Engaging Voices: Tales of Morality and Meaning in an Age of Global Warming

Notes

225 I can’t be certain where Samuel got his ideas for the stories, or his information either, for that matter. He was well read in philosophy, history, current events, and different religions but didn’t have much sense of scholarly responsibility in the footnote area. So I’ve done some research to try to give the reader a way to pursue these ideas in more detail—and with less fictional shadings. Introduction bigger than the United States. The Pacific Garbage Patch is “The World’s Largest Dump,” Discover, July 10, 2008, http://discovermagazine .com/2008/jul/10-the-worlds-largest-dump. You may Google the Garbage Patch and find that it is “merely” the size of Texas—which is what it was when it first got wide publicity. It has grown since then. Body burden : “Body Burden—The Pollution in Newborns,” Environmental Working Group Web site, July 2005, http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/ execsumm.php. I had my reasons. Some of these can be found in my A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and Our Planet’s Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006) and A Spirituality of Resistance: Finding a Peaceful Heart and Protecting the Earth (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). blessing and what is the curse. Samuel had clearly read the Bible, carefully. Notes 226 * Notes to pp. 7–18 Probably he had this passage in mind, in which Moses summarizes God’s law (again) in Deuteronomy 30:19: “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.” and the other thing you. This position is essential to the account of our moral interdependence in Alasdair MacIntyre, Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues (Chicago: Open Court, 2001). The ability and willingness to have an open-ended and ongoing conversation is also brilliantly represented as essential to moral life in Rowan Williams, Dostoevsky: Language, Faith, and Fiction (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2008). you get the idea. Interestingly, moral theory seems to combine two seemingly opposing tasks. On the one hand, we are charged to think ourselves out of our self-interested point of view so that we can understand and follow universal rules (as in Kant) or take everyone’s happiness as seriously as our own (utilitarianism). On the other, we are directed inward—to reflect on our own emotional condition (as in feminist empathy or care ethics) or what would lead to a truly good life for ourselves (virtue theory). In all cases, however, the possibility can arise that our beliefs and values are distorted by our social situation. Professional peacemakers do the same. Professional peacemakers engage with warring communities and try to get them to peaceful coexistence. Two interesting accounts of this are John Paul Lederach, The Journey toward Reconciliation (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald Press, 1999); and Michael Henderson , No Enemy to Conquer: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2009). Carol Gilligan helped initiate a continuing discussion in ethical theory by arguing that women employ a culturally distinct form of moral reasoning based in empathy and communication rather than universal rules: In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993). The idea that democracy is about communication rather than individual rights and the vote is developed brilliantly in Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). The ideal of the beloved community can be found in any history of the civil rights movement , and any study of Gandhi will describe his attitude toward external or internal opponents. Chapter 1 and it was all my own fault. Astute readers will notice that Samuel has lifted the essential story line of Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich, in which a shallow, selfish, careerist bureaucrat is morally remade by illness. In Tolstoy’s version the protagonist dies. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if he’d made a miraculous recovery. Notes to pp. 21–28 * 227 to obey their husbands. This is a common theme in some fundamentalist Christian circles, for which feminist ideas of gender equality are the source of terrible social ills. For a detailed and clear-eyed account of this aspect of contemporary Christianity, see Kathryn Joyce, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement (Boston: Beacon Press, 2009). the natural law for all peoples. This is an essential belief of the...