Essentials of Christianity — Salvation by the Cross

The following is an essay I penned for my Religions of the Western World class taken under Rutgers University conducted by Professor James Pavlin. I'd like to present this forth as my Easter present to the world. Peace!

The Christian view of Atonement and Salvation is strongly linked to the concept of Original Sin and Sacrifice. Christians believe every sin is equal in the eyes of God. And God is Pure and Divine. So in order to reconcile oneself with God, he or she must cleanse himself or herself of all sins for any sin, even something as minute as a lie taints the soul and the soul then becomes turned away from God and His Grace.

This is where the earlier Jewish view of repentance through sacrifice comes in. The early Jews used to sacrifice cattle at the Temple of God in order to be forgiven by God and saved. But Christians believe that human beings are inherently tainted by sin from birth due to the actions of Adam and Eve. The act of disobedience performed by them in the Garden of Eden was so profound and deep that it cut into the souls of all their children. We are all tainted, as the Book of Romans, Chapter 3, Verse 10 tells us:

"As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one."

And the Stature of God is indeed much too great to tolerate this, as the Book of Romans also tells us, this time in Chapter 3, Verse 23:

"For all have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God.

Due to the stain of the Original Sin imprinted upon the souls of all mankind as per the consequences of the action of Adam and Eve, no amount of good deeds such as prayer, fasting or charity can save mankind nor will the meticulous following of the Law because Christians believe that the Law is beyond human limitations to fulfill, for the Law demands that which we as humans cannot do.

"You shall be holy, as I the Lord your God am holy" is the impossible demand of the Law. In other words, humans cannot attain salvation by themselves. Verse 6 from Chapter 64 of the Book of Isaiah is used to explain this:

"But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags."

Therefore, in order to pay the wager for the Original Sin, a perfect sacrifice was required to attain God's Grace for us. The idea of the sacrifice to be forgiven of sin comes from the Jewish tradition of sacrificing cattle, in most cases, a lamb, for repentance. So God, in His Infinite Mercy and Love, chose to become the sacrifice in flesh descending in the form of the Holy Son to die on the cross and atone for us all. This is why, Jesus, believed to be the Holy Son, is entitled the Lamb of God.

The Sacrifice of Jesus was required to cleanse humanity of the sin of Adam so that mankind may be saved and become pure again so their good deeds can be accepted by God as way to earn His Blessings. No excerpt of the Bible propounds this clearer than Romans, Chapter 5, Verses 12 through 21:

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned — for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the Grace of God and the free gift by the Grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the Abundance of Grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

But unless one accepts this sacrifice of God the Son to God the Father after he knows of it, he is not presented with God's Grace and he is denied the gift of eternal life because, as the Book of Romans, Chapter 6, Verse 23 tells us, Jesus Christ is the only way to Salvation and eternal life:

"...but the gift of God is eternal through Jesus Christ our Lord."

This, Christians justify, through the own words of Jesus as narrated in the Book of John, Chapter 14, Verse 6:

"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man come unto the Father, but by me."

— Fahim Ferdous Kibria

Intuition vs. Rationalization and the Reflective Equilibrium of Ethics

The following is an essay I penned for my Introduction to Ethics class offered by Rutgers University, conducted by Professor Beth Henzel.

The question of whether ethics and moral judgment be based upon reason or intuition is a subject of debate as indicated in the dialogue between Joakim Sandberg, Niklas Juth and Peter Singer. The text in consideration is a response to one of Peter Singer’s papers where he argues that some interesting new findings in the field of experimental moral psychology confirms his thesis of contention that intuition should play a negligible role in adequate justifications of normative ethical positions.

Sandberg and Juth argue that even though basing ethics solely on certain kinds of intuition can be problematic, basing ethics off the standpoint of pure reason can be similarly troublesome. Instead, Sandberg and Juth suggest a more nuanced and sensible methodology to derive moral positions. They coin this methodology “reflective equilibrium” which, as the name suggests, travels the middlep path between reason and intuition taking into account both sides of the coin before settling on a decision. This is the most fair and equitable position.

In this essay I will attempt to argue on the side of Joakim Sandberg and Niklas Juth by first presenting a summary of Peter Singer’s paper and the summary of arguments against Singer raised by Sandberg and Niklas on their response to him, then providing my own argument by drawing a comparison between moral decision-making and cognitive psychological findings on how best to deal with situations that induce an emotional and a rational response.

Singer begins his paper by stating the views of moral philosopher Jim Rachel who argues that ethicists in general should not base their comments on tragic events and their moral ramifications on pure intuition subject to the orthodox view of what is right and what is wrong. Singer then goes on to say that this is a view he shares with Rachel and proceeds to explain his own standpoint by starting off with a history of moral philosophy recalling popular myths of mankind being bestowed moral guidance from a divine origin and then moving on to names of other philosophers such as David Hume and Niccolo Machiavelli. He then goes on to explanations of post-Darwinian understanding of ethics in relation to genes and reciprocity.

Following this, Singer explains the difference between “personal” and “impersonal” moral reasoning, that is, he uses the example of the “trolley problem” to show how people are quick to make personal moral decisions over impersonal ones, namely, that if a group of people are asked, assuming an empty train trolley is rolling towards a group of five and flipping a switch will save four of them but kill the fifth by diverting the path of the trolley, whether they want to flip the switch or not, majority would answer in the affirmative. However, if the group is then asked whether they want to push a large heavy man into the pathway of the trolley thus stopping the trolley at the cost of that man most would answer in the negative. Singer explains how neuroscientists have discovered that this is the case because in the latter scenario pushing the large man causes the agent to be personally involved in killing him thus stimulating more areas of the brain making the intuition against it stronger than if the agent is not personally responsible for killing one man by flipping the switch. Afterwards, Singer goes on to talk about Rawls and his analogy of normative moral theories being similar to scientific theories where he says that like scientific theories that may be best explained by plausible scenarios even if those scenarios do not comply with all the data, in which case we assume the data to be flawed and seek a balance between it and the result, moral theories have our base intuitions as raw data and we are to regulate our intuitions and our judgments until there is reconciliation between the two. Singer finds this analogy erroneous.

Singer explains the difference between a scientific theory and a theory of normative morality by expounding on their definitions. He states that a scientific theory attempts to explain why certain things happen the way they happen while normative morality does not explain why do we react the way we react to things such as abortion and voluntary euthanasia but rather what we are ought to do and how we are to react in such circumstances. This difference between the two should account for the error in Rawls’ analogy by contrasting the two.

In conclusion, Singer states that human beings may always be subject to intuition and, just like the tampering or dismissal of data to fit a plausible scientific theory, we rationalize our arguments to fit the intuition for morality. Nonetheless, Singers says there is a difference between this intuition and the base intuition that cannot be rationalized where a person says they do not know why something is wrong but they just know it is, as they did in Haidt’s experiment that Singer uses to support his paper. Singer calls the former rational intuition and concludes that this should be our methodology to arrive at moral judgments.

Sandberg and Juth start their paper off by outlining Singer’s arguments along with the experiments mentioned in his paper. They move on to explaining the two types of intuitions in Singer’s paper, namely practical and theoretical, and mentioning how Singer concludes we should derive moral codes off the latter instead of the former. Sandberg and Juth argues that Singer’s notion that practical intuitions are products of our evolutionary lineage whereas theoretical intuitions are more rationally grounded is false since the latter can be just as evolution-based as the former, also adding in the fact that for most people theoretical intuitions could be just as spontaneous as their practical ones. The gist of Sandberg Juth’s paper is basically this that both methodologies are prone to the same cons as each other.

Personally, I agree with Sandberg and Juth’s view and do believe that the reflective equilibrium approach is the best approach to arrive at moral conclusions. In the field of cognitive behavioral psychology the human mind is divided into three separated dimensions: the emotional mind, rational mind, and wise mind. The emotional mind is the loci of decisions based on emotions, intuitions, and feelings, while the rational mind is the loci of decisions derived off pure logical reasoning. The wise mind is the balance in between and, psychologists confirm, is the correct source to base our decisions off in real-life. The wise mind is the balance between validating our emotions and judging a situation properly off sound logical reasoning. Cognitive behavioral therapy attempts to teach patients to base their decisions and tackle everyday problems using the wise mind. This largely mimics the methodology of reflective equilibrium for moral reasoning.

A good example to demonstrate the contrast between the thought processes of the emotional mind, the rational mind and the wise mind is to think of a girl who walks into her room which is extremely untidy and disorganized. Looking at the room makes her feel like that there is no way she can clean up the room given how messy it is. This is the emotional mind talking. The rational mind says that just because she feels like it cannot be done does not mean it cannot realistically be done. The job is not impossible. Rationally speaking, it is, in fact, possible. The wise mind strikes a balance between the two and says that yes it is possible but it is going to be difficult which is why the first emotional instinct of the girl was to feel like it could not be done. This validates her initial emotions as well as present the reality of the situation that cleaning up the room is something that is not impossible to achieve but it is going to be a tiresome task, preparing the girl to tackle with the problem as required.

