enchantment; Sub-creation – the Art present in nature; Mythopoeia
5 The Ethic of Christian Stewardship: Christian sources; Tolkien’s Christian environmentalism; Environmentalism as a moral ecology – White’s critique; Tolkien’s Christian stewardship – natural pacifism and anarchy; Christian sources – good and evil – against the power system; The disenchanted world; Christian ethic – fellowship; The fellowship of all beings and bodies; Christian ethic – love; Christian sources and message
6 The Truth of Story Telling: Fairy stories and story telling – sub-creative activity; Creators and creations, independent life – sub-creation; Fairies, Gods and God – the creative universe and infinite oneness.
7 Rationalisation as the Promethean approach: Technology and its use – against alien rationalisation.
8 The Radical Critique of Tolkien: Raymond Williams’ Critique; Middle Earth – Morton’s Critique; Moorcock’s Criticism; The Divine Vision beyond Political Division.
9 Technology, Tragedy and the Small Hands that turn the wheels of the world: Tolkien’s anti-industrialism as anti-technology and progress?; Tolkien, technology and tragedy; The little people overcoming rationalisation; Keeping transcendent hope and vision alive under rationalisation; Local scale, proximity, the social commons and community resilience
10 Fighting the long defeat: To Value and to Worship: Facing the Future in the Here and Now; Tolkien and the Long Defeat: Galadriel and the Long Defeat; The little folk who fight the long defeat; Fighting in face of the forces of progress; The long defeat, progress, and hope; The long joy – the final victory beyond power politics.
11 A New Earth: Hope and Action; Turning the divided “I” into the common “We”
12 The Prophetic Voice
13 Concluding Thoughts: Ecological Restoration as a Restorying: The case for an Existential Literary Ecology
Abstract
A defence of essentialist metaphysics, making the case for the unity of an ethics of immanence and transcendence
Contents
1 Introduction: The Case For Essentialist Philosophy;
2 The Dialectics Of Progress: The End Of Progress; The Drift Towards Catastrophe; Technology And Domination;
3 The Delusions Of John Gray; 4 Camille Paglia On Immanence And Transcendence; 5 Theology And The Search For God; 6 Plato, Art And Eternity; 7 The Finite In Pursuit Of The Infinite; 8 The Visionary Materialism Of William Blake; 9 The Participatory Universe; 10 Under What Stars To Plough The Earth?; 11 Beyond Heroic Materialism; 12 Biology And Natural Self-Organisation; 13 Transcendental Idealism And Naturalism; 14 Essentialism And Atomism; 15 Essentialism, Purpose And Human Agency; 16 Aristotle And Essentialism; 17 Hegel And The Telos Of History; 18 Marx’s Essentialist Metaphysics; 19 The Transcendence Of The Immanent Contradictions Of Capital; 20 Alienation, Humanisation And Idolatry; 21 Dante – The Living Hope; Poetic Architectonics: A Universalizing Philosophical-Theological Discourse; The Desire To Know; Human Nature And Its Fulfilment; The Politics Of Love; Philosophical Anthropology; The Political Peace; Particular Interests And The Good Of The Whole; Dante And Multiple Meanings; Philosophy And Theology, Reason And Faith; Descent Before Ascent – Transcendence Of Self And Society; Dante’s Practical Intent; Treachery And The Ice Of Hell; Purgatorio: Ascent And Hope; Purification Leading To Eden – Purification; Rebirth – The Sweet Harmony Of Sacred Song; Paradiso; Dante As Universal Traveller, Explorer And Discoverer; Transformative Visionary Experience; Power Divine - Into The Light; Looking On Earth From The Stellar Heaven; Paradise As Desire Fulfilled; The Cosmic Dance; God In A Singular Star; The Return Of Creature To Creator - The Divine Glory In All Creation; From Material To Immaterial – Utter Transcendence; God As Perfect Movement; Trinity As Circle Of Perfect Motion – Movement; The Return To Earth With Self-Knowledge.
Abstract
This book traces the collapse in the idea of an overarching objective moral framework in a line of development that proceeds from the Protestant Reformation to liberalism, secularism, relativism and atheism. The analysis charts the dissipation of objective morality from the intersubjectivism and universalism of Immanuel Kant to the nihilism of Nietzsche. The book identifies Max Weber as a key figure in giving sociological expression to the moral impasse which characterises the modern world. Weber’s much vaunted polytheism is shown to be an heterogeneity of values, the reduction of morality to value judgements, a conflict of irreducible value positions in which there is no objective way of deciding between them. The modern world is not so much a Nietzschean world which is beyond good and evil so much as a world in which objective moral criteria no longer apply.
