PRiSM A Student Journal of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies Volume XII 2009

Editorial Staff Editor - Steven Fink, Assistant Professor, Religious Studies Co-editor - Richard Behling, Professor Emeritus, Philosophy Editorial staff - Joanne Erickson

2009, Prism, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies

PRISM is a student journal published by the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Eau Claire. All manuscripts are submitted by students who are enrolled in departmental offerings. Differential Tuition monies provide the funding. Copyright 2009 by the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. Permission to copy any portion of this material is granted, provided that: such reproduction is not done for direct commercial purpose; the PRISM copyright notice, the title of the publication, and its date appear; and notice is given that reproduction is done with permission of PRISM. To copy otherwise requires explicit, written permission. Requests for permission to reprint should be addressed to: Editor, PRISM, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, Eau Claire, WI 54702. Call 715.836.2545, or inquire at www.uwec.edu/philrel.







PREFACE I am very pleased to present the 12th edition of Prism, the student journal of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. This edition contains eleven essays that showcase our students’ depth and variety of thought. The first three essays appeared in last year’s exclusively online edition, and to introduce you to these essays I quote from last year’s preface, written by editor Scott Lowe: As you read on, you will encounter three challenging papers. In the first, Melissa Lighthall makes a bold attempt to explore the nature of the mind, an issue that has vexed thinkers since the dawn of philosophical thinking. In the second, Charles Schwie attempts to unravel the more recent but equally vexing tangle of Kuan Yin’s gender transformation: how did a Buddhist male celestial bodhisattva become a female Chinese god? Last but not least is Tyler Mickelson’s bold attempt to use Zen Buddhist koans and dialogues to problematize Wittgenstein’s famous claim that for language ‘meaning is use.’

The next eight essays were written during the 2008-2009 academic year. The first comes from William Bohl, who draws upon Terror Management Theory to analyze Christian pastor John Hagee’s controversial rhetoric regarding Israel and Islam. Next, Inese Grumolte investigates Jürgen Habermas’s justifications of the possibility of social critique and rational discourse, giving significant attention to both Habermas and his opponents. Grumolte’s essay is followed by a dialogue by Ken Hartman, who places John Calvin in conversation with an imaginary interlocutor in order to examine and critique Calvin’s understanding of music in Christian worship. Three philosophy essays appear after Hartman’s imaginative dialogue. Douglas Muskett discusses arguments of Gottfried Leibniz and J. J. C. Smart on free will, contending that Leibniz’s arguments reduce humans to the status of intelligent automatons with no capacity for free choice. Next, Ryan Young explores the field of virtue ethics and responds to Robert Johnson’s criticism of attempts to take theories of right action and incorporate them into virtue ethical positions. Following Young’s essay, Jessie Adams explains and challenges Kant’s strategy of denying that the existence of God and the immortality of the soul are knowable in principle while at the same time affirming these ideas as “moral postulates.” Returning to religious studies, Paula Meyer analyzes Muslim interpretations of the

concept of jihad to present the case that most Muslims follow a path of peace. Finally, we see another enlightening investigation of the issue of free will and determinism, as Andrew Bartlein argues that neither a deterministic nor indeterministic worldview justifies the notion of free will. This edition then concludes in a unique and very interesting manner, with a retrospective account of the history of Prism. This “long overdue” account lauds James Brummer’s vision, conceived 12 years ago, which has materialized into a dozen editions of excellent student work and countless enduring learning experiences. This retrospective piece was written by Professor Emeritus Dick Behling, whose role in this edition of Prism certainly transcends his authorship of the retrospective. Once again Dick and wife Judy have made Prism possible through their generous editorial and financial support. I am very grateful to the Behlings for all they have done for our students for so many years. Continuing to express my thanks, I greatly appreciate the work of my colleagues, who have encouraged students to submit papers and have worked with them to enhance the quality of their published papers to an even higher level. Speaking of raising this publication to a higher level, I want to thank and acknowledge the superb work of our Department Associate Joanne Erickson, whose editorial and technological skills are once again an integral part of Prism. Finally, a tremendous amount of thanks goes to the eleven students whose work is featured in this journal. Speaking also for my colleagues, it has been a privilege to play a role in their educational development and witness the progression of excellent essays that testify to hard work and a wide variety of admirable academic skills. Steve Fink Assistant Professor of Religious Studies



Table of Contents An Essential Approach: Dualism and the Self • Melissa J. Lighthall......................................................................................................................... 11 Kuan Yin: The Boundlessly Compassionate Savior of the Chinese People • Charles Schwie................................................................................................................................ 19 A Zen Buddhist Perspective on Wittgenstein’s Principle that Meaning is Use • Tyler Mickelson............................................................................................................................... 27 The Rhetoric of John Hagee: A Case Study in Terror Management Theory • William Bohl.................................................................................................................................... 37 Jürgen Habermas on Communicative Rationality • Inese Grumolte................................................................................................................................ 47 The Essence of Worship: Engaging John Calvin in Dialogue • Ken Hartman.................................................................................................................................. 55 On Leibniz, Smart, and Free Will in a “Laid Up” World • Douglas Muskett............................................................................................................................. 65 Moral Improvement: A Virtue Ethical Defense • Ryan Young...................................................................................................................................... 71 A Critique of Kant’s Postulates of Pure Practical Reason • Jessie Adams.................................................................................................................................... 81 Islam: Beyond Ignorance • Paula Meyer.................................................................................................................................... 87 Morality Independent of Determinism • Andrew Bartlein.............................................................................................................................. 95 Dr. James Brummer and “The Prism Project ”: A Retrospective • Dick Behling.................................................................................................................................... 99



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An Essential Approach: Dualism and the Self • Melissa J. Lighthall Melissa Lighthall is a senior majoring in psychology, with a liberal arts topical minor. She wrote this paper for Dr. Kristin Schaupp’s PHIL 343 class “Philosophy of Mind” in the fall of 2007.

A Note From the Author: I would like to thank a number of people who have contributed to this paper. First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Kristin Schaupp at the University of WisconsinEau Claire who not only motivated my submission of this paper, but provided me with the knowledge to write it in the first place. Also, I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for his thoughtful and creative comments, as well as his guidance, which was extremely influential. I would like to acknowledge B.J. Walkowski, Chad Albin, Kevin Pitts, and Jeremy Sackett, some very close friends of mine and members of a local band known as True Variance. It was during one of their practice sessions that the drum analogy came to me. With their help, and their profound understanding of musical terms (such as cadence), I was able to deliver an effective analogy. Finally, I’d like to give thanks to the editor, Professor Scott Lowe, for his hard work and support. I take full responsibility for any oversights that may be present in this paper.

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umerous attempts have been made to tackle the mystery that is the mind. What is the mind? How can the mind be understood in relation to the body? Rene Descartes’ well-known theory of substance dualism is at the core of this philosophy. Descartes explains that the mind and the body, or the mental and the physical, are two entirely different things. The mind, in essence, is an immaterial thinking substance which lacks extension. The body, in comparison, is a material substance: unthinking and extended. His ideas, as compelling as they were, were not without criticism. Descartes insists that the mind and body are able to interact with one another, but it is not clear how it is possible for thought and extension to interact

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if they are truly different substances. This question, commonly referred to as the mind/body problem, has inspired much philosophical debate. Alternative approaches, however, have been no more successful at explaining the mind, its nature, and its relationship to the body. Dualists are on the right track—there is undoubtedly something about the mind, something extraordinary, that sets it and all associated with it apart from both the physical body and the physical world entirely. The mind is in a category all its own, and dualism, better than any of its contenders, highlights the primacy of the mind/body distinction. Materialist theories, for example, have failed in their attempts to account for the mind by neglecting such factors as common sense and experience. These theories are mistaken in their attempts to reduce the mind to something physical; as will be discussed, the mind is irreducible to physicalist accounts (Nagel, 529, Jackson, 42; Searle, 703-704). R. J. Hirst’s monistic thesis, because it denies the mind/body distinction, seems to be lacking as well; however, when certain aspects of it are combined with aspects of dualism, a credible theory of the mind develops. With the help of monism, we will see how dualism provides as thorough an account of the mind as possible just now, giving it strength and thus necessity in any philosophy of the mind. First, it is necessary to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the leading dualist theories: substance dualism and property dualism. Both maintain that the mind and body are two radically different types of things. The distinguishing factor, then, is the “type of thing” the mind turns out to be (Robinson, 2003). The foundation of substance dualism lies in Rene Descartes’ Meditations, in which, consistent with his preoccupation with God and the immortal soul, he equates the mind to the soul and the self (Descartes, 37). He suggests that the mind (the soul, the self) is a purely immaterial substance that is distinct from, and independent of, the physical body (Descartes, 44). His conclusion is based on the assumption that God does not deceive us; with this in mind, Descartes states: “The fact that I can clearly and distinctly understand one thing apart from another is therefore enough to make me certain that it is distinct from the other.” To account for our experience, Descartes calls for the unity of mind and body (Descartes, 44-45). As compelling a proposal as it is, substance dualism is not without criticism. First, Descartes’ theory rests on the idea that God is not a deceiver. The intent of this paper is to maintain an account of the mind that is, or someday could be, verifiable. Any position based upon a supernatural being shows little hope of verification. Second, by making the mind equivalent to the soul and allowing it to be a substance independent of the physical body, Descartes is suggesting that the mind/soul could exist on its own. Descartes’ claims are not only very questionable, but they raise the relentless question of unity between mind and body (Robinson, 2003; Ryle, 54-55) and, as will be shown, contradict the main point of this paper. For the above reasons, it is necessary to begin from another perspective—property dualism. In comparison to substance dualism, property dualism is a more appropriate approach in that it allows for the possibility of a scientific analysis; whereas it is questionable whether or not immaterial substances exist independently, it is difficult to deny that everything in nature exhibits a property of some sort. For the property dualist, the mind becomes an immaterial property of the physical body; in so becoming, the mind remains distinct from the body, maintaining its immaterial nature, but becomes directly linked to it, offering the interactions of mind and body indicated by our experience (Robinson, 2003). This link to the body avoids the burden of having to explain the presence of any supernatural phenomena. The general assumptions of property dualism, however, do not avoid the troublesome issue of causation between mind and body (Robinson, 2003). Also, there exists a classification error that must be addressed. With a few modifications, and help from monism, property dualism fosters a respectable approach to the mind/body problem.

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An Essential Approach: Dualism and the Self • Melissa J. Lighthall

Where property dualism requires assistance is not in its proposal that the mind is a property, but in its proposal that the mind is a property of the physical body. As Hirst emphasizes in his monistic work Mind and Body, when one considers the person, or the self, as a whole, it cannot be denied that there exist two very different accounts of that whole. The account most widely agreed upon, because of its observable nature, is the physical account, or “outer aspect,” as Hirst describes it. Few deny that the physical body, on the one hand, is an important part of our existence. The mental account of the self (inner aspect), on the other hand, generates some uncertainty because of its ambiguous nature; it does, however, continually remind one of its presence (Hirst, 107). If the whole self can be divided into a mental account and a physical account—to a mind and a body—it seems unwarranted, then, for property dualism to reduce the mind to a mere property of the body. What reason do we have to believe that the body is more fundamental than the mind? What justification is there for such discrimination? This pattern is not recent. John Searle shows, in The Irreducibility of Consciousness, that we tend to redefine things that affect us in terms that explain their causal nature; in the process, we exclude their non-physical properties while over-emphasizing their physical properties. Everything in nature possesses both physical and non-physical properties of some sort; these properties, accordingly, provide both objective and subjective experiences (Searle, 705). For example, when we look at fine art, we experience physical properties such as color, shape, depth, and dimension. These things are objective in that they are available to all—to all those with “normal” eyesight anyway. We also experience the art’s immaterial properties; we may be moved or bothered by it, or we may think about what it means and how we relate to it; we experience it personally, or subjectively. It is understandable why some would feel justified in defining our world objectively, in ways that are agreeable to all, but the neglect of the personal/subjective experience is problematic and unacceptable. Without subjective experience, art is simply art and nothing more; it becomes worthless, meaningless. What seems reasonable, then, is to look at the subjective and the objective experience, the non-physical and physical properties of a thing, as equally essential aspects of a whole. Similarly, the mind and the body should be approached as equally fundamental properties of the whole self, especially when one considers how the existence of the whole self depends entirely on these two things. The idea that the mind is a non-physical property of the self, and that the body is a physical property of the self, lends to the argument a relationship, however indirectly, between the mind and the body. If the mind and body are properties of the self, common knowledge of properties suggest that, not only do the mind and body determine the self’s existence (that is, allowing for “normal” functioning), but that they have a purposeful and interdependent relationship with and with-in it (Shoemaker, 255-262). For example, a hollow center is a non-physical property of any drum, and a wooden shell (frame) is a physical property of most drums (since some use metal). The hollow center determines the drum’s presence by allowing for the desired sound; therefore, the hollow center has a purpose. The wooden shell houses the hollow center, giving it purpose. If you remove the wooden shell, the hollow center cannot exist and the drum is inoperative; this displays the hollow center’s dependence on the wooden shell. If you take the hollow center from the wooden shell, the shell is no different than a solid log—it will not perform as intended and is therefore dependent on the hollow center (Marshall, 2000). In taking these things into account, the interdependent relationship that exists between each property and the drum become evident—the drum doesn’t work in absence of either property. Similar comparisons can be made of the mind and body. It seems unlikely for one to deny, although some may, that the mind, or the mental self, does not exist without the accommodations of the body, the physical self. Also, as difficult as it may be to imagine, the physical An Essential Approach: Dualism and the Self • Melissa J. Lighthall

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self becomes comparable to a plant or an animal in absence of the mind, the mental self (Armstrong, 44). In short, the mind and body are not only radically different properties; they are the defining factors of the self—without either, the self is incomplete.

Possible Objections and Replies Mental Causation: A Materialist Complaint

It would be juvenile to assume that the question of causality is not an issue here. At most, a complimentary relationship between mind and body has been established; there is no convincing explanation offered regarding the causal nature of the mind. This account of mind and body is no more persuasive than are other theories in favor of mental causation, and it gives no grounds to abandon a materialist account, an account which avoids the issue of mental causation: one that is potentially observable or testable. Materialism remains the simplest, most likely account of mind and body (Smart, 126). It seems just as naive to suggest that the mind is reducible to something physical; common sense and experience tell us that the mind is above and beyond an explanation by means of purely physical terms (Nagel, 529, Jackson, 42; Searle, 703-704). For consistency, let’s refer to the illustration of the drum. Its wooden shell, as well as its hollow center, allow for its intended purpose. Now, consider the cadence produced by the drum when played. The drummer hits the drum and the hollow center and wooden shell work together to produce the desired cadence; without either, the drum doesn’t work. The same can be said for the mind. When we compare the drummer to the environment and the cadence to one’s behavior, we see how the mind (hollow center) and the body (wooden shell) are both effects and effective. It is hopeless to deny that (1) the mind is always influenced by something physical (Armstrong, 46), and (2) the mind is able to reciprocate (Hume, 30). How is this possible? The drum example becomes impractical here; the hollow center cannot possibly account for the mind’s causal abilities because the mind, as discussed, is irreducible to physical terms. In What is it like to be a Bat, Thomas Nagel makes this disappointment a reality. Nagel shows, indirectly by use of the example of a bat, that we simply do not have the capacity as human beings to understand the complex nature of our own mind, let alone somebody else’s, especially in physicalist terms. All that we can understand, then, is given by means of our experience (Nagel, 529531). Or, we could go another direction and say that perhaps the mind/body/self relationship is not one of causation, but one of constant conjunction, as first proposed by property dualist David Hume. This approach implies that one thing will always follow another (Armstrong, 30). The materialists may say that the irreducibility of the mind is unacceptable in that it gives us no understanding of the mind and that everything in the world has an explanation. They may add that constant conjunction does not support the mind’s causal ability, it only takes from it by making it some sort of assemblage or side effect of the physical world (Armstrong, 43). If looked at differently, constant conjunction actually supports it. In the case of the drum, a relationship of conjunction could be relevant; still, it cannot be denied that the drum is defective without its hollow center. The same must be said of the self and the mind, or we would have to go against all evidence and say that a person who has a mental handicap, or a person with no mental capacity whatsoever, is no different from the average mind. Is anyone ready to suggest this? Ultimately, this perspective may not offer an answer that is testable today, but it takes into account our personal experience, a very trustworthy familiarity, of the mind. The problem of causality is far

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An Essential Approach: Dualism and the Self • Melissa J. Lighthall

less destructive than is the neglect of common sense and experience. Neglect of these practically ensures failure since everything we know about the physical world began with an experience of it, an experience that is both objective and subjective.

Noncompliance with Laws of Nature

Even if one were tempted to overlook the mental causation as a probable idea in progress, how is one to accept such a simplistic theory that not only lacks immediate answers, but fails to comply with the laws of nature? So far, all things in nature adhere to some law or another—what makes this approach above criticism when no other theory, or entity for that matter, has been the exception (Armstrong, 48)? It could very well be the case that this very question is what stifles success in philosophy of the mind. Who says the mind must follow any of these laws? Perhaps there is something about the incredibly abstract nature of the mind that laws of physics are just unable to explain—at least at this point in time. Perhaps we should be looking for evidence of new laws rather than tossing out respectable evidence based on laws that may not even be appropriate. There is nothing else in this world, which we know of anyway, that is mysterious in the way that the mind is mysterious. If such a thing existed and followed the laws with which we are concerned, there would be no response to this objection. This is not the case. Why are we unwilling to consider the fact that a new set of laws may apply to the mind? Consider the following: until somewhat recently, physics relied solely on standard theories such as Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. Imagine the confusion and denial that overwhelmed the scientific community when it came to physicists’ attention that there are subatomic particles that defied these most principle laws (Glanz, 2001). Einstein himself rejected the concept at first, looking to his theory for any possible oversight that would explain this mystery (Kleppner & Jackie, 2003). Instead of continuing to question the newly found quantum world and Einstein’s very credible theory, a new theory with new laws was developed to explain it. Now the problem is how to unify these theories (Hobson, 460-463). If the mind is ever going to be explained, it will certainly not be in physical terms as we know them today; this certainly would not be the first time a theory or law has had to be modified or all together disregarded. It may be put forward that quantum particles are still physical and say nothing about the immaterial mind, but this is not the point of the example; the point is that laws of nature are not as permanent or as reliable as they are argued. We may need to consider the facts that (1) we may not know as much as we think we do, and (2) there may be some things that we will never know completely. It is possible that we put too much faith into science, an institution that succeeds in describing the world, yes, but is still a concoction created by imperfect beings.

Conclusion The above criticisms do not appear to discredit or take from this approach. The claims made here are founded strictly on experience and, therefore, supply a fresh groundwork; it is absent of the hasty assumptions that unnecessarily complicate the mind/body relationship. Perhaps it has been made clear as to how important it is that a theory of the mind stays true to our experience. It is our only reliable resource for information about the mind; no technology is up to the challenge. From experience, we can begin to generalize, but for now, we are limited by various physical “anchors.” Only when we accept the mind, the An Essential Approach: Dualism and the Self • Melissa J. Lighthall

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subjective, and the abstract as truly distinct from and as equally important as the physical, the objective, and the concrete, will we stand a chance of understanding what it is like to be a mind!

References Armstrong, D. M. (1999). Hume’s Bundle Dualism. In D. M. Armstrong, The Mind-Body Problem: An Opinionated Introduction. (27-40). Westview Press. ———. (1999). T. H. Huxley’s Epiphenomenalism. In D. M. Armstrong, The Mind-Body Problem: An Opinionated Introduction. (41-52). Westview Press. Descartes, R. (2001). Minds and Bodies as Distinct Substances. In J. Heil (Ed.), Philosophy of the Mind: A Guide and Anthology (36-58). Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. Glanz, J. (2001). Tiniest of Particles Pokes Big Hole in Physics Theory. Retrieved December 13, 2007, from Hirst, R. J. (1959). Mind and Body. In J. Heil (Ed.), Philosophy of the Mind: A Guide and Anthology (05-115). Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. Hobson, A. (2007). Physics: Concepts and Connections (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc. Jackson, F. (1991). What Mary Didn’t Know. In D. Rosenthal (Ed.), The Nature of Mind (392-394). Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. Kleppner, D. & Jackie, R. (2003). On One Hundred Years of Quantum Physics. Retrieved December 13, 2007, from Marshall, P. (2000). Drum kit / Drumset Mechanics and Construction. Retrieved December 15, 2007 from Nagel, T. (1974). What is it Like to be a Bat? In J. Heil (Ed.), Philosophy of the Mind: A Guide and Anthology (528-538). Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. Robinson, H. (2003). Dualism. Retrieved December 10, 2007, In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter, 2007 edition) from Ryle, G. (1991). Descartes’ Myth. In D. Rosenthal (Ed.), The Nature of Mind (51-57). Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. Searle, J. R. (1992). The Irreducibility of Consciousness. In J. Heil (Ed.), Philosophy of the Mind: A Guide and Anthology (700-708). Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press. Shoemaker, S. (1999). Causality and Properties. In K. Jaegwon & S. Ernest (Eds.), Metaphysics: An Anthology (chap. 20). Retrieved December 12, 2007, from Smart, J. J. C. (1959). Sensations and Brain Processes. In J. Heil (Ed.), Philosophy of the Mind: A Guide and Anthology (116-127). Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.

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Kuan Yin: The Boundlessly Compassionate Savior of the Chinese People • Charles Schwie Charles Schwie graduated in the spring of 2009 with a religious studies major and global studies minor. He wrote this paper for Dr. Scott Lowe’s RELS 323 class “Chinese and Japanese Religions” in the spring of 2008. ******************** The echoes of her holy deeds Resound throughout the world. So vast and deep the vows she made When, after countless eons Of serving hosts of Perfect Ones, She voiced her pure desire To liberate afflicted beings Now harken to what came of itTo hear her name or see her form, Or fervently recite her name Delivers beings from every woe. Were you with murderous intent Thrust within a fiery furnace, One thought of Kuan Yin’s saving power Would turn those flames to water! Were you adrift upon the sea With dragon-fish and fiends around you, One thought of Kuan Yin’s saving power Would spare you from the hungry waves… ——The Lotus Sutra (Translated by John Blofeld)

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uan Yin is an incredibly complex character. Her desire to aid those in distress and her boundless compassion for all people make her one of the most beloved figures in Chinese lore, both within her Pure Land Buddhism of origin and within her own secured place of devotion in the hearts of countless many devotees. Regardless of religious affiliation, almost every Chinese home has an altar dedicated to this bodhisattva that many now consider to be a goddess. As I look across my desk and see the figures of her standing in silent contemplation, I wonder what has triggered my own fascination with her. What is it about her image that inspires the belief and devotion of so many? Is it her universal love of all people and her desire to see them all reborn in Amitabha’s Pure Land? Is it the miracle stories of her saving grace? Is it her promise to remain until all have been saved? I am fascinated by the widely celebrated appeal of this simple female figure, one who has drawn the love and devotion of so many Chinese people, particularly in a country where women have been relegated to a culturally reinforced and historically submissive role in the public sphere, in a land where being born female is often a death sentence. How did an originally male Indian bodhisattva become a beloved female figure not only in Buddhism, but also in Taoism and in popular religion? How does a Buddhist saint become a goddess and gain associations with everything from childbirth to fishermen and the sea? Why exactly is she so popular? In this paper I hope to answer some of these questions and explore the myths and possible origins of this complex and beloved figure in China.

Who is Kuan Yin? Kuan Yin, or more accurately Kuan Shih Yin, is known as “perceiver of sounds,” or “the hearer of the cries of the world.” She is the Chinese female version of the male Indian bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, also referred to as the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Avalokitesvara is traditionally considered to be an emanation of Amitabha Buddha, a celestial Buddha of light. Avalokitesvara was a popular figure in Indian Buddhism, and in Tibet the Dalai Lamas are considered to be tulkus, or recognized reincarnations, of Avalokitesvara. Along with the Buddhist sutras that describe Avalokitesvara, a number of popular stories about his miraculous powers to save devotees in distress most certainly would have made the journey to China with monks and missionaries when Buddhism entered China. Popular Indian images of Avalokitesvara show a male figure with slightly feminine features, like soft curves at the hips and a softly rounded face, that often lead casual observers to identify him as female. Even though these images of Kuan Yin seem vaguely feminine, there are very rarely any fully developed secondary sexual characteristics in sculptures or paintings. Most images stick to the softer and more subtle feminine characteristics that abounded in the early depictions of Avalokitesvara. Although his images are slightly feminized, according to Chun-Fang Yu, in her book Kuan Yin, Avalokitesvara has never been worshipped as a goddess or revered as a female in Tibet, India, Sri Lanka, or Southeast Asia (3). According to John Blofeld in Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kuan Yin starting popping up as a female figure between the 8th and the 11th centuries, with nearly all images and references “Enlightment being.” In Mahayana Buddhism, bodhisattvas are viewed as near Buddhas, enormously powerful spiritual beings who work for the happiness and salvation of all. Buddhist scholars go to great lengths to distinguish Bodhisattvas from mere “gods.” 

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Kuan Yin: The Boundlessly Compassionate Savior of the Chinese People • Charles Schwie

being universally female by the 12th century (40). In similar fashion Chun-Fang Yu puts the transformation at roughly the same time, but a little bit later. She states that “the deity underwent a profound and startling change beginning sometime in the 10th century, and by the 16th century, Kuan Yin had become not only completely Chinese, but also the most beloved Goddess of Mercy,” (“Kuan Yin Devotion in China”, 10).

