Edmund Byrne

After the 9/11 attacks the U.S. administration went beyond emergency response towards imperialism, but cloaked its agenda in the rhetoric of fighting ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorism.’ After distinguishing between emergency thinking and emergency planning, I question the administration’s “war on terrorism” rhetoric in three stages. First, upon examining the post-9/11 antiterrorism discourse I find that it splits into two agendas: domestic, protect our infrastructure; and foreign, select military targets. Second, I review (legitimate) approaches to emergency planning already in place. Third, after reviewing what philosophers have said aboutemergencies, I recommend they turn their attention to the biases inherent in and misleading uses of antiterrorist terminology.

Introduction -- Part I: Religion under secular statecraft -- Rationalist restrictions on public discourse -- Reasonable limits on religious freedom -- The hidden dangers of civil religion -- Part II: State/religion border control -- Religion-state relations in U.S. courts -- Rulings concerning religion-state relations -- Rulings on religion-state relations in education -- Alternative schooling in America -- Part III: Religious groups and the public sphere -- The political importance of interest groups -- The moral need for groups in a modern democracy -- Religious groups in the political process.

Drawing on group rights theory, author argues that a group organized around a religious motif should neither be summarily excluded from nor unduly favored in secular deliberations as to public policy and practice. To arrive at this conclusion he examines the implications of each of the following claims: (1) individuals need to operate in and through groups to influence government; (2) a political system faces moral difficulties if it is open to group-generated input; (3) worthy causes can be better advanced by organized groups than by unconnected individuals; and (4) this is so whether the cause is advanced by a religious or by a non-religious group.

In this paper I discuss recent scholarly work on ideology, mostly by Europeans, that exposes a secularist bias in current political theory, invites a nonderogatory concept of religion, and justifies more flexible church/state relations. This work involves redefining ideology as any action-oriented ideas, whether destructive or ameliorative, including both secular theory and religion, then drawing on hermeneutical and critical studies of the power/ideology relationship to rediscover a role for ‘utopia’ as a social catalyst for amelioration. I then call attention to the relevance of ‘mission’ to this work. For in both secular and sacred contexts, missions are defined and assigned to individuals or groups to enhance some aspect of the organizing entity’s sense of purpose and possibility. What stands out in each instance is that the sense of mission is not passively epistemic but actively project-oriented, goal-directed. It can be used with reference to any end or goal that is at least implicitly normative and which people seek to attain. A mission moves people, however, only if it is tied to some belief-based social identity which can be interpreted as oriented to that end. A case can be made, accordingly, for accommodating religious views in our political discourse, for they have a history of directing people’s thinking beyond what is to what ought to be, and without them we are ever more inclined to tolerate mediocrity in ourselves and despair in others.

A textbook intended for undergraduates. Develops an overview of approaches to the philosophy of man (human beings) by presenting representative examples of major areas of emphasis. Drawing on the social sciences as well as philosophical works, the book presents the human phenomenon as a product of both heredity and environment (the "facticity" of man) and a source of new realities (the "transcendence" of man). Considered under the heading of man's facticity are aspects of corporeality and consciousness; under the heading of man's transcendence, aspects of personal and societal development. Multicultural bibliographies provided. Regrettably, writing style of book is dated by use of male-only terminology.

An appeal to philosophers who believe in social contract theory to revise their thinking in fundamental ways. In particular, it calls upon them to take corporations -- especially transnational corporations -- more seriously in their speculations on the "just state" than they have up till now. Why? Because transnational corporations today exercise de facto sovereignty--a sovereignty that always influences, sometomes equals, and often overpowers the sovereignty of nation states. (Excerpted from Paul Durbin's detailed analysis of book in 2006.)

Philosophy of technology has recently emerged and is being practiced primarily in the developed world. This limited focus leaves unconsidered a vast array of issues that especially impact the developing world, e.g., with regard to technology transfer. To help remedy this distorting lacuna, SPT sought in vain for funding to bring developing world scholars to its fourth biennial conference. In lieu of its intended list of participants it had to make do with several developing country scholars who are presently in the United States. In addition, this collection benefits from the outstanding work of such developed world scholars as Kristin Shrader-Frechette. Without belittling other contributions, the editors think of this collection as an entree into the multifaceted studies that must emerge from philosophers of technology in years to come.