Sin - Hardcover

Mellema, Gregory

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0268201331 ISBN 13: 9780268201333

Verlag: University of Notre Dame Press, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

This book brings clarification to our understanding of the nature of sin and will be of interest to nonphilosophers as well as philosophers.

Most of the scholarly literature on sin has focused on theological issues, making book-length philosophical treatments of the topic hard to find. Sin, the newest contribution by Gregory Mellema, fills the gap by providing a short and lively summary of what contemporary philosophers are saying about the relationship between the traditional theological category of sin and contemporary philosophical ethics. Mellema brings together contributions by a number of philosophers, including Marilyn Adams, Robert Adams, Rebecca DeYoung, Alvin Plantinga, Michael Rea, Eleonore Stump, and Richard Swinburne, into a coherent discussion that clarifies our understanding of the nature of sin. The topics covered include the doctrine of original sin, accessory sins, mortal (or cardinal) sins, and venial sins. Mellema also examines Islamic codes of ethics, which include a category of acts that are “discouraged,” some of which qualify as sins, and the final chapter surveys the teachings of six major world religions concerning sin. The overarching link between the chapters is that sin is fundamentally connected to the subject matter of morality. Analyzing the points of connection is profitable not just to enhance our theoretical understanding of sin but to provide a greater depth of knowledge as to how the moral choices we make can more effectively help us avoid sin and contribute to lives that are satisfying and authentically worthwhile. This concise introduction to sin and moral wrongdoing will have a wide readership and is intended for use in introductory level philosophy, philosophy of religion, or theological ethics courses.

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Gregory Mellema is professor emeritus of philosophy at Calvin University. Among other books, he is the author of Complicity and Moral Accountability (University of Notre Dame Press, 2016, 2021).

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In his 1968 article on collective responsibility Joel Feinberg presents the following example:

“Suppose C and D plan a bank robbery, present their plan to a respected friend A, receive his encouragement, borrow weapons from B for their purpose, hire E as a getaway driver, and then execute the plan. Pursued by the police, they are forced to leave their escape route and take refuge at the farm of E’s kindly uncle F. F congratulates them, entertains them hospitably, and sends them on their way with his blessing. F’s neighbor G learns of all this, disapproves, but does nothing. Another neighbor, H, learns of it but is bribed into silence.”

Clearly participants C and D are the perpetrators of the crime, and they can be regarded as the principal actors in this scenario. But six other individuals are involved as well in a variety of ways. What can be said about their status as participants in crime?

Those who are involved as contributors in a sequence of events like the one described but not as principal actors are commonly referred to as accomplices. As such, they can be said to be complicit in the events or complicit in the outcome to which these events lead. One of the central themes of this book is that complicity carries with it ethical consequences. A person who is complicit in what another does is morally accountable, as opposed to legally accountable, for the role he or she plays in the relevant circumstances.

Sometimes people are said to be complicit in outcomes that are favorable or praiseworthy from a moral point of view. For example, someone is organizing an elaborate birthday party for an elderly parent, and several others help out with various details. After the party it would be perfectly understandable for someone to refer to those helping out with details as accomplices.

However, the notion of complicity is nearly always applied to situations in which the outcome has a negative moral status. In fact, labeling one as an accomplice in a situation with a favorable outcome can sometimes be seen as ironic or humorous. In Feinberg’s example the accomplices are participants in crime. In other situations people can be described as accomplices in an outcome which is not a crime but which still constitutes or involves moral wrongdoing, as in a mean-spirited plot designed to bring humiliation to someone.

In this book I will restrict the discussion of complicity to situations in which the outcome has a negative moral status. More specifically, I will restrict the discussion to situations in which the negative moral outcome is the result of moral wrongdoing by human moral agents. The paradigm situation under consideration will be one in which an agent (or agents) is the principal actor by virtue of moral wrongdoing and one or more agents contribute to the outcome in a manner that makes them complicit to the wrongdoing of the principal agent(s). A principal actor can then be characterized as one who commits wrongdoing, where at least one moral agent is complicit in his or her wrongdoing.

When someone is complicit in the wrongdoing of a principal actor, then that person is also guilty of wrongdoing. There is something he or she does (or omits to do) by virtue of which he or she becomes complicit in the wrongdoing of the principal actor, and this action or omission constitutes moral wrongdoing. More precisely, this person incurs moral blame for the action or omission by which he or she comes to be complicit in the wrongdoing of the principal actor. One does not become complicit in wrongdoing simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time or by being a member of a certain clan.

Can there be instances in which the primary agent engages in moral wrongdoing and a complicit agent is morally blameless (that is, blameworthy to degree zero)? I know of no such instances, but neither do I have a knockdown argument to rule out the possibility that they exist. In what follows I will assume that, if they exist, they are rare indeed, and they will be regarded as lying beyond the scope of the discussion.

Suppose we refer to what a person does which renders him or her complicit in the wrongdoing of another as a contributing action with the understanding that a contributing action can take the form of an omission. Then it is my contention that one bears moral blame for one’s contributing action. Now it is vitally important to recognize that moral blame admits of degrees. Thus, when several agents are complicit in the wrongdoing of a principal actor, they need not be equally blameworthy for the various contributing actions they perform. Nor, for that matter, is the blame borne by the various complicit participants necessarily of a degree equal to the blame borne by the principal actor for his or her wrongdoing.

A distinction can be drawn between the blame one bears for performing a contributing action and the blame one bears for the outcome produced by the contributions of everyone involved. Although I contend that a person who is complicit in the wrongdoing of a principal actor bears moral blame for his or her contributing action, such a person does not necessarily bear moral blame for the outcome produced by the contributions of everyone involved. Throughout the course of the discussion it will become apparent that some forms of complicity in wrongdoing are milder than others. And sometimes a person who is only mildly complicit in the wrongdoing of another bears blame for his or her contributing action but not for the outcome produced by the contributions of everyone involved.

(Excerpted from Introduction)

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Notre Dame Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0268201331
• ISBN 13: 9780268201333
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 130
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland