Classical and medieval rhetorical theorists had many names for the figure of thought that we call ‘personification’ or prosopopoeia. This fundamentally hybrid figure occurs at the confluence of different kinds of discourse; definitions range across a spectrum from the ‘animate abstraction’ to the ‘person introduced to speak’. The essay explores the diverse rhetorical theory behind this figure. It then discusses the hybridity of this figure, and in particular its striking capacity for multivalency, change and even disintegration (paradiastole), in medieval vernacular narrative allegory. It focuses on Langland’s Piers Plowman, with reference to the figures Clergie, Patience, Conscience, Wil, Haukyn and Piers Plowman. Finally, the essay investigates another aspect of this hybridity that might seem counter-intuitive to readers who assume that prosopopoiae/personifications should have surface or even naturalistic narrative coherence: the way that this figure of thought allows Langland repeatedly to cultivate an ambiguity about whether his prosopopoiae/personifications are lay or ordained. This telling ambiguity reflects the poet’s disengaged attitude to the institution of the church and even the priesthood.

The end of a war is not just about a societys making peace with its former enemy. It is also about the societys making peace with itself. This begins with welcoming back those who have gone to war, those who must be at peace with themselves and at peace with others over what they have done. My title, The Lament of the Demobilized, is from Vera Brittain, a leading pacifist voice of the twentieth century whose pacifism – I call it soldier pacifism – was grounded in her first-hand experience of war. Such soldier pacifism holds that the grief of knowing war means the soldier can never fully return home, and that this constitutes an indictment of all war. I explore this theme through memoirs, literature, poetry, as well as recent topics in just war theory.

The end of a war is not just about a societys making peace with its former enemy. It is also about the societys making peace with itself. This begins with welcoming back those who have gone to war, those who must be at peace with themselves and at peace with others over what they have done. My title, The Lament of the Demobilized, is from Vera Brittain, a leading pacifist voice of the twentieth century whose pacifism – I call it soldier pacifism – was grounded in her first-hand experience of war. Such soldier pacifism holds that the grief of knowing war means the soldier can never fully return home, and that this constitutes an indictment of all war. I explore this theme through memoirs, literature, poetry, as well as recent topics in just war theory.

Chapter 5 considers the theology and moral philosophy of the respected theologian and moral casuist, Robert Sanderson. The divine Sanderson despaired of the unfortunate consequences for practical morality of denying the responsibility and freedom of individuals. In its historical context his doubt amounted to finally rejecting the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. Scholars consider Sanderson’s Several Cases of Conscience Discussed in Ten Lectures in the Divinity School at Oxford a main reference for Locke in the writing of the unpublished Two Tracts of Government and his foundational Essays on the Law of Nature. Sanderson’s work sets out a moral philosophy of free will reinforced by mechanical overtones of necessary causality in reasoning. The chapter briefly analyses this type of ‘mechanical conscience’ and shows how Sanderson was committed to a de facto theory of government.

The scepticism of the period from roughly 1645 to 1680 prompted philosophers’ attempts to rethink theology and moral and civil philosophy in their search for ideas concerning the common and the public good. Ralph Cudworth’s effort to overcome the challenges posed by fragmentation in religion and politics and to develop a philosophy helpful in uniting society, but not at the expense of liberty, demonstrate that Neoplatonism was an important force during that period. In a sceptical era, John Selden contributed to particularism in natural law. A discussion of Sir Robert Filmer’s life and key political ideas together with the principles of political economy he espoused follows. Given the disintegration of moral theology in that period, the commercialization of societal ties seems to have been unstoppable. Against the Macphersonian critique of possessive individualism, the chapter puts forward the opening argument that both Hobbes and Locke sought to tame the harsh society characterized by the use of credit they saw before them and that they chose to do so by means of political philosophy and natural law.

Focusing on the various rounds of debates between the 1620s and 1640s on whether or how to seek peace or truce in the war with the Dutch Republic, this explores how agents and counsellors from different parts of the Spanish monarchy navigated the conflict between ideology and necessity-driven pragmatism in contexts of concrete decision-making. Directed at preserving and re-establishing dominion over the various realms of the monarchy, reason of state was at the heart of this weighing of principle and pragmatism. Agents were at the centre of a constant cycle of collecting and assessing information, projecting likely future courses and searching for the utmost expedience within the boundaries of royal conscience and obligations. What solutions were conceivable when attempts to preserve dominion over the Low Countries ran contrary to the demands of the Catholic faith and the preservation of the rest of the monarchy? Could special circumstances allow for special measures or concessions that might deviate from the princely obligations towards justice and the Faith? The chapter shows that as each decade of the war added to its own history, pragmatic arguments and solutions were often inspired by experience, together with a notion of extenuating necessity.

This chapter presents the resolution to Hegel’s account of the problem of recognition by considering the “moral” self, that of “conscience” (Gewissen). It begins by showing that “morality” is the stance that adequately countenances the self-productive character of self-conscious beings, so that the self is understood to be constituted through activity. Only conscience, however, acknowledges the social character of this constitution of the self, the fact that, to count as a self, I must realize my moral knowledge both through my actions, and through participation in moral discourse along with others. For Hegel, successful recognition as a moral self requires the development of particular social practices, confession and forgiveness, through which we can respond to moral disagreement, and I demonstrate that recognizing one another as conscientious requires a continuing dependence on practices like these.