The aforementioned example can then be applied for a moral decision. Let us assume that the woman somewhere in the world is undergoing labor and her husband is frantically pleading for help. He calls the emergency unit of the closest hospital and they inform him that all their ambulances are currently engaged. Distraught, the man decides to drive his wife to the hospital himself. Rationally, at this point, the moral thing to do would probably be to follow all the driving laws for the safety of everyone on the road. However, the first intuition of the man would be to rather ignore all the laws and speed limits, and make sure that his wife is in the hospital under immediate medical attention. Nonetheless, it is morally wrong to push away the safety of everyone else on the road for the well-being of just one person, namely this man’s wife, if one were to weigh the situation logically. The best thing to do at this point would be to strike a balance and drive ignoring a few traffic rules without being too reckless while upholding a minimal level of road safety and not harm anyone else. Balance is the key.

Now, it is important to note here that just because some answers are neither black nor white, it does not mean that no answers are black or white. In other words, there can be a situation where acting upon one’s intuition is “wrong” and the rational answer is “right” or vice versa. Once again, reflective equilibrium maintains the balance by reconciling one and the other.

It can be argued that an area so gray does not provide us with a concrete understanding of what is right and what is wrong. The answers derived off such a methodology is too subjective and it does not allow us to lay down a consolidated set of ethical laws and codes of conduct for all to follow since intuition will differ from person to person and thus what may seem right to one person may be branded as ethically wrong by another. Rationally arrived codes of ethics may be more compact and therefore give us something corporeal to follow. This argument can be broken down into premises surrounding the idea that ethical codes of conduct are nomic necessary truths which can be arrived at using pure logical reasoning alone. However, this is not the case in a practical scenario, as, by pure logical reasoning alone, a person may arrive at an entirely different conclusion than another regarding the question of what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, reasoning can be just as subjective as intuition.

Also, let us assume for the sake of argument that ethical codes of conduct are nomic necessary truths that can be reached at through solely using reason. This leaves us with another problem, namely that the capability of the mental faculties of the one doing the reasoning is subject to differ from one person to another thus two people may arrive at two completely different conclusions on the matter of what is right and what is wrong due to the varying levels of their intelligence and other mental abilities.

Hence, taking all of the presented viewpoints into account it would be safest to conclude that Sandberg and Juth’s argument that rationalization is prone to similar flaws as intuition in the topic of ethics and morality, and thus, a balance between the two utilizing the methodology of reflective equilibrium is the most sound approach for an ethicist.



— Fahim Ferdous Kibria

Moral Philosophy and the Metaphysics of Ethics

Moral Philosophy

Aim: to establish the supreme principle of morality

Preface

Kant begins by systematizing knowledge (Kant is very fond of systematizing).

He makes the observation that Ancient Greek thinkers divided philosophy into three sciences:

1. Physics
2. Ethics
3. Logic

Kant agrees with this division but seeks to explain the reasoning behind this division by introducing new division.

•  Formal: concerned solely with the form of the understanding and form of reason itself;
  universal rules of thinking as such: this is logic
• Universal and necessary laws of thinking
• Can have no empirical (based on experience) component
•  So is “pure philosophy” – based on a priori principles
•  Material: concerned with specific objects and their laws (as opposed to the forms of the understanding and reason); consists of two parts
• Laws of nature: physics/natural philosophy
• Laws according to which everything happens
• Laws of freedom/moral philosophy
• Laws according to which everything ought to happen
• Does his description of ethics strike anyone as odd (laws of freedom)?
• The point: we see the importance of freedom and laws in ethics.
• Ethics differs from physics in that its laws, laws of freedom, are not descriptive but instead prescriptive.
• Both have an empirical component
• Empirical component of ethics is practical anthropology
• “Moral philosophy has to define the laws of the human will, to the extent that the will is affected by nature.”
• However, ethics can also be pure (based on a priori principles).
• When pure philosophy is limited to specific objects, it is called metaphysics. (Thus the name metaphysics of morals)
• Metaphysics of morals, and only the metaphysics, is moral philosophy.
• This part is also called the rational part.

The empirical and rational parts should not mix.
Metaphysics must precede the empirical part and must “be scrupulously cleansed of everything empirical” to know “how much pure reason can accomplish”

• He later states that anything which mixes pure and empirical principles “does not even deserve to be called philosophy…still less…moral philosophy”
• Practical judgment, sharpened by experience, is needed to discern the cases to which the moral law applies. However, the laws themselves do not draw upon experience. 

