Volume 19.1, Spring - Summer 2011

Forgiveness, Resentment, and Intentional Agency

Anthony Marc Williams

Forgiveness is a highly personal act. Only a moral agent can forgive and the only proper object of forgiveness is a moral agent. One trait that is particularly characteristic of moral agents is selfevaluation. It is precisely this activity that is involved in a genuine act of forgiveness. According to Bishop Butler and several other contemporary philosophers, forgiveness involves foreswearing one’s resentment towards another person. Successful forgiveness, for these accounts, essentially involves overcoming oneself. An important part of this self-overcoming involves dissolving resentment. I argue that disowning resentment is a key step along the way towards successful forgiveness. In order to dissolve resentment, an individual must engage in self-reflection and selfevaluation. Frankfurt’s hierarchical theory of intentional agency provides a helpful conceptual apparatus for analyzing the act of forgiveness.

Nietzsche’s Challenge to Humanism

Brian Thomas

This essay reconsiders the question of humanism in Nietzsche’s philosophy. The author argues that established readings of Nietzsche’s critique of humanism fail to consider the conceptual history of humanism; a genealogy which Nietzsche, as a classical philologist, knew well. The result is a more nuanced, historically and anthropologically textured idea of the human in Nietzsche’s thought than has often been understood. This representation of human nature extends important rational and moral values about what it means to be human by re-calling Cicero, Petrarch, Erasmus, and other key-figures in the humanist tradition. In doing so Nietzsche’s thought doesn’t mark an end of humanism, or construct a sign-post towards a post-humanistic age, but expresses a radical, rhetorically-driven challenge to conceiving of the human being as a rational animal (animal rationale).

Only after we have corrected in such an essential point the historical way of thinking that the Enlightenment brought with it, may we once again carry onward the banner of the Enlightenment, the banner with the three names: Petrarch, Erasmus, Voltaire.— Human, All Too Human, 26.

Dualism and Humanism

Alistair J. Sinclair

It is argued in this paper that a greater understanding of dualism is needed to secure the future of humanism and of humanity. Its study consists in understanding the extremes of opinion and attitude to which we are all prone and which pervade every aspect of our society. These extremes are even today impeding our future and threatening to plunge the world into internecine struggles between factions competing for power and pre-eminence. The fruitless conflicts, wars and divisions caused by extremism will only be avoided when a dualist view is adopted that makes the ‘either-for-us-or-against-us’ mentality universally unacceptable. The dualist view also helps us to deal with situations that demand insight more than logic. A distinction is made here between naïve and systematic dualism in which the former refers to confused and muddled thinking whereas the latter involves organized and purposeful thinking to deal systematically with confusing and conflicting situations. There is a spectrum between naïve dualism at one extreme and absolute monism at the other extreme. Most of us, most of the time, are systematic dualists subsisting somewhere in the middle. Our future is constantly threatened by those few people who have one answer to everything and are intolerant of other views. If the dualist view becomes prevalent they may learn to think differently. Humanism is distinct from religion in being essentially dualist in its outlook and in being prepared to countenance alternative views. The further development of the dualist view therefore strengthens humanism against its monist enemies who are looking for certainty and easy solutions.

Religion, Marxism and Ethical Humanism

Melvin Leiman

The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center was followed by devastating and brutal American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Deadly suicide attacks and America’s continuing effort to impose control over these shattered lands, as well as against domestic and foreign enemies, forcefully remind us that the fusion of religion, politics and economics can have horrific consequences.Muslim fundamentalists, like their Christian, Jewish, and Hindu counterparts, are fanatics with a rigid set of beliefs and a sense of the absolute justness of their cause in relation to all outsiders or even members of the same faith. Many are willing to accept martyrdom or whatever they deem necessary to defend their faith. By their nature, all such theistic groups are inherently antidemocratic. Followers of each arrogantly believe they alone have a monopoly of the truth. When this is accompanied by political and economic oppression, the stage is set for explosive violence by individuals, groups, and even states. Inevitably innocent victims are caught in the crossfire.Truth is often the first casualty in this face-off. President Bush assured himself an elevated position in the Pantheon of Double-Speak with his comment “Those who celebrate the murder of innocent men, women and children have no religion.” This less than learned insight leads to either the quixotic view that the fundamentalist Osama bin Laden is a closet atheist, or that Bush suffered from a common, but less than benign, historical amnesia. Vicious religious wars (many within Christian ranks) and alliances between religious institutions and reactionary political systems had been air brushed out of his selective memory.

Challenging Intelligent Design: Reconceptualizing the Discovery Institute from a Communicative Perspective

Christine M. Shellska

In this analysis I argue that the Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design’s primary advocate, is more appropriately conceived of as a think-tank, and I attempt to broaden the discussion by identifying issues left unexamined when Intelligent Design (ID) is challenged as a scientific theory or treated as a sectarian religion. I propose an analytic framework that can be deployed to provoke controversy about ID by those who seek to protect society from the penetration of religious ideology into secular institutions. Using concepts from Actor Network Theory (ANT) enhanced with theoretical insights from public relations and risk communications, I argue that the Discovery Institute’s communication strategies include attempts to disrupt the translation of evolution into education and the cultural arena by establishing public trust using appeals to religion and morality, and exploiting anti-science sentiments.

A Humanist’s Narrative

Charles Vail

“Humans are narrative beings. Our lives unravel plot-like, where events have meaning in terms of how well we fare goal-wise in our relations within a physical and social environment” (Rue 2006, 86). This essay is just such a narrative, a story written for humanists and nonhumanists alike. The narrative likewise unfolds “plot-like” beginning with a brief recounting of the historical foundations of humanism, continuing on with a summary explanation of selected humanist basics, and ending with a prescription for living well. It too offers a perspective from which one can “look out at the world, interpret it, and make sense of it” (Olds 2009, 1). Although what follows is my own personal narrative, it is the product of my synthesis of the thoughts of many writers—philosophers, scientists, and others— ancient and contemporary. The historical perspective that I summarize—from the Renaissance and before through the Enlightenment and afterward—is the foundation for my humanism. The humanist basics that I explicate—which describe the individual, empiricism, and reason—are those that I find essential to the philosophy that I strive daily to practice. The perspective that I offer for living a good life—my own version of life,