The book proceeds to argue the case for the importance of St Thomas Aquinas’ epistemological realism, rationalist metaphysics of being and natural moral law as supplying the objective foundations capable of resolving the impasse of morality in the modern world. The book considers Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and Marx as key moral and political philosophers undertaking the task of recovering the common good that has been lost with the rejection of rational metaphysics and the natural moral law. To the extent that these thinkers failed, and the key aspects of modernity have remained in place, Max Weber remains the central theorist of modernity. Though profoundly influenced by Nietzsche, Weber’s tough-minded realism led him to reject notions of a ‘gay’ and ‘joyful’ nihilism and draw pessimistic conclusions with respect to the future. I argue that there is a line of development connecting Kant’s achievements and his failure to Weber and Nietzsche. I argue against the common understanding of Kant as a deontologist theorist pure and simple. A Thomist reading reveals that Kant sought not to reject virtue, but to place virtue ethics on a rational foundation. A Thomist reading also reveals Kant to be a teleological thinker concerned that human beings realize their rational nature through the pursuit of the summum bonum, the highest good. The problem is that Kant’s commitment to the highest good is undermined by Kant’s rejection of rational metaphysics, cutting his moral law off from its foundation in ontological nature. Kant cuts mind off from reality, denies causality and as a result comes to be trapped within a series of dualisms which undermine his commitment to universality – ‘is’ and ‘ought-to-be’, moral duty and natural inclination, reason and nature. Kant therefore fails to overcome the diremption of the modern world. Rather than achieve a genuinely universal ethic, Kant supplies an ethic which seeks to constrain the behaviour of agents in the modern world from the outside. Rather than a morality which operates at the level of character, Kant’s ethic takes on a legal form, constraining behaviour from the outside instead of forming behaviour from within natural inclinations and dispositions. As such, Kant’s ethical project fails. Kant’s self-legislation of practical reason amounts to no more than the self-sufficiency of reason. I argue that this fails to supply a secure foundation for Kant’s ethics of the summum bonum. I affirm Kant’s commitment to the highest good. The view is taken, however, that Kant is ultimately agnostic on the good, on account of his separation of reason from ontological nature. In time, Kant’s intersubjectivism and universality degenerates into the myriad relativisms, subjectivisms and nihilisms that inhabit the modern world. At this point, Nietzsche and Weber become key figures, showing the only form that Kantianism could possibly take within the framework of modernity. The book thus argues the case for the philosophical/theological synthesis of St. Thomas Aquinas as providing the only secure basis for the objective and universal foundations of the moral law and the common good. I show how Aquinas’ rational metaphysics and natural law theory join reason and nature together on the basis of a necessary ontological connection. I argue that to make good Kant’s moral claims, we need to recover St Thomas Aquinas’ natural moral law, rationalist metaphysics and realist epistemology. I argue that the universal claims of the greatest of the modern moral and political philosophers – Rousseau, Kant, Hegel and Marx - can only be realised by being grounded in the natural law.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
1 WHY AQUINAS MATTERS
2 THE RETURN OF VIRTUE
3 MORALITY AND MODERNITY
Moral Knowledge; The Inward Turn Of The Cogito; Reconnecting Morality With Ontological Nature
4 THE NEED FOR MORAL UNITY
Naturalist And Supernaturalist Ends; Participatory Metaphysics; The Veneration Of Means As The Loss Of Ends; Eudaimonia And Beatitude; The Ultimate End; The Science Of Being And The Objectivity Of Knowledge; Bringing The Intellect Back To Its Object; Aquinas And The Aristotelian Framework
5 KANT, VIRTUE AND THE GOOD