Humble Beginnings After examining her roots in Avalokitesvara, the next logical question becomes how does a definitively male character become female, especially in a quintessentially patriarchal culture like China? Blofeld offers an explanation in Bodhisattva of Compassion that is interesting, although it differs greatly from the explanation proposed by Chun-Fang Yu that I will discuss later. Blofeld believes that the popular image of the female Bodhisattva of Compassion came about when the images of Avalokitesvara, images of the female Tibetan figure Tara, who is also revered as an emanation of Avalokitesvara, and stories and images of female characters in Chinese myths, such as the princess Miao Shan and other widely known figures of great compassion were merged together in popular thought and belief (42). On the surface this argument seems plausible and does make sense, especially when it comes to the blending of the stories and images of Kuan Yin with other popular female figures of extraordinary compassion, a topic I will address later in this paper. But if we look at the timetable, we have Buddhism entering China around 64 CE and Buddhism entering Tibet, most likely from northern India, somewhere in the ballpark of 150-200 CE. Given that we need to allow several centuries for the religion to be popularized, translated, and disseminated into two very different cultures, it does not seem that Blofeld’s explanation provides sufficient time for the development of the kind of cross-cultural popular religious syncretism that scholars think led to virtually all images of Kuan Yin becoming universally female between 900 and 1200 CE. In her article titled “Kuan Yin Devotion in China,” in Dharma World, Chun-Fang Yu offers another explanation of Avalokitesvara’s change from male to female. She proposes that Kuan Yin was likely feminized in response to the Neo-Confucianism that was spreading in China in the late 800s and early 900s CE. Neo-Confucianism had the reputation of being both anti-female and oppressive to women. The rise in popularity of the female Kuan Yin and goddess worship and veneration in China in general was seen as a response to this new wave of Neo-Confucianism. Yu goes on to mention that it appears as if the pro-female religious response did nothing for the plight of women in China, which would mean that the surge in goddess worship and veneration would not have fulfilled its intended purpose. It did however provide us with a wealth of goddess images that emerged during this time period, several of which were assimilated with Kuan Yin (12).

Putting the Pieces Together: The Many Faces of Kuan Yin When I started researching Kuan Yin, I began by looking into how she is worshipped and viewed today. I figured that I had her origin down; she was simply the feminized Avalokitesvara. I went to the library and discovered an interesting children’s book, The Lady of Ten Thousand Names, by Burleigh Muten. According to my internet library search the book supposedly contained the origin story of Kuan Kuan Yin: The Boundlessly Compassionate Savior of the Chinese People • Charles Schwie

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Yin. Naturally I was surprised, so I decided to give it a read and see what it had to say. The book told the tale of a Chinese princess who defied her domineering father and chose a life of quiet prayer and service to the poor in a local temple over a lavish royal life, and to make things worse, she refused to marry the suitor her father had chosen for her. Her father locked her in a tower for her disobedience. A fire broke out in the tower and it looked like all was lost when a great white bird swooped down from the heavens and carried the girl away. The bird took her into the celestial realm where she became Kuan Yin, and it was there she devoted her life to saving others in distress. I laughed after I finished the tale and wondered where exactly the author had come up with it, until I read the same tale in John Blofeld’s Bodhisattva of Compassion, and again in Chun-Fang Yu’s Kuan Yin, and finally I read the same story a third time in Lee Irwin’s article, “Divinity and Salvation.” All three of the texts told nearly the exact same story as one of the possible origins of Kuan Yin, which led me to wonder what other tales might be attributed to her. Chun-Fang Yu offers an origin for the feminine Avalokitesvara that is remarkably different from Blofeld, but they both do agree on one thing: Kuan Yin, at least as she is understood now and has been for the past several hundred years, is an amalgamation of several female goddess figures in Chinese myth and history. She has absorbed the stories of great feats of female sacrifice and devotion and has become something resembling a colossal superhero-like figure of mercy, and essentially becoming the female archetype of compassion in China. I am going to examine five of the more common forms of Kuan Yin, following Chun-Fang Yu, and show some of the connections to goddesses and other figures that were popular throughout Chinese history to illustrate how the present-day image of Kuan Yin has absorbed them and developed into the complex figure she is today. According to Yu, “the Chinese created indigenous forms of Kuan Yin, just as they composed indigenous sutras. Several distinctive Chinese forms of Kuan Yin emerged from the 10th century onward. They are the Water-Moon Kuan Yin, White Robed Kuan Yin, Child Giving Kuan Yin, Kuan Yin of the South Sea, and Old Mother Kuan Yin,”(“Kuan Yin Devotion in China,” 11). Each of these forms of Kuan Yin has ties to stories and legends neither originally nor exclusively attributed to her. With the help of Lee Irwin and Chun-Fang Yu, I am going to examine these five common forms of Kuan Yin and dissect them a bit and explore their possible origins. In her book, Kuan Yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara, Chun-Fang Yu explains that the image of the Water-Moon Kuan Yin is seen as the most overtly Taoist, as well as a decent example of her well-established status as a Taoist goddess. She is the representation of the Yin, or female aspects, symbolized in the presence of the moon and water. She is often shown resting on a rock and gazing at the reflected moon in the water. This image is also seen as a Buddhist illustration of the impermanence of this illusory world; the reflection of the moon is merely the water’s illusion, absent of reality. The fact that Water-Moon Kuan Yin is an image claimed by both Taoists and Buddhists alike is just a small demonstration of the many ways that she is revered and is also a good example of her ability to cross religious and cultural lines to reveal her nearly universal appeal in China. The next version, the White-Robed Kuan Yin, was an early version, before she became fully recognized as female, and was also the most likely form to appear in early visions of the bodhisattva. According to Yu, the White-Robed Kuan Yin was often described as either a “person in white, indicating lay status, or a woman in white, indicating the emphasis on gender,” (“Devotion,” 10). The visions of the White-Robed Kuan Yin served as perhaps the greatest bridge toward the creation of the Chinese cross-over from male to female. The first images of the person in white have been determined to actually be depictions of great monks who would later come to be identified and understood to be incarnations of Kuan Yin. More and

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Kuan Yin: The Boundlessly Compassionate Savior of the Chinese People • Charles Schwie

more visions and eventually miracle stories began to be attributed to this person in white, who would later become the lady in white, the White-Robed Kuan Yin. If you read many of the tales of the miracles associated with the White-Robed Kuan Yin, according to Yu, you can see the crux of the great change-over in artistic representations of the Kuan Yin. The figure began to be represented as a female. Surprisingly it is at this point when Kuan Yin started to become more often identified as female in visions, leading Yu to argue that the artistic iconography also had a great deal to do with influencing her gender change in these visions (10). White-Robed Kuan Yin is most likely also derived from the story of Miao Shan, the princess in the story I mentioned earlier. According to Lee Irwin in “Divinity and Salvation,” Miao Shan and the WhiteRobed Kuan Yin represent an individual female spirit and are associated with celibacy and the monastic life. This image was often seen as justification for women to lead a socially radical lifestyle of remaining unmarried and devoted to religious life and “renunciation of the dominant male social values,” (61). The next form is the one that I find the most fascinating, mainly because it turns a Buddhist bodhisattva, an individual that embodies the sum of the Buddha’s teachings, and makes her into what is essentially a fertility goddess. According to Lee Irwin in “Divinity and Salvation,” the figure of the Child-Giving Kuan Yin is most likely an association with the Taoist goddess known as the Princess of the Flowery Clouds. According to popular Chinese belief, a childless woman can pray to Kuan Yin and if it is the right time for her, Kuan Yin will grant her a child. Both figures supposedly watch over women who are confined, women who are pregnant, and women who are giving birth. In addition to her Taoist roots, Chun-Fang Yu points out that images of the Child-Giving Kuan Yin holding a baby were compared to those of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jesus by Jesuit missionaries who often acknowledged that both figures shared a similar purpose as well as iconography (“Devotion”, 11). Irwin points out that the Child-Giving Kuan Yin extends her compassion to all women, even celibate ones, and the section of the Lotus Sutra that is considered one of the origins of this particular figure actually sanctifies the desire for female children, not solely male children, cementing her place as a protector and guardian of all women. “Such a manifestation stands in direct contrast to the particular masculine ideals embodied in both religious and secular authorities. Kuan Yin thus appears as a shining example of a spiritualized feminine tendency that takes no interest in hierarchical order, but works for the salvation of all beings,” (“Divinity,” 59). The next Kuan Yin, the Kuan Yin of the South Sea or also Putuo Kuan Yin, has become known as a great guardian and protector of fisherman. She also can be traced in origin to another Taoist figure, Tianhou or Ma Tzu, the Empress of Heaven. She is said to inhabit Putuo Island. She attends to lost souls on her “Ship of Salvation,” according to Lee Irwin, and guides them safely to the Western Paradise. She is seen as Buddhist figure when she is depicted in meditation, sitting on rocks along the coast, but she is also seen as a great sea goddess when she is depicted as attended by her two servants from the sea. The amount of syncretism and multiple associations for one figure is something that I find astounding, especially since she combines her distinctively Buddhist qualities and Taoist qualities in such a way that she can be seen as almost wholly one or the other depending on who you ask. Her physical appearance is much like that of the White-Robed Kuan Yin, as she dresses all in white and carries the lotus, but her purpose is much like that of Tianhou who is seen as a patroness of sea-faring devotees who responds to anyone in distress (61). The final form of Kuan Yin that I would like to discuss is the Old Mother, or Venerable Mother Kuan Yin. This form is also viewed as a transformation from the combination of the Empress of Heaven Kuan Yin: The Boundlessly Compassionate Savior of the Chinese People • Charles Schwie

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and the Taoist Queen Mother of the West. She is seen primarily as an intercessory figure between humanity and heaven that has great powers, and “was distinguished as a great being of forgiveness, mercy and compassion,” (Divinity,” 60). The mercy and compassion as well as the powers to save people in distress are also associated with Kuan Yin in general; the remarkable thing about this manifestation is the title of “mother” in her name. This is the key to unlocking her obviously Taoist roots.

Examining Kuan Yin’s Appeal: Why is she so popular? The final question I am left to attempt to answer is the most interesting one in my opinion: Why is Kuan Yin so popular? Her images in paint, carving, and sculpture are remarkably beautiful, that is true, and the volumes of poetry that sing her praises are quite beautiful as well, but what is it about her that breaks down the gender barrier in such a pervasively patriarchal culture like we see in China? I love the way that a monk sums up his thoughts on Kuan Yin to John Blofeld in his book, Beyond the Gods. When asked to tell him about Kuan Yin the monk replies: To different people she means different things, you see. An old folk tale tells that she was a princess who took a vow of chastity and preferred a life devoted to the poor…There are many stories of this kind pertaining to her, so it is popularly supposed that they are attributed to the incarnations of the greatly adored being. You will find her likeness everywhere. To the Taoists and the common folk, she is a goddess, to us an emanation of the power of compassion…Her shrines are scrupulously kept to symbolize her purity. A sure refuge from disaster, sailors and fisherman pray to her in moments of sea-peril. Though virginal, she is besought by childless women to bestow the gift of children…We do not doubt that people who conceive of her in these simple ways—especially if they are compassionate towards humans, animals, and ghosts—do behold her in such forms and enjoy her miraculous intervention in their affairs. (74)

What the monk says about Kuan Yin’s popularity speaks volumes about what Kuan Yin means to people. She embodies so much good and compassion; her purpose is to save us. She embodies what is still good about humanity in a purified and endless form and she has hope and compassion to save all people and bring them to the Pure Land. Chun-Fang Yu explains part of her appeal by pointing out that devotion to Kuan Yin is easy, for most people can understand and practice it without prior knowledge of scriptures or procedures, which makes her even more appealing. Anyone can chant her simple mantras, and it is believed that she will save you with her great compassion and mercy regardless of your social status which makes her greatly appealing to the poor (“Devotion”). She goes on further to mention that most homes have an image of Kuan Yin and a small space dedicated to her. She is a figure that breaks boundaries of class and religion like few others in the world.

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Kuan Yin: The Boundlessly Compassionate Savior of the Chinese People • Charles Schwie

Conclusion I have learned a lot about Kuan Yin through researching for this paper, certainly far more that I ever had expected to learn. I thought that I had her pegged and it would be a simple black-and-white here is Avalokitesvara, here is Kuan Yin, here is what happened, and finally here she is now. I had no idea that there were so many convoluted aspects to understanding her, many of which are rooted deeply in Taoism and popular religion, and that it would take a bit of close examination to begin to peel the layers away. So much is laid upon such a simple figure. She embodies the hope of all those who are devoted to her. She appeals to people across cultures, religions, and oceans, and embodies what is good in humanity and our compassion for each other. She is like a cosmic superhero who wants to save everyone who appeals to her with a pure heart. For many she is the ultimate symbol of self sacrifice. I know that I will look at these simple figurines on my desk with a permanently changed perspective with the realization that this simple figure stands for far more than I will ever be able to fully comprehend.

Works Cited Blofeld, John. Beyond the Gods. New York: E.P. Dutton and Co. 1974. ———Bodhisattva of Compassion: The Mystical Tradition of Kuan Yin. Boulder, CO: Shambala Publications, Inc. 1978 Irwin, Lee. “Divinity and Salvation: The Great Goddesses of China,” Asian Folklore Studies. Vol. 41, No. 1, 1990. Reeves, Gene. “The Wisdom and Compassion of Kuan Yin,” Dharma World. Vol. 35, April-June 2008. Yu, Chun-Fang. “Kuan Yin Devotion in China,” Dharma World. Vol. 35, April-June 2008. ———Kuan Yin: The Chinese Transformation of Avalokitesvara. New York: Columbia University Press. 2001.

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A Zen Buddhist Perspective on Wittgenstein’s Principle that Meaning is Use • Tyler Mickelson Tyler Mickelson graduated in the spring of 2008 with a degree in philosophy and religious studies. He wrote this paper for Dr. Edward Beach’s philosophy seminar class PHIL 485 “Philosophy without Foundations” in the fall of 2007. ********************

Abstract The purpose of this essay is to examine the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, in particular his famous maxim that “meaning is use.” With this principle, developed in his Philosophical Investigations (1953), Wittgenstein sought to free philosophy from many of the seemingly pointless debates that turn upon esoteric, technical distinctions without practical import. In the process, however, he also seemed to deny validity to many forms of linguistic exchange, such as religious ones, that may be meaningful even in the absence of practical applications. In response, I examine some of the traditional dialogical patterns favored by Zen Buddhists as part of their traditional teaching method — patterns that seem to violate any feasible interpretation in terms of utility. My goal is to show that there are in fact other aims of language than those that Wittgenstein has treated. At the conclusion of this essay, I suggest that even he would likely have allowed the limitations of his famous maxim and would have acknowledged what I call “the use of the useless.”

Introduction to Wittgenstein

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n his Philosophical Investigations Ludwig Wittgenstein writes that meaning is the use of language. Nothing above, hidden, behind, prior to, or even there gives meaning to language other than the use of language itself. Many philosophers, however, have thought otherwise. According to Wittgenstein, common philosophical problems (e.g., “What is reality?” or “What is the meaning of life?”) come into

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being from a misuse of language. Wittgenstein’s theory that meaning is the use of language has become a popular view, and squares with philosophical perspectives such as pragmatism and positivism. Models of language based on ostensive definitions do not satisfy Wittgenstein. Naming and gesturing to things (so as to provide understandings of the meanings of names) does not suffice to determine meaning, given that ostensive definitions can be interpreted in countless ways. Wittgenstein writes: “That philosophical concept of meaning [ostensive definition] has its place in a primitive idea of the way language functions.” Instead, Wittgenstein offers a model of language consistent with behavioral psychology, showing that meaning is learned and interpreted from acts or behaviors of language use. Even an “ostensive definition” of a word, which establishes a denotative connection between a verbal sign and an object, derives its meaning solely from the practical behavior to which such an association gives rise. For example, the word “slab” can denote a slab of rock, in a certain context, but such “denotation” is only meaningful to the extent that the hearer can respond to the word appropriately by bringing a slab to the speaker according to an established convention of usage. But the word “slab” cannot, according to Wittgenstein, denote a slab in the abstract: only in the context of some observable behavioral responses does it have any significance whatever. Outside of that context of behavioral usage, the word “slab” is meaningless. Language is seen as a collection of “language-games.” A language-game is part of a form of life— that is, pattern of life. It is also an activity of communication governed by rules (and sometimes a lack of rules), where words are made meaningful by agreement and consensus. Examples of language-games include giving orders and obeying them, play-acting, thanking, story-telling, cursing, etc. Agreement and consensus give rise to behavioral manifestations that are observable in the arena of social practice. This can be considered a modified version of the pragmatists’ standard of “public verifiability,” but with the emphasis now placed squarely on human behavior. If language cannot be publicly verified, it is considered “private language.” Wittgenstein maintains that words of private language “refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language.” Thus, inner experience cannot be described meaningfully, not even to the originator of a private language, because he or she is not able to establish meaning for his or her own private language signs. For Wittgenstein, private language, then, is not only meaningless, but also incoherent. This point is demonstrated by Wittgenstein’s scenario of a “beetle” in a box.

Though very different in many respects, these two movements originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries share a preference for the scientific method, a rejection of traditional metaphysics (especially of a religious character), use of quantitative data and operational definitions, and emphasis on the practical consequences of alternative theories.  Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, revised English trans. by G.E. M. Anscombe (Blackwell Publishing: Malden MA, 2001), proposition 29.  PI, proposition 2.  PI, propositions 6-11.  PI, proposition 23.  PI, proposition 243.  Stewart Candlish and George Wrisley, “Private Language,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2007 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = , visited May 1, 2008. 

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A Zen Buddhist Perspective on Wittgenstein’s Principle that Meaning is Use • Tyler Mickelson

Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a “beetle”. No one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.—Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing.—But suppose the word “beetle” had a use in these people’s language?—If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty.—No, one can ‘divide through’ by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.

Initially we might imagine “beetle” as a black, winged bug with six legs. This image, of course, arises from our conventional language use. The point of supposing everyone having and talking about a private “beetle” in a box is to show how such a use of language fails to communicate inner experience. For this thought experiment to work, one must take seriously the supposition that, mystical or not, my “beetle” experience is unintelligible to you — or even, in the last analysis, to myself — because nobody would ever be able to peek into another person’s box. “Beetle” is a meaningless word without agreement and consensus as to what “beetle” is to signify. If agreement and consensus are reached, however, the word “beetle” evidently derives its significance from the public sphere and, therefore, fails to represent private experience. Now, to say words are made meaningful by agreement and consensus is not also to say persons participating in the same language-game respond to words in exactly the same way. Pictures one might imagine while listening to another’s words, for example, owe their expressions to personal experience. Experience of this bug or that bug is, therefore, not required for registering the word “bug.” Yet it does not follow that there is any general character, or unitary essence, held in common by all bugs — much less “bugs” that in principle would only be sensible within the subjective domain of an individual’s private experience. Let me briefly clarify: The very concept of an “essence” for the later Wittgenstein is highly questionable. One might, of course, attempt to construct an artificial definition of the word “bug” as referring to an order of creeping or crawling insects of less than two inches in length; but any such definition would soon be found to conflict with the actual usage of people, and would therefore be in need of continual modification according to contexts. (Some “bugs” might turn out to be pondskaters, while others might be giant burrowing cockroaches larger than two inches in length. And any purely private “bugs” would be beyond testable verification procedures altogether.) Rather than rely on an ambiguous notion of “inner essence,” Wittgenstein prefers the more concrete and pragmatic theory of “family resemblances.”10 According to this theory, we tend to group together things, words, ideas, concepts, and games, etc., by means of noting their resemblances to other members of the same group. Thus, a spider resembles an ant, an ant resembles a centipede, and a centipede resembles a caterpillar. There need not be any single characteristic that is held in common by all of the members of a group. PI, proposition 293. Wittgenstein gives another illustration of this in terms of the concept “number.” Does “number” have an essence? Only in an arbitrary and artificial manner, he indicates: “For I can give the concept ‘number’ rigid limits in this way, that is, use the word ‘number’ for a rigidly limited concept, but I can also use it so that the extension of the concept is not closed by a frontier....Can you give the boundary? No. You can draw one; for none has so far been drawn. (But that never troubled you before...)...” (PI, proposition 68). 10 PI, proposition 67.  

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Wittgenstein’s notion of understanding can roughly be described as an ability to demonstrate some part of a language-game in a manner that other users of the language-game find appropriate and can respond to appropriately.11 Applying a rule of a language-game, therefore, is a criterion of understanding.12 When one begins a learning process toward understanding, he or she may be able to use only a limited range or sub-range of a given rule’s field of application. When one uses language appropriately, he or she obeys a rule or rules of a language-game.13 The act of obeying a rule of a language-game is called practice. Practice is the “bedrock” of language. Practice is simply what one does.14 For Wittgenstein both “understanding” and “knowing” translate roughly to being able to use a concept in a variety of applications and contexts. This is made clear when one investigates into ordinary, and not philosophical, language use. Wittgenstein further demonstrates that an equivalent expression to both “understanding” and “knowing” is “Now I can go on [with the activity or practice in question]....”15

Demystifying Philosophical Concepts When philosophers use a word—“knowledge”, “being”, “object”, “I”, “proposition”, “name”—and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language which is its original home?— What we [Wittgensteinian philosophers] do is bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use.16

The famous maxim, “Know thyself,” once carved into the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, is put in question. From Wittgenstein’s point of view, “grasping the essence” of a thing is at most an act of setting highly artificial boundaries for personal philosophical inquiry; in the case of subjective experiences, it is virtually impossible. He suggests, therefore, that metaphysical language is responsible for expanding the already very large veil of illusion. Yet, earlier in a celebrated passage of the PI Wittgenstein writes: “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.”17 What is to be made of this? Evidently, Wittgenstein is suggesting that anyone who tries to grasp the essence of a thing by means of language is putting out the fires of bewitchment with gasoline. Despite Wittgenstein’s assertions to the contrary, perhaps the purpose of philosophy may include seeking to reveal things as they are in their true nature. This, of course, would include “thyself.” Many philosophers, Wittgenstein included, have risked a great deal in search of truth. It might be the case that Wittgenstein has won a significant battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence with his theory of meaning as use. Bewitchment, however, can take numerous forms, and some of them can be fought by means of language use far from ordinary and far from philosophical. In the East, for example, Zen language-games commonly exhibit deliberate misuse of language as a way to demystify philosophical concepts. PI, propositions 143-151. PI, proposition 146. 13 PI, proposition 219. 14 PI, proposition 217. 15 PI, proposition 151. 16 PI, proposition 116. 17 PI, proposition 109. 11

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A Zen Buddhist Perspective on Wittgenstein’s Principle that Meaning is Use • Tyler Mickelson

Zen Language-Games Deliberate misuse of conventional language-game patterns might have the power to reveal meaning other than language use. Two peculiar Zen language-games known as mondo (“question and answer”) and koan (“public record”) will be analyzed to illustrate this possibility. Mondo is a form of dialogue usually involving a student or junior monk asking a Zen master a meaningful question. A Zen master responds appropriately if he or she dodges all logical impulses and resorts to intuitive response.18 Monk: “What is the behavior of the one who thus understands?” Master: “He is a golden-haired lion.” 19

The Zen master’s response to the junior monk is a deliberate act that avoids conceptualization. This is, arguably, the rule of mondo language-games. The application of the rule is made manifest by the Zen master saying, “He is a golden-haired lion.” The statement “He is a golden-haired lion” is a non sequitur that has the effect of leaving the student at loose ends. Not only is the question posed left without an answer, but the very framework of the asking itself implodes with the master’s seemingly nonsensical answer. Many students will be totally bewildered by this response. Yet the exchange is not pointless or futile, because it can actually guide a sensitive student—one who is spiritually ripe for it—toward the goal of achieving satori. The chief characteristic of a Zen master’s response is sincerity. With sincerity one becomes “not a manifestation but Reality itself, for he has nothing behind him, he is ‘the whole truth,’ ‘the very thing.’”20 In mondo it is not uncommon for the Zen master to ask the first question. His language, however, differs greatly from that of his inexperienced counterpart, for he uses concrete language dealing with sense experience, never conceptualizations. Below is one of my favorite mondos. It is followed up by a brief commentary from D.T. Suzuki. When Baso (Ma-tsu, d. 788) took a walk with Hyakujō (Pai-chang), one of his attendant monks, he noticed the wild geese flying. He asked, “Where are they flying?” Hyakujō answered, “They are already flown away.” Baso turned around and, taking hold of Hyakujō’s nose, gave it a twist. Hyakujō cried, “It hurts, O Master!” “Who says they are flown away?” was the master’s retort. This made Hyakujō realize that the master was not talking at all about the conceptualized geese disappearing far away in the clouds. The master’s purpose was to call Hyakujō’s attention to the living goose that moves along with Hyakujō himself, not outside but within his person.21

A koan is a kind of deliberately pointless puzzle posed by a Zen master for his pupil to answer. Two very well-known koans will be presented here as unanswered: (1) “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” and (2) “What is your Face before your parents’ birth?”22 If you try to imagine the meanings of these Philip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment (New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1966), 338. 19 Daisetz T. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (New York: Princeton University Press, 1959), 348. The mondo presented above is half of a dialogue between Ummon (d. 949) and his disciple. 20 Zen and Japanese Culture, 349. 21 Zen and Japanese Culture, 8. 22 Kapleau, 65. 18

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koans, you will be beguiled. The duty of a koan is to check the intellect and to stimulate a direct response. Still, one might be inclined to ask, “How is a koan meaningful in its use?” The intellectual answer to this question is that a koan’s language use is meaningless, but the use of the koan itself is not. Koan languagegames are believed to have the power to reveal truths of interconnectedness and no self-nature.23 The purpose behind the deliberate misuse of language found in mondo and koan language-games is to shatter familiar language-game patterns to which a pupil has become accustomed in hopes to awaken him or her into the experience of enlightenment (satori in Japanese). Buddhist enlightenment is defined by D.T. Suzuki as “an intuitive looking into the nature of things in contradistinction to the analytical or logical understanding of it. Practically, it means the unfolding of a new world hitherto unperceived in the confusion of a dualistically-trained mind.”24 In the next section I will examine one last Zen language-game, for it poses a noteworthy challenge to Wittgenstein’s theory that meaning is use. The possible alternative theory presented here is: meaning as the use of the useless.

