I taught Sunday School this past week, and in preparation I came across the following quote from the manual: Elder James E. Faust said: “Private choices are not private; they all have public consequences. … Our society is the sum total of what millions of individuals do in their private lives. That sum total of private behavior has worldwide public consequences of enormous magnitude. There are no completely private choices” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1987, 101; or Ensign, May 1987, 80).... Read more

Introduction A feminist analysis of any major thinker or school of thought within the historical canon of political theory is bound to find many problems. This is surely the case when considering the social contract tradition and the most prominent modern thinkers within this tradition: Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacque Rousseau. To a certain extent these thinkers make many of the same mistakes that classical and other modern moral and political theorists made. First, women are often ignored as... Read more

I taught parts of Deuteronomy in my Sunday School class this past Sunday. The class is with high school juniors and seniors. They are a great group (and not just because I brought donuts today). During Priesthood I wrote down the following thought: I was struck by much of what I read in Deuteronomy. However, I was particularly drawn into the treatment of wealth in Chapter 8. The chapter starts with Moses reminding the Israelites of their humbling experiences, as... Read more

The reception history of Plato’s Republic has obviously been extensive, from Cicero’s De re publica . . . to Augustine’s De civitate Dei . . . to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings . . .   One of the passages of common interest, perhaps not as famous as, say, the Cave but still well known, is the Ship of State (488a and following). Socrates represents the city-state as a ship, the governance of which is disputed among those on board. The... Read more

Not sure if I hate the sin, but I hate this saying. I have been thinking about the idea of autonomy developed by Immanuel Kant. For Kant, the thing which makes humans special (and deserving of dignity) is that they are able to choose for themselves their own conception of the good life. Not only can we choose a conception of the good life (the type of life we want to live), but we can revise that conception as life... Read more

I brought Lowell Bennion’s “Do Justly and Love Mercy: Moral Issues for Mormons” to church with me today, I got it for Christmas and I have wanted to take a closer glance. What I have discovered in reading Bennion is that his way of thinking closely mirrors mine. Well…sort of. He is clearly smarter, more articulate, and more faithful than me. However, his thought seems to reflect an engagement with the great moral and social thinkers of the Western cannon,... Read more

I am looking to put together a panel for Sunstone on the broadly-defined category of Mormonism, Politics, and Ideology. I have some ideas for what I might do. I am now looking for the rest of the panel. Anybody interested? Below is the Call for Papers with other conference info: Sunstone Read more

8: The Mormon Proposition is a fantastic and provocative film that I think is essential viewing for anyone interested in the subject of Mormonism and homosexuality. I see a great deal to praise in this film, not least of which bringing to the screen many powerful stories and characters. Yet, I also see much to be critical of here. The standard by which I evaluate this film is the degree to which it is able to offer a critical stance... Read more

Authors Note: This is not an essay/post about Glenn Beck. The ideas below have been bouncing around my head since Fall 1999 when I was first introduced to the philosophy of John Rawls. This is not about the crass politics of talk radio, but instead about a philosophical debate which dates back to Plato. In particular, this argument is one deeply rooted in the works of Rousseau, Hume, and Kant. The following is still in a rough form. It represents... Read more