The Revival Of Virtue Ethics; Kant And His Communitarian Critics; Kant On Virtue; The Good Will; Maxims As Underlying Intentions; The Doctrine Of Morally Necessary Ends; Virtue And The Highest Good; Kant’s Natural Teleology; Rational Nature As An End In Itself; Kant’s Achievement
6 HEGEL, MARX, IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE
The Attempts To Reconcile The Individual And The Community; The High Road Of Modernity; The Humanised World And Its Moral Foundations; Materialist Immanence; The Instrumentalization Of The World; The Need For Transcendence; Revaluation Is Not Nostalgia
7 THE IMPASSE OF MODERN ETHICS AND NIETZSCHE’S CHALLENGE
The Loss Of Moral Truth; The Search For The Common Good On The Ground Of Modernity; Human Beings As Rational Beings; The Gay Science; Back To And Beyond Modernity
8 MAX WEBER AND THE RATIONALISATION OF MODERNITY
NATURAL LAW AND THE ULTIMATE ORIGIN OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY; The natural order needs to be open to the divine and transcendent; The modern Gnosticism; Machiavellianism and the Individualist Premises of Modernity; Facts and Values; SCIENCE AND SCIENTISM; Rationalisation as ideology; Thomism and the intelligibility of the universe; The modern distinction between science and morality; AGNOSTICISM, SCEPTICISM AND NIHILISM – WEBER IN THE AFTERMATH OF KANT; RADICAL INDIVIDUALISM AND TOTALITARIANISM; SCIENCE AND ULTIMATE MEANING; THE NEED FOR A RATIONAL METAPHYSICS; VALUE JUDGEMENTS AS LACKING OBJECTIVE FOUNDATION; Modernity unable to uphold a philosophical morality; THE SEPARATION OF POLITICS AND MORALITY – THE STATE AS COERCION; PROTESTANTISM, LIBERALISM, SECULARISM AND NIHILISM; Protestantism as pure rationalism – the individual as god; WEBER AND MODERNISM; NATURAL LAW AS A WORK OF REASON; The rational science of human and social order; POLYTHEISM AS A SECULARISED IDEOLOGY OF MUTUAL INCOMPATIBLE GODS; Individualism brings about collectivism in politics and conformism in society; PRIVATE CONSCIENCE AND MORAL KNOWLEDGE; Conscience lacks objective moral, philosophical or theological knowledge; THE ONTOLOGICAL INSTABILITY OF MODERNITY; The separation of reason and revelation, natural order and supernatural order; RATIONALISM, VOLUNTARISM AND EMPIRICISM; THE DISSOLUTION OF LIBERAL SOCIETY AND LIBERAL IDEOLOGY; A NEUTRAL ETHICS IS NOT PRACTICABLE; WEBER'S RATIONALISTIC 'DISENCHANTMENT' OF THE WORLD; RATIONALISATION AND SUBJECTIVE VALUES; Polytheism – heterogeneity of values; THE NEED FOR ESSENTIALISM; THEISTIC WISDOM
9 AQUINAS' EPISTEMOLOGY
THE FOUR-CAUSAL EXPLANATORY FRAMEWORK; THE FOUR CAUSES; Aquinas’s realism; The Efficient Cause; The Final Cause; THE FOUR CAUSES DEVELOPED AND ARTICULATED; PRIORITY AMONG THE CAUSES; THE METHOD AND PRACTICE OF THE FOUR-CAUSAL EXPLANATORY FRAMEWORK
10 AQUINAS' METAPHYSICS
BEING AND ESSENCE; BEINGS AND ESSENCES; Material Substances; Immaterial Substances; SUBSTANCE AND ACCIDENTS; UNIVERSALS; Qualitative Sameness; Numerical Sameness; REALISM AND ABSTRACTION
11 AQUINAS AND KANT CONTRASTED
Necessary Presuppositions, Reason As Its Own End; Knowing And Being; The Epistemological Impasse Of Modern Philosophy; Thomism And Kantianism; Sense Experience And The Mind – Aquinas’ Moderate Realism; The Teleological Conception Of The World; Things And Mind – Realism And Idealism; The Concept In Epistemological Realism; Ontological And Sensational Knowledge
12 THE DIVINE ORDER OF THE UNIVERSE
God As The Source Of Being; Creation; The Created Order; Providence And Human Freedom; Conservation; Necessity And Freedom; To Be In Accord With Creation
13 BODY AND SOUL
Human Uniqueness; The Soul As A Principle Of Life; Hylomorphism – Matter And Form Related As Body And Soul; Organic Versus Reductive Materialism; Where In The Body Is The Soul?; Beyond Dualism
14 SENSE AND INTELLECT
The Nature Of Cognition; Cognitive Powers; Sensation; The Immateriality Of Cognition; Cognitive Functions; The Objects Of Intellect; Abstraction; Illumination’ The Cooperation Between The Senses And The Intellect
15 THE END OF HUMAN LIFE
Fulfilment; That There Is A Human End; Happiness; What Happiness Is Not; What Happiness Is; Happiness And Blessedness – Aquinas’ Beatific Vision; Happiness And Telos
