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religion becomes its own secular catalyst, or, rather, secularization itself is the result of religion. This approach will mature in the most elaborate formulation of what Habermas calls the “linguistification of the sacred,” in volume two of The Theory of Communicative Action. There, basing himself on Durkheim and Mead, Habermas shows how ritual practices and religious worldviews release rational imperatives through the establishment of a communicative grammar that conditions how believers can and should interact with each other, and how they relate to the idea of a supreme being. Habermas writes: worldviews function as a kind of drive belt that transforms the basic religious consensus into the energy of social solidarity and passes it on to social institutions, thus giving them a moral authority. [. . .] Whereas ritual actions take place at a pregrammatical level, religious worldviews are connected with full-fledged communicative actions.

The thrust of Habermas’s argumentation in this section of The Theory of Communicative Action is to show that religion is the source of the normative binding power of ethical and moral commandments. Yet there is an ambiguity here. While the contents of worldviews may be sublimated into the normative, binding of social systems, it is not entirely clear that the structure, or the grammar, of religious worldviews is itself exhausted. Indeed, in “A Genealogical Analysis of the Cognitive Content of Morality,” Habermas resolves this ambiguity by claiming that the horizontal relationship among believers and the vertical relationship between each believer and God shape the structure of our moral relationship to our neighbour, but now under two corresponding aspects: that of solidarity and that of justice. Here, the grammar of one’s religious relationship to God and the corresponding community of believers are like the exoskeleton of a magnificent species, which, once the religious worldviews contained in them have desiccated under the impact of the forces of secularization, leave behind a casing to be used as a structuring shape for other contents.

Metaphysical thinking, which for Habermas has become untenable by the very logic of philosophical development, is characterized by three aspects: identity thinking, or the philosophy of origins that postulates the correspondence between being and thought; the doctrine of ideas, which becomes the foundation for idealism, which in turn postulates a tension between what is perceived and what can be conceptualized; and a concomitant strong concept of theory, where the bios theoretikos takes on a quasi-sacred character, and where philosophy becomes the path to salvation through dedication to a life of contemplation. By “postmetaphysical” Habermas means the new self-understanding of reason that we are able to obtain after the collapse of the Hegelian idealist system—the historicization of reason, or the de-substantivation that turns it into a procedural rationality, and, above all, its humbling. It is noteworthy that one of the main aspects of the new postmetaphysical constellation is that in the wake of the collapse of metaphysics, philosophy is forced to recognize that it must co-exist with religious practices and language: Philosophy, even in its postmetaphysical form, will be able neither to replace nor to repress religion as long as religious language is the bearer of semantic content that is inspiring and even indispensable, for this content eludes (for the time being?) the explanatory force of philosophical language and continues to resist translation into reasoning discourses.

metaphysical thinking either surrendered philosophy to religion or sought to eliminate religion altogether. In contrast, postmetaphysical thinking recognizes that philosophy can neither replace nor dismissively reject religion, for religion continues to articulate a language whose syntax and content elude philosophy, but from which philosophy continues to derive insights into the universal dimensions of human existence.

Habermas claims that even moral discourse cannot translate religious language without something being lost: “Secular languages which only eliminate the substance once intended leave irritations. When sin was converted to culpability, and the breaking of divine commands to an offence against human laws, something was lost.” Still, Habermas’s concern with religion is no longer solely philosophical, nor merely socio-theoretical, but has taken on political urgency. Indeed, he now asks whether modern rule of law and constitutional democracies can generate the motivational resources that nourish them and make them durable. In a series of essays, now gathered in Between Naturalism and Religion, as well as in his Europe: The Faltering Project, Habermas argues that as we have become members of a world society (Weltgesellschaft), we have also been forced to adopt a societal “post-secular self-consciousness.” By this term Habermas does not mean that secularization has come to an end, and even less that it has to be reversed. Instead, he now clarifies that secularization refers very specifically to the secularization of state power and to the general dissolution of metaphysical, overarching worldviews (among which religious views are to be counted). Additionally, as members of a world society that has, if not a fully operational, at least an incipient global public sphere, we have been forced to witness the endurance and vitality of religion. As members of this emergent global public sphere, we are also forced to recognize the plurality of forms of secularization. Secularization did not occur in one form, but in a variety of forms and according to different chronologies.