The Use of the Useless A striking-word language-game (my term) is the deliberate use of a useless word by a Zen master in hopes to awaken his pupil into the experience of enlightenment. A useless word is a word not immediately interpreted as meaningful. A useless word has no sign. A striking-word language-game differs from mondo and koan language-games insofar as it does not require a verbal response from a pupil. A striking-word language-game might be criticized by Wittgenstein (or at any rate, by his analytically trained followers) as not being a language-game at all. This issue, however, will be taken up after the example of a striking-word language-game has been given. The use of the useless is notably a Taoist approach. Zen has many affinities to Taoism. The following is an original Zen narrative I have written to illustrate the role of a striking-word:

A Zen Story for Wittgenstein A crow caws out into the sunlit air. A squirrel breaks up the snow for a nut. A student chops wood for his master. The crow cawed continuously, the squirrel dug fervently, and the student chopped in rhythm. Out on the chopping grounds, the student was having great success wedging his axe between all the Japanese maples. He became quite fond of chopping. His backswing had become strong and his follow-through so impressive he could nearly split splinters. He had almost mastered the art of chopping wood.



Kapleau, 64. “Self-nature” refers to the conventional notion of an inherent character or essence that constitutes an entity’s core reality. People ordinarily assume that each kind of thing has its own self-nature. Buddhism, however, denies that there is any self-nature anywhere: in this sense all beings are “empty.” 24 Daisetz T. Suzuki, “Satori, or Enlightenment” in Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki, edited by William Barrett (New York: Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, 1956), 84. 23

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A Zen Buddhist Perspective on Wittgenstein’s Principle that Meaning is Use • Tyler Mickelson

For a moment he broke from his rhythm to listen to the crow and to gaze at the squirrel. He took in a deep breath. With it came the stinging cold, which he had come to love. Dwelling in the peaceful serenity of his place on earth, he lifted his axe, threw it back, and let it begin to fall. Halfway down to the log, his master jumped out of the blue, yelling, “Butterflies!” The unexpected appearance of the student’s master startled the student, causing the student to split the log but miss its center. The student quickly looked above the blade of his axe in hopes to see a floating array of colors that his master seemed so excited to point out to him. He found not one wing flapping. He looked over at his master and said, “Crazy old man, there are no butterflies here in winter.” The master ran away laughing, the student reset his log, and the crow and squirrel were soon forgotten. By spring the student had come to chop almost every kind of wood known to Japan. He began to take more and more pride in his abilities. He would now chop just to chop. Wood as a fuel source was of no significance to him. It was, after all, spring. And he had chopped more than enough wood in winter to last him all year. Out on his chopping grounds, the student was having great success wedging his axe between two logs at once. For a moment he paused to listen to the crow and gaze at the squirrel. He took in a deep breath. With it came the moderate temperature, which he had come to love. Dwelling in the peaceful serenity of his place on earth, he lifted his axe, threw it back, and let it begin to fall. Halfway down to the log, his master jumped out just as before and yelled, “Butterflies!” The student lost control of the axe and missed both logs entirely. He quickly looked above the blade of his axe only again to find not one wing flapping. This greatly irritated the student. He yelled at his master, “Crazy old man, why do you say there are butterflies when there are none?” The master ran away laughing. The student, now alone and incredibly annoyed, cursed the crow and the squirrel, slammed the axe between the remaining two logs, and continued to chop in frustration. The master’s jumping out of the blue, yelling “butterflies!” became more and more commonplace. The master would interrupt his student when eating, when bathing, and when counting the craters of the moon. With these sudden appearances the student’s irritability grew less and less. The student began to predict when his master would appear, though still thinking the old man crazy. Summer had come. The student was out chopping as usual. For a moment he paused to listen to the crow and gaze at the squirrel. He took in a deep breath. With it came the warmth, which he had come to love. Dwelling in the peaceful serenity of his place on earth, he lifted his axe, threw it back, and let it begin to fall. Halfway down to the log, his master jumped out and yelled, “Butterflies!” Upon the word, the student chopped through two logs and his stand, looked above the blade of the axe, found not one wing flapping, saw the lush empty sky above and had his satori.

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Discussion Followers of Wittgenstein would most likely respond to this Zen story by saying that the allusions to “Butterflies!” is as irrelevant as a reference to a private-language “beetle” in a box. In a way I am inclined to agree, because both “Butterflies!” and “beetle” have for them no objectively observable referents. Both words are meaningless inasmuch as they cannot be demonstrated. So, indeed, a private-language “beetle” might be constantly changing. Indeed, the box might be empty. These statements, I would argue, only help to establish the use of the useless as a meaningful practice. This is the case because the role of the useless word is not to show the pupil that he or she has a soul with an enduring self-nature, but rather to reveal the spirit of butterflies (or beetle) that is the pupil’s very own. This much reflects D.T. Suzuki’s comments regarding the living goose within Hyakujō. Followers of Wittgenstein might further criticize the pursuit of satori, or Zen enlightenment, by saying that it fallaciously presupposes the possibility of a “special experience” that would lift an individual beyond the realm of communicable praxis; whereas the truth is that every experience derives its significance solely from the publicly verifiable circumstances of its day-to-day utility.25 I, however, would like to propose the possibility of spirit persisting even when it is not the season for butterflies, geese, beetles or even ourselves. Zen spirit is life force. To a Zen Buddhist, it is what makes possible meaning as use. Zen spirit is not an essence to be grasped. It simply does. Thus, meaning is viewed as the use of the useless. One might even like to call Zen spirit the “bedrock” of language.

How might Wittgenstein respond to narratives of Zen enlightenment? Wittgenstein would probably remain silent. It does not follow, however, that his attitude would be dismissive. A letter that Wittgenstein once wrote to his publisher Ludwig von Ficker concerning his first magnum opus the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) supports this claim. I wanted to write that my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one. For the Ethical is delimited from within, as it were, by my book; and I’m convinced that, strictly speaking, it can ONLY be delimited in this way. In brief, I think: All of that which many are babbling today, I have defined in my book by remaining silent about it.26

Although this letter regards the Tractatus and not the Philosophical Investigations, the content of this letter is relevant and significant to the discussion.27 In this letter Wittgenstein expresses an antiCompare to proposition 155 in the PI. Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Letters to Ludwig von Ficker” trans. by Bruce Gillette in Wittgenstein: Sources and Perspectives, ed. by C.G. Luckhardt (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1979), 94-95. 27 Despite a wide gap in years—and the even wider gap in terms of philosophical standpoints—that separate the Tractatus from the PI, some favorite themes remained fairly constant throughout Wittgenstein’s life. Among these commonalities, as we shall see, was his enduring interest in religious and ethical values. Yet he generally avoided writing of them, and only mentioned them occasionally in passing. 25 26

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A Zen Buddhist Perspective on Wittgenstein’s Principle that Meaning is Use • Tyler Mickelson

positivistic view of a mysterious, ethical and possibly metaphysical dimension within a subject. In contradistinction to the positivist who holds the belief that all that is important in life is what we can speak about, Wittgenstein on numerous occasions suggested that the most important aspects of life are those of which we cannot speak.28 As Garth Hallett points out in his meticulously documented A Companion to Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein maintained this view throughout his life, including the period of his final magnum opus.29 Many Zen Buddhists likewise hold the belief that the most important aspect of life is that which we cannot directly talk about. This is why Zen language-games themselves are not babblings about Zen spirit, but rather tools to reveal the activity of it. Wittgenstein might have looked favorably upon Zen language-games and Zen master methodologies of teaching for this very reason. After all, both the early and late Wittgenstein believed that “philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity.”30 Emphasis on activity is part and parcel of the Zen Buddhist approach. In her “Saying and Showing: The Ethics of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus,” Laura Siliceo-Roman writes, “Throwing the ladder away does not mean that nothing is shown, or that what is shown is itself nonsense, but that what is shown is sense-less but meaningful.”31 Here the ladder represents doctrines or concepts of philosophical inquiry. Words and propositions that do not represent objects are termed “sense-less.” The main idea is that transcending philosophical doctrines and concepts plays an important role in our understanding of the world. Logical contradictions and tautologies, as demonstrated by Siliceo-Roman, are examples of sense-less statements that meaningfully serve our understanding.32 I would like to suggest that the import of the expression “throwing away the ladder” can be further extended to demonstrate that a Zen master’s use of useless language is in a way also sense-less but meaningful. A Zen master’s use of a striking-word has the power to send a pupil into an experience involving the contradiction of everything: both “Butterflies!” and not butterflies. In so doing, that which we must remain silent about becomes realized through and through.

See Garth Hallett, A Companion to Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations,” (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1977), 25. 29 Ibid. 30 Hallett, 26; See also Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1918), with English trans. by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness and introduction by Bertrand Russell (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1961), 4. 112. 31 Laura Siliceo-Roman, “Saying and Showing: The Ethics of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus” (Ph.D. diss., Southern Illinois University, 1998), 96. See also proposition 6.54 in the Tractatus: “My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb up them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.” 32 Siliceo-Roman, 132 (footnote 3). 28

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Bibliography Candlish, Stewart and George Wrisley, “Private Language,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2007 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = , visited May 1, 2008. Hallett, Garth. A Companion to Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations.” Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1977. Kapleau, Philip. The Three Pillars of Zen: Teaching, Practice, and Enlightenment. New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1966. Siliceo-Roman, Laura Ph.D., “Saying and Showing: The Ethics of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus,” Ph.D. diss., Southern Illinois University, 1998. Suzuki, D.T. Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki. Edited by William Barrett. New York: Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1956. ———. Zen and Japanese Culture. New York: Princeton University Press, 1959. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Revised English translation by G.E. M. Anscombe. Blackwell Publishing: Malden MA, 2001. ———. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1918). English translation by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. Introduction by Bertrand Russell. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1961. ———. Wittgenstein: Sources and Perspectives. Edited by C. G. Luckhardt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979.

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A Zen Buddhist Perspective on Wittgenstein’s Principle that Meaning is Use • Tyler Mickelson

The Rhetoric of John Hagee: A Case Study in Terror Management Theory • William Bohl William Bohl will graduate in the summer of 2009 with a religious studies major and English literature minor. He wrote this paper for Dr. Charlene Burns’ RELS 490 seminar course “Religion, Violence & Non-Violence” in the spring of 2009.

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n September 10, 1981, a Christian pastor by the name of John Hagee put on an event called “A Night to Honor Israel” at the Theater of Performing Arts in San Antonio, Texas.1 “The sounds of Hebrew music filled the auditorium,”2 Hagee gave a speech about the importance of Christian support for the nation of Israel, and $10,000 was raised for the Hadassah Jewish Hospital in Jerusalem.3 From these humble beginnings, Hagee has built up his church (now counting 19,000 active churchgoers), his ministry (weekly broadcasts on television and radio now reach 200 countries),4 and his support for the nation of Israel (fundraising events can now net upwards of $50,000 to $100,000).5 Hagee’s theological views on Israel, Islam, and the Christian apocalypse shape his political activism, which is characterized by absolute support for the nation of Israel. All of this has brought John Hagee increased fame and public exposure, but his increased following has not come without a great deal of controversy. As a visible public figure, John Hagee makes himself “fair game” for analysis. One powerful framework for analysis of his Zionist rhetoric is Terror Management Theory (TMT). Inspired by Ernst Becker’s seminal works on the meaning of death in the human consciousness, this theory was first proposed in 1986 by three social psychologists “jaded with the highly fragmented state”6 of their field. Seeking to harmonize hermeneutics (may be defined as the art or science of interpretation, especially of the Bible) with empirical data, they decided to build a framework around Becker’s ideas about the fear of death. Its basic proposition is that human beings construct and defend their own cultural worldviews as a way to build up their self-esteem, thereby assuaging fears regarding their own mortality. This process serves the function of distancing our thoughts from the reality of death: “Reminders of death, termed mortality salience treatments, have been shown to intensify positive reactions to those who uphold or validate the

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individual’s cultural worldview and intensify negative reactions to those who violate or challenge the individual’s worldview.”7 Founding TMT theorist Tom Pyszczynski describes the function of worldviews by writing, “Cultural worldviews manage existential terror by providing a meaningful, orderly, and comforting conception of the world that helps us come to grips with the problem of death.”8 A human being’s worldview is so internalized that it is defended in both conscious and unconscious ways, which are the proximal and the distal defenses, respectively. In her book More Moral than God: Taking Responsibility for Religious Violence, Charlene P.E. Burns explains the proximal defenses in the following manner: “Awareness of death stimulates suppression and rationalization through techniques like distraction and minimizing that decrease consciousness of death but increase unconscious awareness.”9 This increase brings to the surface the distal defenses, which function to increase our self-esteem “through increased pride in nation, group, gender, etc.”10 Worldview defense goes beyond the proximal and distal defenses. Whenever an individual or a group encounters an “other” or “others,” a number of different reactions may take place. According to the TMT framework, there are five responses to worldview challenges: acceptance, assimilation, accommodation, demeaning the ‘other,’ and annihilation.11 Before any analysis of these five responses can take place, Hagee’s worldview must first be defined. This proves to be no easy task; Hagee has stated opinions and teachings that are difficult to reconcile with other opinions he has expressed.

Hagee’s Complex Worldview Many Christian and Jewish observers are not exactly sure what to make of Hagee, because it seems as though he proclaims that both Jews and Christians are the chosen people of God. For many members of each faith, such an inclusive definition is incompatible with their religious worldview. For Hagee’s brand of Christian Zionism, on the other hand, compatibility is of the essence; Judaism and Christianity are seamlessly woven together within the person of Jesus Christ, and Christians today have a duty to honor and protect the land of Israel for the Jews. Stated more plainly, Hagee’s worldview can be broken down into three parts. First, Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, and the Bible is “the inspired Word of God,” “the complete revelation of God’s will for mankind,” and “the absolute authority to govern the affairs of men.”12 Second, any true Christian must accept the Jews as the chosen people of God. Hagee has made this perfectly clear with his condemnation of anti-Semitism and the actions of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust.13 Third, all Christians must work to advance both the causes of evangelism and the state of Israel. This is done in two ways: spiritually, by praying for Israel, and literally, by lobbying for favorable Israeli foreign policy and by raising money for Israeli groups. Despite the complex nature of his beliefs, Hagee’s responses to worldview challenges are relatively predictable when viewed through the lens of TMT. A denial of the reality of death is exemplified by his endorsement of the doctrine of the rapture (the belief of some Christians in the imminent bodily assumption of all true believers into heaven, followed by the events of the apocalypse). Though this part of the worldview seems to remove death from the equation, it can be seen in light of TMT as the ultimate denial of death. A rejection of Jesus Christ as Savior is brought to Hagee by the Jewish worldview, and he responds in the three “positive” ways to this challenge: by accepting them, by accommodating their beliefs, and by assimilating Judaism into Christianity. Additionally, a denial of the Jews having a covenant

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The Rhetoric of John Hagee: A Case Study in Terror Management Theory • William Bohl

with God that entitles them to the land of Israel is brought to Hagee by the Muslim worldview and by Palestinian politics, and he responds in the two “negative” ways: by demeaning Muslims as “others” and by calling for (and expecting) their annihilation.

Acceptance, Accommodation, and Assimilation In 2006, Hagee formally established a group called Christians United for Israel (CUFI). This move transformed his religious ideas from a topic of Sunday sermons into a politically active group. The stated goals of the group are two-fold. First, CUFI wants to educate Christians about Israel and build up support for it. This is done in a number of ways: e-mails, weekly newsletters, campus organizations, and funding the event “A Night to Honor Israel” throughout the country. CUFI’s second stated goal is “to communicate pro-Israel perspectives to our elected officials.”14 AIPAC, or the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is widely regarded as the most important link between the U.S. and Israel and is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington D.C. Hagee, however, envisions CUFI as potentially being more powerful than AIPAC: “When a congressman sees someone from AIPAC coming through the door, he knows he represents six million people. We represent 40 million people.”15 Hagee himself maintains that his support for the nation of Israel and the Jewish people is about more than just their involvement in eschatology (the branch of theology concerned with the “last things,” i.e., death, judgment, heaven, and hell). The stated goal of “A Night to Honor Israel” is to bring Christians and Jews together in “a non-threatening, non-conversionary environment that promotes genuine brotherly love.”16 These rallies feature music, dancing, collecting money, and usually a keynote address from either Hagee himself or from other political or religious figures. At last count, there have been 95 such events throughout the United States and Israel since February 2006.17 Despite all of this effort on the part of Hagee and his followers, there is a great deal of discussion concerning whether or not Hagee actually accepts Jews and their worldview. Many critics point to the role that the nation of Israel and the Jewish people play in the events of the apocalypse and question whether Hagee’s affections are based upon anything more than a biased reading of Scripture. In July 2007, evangelicals concerned about radically pro-Israel elements within their movement sent President Bush a letter advocating a two-state solution in the Holy Land. One of those who signed the letter, Rev. Joel Hunter, described Christian Zionists as those “who are just so staunchly pro-Israel that Israel and their side can do no wrong, and it’s almost anti-Biblical to criticize Israel for anything. But there are many more evangelicals who are really open and seek justice for both parties.”18 Timothy Weber, author of On the Road to Armageddon: How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend, made the following comment about Hagee and CUFI: “They have parlayed what is a distinctly minority position theologically within evangelicalism into a major political voice.”19 Given Hagee’s belief that the Bible is the absolute authority to govern human action, it follows that his justifications for Christian support of Israel are also rooted in biblical passages. A list of all the verses Hagee cites would be too immense to discuss here, but there are a few that he regularly cites. The first is Genesis 12:3, which reads: “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. All the communities of the earth shall find blessing with you.”20 The second is Genesis 15:18-21, verses commonly used by Orthodox Jews to argue what the Israeli borders ought to be. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Hagee said, “The land of Israel was given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their seed in an eternal covThe Rhetoric of John Hagee: A Case Study in Terror Management Theory • William Bohl

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enant. It is recorded in the book of Genesis. The boundaries are there in the Bible. And that land belongs to the Jewish people today, tomorrow and forever because it is their covenant by the word of God.”21 While Hagee’s knowledge of the Bible cannot be doubted, accommodation comes into play as he ignores passages of the Bible contradicting his worldview claims about the Jewish people. Stephen Sizer (another evangelical Christian critical of Hagee) points this out in his article “The Meaning of the Abrahamic Covenant.” Sizer highlights several verses (Leviticus 25:23 and Joshua 11:23 and 21:43-45) that state that the entire land of Israel was owned by the ancient Jewish people.22 Christian Zionists like Hagee believe that this promise was fulfilled in 1948 and that Christians must aid the Jews in preserving the land that was miraculously given back to them. In addition to such technical debates about Old Testament covenants, there are also many troubling verses in the New Testament. The most notorious one may be Matthew 27:25: “And the whole people (the Jews) said in reply, ‘His blood (Jesus’) be upon us and upon our children.’”23 The ultimate accommodation is that when it comes to the Jews, Hagee must partially set aside his belief that salvation is exclusively through Jesus Christ. On his website, Hagee says that “all men are born with a sinful nature and that the work of the Cross was to redeem man from the power of sin.”24 This belief is probably best summed up by David Brog, a follower of Hagee and fellow member of the Executive Board of CUFI. He articulates the popular evangelical theology called dispensationalism, which rectifies Jewish rejection of Jesus with their status as God’s chosen people. It states, briefly, that God tests humanity at times throughout history, and when we fail a test, God begins a new dispensation or revelation. In their failure to accept Christ as Messiah, God did not abandon the Jews but merely began a new dispensation with Christians. One commentator writes, “The benefit of this theology is that election ceases to be a zero-sum game – both the Jews and the Church can be God’s elect, and each has a central role to play in God’s plan for humanity.”25 According to TMT, assimilation is one of the five possible responses to worldview challenges. At times Hagee’s comments on the closeness of Christians and Jews appear to cross a fine line between accommodating the Jewish worldview to his own and assimilating Judaism into his faith, essentially creating a kind of Jewish Christianity. Hagee’s website offers many reasons for Christians to support the Jews and the state of Israel. “Christians owe a debt of eternal gratitude to the Jewish people for their contributions that gave birth to the Christian faith,” Hagee writes. “Jesus Christ, a prominent Rabbi from Nazareth said, ‘Salvation is of the Jews!’”26 He also lists numerous contributions of Jews to the Christian faith: the Old Testament prophets and scriptures, the Holy Family, and the Apostles. Furthermore, he gives a very interesting take on a New Testament passage, Matthew 25:40: “Amen I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers (the Jewish people… Gentiles were never called His brethren {sic}) of mine, you did it for me.”27 The interjection saying that Gentiles (non-Jews) were never called the brethren of Christ is quite curious. Hagee is also fond of Romans 15:27: “For if the Gentiles have shared in their (the Jews) spiritual things, they are indebted to minister to them also in material things.”28 Such examples of interjecting comments within the actual text itself are nothing new, but it is indicative of a religious leader with a specific agenda. The connections between the two religions are, in the eyes of Hagee, about more than just biblical mandates. The relationship is also based on real world action. CUFI’s website features advertisements to followers, announcing that by filling out an online form, they can send their prayer to be placed in the Western Wall in Jerusalem for free.29 On John Hagee’s website, you can pay to have a tree planted in your

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The Rhetoric of John Hagee: A Case Study in Terror Management Theory • William Bohl

name in the land of Israel.30 Not only is it the duty of Christians to support Israel, but God has a personal stake as well: “God has placed his integrity on the survivability of Israel and the Jewish people.”31 Perhaps one of the most intriguing subconscious admissions of the closeness that Hagee’s followers have to Israel is seen in the example of a follower named Rosa Highwater. Ms. Highwater enlisted the help of friends to pay for her trip to Washington to lobby on behalf of the Jewish people. When asked why, despite her financial hardship, she was so concerned to make the trip, she responded, “Israel is God’s first love. The Lord told me to come and be an intercessor. I said, ‘I got to go. I got to do this.’”32 Through the lens of TMT, it can be seen that Hagee and his followers exhibit beliefs about the Jewish people that range from accepting them to assimilating themselves into a new form of Christianity closely aligned with Judaism. This escalating sort of embrace only tells half the tale, however, as the problems of Muslim and Palestinian claims to the land of Israel bring about two further responses to this worldview challenge: demeaning the other and hopes for annihilation.

Demeaning Muslims and Annihilating the Enemies of Israel

In a keynote address given to AIPAC, John Hagee says, “Dore Gold in his latest book, The Fight for Jerusalem, said that ‘turning part or all of Jerusalem to the Palestinians would be tantamount to turning it over to the Taliban.’ I agree. Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people now and forever.”33 Speaking of all Muslims in such an over-generalized tone is done by Hagee in the majority, if not all, of his public comments about Islam and the Muslim people. His personal demonizing tactics are not unusual, but when examined through TMT, are particularly illuminating. Hagee characterizes Islam not as a sister faith of Christianity, but as its polar opposite. In a widely publicized sermon called “Allah and America,” he issues many controversial statements about Islam, making little or no effort to separate violent fundamentalists from the mainstream. Presenting it as a particularly harrowing idea, he mentions that there are more Muslims in America than there are members of the Assemblies of God.34 He goes on to compare the attacks of September 11, 2001 to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Each began a cosmic war, a fight of the forces of light against darkness. At one point in the sermon, Hagee even resorts to mocking the names of Muslims. When telling a story about a convert to Islam, he mentions his name, Sira Waha, and stops, saying, “Sira Waha – makes you love a name like Tom Jones.”35 Hagee’s demeaning of the Muslim people moves deeper, into historical and political territory. In a New York Times article, Hagee states that the Palestinians “never existed as an autonomous society. There is no Palestinian language. There is no Palestinian currency. And to say that Palestinians have a right to that land historically is an historical fraud.”36 During Israel’s war with Hezbollah in 2006, Hagee was quoted as saying the fight was simply one between “good and evil.”37 Dividing the world into two halves, Hagee has demeaned one in favor of the other. America, so long as it is allied with Israel in every way, is good, and the Islamic world is evil. Should America turn against Israel, it will be subject to the wrath of God. Hagee’s worldview response turns to annihilation in this instance. Not only will God annihilate America if we do not continue support of the Jewish state, God will also annihilate all those who oppose Israel in any fashion whatsoever. Supporting deals involving land for peace is completely out of the question, and Hagee has even written The Rhetoric of John Hagee: A Case Study in Terror Management Theory • William Bohl

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a book attempting to justify a pre-emptive invasion of Iran. It should be pointed out, though, that Hagee never explicitly calls for his followers to take up arms. Rather he encourages support through CUFI and makes his followers aware of what he believes is in store for the immediate future. Hagee has stated that he believes the current generation is the final one. He has a defined list of criteria, all of which are currently met, for the end of the world to occur.38 He has also proclaimed on Kenneth Copeland’s program “The Believer’s Voice of Victory” that the apocalyptic Book of Revelation is “the most exciting book of the Bible.”39 Copeland gave Hagee the full thirty minutes to explain his beliefs about the end times, based largely on the Old Testament books of Daniel and Ezekiel and the New Testament books of Matthew and Revelation. According to Hagee, the Church (that is, all Bible-believing Christians) will be assumed bodily into heaven in the rapture. Israel will remain on Earth and make a peace deal with a conspicuous world leader who is actually the Antichrist. The four horsemen of the apocalypse will appear, bringing war and famine that will kill a quarter of the world’s population. An interval will follow, giving the survivors a chance to choose, again, to embrace the Antichrist or to wait for Christ’s blessings. During this interval, 144,000 Jews will be selected by God and sealed.40 These Jews will aid the armies of the United States and Great Britain in the Battle of the Apocalypse. They will fight a coalition of Muslim countries, Russia, and China. The Chinese Army will march down the dried-up bed of the Euphrates River, 200 million strong, to meet the rest of the participants at this final battle. After all this is over and Israel prevails, Jesus will descend again from heaven to rule the Earth from the Temple Mount in Israel and perfect peace will be established. Despite the fact that the Church will not participate in these battles, merely observing them from heaven, Hagee is extremely interested in determining how they are going to happen. For him, though, the end result is really simple: “The Jewish people are going to see the supernatural hand of God preserve them and deliver them while the enemies of Israel are crushed. That’s the end-time story.”41 This annihilation protects not only the worldview of Christians but also the physical state of Israel and the Jews left on earth to bear the brutality of the post-rapture planet Earth. Hagee believes God’s punishment befalls the United States for wavering in its support of Israel. After Hurricane Katrina, Hagee made the following comment: “I want to ask Washington a question: Is there a connection between the 9,000 Jewish refugees being forcibly removed from their homes in the Gaza Strip now living in tents… and the thousands of Americans that have been expelled from their homes by this tremendous work of nature?”42 For Hagee, the annihilation is not something located completely in the future, an abstract futuristic world imaginatively described and foretold. To him, the actions of Christians and the enemies of Israel have real world consequences.

