Pub Date : 2019-10-10DOI: 10.1163/25892525-00101004
J. M. O'Connell, M. Ruse
In the second half of the nineteenth century, many people lost their faith in the Christian God. Nevertheless, they were eager to show that this move towards a secular world picture did not mean the end of morality and that it could continue as much before. In a Darwinian age this was not possible and the Christian cherishing of the virtue of meekness was replaced by a moral respect for vigor and effort directed both towards self-realization and to the well-being of society. We compare the British moves to those promoted by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. There are significant similarities but also differences that reflect the British industrialized notion of progress versus the German idealistic notion of progress.
{"title":"After Darwin","authors":"J. M. O'Connell, M. Ruse","doi":"10.1163/25892525-00101004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-00101004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In the second half of the nineteenth century, many people lost their faith in the Christian God. Nevertheless, they were eager to show that this move towards a secular world picture did not mean the end of morality and that it could continue as much before. In a Darwinian age this was not possible and the Christian cherishing of the virtue of meekness was replaced by a moral respect for vigor and effort directed both towards self-realization and to the well-being of society. We compare the British moves to those promoted by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. There are significant similarities but also differences that reflect the British industrialized notion of progress versus the German idealistic notion of progress.","PeriodicalId":29677,"journal":{"name":"Secular Studies","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74601725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-07-25DOI: 10.1163/25892525-00102002
T. J. Coleman, Kenan Sevinç, R. Hood, J. Jong
In accordance with Terror Management Theory research, secular beliefs can serve an important role for mitigating existential concerns by providing atheists with a method to attain personal meaning and bolster self-esteem. Although much research has suggested that religious beliefs are powerful defense mechanisms, these effects are limited or reveal more nuanced effects when attempting to explain atheists’ (non)belief structures. The possibility of nonbelief that provides meaning in the “here and now” is reinforced by the importance placed on scientific discovery, education, and social activism by many atheists. Thus, these values and ideologies can, and do, allow for empirically testable claims within a Terror Management framework. Although religious individuals can and largely do use religion as a defense strategy against existential concerns, purely secular ideologies are more effective for atheists providing evidence for a hierarchical approach and individual differences within worldview defenses. Evidence for and implications of these arguments are discussed.
{"title":"An Atheist Perspective on Self-Esteem and Meaning Making while under Death Awareness","authors":"T. J. Coleman, Kenan Sevinç, R. Hood, J. Jong","doi":"10.1163/25892525-00102002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-00102002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In accordance with Terror Management Theory research, secular beliefs can serve an important role for mitigating existential concerns by providing atheists with a method to attain personal meaning and bolster self-esteem. Although much research has suggested that religious beliefs are powerful defense mechanisms, these effects are limited or reveal more nuanced effects when attempting to explain atheists’ (non)belief structures. The possibility of nonbelief that provides meaning in the “here and now” is reinforced by the importance placed on scientific discovery, education, and social activism by many atheists. Thus, these values and ideologies can, and do, allow for empirically testable claims within a Terror Management framework. Although religious individuals can and largely do use religion as a defense strategy against existential concerns, purely secular ideologies are more effective for atheists providing evidence for a hierarchical approach and individual differences within worldview defenses. Evidence for and implications of these arguments are discussed.","PeriodicalId":29677,"journal":{"name":"Secular Studies","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-07-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86102718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-08DOI: 10.1163/25892525-00101006
M. Freeden
Laborde’s Liberalism’s Religion focuses on a philosophical understanding of liberalism infused with the constitutional and legal characteristics of the USA. It cannot, however, contain other weighty patterns of liberal thinking evident in actual and commonly prevalent thought-practices, irreducible to freedom and equality alone. The free development of individuality is also fundamental to a humanist liberal version, and it now entails the right of religious believers to protection from psychological and emotional harm in order to secure their flourishing. Emotional intensity, group identity and the power of religious rhetoric are factors to be considered both in regulating and protecting religious practices and discourse in a liberal society. I conclude with doubts on the viability of the liberal precept of neutrality.