Why? Moral law, to be law, must carry absolute necessity to be morally valid – “valid, that is, as a basis of obligation.” It must also not hold only for humans but for any rational being. So, the law cannot be grounded in human nature or facts about us or our world, for these things which are contingent. Nothing empirical but pure reason only can be used in determining moral law

This “pure” moral philosophy is concerned with a “pure will” and not human volition generally.
The pure is not concerned with humans tend to do or what we often do but instead with what a rational will, free from inclinations (likes, dislikes, wants, desires, aversions, etc) can do. This will is motivated only by a priori principles.
It acts out of duty in accordance with the Moral Law; its actions are done for the sake of the moral law instead of merely conforming to it.

• There is a difference between done for sake of and conforming. If the actions is not done out of duty, then the coincidence of the action with the moral merely happens chance; it is a coincidence.
• Actions for the sake of duty are the only actions that are morally good. 

Ch. 1: Passage from the Common Rational Knowledge of Morality to the Philosophical

Good Will

Will: the ability to determine action according to principles.

• We have a will. My cat does not. 

Good will: the only thing good without qualification

• Constitutes an indispensable condition of our worthiness to be happy.
• It is the only thing with “intrinsic moral worth.”
• It is the only thing with intrinsic worth because a good will is the only thing that always has morally good ends.
• Though helpful, gifts of nature and of fortune do not; Villains can have wit, intelligence, and bravery.
• This is why it is the only thing good without qualification
• It has “intrinsic moral worth” because it “has full worth in itself” regardless of consequences.
• A good will is good even if it achieves nothing; utility adds nothing to its worth.

Since the notion that utility doesn’t matter to value at all is a bit strange, Kant presents an argument against utilitarianism (or at least a version of it).

• P1: “no instrument for any purpose will be found in that being unless it is also the most appropriate and best adapted for that purpose.”
• P2: reason is an instrument nature gave to us
• P3: Assume nature’s purpose for beings with reason and wills are their own individual preservation, welfare, or happiness. 
• P4: Reason is not the most appropriate tool for preservation, welfare, or happiness.
• Support: Instinct would be a better way of meeting these ends.
• Support: Reason is a poorly suited to achieve these ends.
• Casts reason in rather negative light here
• Reason provides “feeble and defective guidance”
• “Nature would have prevented reason from…presuming, with its feeble insights, to think out for itself a plan for happiness and for the means of attaining it.”
• Furthermore, those who devote their cultivated reason to the enjoyment of life and happiness end up far away from content.

C: So…Reason is an instrument not for happiness but for some “worthier” end; and rejection of P3.
Points to push back on:

• P1
• P4 – specifically if the focus of utilitarianism is not just on one’s own happiness but maximizing happiness.
  {as a side note, Mill wasn’t born until 2 years after Kant died} 

Kant moves from the above conclusion to the broader conclusion that since nature gave us reason, and reason controls the will, the purpose of reason must be to produce a will which is good in itself.

• Not the sole good, but the highest good and the condition on all the rest (goods of fortune and of nature)
• The will has its own kind of satisfaction – not happiness but “satisfaction from fulfilling a purpose which reason alone determines”
• Acting out of duty in accordance with the Moral Law (Note: moral law, not laws).

The Three Propositions Regarding Moral Duty

Proposition 1: To have genuine moral merit an action must be done from, not just according to, duty.

• The action cannot be opposed to duty
• The action must have a direct inclination, meaning that the actions is not done because the agent is compelled by another inclination
• Ex: hypnosis; involuntary spasms; being nice to look good in front of your boss; Kant’s example of a shopkeeper giving correct change.
• This also means that the action cannot be done out of self-interest
• Difficulty arises when direct inclination and something else is at play.  For something to be done out of duty, Kant implies that it must be done solely out of duty, out a direct inclination. So some actions can be in conformity with duty but not out of duty [so, acting out of sympathy, happiness, self-interest or self-preservation generally doesn’t count]

Proposition 2: “The moral worth of an action done out of duty has its moral worth not in the objective to be reached…but in the maxim in accordance with which the action is decided upon.”

• This proposition eliminates at least one type of moral luck. Under a consequentialist view, one can try to do the right thing and be competent in doing the right thing but, through no fault of one’s own, one brings about a worse outcome. In this case, one has acted wrongly because of bad moral luck. Under Kant’s view, the focus is only on things fully within one’s control, assuming, of course, that we have free will.