16 BEING AND ENDS
THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL TRUTH; THE IS AND THE OUGHT; THE LAST END; THE HIGHEST GOOD; HAPPINESS AND THE COMPLETE GOOD; THE THREE CATEGORIES OF RATIONAL ACTIVITY; HEIDEGGER - ETHICS AS ETHOS; BEING AS BEING; WAYS OF BEING AND WAYS OF KNOWING; FROM UBIQUITY TO ETERNITY; God is Everywhere; God is Changeless; God is Eternal; SPECULATIVE KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE; THE HIDDEN GOD; THE RESTORATION OF RATIONALIST METAPHYSICS
17 ETHICS
MORALITY MATTERS; THE NATURAL LAW; Nature and the Eternal Law; Natural Inclinations; VIRTUE; Why Virtue is Needed; Acquiring Virtue; Prudence and the perfection of virtue; AQUINAS’ COMPREHENSIVENESS
18 THE EUDAIMONISTIC CONCEPTION
HEDONISTIC ENJOYMENT AND EUDAIMONISTIC FULFILMENT; THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF FLOURISHING WELL; THE PERSON AND THE COMMON GOOD; THE FINAL GOOD; THE MEANS FOR ATTAINING THE FINAL END; VIRTUE ETHICS IN A DEMORALISED WORLD
19 THE EUDAIMONISTIC MORAL ORDER
NATURAL ENDS; ULTIMATE END; NATURAL LAW; THE MORAL LAW, NATURAL LAW AND NATURAL INCLINATIONS; THE MORAL LAW; DUTY AND INCLINATION; AQUINAS AND LAW; VIRTUE AND LAW; INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES; MORAL VIRTUES; VIRTUOUS ACTION
20 BEYOND PHILOSOPHY
AQUINAS: FAITH AND REASON; THE AUTONOMY OF PHILOSOPHY; CONSCIOUSNESS AND SOCIAL BEING; UNIVERSAL BECOMING AND TRANSCENDENTAL BEING; THE IMPLICIT PHILOSOPHY; BEYOND PHILOSOPHY
Abstract
This book argues the case for the importance of St Thomas Aquinas’ epistemological realism and metaphysics of being in overcoming the moral impasse of the modern world. The book identifies Kant as the key philosopher of the modern era. I argue that Kant’s great achievement is to have created a moral theory which, in paying close attention to both the life plans of moral agents and to their discrete acts, combined rule ethics and virtue ethics. Kant has been understood as a deontologist pure and simple. A Thomist reading reveals that Kant sought not to turn away from virtue, but to place virtue ethics on a more secure foundation. It also reveals Kant to be a teleological thinker concerned that human beings realize their rational nature through the pursuit of the summum bonum, highest good. I argue that Kant has plenty to contribute to the normative turn away from utilitarian and deontological ethics. It also shows how moral philosophy can re-assert moral knowledge, moral truth and moral reality against the myriad relativisms, subjectivisms and nihilisms that inhabit the modern world. Crucially, the argument shows Kant’s moral philosophy to be severely hobbled by the way that he rejects metaphysics, cuts the mind off from reality, denies causality in the shape of Aristotle’s – and Aquinas’ – four causes. I argue that Kant’s insistence on morally necessary ends as a condition of moral philosophy and moral life requires a concept of necessary being. Kant remains trapped within a series of dualisms – ‘ought’ and ‘is’, duty and inclination, reason and nature. In contrast, I show how St. Thomas and the natural law put reason and nature together on the basis of a necessary ontological connection. I argue Kant’s self-legislation of practical reason fails to supply a secure foundation for his ethics of the summum bonum. I argue in favour of Kant’s commitment to the highest good. The view is taken, however, that Kant is ultimately agnostic on the good, on account of his separation of reason from ontological nature. For Kant to make good his moral claims, the paper argues for the recovery of St Thomas Aquinas’ realist epistemology and metaphysics. I argue that Kant’s summum bonum can only be realised when grounded in the natural law.
Contents
1 INTRODUCTION
2 MORALITY AND MODERNITY
Moral Knowledge; The Inward Turn Of The Cogito; Reconnecting Morality With Ontological Nature
3 THE NEED FOR MORAL UNITY
Naturalist And Supernaturalist Ends; Participatory Metaphysics; The Veneration Of Means As The Loss Of Ends; Eudaimonia And Beatitude; The Ultimate End; The Science Of Being And The Objectivity Of Knowledge; Bringing The Intellect Back To Its Object; Aquinas And The Aristotelian Framework.
