Terence Cuneo

This article argues that there are two fundamentally different types of alethic and epistemic progress in philosophy. It is widely assumed that such progress is to be assessed by reference to the quantity or quality of philosophy's product (i.e., a type of output or outcome, such as true answers, coherent views, knowledge, or understanding), rather than to the manner in which philosophy is done—its performance. That assumption is mistaken. Performance progress is not reducible to product progress. This carries implications for debates about peer disagreement, epistemic consequentialism, philosophical methods, and the idea of philosophy as a “spiritual exercise.”

This article argues that there are two fundamentally different types of alethic and epistemic progress in philosophy. It is widely assumed that such progress is to be assessed by reference to the quantity or quality of philosophy's product (i.e., a type of output or outcome, such as true answers, coherent views, knowledge, or understanding), rather than to the manner in which philosophy is done—its performance. That assumption is mistaken. Performance progress is not reducible to product progress. This carries implications for debates about peer disagreement, epistemic consequentialism, philosophical methods, and the idea of philosophy as a “spiritual exercise.”

Philosophers accept the deflationary package when they maintain that moral propositional content, properties, facts, and truth admit of a deflationary (or minimalist) treatment. Expressivists often present their position as if it were tailor made for the appropriation of the deflationary package, maintaining that adopting it would allow them to say just about everything that moral realists do without compromising their expressivism. It is not, however, easy to know whether this is true, as expressivists have said very little about what a deflationary account of moral properties would be. The project of this essay is to articulate such an account, which takes its inspiration from recent discussions about deflationism about truth, and to argue that expressivism does not fit well with it. The overall conclusion is that combining expressivism with deflationism is more challenging than many have assumed.

One of the central projects of political philosophy has been to account for the authority of the state over its citizens and over those non-citizens living or traveling within its territorial jurisdiction. Around four centuries ago, that project took a dramatic turn. Rather than discuss the authority of the state "from above" in the context of a relation to God’s authority, the authority of the state was understood "from below" without reference to God's authority. The goal of constructing a successful account from below of political authority has, however, proved elusive. This essay offers an account of political authority from below, one which appeals to natural rights we have against the state.

What is the proper role, in a liberal democracy, of religious reasons for and against proposed laws or abolition of laws? The various positions taken on the issue have come to be classified as “exclusivist” or “inclusivist.” This chapter identifies and critiques what may be the deepest component in the line of thought of those who espouse the exclusivist position. Instead of focusing on respect, this line of thought focuses on coercion. It tells us that a condition of a citizen’s properly supporting a piece of coercive legislation is not only that he or she (entitledly) believe the coercion justified, but also that, he or she must offer or make available, to those one believes do not already have them, reasons that they do or would regard as justifying the coercive legislation.

Among the most prominent themes in the publications of Jürgen Habermas over the past decade is that of the inter-relations among religion, postmetaphysical philosophy, and political discourse. The topic of postmetaphysical philosophy goes back a long way in Habermas’ writings. What is new is Habermas’ preoccupation with the relation of such philosophy to religion and with the relation of both of these to political discourse. This essay is a critical engagement with Habermas on this last point – the role he proposes for religion and postmetaphysical philosophy in political discourse.

Gerald Gaus has developed a distinct version of public reason liberalism and has done so with a great deal of philosophical sophistication. There are two respects in which Gaus’ version of public reason liberalism is significantly distinct. He develops and employs _the moral demand argument_ far more carefully and thoroughly than any other public reason liberal does. And whereas most versions of public reason liberalism are consensus theories, his is a convergence theory. This chapter examines Gaus' view in detail, explores the main arguments Gaus offers for it, and concludes that Gaus' position is unsatisfactory.

Nowadays the doctrine of popular sovereignty is usually ignored. If it is taken note of and understood, it is usually rejected, either because its implicit ontology is unacceptable to those of a nominalist persuasion or because it is confused with another doctrine that emerged in the late medieval and early modern period, the doctrine of the consent of the governed. The project of this essay is to formulate the doctrine of popular sovereignty and free it from its association with the doctrine of the consent of the governed. The discussion of popular sovereignty takes the form of reflections on the work of Johannes Althusius (ca. 1557-1638).

This paper traces the history of Christian political thought, noting that it has shifted from a perfectionist understanding of government to a protectionist understanding. A protectionist understanding places a very high priority on the government's preventing (and itself avoiding) the great evil of violating persons. Liberal democracy is fundamentally protectionist in its orientation. If one attends to the nature and worth of the person and recognizes the great evil of violating persons, then one can see that the liberal polity is of inherent worth. Accordingly, Christians have good reasons to support it.

