Cumberland, Richard (1632–1718)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Knud Haakonssen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
The Third ◽  
Philosophical Basis ◽  
Moral Importance ◽  
Modern Natural

Richard Cumberland developed his ideas in response to Hobbes’ Leviathan. He introduced concepts of aggregate goodness (later used in utilitarianism), of benevolence (used in moral-sense theory), of moral self-obligation, of empirical proofs of providence and of the moral importance of tradition à la Burke. The philosophical basis for Cumberland’s views was a theory of natural law which was strongly anti-voluntarist and committed to objective moral values, but recognizing institutions such as governments of state and church as conventional or traditional. Cumberland was often seen as the third co-founder, with Pufendorf and Grotius, of modern natural law.

Hume’s Peculiar Definition of Justice

2019 ◽  
pp. 216-238
Author(s):  
James A. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Definition Of

This chapter situates Hume’s treatment of justice in the modern natural law tradition in order to bring out what is, in that tradition’s terms, both unsurprising and peculiar in the definition of justice that Hume works with. For Hume justice is the essential element of an analysis of the minimal conditions of human sociability. But Hume defines justice exceedingly narrowly, as respect for rights of property. His definition has been severely criticised, both by his contemporaries and in recent Hume scholarship. The chapter argues that it was Hume’s particular version of the argument against Hutchesonian moral sense theory that led him to define justice as he did.

Human Dignity in Adjudication: The Limits of Placeholding and Essential Contestability Accounts

2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 329-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pritam Baruah
Keyword(s):  
Human Dignity ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Judicial Decisions ◽  
Philosophical Basis ◽  
Essentially Contested Concepts ◽  
Peculiar Nature

Employing moral values as justifications in judicial decisions has been controversial. At present, there is increasing controversy over the application of human dignity. Contemporary debates on the role of dignity in law and adjudication are heavily influenced by Christopher McCrudden’s account of dignity as a placeholder, and much thinking on the contested nature of values is influenced by WB Gallie’s idea of Essentially Contested Concepts. In this paper I argue that both these accounts have limited explanatory and normative potential. McCrudden’s account is illuminating in terms of the role of dignity in the UDHR, but weak in terms of explaining why employing dignity in adjudication yields diverging conclusions, and why dignity should be understood to be a placeholder. His reliance on Gallie’s idea of Essentially Contested Concepts is also misplaced. Gallie’s views often serve as a philosophical basis for understanding the contested nature of values generally. I argue that his account is an external-descriptive one, which cannot explain why persistent disagreement ensues because of the peculiar nature of some concepts. Neither does it point out any property of essential contestability that is unique to some concepts. Thinking on how values such as dignity can figure as justifications for decisions, therefore, must explore other alternatives.

Calvin's legacy for contemporary Reformed natural law

2014 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 414-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Herdt
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Fair Dealing ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Moral Quality ◽  
Careful Distinction

AbstractRecent scholarship has done much to uncover a continuous tradition of distinctively Reformed natural law reflection, according to which knowledge of the natural moral law, though not saving knowledge, is universally available to humanity in its fallen state and makes a stable secular order possible. A close look at Calvin's understanding of natural law, and in particular of conscience and natural human instincts, shows that Calvin himself did not expect the natural law to serve as a source of substantive action-guiding moral norms. First, Calvin held that conscience delivers information concerning the moral quality even of individual actions. But he also thought that we often blind ourselves to the deliverances of conscience. Second, he argued that our natural instincts predispose us to civic order and fair dealing insofar as these are necessary for the natural well-being or advantage of creatures such as ourselves. But he also carefully distinguished the good of advantage from the good of justice or virtue. The modern natural lawyers eroded Calvin's careful distinction between conscience as revealing our duty as duty, and instinct as guiding us towards natural advantage. They also turned away from Calvin's insistence on the moral incapacity of unredeemed humanity. The modern natural lawyers saw their task as one of developing an empirical science of human nature to guide legislation and shape international law, bracketing questions of whether this nature was fallen and in need of redemption. When Scottish Presbyterian Reformed thinkers, such as Gershom Carmichael and John Witherspoon, tried in diverse ways to restore eroded Reformed commitments to the science of human nature, about which they were otherwise so enthusiastic, they were not particularly successful. A science which could derive moral norms from an examination of human instincts, and a conscience which could deliver universal moral knowledge, proved too attractive to decline simply because of the transcendence of God or the fallenness of humankind. Those who wished to preserve an account of natural law which remained faithful to a fully robust set of Reformed theological commitments could do so only by refusing to regard the natural law as a positive source of moral knowledge.