Hagee and TMT Analysis: Moving Forward

A group of psychologists headed by Eva Jones conducted research on the topic of how people choose to act when faced with “very different and at times even contradictory standards of behavior.”43 The group speculated that TMT itself cannot always accurately predict behavior, and so they wed TMT with the focus theory of normative conduct. This theory proposes that “norms or standards direct behavior only to the extent that an individual’s attention is focused on them.”44 Individual experiments conducted by the group centered around the idea that making people aware of their own mortality shifts not only

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The Rhetoric of John Hagee: A Case Study in Terror Management Theory • William Bohl

their attitudes towards others but also their actions. The group found that research participants can even be manipulated in a way by controlling which norms are challenged in regard to their worldview. In light of this research, it is important to consider just what Hagee is bringing to the conscious awareness of his followers. The relationship between the three major monotheistic traditions has been commonly characterized by mistrust and violence. It can be argued that Hagee has brought the support of the Jewish people into the conscious awareness of his congregation, and this, in turn, has helped build better Judeo-Christian relations. Yet by siding with the most militant sectors of the Israeli worldview, he has brought negative Muslim stereotypes and a demeaning mindset to millions of his evangelical followers. Tom Pyszczynski addresses the prevalence of such black-and-white worldviews when he says, “For people to change and grow and engage in the kind of open-minded thought and problem-solving that is necessary for growth to occur, anxiety must be controlled. The irony here is that people typically control their anxiety by clinging to their old ways of thinking and prefer simple answers to difficult questions.”45 This describes precisely what Hagee has done. Challenges to his worldview are manifested in the five responses postulated by Terror Management Theory: acceptance, accommodation, assimilation, demeaning the other, and annihilation. Hagee positively aligns himself with the Jewish worldview yet at the same time substitutes his openness with them for a passionate, seething condemnation of Muslims. Although Hagee himself does not engage in violent actions, his vocal support for Israeli militarism and condemnation of all who oppose the absolute authority of Israel fuel an unhealthy aspect of the fiery struggle to determine the future of the Holy Land. By raising the level of anxiety within his own congregation, Hagee fosters unhealthy relations with the Muslim world and promotes unrealistic solutions to the problems of Middle Eastern peace.

In-Text References “Night to Honor Israel.” Christians United for Israel. Accessed 3 May 2009. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 “Pastor Hagee.” John Hagee Ministries. Accessed 3 May 2009. 5 “Nights to Honor Israel Reports.” Christians United for Israel. Accessed 3 May 2009. 6 Tom Pyszczynski, “What Are We So Afraid Of? A Terror Management Theory Perspective on The Politics of Fear,” Social Research 71 (2004): 828. 7 Eva Jones et al., “Focus Theory of Normative Conduct and Terror-Management Theory: The Interactive Impact of Mortality Salience and Norm Salience on Social Judgment,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95 (2008): 1240. 8 Pyszczynski, 830. 9 Charlene P.E. Burns, More Moral than God: Taking Responsibility for Religious Violence (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), 68-69. 10 Ibid. 1

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Ibid. “About CUFI.” Christians United for Israel. Accessed 3 May 2009. 13 “Transcript of Pastor Hagee’s Speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference.” Christians United for Israel. Accessed 3 May 2009. 14 “About CUFI.” 15 Richard Allen Greene, “Evangelical Christians Plead for Israel,” British Broadcasting Company, 19 July 2006. 16 “Night to Honor Israel.” 17 Ibid. 18 Laurie Goodstein, “Coalition of Evangelicals Voices Support for a Palestinian State,” The New York Times, 29 July 2007. 19 Ibid. 20 The Holy Bible, New American Version. New York, 1999. 21 Bill Moyers Journal. Public Affairs Television, 2008. Quote found at 11:00 mark of broadcast. 22 Stephen Sizer, “The Meaning of the Abrahamic Covenant,” Challenging Christian Zionism, 2007. 23 The Holy Bible, New American Version. 24 “Beliefs.” John Hagee Ministries. Accessed 3 May 2009. 25 Jamie Glazov, “Standing With Israel,” Front Page Magazine, 31 May 2006. 26 “Why Christians Should Support Israel: The Apple of HIS Eye.” John Hagee Ministries. Accessed 3 May 2009. The Bible quote is from John 4:22. 27 Ibid. 28 “Israel If Replaced Why Reborn?” Christians United for Israel. Accessed 3 May 2009. 29 “Prayer Request.” Christians United for Israel. Accessed 3 May 2009. 30 “Plant Your Roots in Israel.” John Hagee Ministries. Accessed 3 May 2009. 31 “Why Jewish is Special.” Believer’s Voice of Victory. Accessed 3 May 2009. 32 Greene, “Evangelical Christians Plead for Israel.” 33 “Transcript of Pastor Hagee’s Speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference.” Christians United for Israel. Accessed 3 May 2009. 34 “Who is Allah?” Sermon by John Hagee. Quote found at 1:40 mark of broadcast. 35 “Who is Allah?” Quote found at 4:30 mark of broadcast. 36 Goodstein, “Coalition of Evangelicals Voices Support for a Palestinian State.” 37 David D. Kirkpatrick, “For Evangelicals, Supporting Israel is God’s Foreign Policy,” The New York Times, 14 November 2006. 38 John Hagee, interview by Glenn Beck, “The Glenn Beck Program,” Premiere Radio Networks, 9 October 2007. 11

12

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“Mike Huckabee to Speak at Strongly Anti-Catholic Preacher’s Church.” Catholic News . ..............Agency, 2008. 40 Ibid. 41 Jake Tapper and Dan Morris, “Save Israel, for Jesus?” ABC News, 31 July 2006. 42 Bill Moyers Journal. Quote found at 11:30 mark of broadcast. 43 Jones, et al., 1239 44 Ibid., 1240 45 Pyszczynski, 845 39

Other Consulted Works Boyer, Paul. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Brog, David. Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State. Lake Mary, FL: Frontline Issues, 2006. Halsell, Grace. Prophecy and Politics. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill & Co., 1986. Ruether, Rosemary Radford and Herman J. Ruether. The Wrath of Jonah. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989.

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Jürgen Habermas on Communicative Rationality • Inese Grumolte Inese Grumolte is a Latvian exchange student who spent the academic year 2008-09 at UW-Eau Claire. As a political science major with a special interest in political theory, she enrolled in three philosophy courses, two of them at the advanced level. The following essay delves into the thought of Jürgen Habermas, a prominent German political philosopher best known for his contributions to the movement known as Critical Theory. Inese wrote the paper for Dr. Edward Beach’s PHIL 339 class “Contemporary Continental Philosophy” in the spring of 2009.

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fter joining the Institute for Social Research in Frankurt in 1956, Jürgen Habermas devoted all his efforts to exploring the possibilities offered by social theory for the transformation of society. In particular, he sought to provide a response to the thesis that his colleagues Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno advanced in the Dialectics of Enlightenment (1947), namely that the worldview of modernity is fundamentally manipulative, self-destructive, and irrational. They argued that modernity has not been capable of justifying itself and that the instrumental rationality derived from the age of the Enlightenment has been “totalizing” in the sense of reducing all of human life to the status of what is useful. Horkheimer and Adorno claimed that in the process we have lost sight of essential human values. Their argument, supported by detailed appraisals of various branches of contemporary culture, set the framework for the first generation of the Frankfurt school. In opposition to this overly pessimistic assessment of modernity, Habermas presented his conception of communicative rationality, according to which the social emancipation initiated by the Enlightenment should not be regarded as a failed project, but rather as an unfinished one.1 For Habermas, rationality is to be interpreted in a significantly different way than the merely purposive rationality that is always pursuing some kind of cost-effective goal.2 In the course of Habermas’s efforts to “save” the Enlightenment project, he emphasized the liberating potential of reason, an emphasis that resembles in many ways the agenda of one of the most influential philosophers of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant. Kant’s central argument in his essay “What

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is Enlightenment?” (1784) concerns the issue of intellectual freedom. He strictly opposes any forms of censorship that would threaten the ability of individuals to engage freely in discussions. Kant answers the question “What is Enlightenment?” by saying that it is “man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.”3According to Kant, immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another, and it is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in lack of resolve and of courage to use it without guidance from another. Declaring “Sapere Aude!” [“Dare to Know!”], Kant believes enlightenment becomes possible only as the individual engages in free, rational discourse. Insisting that an unenlightened citizen would be dependent on others for definition of moral standards and general truths, Kant defends a more vigorous ideal in which the force of argument is decisive.4 This conception of rational discourse frames the core of Habermas’s theory of communicative action and discourse.

The Theory of Communicative Action Building upon Kant’s categorical imperative,5 Habermas attempts to reach the goal that Kant set but was not able to achieve, that of developing a universal, rational foundation for democratic institutions.6 The cause of the problem, according to Habermas, is the fact that Kant worked within the implicit confines of a traditional “subject philosophy.”7 Habermas proposes to focus on intersubjectivity instead and to reformulate the abstract and idealized conception of subjective reason in terms of intersubjective rational dialogue. For Habermas, the theory of communicative action offers a way in which individuals can reach reciprocally acknowledged moral norms through communal agreement. Communicative action can be characterized as a non-violent, unifying experience of argumentative speech that establishes consensus, featuring a framework through which different participants overcome their subjective views and become aware of the unity of the objective world.8 Communicative action, according to Habermas, is guided by “illocutionary” speech acts. Habermas draws on a distinction borrowed from John Austin between “perlocutionary” speech acts, which are strategic by nature and seek to achieve some desirable goal, and “illocutionary” speech acts, which are guided only by the ideal of mutual understanding. Whereas perlocutionary speech is purely utilitarian in intent and thus employs a kind of persuasion that may or may not involve manipulation, illocutionary speech aims at nothing more nor less than connecting with another person’s view of the world.9 In Habermas’s theory of communicative action, participants undertake to engage in discourse on free and equal terms, and hence the use of any external force that would compel others to support a particular position is excluded in principle. Arguments offered to others seek their honest, critical assessment, and rational cogency is the only criterion that determines which conclusions will be accepted and which will be repudiated. Threats, coercion, and manipulation are regarded as illegitimate means within the framework of such discourse.10 Habermas thus completely rejects objections that charge that his theory essentially reproduces a totalitarian way of thinking and acting, as if “persuasion” were always bent simply on causing others—by whatever means—to share one’s own point of view. He insists that the old maxim that “the ends justify the means” is absolutely inconsistent with the ethical discourse intended by the theory of communicative action.11 According to Habermas, the lack of communication that characterizes modern industrial societies creates conditions that tend to reproduce the worst effects of the modern system. Habermas draws attention to ways in which many contemporary states introduce redistribution mechanisms, such as social security,

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guaranteed minimum wages, calibrated opportunities for vertical mobility, etc., with the primary aims of securing the loyalty of citizens as well as sustaining and strengthening the overall system. Internal policies of the state are framed primarily by actions that seek to stabilize the prevailing economic system and its growth. Political activity therefore degenerates; it is oriented not to the realization of genuinely practical aims, with ends that truly enhance the value of human life, but instead to the solution of technical problems and the introduction of mechanisms that intend to avoid any risks to the perpetuation of the system.12 Habermas also considers an ideology of a new kind, namely, reliance on the power of science and technology, which the state legitimizes as it seeks to eliminate and regulate the dysfunctions of the industrial system. The state desires to depoliticize the masses by fostering a technocratic consciousness, i.e., a limited utilitarian way of thinking based on indoctrinated, supposedly self-evident goals of “scientific” management. The state does this because it implicitly realizes that any more penetrating and self-critical examinations of needs and goals, if they should spread into informal networks of communication among members of society, could potentially threaten the system. Thus this new ideology, with its positivistic approach and way of thinking, aims to narrow the sphere in the framework of which one of the most fundamental modes of societal existence can manifest itself. This fundamental mode is linguistic communication and socialization, which according to Habermas predisposes intersubjective understanding and a non-violent search for consensus.13

Reconceiving the Nature of Rationality Stressing the need to reformulate the notion of rationality, Habermas declares that reason has been mainly conceived as a kind of methodological thinking that leads to growth in productivity or expansion of the power of technical control. These processes of development, although inevitable and necessary, are insufficient to secure a truly liberating potential as long as favorable conditions are not created for a broader conception of rationality that offers emancipation, individualization, and domination-free communication. Habermas also opposes classical Marxism and its simplistic tendency to evaluate social progress only in terms of sharing forces of production on the basis of natural sciences and applied technology, since he believes that there is more to liberating human potential than merely asserting collective entitlement to means of production. The creative power of communication, according to Habermas, also has an invaluable role in the struggle for social emancipation. Holding these views regarding rationality and classical Marxism, Habermas focuses on the role of practical reason in solving public issues as well as in sustaining the preconditions of a vital and humane democracy. Habermas’s normative ideal of rationality as characteristic of communication is in many respects a developed version of his ideas about the public sphere. In his first significant work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962), Habermas discusses the public sphere, an emerging phenomenon that was already observable in most eighteenth-century western European countries along with the development of modern capitalism. Amidst this setting, informal communication among citizens often featured evaluation of decisions made by the existing political power. Different opinions were in circulation, which resulted in the creation of public opinion, a form of discourse that has continued with variations throughout modern times. According to Habermas, public opinion is a truly informed point of view formed through public critical discussion, in contrast to rationally ungrounded views of separate individuals.14 Jürgen Habermas on Communicative Rationality • Inese Grumolte

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Habermas also expresses concerns for certain dangerous tendencies observable in societies of developed capitalism. These tendencies become stronger as the sphere of informal communication narrows. While initially conceived as the medium for circulating various viewpoints, it is more narrowly used to advance the interests of a few persons and institutions. Passive citizens, who have lost their capacity for critical thinking, become convenient objects of manipulation. Furthermore, Habermas is concerned about the “colonization of the life-world.”15 According to Habermas, societies of developed capitalism feature distinct spheres of communication as well as distinct media through which integration processes take place in the midst of connecting these separate spheres. He distinguishes between the medium of direct linguistic communication among individuals, a medium identified as the communicatively and culturally constituted life-world, and branches of non-linguistic media (money, corporate power, and governmental power), which constitute the institutional structures of society. The former must be defended against the latter, which seeks to colonize the former by controlling the spheres of cultural reproduction and socialization. A permanent orientation toward self-perpetuating goals, characteristic of any system, causes a dangerous deficit of critical integration, which is grounded in rationally critical discourse.

Objections and Criticisms Numerous criticisms have been directed toward Habermas’s concept of the public sphere, and many of these target his exclusive character of critical social discourse as well as the limited degree of public access to this discourse. Habermas insists that the ideal of the public sphere should comply with two significant principles in democratic societies. First, the quality of discourse must be as free as possible of manipulation by interests of money and of institutions of power. Second, a high level of participation should exist among people of all classes and walks of life. Indeed the compatibility of these criteria is questionable and may even be contradictory. As the public sphere becomes more and more inclusive, the quality of discourse inevitably declines. Mass culture is extremely susceptible to manipulation by the interests of money and power, as Horkheimer and Adorno emphasized earlier and as Habermas also acknowledges. Problematically, though, the emphasis he places on this fact makes Habermas’s theory potentially elitist. He stresses that the public sphere becomes depoliticized and loses its rationally critical function as it becomes more open to the masses. Nevertheless, by focusing mainly on the negative effects of mass culture and how it contributes to the degeneration of rational, critical discussion, Habermas does not do full justice to countervailing forces. He gives insufficient attention, for instance, to the rising level of education and free access to information within society overall, which creates an expansion rather than diminishment of the critical public. It can therefore be argued that Habermas exaggerates the degeneration of the public sphere, especially as the gradual rebirth of the critical public in the second half of the twentieth century in many places of the world gave evidence for its resiliancy. Furthermore, scholars have pointed out that the development and expansion of mass media can make significant contibutions to sustaining the democratic spirit of public discussion.16 Habermas has also been criticized for employing a limited model of the public sphere by interpreting it in terms of its bourgeois type and failing to examine alternative public spheres, which have indisputably existed. This feature of Habermas’s analysis has led some critics to treat the public sphere itself as a source of paternalistic tendencies.17 More radical critics have even likened the idea of the public sphere to the conception of hegemony developed by Antonio Gramsci.18 These critics argue that the public sphere has

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been merely an ideological notion with an aim to legitimize the rule of a certain class, to which access has been determined according to the value system of the prevailing culture.19 The emancipatory potential of the public sphere can also be questioned because of its close connections to existing powers. As many historians have observed, members of eighteenth-century intellectual associations and literary salons included not only members of the growing bourgeoisie but also many aristocrats, elite members of the civil service, and clergy, i.e., people belonging to circles that were tightly connected, and presumably loyal, to the existing power. Thus one might wonder if, instead of a fundamental critique of the status quo, different versions of minimal reforms were often considered in public discussions, perhaps just enough to relieve the pressures that might otherwise have led to more radical changes. This discourse of reform not only enjoyed the regular support of the existing power, but its members were often initiators and active participants of this discourse.20 Because of this, the boundary between the state and an autonomous public sphere may have become too blurred for the latter to fulfill the function of an effective control instrument checking the abuse of political power. Habermas could reply to all these objections, however, by acknowledging past limitations of the public sphere while still insisting on its implicitly liberating tendencies. Although it has often been true in the past that patriarchal interests have largely distorted and controlled public opinion, it does not necessarily follow that this must always occur. As Habermas argues in The Theory of Communicative Action, the inherent tendency of public discourse leads toward increasing participation among all interest groups and therefore toward the growth of critical rationality. It remains to be seen whether Habermas’s theory of communicative action can sufficiently justify this confidence in the liberating tendencies of constructive public dialogue. One must continue to pay close attention to the often covert influence of power relations. Although seeking rationality and desiring the expansion of democratic participation are praiseworthy ideals, there is reason to suspect that overemphasizing them may divert attention from significant power relations. Moreover, it can be argued that the only reliable route to genuine and complete rationality requires that one first investigate the sources of perversion by which purported “rationality” can become tainted. As Danish scholar Bent Flyvbjerg has noted, by focusing simply on the crucial role of power relations, it may become possible to approach the ideals proposed by Habermas: freedom from domination and a greater extent of democracy.21 A final objection aimed at Habermas’s conception of the public sphere targets the requirement that discussions properly considered to be within its framework can only concern issues pertaining to common interests. Any specific, private interests of discourse participants must be left outside the discussion so they do not endanger a neutral consideration of views and the capacity to form fair-minded generalizations.22 Critics, especially those representing feminist theory, note how Habermas distinguishes between the “private” and the “public” here. According to these critics, the “private” and the “public” are not objective characterizations of spheres of life; rather they are distinctions that stem from the prevailing cultural landscape and so are merely “rhetorical labels.” While these critics may go too far in suggesting that we abandon the distinction between the public and private spheres, one must take into account that in political discourse these labels can be, and often are, used as an ideological means for delegitimizing certain interests, views, and topics and for covertly endorsing others.23 While Habermas’s ideas regarding searching for consensus certainly have merit, they cannot be seen as flawless. They are especially challenged by the fact that modern democratic societies develop and grow precisely by means of social and political conflicts. These conflicts can be viewed as forces Jürgen Habermas on Communicative Rationality • Inese Grumolte

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that strengthen these societies and form their true pillars.24 Efforts to decrease such conflicts can become a threat to a society. According to Flyvbjerg, social, political, and administrative theories that ignore or seek to marginalize such conflicts should be regarded with the greatest vigilance, so that a political system does not become repressive. Moreover, self-interest and conflict will not retreat before an all-embracing societal ideal in existing social, political, and administrative life.25 Within the contemporary world there is a widespread and justified belief that the more democratic a society, the more it allows various groups to define their own specific lifestyles and goals. This process of self-definition cannot help but lead to inescapable conflicts of interest among different groups. It is unreasonable to hope that Habermas’s envisioned consummation of consensus would neutralize various groups’ opposing duties, commitments, and interests.

Jürgen Habermas, “Modernity: an Unfinished Project,” in Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity: Critical Essays on the Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, ed. M. P. D’Entreves et al (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997). 2 Habermas derived this idea of rationality pursuing a cost-effective goal from Max Weber. 3 Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” Accessed 1 May 2009. 4 Ibid. 5 The so-called “categorical imperative” is an unqualified command (hence “imperative”) derived from reason alone, according to which an individual ought always to determine his or her actions by the criterion of their universalizability. In essence, one must always ask, “What if everybody did this?” Only if the action would be logically self-consistent and treat all other rational agents as ends in themselves (rather than as mere means) would it be morally permissible. 6 Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 260. 7 Ibid., 294. 8 Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action; Vol.1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, 4th ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997), 10. 9 Ibid., 288–295. 10 Ibid., 198. 11 Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 195. 12 Jürgen Habermas, Toward a Rational Society: Student Protest, Science and Politics (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), 103. 13 Ibid., p. 113. 14 Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: an Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994), 176. 15 Jürgen����������� Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action; Vol. 2: Lifeworld and System: a Critique of Functionalist Reason, 5th ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 298. 16 See, for example, Craig Calhoun, “Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere,” in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 1-48; After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere, eds. Nick Crossley and John M. Roberts (Malden: Blackwell, 2004); and Communication and Citizenship: Journalism and the Public Sphere, 3rd ed., eds. Peter Dahlgren and Colin Sparks (London: Routledge, 1997). 17 See, for example, Calhoun, 1-48. 1

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Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was an Italian philosopher who employed Marxist analysis of culture and political leadership. 19 Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: a Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy,” in Habermas and the Public Sphere, 117. 20 Andreas Gestrich, “The Public Sphere and the Habermas Debate” < http://ghj.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/24/3/413> Accessed 1 May 2009. 21 Bent Flyvbjerg, “Ideal Theory, Real Rationality: Habermas versus Foucault and Nietzsche” Accessed 3 May 2009. Habermas has received similar criticisms from French post-structuralists such as Michel Foucault. 22 Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action, 121. 23 Fraser, 131. 24 Albert Hirschman, “Social Conflicts as Pillars of Democratic Market Society,” Political Theory 22 (1994): 206. 25 Flyvbjerg, “IdealTheory, Real Rationality.” 18

Bibliography Calhoun, Craig. “Introduction: Habermas and the Public Sphere.” In Habermas and the Public Sphere. Ed. Craig Calhoun. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992. 1-48. Crossley, Nick and John M. Roberts, eds. After Habermas: New Perspectives on the Public Sphere. Malden: Blackwell, 2004. Dahlgren, Peter and Colin Sparks, eds. Communication and Citizenship: Journalism and the Public Sphere. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 1997. Flyvbjerg, Bent. “Ideal Theory, Real Rationality: Habermas versus Foucault and Nietzsche.” Accessed 3 May 2009. Fraser, Nancy. “Rethinking the Public Sphere: a Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy.” In Habermas and the Public Sphere. Ed. Craig Calhoun. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992. 109-142. Gestrich, Andreas. “The Public Sphere and the Habermas Debate.” Accessed 1 May 2009. Habermas, Jürgen. “Modernity: an Unfinished Project.” In Habermas and the Unfinished Project of Modernity: Critical Essays on the Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Eds. M. P. D’Entreves et al. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997. ———. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. 3rd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990. ———. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987. ———. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994. Jürgen Habermas on Communicative Rationality • Inese Grumolte

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———. The Theory of Communicative Action; Vol.1: Reason and the Rationalization of Society. 4th ed. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997. ———��. The Theory of Communicative Action; Vol. 2: Lifeworld and System: a Critique of Functionalist Reason. 5th ed. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. ———. Toward a Rational Society: Student Protest, Science and Politics. Boston: Beacon Press, 1970. Hirschman, Albert. “Social Conflicts as Pillars of Democratic Market Society.” Political Theory 22 (1994): 203218. Kant, Immanuel. “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” Accessed 1 May 2009.

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The Essence of Worship: Engaging John Calvin in Dialogue • Ken Hartman Ken Hartman, a religious studies and Spanish major, graduated in the spring of 2009. He wrote this dialogue for Dr. Steve Fink’s IDIS 354 class “Music in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” in the spring of 2009.