In this concluding chapter, I summarize the argument about the conditions for the achievement of recognition that Hegel sets out from Chapters IV-VI of the Phenomenology. I consider the ways in which the conclusions of this argument are significant for the project of the text as a whole, pointing to the role of the idea of the self both in the Phenomenology’s “Preface” and account of “Absolute Knowing,” and in the Science of Logic. At the same time, I also argue that the account of reciprocal recognition is completed in Hegel’s account of “spirit,” and so does not depend on the subsequent accounts of religion or philosophical science. I conclude by stressing the precarity of relations of reciprocal recognition which are dependent on the achievement of moral agreement.

This chapter discusses Heidegger’s concept of authenticity and the extent to which it entails an individualism incompatible with his social ontological holism. I argue that Heidegger’s notion of authenticity does not refer to a process of individualisation in which individuals come to rely mostly or solely on their own abilities. Rather, it amounts to what I call an emphatic individuation in which Dasein ontically comes to understand its own nature. Rather than prescribing a set of beliefs or actions, I argue that authenticity requires Dasein to adopt a set of ontologically transparent second-order attitudes on its own existence. This solves two problems inherent to Heidegger’s conception of the self, namely, its lack of constancy (the capacity of the self to remain itself in changing situations) and autonomy (the capacity to commit to some possibilities rather than others). These problems are solved by the analysis of being-towards-death and conscience, respectively. I then consider what the demand for authenticity entails for Heidegger’s conception of face-to-face relations and his conception of historical communities and how it differs from moral obligations.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed as a ‘common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations’ and rests on the claim that persons are ‘endowed with reason and conscience’. The drafters were thus aligned with the claims of the natural law tradition that there are timeless principles of morality – true for all people in all places – and that these principles serve as a guide for lawmakers and a standard to evaluate positive law. Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain argued that the drafters did not need to agree on the philosophical or metaphysical foundations of morality in order to agree on formulations of practical principles in the language of universal rights. This key insight helped to overcome obstacles to the UDHR and to guide key drafters including Charles Malik. Maritain’s account of natural law in The Rights of Man and Natural Law highlights the notion of jus gentium: commonly agreed principles that are intermediate between the first principles of natural law and positive law. The UDHR can be understood as a successful attempt to formulate jus gentium principles in the aftermath of a war that had seen them disregarded and violated.

In this chapter, I argue for religious freedom as a first-class right, and I criticise the views of some distinguished scholars who react against traditional conceptions of religious freedom and deny the right to any special protection of religion by legal systems. I focus primarily on Ronald Dworkin and Brian Leiter’s views and arguments. I conclude that Dworkin’s approach to religion belittles the idea of God. Yet conviction about the existence of God and the holding of profound ethical and moral convictions are not so independent as Dworkin argues. Leiter’s approach belittles the idea of religion, which cannot be reduced to a matter of commands, a lack of evidence, and consolation. I argue why religion is more than a matter of conscience and a personal decision about ultimate concerns and questions. Religion cannot be reduced to moral conscience, let alone ethical independence in foundational matters. An increasingly globalised and pluralistic society demands a more comprehensive approach that fully protects all religions and creeds.

This chapter provides an overview of the process of moral development and the five domains of conscience functioning in children and adolescents. It describes how moral development and conscience functioning are affected by moral injuries and exposure to a natural disaster, specifically the 1988 Spitak earthquake. Alterations to conscience development and interference with conscience functioning resonate with the concept of moral injury, scientific studies of which have described moral injury in both combat and civilian populations. Both fields have been hampered by the fact that the current psychiatric diagnostic system for PTSD and depression in DSM-5, although identifying cognitive disturbances as symptoms, does not include specific reference to the moral domain. While symptoms of PTSD and depression may co-occur with conscience impairment, the moral injury involved requires creative methods for delineating the impact on demoralization and identifying potential treatments for re-moralization. Examples of conscience-sensitive evaluation methods for the domains of conscience – conceptualization, moral attachment, moral-emotional responsiveness, moral valuation, and moral volition – are presented. Each domain points the way to treatment possibilities.

Long before the United States was any more than a collection of British colonies in North America, Protestants viewed Catholicism as a threat to national identity, individual liberty, personal salvation, and the stability of free government. Their fears continued up through the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy. Understanding why Protestants viewed Catholicism with fear and loathing reveals much about the evolution of American understandings of freedom, which for decades were forged unabashedly in opposition to the Catholic Church and its understanding of what freedom was and how people could attain it. To be sure, social issues like birth control and gay marriage have helped to create a “new ecumenism.” Just as important, however, have been the inequities caused by the advent of modern industrial capitalism, which have forced American Protestants to stop using the Catholic Church as a foil when defining freedom and the conditions that sustain it.