Suchergebnisse

"Jeremy Bentham described the idea of human rights as "rhetorical nonsense." In this book, which is proposed for the Moral Traditions series, William O'Neill shows that the rhetorical aspect of human rights is in fact crucial. He does so by examining how victims and their advocates embrace the rhetoric of human rights to tell their stories. It is a history of human rights "from below," showing what victims of atrocity and advocates do with rights. Using a group of American writings, including Desmond Tutu's on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, O'Neill reconciles the false dichotomy between the individualistic perspective of the human rights theory of Kant, Rousseau, and Rawls and the communitarian approach of Burke, Bentham, and Alasdair Macintyre. He shows that the testimony of the victims of atrocities leads us to a new conception of the common good, based both on abstract theories of individual human rights and the circumstances and history of particular societies. The book then applies this new approach to three areas: race and mass incarceration in the U.S, the politics of immigration and refugee policy, and our duties to the next generation and the non-human world"--

The purpose of this book is to provide an outlet for original research articles examining the role and value of religious and spiritual constructs across the social sciences. The aim of the series is to include an international and interfaith voice to this research dialogue. An effort is made to be interdisciplinary and academically eclectic. The articles in each volume represent a wide array of perspectives and research projects. Most of the articles report the findings of quantitative or qualitative investigations, but some deal with methodology, theory, or applications of social science studies in the field of religion, and some are applied, demonstrating the relevance of the social sciences to religious organizations and their clergy. The value of the volume is that it gives to researchers in this area a broad perspective on the issues and methods of religious research across a spectrum of academic disciplines. The aim of the book is to stimulate a creative, integrative dialogue that will enhance interdisciplinary research

Copyrighting God provides the first detailed account of how American religious organizations used copyright in sacred texts not simply for economic gain but also for social organization and control. Including chapters on the angelic authorship of The Urantia Book, Mary Baker Eddy's use of copyright to construct the Christian Science Church, interdenominational disputes in the Worldwide Church of God, and the Church of Scientology's landmark lawsuits against Internet service providers, this book examines how religious copyright owners mobilized the law in order to organize communities, protect sacred goods, produce new forms of spiritual identity, and even enchant the material world. In doing so, this book demonstrates that these organizations all engaged in complex efforts to harmonize legal arguments and theological rationales in order to care for and protect religious media, thereby coming to a nuanced understanding of secular law as a resource for, and obstacle to, their unique spiritual objectives.

Leveraging close elections to generate quasi-random variation in the religious identity of state legislators in India, we find lower rates of female foeticide in districts with Muslim legislators, which we argue reflects a greater (religious) aversion to abortion among Muslims. These districts exhibit increases in fertility that offset the decrease in girl abortion. We find no evidence of greater postnatal neglect of girls once more girls are born. Our findings show that politician preferences over abortion influence abortion-related outcomes, most likely through greater enforcement of laws against sex determination.

Maloney, Civan and Maloney (Public Choice, 2009, this volume) extend the existing literature on the economics of religion in several important ways. First, they define the religious good. They then distinguish a sectarian break from a schism, provide some analysis of schisms in the Christian world, and finally, and most interestingly, provide a summary of the religious practices and schisms in Islam. The two main strengths of the paper, and the most promising paths for future research, lie in the definition of the religious good and in the exploration of Islamic practices. Maloney, Civan and Maloney offer a novel perspective from which light might be reflected back upon Christian schisms. Adapted from the source document.

How does religion affect one's attitudes toward immigrants? Scholars have shown that members of minor religious groups are less anti-immigrant than members of majority affiliations and that Evangelical Protestants are particularly hostile. Other scholars have demonstrated that increased religiosity reduces immigrant animus. Here, we argue that religion affects immigration attitudes via a distinct religiously informed interpretation of America's national identity, which we call Christian nationalism. Christian nationalists believe that America has a divinely inspired mission and link its success to God's favor. Using social identity complexity theory, we argue that citizens who ascribe to this worldview should be least tolerant of those they perceive as symbolic threats to American national identity. We assess this claim using the 2006 Pew Immigration Attitudes Survey and the 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Survey. Christian nationalism is a robust determinant of immigrant animus, whereas religious affiliation only affects immigrant animus when Christian nationalism is excluded. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]