{"title":"Diluted Liberalisms and Emaciated Neutralities","authors":"M. Freeden","doi":"10.1163/25892525-00101006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-00101006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Laborde’s Liberalism’s Religion focuses on a philosophical understanding of liberalism infused with the constitutional and legal characteristics of the USA. It cannot, however, contain other weighty patterns of liberal thinking evident in actual and commonly prevalent thought-practices, irreducible to freedom and equality alone. The free development of individuality is also fundamental to a humanist liberal version, and it now entails the right of religious believers to protection from psychological and emotional harm in order to secure their flourishing. Emotional intensity, group identity and the power of religious rhetoric are factors to be considered both in regulating and protecting religious practices and discourse in a liberal society. I conclude with doubts on the viability of the liberal precept of neutrality.","PeriodicalId":29677,"journal":{"name":"Secular Studies","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81653257","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-08DOI: 10.1163/25892525-00101003
Stacey Gutkowski
War and other forms of collective political violence raise existential questions for those touched by them. Recent advances in the study of ‘atheism in foxholes’ have been hitherto overlooked in the sociology of war. But they can further illuminate the relationship between war and existential questions. Bringing these literatures into conversation for the first time, this article analyses a sample of young, secular Jewish-Israelis (hilonim) interviewed in the aftermath of the 2014 Israel-Gaza War. It shows how speakers borrowed from both Jewish and Western secular formations to answer existential questions and ‘manage luck.’ Contributing to the theorization of war as social practice through a case study of ‘foxhole atheism’, the article also invites us to think of war as having a ‘secular’ ontology.
{"title":"Jewish Atheists in Foxholes?","authors":"Stacey Gutkowski","doi":"10.1163/25892525-00101003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-00101003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 War and other forms of collective political violence raise existential questions for those touched by them. Recent advances in the study of ‘atheism in foxholes’ have been hitherto overlooked in the sociology of war. But they can further illuminate the relationship between war and existential questions. Bringing these literatures into conversation for the first time, this article analyses a sample of young, secular Jewish-Israelis (hilonim) interviewed in the aftermath of the 2014 Israel-Gaza War. It shows how speakers borrowed from both Jewish and Western secular formations to answer existential questions and ‘manage luck.’ Contributing to the theorization of war as social practice through a case study of ‘foxhole atheism’, the article also invites us to think of war as having a ‘secular’ ontology.","PeriodicalId":29677,"journal":{"name":"Secular Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89985874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-08DOI: 10.1163/25892525-00101005
Thomas Kriza
This paper questions the contemporary turn towards horizons of existential meaning going back to antiquity especially in the shape of a turn to religion by pointing to crucial differences between antique conceptions of thought and their modern revivals. Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault interpret antique thought as spiritual exercises to perfect human existence, exposing an inherent existential relevance and connection to a peculiar conception of truth. I argue that because of these ties to a truth claim deeply alien to the modern scientific world-view, antique horizons of existential meaning cannot be revived within modern frames of thought. Their contemporary presence is more likely the expression of the deeply ambivalent modern relationship to premodern horizons of existential meaning, rather than a genuine revival.
{"title":"Questioning the Presence of the Past","authors":"Thomas Kriza","doi":"10.1163/25892525-00101005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-00101005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper questions the contemporary turn towards horizons of existential meaning going back to antiquity especially in the shape of a turn to religion by pointing to crucial differences between antique conceptions of thought and their modern revivals. Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault interpret antique thought as spiritual exercises to perfect human existence, exposing an inherent existential relevance and connection to a peculiar conception of truth. I argue that because of these ties to a truth claim deeply alien to the modern scientific world-view, antique horizons of existential meaning cannot be revived within modern frames of thought. Their contemporary presence is more likely the expression of the deeply ambivalent modern relationship to premodern horizons of existential meaning, rather than a genuine revival.","PeriodicalId":29677,"journal":{"name":"Secular Studies","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83800135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-08DOI: 10.1163/25892525-00101008
Paul Billingham
In Chapter 5 of Liberalism’s Religion, Cécile Laborde considers the freedom and autonomy of religious associations within liberal democratic societies. This paper evaluates her central arguments in that chapter. First, I argue that Laborde makes things too easy for herself in dismissing controversies over the state’s legitimate jurisdictional authority. Second, I argue that Laborde’s view of when associations’ ‘coherence interests’ justify exemptions is too narrow. Third, I consider how we might develop an account of judicial deference to associations’ ‘competence interests’.