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he importance of sixteenth-century Protestant reformer John Calvin has often been relegated strictly to his doctrine of double predestination.1 This, however, misses the true center of his theological work. According to Calvin, worship is the most central doctrine and practice of Christianity. Thus it is illuminating to study Calvin’s theology of music to gain a deep understanding of this extremely influential theologian’s ideas. This paper will explore Calvin’s theology of music in the form of a dialogue. This format will enable both an expression of Calvin’s theology of music as well as critiques of Calvin’s ideas reflecting various arguments pertaining to Christian worship from the past and from today.

Marco- I hear much about your theology of worship and it interests me greatly. Though your intent to guide the followers of Christ in good and holy practice of worship is noble, I cannot help but see that you betray your initial suppositions of the purpose of worship, resulting in limiting and stifling the Church due to your circumscription of worship. Before you respond to my claim, though, let us first establish a common ground from which to move forward. Tell me what you believe to be the purpose of creation. Calvin- The purpose of creation is for humans to know God and respond to his glory in worship and obedience.2 Falsely viewing humanity without God would completely misconstrue the human condition. We are not to “lie down in disgrace”3 but to realize the glory of God and respond in complete adoration of God’s glory. Only through this lens can we see true worship, which is the essence of Christian life and purpose. The substance of Christianity is “first a knowledge of the right way to worship God; and secondly of the source from which salvation is to be sought.”4

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Marco- Just to clarify, you mean that you are saying that the very foundation of Christian life is intimately united in the knowledge of proper worship, and without this the follower of Christ will be led astray by distraction and misplaced focus? Calvin- Yes, I am glad that you mentioned the possibility of distraction. We as humans are depraved5 and thus easily distracted, focusing on subjects or matters other than the glory of God. We are able, by the grace of God and the instructions he has given us in scripture, to worship God in the right mind with his guiding hand. Through God’s revelation to humanity, the Holy Scriptures, we may know him who is otherwise unknowable. As finite and depraved beings we must submit to the truth and understand that “the only lawful form of worship is the spiritual worship that God has established by Himself.”6 We dare not elevate ourselves above God by attempting to create human rules of worship since “God is the sole lawgiver, and men have no right to usurp this honor from Him.”7 Fashioning our own precepts for the manner in which we worship is not only supplanting God but diminishes God’s honor because we are in essence placing ourselves as the lawgiver rather than submitting to God. Marco- You lay out several important themes. We will use the Holy Scriptures as the authority for our discussion and will have God lead us in the proper worship of himself. From this foundation, let us address the subject of proper human disposition in worship. Calvin- This issue is of paramount importance; the proper attitude or heart of the person is essential to worshipping God. An “attitude of complete dependence on God as the source and endpoint of all human acts”8 is the first step in forming the heart and disposition of the person in worship. In other words, the groundwork for correct worship is “to acknowledge God to be, as He is, the only source of all virtue, justice, holiness, wisdom, truth, power, goodness, mercy, life and salvation; in accordance with this, and to ascribe and render to Him the glory of all that is good, to seek all things in Him alone, and to look to Him alone in every need.”9 Marco- I concur that God is the source of all those aspects and that we should worship God with the proper heart, one founded in this knowledge of God. This internal disposition is an essential characteristic of worship, but from where did you get this idea? After all, we must root our ideas in scripture. Calvin- As I mentioned before, the disposition of the heart is essential. “The tongue without the heart is unacceptable to God.”10 Saint Paul speaks of the heart in some of his letters. Colossians 3:16 states “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.” In that verse everything hinges upon the condition of one’s heart, as the disposition of gratitude for God is the state from which everything else flows. In Ephesians 5:19, Saint Paul writes, “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord.” The heart is the place where worship originates towards God. Marco- Are you then saying that the outward superficialities are not what is essential to proper worship, but rather the disposition of the heart, much like how God denied the superficial prayers of his people in Isaiah 1:15, saying, “So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen”? The people were not of the proper heart of worship but had fallen into deep sin and evil. The outward act of worship had no benefit when the hearts and actions of the people were not pleasing to God. Calvin- Yes, the outward expression is useless if the disposition of the heart has fallen astray from God. In fact the “tongue is not even necessary for private prayer: the inner feeling would be enough to arouse itself, so that sometimes the best prayers are the silent ones.”11

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Marco- So in every form of worship, song and prayer included, the disposition of the heart, or the state of being heartfelt, is the first essential characteristic of proper worship towards God? Calvin- Yes, because “unless voice and song, if interposed in prayer, spring from the deep feeling of heart, neither has any value or profit in the least with God.”12 “It is necessary for us to remember what Saint Paul says, that spiritual songs can be sung truly only from the heart.”13 Marco- It is from this beginning that I agree with you and find your attempt noble, but from what I have understood I feel that you leave this point in a disguised affinity for superficial rules of worship that abandon the role of the heart as the essential characteristic. My first complaint is your agreement with the Augustinian14 line of thought wherein you consider words superior to music. You have said that the singer should have responsibility first “‘to the spiritual meaning of the words,’ not the melody.”15 Furthermore, you have called songs that are pleasing to the ear “superficial” because they “are unbecoming of the majesty of the Church and cannot but displease God in the highest degree.”16 How soon you betray yourself! Music, a gift from God, can without words express our very own heartfelt disposition toward God. Surely God has not assigned us to worship without enjoyment and without beauty. Calvin- I am not taking away the enjoyment or beauty in any way; rather I am using them in the fullest sense! I want music to be guided by the most beautiful of words, the very words of God. Are you suggesting that I am destroying the arts even though I am giving them guidance of the most beautiful source? Marco- To be sure, I do not want to strip the words of their meaning and beauty, of which they have plenty. However, neither do I want to put false conditions on another gift from God. I am not advocating a lack of restrictions on music; I simply want to recognize music as a gift from God that can stand on its own apart from words. This music should, of course, be previously guided by an orthodox understanding of doctrine, but it must not always accompany or pay direct service to it. Music can provide the context for the true conditions of the heart and offer God our praise and adoration. Let us not be so foolish as to limit the gifts of God when they are capable of lifting our hearts in submission and obedience to the One who deserves our adoration. I am not arguing for the exclusive use of music without words but rather the possibility of its being a form of proper worship because of its roots in the divine. Calvin- Yes, I do believe music to be a gift from God, and it does have a great deal of power. In fact “there is scarcely anything in the world which is more capable of turning or moving this way and that the morals of men, as Plato prudently considered it. And in fact we experience that it has a secret and almost incredible power to arouse the hearts in one way or another.”17 I see your argument but am not sure to what extent I agree; nevertheless, for the sake of moving forward, I will temporarily assume your argument. Let us indeed move forward and address the issue of biblical texts. It is precisely because the music is so powerful that I focus so much on the text. Like Augustine, I believe that “no one is able to sing things worthy of God unless he has received them from Him,”18 so that any search, no matter how thorough, will gain “no better songs no more appropriate to the purpose than the Psalms of David which the Holy Spirit made and spoke through him.”19 Marco- I respect and admire your earnestness in wanting to help followers of Christ choose appropriate texts to sing in praise and adoration to God. Despite the nobility of the attempt, however, I feel it still misses the mark of establishing truly good worship. But to be sure I understand all your reasons, please expound your argument that the vast majority of texts for worship songs ought to be from the Psalms. Calvin- As I stated before, we must respond to God in worship with what he has first given us. When we use the Psalms, we “are certain that God puts the words in our mouths, as if He Himself were The Essence of Worship: Engaging John Calvin in Dialogue • Ken Hartman

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singing in us to exalt His glory.”20 We must be sure to use the word of God, which never falls short in its ability to exalt God, since it was divinely inspired. God’s standards must be met, and when using his words there can be no failure in this endeavor. Since music is so powerful, the words must be aligned to God’s will. For “it is true that every evil word (as Saint Paul says) perverts good morals, but when the melody is with it, it pierces the heart much more strongly and enters into it; just as in a funnel wine is poured into a container, so also venom and corruption are distilled to the depth of the heart by the melody.”21 The Psalms of David thus give us certitude that we protect ourselves from venomous language penetrating our hearts. Marco- I fully agree that the Psalms are a wonderful way to sing to our Lord for the same reasons that you mentioned. I see why you are worried about humanity falling away from worship that God accepts as pure and good. I cannot, however, help but disagree that we need the exact words of God from scripture for worship to be acceptable in God’s eyes. As we discussed earlier, the disposition of the heart is the essential aspect of worship and is ultimately what determines the authentic act of worship. I will use the Psalms and the rest of scripture in my worship through both song and prayer, but I will not constrain myself to such a limited life of worship. I will allow the Holy Spirit to work through me and to give me understanding of biblical texts. This allows God to guide the worship and allows God to be worshipped from the heart. Words do have the power of both good and evil, and neither of us wishes evil to enter into our worship of the Living God, but let us not attempt to limit how God can guide his people in proper worship of himself. Let us submit to him and allow him to guide and lead us so that we may each personally respond to his glory. Think of how this freedom creates a community of faith where each person can write songs, thoroughly based and rooted in scripture, from one’s own heart’s yearning and glorification of God and then be able to share them with others to edify the Church. Paul himself talks of this very idea in Ephesians 5:18-19 when he says to “be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.” Calvin- Though your point is good, and I believe that all people can and do have a priestly connection with God, I have reservations of including the person’s own words, since this introduces the risk of improper worship. Furthermore, there is an additional reason for singing the Psalms. I wish to remain true to the Apostolic Church and bring us back to original and true Christianity. I am not changing the form of worship as some frivolous complaint against the Catholic Church, but because the centrality of worship in the Christian life necessitates that we address this issue. Thus the question of how I am changing tradition is important, and as already addressed, I am using scripture as my central basis, but I am also allowing for the Apostolic Church to lead us by its example because the Psalms were often used as the material for worship. This is not a form of “wonton innovation but pious restoration.”22 Marco- It is truly noble to attempt to return to original Christianity, and there is much benefit in such an endeavor. If we look to the Apostolic Church’s intentions and seek to follow them, then I fully agree. When we set the specific acts and deeds as the standards, however, we settle for a superficial understanding and lose the meaning. Also, if we choose to use the Apostolic Church’s specific traditions of song and worship we run into the problem of arbitrariness. Why choose this particular period in time rather than some other, and from which region are we to choose? Are we to pick the largest Christian branch we know of, or should we choose equally devout Christians? Such a method creates a stagnant tradition that impedes growth among the nations rather than allowing the Church to grow and bring itself into the various cultures and traditions of the world. I would ask you which group of Christians is more devout: a group singing glory to God from the heart using their own words, or a group singing glory to

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God from the heart strictly using scripture? Does this not show the superficiality of the requirement of using the Psalms when the meaning and intent of worship is the disposition of the heart? The worship of the Living God is not something to be confined within tradition, though it can be found there in one form. Our Lord can be worshipped in every city, region, state, and era within different traditions, without changing the core and essence of what it means to be a Christian. We can live according to what you identify as the purpose of creation, knowing God and responding to his glory in worship and obedience,23 in all traditions. God is the God of the entire world and of all eras. We should not attempt to homogenize the different cultures of the world, each of which possesses its own God given beauty. God wants to reconcile every individual, every culture, and every nation in their own qualities to himself. We as Christians need to keep the meaning and purpose of worship but not cause it to strangle various traditions. When guided by God, it will cause traditions to flourish. Calvin- Are you then advocating for Christians to mirror their surrounding culture? The Church should have its own music, set apart from other types and genres of existing music. When someone hears our music it should be unmistakably ours. It must be uniquely different so as not to mix with the world. Romans 12:1-2 exhorts us to “present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Saint Paul is calling for the involvement of the heart in obedience to God and for us to be against the world, which is evil and corrupted. Why would we want to partake of the world and create a Christian copy? We should be a people set apart from the norms of society, not making our own version of the evils of the world. Marco- I am of the same mind to an extent, but you have misapplied what Paul and the Gospels have to say about the subject of holiness. Yes, we as part of the Kingdom of God are to be a people holy and set apart. God has redeemed the sinner so that the sinner is washed, made clean, and reconciled with God, for the sinner is being made holy and through that holiness inherits the Kingdom of God. Once the person is justified and sanctified24 does it then follow that they should remove themselves and create a separate culture apart from the world? By no means! The Christian is specifically called to be in the world. Christ sends his disciples into the world on several occasions. They do not separate themselves from the world but enter it in order to serve it while still remaining faithful to the Christian life and not letting any “immorality or any impurity or greed…be named among [them], as is proper among saints; and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.”25 So, of course evil parts of culture are not to be imitated, but even Paul speaks of approximating some people and their beliefs so as to be able to reach them and teach and proclaim the gospel of Christ. He wrote that “though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became a Jew, so that I might win Jews…to the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some.”26 Calvin- So would you be willing to use music that has deep attachments with filthy and impure lyrics and settings? The Christian must not fall into the evils of the world, and music having that association should be avoided and not taken in by Christianity. We can still be in the world without adopting the world’s view and attitude of sin. We must never compromise Christianity in the effort to make it more palatable for non-Christians. To do so would cheapen Christianity. Yes, milktoast Christianity may bring in more people, but into what are you bringing them? We must be cautious in our attempt to be in the world, so as not to fall into its traps and slowly become another nicer or cleaner version of the world. The Essence of Worship: Engaging John Calvin in Dialogue • Ken Hartman

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Marco- I too share in your caution, but caution should not stop us from doing God’s will of reaching people. With the right attitude and with God’s guidance we can feel confident in going into the world without becoming part of it. And because music is a gift from God, we are able to use it for the spreading of the Kingdom. Calvin- This is where I must raise one more point of caution towards the use of music. We both know the power it has to amplify the text. In light of this knowledge, we should not allow the music to stray from the text. The music must cooperate with the biblical text and “when this moderation is maintained, it is without any doubt a most holy and salutary practice.”27 Music has been given to us for our “profit and welfare” and to help us focus ourselves on fulfilling the purpose of our creation, knowing and responding to God in worship and obedience. It is for these reasons that music must be moderated to serve its proper purpose and to prevent us from abusing its power. If we do not pay close attention to how we are using music, it has the ability to turn our minds away from God and can shame us into the “disordered delights” and “obscenities” of the world. Hence we must not allow our music to be full of the “corruption of the world.” Music needs to be closely tied to the text, and because the biblical text possesses gravity and majesty, I insist that “there must always be concern that the song be neither light nor frivolous, but have gravity and majesty”28 as well. “We are to sing in a manner that is holy and pure, seeing that it is simply directed to the edification of which we have spoken.”29 Marco- I agree that music should be fitting for the worship of God and the edification of the Church. But is it we who are to set the standards for what this is to resemble? Is it not true that what inspires awe and majesty in one person may strike someone else as frivolous? How are we to moderate something so heavily and deeply rooted in individuals and their varying views on the subject of music? If we are attempting to create a theology of music for Christians, we must make it so that it can apply to all cultures of all times as far as we can see. If your standards and moderation are specifically for our own context of sixteenth-century Geneva and not necessarily for others, then I will concede your moderations. However, I must reject the universal application of your specific guidelines. Calvin- I understand your reasoning for arguing for a more open interpretation of the specific surface level rules while keeping a heavy focus on the purpose of music. But surely we must not stray from the biblical text, and we should strive to stay within its limits as we have previously discussed. Keeping this principle in mind, we find that instruments are no longer to be used. We find that “instrumental music was tolerated in the time of the Law because the people were then in infancy.”30 When we find instruments used in the Psalms, such as Psalm 92, the instrumental music was “figurative, and terminated with the Gospel.”31 To help explain this further, we can look at Psalm 71 and find that: The Levites, under the Law, were justified in making use of instrumental music in the worship of God; it having been his will to train his people, while they were as yet tender and like children, by such rudiments, until the coming of Christ. But now when the clear light of the Gospel has dissipated the shadows of the Law, and taught us that God is to be served in a simpler form it would be to act as a foolish and mistaken part to imitate that which the prophet enjoined only upon those of his own time. From this, it is apparent that the Papists have shown themselves to be very apes in transferring this to themselves.32

Not only does this understanding come from the scriptures, but it has a beautifully pragmatic aspect as well. When instruments are left out of worship, simplicity is gained and distractions are limited. We

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as the Church can worship God with undivided attention to the Psalms in praise to God’s glory. Just as Augustine wrote in the Confessions, “Yet when it happens that I am more moved by the singing than by what is sung, I confess myself to have sinned wickedly, and then I would rather not have heard the singing.”33 So let us not put extra emphasis on the music when it only adds to distracting us from God’s glory and can cause us to sin when we should be worshipping God. Furthermore, in an attempt to minimize distraction as much as possible, we must also avoid singing in harmony, which needlessly distracts from the text of the Psalms and adds too much emphasis on the singer rather than the glory of God. How can such an act be called worship, which should be solely about God’s glory, when we are focused on what we are able to produce? Marco- Why do you stray so easily from your original commitments? Have we not already discussed the value of both word and song? Why then would instruments be excluded? Yes, sometimes the music is a very powerful addition to the words and at times the words may fade away, but this is not a problem if it creates a deep sense of the heart inclining itself toward God in a state of adoration. Cannot instruments add to our feeling of devotion and enhance our inner disposition toward the Almighty Lord, not as a pernicious act but as a beneficial component of worship? I say yes, they can be beneficial and used towards the ends of crafting a heartfelt worship. I cannot help but feel that you used special biblical interpretation to justify your postulation that instruments are a distraction for the worshipper. Your interpretation appears to be predisposed to your doctrine of simplicity of worship. Thus you do not allow the possibility of instruments adding to the inner disposition of the heart. Additionally, can the adding of harmony be any more of a problem? Yes, we are to focus on God’s glory, but why are we then not allowed to use the very gifts he has given us? There are those who are gifted in music, and this addition of harmony is capable of stirring a person’s inner disposition to God’s glory because of the very fact that God has created this beauty in the world. Both text and music are capable of promoting worship of God with the correct inner disposition and understanding. Calvin- Let me contemplate your ideas in prayer and time with my Lord. But we have one more matter to discuss, and that is which language we should utilize for our services. I believe we will be in accord on this subject. The service in all aspects should be done in the vernacular. The songs and the readings are to be intelligible to the worshipper, for without understanding, benefit and edification are lost. The Apostolic Church did not sing songs in a language they did not know and did not hold services that were unintelligible to the listener. Without understanding, we cannot expect people to experience the “great force and vigor to arouse and inflame the hearts of men to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal.”34 While it is commonly said that there is devotion without understanding, such a view is a “gross delusion.” “If we wish truly to honor the holy ordinances of our Lord which we use in the Church, the most important thing is to know what they contain, what they mean, and to what purpose they tend, in order that their observance may be useful and salutary, and in consequence rightly regulated.”35 Marco- You were right for the most part about our being on accord in this subject. I see your strong motivation for understanding, and I agree with that. But I want to expand your idea slightly further. We do not want a service that is unintelligible for the worshippers, but we also do not want to confine it to saying the text is the only way to produce understanding. We must also allow for music to give a nonverbal understanding of worship that is consistent with sound Christian doctrine. Calvin- If it follows that the music is able to be understood and that it in fact does allow for a proper inner disposition of the heart, then I do not see any immediate fault in conducting the service in such a The Essence of Worship: Engaging John Calvin in Dialogue • Ken Hartman

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way. I am wary of that possibility, however, and would prefer to stay safely within the arms of scripture where we cannot be led astray. Marco- We will then break for now and come back after a time of silence and prayer with our Lord. I will continue to think about your theology of music and will continue to refine mine in accordance with the word of God. But please keep in mind the essential characteristic of the inner disposition of the heart and how that plays out in the act of worship for all cultures in all eras so that we, the family of Christ, are united in purpose and heart. Thank you for listening earnestly to my ideas. Calvin- Let us always remember our place before God and seek his will through his word. Worship the Lord your God in humility and obedience in the way he has given us.

The doctrine of double predestination states that God has chosen who will spend eternity in heaven and who will spend eternity in hell. This decision is completely God’s choice before all creation; no faith, deed, or supplication can alter or influence a person’s salvation or damnation. 2 Carlos M.N. Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 197. 3 Calvin, Commentary on Jeremiah 9:23, quoted in T.F. Torrance, Calvin’s Doctrine of Man (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977), 17. 4 Calvin, De necessitate reformandae Ecclesiae, quoted in Eire, 198. 5 In Calvin´s theology all of humanity is completely wicked and corrupt; therefore, people are unable to worship correctly without God´s guidance. The idea of depravity is central within Calvin’s double predestination and is a guiding force for his theology of music. 6 Eire, 215. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid., 200. 9 Calvin, De necessitate reformandae Ecclesiae, quoted in Eire, 200. 10 Calvin, Institution of 1543, quoted in Charles Garside Jr., “The Origins of Calvin’s Theology of Music: 15361543,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 69 (August 1979): 9. 11 Ibid. 12 Calvin, Institution of 1536, quoted in Garside, 26. 13 Calvin, 1543 Addition to Epistle to the Reader, quoted in Garside, 26. 14 Augustine of Hippo (354-430) had a tremendous influence on Christianity. He is commonly credited with creating the doctrine of original sin, just war theory, and the spiritualization of the City of God. 15 Calvin, Institution of 1543, quoted in Garside, 21. 16 Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, quoted in Garside, 21. 17 Calvin, 1543 Addition to Epistle to the Reader, quoted in Garside, 22. 18 Ibid., 23. 19 Ibid., 24. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., 23. 22 Garside, 17. 23 Eire, 197. 24 For Calvin, sanctification is a complete and ongoing process of purifying the self from sin to become holy or set apart. 25 Ephesians 5:3-4. 26 1 Corinthians 9:19-22. 1

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Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, quoted in Garside, 21. Calvin, Epistle to the Reader, quoted in Garside, 18. 29 Ibid., 19. 30 Calvin, Homiliae in primum librum Samuelis, quoted in Robert M. Stevenson, Patterns of Protestant Church Music (Durham: Duke University Press, 1953), 14. 31 Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, quoted in Stevenson, 14. 32 Ibid., 18. 33 Augustine, Confessions and Enchiridion, quoted in Garside, 20. 34 Calvin, Epistle to the Reader, quoted in Garside, 27. 35 Ibid., 31. 27 28

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On Leibniz, Smart, and Free Will in a “Laid Up” World • Douglas Muskett Douglas Muskett is a senior at UW-Eau Claire with a major in mathematics and a minor in philosophy. He wrote this paper for Dr. Edward Beach’s PHIL 316 class “Metaphysics” in the spring of 2009.

