Joshua Schulz

DeSales University
  •  314
    The Principle of Totality and the Limits of Enhancement
    Ethics and Medicine 31 (3): 143-57. 2015.
    According to the Thomistic tradition, the Principle of Totality (TPoT) articulates a secondary principle of natural law which guides the exercise of human ownership or dominium over creation. In its general signification, TPoT is a principle of distributive justice determining the right ordering of wholes to their parts. In the medical field it is traditionally understood as entailing an absolute prohibition of bodily mutilation as irrational and immoral, and an imperfect obligation to use the…Read more
  •  205
    This essay articulates and defends Aristotle’s argument in Politics 7.4 that there is a rational limit to the size of the political community. Aristotle argues that size can negatively affect the ability of an organized being to attain its proper end. After examining the metaphysical grounds for this principle in both natural beings and artifacts, we defend Aristotle’s extension of the principle to the polis. He argues that the state is in the relevant sense an organism, one whose primary end is…Read more
  •  137
    Machine Grading and Moral Learning
    New Atlantis: A Journal of Technology and Society 41 (Winter): 2014. 2014.
  •  38
    Hypocrisy as a challenge to Christian belief
    Religious Studies 54 (2): 247-264. 2018.
  •  25
    How Do You Know If You Haven’t Tried It?: Aristotelian Reflections on Hateful Humor
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 87 295-305. 2013.
    Howard Curzer argues that Aristotle’s virtue of wit is a social virtue, a form of philia: conversation with a witty person is pleasing rather than offensive or hateful. On the basis of an analogy between wit and temperance, Curzer holds that the witty person is good at detecting (and avoiding) hateful humor but is not necessarily an expert in judging the funniness of jokes. Curzer thus defends a moderate position in contemporary philosophy of humor—a Detraction Account of hateful humor—arguing t…Read more
  •  21
    Aristotle and the Virtues. By Howard J. Curzer
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 88 (1): 167-169. 2014.
  •  20
    Kierkegaard’s Comic and Tragic Lovers
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86 (2): 251-269. 2012.
    This essay examines a dialogue between Kierkegaard and the Aristotelian tradition on the topic of love and friendship. At stake in the dispute is whetherphilia or agape is the highest form of love and how we should understand the relation between the two loves. The essay contributes to the conversation by analyzing two kinds of deceptive love identified in Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, viewing each through the lens of a Shakespearian persona. Against the Aristotelian tradition, Kierkegaard defend…Read more
  •  20
    Aristotle considers friendship the greatest external good, one integral to the attainment of happiness. However, while Aristotle limits distrust to what he calls imperfect forms of friendship, subsequent philosophers have stressed our uncertainty regarding the benevolence, beneficence and loyalty we may expect of friends. They do so in part because overcoming this uncertainty requires the exercise of the virtues of trust and loyalty if our friendships are to survive intact. For example, insofar …Read more
  •  20
    Indissoluble Marriage
    Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 15 (2): 118-137. 2012.
  •  20
    The capabilities approach and Catholic social teaching: an engagement
    Journal of Global Ethics 12 (1): 29-47. 2016.
    ABSTRACTThis essay brings Martha Nussbaum's politically liberal version of the Capabilities Approach to human development into critical dialogue with the Catholic Social Tradition. Like CST, Nussbaum's focus on embodiment, dependence and dignity entails a social use of property which privileges marginalized people, and both theories explain the underdevelopment of central human capabilities in social rather than exclusively material terms. Whereas CST is metaphysically and theologically ‘thick',…Read more
  •  8
    How Do You Know If You Haven’t Tried It?: Aristotelian Reflections on Hateful Humor
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 87 295-305. 2013.
    Howard Curzer argues that Aristotle’s virtue of wit is a social virtue, a form of philia: conversation with a witty person is pleasing rather than offensive or hateful. On the basis of an analogy between wit and temperance, Curzer holds that the witty person is good at detecting hateful humor but is not necessarily an expert in judging the funniness of jokes. Curzer thus defends a moderate position in contemporary philosophy of humor—a Detraction Account of hateful humor—arguing that the humorou…Read more
  •  7
    Is Purely Practical Agreement Possible? Maritain’s Mexico City Thesis Answers Some MacIntyrian Challenges
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 92 175-188. 2018.
    In 1947, Jacques Maritain argued before the UN that “men mutually opposed in their theoretical conceptions can come to a merely practical agreement regarding a list of human rights.” Maritain justified this thesis using a progressive theory of the natural law which rests on a distinction between the natural law as operative in human nature and the natural law as known and articulated. Drawing on Maritain’s 1951 Man and the State, this essay defends a MacIntyrian reading of Maritain’s thesis and …Read more
  •  4
    Engaging the times: the witness of Thomism (edited book)
    American Maritain Association. 2017.
    The essays in this volume commemorate the 70th anniversary of Jacques Maritain's Pour la Justice, in which the French Thomist and future drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights grappled with the moral, political, and religious challenges facing Europe in the aftermath of World War II. During this time Maritain reflected on humanism, Christian philosophy, the relation between freedom, religion and politics, and increasingly, on education. Several scholars reflect on the historical im…Read more
  •  1
    Troy Jollimore, On Loyalty (review)
    Catholic Social Science Review 18 224-227. 2013.