The Holiness Framework

The only framework necessarily characterizing divine action is the holiness framework, on which divine action responds appropriately to God’s own perfection by being motivated to keep what is deficient, defective, and in any way limited at a distance from God. Such a framework makes intelligible our response to God as holy and fits well within our ordinary practical thought about ways in which some actions, things, and relationships can be beneath one. It can also be situated in any theory of reasons for action that has a place for expressive reasons, and is extremely useful in offering an interpretation of divine action in Scripture. The appeal to the holiness framework as the only necessary framework for divine action does not entail that God does not act on reasons of love for creatures; rather, it entails only that God acts on such reasons contingently, if at all.

A Holy Being, Creating

This chapter explores how exclusive acceptance of the holiness framework transforms how we approach perennial problems of creation, evil, and divine hiddenness. Because creation is an intimate relationship between God and other things, and all such other things are limited in goodness, the holiness framework entails that God has standing reasons not to create at all. The problem of evil, under the holiness framework, is not about evil’s justification, but just about God’s having to be intimately related to it, given its existence—the holiness framework entails that God has motivation not to be intimately related to what is evil, but God has to be intimately related to it, given its existence and God’s intimate relationship to all that exists. And as being known by is an intimate relationship, God would have reason to remain hidden rather than known by us limited, imperfect persons. God’s willingness to be intimately related to this world is against the reasons given by divine holiness, and is accounted for only through the reasons of love for us that God graciously, contingently acts upon.

A Holy Being, Incarnate

This chapter develops two lines of argument. The first concerns a very fundamental normative problem of Christology. Since the assumption of a human nature is the most intimate relationship that a divine person could stand in with respect to a created being, and all created beings are dramatically limited, it seems a divine person would have overwhelmingly strong reasons against becoming incarnate. The solution appeals to contingent love toward creatures: acting contingently on reasons of love, God chooses (but did not have to choose) to accept the unfittingness resultant upon becoming incarnate for the sake of creatures. The second line of argument concerns the relevance of the holiness framework to the claim that Christ is not just sinless but impeccable. The best explanation for impeccability is from the holiness framework: it is unsurprising that God could not be willing to enter into the most intimate sort of relationship possible with a creaturely nature that exhibits the worst sort of defect, that is, sin.

Love, Morality, and Alienation

Is love incompatible with morality? A popular criticism of standard moral theories such as consequentialist theories and Kantian ethics—any theory that holds that the reasons of morality are impartial—is that such theories cannot accommodate the reasons of love. Either the reasons of love are not moral reasons, yet outweigh moral reasons in many situations, or they are moral reasons that are partial, not impartial. Many moral theorists try to retain both impartiality and the special moral nature of partial reasons for close relationships by presenting approaches that justify partial norms on the basis of impartial reasons. These writers are divided on the issue of whether or not such approaches need to be self-effacing. For those who argue that the indirection need not be self-effacing, and that people should be able to step back and evaluate all of their normative commitments, a problem is raised by writers such as Susan Wolf who argue that even considering the possibility of violating a close relationship norm for the sake of morality is problematic to the relationship in question. This article challenges this view of Wolf’s, arguing that, in effect, we can provide justifications for “silencing” when it really is practically appropriate in standard moral theories that do not threaten good relationships.

A Fresh Look at 'Relational' Values in Nature: Distinctions Derived from the Debate on Meaningfulness in Life

Some recent policy-oriented publications have put forward a third category of environmental values, namely relational or eudaimonic values, in addition to intrinsic and instrumental values. In this debate, there is, however, much confusion about the content of such values. This paper looks at a fundamental debate in ethics about a third category of reasons besides reasons from morality and self-interest, labelled as reasons of love, care or meaningfulness. This category allows us, first, to see the relation between relational and eudaimonic values, and, second, to make clear and applicable distinctions between the relational valuing of nature and moral or instrumental valuing.

Incomplete Commodification in American Law

This chapter discusses the incomplete commodification of human body parts in American law. In the main, American law bars payments for human body parts and tissue to be used in clinical care. However, this prohibition on payments does not reach all human body products. Rather, federal law sets out an explicit list of covered organs, and courts have interpreted that list strictly. Despite strong demand for body products and the traditional American preference for markets in general, myriad body products are procured in partial, though incomplete, markets. On one hand, when market mechanisms are putatively prohibited, markets have nonetheless crept in at some—but not all—stages of the process of transferring tissue from the donor to the recipient. On the other hand, when markets are not prohibited, they nonetheless do not develop fully. The chapter explores this juxtaposition of law and norms in the American setting. It also suggests one reason for the incomplete commodification of body products such as sperm, eggs, and blood: a preoccupation and discomfort with the role of women in markets rather than at home. That is, when it comes to body products, women are deemed to participate primarily for reasons of love, not money.

Reasons to Worry: Interest and Love

Apart from considerations of beneficence, we have reasons of at least four different kinds to ensure the survival of future generations under conditions conducive to human flourishing. This chapter explores two of those categories of reason: reasons of love and reasons of interest. Reasons of love rest on the fact that the fate of humanity matters to us in its own right. Reasons of interest appeal to our self-interest: that is, to our interest in leading lives engaged in worthwhile activities. These two categories of reason are conceptually independent, but it is partly because the future of humanity matters to us in its own right that the survival of future generations is in our interest.

Why Worry About Future Generations?

Why should we care about what happens to human beings in the future, after we ourselves are long gone? Much of the contemporary philosophical literature on future generations has a broadly utilitarian orientation, and implicitly suggests that our primary reasons for concern about the fate of future generations are reasons of beneficence. This book proposes a different answer. Implicit in our existing values and evaluative attachments are a variety of powerful reasons, which are independent of considerations of beneficence, for wanting the chain of human generations to persist into the indefinite future under conditions conducive to human flourishing. These attachment-based reasons include reasons of love, reasons of interest, reasons of valuation, and reasons of reciprocity. Although considerations of beneficence, properly understood, also have a role to play in our thinking about future generations, some of our strongest reasons for caring about the future of humanity depend on our existing evaluative attachments and on our conservative disposition to preserve and sustain the things that we value.