through a critical reading of Rawls, Habermas has begun to translate the postmetaphysical orientation of modern philosophy into a postsecular self-understanding of modern rule of law societies in such a way that religious citizens as well as secular citizens can co-exist, not just by force of a modus vivendi, but out of a sincere mutual respect. “Mutual recognition implies, among other things, that religious and secular citizens are willing to listen and to learn from each other in public debates. The political virtue of treating each other civilly is an expression of distinctive cognitive attitudes.” The cognitive attitudes Habermas is referring to here are the very cognitive competencies that are distinctive of modern, postconventional social agents. Habermas’s recent work on religion, then, is primarily concerned with rescuing for the modern liberal state those motivational and moral resources that it cannot generate or provide itself. At the same time, his recent work is concerned with foregrounding the kind of ethical and moral concerns, preoccupations, and values that can guide us between the Scylla of a society administered from above by the system imperatives of a global economy and political power and the Charybdis of a technological frenzy that places us on the slippery slope of a liberally sanctioned eugenics.

However, a greater concern lies in the notion of climate change itself. Climate change is in essence one kind of nature-society relationship, in which humans influence the climate through greenhouse gas (particularly CO2) emissions, and the climate strikes back by heating up and going crazy at times. This can be further simplified into a battle between humans and CO2: reducing CO2 guards against climate change, and increasing it aggravates the consequences. This view is anchored in scientists’ recommendation that a ‘safe’ level of CO2 should be at 350 parts per million (ppm) instead of the current 390. Already, the need to reduce CO2 is understood, as is evident in the push for greener fuels, more efficient means of production, the proliferation of ‘green’ products and companies, and most recently, the Cancun talks.

So can there be anything wrong with reducing CO2? No, there isn’t, but singling out CO2 as the culprit of climate change or of the environmental problems we face prevents us from looking within. What do I mean? The enemy, CO2, is an ‘other’, an externality produced by our economic systems but never an inherent component of the systems. Thus, we can declare war on the gas or on climate change without taking a step back and questioning: is there anything wrong with the way we develop?  Take Singapore for example: the government pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 16% under ‘business as usual’ standards, which says nothing about how ‘business’ is going to be changed other than having less carbon emissions (in fact, it is questionable even that CO2 levels will decrease, as ‘business as usual’ standards project a steady increase emission of CO2 each year). With the development of green technologies, decrease in carbon emissions will mainly be brought about by increased energy efficiency and switch to alternative fuels (including the insidious nuclear energy).

Thus, the way we develop will hardly be changed. Nobody questions whether our neoliberal system of development, which relies heavily on consumption to drive economies, needs to be looked into. We assume that it is the right way to develop, and only tweak it for the amount of externalities produced. Whether or not we should be measuring development by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or if welfare is correlated to the amount of goods and services consumed is never considered. Even the UN-REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) scheme which aims to pay forest-rich countries for protecting their forests, ends up putting a price tag on them. The environment is being subsumed under the economy, when it should be that the economy is re-looked to take the environment into consideration.

when the world is celebrating after having held at bay the dangerous greenhouse gas, why would anyone bother rethinking about the economy? Yet we should, simply because there are alternative nature-society relationships and discourses about nature that are more or of equal importance as global warming. Annie Leonard’s informative videos on The Story of Stuff and specific products like electronics, bottled water and cosmetics shed light on the dangers of our ‘throw-away culture’ on the planet and poorer countries. What if the enemy was instead consumerism? Doing so would force countries (especially richer ones) to fundamentally question the nature of development, instead of just applying a quick technological fix. This is so much more difficult (and less economically viable), alongside other issues like environmental injustices – e.g. pollution or dumping of waste by Trans-National Corporations in poorer countries and removal of indigenous land rights. It is no wonder that we choose to disregard internal problems and focus instead on an external enemy; when CO2 is the culprit, the solution is too simple and detached from the communities that are affected by changes in their environment.