{"title":"State Sovereignty, Associational Interests, and Collective Religious Liberty","authors":"Paul Billingham","doi":"10.1163/25892525-00101008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-00101008","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In Chapter 5 of Liberalism’s Religion, Cécile Laborde considers the freedom and autonomy of religious associations within liberal democratic societies. This paper evaluates her central arguments in that chapter. First, I argue that Laborde makes things too easy for herself in dismissing controversies over the state’s legitimate jurisdictional authority. Second, I argue that Laborde’s view of when associations’ ‘coherence interests’ justify exemptions is too narrow. Third, I consider how we might develop an account of judicial deference to associations’ ‘competence interests’.","PeriodicalId":29677,"journal":{"name":"Secular Studies","volume":"97 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85942370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-08DOI: 10.1163/25892525-00101010
Élise Rouméas
This paper applies Laborde’s theory of the justice of exemptions to what has become a relatively uncontroversial case, the exemption to military service. It assesses how the exemption test designed by Laborde can guide decision-making relative to a specific historical case, focusing on the French example. The exercise sheds light on how contextual considerations—the legal status quo, the geopolitical context, the number of objectors—decisively influence our normative reasoning about the justifiability of exemptions.
{"title":"Conscientious Objection to Military Service and Laborde’s Exemption Test","authors":"Élise Rouméas","doi":"10.1163/25892525-00101010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-00101010","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper applies Laborde’s theory of the justice of exemptions to what has become a relatively uncontroversial case, the exemption to military service. It assesses how the exemption test designed by Laborde can guide decision-making relative to a specific historical case, focusing on the French example. The exercise sheds light on how contextual considerations—the legal status quo, the geopolitical context, the number of objectors—decisively influence our normative reasoning about the justifiability of exemptions.","PeriodicalId":29677,"journal":{"name":"Secular Studies","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78305280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-05-08DOI: 10.1163/25892525-00101007
Zofia Stemplowska
Theorists of liberalism put forward diverse conditions for what makes a state just and legitimate. In what follows I examine Cécile Laborde’s suggestion that a just and legitimate liberal state may have an established religion. Such a state may take the form of what she calls Divinitia: a state with some symbolic recognition of religion, conservative laws in matters of bioethics including abortion, religious accommodation from general laws, and religious references in public debate. I argue that Laborde’s requirement that public justification of policies by public officials is conducted in terms of accessible reasons either rules out too many or too few policies. I then suggest that not only justice but also the legitimacy of states can be ensured only if concern for justice has a greater role to play in the selection of state policies than Laborde suggests. We have good reasons to doubt that Divinita would qualify as just and legitimate.
{"title":"What Is Wrong with Divinitia?","authors":"Zofia Stemplowska","doi":"10.1163/25892525-00101007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25892525-00101007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Theorists of liberalism put forward diverse conditions for what makes a state just and legitimate. In what follows I examine Cécile Laborde’s suggestion that a just and legitimate liberal state may have an established religion. Such a state may take the form of what she calls Divinitia: a state with some symbolic recognition of religion, conservative laws in matters of bioethics including abortion, religious accommodation from general laws, and religious references in public debate. I argue that Laborde’s requirement that public justification of policies by public officials is conducted in terms of accessible reasons either rules out too many or too few policies. I then suggest that not only justice but also the legitimacy of states can be ensured only if concern for justice has a greater role to play in the selection of state policies than Laborde suggests. We have good reasons to doubt that Divinita would qualify as just and legitimate.","PeriodicalId":29677,"journal":{"name":"Secular Studies","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76924548","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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