Philip Blosser
Philip Blosser is professor of philosophy at Sacred Heart Theological Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. Born in China, he earned his BA in Far Eastern Studies and Philosophy from Sophia University in Tokyo (1974), an MA in religious studies at Westminster Theological Seminary (1979), a Master's in philosophy at Villanova University (1980), and a doctorate in philosophy at Duquesne University (1985). His interests range from phenomenology and moral philosophy to philosophy of religion and theology.
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Papers by Philip Blosser
Like Eugene Kelly’s *Structure and Diversity: Studies in the Phenomenological Philosophy of Max Scheler*, Peter Spader’s *Scheler’s Ethical Personalism: It’s Logic, Development, and Promise* offers some helpful observations in defense of Scheler’s ethics in response to particular criticisms and questions I have tendered over the past decade. For example, in response to hypothetical moral quandaries that I posed in order to question whether Scheler’s hierarchy of material values is in fact able to offer practical moral guidance, Spader notes the importance of discerning the hierarchy of bearers of material values that Scheler differentiates from the hierarchy of material values as such. (p. 278) Accordingly, in response to my persistent suggestion that a tacit reductionism underlies Scheler’s view that the realization (or intended realization) of all material values has moral implications (viz., involves the realization of moral values), Spader again points out the importance of discerning the bearers of various sorts of values. For example, while conceding the relative autonomy of “aesthetic” from “moral” values, Spader notes that the bearers of moral values, in contrast to aesthetic values, are always persons, never mere objects, as in the case of aesthetic values. (p. 284f.) Thus the Schelerian claim that the realization of material values, because it necessarily involves personal agency, inevitably bears a moral significance (involving the realization of moral values) seems securely preserved.
This, however, is where I wish to interject and develop several further distinctions in my line of questioning against the Schelerian legacy. First, I wish to refine the received claim that persons are necessarily and always the bearers of moral values by distinguishing between the person as “subject” and “object” and insisting that the person functions as bearer of values (in the sense of agent) only subjectively. This allows us to concede that non-personal entities may also function as bearers of moral values, if not subjectively as agents, then objectively as things bearing a moral significance or imputation. This shows that the distinction between moral and non-moral values is capable of being analyzed in more careful, considered and helpful detail than hitherto observed, and may need to be so analyzed in order to avoid perpetuating various persistent (if inadvertent) distortions and misunderstanding of the phenomena in question.
Second, I wish to persist in my audacious line of questioning against the received claim that the realization of every good (such as aesthetic good) involves a moral good. Kant’s distinction between the moral and the legal (good, though not morally good) may be a case in point. Here I want to try to refine my distinction between moral and non-moral goods (both in the sense of values and their bearers), and to show that there are many species of good that are irreducible to moral good.
Thirdly and finally, following upon the logic of the foregoing distinction, and in response to Scheler’s language about the ethical and ideal “oughts,” I wish to introduce a new distinction between the “normative” as such, and the “moral” as a species of the normative. Thus I wish to allow for and to acknowledge the sense of “oughtness” or obligation attendant to the realization of various non-moral values, without following what I consider the reductionistic logic that would have us regard every sort of normativity (whether mathematical, logical, economic, aesthetic) as moral normativity. The worthiness of praise or blame attendant to a particular performance of athletic exhertion, mathematical calculation, or interior decoration, may be analogous to that found and experienced within the realm of moral activity, but is not reducible to it.
Like Eugene Kelly’s *Structure and Diversity: Studies in the Phenomenological Philosophy of Max Scheler*, Peter Spader’s *Scheler’s Ethical Personalism: It’s Logic, Development, and Promise* offers some helpful observations in defense of Scheler’s ethics in response to particular criticisms and questions I have tendered over the past decade. For example, in response to hypothetical moral quandaries that I posed in order to question whether Scheler’s hierarchy of material values is in fact able to offer practical moral guidance, Spader notes the importance of discerning the hierarchy of bearers of material values that Scheler differentiates from the hierarchy of material values as such. (p. 278) Accordingly, in response to my persistent suggestion that a tacit reductionism underlies Scheler’s view that the realization (or intended realization) of all material values has moral implications (viz., involves the realization of moral values), Spader again points out the importance of discerning the bearers of various sorts of values. For example, while conceding the relative autonomy of “aesthetic” from “moral” values, Spader notes that the bearers of moral values, in contrast to aesthetic values, are always persons, never mere objects, as in the case of aesthetic values. (p. 284f.) Thus the Schelerian claim that the realization of material values, because it necessarily involves personal agency, inevitably bears a moral significance (involving the realization of moral values) seems securely preserved.