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t is meaningless to discuss free will without first trying to clarify what one means by “free will.” Unfortunately, however, defining free will is not easy. It reminds me of the classic quotation from Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it. . .”1 Of course Justice Stewart was not actually speaking of free will, but I believe that this quotation could be applied to free will just as well. It is far easier to explain what free will is not. I will argue that there is one supposition that is incompatible with free will, namely the case where a person’s actions were determined in advance by an all-knowing, all-powerful deity. It may be possible to capture part of the meaning of free will by means of an example. I propose a thought experiment wherein we use Alice, a completely hypothetical, normal person. Let us say that Alice is getting dressed in the morning, and she has put on a shirt. Let us also say that there are only two possible outcomes: Alice puts on a red shirt, or Alice puts on a blue shirt. In this case, Alice puts on the red shirt. The question then is this: could Alice have chosen to put on the blue shirt? Free will may be conceived as the ability of an agent to freely choose what actions to take. In this case, if Alice has free will, she had the ability to choose to put on the blue shirt. If Alice’s decision is predetermined by a supreme being’s all-embracing plan for the universe, then Alice never has any real choice in the matter—she was going to put the red shirt on, and she did not have the ability to do otherwise. It is now necessary to leave the area of free will for a while and look at the theory of substances developed by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). For Leibniz, every individual entity is a distinct

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substance in itself. He further maintains that “every individual substance expresses the whole universe in its own manner and that in its full concept is included all its experiences together with all the attendant circumstances and the whole sequence of exterior events.”2 In essence, every substance contains its entire past, present, and future. Moreover, according to Leibniz those substances that exist were those chosen by God to exist: “I maintain that among an infinity of possible concepts God has selected a certain Adam.”3 Basically, God picks the Adam that he wants to exist and the one that fits his plan best: For by the individual concept, Adam, I mean of course a perfect representation of a particular Adam who has certain individual characteristics and is thus distinguished from an infinity of possible persons very similar to him yet for all that different from him (as ellipses always differ from the circle, however closely they may approach it). God has preferred him to these others because it has pleased God to choose precisely such an arrangement of the universe, and everything which is a consequence of this resolution is necessary only by a hypothetical necessity and by no means destroys the freedom of God nor that of the created spirits.4

This leads us to consider the criterion by which God chooses among possible substances. Leibniz maintains that God can do nothing that is not perfect—that, as the perfect being, it “follows that God who possesses supreme and infinite wisdom acts in the most perfect manner.”5 Moreover, it “is sufficient therefore to have this confidence in God, that he has done everything for the best.”6 God chooses those substances that together make up the best of all possible worlds, and he chooses them in a single act of cognition. Antoine Arnauld, who debated extensively with Leibniz via correspondence about divine omniscience and the possibility of free will, somewhat incredulously described Leibniz’s characterization of creation as “a single act of the eternal will by which he [God] has chosen to do everything which he has foreseen that it will be necessary to do, in order that the universe might be such as he has decided it ought to be.”7 Leibniz agreed that Arnauld correctly summarized his view, since for Leibniz, God sees the entire universe, from start to finish (whatever those may be), in that one moment of creation. However, to call it a “moment” is perhaps misleading—it is more that God perceives the entire universe in its entirety, with time being merely another dimension. God does not see it as a finished past with an open-ended future and an indeterminate present, but as a complete whole. This is remarkably similar to other theories of time, including the tenseless view of time proposed by twentieth-century philosopher J. J. C. Smart. He claims that “the concepts of past, present, and future have significance relative only to human thought and utterance and do not apply to the universe as such.”8 We perceive time as having a past, present, and future, but this is “an illusion which prevents us seeing the world as it really is.”9 Smart draws support from Einstein’s conception of space-time as a four-dimensional invariant structure that, when freed of relativistic variations in perspective depending on the observer’s inertial frame of reference, is the same for all. Smart urges that a scientifically realistic worldview perceives the world as it actually is—without subjective temporality blinding us from reality. Although he says nothing about God (and presumably does not believe in such an entity), Smart in effect suggests that one should adopt a perspective somewhat resembling that of Leibniz’s deity—a perspective in which changes of tense no longer have any place. Smart proposes that rather than using the ambiguous language of tenses with its fluid phrases and shifting contents like “in the past,” “until now,” or “in the future,” one should adopt locutions that rely

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on fixed and objective reference points. Thus instead of saying “now,” we should say “at the time of this utterance.” Instead of saying “in the past,” we should say “before this utterance.” And instead of saying “in the future,” we should say “after this utterance.”10 This avoids one of the problems of tensed language—the fact that the reference point is always changing. Of course it is more useful once we recognize that we do not necessarily always share a reference point with others. This also allows us to “think of things and processes as four-dimensional space-time entities.”11 Instead of seeing an action unfold in a shifting matrix of tensed time, we can see it as a “three-dimensional time slice of the four-dimensional solid.”12 This of course requires one to eliminate tenses entirely. Smart uses the example of the word “exist”: “Thus, when we say that future events exist we do not mean that they exist now (present tense).”13 The views of time advanced by both Leibniz and Smart imply a universe that is “laid up,” a phrase that is usually understood as being synonymous with determinism. Smart attempts to deny this but never actually addresses what a “laid up” universe would be. He writes that “to say that the future is already ‘laid up’ is to say that future events exist now.”14 Yet, as mentioned earlier, he defines “now” to mean “simultaneous with this utterance.”15 Smart suggests that for the universe to be “laid up,” everything would be simultaneous. The Leibnizian view fits perfectly with this, since that single moment of cognition in which God created the universe would be “laid up” even by this stringent definition. Smart claims that “when I [Smart] say of future events that they exist (tenselessly) I am doing so simply because, in this case, they will exist.”16 Thus they are inevitable and will be only what they will be. There are no alternate possibilities. I believe this fits a far better definition of a “laid up” universe—a universe where there are no alternate possibilities, where what is going to be is going to be. However, this “laid up-ness” does not necessarily imply an incompatibility with free will. Let me illustrate this with an example. Imagine someone named Bob, who on July 21st, 1949, had oatmeal for breakfast. Let us assume for the sake of argument that Bob had free will and thus the ability to freely choose what actions to take. This happened in the past, so at this point in time there certainly are no alternate possibilities. There is no changing the fact that he ate the oatmeal. However, this does not affect another fact, namely that he had the ability to choose to eat eggs on toast instead of the oatmeal. The existence of alternate possibilities is irrelevant to the question of free will here. Let us return to Alice and the night before her momentous shirt-putting-on. Imagine a friend, Carol, an omniscient observer who has seen the entirety of existence. Carol knows that Alice will put on the red shirt, that this happens, and that it is going to happen. This does not mean that Alice did not have the ability to put on the blue shirt, nor does it mean Alice lacked the ability to choose to do so. It means nothing more than that Alice chose to put on the red shirt, that it was always true that Alice was going to choose to do so, and that Carol already knows this. The fact that Carol knew the night before that Alice was going to put on the red shirt does not change the nature of this choice. It is important to note that when the universe is “laid up,” the omniscient observer cannot actually change anything. In order for her to be omniscient and see the entirety of the universe, she will have seen all causes. Leibniz’s God, by contrast, is not only omniscient but also omnipotent. He sees the entirety of the universe when he creates it, and it is this inflexible circumstance that in principle deprives any of his creatures of an independent volition. Any omniscient non-creator will be necessarily powerless to affect anything. In the Leibnizian universe, God chose each existing substance from an infinite number of possible substances, including from an infinite number that were very similar to that substance. When God chose Alice, he chose the substance Alice from an infinite number of substances that were close to the same—the On Leibniz, Smart, and Free Will in a “Laid Up” World • Douglas Muskett

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Alice with red hair, the Alice with blonde hair, the Alice who likes country music, and the Alice who likes heavy metal music. Every possible alternative version of a being like Alice was available. Leibniz maintains that God only chooses among these possible Alices and thus that: As the individual concept of each person includes once and for all everything which can ever happen to him, in it can be seen, a priori the evidences or the reasons for the reality of each event, and why one happened sooner than the other. But these events, however certain, are nevertheless contingent, being based on the free choice of God and of his creatures. It is true that their choices always have their reasons, but they incline to the choices under no compulsion of necessity.17

What this implies, however, I find somewhat problematic for free will. There is a possible Alice who wakes up in the morning and puts her left foot down on the floor first, and a possible Alice who puts her right foot down first. There is the Alice who eats oatmeal for breakfast, and the Alice who skips breakfast entirely. For every single choice that Alice makes, there is a possible Alice who would have made a different choice—and the Alice who fits best in this best of all possible universes is the one whom God has selected to exist. Let us suppose that Alice does not care about which shirt she wears and that it will not affect her life in any way. Let us also add a certain Dave to this thought experiment. Dave walks by Alice on his way to work on this particular morning, and he glances at her shirt. Dave deeply loves the color red, and the mere sight of Alice in a red shirt gives him more happiness than the sight of Alice in a blue shirt would have provided. Therefore, God selected the Alice who put on the red shirt, as this increased the amount of happiness in the world without any negatives, making it a better world. Yet does Alice really have the ability to choose to put on the blue shirt? Indeed she does not. Alice never had any independent choice in the matter—she had to choose to put on the red shirt that God had chosen in advance for her to wear. Any Alice who could choose otherwise would not have been selected to exist. Importantly, in this Leibnizian world, this is true for every single “decision” in our lives. Any choices that finite beings might attempt to make are effectively already preempted by the will of God. Let us consider another thought experiment. Imagine a movie director who wanted to make the perfect movie. He creates perfect robots, which exactly resemble humans in every way, in order for them to act in his perfect movie. Let us imagine that he has designs for every possible robot in his head. Yet he would make only those robots that would act exactly as his perfect movie requires. Every robot for which he has a design is complete, with all of its properties, and once designed each robot will follow its function completely. These robots of course have no free will. According to Leibniz, God is selecting possible substances (humans) who can theoretically choose, but they can only make the choice that God has already chosen for them. They cannot choose to do anything other than that which fits God’s perfect plan. He has the perfect script, and he selects the robots to follow it. Let us suggest that this movie director is a brilliant programmer who has managed to give his robots artificial intelligence. Yet he selected the designs so that, even though the robots had artificial intelligence, it was such that they would perform exactly as his script required. Would anyone actually consider this true artificial intelligence? If anything, it would merely be an incredibly obfuscated set of commands, designed to imitate the appearance of artificial intelligence while doing exactly as commanded by the movie director.

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Leibniz’s universe has, in essence, very well programmed robots. The essential difference between Leibniz and Smart does not hinge on the existence or non-existence of an omniscient observer, as illustrated by the thought experiment involving the powerless Carol. Rather, it hinges on the presence of an omnipotent being who, for all practical purposes, pre-selects every single choice that human beings make. In the Leibnizian universe, there can be no free will—merely a very clever illusion. In Smart’s conception of the universe, free will is at least conceivable.

Justice Potter Stewart, concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964). See “Jacobellis v. Ohio,” at Accessed 5 June 2009. 2 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, “Discourse on Metaphysics,” in Basic Writings: Discourse on Metaphysics, Correspondence with Arnauld, Monadology, trans. George R. Montgomery (La Salle, IL: Open Court Publishing, 1993), Section IX, 14. Also available at Accessed 15 June 2009. 3 Leibniz, “Correspondence with Arnauld,” in Basic Writings, 107-108. 4 Ibid., ���������� 80. 5 Leibniz, ������������������������ “Discourse,” 3. 6 Ibid., ��������� 8. 7 Leibniz, ������������������������������� “Correspondence,” 173. 8 J. J. C. Smart, “The Space-Time World,” in Philosophy and Scientific Realism (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963). Excerpt reprinted in Metaphysics: The Big Questions, eds. Peter Inwagen and Dean W. Zimmerman (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1998), 94. 9 Ibid. ����� 10 Ibid., 95 ��������� 11 Ibid. ����� 12 Ibid. ����� 13 Ibid., 100. ����������� 14 Ibid. ����� 15 Ibid., 97-98. ������������� 16 Ibid., 100. ����������� 17 Leibniz, “Discourse,” 19. 1

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Moral Improvement: A Virtue Ethical Defense • Ryan Young Ryan Young, a philosophy major and physics minor, graduated in the spring of 2009. He wrote this paper for Dr. Sean McAleer’s PHIL 485 seminar course “Virtue Ethics” in the fall of 2008.

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ne of the features of virtue ethics that initially attracted me was that it appears to be a very useful theory for anyone who seeks to become morally better. Both an exultation of the virtuous agent’s actions as the paradigm of right action and an emphasis on the cultivation of character traits that would consistently produce these actions make the virtue ethical stance seem a place where the moral novice is likely to find a wealth of direction and guidance. Since Aristotle (often considered the father of virtue ethics) claimed that “we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions” (Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, Chapter 1), virtue ethics has placed the concept of moral improvement directly at the center. That is why I was surprised to find Robert Johnson, in his article “Virtue and Right” (2003), criticizing attempts to incorporate theories of right action into virtue ethical stances, because they failed to account for actions aimed at moral improvement as right actions (Johnson 811). Generally speaking, virtue ethicists claim that an action is right if it is what the virtuous person would do in the same situation. Furthermore, an action is not right if it is not what the virtuous person would do in the circumstances. The virtuous person has all of the virtues that are desirable character traits that enable people to live well. Johnson argues that since there are morally right actions that virtue ethical accounts of right action fail to recognize, those accounts should be rejected because of their incompleteness. He uses the example of actions that fall under an obligation to become morally better. The virtuous person would not do them since she would already be morally perfect, and so the virtue ethical stance cannot account for them as right actions. Johnson does not believe that the criteria tell us that wrong actions are right, but rather that there are some right actions that cannot be found in the virtue ethical explanations. Since it certainly is an

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advantage for any ethical theory to give some sort of account of right action, Johnson’s critique, though not completely disastrous to the virtue project as a whole, certainly seems detrimental to it. Fortunately for the proponents of virtue ethics, there are responses that save their accounts of right action, particularly as they are related to acts aimed at moral improvement. By looking specifically at the work of Rosalind Hursthouse as a neo-Aristotelian and Michael Slote as a different sort of virtue ethicist, I hope to show that virtue ethics can answer the objections put forth by Johnson. Just as he examines only a few specific theories and takes that to show a problem endemic to virtue ethics as a whole (exempting those virtue ethicists who do not think they should have a theory of right action), so I hope to show that no such problem exists by examining a small sample and taking that to mean virtue ethics as a whole has the tools to provide the desired account. Let us begin with Rosalind Hursthouse. She claims, “An action is right iff [if and only if] it is what a virtuous agent would characteristically (i.e. acting in character) do in the circumstances” (Hursthouse 28; brackets added). In this way, virtue ethics provides an answer to the question as to what one should do, i.e., what is the right thing to do. It is what the virtuous person would do. This may at first appear to offer little in the way of guidance. After all, it is not at all clear who should be considered the virtuous agent. However, as Hursthouse notes and Johnson acknowledges, this worry fades away quickly when one gives an account of which character traits are virtues. Though it may not be clear what a virtuous person would do, it is at least clearer what a generous or a brave person would do. There are two important points to note regarding Hursthouse’s criterion, which will be very important later in this paper. The first is highlighted by Johnson in his version of Hursthouse’s criterion. It is that “right actions are those characteristic of a completely virtuous agent” (Johnson 812). Though Hursthouse does not include it in her version, it seems reasonable for us to attribute it to her since Aristotle held that the virtues (in the full sense) were unified, and she is a neo-Aristotelian. Also, it avoids the consequence that single virtues might bring about vicious or morally wrong action (e.g., a brave terrorist kills innocent people). The second important feature is that circumstance plays an important role in Hursthouse’s theory. A similar thread can be seen in Aristotle. M. F. Burnyeat notes in his article “Aristotle on Learning to be Good” (1980) that in Aristotle’s view, “It takes an educated perception, a capacity going beyond the application of general rules, to tell what is required for the practice of the virtues in specific circumstances” (Burnyeat 72; emphasis added). So, returning to the criteria, both halves have enormous importance. The virtuous person’s actions are intelligible only in light of the circumstances, and we know how to handle the circumstances only if we can grasp what the virtuous person’s actions would be. So what then is Johnson’s objection to virtue ethics’ account of right action? He believes that there are many right actions, those that the righteous ought to do, that are not at all what the virtuous person would characteristically do in the circumstances (Johnson 817). He begins by considering a chronic liar who, awakened by a friend to his vice, decides he needs to become more honest. Given that he has been lying for so long with such ease, often without his notice, this will be a difficult task. Simply resolving to tell the truth from here on out will not work. The reforming liar must find intermediate actions that will help him along toward his goal of becoming honest. Johnson gives the examples of writing down all his lies to monitor progress and improving his low self-esteem, which he believes may be the cause of his lying (Johnson 817). The problem Johnson has with virtue ethics’ account of right action arises in these intermediate actions aimed at moral improvement. It seems as though the reforming liar is performing right actions when he takes these steps since they are necessary to help him on his way to becoming truthful. However,

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it also seems as if these are not the things the virtuous agent would do in the circumstances. Being that the virtuous person is already honest, it would suffice for the virtuous agent simply to tell the truth. The intermediate steps would not be needed. However, this path of recourse is not available to the liar since he is so commonly in the habit of lying that he cannot escape it without performing the intermediate actions. Thus, though what the reforming liar would do in this instance is (presumably) the right thing to do, it is not what the virtuous person would do. Therefore the criterion is incomplete, not yielding wrong actions but failing to account for some right ones. So far Johnson’s objection seems to amount to this: “One should not (cannot?) do what the fully virtuous agent would do when trying to improve oneself morally since the fully virtuous could never find themselves in the circumstance of needing to improve morally. In trying to become honest, it is of no use to ask what honest people would do; after all, they would have to do nothing since they are already honest. Thus the account of right action is incomplete and should be disregarded.” The task for virtue ethicists wishing to subscribe to Hursthouse’s (and perhaps Aristotle’s) account of right action is to try to explain how the theory can make sense of actions like these. One possible route is to deny Johnson’s claim that the reforming liar is performing morally right actions when he takes the intermediate steps. These actions, such as making a list and improving self-esteem, are at best prudent means to the end of becoming honest, but the liar has no obligation to them per se, but only to tell the truth, which is exactly what the virtuous person would do. Caution must be taken not to focus on any particular actions when taking this route, for Johnson notes that “it makes absolutely no difference that these particular things are what this particular person ought to do… But surely he ought to do things of this sort” (Johnson 818). Thus if one is willing to dispense with the notion that actions necessary for an individual to achieve the end of doing what the virtuous agent would do as a kind are obligatory, then the problem appears to be skirted. Johnson thinks this a highly implausible move, as “it would require us to view each and every example of the above sorts of actions as failing to be cases of right actions in the sense of being morally excellent, and to view them instead as cases of acting only in an acceptable or second-best way” (Johnson 825). This is overstating the case. It does not seem “highly implausible” that actions of the intermediate sort are of less moral value than the actions that are their actual goals. In fact, many of these actions seem to have moral worth only because of the final action (like not lying) at which they aim. If we consider a mendacious person making a list of their lies without the goal of ceasing to lie, it does not seem that this person is doing anything that has any moral worth. Therefore it seems it would at least not be wholly counterintuitive to say that telling the truth is more morally excellent than making a list of one’s lies. However, it seems more charitable to Johnson, and more in tune with common sense, that these kinds of actions are morally right in themselves. As he notes, “[A]cting to improve oneself, both morally and naturally, seems not to be merely acceptable. There is, or at least can be, something truly excellent in a moral respect about the reformations of the liar” (Johnson 825). After all, it certainly seems as though the addict who seeks treatment in regard to his intemperance is doing the right thing, even though the temperate person would never do it and indeed would never have to. If that is the case, it will be better for virtue ethics if it can retain the notion and explain the action as right within its own framework. The key here may lie in the work that the circumstances are doing in Hursthouse’s account of right action. If the circumstances in question can be expanded to include not just the external scene (the truth in question, to whom it is being told) but also the internal fact that the agent has a vice (or more likely an internal conflict between a bad habit and the desire to eradicate it since a vicious person will not want to Moral Improvement: A Virtue Ethical Defense • Ryan Young

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change), then perhaps the account of right action can be maintained. But is it possible to make sense of the notion of the virtuous agent being in circumstances wherein she lacks a particular virtue? First, note that Hursthouse’s criterion will be an idealization. That is to say, the range of circumstances that any actual virtuous person’s life covers will be far less than the range of possible circumstances that could arise for others, which Johnson fully acknowledges (Johnson 812-813). This means that the actual application of the criterion will be hypothetical—if a virtuous agent were in circumstance C, she would do act A. This avoids the obvious contradiction of saying some virtuous person is (or was) in an actual circumstance, C, wherein she lacks (or lacked) a virtue. But it is not clear that the hypothetical form fares much better. A conceptual contradiction still seems to arise if a hypothetical virtuous agent lacks a virtue in any given circumstances. That is to say, if we imagine a virtuous agent lacking a virtue, we are no longer imagining a virtuous agent at all. However, we need not even imagine the virtuous agent as lacking a virtue if we remember that being practically wise is an important part of what it is to be a completely virtuous agent (Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, Chapter 6). Some philosophers (Burnyeat, for example, noted above) have favored an interpretation of practical wisdom as a matter of educated perception. Aristotle has it in Book II, Chapter 3 of the Nicomachean Ethics that it is important for people to have the right upbringing that makes them find enjoyment or pain in the right things. This is the educated side of practical wisdom. Once this proper enjoyment is established, the practically wise person is able to look at the world and see what is relevant for the practice of a virtue in any situation. Recall that Johnson reasonably imposed the qualification that the virtuous agent be completely virtuous. Thus the virtuous agent would be endowed with respect to prudence or practical wisdom. As such, she would be well able to consider all the relevant factors and see that, were she in the plight of the liar, she would in fact take small, careful steps to help foster honesty. In this way, one need not deprive a virtuous agent of a virtue in order to see what she would do; one simply needs the agent to forget one virtue for a moment and engage her practical wisdom, which is part of all one’s virtues, to see how she would act. Considerations of the same sort also suffice to deal with Johnson’s second example, which is intended to show that Hursthouse’s criterion is incomplete. The person here is essentially a continent person. The continent person knows what the right thing to do is but nevertheless struggles to do it. As a result of poor upbringing, the individual in this example is at war with some of his own bad tendencies. However, he manages fairly successfully to produce the right sort of actions, though it takes some careful planning on his part and a web of social support (people to keep him accountable) to avoid vicious behavior. Notice that the continent person in this example produces virtuous action only through a “web of self-controlling actions” (Johnson 821). In contrast, a virtuous person would never (have to) perform a self-controlling action, though this seems like the right thing to do for the continent person to maintain his continence. An example of this might be a husband who is prone to unfaithfulness yet has been completely successful at keeping himself in check by avoiding sticky situations. Imagine that the husband meets an old fling whom he has not seen in quite some time and who invites him out to reminisce. It seems as though the man in this situation ought not go and would be doing the right thing in not going, knowing full well what he will want to do if he goes. A virtuous person in the same situation, however, would have very little reason not to go, given that he is completely loyal and temperate. Thus we have a clear situation wherein the continent person should not do what would be acceptable for the virtuous person to do in the circumstances.

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However, to suggest this is not to consider the virtuous person in the circumstances in question, but rather to consider him in an entirely different situation, namely, one wherein weakness of will and bad tendencies do not exist. This might seem like a reasonable thing for Johnson to do since virtuous persons are not weak-willed. But as noted above, we need not deprive our hypothetical virtuous agent of her virtue in order to make sense of her deliberating in a circumstance wherein weakness of will is a factor. Practical wisdom can do its work here, perceiving and considering all relevant factors. It was most likely unintentional, but Johnson rarely mentions circumstances in reference to Hursthouse’s criterion of right action after its first appearance. This lack of focus on the specific circumstances and the role practical reason can play in them is a large part of the failure to see how Hursthouse can account for morally improving actions as right ones. It may be noticed that it is beginning to sound quite a bit like the reforming non-virtuous person is going to have to ask a virtuous person in order to discover what the would-be virtuous one should do to become virtuous. Johnson himself thinks that there are times when this is what one morally ought to do (Johnson 822). However, Johnson reasons that the fully virtuous person would never ask for advice since he would already know what to do. A consideration like that above will give us reason to doubt that claim, since a fully virtuous agent will be able to reason that if she were in the circumstance of lacking knowledge of what to do, she would ask. It makes no difference that she is not actually in that circumstance. It seems that Johnson fails to notice that even Hursthouse recommends seeking advice on occasion (Hursthouse 35). And so, either asking for advice does fit well with virtue ethics’ criterion of right action, or Hursthouse has made an obvious blunder. Johnson does, however, go on to elaborate that one really has no reason to value the advice of the virtuous. Johnson claims that seeking their advice is like asking a native speaker of a language what to say in a situation. The speaker simply knows what to say, but one should not think she will have any underlying reasons that will help in the future. Similarly, the virtuous agent may know what to do, but there is no reason to think she should be able to tell you why to do it and thus help you become more virtuous (Johnson 823). This seems to reflect the fact that Johnson downplays the reason of the virtuous agent, which leads to problems in his first examples. To begin, even by analogy his argument fails. The one who tries to become more virtuous and the virtuous agent himself are more like speakers of the same language. The difference between them is that the virtuous speaker does in fact have the knowledge of how to speak correctly. It is the lack of knowledge that often leads the non-virtuous into error. When the poor speaker asks the virtuous what to say, the virtuous should undoubtedly be able to give reasons like “this word is more appropriate for this context” and “you need your verb tenses to agree.” Similarly, the virtuous agent in the moral realm ought to be able to give reasons like “this context calls for such-and-such virtues” and “you are incorrectly applying that virtue since….” To say that the fully virtuous do not have advice worth valuing is to miss a large part of the concept of being fully virtuous, namely, practical wisdom. Since the time of Aristotle, the concepts of virtuousness and excellence have been closely allied. Being virtuous involves a sort of excellence in all things moral, and excellence in anything involves much more than luck or accident. For example, we may call an accidentally very talented ping pong player great, but she has not achieved ping pong excellence until she combines her great playing with an explicit knowledge of why she makes every subtle move. She need not think about it explicitly during a game, but reflection on this sort of detail toward perfection is ultimately what can make one excellent. Ignoring or forgetting this tie between virtue, excellence, and a sort of knowledge mastery seems to be part of the reason why Johnson believes the virtuous person would not give constructive advice. Moral Improvement: A Virtue Ethical Defense • Ryan Young

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Note that although this might seem like an appropriate response for a philosopher to make to Johnson’s considerations about the analogue between the virtuous agent and a native speaker, it is not obviously one that Hursthouse would be able to make since she maintains, “Virtue must surely be compatible with a fair amount of inarticulacy about one’s reasons for action” (Hursthouse 127). However, she does go on to develop an account of the types of reasons that a virtuous person might give even though they are not given in terms of virtue like our examples above. Thus she will still have the ability to claim that a virtuous person will have helpful reasons to give for his actions, even if they are not couched in terms of virtue. Burnyeat’s commentary on Aristotle provides helpful consideration. He notes that for Aristotle, the student must already have some shared conception of what sorts of acts are right acts, which are referred to as “the that.” Aristotle’s teachings then are intended to provide “the because,” which will complete and properly align “the that.” According to Burnyeat, this is practical wisdom, that “understanding of ‘the because’ which alone can accomplish the final correcting and perfecting of your perception of ‘the that’” (Burnyeat 74). If we apply this to the language example, it becomes obvious that not only does the virtuous person have “the that”—what is right to do—but also “the because,” which practical wisdom provides. In this way we have reason not only to believe the advice of the virtuous agent, but we should also think that he will be able to provide insight that will in turn help to develop our own practical wisdom. Though Johnson’s argument against Hursthouse’s account of right action is fairly thorough, she is not left without reply. It is possible to make sense of the notion of what a fully virtuous agent would do in the circumstances of the less than fully virtuous one by appealing to practical wisdom and the ability to consider relevant factors that it carries with it. Thus it can be maintained that acts aimed at moral improvement are themselves morally right actions and that the ideal of the fully virtuous can still play a vital role. Let us now turn to Johnson’s arguments directed at the work of Michael Slote. The systems developed by Slote and Hursthouse are very different despite the fact that both philosophers are considered virtue ethicists. Slote, considered a neo-Humean, attempts to develop what he calls an agent-based account wherein the evaluation of an action is entirely dependent on inner states of individuals or agents, whereas Hursthouse, a neo-Aristotelian, references ends or goals that are external to the agent to define virtue. So even if Johnson’s arguments do not count against Hursthouse, that does not mean that they will necessarily be similarly impotent for Slote. Slote considers three non-exclusive categories under which virtue ethics can be subsumed. The first is agent-focused. Any system that focuses on evaluations of agents—their inner states, motives, or dispositions—can be said to be agent-focused (Slote 4). The second is agent-prior. In addition to being agent-focused, agent-prior theories claim that the evaluations of actions can be understood only in terms of character evaluations. However, these theories allow that character evaluations may be based in something extrinsic to the agent (Slote 6). Hursthouse and Aristotle are good examples since they ground their theories of right action in virtue and ground their virtues in a conception of human good. The third is agent-based. If a system is agent-based, it is both agent-focused and agent-prior, but it does not allow the evaluations of character traits to fall outside the agent. This is the type of system Slote espouses. Slote defines his “agent-based” system as “one that treats the moral or ethical status of actions as entirely derivative from independent and fundamental ethical/aretaic facts (or claims) about the motives, David Hume was an eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher who held that all moral judgments of persons and their character come from sentiments or emotions that are inner states. 