We need hence to allow for a greater politics of the environment. What I am proposing is not to diminish our action to reduce carbon emissions, for I do believe that it is part of the environmental problem that we are facing. What instead should be done is to reduce our fixation on CO2 as the main or only driver of climate change, and of climate change as the most pertinent nature-society issue we are facing. We should understand that there are many other ways of thinking about the environment; ‘developing’ countries, for example, tend to have a closer relationship with their environment – it is not something ‘out there’ but constantly interacted with for food, water, regulating services and cultural value. Their views and the impact of the socio-economic forces (often from TNCs and multi-lateral organizations like IMF) that shape the environment must also be taken into account, as do alternative meanings of sustainable development. Thus, even as we pat ourselves on the back for having achieved something significant at Cancun, our action should not and must not end there. Even if climate change hogs the headlines now, we must embrace more plurality in environmental discourse, for nature is not and never so simple as climate change alone. And hopefully sometime in the future, alongside a multi-lateral conference on climate change, the world can have one which rethinks the meaning of development.

human rights were discussed—when they were mentioned at all—as demands made in particular times and places. Some of these demands might be universal in scope—that torture be prohibited everywhere was frequently (though not always) formulated in terms of an all-encompassing necessity, but no one imagined that human rights comprised the only possible universal morality.

the notion that rights are the foundation of society came only with the rise of the Harvard philosopher John Rawls’s vastly influential A Theory of Justice (1971). In the years following, it slowly came to be accepted that human rights were the bottom line in political morality.

Anyone who really values the progressive civilising potential of science should argue (in a qualified way as here) against Beddington's intemperate call for "complete intolerance" of scepticism. It is the social and human realities shared by politicians, non-government organisations, journalists and scientists themselves, that make tolerance of scepticism so important. The priorities pursued in scientific research and the directions taken by technology are all as fundamentally political as other areas of policy. No matter how uncomfortable and messy the resulting debates may sometimes become, we should never be cowed by any special interest—including that of scientific institutions—away from debating these issues in open, rational, democratic ways. To allow this to happen would be to undermine science itself in the most profound sense. It is the upholding of an often imperfect pursuit of scepticism and tolerance that offer the best way to respect and promote science. Such a position is, indeed, much more in keeping with the otherwise-exemplary work of John Beddington himself.Stirling's eloquent response provides a nice tonic to Beddington's unsettling remarks. Nonetheless, Beddington's perspective should be taken as a clear warning as to the pathological state of highly politicized science these days.

Suppose I concede to Prinz that reason cannot settle differences in moral values and sentiments. Difference of opinion doesn’t mean that there isn’t a true or rational answer. In fact, there are many reasons why our cognition, emotional reactions or previous values could be wrong or irrational — and why people would not pick up on their deficiencies. In his article, Prinz uses the case of sociopaths, who simply lack certain cognitive abilities. There are many reasons other than sociopathy why human beings can get things wrong, morally speaking, often and badly. It could be that people are unable to adopt a more objective morality because of their circumstances — from brain deficiencies to lack of access to relevant information. But, again, none of this amounts to an argument against the existence of objective morality.

As it turns out, Prinz’s conception of objective morality does not quite reflect the thinking of most people who believe in objective morality. He writes that: “Objectivism holds that there is one true morality binding upon all of us.” This is a particular strand of moral realism, but there are many. For instance, one can judge some moral precepts as better than others, yet remain open to the fact that there are probably many different ways to establish a good society. This is a pluralistic conception of objective morality which doesn’t assume one absolute moral truth. For all that has been said, Sam Harris’ idea of a moral landscape does help illustrate this concept. Thinking in terms of better and worse morality gets us out of relativism and into an objectivist approach. The important thing to note is that one need not go all the way to absolute objectivity to work toward a rational, non-arbitrary morality.

even Prinz admits that “Relativism does not entail that we should tolerate murderous tyranny. When someone threatens us or our way of life, we are strongly motivated to protect ourselves.” That is, there are such things as better and worse values: the worse ones kill us, the better ones don’t. This is a very broad criterion, but it is an objective standard. Prinz is arguing for a tighter moral relativism – a sort of stripped down objective morality that is constricted by nature, experience, and our (modest) reasoning abilities.

I proposed at the discussion that a more objective morality could be had with the help of a robust public discourse on the issues at hand. Prinz does not necessarily disagree. He wrote that “Many people have overlapping moral values, and one can settle debates by appeal to moral common ground.” But Prinz pointed out a couple of limitations on public discourse. For example, the agreements we reach on “moral common ground” are often exclusive of some, and abstract in content. Consider the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, a seemingly good example of global moral agreement. Yet, it was ratified by a small sample of 48 countries, and it is based on suspiciously Western sounding language. Everyone has a right to education and health care, but — Prinz pointed out during the discussion — what level of education and health care? Still, the U.N. declaration was passed 48-0 with just 8 abstentions (Belarus, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine, USSR, Yugoslavia, South Africa and Saudi Arabia). It includes 30 articles of ethical standards agreed upon by 48 countries around the world. Such a document does give us more reason to think that public discourse can lead to significant agreement upon values.

