Rick Miller

The proper theological response to the problem of reconciling human suffering with the Christian belief in a God of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness is not to try to solve the unsolvable, but to preserve the mystery of God. The concept ‘mystery’ as attributed to God signifies intelligibility — inexhaustible intelligibility — not contradiction. Mystery suggests the range and limits of a human being's knowledge of God. We cannot know why God permits suffering in this particular instance or the character of God's response to someone in the throes of suffering. We can know in a general way the necessary conditions of the possibility for the realization of God's purpose because we know the purpose of God's activity through revelation. This paper argues that if God created the universe so that creatures could share in the fullness of God's life, God could not have achieved God's purpose without any human suffering. This argument upholds the inexhaustible intelligibility of God's activity and thus preserves the mystery of God, for if God could have achieved God's purpose without any suffering, yet willed the suffering of creatures, then the eternal plan of providence and the actual unfolding of salvation history would be arbitrary and irrational.

This article assays Paul Ramsey's influential attempt to conceive possible nuclear deterrents within the confines of just war tenets. I look first at Ramsey's construction of just war ideas according to a protection paradigm, one in which agape is deontically defined. I also note a subtle sub-theme in Ramsey's construction of just war ideas, what I call a preservation motif. I then assess Ramsey's discussion of nuclear deterrence, closing with a critique of his treatments of intention and proportionality. I conclude by arguing that Ramsey's argument falters, and that the weaknesses of his argument can be rendered intelligible by noting how the full implications of the protection paradigm are attenuated by the preservation motif.

James Sterba’s From Rationality to Equality is a bold effort to show that those who reject morality, coerced provision for basic needs, or a demanding egalitarian standard of justice violate precepts of rationality, resist the implications of their own deep convictions, or negligently ignore ecological dangers. Without opposing his moral conclusions, I present doubts about his arguments. The assessment of higher-ranking altruistic reasons that he calls “Morality as Compromise” is offered as distinctively non-question-begging, but only seems to have this status on a construal that makes it a tautology. Contrary to his charge of inconsistency, right-wing libertarians can rely on a non-arbitrary criterion of coercive worsening in defending the entitlements they favor while rejecting the enforceable welfare right that he supports. The duty to make sacrifices for remote generations on which he bases his demand for substantial equality is in need of defense that he does not provide and does not clearly have the consequence he claims. These gaps point to the need to rely on a broader range of moral convictions, integrated in more complex ways

This essay argues that the ethics of humanitarian intervention cannot be readily subsumed by the ethics of just war without due attention to matters of political and moral motivation. In the modern era, a just war draws directly from self-benefitting motives in wars of self-defense, or indirectly in wars that enforce international law or promote the global common good. Humanitarian interventions, in contrast, are intuitively admirable insofar as they are other-regarding. That difference poses a challenge to the casuistry of humanitarian intervention because it makes it difficult to reason by analogy from the case of war to the case of humanitarian intervention. The author develops this point in dialogue with Michael Walzer, the U.S. Catholic bishops, and President Clinton. He concludes by showing how a casuistry of intervention is possible, developing a motivational rationale that draws on the Golden Rule.

Adolf Grünbaurn’s criticisms of psychoanalytic theory are the most sustained and powerful effort in our time to make the philosophy of science useful, useful in the pursuit of theories and evidence and useful in the relief of suffering. His work shows, I think, that some important claims that psychoanalytic theory has achieved certain scientific goals at best express unjustified hopes. These failures will not discourage those who think that the goals of the human sciences are radically different from those of the natural sciences. But, like Professor Griinbaum, I don’t think there is a relevant difference, here. Psychoanalytic theory, like any field of science, strives for at least approximately true descriptions of causes, that are justified in light of the data.Still, I think that there is a core of psychoanalytic theory that is empirically justified. Moreover, most people whose theoretical commitments are psychoanalytic are now fully committed to no more than this core. In responding to his paper, ‘The Role of the Case Study Method in the Foundations of Psychoanalysis,’ I’ll start by sketching this core, indicating why I take it to embody the same scientific goals as familiar, well-justified natural-scientific theories. My view of the goals of theorizing is so basic to my failure to be converted by Professor Griinbaum that this prelude will be the longest part of my comments. If it turns out that he doesn’t want to convert someone with this kind of theory, i.e., that these claims for psychoanalysis are acceptable to him - that will itself be significant as clarifying the aims of his important work.

Political choices favoring one''s country or one''s nationality are wrong if they conflict with a principle of universal free acceptability, prohibiting choices that violate every set of rules to which any willing cooperator would want all to conform. Despite its universalism, this principle requires patriotic favoritism in political choices and permits individuals to assert nationalist interests in claims for state aid. But it deprives patriotism and nationalism of any distinctive role in establishing the legitimacy of wars and uprisings. These restrictions are appropriate even if stronger forms of patriotism and nationalism are psychologically indispensable for achieving social goals required for universal free acceptability.