4 THE IMPASSE OF MODERN ETHICS AND NIETZSCHE’S CHALLENGE
The Loss Of Moral Truth; The Search For The Common Good On The Ground Of Modernity; Human Beings As Rational Beings; The Gay Science; Before And Beyond Modernity.
5 THE EUDAIMONISTIC CONCEPTION
Hedonistic Enjoyment And Eudaimonistic Fulfilment; The Social Context Of Flourishing Well; The Person And The Common Good; The Final Good; The Means For Attaining The Final End; Virtue Ethics In A Demoralised World;
6 MARX, IMMANENCE AND TRANSCENDENCE
The Attempts To Reconcile The Individual And The Community; The High Road Of Modernity; The Humanised World And Its Moral Foundations; Materialist Immanence; The Instrumentalisation Of The World; The Need For Transcendence; Revaluation Is Not Nostalgia;
7 KANT, VIRTUE AND THE GOOD
The Revival Of Virtue Ethics; Kant And His Communitarian Critics; Kant On Virtue; The Good Will; Maxims As Underlying Intentions; The Doctrine Of Morally Necessary Ends; Virtue And The Highest Good; Kant’s Natural Teleology; Rational Nature As An End In Itself; Kant’s Achievement
8 THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
Necessary Presuppositions, Reason As Its Own End; Knowing And Being; The Epistemological Impasse Of Modern Philosophy; Thomism And Kantianism; Sense Experience And The Mind – Aquinas’ Moderate Realism; The Teleological Conception Of The World; Things And Mind – Realism And Idealism; The Concept In Epistemological Realism; Ontological And Sensational Knowledge;
9 METAPHYSICS AND BEING
Theoretical And Practical Truth; The Is And The Ought; The Last End; The Highest Good; Happiness And The Complete Good; The Three Categories Of Rational Activity; Heidegger - Ethics As Ethos; Being As Being; Ways Of Being And Ways Of Knowing; From Ubiquity To Eternity (God Is Everywhere; God Is Changeless; God Is Eternal); Speculative Knowledge And Practical Knowledge; The Hidden God; The Restoration Of Rationalist Metaphysics;
10 THE EUDAIMONISTIC MORAL ORDER
Natural Ends; Ultimate End; Natural Law; The Moral Law, Natural Law And Natural Inclinations; The Moral Law; Duty And Inclination; Aquinas And Law; Virtue And Law; Intellectual Virtues; Moral Virtues; Virtuous Action;
11 BEYOND PHILOSOPHY
Aquinas: Faith And Reason; The Autonomy Of Philosophy; Consciousness And Social Being; Universal Becoming And Transcendental Being; The Implicit Philosophy
Dante’s Enamoured Mind (2013)
Contents
1 Introduction – Making Hope Resound
2 Seeker, Poet and Creator: God as artist and artificier creator and creation; God as maker; Creation extends to the just society;
3 Poetic Architectonics;
4 Dante and Shakespeare: Ravenna – the totality of the world; A universalizing philosophical-theological discourse;
5 Vita Nuova;
6 Il Convivio: The desire to know; The universal and the individual; Human nature and its fulfilment;
7 De Monarchia: The politics of love; The political background; Political architectonics; Philosophical anthropology; Political peace; The Universal Monarchy; Politizare; Particular interests and the good of the whole; The moral function of the Emperor; The Empire and the Papacy;
8 The Comedy: Dante and Multiple Meanings; The individual and the universal – reunion of man and God; Philosophy and Theology, reason and faith; Journey into self-knowledge;
9 The Inferno: Dante and Rational Freedom; Dante and the Way of the City; Lust, pride and greed; Virgil as guide; Descent before Ascent – transcendence of self and society; The Gate of Hell - taking sides – Dante’s practical intent; The moral structure of Inferno; Dante and Sexuality; Treachery and the ice of Hell; Lucifer as the last person in Hell;
10 Purgatorio: Ascent and hope; The need for human and superhuman effort; Purification leading to Eden – purification; Free will and moral choice – the quest for good on Earth; Francesca and moral responsibility; rebirth – the sweet harmony of sacred song; Poetry and Art as ennobling pursuits with a built in transcendental potential; Farewell to Virgil; The shift from Virgil to Beatrice as the shift from time to eternity, the natural to the supernatural – the Earthly Paradise;
11 Paradiso: Dante as universal traveller, explorer and discoverer; Ulysses and the journey to spiritual home; Transformative visionary experience; Dante’s psychic astronomy; Power Divine; Into the Light; Astronomical time markers – the sun as guide; The planet as an interconnected whole; God’s eye perspective; Cosmology and the order of the universe; Looking on earth from the stellar heaven – female mediation; Paradise as desire fulfilled; Paradise as love; The spheres and heavens leading to God at the centre; The hard path of exile – the journey to self-knowledge; The third Heaven – Venus – the Planet of Love; Ascent through the heavens; Paradise – seventh heaven; The eighth heaven; The ascent to God; Dante the Affirmative Way and the Negative Way; The ninth heaven – imparadise; The Primum Mobile - The cosmic dance; God in a singular star; The farewell to Beatrice; The suspension of natural law in the paradisal condition; The return of creature to creator; The divine glory in all creation; From material to immaterial – utter transcendence; God as perfect movement; Trinity as circle of perfect motion – movement; The Empyrean –squaring the circle
