A Thinking Reed

  • Like a pope needs an encyclical

    I don’t know if I’ll get around to reading Caritas in Veritate in its entirety (so far I’ve only made it through the introduction), but John Schwenkler is going to be posting thoughts on each chapter once a week (see here for details), which will undoubtedly provide food for thought.

  • Book recommendation: James Garvey’s Ethics of Climate Change

    During my mini-vacation I read philosopher James Garvey’s book, The Ethics of Climate Change, which I highly recommend. It very lucidly lays out the moral issues and the kinds of responses they call for. I thought his discussion of what we know about the impact of climate change and how we should act in the…

  • On killing innocents

    Two links: Michael Jackson’s Death Means Little to Me McNamara’s Evil As I’ve pointed out before, one condition of any war being “just” according to traditional criteria would require a rigorous accounting for all the innocent lives lost and an equal weighing of those lives against any purported good that the war accomplishes. (And that’s…

  • Physician, heal thyself!

    Strangest thing I saw on my trip: a sidewalk pamphleteer handing out literature attacking President Obama’s “socialist” health care plan. In Canada.

  • Home again

    My lovely wife and I returned today from our great trip north. Montreal and Quebec City are both lovely, as are the people who live there, at least as far as I can tell. (I practiced saying “Je ne parle pas français” a lot.) We spent most of our time walking around soaking in the…

  • O Canada!

    Well, it’s Canada Day, and what better way to celebrate than by…going to Canada? That’s what I’m doing, anyway. My honey and I are leaving tomorrow for Montreal, followed by Quebec City (or just “Quebec” to the Canadians). It seems a bit unpatriotic to leave the country over Independence Day weekend, but I’ll think of…

  • Looking beyond the labels

    James McWilliams, author of the forthcoming Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly, looks at the lives of free-range pigs. While emphasizing that they’re far better off than their factory-farmed counterparts, McWilliams finds some serious ethical problems with the practice. McWilliams’ conclusion is a measured one: As responsible…

  • More on Anselm, death, and redemption

    Christopher has an excellent follow-up post on Anselm and atonement, addressing some of the worries I had about Jesus’ death being a payment of sorts. Instead of trying to summarize it, I encourage you to read the whole thing. Some of what Christopher wrote brought to mind a passage from Denis Edwards’ Ecology at the…

  • Kinship and cultivation, Francis and Benedict

    Catholic theologian Denis Edwards’ Ecology at the Heart of Faith provides a good model of engaging environmental issues using the classic Christian theological tradition. In chapter 2 he discusses the controverted issue of the image of God and dominion over nature. He argues that the imago is best understood as the human capacity for interpersonal…

  • Cognitive ethology, the Left, faith, and dominion

    A long but worthwhile essay that to some extent recapitulates the argument made by John Gray in Straw Dogs. Gray’s contention was that the secular Left has largely jettisoned the metaphysics of Christianity but held on to its anthropocentric outlook and belief in a progressive history. Echoing Nietzsche, Gray argues that the scientific, secular outlook…