You’ve been blogging about faculty attitudes toward morality and religion. Let me share an incident from my introduction to anthropology course some years ago. It was a graduate “core” course, but some undergrads took it too; the grads had more work, more reading, and weekly tutorials.
I'm curious whether you know of any undergraduate degrees that are exclusive to the study of natural law. If there are none that you know of, do you know of any program that has natural law as its main emphasis?
The Wisdom books present some surprises – among them, a fair sampling of paradox. Take for example the book of Proverbs, which includes a number of apparently inconsistent sayings colliding head to head. This pair is from Chapter 26:
Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.
One wonders what so-called values voters in the recent South Carolina primary thought they were doing. Apparently the wrong “values” were in play. Some were repelled by the ugly character of the winning candidate; most weren’t.
Among the cruelest slaveries is mood, because we recognize neither the master nor the manacle. In the first place we don’t notice our moods; in the second place we don’t notice that they have mastered us.
A common view has it that we have a moral duty to talk with everyone – that unless we are constantly in dialogue, we are both unreasonable and uncharitable. On the contrary, sometimes both charity and reason require breaking off conversation. Or even refusing to enter it.
