{"id":116954,"date":"2017-01-13T18:03:46","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T18:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/2017\/01\/13\/week-in-review-8325\/"},"modified":"2023-06-14T13:12:20","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T13:12:20","slug":"week-in-review-8325","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/2017\/01\/week-in-review-8325\/","title":{"rendered":"Week in review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rembrandt<\/em>, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer,\u00a01653<\/em>,\u00a0Oil on canvas<\/em>,
\nMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York<\/em>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Recent links of note:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cPhilosophy vs ethics\u201d<\/a><\/strong>
\nMax Hayward, The Times Literary Supplement<\/em>
\nWhen Aristotle claimed in his Nicomachean Ethics<\/em> that \u201cpractice precedes belief,\u201d he inverted the usual order of Greek moral philosophy, which had until then treated ethics as the moral actions that proceed from<\/em> our ideals. Although many philosophers since Aristotle\u2019s time have drifted back toward abstraction (with famously disastrous effects), the West at least continues to live predominantly within the philosophical \u201cHouse that Aristotle Built,\u201d as is demonstrated by the three fully modern and plainly Aristotelian books on ethics that Max Hayward recently reviewed for The<\/em> Times Literary Supplement<\/em>. The purpose of each book differs clearly from the next; James Griffin wants us to bring ethical ideals within the reach of the common man, Richard Joyce argues that our biology is the fount of morality, and Webb Keane suggests that the layers of culture we develop on top of our behavior govern our conduct. And yet all three approaches are united by Aristotle\u2019s neat empirical premise: we don\u2019t discover our ideals without first going out and living.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica\u2019s Village Atheists\u201d<\/a><\/strong>
\nCrawford Gribben, The American Interest<\/em>
\nFor all except the rarest and most pitiable political animals among us, the ongoing debate over religious liberty in America is excruciating to keep up with, no matter which side of the argument one prefers. The problem is not so much the harsh rhetoric being exchanged, which is, of course, a staple of all political conversation. Rather, the particular difficulty of enduring conversations about cake-maker\u2019s rights comes from the rhetoric of victimhood being employed by both the believers being pushed and the progressives doing the pushing. Writing in The American Interest<\/em>, the theology historian Crawford Gribben points out that this similarity between religious and atheist arguments has its roots in the nineteenth century, when, after the breakdown of objective sources of public belief, Christians and non-believers alike learned to couch their positions on public life within the language of individual experience. The trend, Gribben suggests, has often enabled a compromise in which both camps leave one another to inhabit their respective worldviews. And yet, as long as our beliefs are secured only by our rights against each other, the possibility of what Gribben calls a \u201czero-sum public square\u201d will always remain, and another new clash will never be too far away.<\/p>\n

From our pages:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWilliam Merritt Chase at the Museum of Fine Arts\u201d<\/a><\/strong>
\nFranklin Einspruch
\nOn an exhibition of the American painter in Boston.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three takes on modern ethics, and the shared roots of Christian and secular rhetoric.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2028,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[472],"tags":[664,904,809],"dispatch-city":[],"acf":{"participants":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_65fb0bff29d65","label":"Participants","name":"participants","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"user","value":null,"menu_order":0,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"role":"","return_format":"object","multiple":1,"allow_null":0,"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"participants","_valid":1}},"featured_image_credits":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_651c536113a8e","label":"Featured Image Credits","name":"featured_image_credits","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":0,"_name":"featured_image_credits","_valid":1}},"enable_paywall":{"simple_value_formatted":"No","value_formatted":false,"value":0,"field":{"ID":0,"key":"field_66009169342f2","label":"Enable Paywall","name":"enable_paywall","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"true_false","value":null,"menu_order":2,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":"group_651c53615a3f7","wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"message":"","default_value":0,"ui":0,"ui_on_text":"","ui_off_text":"","_name":"enable_paywall","_valid":1}}},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Mene Ukueberuwa","author_link":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/author\/mene-ukueberuwa\/"},"featured_img":null,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Dispatch<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Dispatch<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Christianity<\/a>","Impressionism<\/a>","Philosophy<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Christianity<\/span>","Impressionism<\/span>","Philosophy<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 7 years ago","modified":"Updated 11 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on January 13, 2017","modified":"Updated on June 14, 2023"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on January 13, 2017 6:03 pm","modified":"Updated on June 14, 2023 1:12 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"mfb_rest_fields":["author_meta","featured_img","jetpack_sharing_enabled","jetpack_featured_media_url","coauthors","tax_additional","comment_count","relative_dates","absolute_dates","absolute_dates_time","featured_img_caption","series_order","jetpack-related-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116954"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2028"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116955,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116954\/revisions\/116955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116954"},{"taxonomy":"dispatch-city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newcriterion.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dispatch-city?post=116954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}