Charles R. Lightner

Material quoted here is drawn from the paper by Julia Driver, Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015. Driver opens her paper with a quote from John Stuart Mill: “Does the utilitarian doctrine deny that people desir...

This material is drawn from the paper by Daniel C. Russell, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona, which was published in “Cultivating Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology and Psychology” edited by Nancy E. Snow, Oxford University Press, 2015. According to Russell we can summarize Aristotle’s approach to virtues as follows: • Moral development consists of a...

I’ve spent quite a bit of time on philosophical views that fall into either the consequentialist or teleological camp and the rules-based or deontological camp. In the case of the consequentialist, those of the utilitarians particularly. In the case of the deontological or rules-based camp, those of Kant, Scanlon and Rawls. As I’ve noted previously, though, there is a third approach t...

John Rawls was one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century. His principal theory is presented in his book “A Theory of Justice” published in 1971. According to Frank Lovett, the “influence (of Rawls’s ‘Theory of Justice’) as a work of political theory and philosophy…has been astounding”. Lovett says Rawls’s book “so decisively transformed its field as to virtually gua...

Matthew 7:12 ¹² “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. Mark 12:30-31 ²⁸ One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is o...

I have made the point previously that the statements known as the Golden Rule and the Silver Rule are not logically identical (in a reciprocal sense). Both Jeffrey Wattles and Harry Gensler make the argument that they are, in fact, identical and that allows them to collapse the two into a single re-statement “Treat others as you would, in similar situations, want to be treated.” It is...

The Ethic of Respect, whether at the level of consistency or of consideration, involves actions taken by a person that affect another. The distinction is the taking of action as opposed to refraining from action. Any discussion of the appropriateness of action will have to distinguish among types of action as well as among relationships between and among persons. It is clear, I think,...

Having at least a schematic framework for the topics to be discussed in The Ethic of Restraint and The Ethic of Repair, I’ve moved on to study of some of the issues that come up in the space between those two i.e. in The Ethic of Respect. The Ethic of Respect deals with the ideas that have been previously labelled the Golden Rule and the Platinum Rule. These are the cases in which purpo...

The civil and criminal laws that govern individual behavior vary somewhat from country to country. In general, though, the sorts of behaviors that are subject to civil sanction in one place are similar to those in others, and the actions that are crimes in one place are typically crimes in another. Clearly, there are exceptions, but in a broad sense, this is true. When we think about ...

In prior posts I’ve noted some of the many instances where we find a culture that defines responsibilities among individuals differently depending on the relationship between or among them. There are two reasons to be emphasize that point. First, those who hold that the ethical standard we should aspire to is to “Love your neighbor as yourself” argue that it is to be understood in a u...