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dispositions, or inner life of moral individuals” (Slote 6; italics original). Therefore we can affirm that Slote’s criterion of right action is something like, “An action is right or good if and only if it is brought about by good or admirable inner states.” Notice that with Hursthouse’s criterion, we could claim that the right action was done even if the relevant virtue was not behind it as long as it was the sort of action a virtuous person would have done. With Slote, though, this will not be possible. A right action is necessarily begotten from a good motive. The evaluation of the action depends entirely on the evaluation of the inner state. In some ways this makes Johnson’s problem seem even more cutting for Slote than it was for Hursthouse. Consider the case of the liar. In trying to stop lying, the moral novice is seeking to create the proper motivation (whatever it may be) toward telling the truth. However, he does not yet possess this motive, which is why he needs to do intermediate acts of the sort already mentioned in order to foster the motivation. But since the right-making motive is not yet present, how could these intermediate acts be motivated by it? Furthermore, by Slote’s criterion, those actions will not be right unless they have that proper motivation (Johnson 832). A similar sort of worry arises in Damien Cox’s “Agent-based Theories of Right Action” (2006). The heart of Cox’s argument is that Slote’s agent-basing makes it generally morally impermissible to deliberate in moral matters. Cox says, “If it is morally right for S to Φ, then there are possible deliberations that, were S to undertake them, would conclusively recommend to S that they Φ. These deliberations must be: (1) accurate (i.e., pick out those features of S’s Φ-ing that make it right), and (2) morally permissible” (Cox 507). This serves as a principle for Cox that any moral theory must satisfy in order to be seriously considered. According to Slote, the best sort of person is one who acts simply from the right motive. He does not sit and deliberate about what action would best show that he has a good motivation. So it seems that for Slote, it is morally wrong to deliberate about what would be morally right. Thus the view fails Cox’s principle and should not be seriously considered. This relates to the Johnson argument in a number of ways. First, the moral novice is unlikely to be motivated by benevolence (a good Slotean example) to try to become benevolent. He is more likely to arrive at the decision that he needs to try to foster benevolence as a result of some sort of deliberation. This deliberation seems to be an internal act that is aimed at moral improvement, yet it will be wrong on Slote’s theory if Cox is correct. Second, by this token, it is unlikely that the novice will be able to find any motivation to improve morally. Even if the person is motivated by benevolence, it is not yet fully right benevolence since it was brought about by deliberation. Thus in trying to act rightly, the agent is acting wrongly, which seems a rather discouraging thought for those interested in moral improvement. So how can Slote deal with these objections? One way is to point out that Cox may be casting too rigid of a structure onto Slote’s theory. Slote notes that his theory is not meant to be an action-guiding theory (though I believe he could make it one if he wished), but rather it is meant to evaluate actions. As such, Slote’s claim is not that deliberation makes an action wrong, but rather that deliberating about what is benevolent will be evaluated as less virtuous than simply being benevolent. This does not mean that deliberating about it will not have value. Consider an adaptation of an example that is often used against duty-based theories. Imagine that three different people’s mothers are in the hospital. The first sees his mother without a thought, motivated by care for her. The second has to deliberate about what would show care for his mother, and he decides to go. The third goes to see her because he knows it will upset his brother, who cannot make it. All three people perform the same action, but each will be evaluated differently. The first will be the best kind of Moral Improvement: A Virtue Ethical Defense • Ryan Young

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right action. The second will still be a right action, but it lacks a bit of the worth of the first. The third stands in contrast to both. It is a wrong action since it is motivated by malice. Therefore we have a spectrum of rightness in action rather than the black-and-white version of Slote’s theory painted by Cox. This allows us to say that when someone goes in for an action aimed at moral improvement, she can—indeed, must—have a tincture of the proper motivation to do so. Thus an action can still be evaluated as a right action, even if it would be better if the whole motivation were already there. Johnson is far less oblivious to this graded feature of Slote’s evaluation than is Cox. However, his dealing with it still misses the point. Johnson claims that a weaker version of Slote’s theory might have it that actions are right so long as they are not grounded in bad motives and that this implies that there would need to be a distinction between the morally excellent and the merely permissible (Johnson 831). This would mean that actions aimed at moral improvement are merely permissible since they do not contain the excellent making motive. As has already been stated, Johnson thinks this is “highly implausible.” As was seen in the discussion of Hursthouse, this claim is not nearly as implausible as Johnson believes, and Slote’s account adds even more on this point. Consider someone who is for the most part uncaring toward others but is trying to become more caring. Imagine that this person is doing so, not because she is motivated to become benevolent, but rather because she is lonely and the uncaring is hampering her ability to maintain and to enhance relationships. This person begins doing small things, not constitutive of caring, but intended to bring herself in this direction. In this instance the motivation to improve morally is really motivated by self-interest. This being the case, the actions aimed at improvement (maybe the whole project) do seem to be less than right; they seem merely permissible. If Slote’s theory has this implication, then it is a strength of it rather than a weakness. But we can, from a Slotean point of view, also account for actions aimed at moral improvement as right actions. Consider the same uncaring person. However, this time she experiences something (someone calling her out or a tragic loss of a loved one) that makes her realize that she needs to become more caring. Since caring does not come naturally, she begins by doing small things like writing down ways that she can show caring, etc. But notice in this case that the morally improving actions are motivated by some degree of caring, though it may not yet be the best kind of natural caring. Thus we have a criterion of rightness that will call these actions right, not merely acceptable, even though the evaluation is made on a graded scale. A likely objection to this response is that it simply invokes a caring motive solely for the sake of the argument. Yet if we consider the nature of the vicious person, it becomes clear that this really is the way in which moral improvement often proceeds, for the vicious person (i.e., the person who is always wrongly motivated) is not at all likely to see his own vice. He has a distorted perception of what motivations or dispositions are good. Consider Aristotle on the matter: “[I]f someone is corrupted because of pleasure or pain, no appropriate principle can appear to him, and it cannot appear to him that this is the right goal and cause of all his choice and action; for vice corrupts the principle” (Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, Chapter 5). Some sort of unsettling circumstance is required to awaken him to his vice. This is evident in the case of the mendacious person in that he must be called out on his natural lying by a friend before he sees the problem. Since distressing circumstances often bring about the desire for change, it is clear that what is awakened is in fact a sense of value for the sort of thing that is lacking. Therefore a tincture of the proper motive is instantly present in the moral awakening, and the account a Slotean could give makes sense.

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Moral Improvement: A Virtue Ethical Defense • Ryan Young

Far from being a problem, virtue ethics’ account of moral improvement is one of its many strengths. The account of right action as being what the virtuous person does immediately turns the focus to good people. When the moral novice asks for an account of a virtuous person, he will not get a hollow answer but rather will be pointed to qualities like courage, temperance, and generosity. Virtue ethicists have an answer even to the question of how to embody these qualities. Practice them. If you want to become generous, focus on doing generous acts.

Works Cited Burnyeat, M. F. “Aristotle on Learning to be Good.” In Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics. Ed. A.O. Rorty. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980. Cox, Damien. “Agent-based Theories of Right Action.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 9 (2006): 505-515. Hursthouse, Rosalind. On Virtue Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Irwin, Terrence, trans. Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1999. Johnson, Robert. “Virtue and Right.” Ethics 113 (2003): 810-834. Slote, Michael. Morals from Motives. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Tiberius, Valerie. “How to Think about Virtue and Right.” Philosophical Papers 35 (2006): 247-265.



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A Critique of Kant’s Postulates of Pure Practical Reason • Jessie Adams Jessie Adams, a junior at UW-Eau Claire, is a religious studies major and ancient studies minor. She wrote this paper for Dr. Edward Beach’s RELS 345 class “Philosophy of Religion” in the fall of 2008.

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mmanuel Kant (1724-1804) is well known in philosophy for having set limits to what the human mind can rightfully claim to know. His meticulous arguments in Critique of Pure Reason (1781) examine the tools of cognition and find that they consist of only two fundamental sources: (1) the inherent spatial and temporal awareness of embodied existence and (2) the structuring principles of the mind, which Kant called the “categories of the understanding.” These two cooperating modes of cognition, Kant argued, belong only to the realm of “phenomena,” that is, to what appears within the field of sense experience. Kant distinguished the knowable realm of phenomena from the unknowable realm of “noumena,” which comprises any thinkable entity beyond the realm of phenomena, or in other words, anything that could conceivably exist outside the limits of space and time or transcend ordinary rules of logic. In doing so, he at once dismissed many of the traditional “proofs” familiar in religious philosophy, including the existence of God, the reality of free will and moral responsibility, and the immortality of the soul. Many philosophers today regard this dismissal of all religious objects from the realm of what is knowable to have been Kant’s greatest contribution to the field of philosophy. Almost in the same moment as he made this famous dismissal, however, Kant performed another move that has not been nearly as popular among the skeptical, empirically-oriented philosophers of today. Namely, he introduced a new way of thinking about and arguing for or against theological topics that is essentially non-cognitivistic. This non-cognitivistic argument does not seek to prove its case through presenting an abundance of empirical evidence; rather it tries to establish the plausibility of its ideas as rational postulates. A postulate of this kind would be a religious hypothesis for which there can never in

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principle be sufficient evidence either for or against it, yet for which it allegedly makes sense logically that we should hold it for moral reasons. By means of this fascinating argument strategy, Kant reintroduced religious issues back into philosophy. But it is this move of bringing in admittedly unprovable ideas by means of moral postulation in a non-cognitivistic manner that I find unpersuasive. While positing very eloquent or clever arguments, Kant has a clear agenda that invariably traps him into making assumptions where he wants to draw logical conclusions. Two such examples of this non-cognitivistic argument strategy occur in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788),1 in the sections entitled “The Immortality of the Soul as a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason” and “The Existence of God as a Postulate of Pure Practical Reason.” What I shall attempt to show in the following pages is that the claims Kant makes toward postulating both the immortality of the soul and the existence of God draw on too many assumptions to yield reliable conclusions. In order to get a clear understanding of what Kant is arguing, we must begin by mentioning one of his most important claims. Kant proposes that there is a moral law called the “categorical imperative,” according to which all humans are compelled to strive to perfect themselves. Kant’s theory of the categorical imperative has been extremely influential in moral philosophy, but the details of it are not directly relevant to my argument in this paper.2 The one key feature that is relevant is that Kant claims to provide an absolute and unbreakable rule for distinguishing morally permissible from impermissible behavior. For the sake of argument, I will provisionally accept Kant’s theory of the categorical imperative, because it is not the subject of my present criticisms. Rather my critique is directed towards his so-called “moral postulates of pure practical reason.” We will begin with his postulate for the immortality of the soul, which starts in paragraph 36 of Book 2, Chapter 2. Kant argues that there is no evidence to suggest our souls are immortal, but we ought to think of them as such in order to live up to our fullest potential as moral agents. He proposes that the categorical imperative’s claim upon every rational agent’s conscience is so absolute that all must answer to it and strive to perfect themselves according to its dictates. However, to ascribe moral perfection to oneself, even if only momentarily, is a kind of irrational sin that can stunt further progress. He goes on to say that to act perfectly according to the moral law is holiness, of which no person in this world is capable. Kant asserts that one cannot achieve holiness in a sensuous existence, because to exist as a sensuous, finite being necessarily entails being imperfect. Even our best actions are always conditioned by selfish desires and temptations that we must work to overcome. As we become more developed, we do not need to fight as hard against our most selfish desires, yet new modes of selfishness continually emerge. Thus Kant declares that it would be foolish to imagine that any finite agent could ever achieve a perfect harmony between duty and desire. Therefore we must eternally work toward perfection both in the present world of phenomena and in a world beyond this, in a noumenal realm beyond the limits of the senses. Kant urges us to think of ourselves as infinitely striving toward this perfection, getting closer and closer, though we never reach it. Hence we must think of ourselves as immortal. Contemporary philosopher J. J. MacIntosh objects to this argument, claiming that it is incoherent to postulate living for an ongoing period of time in a noumenal afterlife, since by Kant’s own reasoning the idea of an afterlife pertains to the noumenal realm outside of space and time.3 The very idea of time, and everything we know about temporal events, belongs to the phenomenal world, which by definition we learn about through sense experience. So, how then can we speculate about a realm “outside” of space and time in which we would “go on forever”? What would it even mean to “go on” if we are not talking about going on in time? This makes no sense according to MacIntosh.

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Another contemporary philosopher, however, counters MacIntosh’s objection. Chin-tai Kim points out that the mere fact that we know nothing about a possible afterlife does not prove that it cannot resemble what we do know.4 Thus if we postulate a region beyond the natural order of space and time, there is no reason why we cannot think in terms of a kind of supernatural space and time which may in some ways be like the space and time with which we are currently familiar. In this case, Kim suggests, one might imagine spirits traveling through a succession of universes beyond this one, all remotely resembling each other though not in any way understandable to us in the here and now. Indeed another contemporary philosopher, Patrick Shade, has even gone so far as to assert that Kant’s postulate of immortality requires this way of conceiving the afterlife, since the ideal harmonization of an agent’s motives with the call of duty involves a correlative ideal of striving for a kind of utopia in the afterlife where all moral beings would experience their just rewards.5 But such an ideal afterlife, Shade argues, is only thinkable if one supposes it to take place in a sort of quasi-space and quasi-time—hence, in a supernatural realm that remotely resembles this natural world. In this case, contrary to MacIntosh’s objection, no contradiction exists in the idea of “going on forever” in a world beyond this one. Even in the interpretations of Kant by Kim and Shade, however, the problem remains that the highly speculative view they present of the afterlife does not seem to be what Kant would want to maintain. As Edward Beach points out, Kant has made clear in other writings that he wants to think of the soul primarily as disembodied.6 He reaffirms that of course there is no empirical evidence to establish the condition of the soul one way or the other after death, but from a moral standpoint it is best to think of the afterlife as being in a disembodied state. Kant recommends the idea of “a purely spiritual life, wherein the soul will have no body whatsoever.”7 Kant understands the body as something which gets in the way of our spiritual progress toward holiness; this is one of the reasons he believes that no person can achieve holiness in this world and that once we are rid of our bodies, that is when we can really advance toward holiness. However, I believe the ideas of Antony Flew work well against such an idea. In his paper “Could We Survive our Own Deaths?” (1998), Flew discusses the idea of the disembodied soul.8 He argues that the body is what allows us to have experiences—to sense things. To have a disembodied soul would be to have all senses stripped away. There cannot be a phenomenal existence with a disembodied soul. Unfortunately for Kant, the suggestions of Kim and Shade do not help, because as we saw above, Kant clearly wants to use the idea of a disembodied soul. So I argue again that when Kant claims that souls in the afterlife would live in a continual existence, eternally working toward holiness and away from sensuous imperfections, this makes entirely no sense when he wants also to assert that these souls will be disembodied, noumenal beings. I move now to Kant’s next postulate in his Critique of Practical Reason, that of the existence of God. In his description of this postulate the following point is essential: there seems to be an absence in the perceived universe of any harmony between merit and happiness. In other words, those who do good things should in turn experience good things happening to them, and those who do bad things should experience bad things happening to them; this is not the case, however, as the universe is currently in disharmony, with good things happening to bad people and vice versa. According to Kant it is incumbent on every rational agent to strive toward the summum bonum—the highest good. One can strive toward this summum bonum either with optimism, believing that one day harmony will be in place, or with pessimism. In the latter case, Kant observes, one could still strive somewhat, but not really believing such harmony can be achieved, one would not be in a position to try very hard. Only a being much greater than we, namely a Supreme Being, could possibly bring into fruition the harmony of the universe. So A Critique of Kant’s Postulates of Pure Practical Reason • Jessie Adams

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those who do not believe in such a being could not actually strive as wholeheartedly, believing it all for naught. Therefore the only way we can strive completely is if we postulate that there is a God, who in fact can bring us to our goal. This argument is intriguing but ultimately unpersuasive. To begin with, it is inconsistent with his argument for postulating the immortality of the soul, which we examined above. Recall that in this argument Kant claims that a person can work toward holiness eternally without believing that she can ever achieve it or that God will ever give it to her, yet she can be content to strive wholeheartedly toward it nevertheless. If this is reasonable to postulate, why should it not be reasonable to postulate the same content and sincere striving for humanity in approaching universal harmony? I argue that the latter is just as reasonable as the former, and we therefore do not need to believe perfect harmony will come by the grace of God. It appears that in order for his argument to hold, Kant relies solely on the idea that God is the only one who can bring about this harmony. However, there is no reason to believe that humanity cannot, at some point in its history, correct this discord. Indeed there is no necessary reason to include God in the equation at all, for why should a person need God to believe she can make a significant difference in the world for the better or even that all of humanity could reach this goal? Let us consider where this kind of thinking can very easily lead: if a person were to hold the belief that only God can achieve the task, she may endeavor toward harmony, but will she really unconditionally strive toward it, knowing that what really matters is in God’s hands? No. It is equally possible that she will not, because it does not ultimately matter what she does—God has it under control. Accordingly, I believe it is unreasonable to maintain that the requirement of a total commitment to moral perfection must lead to a belief in God. Consider the thinking of an atheist. She would feel that since there is no God, humans are the only ones who can change the world. Consider also her idea that there is no life after death; this is our one life and we have nothing other than to make the most of it. Looking at these two beliefs, why should the atheist not strive wholeheartedly toward bettering the universe? She does not even have to believe she alone can accomplish the task, but her driven work, coupled with the work of another and yet another until all of humanity is working toward this goal, can make a significant difference. And perhaps all of humanity cannot reach this goal, but even then, why postulate a God? As long as humanity as a whole can continue improving in quality and harmony, it may not need a God. One can clearly see the outcome, as I have briefly pointed out above, that single-minded motivation can bring. When personal gain for its own sake is a person’s sole focus, it is easy to believe that such lofty goals are unreachable and that only God could cause one to be holy or to achieve harmony. In that situation it continues to be easy to let all consequence and action fall into God’s hands and to be released of personal responsibility. Yet when personal striving is oriented toward bettering humanity, as a means toward bettering the world, the goal is much more achievable. As moral agents we do not need God to carry us when we can rely on the combined efforts of humankind. Only through focusing on the good of the whole, not just the good of the individual, can this harmonious end be a possibility. Yes, we can believe in a God, but for other purposes, not as a crutch. When there are real, observable problems in the world, the only solution we can rely upon to truly have an effect is that which we create and carry out in this world, as beings who are both willing and capable of acting, as though there is no one else who could. In conclusion, Kant’s postulates are a very interesting and refreshing way to approach philosophical questions. Unfortunately, though, when presenting these postulates Kant appears to be too hurried in his argument and too intent on making his assertion, with the result that he does not realize that his

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conclusions rest on single, weak points which do not necessarily follow logically. The non-cognitivistic argument strategy, while at first seeming to be a clever way to go about the moral question, turns out to be a poor answer to this philosophical debate. This is apparent, at least, in the hands of Kant, who does not handle well this postulational way of arguing. When looking further into Kant’s postulates, one becomes aware that his arguments support the opposing viewpoint—that of the atheist—instead of what he believes to be his own logical conclusion. We also see incoherence within Kant’s thought, as he postulates that the afterlife features disembodied souls living in a world which requires embodied sensuous awareness. Kant’s aim is to help justify or guide us as moral agents, but can we really be driven by a postulate that is inconsistent? No, we must seek such answers in the observable, knowable world and leave God and the afterlife to the realm of noumenal wonder.

Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004). Available online at Accessed December 2008. 2 See Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, Book I, Chapter 1, Section 1. 3 J. J. MacIntosh, ‘‘The Impossibility of Kantian Immortality,’’ Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review 19 (March 1980): 219–234. 4 Chin-tai Kim, ‘‘A Critique of Kant’s Defense of Theistic Faith,’’ Philosophy Research Archives 14 (1988–1989): 359–369. 5 Patrick Shade, ‘‘Does Kant’s Ethics Imply Reincarnation?’’ Southern Journal of Philosophy 33 (Fall 1995): 347–360. 6 Edward A. Beach, “The Postulate of Immortality in Kant: To What Extent is it Culturally Conditioned?” Philosophy East & West 58 (2008): 492-523. 7 Vorlesungen über Metaphysik und Rationaltheologie (Lectures on Metaphysics and Rational Theology), based on lecture notes transcribed by Kant’s students between 1788 and 1790, edited by Karl Heinrich Ludwig Pölitz, published in Kants gesammelte Schriften (Berlin: Königliche Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Walter de Gruyter Verlag, 1902–1938), vol. 28, pt. 1 (Vierte Abteilung: Vorlesungen, vol. 5, pt. 1), 296. The translation of this passage is by Beach, “The Postulate of Immortality in Kant,” 502. 8 Antony Flew, “Could We Survive our Own Deaths?” Internet Infidels. 11 Nov 2008. Accessed December 2008. 1

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Islam: Beyond Ignorance • Paula Meyer

Paula Meyer graduated in the spring of 2009 with a religious studies major and global studies minor. She wrote this paper for Dr. Steve Fink’s RELS 309 class “Islam” in the fall of 2008.

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cross the nation, damaging descriptions and perceptions of Islam are perpetuated through the media, gossip, so-called experts, and other means. Movies over the decades, including such “harmless” classics as Aladdin, have depicted Arabs as the bad guys, indirectly leading Americans to view Muslims in a negative light. Our view of September 11th was drastically skewed by the media and our nation’s emphasis on anti-terrorism movements. This became apparent to me after attending a presentation on Islam by a Muslim man from Eau Claire. He discussed how fear and hatred of Muslims had spread like an airborne virus after the attacks. He pleaded for recognition of Islam’s message of peace and for an end to the misconceptions a small minority of Muslims were inflicting upon his religion. The anti-Muslim attitudes of our media and citizens glared at me from every corner once I walked away from this presentation. As a result, I started educating myself about Islam, and now I find myself engulfed in defending a religion that I do not even practice. If I do not personally practice the religion of Islam, then why should anything I write be of value to others? I think Maulana Shafayat Mohamed, the leader of Darul Uloom, one of Florida’s largest mosques, explains it best by declaring, “Many people understand little about Islam, and it’s our job to educate ourselves, so we can educate them” (“Maulana Shafayat Mohamed & Dar Ul Uloom”). Although this statement was issued to Muslims, I felt called to educate myself in an effort to dispel misunderstandings that are promoted in America today. Not only are they promoted, but they are deeply held beliefs of people I know. Through my research and analysis, it became clear to me that Islam as practiced by the majority of

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Muslims today is not a religion of violence, contrary to what the popular media presents. It is my conclusion that Muslim radicals who commit acts of violence in the name of Islam interpret Qur’anic verses in a self-serving manner that fails to acknowledge a strong message of peace that permeates the Qur’an. It is clear that if we do not start educating ourselves about Islam, an unwarranted base of misunderstanding could mar its name, and its followers, forever. It is essential to understand how this base has been built, and so I will outline ways in which a minority group of Muslims present violence as an obligation through their interpretations of the concept of jihad and of several Qur’anic verses. Then in an effort to amplify the voices of moderate Muslims worldwide, I will counter with various pieces of evidence that demonstrate an emphasis on peace within Islam.

The Meaning of Jihad Before fully delving into the idea of violence in Islam, a deeper understanding of the concept of jihad is necessary. As contemporary Islamic studies scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl has written, “It is fairly well-known that non-Muslims suffer from much ignorance and prejudice about the Islamic doctrine of jihad, its meaning, and its effect” (Abou El Fadl 464). I witnessed a perfect example of this at a presentation by Robert Spencer, founder of Jihad Watch, at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in November 2008. The student serving as treasurer of the Conservative Union introduced Spencer and prefaced his speech as a discussion about “jihad and Islamic terrorism.” Coupling jihad with reference to terrorism shrouded the entire evening with a tense and misunderstood atmosphere from the very beginning since nearly everyone in the room was not Muslim. Most non-Muslims do not realize that, as stated by another contemporary Islamic studies scholar, Frederick Denny, the “vast majority of Muslims do not consider jihad to be in any way related to terrorism, regardless of how extremists seek to justify such measures as mass killings as an authentic expression of jihad” (Denny 367). The etymological meaning of the word jihad is “to struggle” or “to strive.” This may appear to be relatively straightforward, but one must consider questions like “Struggle against what?” and “Struggle in what way?” Many scholars insist that jihad has a very internal connotation, referring to a personal struggle to apply oneself and persevere. Representing an extremely common Muslim view, Abou El Fadl states that the Qur’an intended jihad to peacefully designate an “act of striving to serve the purposes of God on this earth” (Abou El Fadl 463). Moreover, he notes that the Qur’an “does not use the word jihad to refer to warfare or fighting; such acts are referred to as qital” (Abou El Fadl 463). On the other hand, some Muslims declare that jihad refers to a violent “holy war.” In his article “The Forgotten Duty,” Muhammad Abdel Salam Al-Farag (1954-1982) argues that Muslims have forgotten their obligation to wage aggressive jihad. Al-Farag pointedly expresses “the religious duty of jihad” (Al-Farag 421) and the obligation to carry it out through fighting. His violent interpretation of jihad is clear in the use of phrases like “raise their swords” (Al-Farag 418), “fighting … means confrontation and blood” (Al-Farag 421), and “making fighting obligatory” (Al-Farag 419). Al-Farag justifies his claims with the following Qur’anic verses: Qur’an 9.5 (also known as the Verse of the Sword): Then when the sacred months have slipped away, slay the polytheists wherever ye find them, seize them, beset them, lie in ambush for them everywhere.