The central thesis in this essay is that the discussions by public reason liberals of the ethic of citizen suffer from a strange kind of myopia; their attention is focused exclusively on just one form of morally-based democratic political activity: policy deliberation and decision. More narrowly yet, they focus exclusively on the sorts of _reasons_ one ought to employ when engaging in that activity, and on what one should do in case one’s reasons fail to persuade all one’s fellow citizens of one’s position. The aim of this essay is to break the grip of this myopia by describing examples of two other forms of morally-committed democratic political activity, not unusual and obscure ways but ways that we all know about, ways that many of us have personally engaged in: _broad-based organizing_ and _movement organizing_.

The project of this essay is to stand back from all particular versions of public reason theories, describe their general structure, and assess their prospects. The prospects of this theory, this essay contends, are not bright. The arguments offered for it by its main proponents, such as Rawls and Gaus, are not satisfactory. Moreover, the view is subject to a series of objections – objections regarding the fairness of the view and the feasibility of its application to actual political life – which indicate that we need to look elsewhere when developing a satisfactory account of liberal democracy.

This essay moves beyond critique of public reason liberalism to propose an alternative interpretation of the governing idea of liberal democracy. At the heart of that idea is a commitment to not public reason, as Rawls understands that, but to the equal right of citizens to full political voice – this voice to be exercised within an explicit or implicit constitution that imposes limits and guarantees on government, and within a legal order that protects citizens against impairment of their right to full political voice by their fellow citizens. The resulting position is the _equal political voice_ interpretation of liberal democracy_._.

Chapter 26 focuses on liturgy. Prominent within the ancient Christian liturgies, such as the Eastern Orthodox liturgies, is the activity of reenacting various episodes depicted in the Gospels, such as the burial of Jesus. Asking how we should understand these reenactments and what they are for, the chapter is primarily devoted to answering the second of these questions, contending that a dominant aim of liturgical reenactment is to contribute to the construction of a narrative identity in its participants. Specifically, the chapter’s discussion is devoted to exploring the normative commitments that agents undertake when engaging in liturgical reenactment and how these commitments might contribute to the construction of narrative identities that, in turn, inform and sustain character traits of various kinds.

It is often said or assumed that the presence of religion in our society necessarily harbors within itself the threat of coercion and violence. Religion, though it may talk and dream of peace, is a menace to peace. To move toward the elimination of coercion and violence, thus to achieve peace, it is said, we must aspire to a politics of consensus on fundamental principles of justice and social order. Accordingly, all the particular religions must shape up so as to be compatible with such a politics. The central question of this essay is: Which principles of social organisation must an exclusivist religion be willing to affirm if it is to embrace a liberal democratic polity for a society in which there are other such religions?

The texts of ancient liturgies of the Christian East repeatedly state that activities such as taking eucharist, baptizing, and anointing are for the remission of sin. But how could that be? What could the connection be between the performance of these actions, on the one hand, and the state of enjoying remission of sin, on the other? The first step toward providing a satisfactory answer to these questions is to note that, in the context of the liturgy, the phrase "remission of sin" is best understood to mean not forgiveness of sin but deliverance from the sin-disorder. With this meaning in mind, I present a model for how rites of certain kinds could be intelligibly understood to be for the remission of sin.

This Element presents the rudiments of Thomas Reid's agency-centered ethical theory. According to this theory, an ethical theory must address three primary questions. What is it to be an agent? What is ethical reality like, such that agents could know it? And how can agents respond to ethical reality, commit themselves to being regulated by it, and act well in doing so? Reid's answers to these questions are wide-ranging, borrowing from the rational intuitionist, sentimentalist, Aristotelian, and Protestant natural law traditions. This Element explores how Reid blends together these influences, how he might respond to concerns raised by rival traditions, and specifies what distinguishes his approach from those of other modern philosophers.

Critical engagements with expressivism exhibit a familiar pattern. A critic presses an objection against the view, while those sympathetic with expressivism respond that the critic has fundamentally misunderstood the view. Some philosophers, myself included, have contended that epistemic expressivism is vulnerable to some important objections with which expressivists must grapple. Predictably, those sympathetic with expressivism have responded that these objections miss the mark because they work with a mistaken understanding of the expressivist project. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the contention that a methodological strategy—what J. Adam Carter and Matthew Chrisman call the core expressivist manoeuvre—enables expressivism to sidestep a host of objections levelled against the view. I contend that extant versions of expressivism are poorly situated to execute this manoeuvre and, so, expressivists are presently not well-situated to appeal to the core manoeuvre in order to avoid certain types of theoretical burdens and deflect various types of criticisms of their view.