Sabbatical Lecture: Forgiveness and Resentment
Tuesday 11/19/2009
Jewish Studies Library, 2nd floor, Jewish Studies Center

Most recent discussions, Murphy, Griswold, Allais, and others, follow Bishop Butler and focus on forgiveness as the forgoing of resentment or similar vindictive emotions (by the victim as a result of a change of heart on the part of the offender, in paradigmatic cases). I will argue that the forgoing of a claim and restoring a relationship, more analogous to unilaterally relinquishing debt to restore a pre-debt status, is a more useful analogy, recognizing as it does that resentment is but one part (sometimes not even that) of what is involved in forgiving. This view garners support from a traditional theological view, in which God’s forgiveness has little to do with God’s relinquishing resentment.

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A Little Reality is a Dangerous Thing
Friday 11/13/2009
ECTR111

John Rawls’s work has had unparalleled influence on philosophy and political theory. His 1971 book “A Theory of Justice” was a classic in its day, and he continued to refine and develop a defense of liberal systems for decades after. We can assume that Rawls will continue to set the agenda for discussion of justice for decades to come. So what was the big idea? And what is philosophical discussion of Rawls like today? Discussion of Rawls’ ideas happens in our classrooms. The students in this semester’s American Philosophy course have puzzled over the particular methodology used by Rawls. It is described as “ideal theory”. Such an approach assumes reasonable agents and favorable social conditions in order to generate an ideal standard of justice. This, then, can be used to assess real-world political situations. Ideal theory has been criticized for its implicit content in the past, by antiliberals and liberals alike. A newer concern is the ability of any idealized approach to be applied in the way it was designed to be. Can we even make use of an idealized account of politics? Would we want to? Is the entire approach mistaken?

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The Ethics of Arguing: The Value of Sincerity in Legal and Political Argument
Tuesday 11/3/2009
Arnold Hall, Jewish Studies Center

Arguing is something that all of us do. We argue with our friends, parents, teachers, neighbors, political representatives, and sometimes with total strangers. Are their any ethical principles that apply to how we argue with other people? Are there limits or restrictions on what we can or should say? In particular, when we argue with others, do we have to be sincere? Do we have to mean what we say? If so, can we make arguments based on what other people believe? Is there anything wrong with doing that? To answer some of these questions, I will compare the ethics of arguing as it applies to lawyers, judges, and to the rest of us as citizens in a democratic society. Lawyers are trained to make arguments, and many of them make a living by arguing. Judges also spend their professional lives hearing and making arguments. What about those of us who aren't lawyers or judges? In our ordinary lives, should we argue more like lawyers or more like judges? My argument will be that we should argue more like judges. When we make decisions that have a significant affect on other peoples' lives, and especially when we act in our political capacity as citizens, we ought to be able to give others sincere justifications for our actions.

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