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Qur’an 2.216: Fighting is prescribed for you. Qur’an 47.4: So when you meet those who have disbelieved, let there be slaughter.

Furthermore, he uses these verses in conjunction with Hadith reports (sayings that Muslims believe were uttered by the prophet Muhammad), declaring that Muhammad himself said that Islam should be spread either by “attacking or by defending” (Al-Farag 418). Another Muslim author, Abdullah Al-Azzam (1941-1989), echoes these calls for violence in his writing “Join the Caravan.” He implies that jihad requires Muslims to go forth, travel, and fight. Leaving a family behind is allowed as long as a man’s wife and children are provided for during his absence. AlAzzam also indicates that one should be ready to be interrogated by police or an intelligence agency. Like Al-Farag, Al-Azzam refers to jihad as a religious obligation (Al-Azzam 426), one that requires a Muslim to be gone for a length of time with others, recognizing that being subject to torture is a possibility. In my opinion, this sounds an awful lot like the draft, dragging someone off to war.

The Importance of Interpretation While this evidence for a violent interpretation of jihad may appear quite compelling, it is imperative to keep in mind that the two Muslims cited above often support their positions by quoting only portions of Qur’anic verses and by taking Qur’anic verses out of context. For example, the Verse of the Sword (Qur’an 9.5) can appear drastically different when read with the following verses that directly precede it: And an announcement from Allah and His Messenger, to the people assembled on the day of the Great Pilgrimage, that Allah and His Messenger dissolve treaty obligations with the pagans. If then, ye repent, it were best for you; but if ye turn away, know that ye cannot frustrate Allah. And proclaim a grievous penalty to those who reject faith. But the treaties are not dissolved with those pagans with whom ye have entered into alliance and who have not subsequently failed you in aught, nor ailed any one against you. So fulfill your engagements with them until the end of the term: for Allah loveth the righteous. But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war; but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: for Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.

While these verses imply violence, there are explicit limits. The Qur’an permits the use of fighting in certain instances, but it is always careful to clarify boundaries, as illustrated in Qur’an 2.190: And fight in the way of Allah with those who fight with you, and do not exceed the limits, surely Allah does not love those who exceed the limits.

Frequently these limits are defined by the right to self-defense. For example, Qur’an 49.9 states: Islam: Beyond Ignorance • Paula Meyer

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If two parties among believers fall into a quarrel, make ye peace between them, but if one of them transgresses beyond bounds against the other then fight ye all against the one that transgresses until it complies with the command of Allah; but if it complies then make peace between them with justice and be fair: for Allah loves those who are fair and just.

Interpretation that denies the context of Qur’anic verses leads to an inaccurate understanding of jihad as violent “holy war.” It is obvious that Qur’anic interpretation plays a tremendously important role in how a Muslim views the ideas of jihad and violence. Contemporary Islamic studies scholar Amina Wadud addresses the importance of interpretation in Inside the Gender Jihad, in which she asserts that the Qur’an is “a window to look through” that “needs interpretation” (Wadud 197). Elsewhere she claims that “the revelation of God is unfortunately also constrained by the minds of the men and women for whom it was revealed” (Wadud 198). She furthers this idea by explaining, “If we are narrow, we will get a narrow response or answer” (Wadud 197) from the Qur’an. Likewise, if we advocate violence, we will get a violent response or answer from the Qur’an. Wadud’s theory of interpretation provokes an interesting response when applied to the following Qur’anic verse that exemplifies many verses used to substantiate violence: “Surely Allah loves those who fight in His way” (Qur’an 61.4). The word “fight” or “fought” is used in this manner many times in the Qur’an. We should consider, though, that while “fight” can often be defined in terms of physical violence, it possesses other meanings. For example, how would the interpretation change if one used “fight” in the sense of “to contend in any manner” or “to strive vigorously for or against something”? What happens to Muslims’ view of “fighting” for Allah if they understand this concept simply in terms of “struggling” or “striving vigorously” for Allah? The result would be striving to live a life imitative of Allah’s desired way rather than fighting violently against non-Muslims. I assert that the majority of the Qur’anic verses believed by radical Muslims to support violence actually support striving to better know Allah and follow his ways.

Islam as a Religion of Peace Muslim extremists who insist that the authentic meaning of jihad is to fight violently for Allah’s cause must ignore verses such as Qur’an 2.256, which states that there should be “no compulsion in religion.” Many Muslims want non-Muslims to convert to Islam, but the great majority use only peaceful ways to represent their faith. Frederick Denny writes, “The vast majority of Muslims do not consider jihad to be in any way related to terrorism.” Rather, he continues, “Jihad as exertion is definitely aimed at the spread of Islam, but by peaceful means like preaching, travel, establishing institutions, and setting a good example” (Denny 126). Many Qur’anic verses contain the notion of “going on jihad,” but this could have several implications besides physically leaving to fight, such as Denny’s suggestions of going out to preach, travelling to other lands to spread Allah’s word, or pursuing other actions to peacefully bring Islam to nonbelievers. There is no direct verbal indication that jihad must be a violent endeavor to spread Islam. Those who spread Islam through violent means, utilizing jihad as a cover, are likely to be exploiting the religion in pursuit of political power.

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In addition to the aforementioned Qur’an 2.256, numerous other Qur’anic verses are commonly cited by Muslims to support their commitment to peace. Two examples are the following: Qur’an 8.61: But if the enemy incline toward peace, do thou incline toward peace, and trust in Allah. For He is One that heareth and knoweth all things. Qur’an 3.104: Let there arise out of you a band of people inviting to all that is good, enjoining what is right, and forbidding what is wrong: They are the ones to attain felicity.

While many other such verses exist in the Qur’an, I believe the following words from Egyptian Islamic legal scholar ‘Atiyyah Saqr summarizes the matter best: First, we would like to start with stating that Islam does not call for violence, rather it abhors all forms of violence and terrorism, whether against Muslims or non-Muslims. Islam, moreover, calls for peace, cooperation, and maintaining justice… This fact is declared in the Qur’an when Allah says: ‘Allah commands justice, the doing of good, and liberality to kith and kin, and he forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and rebellion.’ (Saqr 465)

Abou El Fadl agrees that “Islam does not bear a message of violence” (Abou El Fadl 460). Some non-Muslims may criticize this claim, however, pointing out the fact that some Qur’anic verses discuss violence, as noted earlier in this paper. In response, it is important to consider the historical context in which the first Muslims lived. During a period of history characterized by various competing empires, the need to defend oneself and retain gained territory was essential. Thus Qur’anic verses that discuss resisting those who threaten oneself or one’s civilization would be very much justified. Building new settlements would require such defense to obtain and keep land and to protect a growing community. Taking this historical context into consideration, the Qur’an does not compel Muslims today to commit acts of violence. It is imperative to understand that only a small minority of Muslims follow an understanding of Islam characterized by violence. There are roughly 1.3 billion Muslims in the world today, comprising 19.2% of the world’s population. Of this number, “about 9 in 10 Muslims are moderates,” meaning they follow a peaceful Islamic path (Esposito and Mogahed 97), according to extensive polling by Gallup’s World Poll reported in the 2007 book Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. (According to this book’s preface, between 2001 and 2007, this poll “conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 nations that are predominantly Muslim or have substantial Muslim populations. The sample represents residents young and old, educated and illiterate, female and male, and from urban and rural settings.”) I realize this may present people with a scary number of nearly 13 million radical Muslims. My goal is not to minimize the threat of violence in the world, which comes from Islamic extremists in addition to numerous other sources. My goal instead is to impress upon my reader that the religion of Islam as practiced by the large majority of the world’s Muslims is founded on peace. The name of Islam should not be slandered due to a minority of Muslims while the far more prevalent moderate Muslims suffer discrimination and prejudice.

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Moving Forward Across the United States, conjoined efforts to embark on a “War on Terror” resulted in a war on Islam. The media preyed on the ignorance of the public and brought the focus to violent Muslims. Only when we stop and realize that our “War on Terror” has really become a war of ideologies will we be able to move forward. Competing against an ideology one knows nothing about is futile! Many uninformed Americans believe what the media tells them and presume that all Muslims are terrorists. This belief appears to be a gross extrapolation of an exceedingly vocal minority of Muslims who advocate the use of violence, insisting that it is a religious obligation for Muslim believers. Robert Spencer, whose presentation on terrorism awareness I referred to earlier, is highly admired by many Americans. However, the awareness he promotes seems to be heavily one-sided and ambiguous with a potentially poisonous agenda. While Spencer stated at his University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire presentation that not all Muslims are terrorists, he never explicitly stated that a minority of Muslims are violent. He attributed a violent interpretation to a non-quantitative group and let imaginations run wild, allowing his audience to assume that there were Muslims everywhere with violent intentions. He instilled fear into his listeners and selectively quoted a few violent Muslims as if their ideas stood for Muslims as a whole. One group he especially blamed for violent ideas was the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization founded in Egypt in 1928. Spencer described the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within.” In my research I have found no support for this claim in Muslim Brotherhood statements or their official website. In fact, I read several statements that indicated otherwise. In one article, the First Deputy Chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Habib, is reported to have claimed that he “dreams of the day when sincere efforts of people and NGOs from both sides, the USA and the Arab world, can get together and cooperate for the sake of everybody’s stability and justice” (“Habib: Muslim Brotherhood is Not Anti-American”). In another article, Muslim Brotherhood Executive Bureau member Mohamed Morsy claims that “the agenda Muslim Brotherhood adopts is a peaceful and reformist one, based on respecting democracy as a cornerstone and honoring mechanisms of civil society” (“Dr. Morsy: MB Has a Peaceful Agenda”). By presenting this well-known Muslim organization in an erroneous, unmerited manner, Spencer’s presentation fuels the flames and adds to the hype regarding misconceptions of Islam. Presentations such as Spencer’s deny the reality that a significant majority of Muslims believe their religion does not condone violence, except in self-defense. Representing this Muslim majority, Maulana Shafayat Mohamed, the leader of Darul Uloom mosque in Florida, said, “It is sad that minorities among us allow emotion to overpower their understanding, and to say or do things they should not.” He added, “But when the ship sinks, we all sink, the educated and the ignorant people” (“Maulana Shafayat Mohamed & Dar Ul Uloom”). It should be the responsibility of each and every American to keep that ship from sinking, since we are all part of one global community. We must educate ourselves about customs and beliefs with which we are unfamiliar, especially the true meaning of jihad and the peaceful emphasis within the Islamic faith. If we are not educated, then we are ignorant. Either way, we are all on that same ship. The first chapter of Who Speaks For Islam? begins as follows: “With few exceptions, when the Western media talks about Islam and Muslim culture, discussion tends to center on religious extremism and global terrorism” (Esposito and Mogahed 1). It will be a struggle to alter this trend, but it is imperative to dispel misunderstandings perpetuated in America today by Muslim radicals, the media, and narrow-minded people. I challenge all individuals to strive in pursuit of their own personal jihad against ignorance regarding Islam.

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Works Cited Abou El Fadl, Khaled. “Islam and Violence: Our Forgotten Legacy.” In Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives. 2nd edition. Eds. John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 460-464. Al-Azzam, Abdullah. “Join the Caravan.” In Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives. 2nd edition. Eds. John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 425-429. Al-Farag, Muhammad Abdel Salam. “The Forgotten Duty.” In Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives. 2nd edition. Eds. John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 417-424. Davis, James D. “Maulana Shafayat Mohamed & Dar Ul Uloom.” Accessed December 2008. Denny, Frederick M. An Introduction to Islam. 3rd edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. “Dr. Morsy: MB Has a Peaceful Agenda.” 23 July 2007. Accessed December 2008. Esposito, John and Dalia Mogahed. Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. New York: Gallup Press, 2007. “Habib: Muslim Brotherhood is Not Anti-American.” 14 January 2008. Accessed December 2008. Saqr, ‘Atiyyah. “Jihad.” In Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives. 2nd edition. Eds. John J. Donohue and John L. Esposito. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 465-7. Wadud, Amina. Inside the Gender Jihad: Women’s Reform in Islam. Oxford: Oneworld, 2006.

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Morality Independent of Determinism • Andrew Bartlein Andrew Bartlein is a sophomore at UW-Eau Claire, majoring in physics. He wrote this paper for Dr. Edward Beach’s PHIL 316 class “Metaphysics” in the spring of 2009.

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he question of free will has especially plagued philosophy since the introduction of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. If each event necessarily results from a specific cause, and that cause is the result of a previous cause, etc., then how could we influence the outcome of anything if the events that inevitably caused it have already been set in motion? The short answer is that, in a deterministic universe, we cannot. So does this mean we cannot have free will? And if not, can we be morally responsible? This essay will address these questions by arguing that whether or not our universe is deterministic, the concepts of free will and moral responsibility are logically implausible. The objection to free will is fairly clear in determinism. If we cannot influence the outcome of anything, even our own actions, then are our choices mere illusions? Furthermore, if we cannot make any real choices, can we be held responsible for our actions? Harry Frankfurt attempts to reconcile moral responsibility with determinism, but his argument is fundamentally flawed. Frankfurt uses several specific scenarios to try to show that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism. He denotes his most pertinent scenario as Jones4, in which an action will be taken by Jones either by his own choice or by coercion by another man, Black. The point is that action X will be taken by Jones if he does it of his own volition, but should Jones decide not to perform X, Black would step in and essentially force him to perform X (Frankfurt, 835). In this way, Frankfurt points out that even though there is no alternative to X, it is still possible to attribute moral responsibility. The Principle of Sufficient Reason states that for an event to occur there must be a definite reason why it should occur. 

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The flaw in Frankfurt’s argument is that although he tries to use an example that functions in a deterministic world, he is really denying determinism on all levels except that of the final outcome. In other words, in a truly deterministic world, Jones’s intentions, not just his actions, would also be predetermined. So Jones would have been either coerced into performing X by Black or coerced by the inescapable path to which determinism has steered his intentions. By Frankfurt’s definition, in a truly deterministic world, Jones cannot be held morally responsible for X in any situation. Nevertheless, the argument could be made that our choices (meaning our decisions, not the ultimate actions we perform) are still our responsibility, even if we cannot make alternate choices. For example, if you were to give someone a million identical situations, and if he made the same choice each time, would the fact that he did not make any other choice absolve him from the responsibility of it? Before attempting to answer this question, let us consider a different situation. Assume that on some level the universe is indeterministic. Perhaps because of quantum theory, or perhaps the Principle of Sufficient Reason is mistaken, but whatever the reason, nothing is “set in stone.” This seems to leave room for our actions and decisions to have altering effects on the future. Not only are outcomes “free” to be changed, but our responses to situations are free as well. In other words, it appears that in an indeterministic world, a person given one million identical situations might make different choices in each. However, an indeterministic world poses its own arguments against free will. Let us say that rather than the universe being completely deterministic, with each event laid out indefinitely long before its occurrence, the universe is completely random. Peter Van Inwagen considers this universe and its implications on free will in his essay “The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom,” in which he points out that we would have no control over events if their occurrence were completely random (Van Inwagen, 370). Thus we see essentially the same conflict between free will and determinism and between free will and indeterminism. Whether the events have been planned out since the beginning of time, or whether they occur out of pure randomness, our choices and actions can have no measurable effect on them. Furthermore, our decisions and actions too must conform to either determinism or randomness, thus negating what Inwagen deems “metaphysical freedom.” It is evident that free will cannot exist in either pure determinism or pure indeterminism, and so if it has any hope to exist it must be in a world which is a compromise of some kind between the two. Quantum theory provides a plausible reality that fits this compromise. It suggests that at the sub-atomic level, events occur in a nearly random fashion, and occurrences can be measured only in terms of their probability. At a quantum level, this gives events a purely random appearance, but in more complex objects, all those “random” events converge to definite compound events. This is similar to flipping a coin, where a few flips may result in vastly different results than the expected fifty-fifty outcome due to the randomness of each flip. However, by flipping the coin enough times, the ratio of heads to tails will approach fifty-fifty as the number of flips approaches infinity. Let us consider an event such as a human action to be analogous to a large number of coin flips. The probability of each pseudo-random quantum event contributes to the action occurring at what seems to be a definite probability. This scenario appears to present a likely compromise between determinism and randomness. It allows complex events, such as a collision of asteroids or a spring oscillating, to be accurately described by the deterministic laws of physics while still allowing randomness to exist. If free will is contradicted in both a deterministic world and a random world, then surely its only hope is this quantum world. However, free will does not logically follow even in this universe. In a macro sense, events that take place on the level with which we associate ourselves transpire in a deterministic manner. In a micro sense,

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though, events occurring on the quantum level are entirely out of our control. So for us to truly have free will, we must be able to manipulate outcomes on some level intermediate between the two. I do not presume to know what that level is or how we might accomplish this, but let us assume for the purpose of this argument that our brains are able to manipulate the probability of events to conform to our will. Perhaps in this way we are able to be “prime movers,” as Chisholm would call us. Yet does this status necessarily mean that we have free will, or more specifically, moral responsibility? It is clear that we do not consciously manipulate quantum particles; our consciousness extends only to those events ruled by the apparent determinism of the macro-scale that assimilates and absorbs the randomness of quantum probability. The actual manipulations of the quantum events are not done knowingly. Even if we can be considered prime movers by virtue of our brains’ manipulation of the probability of events, it may be beyond our conscious control. By all conventional definitions this would absolve us of any moral responsibility for these events, as their prime mover is our subconscious. It is clear that even within this intermediate universe, free will and moral responsibility are not guaranteed. An important question remains, however, regarding what point our conscious decisions actually influence our minds. Do we make decisions which then cause our brains to perform operations? Or do our brains perform these minute operations which then correspond to an illusion of free will and our subsequent decisions? This question could be likened to a computer. If we give a command to a computer, even if we are not aware of each flipping bit and minute electrical impulse, we can still be held responsible for the computer’s execution of its given command. On the other hand, if the computer were to perform some operation that gave us the illusion of a decision, we would be obeying a command that was the result of those tiny flipping bits over which we have no control. In the latter example we would not be held responsible for the command, while we would in the former. Without some metaphysical influence, it makes little sense to assume that we are able to consciously control our brains. We have no conscious control over whether or not we are tired, hungry, or in pain, and there is nothing to suggest that our other mental faculties, such as decision making, should be any different. Without the aid of some other force beyond what we can observe, there is simply no reason to think that our conscious decisions control the functions of our brains, instead of the other way around. This argument is also applicable to the question posed earlier concerning whether or not a person is responsible for his decision if he could not make any other decision. If one were to be considered morally responsible for a decision made in a deterministic world, one would have had to give some sort of consent for the decision outside of the bounds of determinism. I assert that this is possible only through supernatural efforts, a view held by numerous philosophers including Gottfried Leibniz, whose theory on pre-established harmony utilizes an omniscient God to reconcile free will, and therefore moral responsibility, with determinism. Excluding God, or other supernatural forces, I do not think it is possible to have free will, no matter on what level of determinism or indeterminism our world operates. The fact is that the influence our brain has on our decisions is rooted in forces that operate on a level beyond our physical control. How can we be held responsible for the minute electrical impulses that rule us? Roderick Chisholm was a contemporary philosopher who discussed determinism and indeterminism in terms of event causality and agent causality. He proposed that an indeterministic universe must contain “prime movers,” or agents who set events in motion.  In his theory on pre-established harmony, Leibniz proposes that the state we are in is the cause of our decisions from our previous state and has no effect on, nor is affected by, anything outside of ourselves. He attributes the appearance of causality to God weaving together each entity’s timeline of states into a seamless existence. 

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Indeed we have no definitive knowledge of how we control our decision-making process. If we are simply slaves to our brains’ automaton-like processes, it would necessarily appear to us as though we are following our own free will. And if we do in fact have free will, our decisions would appear to us exactly as they would without free will. Thus through observation and contemplation there is no way to determine which is reality. However, while we consider all of the known universe to function on laws that, while not necessarily deterministic, are surely free of conscious manipulation, it seems rather naïve to think that the small volume of the universe which we inhabit should function under different laws. If we cannot will a stone to move, why should we think we can will ourselves to move? As bleak as this conclusion might seem, I cannot in good conscience convince myself otherwise.

Works Cited Frankfurt, Harry G. “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.” Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969): 829-39. Van Inwagen, Peter. “The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom.” In Metaphysics: The Big Questions. Ed. Peter Van Inwagen and Dean W. Zimmerman. Ser. 3. Malden, MA: Blackwell Ltd, 1998. 365-74.

Much thanks goes to Dr. Beach for all his help and criticisms.

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Dr. James Brummer and “The Prism Project ”: A Retrospective • Dick Behling ***********************

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his edition of PRISM is its 12th, and a few words of thanks and some reminiscences are now long overdue. One might have thought that the idea of publishing an undergraduate departmental journal would have arisen at a departmental meeting or during casual conversation amongst departmental faculty and staff. A likely scenario, but that isn’t how it happened. PRISM was conceived—by but one parent, without sin, and with much love—in the fall semester of 1997. Dr. James Brummer, then the Departmental Chair, had by then become convinced that our students would profit greatly from engaging in the scholarly activity of publishing, of doing, of academic praxis. Dr. Brummer recalls: In the 1990’s…[our graduates] reported back on how they were doing in graduate school; they indicated that their undergraduate education had been very valuable, but several of them expressed concern about not being well prepared for writing at the graduate level. … My thought was to add to this writing experience and to help prepare students for…graduate school and thereafter. … Since there are very few undergraduate departments in our disciplines that have student journals, I thought that [establishing such a publication] would be a valuable way to help enhance the professional character of their writing.

Dr. Brummer goes on to note that students’ ancillary skills would also be enhanced: editing and re-editing of manuscripts, conducting research, and working closely with a faculty or staff mentor. Then, too, the student, as a published author, would have a proven record of accomplishment and a sample of his or her academic efforts, abilities, and interests. It would be something that would improve his or her chances of being admitted into a preferred graduate program or desired profession. And the PRISM initiative had, perhaps, an unforeseen and valuable curricular spin-off. As more and more student essays were published over the years, departmental faculty came to understand better

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the considerable writing talents of their students. And regularly scheduled writing classes came to be offered so that student essayists might hone their skills, not merely in writing effectiveness, but in carefully thinking through the religious or philosophical issues they addressed. Over the years, PRISM has served to distinguish our department as one of that few that has an undergraduate journal. And the typical of the combination of talented and enthusiastic student, working under the direction of an encouraging faculty mentor, multiplied tenfold in PRISM essays published, are given wide circulation, both on- and off-campus. And our prized undergraduate journal has reflected most favorably upon us. Well, yes, okay. There’s that rather “cold,” impersonal, historical side of the PRISM story. And of Professor Brummer’s dream. But that history, here detailed in part, doesn’t quite capture the true meaning and significance that the “PRISM project” has had. At least, not for Yours Truly. So, if a logician might be permitted his untutored use of the word “existential,” I should like to relate a personal experience—an existential tidbit—that tells better what Dr. Brummer accomplished. I had finished a day’s work, and I was headed down on a Hibbard elevator. It stopped on the second floor, and an elderly woman boarded. She asked for directions. Did I know where the Philosophy and Religious Studies offices are? Ah, yes. I did. And, of course, we introduced ourselves, and I made a detour, now heading upward, so as to assist her in finding the promised land: the sixth floor. On the way, we chatted about why she was on campus and about why she was looking for our department. She explained that she had driven up from southern Indiana to visit her grandson, who was one of our students. And I then recognized her last name. Her dear grandson, it seemed, had sent her a copy of PRISM, an edition that contained his wellwritten philosophical essay. And she wanted to meet her son’s teachers. Those who had assisted him, so that she might thank them personally. And, ahem—more importantly—she wanted more copies of that edition! There was a woman who could not have shown more pride in her son’s son! I’ll not forget how she talked about having that one, most prized edition of PRISM on her living room’s coffee table, prominently displayed, of course, for all of her guests to notice. And, even today, I think often of Jim, of his dream, and of his dedication to the PRISM project: his dedication to our former students. Sometimes, but not often enough, those who deserve praise get their due. I close by noting that Dr. James Brummer was the very first inductee into UW-Eau Claire’s Alumni Hall of Honor.

Dick Behling Emeritus Professor of Philosophy

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Dr. James Brummer and “The Prism Project”: A Retrospective • Dick Behling

An Epilogue The following are a few of Dr. Brummer’s own reminiscences: I have heard from students who have gone on to graduate school, and if they wish to thank me for my contribution to their education, they are most likely to mention the writing course I have taught a few times before I retired, or they will mention their experience with producing an article for PRISM. It seems that, the more process-oriented courses or experiences are, the more they are appreciated. I recently heard from a philosophy student whom I had in the writing course and who published an essay in PRISM. He went on to graduate school in another discipline. The first paper he wrote for a graduate seminar was picked out by his professor for special mention. It was an exemplar of an essay that was particularly well-written, clear and well-organized. The student was convinced that the writing course and the experience of writing an article for PRISM played a crucial role in the quality of his writing skills. An article first published in PRISM, written by Scott Niedfeldt, was submitted to a professional journal in Hindu Studies. It was accepted with few editorial changes. I remember a student who had a very bad case of writing anxiety, something that went back to her high school years. She worked very hard to get through this anxiety in the writing course, and it persisted as she sought to prepare an essay for PRISM. She never published the article, but she began to develop confidence in her expositional abilities. After graduation, I received an email from her in which she proudly related the nature of her first job. She was working as an editor at a local publishing firm! 

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