Hitler, for Example: Registers of National Socialist Exemplarity in Contemporary Germany

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Nitzan Shoshan
Keyword(s):  
National Socialism ◽  
Third Reich ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Far Right ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Moral Exemplars ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Third Reich

Abstract This article examines whether and how the figure of Adolf Hitler in particular, and National Socialism more generally, operate as moral exemplars in today’s Germany. In conversation with similar studies about Mosely in England, Franco in Spain, and Mussolini in Italy, it seeks to advance our comparative understanding of neofascism in Europe and beyond. In Germany, legal and discursive constraints limit what can be said about the Third Reich period, while even far-right nationalists often condemn Hitler, for either the Holocaust or his military failure. Here I revise the concept of moral exemplarity as elaborated by Caroline Humphry to argue that Hitler and National Socialism do nevertheless work as contemporary exemplars, in at least three fashions: negativity, substitution, and extension. First, they stand as the most extreme markers of negative exemplarity for broad publics that understand them as illustrations of absolute moral depravity. Second, while Hitler himself is widely unpopular, Führer-substitutes such as Rudolf Hess provide alternative figures that German nationalists admire and seek to emulate. Finally, by extension to the realm of the ordinary, National Socialism introduces a cast of exemplars in the figures of loving grandfathers or anonymous fallen soldiers. The moral values for which they stand, I show, appear to be particularly significant for young nationalists. An extended, more open-ended notion of exemplarity, I conclude, can offer important insights about the lingering afterlife of fascist figures in the moral life of European nationalists today.

scholarly journals Rekontekstualisasi Pemikiran Seyyed Hossein Nasr tentang Bangunan Ilmu Pengetahuan dan Pendidikan Islam

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 420
Author(s):  
Asfa Widiyanto
Keyword(s):  
History Of Science ◽  
Islamic Education ◽  
Distinctive Character ◽  
The Third ◽  
Philosophical Basis ◽  
History Of ◽  
Islamic Science ◽  
East And West ◽  
Compe Tence

This article discusses the conception of science and its significance for the reconstruction of Islamic educat-ion, by analyzing and contextualizing the thoughts of Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Nasr is considered a figure who has compe-tence in history of science and philosophy with special emphasis on Islamic science and philosophy. In the earlier phase of his life, he acquainted himself with the thoughts of prominent thinkers both from East and West, and with the very issue of the encounter between East and West. This position makes the thoughts of Nasr on science having their distinctive character. The first part of this paper investigates the construct and characteristics of Islamic science as well as the hierarchy and the idea of unity in Islamic science. The second part of this paper is dealing with the reformulation of philosophical basis of Islamic education, most specifically in the domain of ontology, epistemology and axiology. The third is dealing with the attempts of reconstructing the system of Islamic education, most notably pertaining to the aim of education, educator, student, means of education, and milieu of education.

God and Objective Moral Values

1985 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 531-549
Author(s):  
Robert Gascoigne
Keyword(s):  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
General Context ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
General Description ◽  
Human Response ◽  
Individual Action

For some moral philosophers the question ‘Why be moral?’ is fundamentally inappropriate, since it seems to ask for non–moral reasons or motivations for moral action and thus to threaten the integrity and autonomy of morality. Yet the question ‘Why be moral?’ need not be oriented towards discovering non–moral reasons for moral action, but rather towards elucidating what general description of the human condition is most compatible with the fundamental character of morality. Rather than leaving the moral sense as an isolated category of human response, it is relevant to ask what other features of reality it may be associated with and in what general context it can most coherently be situated. The purpose of this paper is to examine the sense of moral obligation as an objective or categorical claim on individual action and to present the thesis that this moral sense is most intelligible within a theological context.

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