Proposition 3: “Duty is the necessity of an act done out of respect for the law.”

• Respect is an activity of the will; “it is self-generated by a rational concept.” As such we can only respect what is “conjoined with [our] purely as a ground and never as a consequence”
• Kant claims we can never respect an inclination because an inclination – and so every object of volition – is an effect of the will.
• So we are left with the law itself. (law determined solely on basis of rationality and so free from and independent of inclinations)
• Worth, then, doesn’t have anything to do with results or possible results. 
• Kant also claims in footnote 2 that respect is the consciousness of my will’s submission to the law; the respect is thus the effect of the law on a person.
• Inclinations and their objections are excluded for another reason: their result could have been brought about by other causes.
• Recall that Kant is focused on the will, and the will has a “worthier end” than pleasure or self-preservation.

The will is important because Kant holds that only in rational beings is the highest and unconditional good to be found. In other words, only in rational creatures is morality to be had, and rationality requires a will. The idea of the law must determine the will for the will to act out of duty.

• Kant claims that to act with moral merit we need no insight into the ground for this respect. We must only have the appreciation of the moral law. 
• Since inclinations and the consequences of our actions are excluded, the duty gains a univerasalizability – a necessity. What is left is reason, and that is shared among and is the same in all rational beings.
• The moral law is universal and necessary. From these descriptions we can establish a form of the moral law: I ought to never act in such a way that I could not also will that my maxim should become a universal law.
• This doesn’t proscribe any specific action – it only establishes a template of sorts – a form – to which maxims must comply.

Metaphysics of Ethics

Acting from Duty

The chapter starts by addressing the claim that one cannot in fact point to an example of someone acting solely out of duty.

• Kant agrees. He claims that, even with the most searching and rigorous self-examination, we cannot know for sure that our motivation is based solely in duty, for there is always what Kant calls the dear self (hidden selfish-motivation). 
• As side note, it is interesting to juxtapose his stance here with a later comment made which states: “for the pure thought of duty and of the moral law generally…has an influence on the human heart much more powerful than all other motivations that may arise from the field of experience.” Apparently it is the fault of professors that the appeal of duty is lost. (I sincerely hope that Kant is wrong on this last point!)
• He claims that this observation is not a mark against the moral theory. Even if there were never any actions which sprang from pure motives, his theory would be fine because the question is “whether reason, by itself and independently of all appearances, commands what ought to be done.” Whether this or that actually occurs, Kant claims, is irrelevant.
• A phrase often repeated in moral discourse is “ought implies can.” Loosely, the phrase means that if we are morally required to X, we must be able to do X. Morality cannot require us to do the impossible. 
• If we assume that Kant is right that we can never know for certain that we are acting purely out of duty, can we know that it is possible for beings like us to act purely out of duty? 

Rant about How an Empirical Approach to Ethics is Bad

Long story short: 

• a priori and rational = good methodology is ethics
• empirical, “popular practical philosophy,” and reasoning from cases = bad methodology in ethics

According to Kant, moral reasoning from examples is the worst advice one could give in morality. Before drawing any conclusions from the example, we must first apply some moral standard or principle to it to see if it is fitting to be used as an example.

Introduction to the Will, Reason, and Laws

Kant claims that everything in nature “works in accordance with laws” but that only rational beings have the power to act in accordance with the idea of laws. Rational beings thus have wills. Reason works on the will to influence the principles of volition and to derive actions from laws.

• There are two types of relationships between reason and the will. 
• If reason is the only thing acting on the will, then objective principles will always be subjective. 
• However, other things can determine the will. If reason is not the sole determining factor of the will – if the will “is exposed to subjective conditions”, in other words, if the agent has inclinations – then the will is not in complete accord with reason, and objective principles will not necessarily be subjective ones. 
• Objective principles, when acting as constraints, are called commandments. The will can still be determined by such objective principles. However, the will, by its own nature, is not necessarily obedient to such principles. 
• The formulation of a commandment is called an imperative. 