12 The love that moves the stars: Dante’s return to Earth; Making meaning; The return to earth with self-knowledge.
https://www.academia.edu/49239904/Dante_From_the_Dark_Wood_to_the_Eternal_Rose_with_the_Golden_Heart
These are the outlines of my four volume study of Dante Alighieri, currently being edited for publication.
Contents
Vol 1 Dante's Politics of Love - from theory to practice;
Vol 2 Dante's Sweet Symphony of Paradise - music and metaphysics;
Vol 3 Dante and Rational Freedom - a philosophical and sociological analysis of infernal production, alienation, and rationalisation;
Vol 4 Walking and Talking with Dante: Endless Conversations on the Unending Road - public and personal responses to Dante since his death.
Abstract
This book conceives philosophy in terms of philosophizing as an active process. The intention of the argument is to restore philosophy to its origins as an ethos, a practice, a way of living for rational beings. Philosophy is therefore presented more as a practice or an activity than as an intellectual exercise or subject discipline. Philosophy is something that one does as a rational being. This is not an invitation to sloppy thinking; it is an invitation to all to philosophize as rational beings. A questioning, critical approach grounded in the rational faculty is taken to be the most salient characteristic of philosophy. This emphasizes intelligence and its application over knowledge.Philosophy is not a question of knowledge but of the application of intelligence. The book proceeds from Socrates as the key figure in this conception of philosophy as philosophizing. Socrates was no ivory tower philosopher but took philosophy to the men and women of 'the real world' in an attempt to get them to support their views and activities with arguments, with good reasons for doing, thinking, stating the things they did. The 'real world' is not the one revealed to ordinary sense experience. This book shows that only by philosophizing can individuals enter the real world.
Contents
1 INTRODUCTION
2 ETHOS, LOGOS AND MYTHOS
3 WHY PHILOSOPHY?
4 ARE PHILOSOPHERS UP IN THE CLOUDS?
5 SOCRATES
6 KNOW THYSELF
7 THE ‘HOW’ AND THE ‘WHY’ – SOCRATES AND MORALITY
8 PHILOSOPHY AND THE MEANING OF LIFE
i) METAPHYSICS – REALITY AND ONTOLOGY
ii) EPISTEMOLOGY – WHAT WE KNOW AND HOW WE KNOW IT
iii) LOGIC – MEANING
iv) ETHICS
9 PHILOSOPHY IN RELATION TO OTHER DISCIPLINES
10 SCHOOLS OF PHILOSOPHY
11 ABSTRACT QUESTIONS
12 REAL LIFE QUESTIONS
13 PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE
14 HUMILITY AND HUBRIS
15 THE RATIONAL UTOPIA – beyond the ‘is’ and the ‘ought’
16 PLATO’S CAVE
17 PLATO’S IDEAL FORMS
18 PLATO AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
19 ARISTOTLE POLITICS AND THE GOOD LIFE
20 ARISTOTLE LICENCE AND LIBERTY
21 ARISTOTLE’S FLOURISHING
22 SPINOZA – DEUS SIVE NATURA
23 SPECTATOR UNDER ETERNITY
24 DESCARTES AND THE BRAIN IN THE VAT
25 NEURAL DETERMINISM, MORAL CHOICE AND SOCIAL EPIGENETICS
26 SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND SELF-CREATION
27 VICO’S NEW SCIENCE – VERUM IPSUM FACTUM
28 KANT – THE LIMITS OF REASON
29 CONCEPTUAL APPARATUS
30 THE MORAL LAW AS THE UNIVERSAL
The Formula of Universal Law; The Formula of the Law of Nature; The Formula of the End in Itself; The Formula of Autonomy; The Formula of the Kingdom of Ends; Review of the Formulae’
31 NATURAL TELEOLOGY AND HUMAN PRAXIS
32 KANT’S SOCRATISM
33 KANT AND VIRTUE ETHICS
The Good Will; Re-reading Kant’s Maxims; The Doctrine of Morally Necessary Ends; Virtue and the Good; Kant’s Achievement
REASON AND LABOUR AS SELF-CREATION
34 HEGEL – OBJECTIFICATION AND ALIENATION
35 MARX - LABOUR AS THE CREATIVE AGENCY OF SELF-GENESIS
36 FOUCAULT AND ETHOS
37 RATIONAL RESTRAINT
38 GAMES THEORY
