12 research outputs found
Taming Augustineâs Monstrosity: Aquinasâs Notion of Use in the Struggle for Moral Growth
In Book VI of his Confessions, Saint Augustine offers a detailed description of one of the most famous cases of weakness of will in the history of philosophy. Augustine characterizes his experience as a monstrous situation in which he both wills and does not will moral growth, but he is at odds to explain this phenomenon. In this paper, I argue that Aquinasâs action theory offers important resources for explaining Augustineâs monstrosity. On Aquinasâs schema, human acts are composed of various operations of intellect and will, and thus are subject to disintegration. In order to capture the gap in human action between making choices to pursue particular goals and translating those choices into behavior, Aquinas distinguishes between two operations of will that he calls choice and use. I apply hisdistinction between choice and use to Augustineâs case, arguing that Augustineâs moral weakness is a result of willâs failure to use its choices. The central thesis of this paper is that Augustineâs monstrosity is a bona fide case of weakness of will that is best explained as a failure in use at the level of will
Transformative Education in a Broken World: Feminist and Jesuit Pedagogy on the Importance of Context
This chapter relates the concept of positionality from feminist theory and pedagogy to the Ignatian paradigm to show how its focus on the individual, at the expense of the structural, fails to acknowledge the unequal power relationships that disadvantage students from minority groups. Focusing on the positionality of gay and lesbian students in the author\u27s classroom at a Jesuit college, it explores how becoming attentive to our own positions with respect to our students allows us better to examine how relationships of domination and subordination between members of oppressed and privileged groups in larger social and ecclesial contexts are re-created at the micro-level in the classroom
Naturalizing Moral Justification: Rethinking the Method of Moral Epistemology
The companion piece to this article, âSituating Moral Justification,â challenges the idea that moral epistemology\u27s mission is to establish a single, allâpurpose reasoning strategy for moral justification because no reasoning practice can be expected to deliver authoritative moral conclusions in all social contexts. The present article argues that rethinking the mission of moral epistemology requires rethinking its method as well. Philosophers cannot learn which reasoning practices are suitable to use in particular contexts exclusively by exploring logical relations among concepts. Instead, in order to understand which reasoning practices are capable of justifying moral claims in different types of contexts, we need to study empirically the relationships between reasoning practices and the contexts in which they are used. The article proposes that philosophers investigate case studies of realâworld moral disputes in which people lack shared cultural assumptions and/or are unequal in social power. It motivates and explains the proposed case study method and illustrates the philosophical value of this method through a case study
Situating Moral Justification: Rethinking the Mission of Moral Epistemology
This is the first of two companion articles drawn from a larger project, provisionally entitled Undisciplining Moral Epistemology. The overall goal is to understand how moral claims may be rationally justified in a world characterized by cultural diversity and social inequality. To show why a new approach to moral justification is needed, it is argued that several currently influential philosophical accounts of moral justification lend themselves to rationalizing the moral claims of those with more social power. The present article explains how discourse ethics is flawed just in this way. The article begins by identifying several conditions of adequacy for assessing reasoning practices designed to achieve moral justification and shows that, when used in contexts of cultural diversity and social inequality, discourse ethics fails these conditions. It goes on to argue that the failure of discourse ethics is rooted in its reliance on a broader conception of moral epistemology that is invidiously idealized. It concludes by pointing to the need to rethink both the mission and the method of moral epistemology
Sunsets and Solidarity: Overcoming Sacramental Shame in Conservative Christian Churches to Forge a Queer Vision of Love and Justice
Drawing from our interdisciplinary qualitative study of LGBTI conservative Christians and their allies, we name an especially toxic form of shameâwhat we call sacramental shameâthat affects the lives of LGBTI and other conservative Christians. Sacramental shame results from conservative Christianity\u27s allegiance to the doctrine of gender complementarity, which elevates heteronormativity to the level of the sacred and renders those who violate it as not persons, but monsters. In dispensing shame as a sacrament, nonaffirming Christians require constant displays of shame as proof that LGBTI church members love God and belong in the community. Part of what makes this shame so harmful is that parents and pastors often dispense it with sincere expressions of care and affection, compounding the sense that one\u27s capacity to give and receive love is damaged. We foreground LGBTI Christian movements to overcome sacramental shame by cultivating nonhubristic pride, and conclude by discussing briefly their new understandings of love and justice that could have farâreaching benefits
Alpha, Omega, and the Letters in Between: LGBTQI Conservative Christians Undoing Gender
Sociologists studying gender have debated West and Zimmermanâs premise that âdoing gender is unavoidable,â seeking to ascertain whether people can âundoâ or only âredoâ gender. While sociologists have been correct to focus on the interactional accomplishment of gender, they have neglected one of Garfinkelâs key insights about interaction: that people hold each other accountable to particular narratives. Neglecting the narrative aspect of doingâand undoingâgender impedes our ability to recognize processes of social change. Based on a qualitative study, we show how the movement for LGBTQI acceptance within U.S. conservative Protestant churches works to make gender not âomnirelevantâ by challenging conservative âcomplementarityâ narratives that posit two complementary, opposite sexes as a commandment preceding the Ten Commandments in time and importance. We explore this movementâs ambivalent relationship with homonormativity, highlight three ways this movement resists projecting binary gender narratives into scripture, and examine how some in this movement see the pursuit of social justice as a Christian mandate. The efforts of LGBTQI conservative Christians exemplify how reshaping sex/gender/sexual narratives can create possibilities for undoing gender
The politics of shame in the motivation to virtue: Lessons from the shame, pride, and humility experiences of LGBT conservative Christians and their allies
Philosophical views defending shame as a catalyst for moral virtue are at odds with empirical data indicating that shame often yields psychologically unhealthy responses for those who feel it, and often motivates in them morally worse action than whatever occasioned the initial shame experience. Our interdisciplinary ethnographic study analyzes the shame experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) conservative Christians and the church members who once shamed them but are now allies. In this context, shame, humility, and proper pride work together amid hierarchies of social power to influence peoplesâ motivation, ability, or lack thereof to love and care for others. Shame may catalyze virtue, but not where it has been imposed as a chronic disposition
Review of \u3cem\u3eFeminists Doing Ethics\u3c/em\u3e edited by Peggy DesAutels and Joanne Waugh
Religious F aith in the Unjust Meantime: The Spiritual Violence of Clergy Sexual Abuse
Clergy sexual abuse is both sexual and psychological violence, but it is also a paradigmatic case of spiritual violence that rises to the level of religious trauma. In this paper I argue that the spiritual violence of clergy sexual abuse diminishes, and in some cases may even destroy, a survivorâs capacities for religious faith or other forms of spiritual engagement. I use and illustrate the value of feminist methodology, as developed and advanced by Alison Jaggar, for generating and pursuing philosophical questions about religious experience. Feminist methodologyâs sensitivity to theorizing situated subjects who stand to each other in relations of racialized male dominance helps us see the ways in which clergy sexual abuse is gender-based violence in both its causes and effects. It also helps us both ask and answer questions about religious faith in the unjust meantime from the perspective of those who endure spiritually violent faith communities