This, however, is where I wish to interject and develop several further distinctions in my line of questioning against the Schelerian legacy. First, I wish to refine the received claim that persons are necessarily and always the bearers of moral values by distinguishing between the person as “subject” and “object” and insisting that the person functions as bearer of values (in the sense of agent) only subjectively. This allows us to concede that non-personal entities may also function as bearers of moral values, if not subjectively as agents, then objectively as things bearing a moral significance or imputation. This shows that the distinction between moral and non-moral values is capable of being analyzed in more careful, considered and helpful detail than hitherto observed, and may need to be so analyzed in order to avoid perpetuating various persistent (if inadvertent) distortions and misunderstanding of the phenomena in question.
Second, I wish to persist in my audacious line of questioning against the received claim that the realization of every good (such as aesthetic good) involves a moral good. Kant’s distinction between the moral and the legal (good, though not morally good) may be a case in point. Here I want to try to refine my distinction between moral and non-moral goods (both in the sense of values and their bearers), and to show that there are many species of good that are irreducible to moral good.
Thirdly and finally, following upon the logic of the foregoing distinction, and in response to Scheler’s language about the ethical and ideal “oughts,” I wish to introduce a new distinction between the “normative” as such, and the “moral” as a species of the normative. Thus I wish to allow for and to acknowledge the sense of “oughtness” or obligation attendant to the realization of various non-moral values, without following what I consider the reductionistic logic that would have us regard every sort of normativity (whether mathematical, logical, economic, aesthetic) as moral normativity. The worthiness of praise or blame attendant to a particular performance of athletic exhertion, mathematical calculation, or interior decoration, may be analogous to that found and experienced within the realm of moral activity, but is not reducible to it.
It used to be said that there are four sources of law: legislation (or rule), precedent, equity (or justice), and custom (or policy). These sources are differently weighted by different legal theories. An exclusively political and analytical jurisprudence may focus on legislation (or rule), an exclusively historical and socio-economic jurisprudence may focus on precedent and custom (or policy), and both may neglect the sources of equity (or justice) in natural law, which dominated the philosophical and moral jurisprudence of Catholic and classical tradition. The “analytical-positivist” jurisprudence dominant today largely regards law as a matter of technical expertise and practical expediency, generally disregarding as a private, personal affair those moral and religious beliefs and postulates that historically have always been presupposed by legal systems in Western history. The problem is that those beliefs and postulates are disappearing, not only from the minds of lawmakers, but from the consciousness of the people as a whole. Some suggest that this puts us in the midst of an unprecedented crisis of legal thought, in which not only the so-called liberal concepts of recent centuries, but the foundations of our entire legal tradition are being challenged. What would St. Paul say about our legal systems and theories today?
Immanuel Kant and Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) have superficially similar views, but views that are radically different when one probes beneath the surface. Kant fears that sexual partners lose themselves to one another by each "using" the other's sexual organs for his or her own pleasure. Wojtyla argues that we actually find ourselves only through an act of total self-donation to another.
The disengagement of church-related schools from their founding religious traditions over the last century has often led, ironically, to the exclusion of specifically Christian values in the name of secular pluralism. A common sentiment today is that religious affiliations are not only anachronistic, but also incompatible with free inquiry. Against this, I want to argue that: (1) there is no value-free education without some sort of historical bias. A university does not become a more authentic university by shedding its religious affiliation, but a different kind of university. (2) Pluralism does not mean becoming nondescript and homogeneous, like everybody else. Pluralism is about differences and robust assertions of one’s distinctive background and beliefs, which enrich society and education. (3) Religiously affiliated universities have several advantages, such as their sense of identity, tradition, the unity of truth, and offer unique resources for defending the freedom of liberal education against market driven consumerism and other external threats to its integrity.
It has sections exploring (1) various historical theories conscience (Jerome, Origen, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Cardinal Newman, Butler, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, and many others); (2) the various terms used for conscience in Greek, Latin, and other European languages; (3) different types of theories -- those that identify conscience with the intellect, intuition, will, feelings, etc.; (4) the development of conscience; and (5) the reliability of conscience.
The book is not highly technical, but reasonably accessible, and promises to be of interest to those interested in moral and religious psychology, ethics, and religion, as well as Schelerian phenomenology.
The book will go on sale the end of March.