39 GAMES THEORY AND ETHICS
40 TRANSACTIONAL ENCOUNTERS
41 NIETZSCHE, POWER AND GOD
42 WEBER THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE RISE OF CAPITALISM
43 ALASDAIR MACINTYRE AFTER VIRTUE
44 FREEDOM AND ILLUSION
45 THE IMPORTANCE OF IDEAS
Abstract
This paper examines Kant’s philosophy in three parts. Part I concerns knowledge and looks at reason, its limits and extent. This part shows how Kant went beyond the empiricism and rationalism debate by incorporating the key elements of both in his transcendental idealism. I proceed to examine the constructive and critical theories contained in the critiques, arguing that these establish adequate foundations for both scientific knowledge and moral truth. In Part II I show how Kant makes good his promise to bring the worlds of Newton and Rousseau together, combining the mechanistic conception of a causally ordered nature with the belief in the free will. Kant is thus able to secure the basis of objective knowledge with respect to the external world whilst at the same time affirming freedom as the moral responsibility of human beings. This part looks at the moral law and happiness in terms of the highest good, emphasizing that Kant shows how human beings can transcend their natural and egoistic inclinations to create a moral society of cooperation with a view to the common good. In Part III the implications of this ethic is developed with respect to the practical world of politics. There are sections on peace and freedom under law and the republican constitution. As the paper draws to a conclusion it takes a critical look at Kantian rationalism as pertaining to a culture established in too sharp an abstraction from nature. To correct this dualism I identify the basis of a natural teleology in Kant which emphasizes the centrality of moral praxis in realizing the highest good as the morally necessary end of rational nature. The argument is that Kant presents a social and a practical ethics which enjoins us to realize the moral community. In order to realize their rational/moral nature and thus become free beings, empirical individuals must bring about the moral order which embodies the highest good. The primacy of pure practical reason therefore affirms that the world is created by human praxis as a moral praxis and defines Kant’s philosophy as both praxis-orientated and future-oriented.
Contents
INTRODUCTION
PART I KNOWLEDGE
Reason – Its Limits And Extent; The Limits Of Reason; Rationalism And Empiricism; The Constructive Theory; The Critical Theory.
PART II ETHICS
The Dialectic Of Reason; The Moral Law And The Highest Good; Happiness And The Highest Good.
PART III POLITICS
Kant And Politics; Peace And Freedom Under Law; The Republican Constitution; Kantian Rationalism; Natural Teleology And Moral Praxis.
An examination of Erasmus as a Christian Humanist whose middle way combined reason and faith.
God: Who, What and Where? (2011)
An examination of God as a conception of the highest good, the basis of moral conduct and the object of our moral praxis.
Rainbow Rising (2006)
Moral ecology, an ecological take on the Creation story contained in Genesis.
Abstract
Tracing Catholic themes of Original Sin, the fallen world, the reality, presence and power of evil, and the possibility of redemption through the saving grace of the Greatest Love in the songs of Bruce Springsteen.
Contents
Introduction; Springsteen as a Catholic Writer; Church, Church, Church; The Catholic Imagination; The Palm of Darkness; The Catholic Core; Seeing, Identifying, and Naming Sin; Four Manifestations of the Mark of O’Connor upon Springsteen; The Greatest Catholic Poet of Our Times; Religious Themes in the Springsteen Songbook.
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