Reason might not be able to arrive at moral truths, but it can push us to test and question the rationality of our values — a crucial part in the process that leads to the adoption of new, or modified values. The only way to reduce disputes about morality is to try to get people on the same page about their moral goals. Given the above, this will not be easy, and perhaps we shouldn’t be too optimistic in our ability to employ reason to figure things out. But reason is still the best, and even only, tool we can wield, and while it might not provide us with a truly objective morality, it’s enough to save us from complete moral relativism.

The typical establishment individual would refuse to contribute an article to an independent medium that is known to carry opposition party voices, for example. In Singapore’s political culture, it is assumed that any such medium would be blacklisted by people at the top, and that anyone who cooperates with it will be guilty by association. Or, perhaps it is simply that most establishment types lack the confidence to engage in debate on a truly level playing field.

1. The harm principle bases our ethical considerations on other beings’ capacity for higher-level subjective experience. Human beings (and some animals) have the potential — and desire — to experience deep pleasure and happiness while seeking to avoid pain and suffering. We have the obligation, then, to afford creatures with these capacities, desires and relations a certain level of respect. They also have other emotional and social interests: for instance, friends and families concerned with their health and enjoyment. These actors also deserve consideration.

2. If we have a moral obligation to act a certain way toward someone, that should be reflected in law. Rights theory is the idea that there are certain rights worth granting to people with very few, if any, caveats. Many of these rights were spelled out in the founding documents of this country, the Declaration of Independence (which admittedly has no legal pull) and the Constitution (which does). They have been defended in a long history of U.S. Supreme Court rulings. They have also been expanded on in the U.N.’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the founding documents of other countries around the world. To name a few, they include: freedom of belief, speech and expression, due process, equal treatment, health care, and education.

3. While we ought to consider our broader moral efforts, and focus on our obligations to others, it is also important to place attention on our quality as moral agents. A vital part of fostering a respectable pluralist moral framework is to encourage virtues, and cultivate moral character. A short list of these virtues would include prudence, justice, wisdom, honesty, compassion, and courage. One should study these, and strive to put these into practice and work to be a better human being, as Aristotle advised us to do.

most people already are ethical pluralists. Life and society are complex to navigate, and one cannot rely on a single idea for guidance. It is probably accurate to say that people lean more toward one theory, rather than practice it to the exclusion of all others. Of course, this only describes the fact that people think about morality in a pluralistic way. But the outlined approach is supported, sound reasoning — that is, unless you are ready to entirely dismiss 2,500 years of Western moral philosophy.

most scholars, whatever their disciplinary background, do not publish negative results.

I would admire it more if he didn’t elsewhere dismiss qualitative literary analysis as “a theological exercise.” (Moretti does not subscribe to literary-analytic pluralism: he has suggested that distant reading should supplant, not supplement, close reading.) The counterpoint to theology is science, and reading Moretti, it’s impossible not to notice him jockeying for scientific status. He appears now as literature’s Linnaeus (taxonomizing a vast new trove of data), now as Vesalius (exposing its essential skeleton), now as Galileo (revealing and reordering the universe of books), now as Darwin (seeking “a law of literary ­evolution”).

Literature is an artificial universe, and the written word, unlike the natural world, can’t be counted on to obey a set of laws. Indeed, Moretti often mistakes metaphor for fact. Those “skeletons” he perceives inside stories are as imposed as exposed; and literary evolution, unlike the biological kind, is largely an analogy. (As the author and critic Elif Batuman pointed out in an n+1 essay on Moretti’s earlier work, books actually are the result of intelligent design.)

Literature, he argues, is “a collective system that should be grasped as such.” But this, too, is a theology of sorts — if not the claim that literature is a system, at least the conviction that we can find meaning only in its totality.

The idea that truth can best be revealed through quantitative models dates back to the development of statistics (and boasts a less-than-benign legacy). And the idea that data is gold waiting to be mined; that all entities (including people) are best understood as nodes in a network; that things are at their clearest when they are least particular, most interchangeable, most aggregated — well, perhaps that is not the theology of the average lit department (yet). But it is surely the theology of the 21st century.