Himmler's Ethics of Duty: A Moral Approach to the Holocaust and to Germany's Impending Defeat

Heinrich Himmler is mostly seen as the all-powerful organizer who coordinated the police apparatus that reigned over occupied Europe and who supervised personally the concentration camp system. But Himmler was also a thinker or, at least, he perceived himself as such, and he was especially concerned with moral issues. This article examines the role of ethics in Himmler's thinking. More specifically, it considers what sort of ethics it was and how the Reichsführer SS could rely on moral notions to legitimize his endeavors and to make sense of extreme events in which he participated. From a normative viewpoint any claim to philosophical validity for this type of approach may be called into question, for the nihilism and denial of otherness were paramount in the instrumentalization of humans that led to genocide.     

《天演论》版本时间考析两题

<天演论>研究取得一定成果,也存在问题,研究者多关注严译主张是什么,而探讨<天演论>在知识界的传播路径,鲜有涉及.笔者试图以考证见思想,探讨<天演论>早期本子及其在思想界的传播情况以及舆论界的反应.     

Ethics and the Party Brand: The Case of the Office of Congressional Ethics

Dating back to its creation in 2008, the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) has faced criticism from the very members of Congress it is tasked with investigating. Despite this criticism, a majority of House members both voted to create OCE in 2008 and have ultimately backed away from any efforts to rein in the office. Why? Through an examination of both the passage of OCE in 2008 and subsequent efforts to rein in its power, this article argues that partisan considerations and pressure from party leaders played a critical role in OCE's creation and survival. The creation of the independent commission in the House thus demonstrates the power of the party valence brand in the contemporary Congress.     

The First Circle and the Last Man: Solzhenitsyn's Political Science

The author examines David Hume's History of England to elucidate his thoughts on the subject of education. He argues that education's ability to improve moral judgments drives Hume's interest. With this in mind, the idiosyncratic review of English literature scattered throughout Hume's History can be seen in its proper light. Finally, the author suggests History represents Hume's best effort to develop a literary style capable of improving morals.     

The Moral Theologian,Oliver O'Donovan and International Law

Abstract

Oliver O'Donovan renders a singular contribution to the theory and history of international law by identifying the spiritual impoverishment of the discipline following the triumph of state-centred contractarianism in the theory of international relations, with Hobbes, Locke, Kant and, for the present, John Rawls. This contractarian approach to international society has an inherent tendency, which O'Donovan highlights, to ground international order in the hegemonic claim of one or two countries to represent the values of the whole of humanity. With a combination of rational moral theology and biblical interpretation (Revelation), O'Donovan reasserts an international order grounded in the autonomous identities of the nations, which God has recognized as equal. With a theory of political legitimacy which rests upon representation of national identity, O'Donovan points the way to an international order based upon mutual respect among nations under natural law, in the classical medieval sense finally represented by Grotius and Suarez. This article describes again what the natural law tradition meant in the hands of Aquinas and Vitoria, in order to highlight the fact that the ontological dimension of natural law theory provides a way to meet the intolerable insecurities which theories of nationalism appear to generate. Then the article goes on to offer one way to bring natural law thinking up to date for contemporary audiences by drawing upon Paul Ricoeur's phenomenological theory of mutual recognition and respect among the nations as a way of going beyond the contractarian tradition in contemporary international law and relations theory.     

Expanding the Dimensions of Early Agricultural Tells: The Podgoritsa Archaeological Project,Bulgaria

Abstract

A single season of field work was carried out in 1995 at the Podgoritsa Tell, an Eneolithic (5th millennium B.C.) settlement mound located between the villages of Dralfa and Podgoritsa in the Turgovishte region of NE Bulgaria. Results provide significant new data about the physical and social dimensions of early agricultural settlement tells in SE Europe. Most important is the first discovery of architectural structures and activity areas located outside of the topographic circumference of an Eneolithic tell. Additional, and equally unprecedented, information from geophysical and soil coring investigations proves that the land around the Podgoritsa site went through cycles of use and disuse. These cycles were determined by variations in the level of the local water table. Evidence of a bank and ditch structure on the western edge of the tell raises the possibility that the site's inhabitants may have been actively managing local water supplies. The firm evidence for off-tell activity (which explodes the myth that the modern visible topographic limits of a tell represent the limits of activity) and the possibility of 5th millennium hydrological engineering have important consequences not only for our understanding of the SE European Copper Age but also or future strategies of tell excavation across SE Europe and western Asia.     

The Art of Wounded Hope: Forced Migration,Prophecy and Aesth/Ethics

ABSTRACT

This paper constructs an analogy between art and prophecy, exploring and comparing their relationship to political change. It does so through considering arts-based responses to the contemporary forced migration context in conversation with the book of Jeremiah. Recognizing that the artistic – in the case of Jeremiah, the poetic – can be an important means of resistance for those experiencing exile and injustice, this paper delineates two key ways in which visual arts, poetry, music and theater are playing a prophetic role in relation to migration today. First, the arts can generate prophetic revelation, helping people to see more clearly and truthfully the pain and suffering experienced by forced migrants. Second, the arts can enliven prophetic imagination, helping people to visualize creatively how a world-in-migration could be at its best by offering glimpses of oneness and hope. The paper concludes by pointing out some ambiguities involved in engaging with the arts as a means of prophecy.