Imperatives

• All imperatives are marked by a “must,” which emphasizes the constraining nature of imperatives. 
• All carry at least a type of necessary and state which actions will be good (in a sense) - either good period or good for something else. Necessary period or necessary for some further end. 
• All imperatives apply to wills, but no imperatives hold for a divine, or holy, will. 
• This is because imperatives are formulations of commandments, and commandments apply only when the objective principles are not subjective principles – i.e. when the will is not in complete accord with reason. 
• A good will would still be subject to objective principles but would simply not be constrained by them because reason would already be in harmony with the will. 
• Two types of Imperatives: 
• Hypothetical Imperative (HI): “declare a possible action to be practically necessary as a means to the attainment of something else that one wants” or may want 
• Ex: If you want to win the lottery you ought to buy a ticket. 
• Two sub-types: 
• Problematic practical principle: End is possible 
• Assertoric practical principle: End is actual 
• Names come from types of proposition in Aristotelian logic. Assertoric propositions state what is or is not the case; problematic propositions involve the possibility of something being true. 
• He mentions one type of hypothetical imperative in particular, imperatives of skill. In these imperatives there is not found a question as to whether the end is reasonable but good – only about what one would have to do to attain it.
• We thus need to be careful of how we read “good” in some passages of Kant
• Kant claims that there is one end that “we may presuppose as actual in all rational beings.” This end is perfect happiness
• We can suppose this purpose a priori; call prudence that which leads to it
• Note: Kant does not claim that this is the ultimate end of human conduct, like Mill does. He only states that it is one end that all humans share. 
• Categorical Imperative (CI): “represented an action as itself objectively necessary”
• An apodictic practical principle 
• Apodictic, like assertoric and problematic, refers to Aristotelian propositions. Apodicitic propositions are statements which assert things that are necessarily true or self-evidently true or false 
• The CI is not concerned with the material of the action or its result but instead with its form and with the principle from which the actions itself results. 
• **What is good in the action consists in the agent’s disposition.** 
• Kant slightly reconfigures the division and gives new names: 
• Rules of skill: HI 
• Also technical imperatives 
• Counsels of Prudence: HI – always assertoric practical principles 
• Involve necessity but only under a subjective and contingent condition 
• Also pragmatic imperatives 
• Commandments (laws) of morality – CI 
• Also moral imperatives 
• All recommend actions that are good either as a means to something else or good in itself. 
• How are these imperatives possible? How can we understand these imperatives to constrain our will? 
• Technical and pragmatic imperatives: whoever wills the ends also wills the means 
• He claims that the use of a mean is included in the concept of the end; when willing that an effect be the result of one’s actions, one already conceives of the causality involved. The causality involves the means. 
• Pragmatic imperatives are trickier because the concept of happiness is vague. Willing the means when one wills the end thus becomes more difficult because we don’t really know what perfect happiness requires. 
• Kant even says that determining what action will promote the perfect happiness of a rational being is “insoluble” 
• If he’s right, is this a problem for Mill? 
• Moral imperatives: 
• The response here is more difficult because objective necessity can’t rest on a presupposition like the HI can. 
• We also cannot settle the issue empirically, so…. Investigate a priori! 
• While we cannot know beforehand what a HI will contain, Kant claims that we know right away what the CI contains: a necessary conformity to it. 
• Our duties are derived from this one principle. This leads us to… 

The Categorical Imperative: 1 and 2

There are three main formulations of the CI, with a slight variation of the first one mentioned. It is important to keep in mind that Kant views each of the formulations as identical to the others. They are all formulations of the CI and not different categorical imperatives.

CI 1a: “Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”
CI 1b: “Act as though the maxim of your action were to become by your will a universal law of nature”

• What it means: We should act only if we can will that..
• 1a: everyone acts on the same principle we do without contradiction.
• 1b: the principle we act on become a law of nature. 
• While these are generally similar, there is a slight difference between the two – almost more of a slight difference in focus – that is highlighted in Kant’s discussion of the four examples. 
• Explanation of Examples:
• Borrowing Money: If we borrow money, state we will pay the loaner back, but have no intention of ever doing so, we act on a maxim that we cannot will to become universal law. Our larger goal is procuring money. If everyone acted on our maxim, then no one would ever lend money. Our maxim then undermines the practice of borrowing (and promising), creating contradiction. 
• Here, the focus is on “universal law.”
• Not helping others: If we acted on the maxim that we never help others, Kant claims we are acting on a maxim we cannot will to be universal law. This is because we sometimes seek help from others. 
• Here, the focus is on the act of what we can will to be universal. 
• Suicide: “A nature whose law was that the very same feeling meant to promote life should actually destroy life would contradict itself, and hence not endure as nature.” Basically, it would make no sense, and in a way be self-defeating, for nature to have as one of its laws “kill yourself whenever you don’t feel like living.”
• The focus here is on “law of nature.” 
• Not developing talents: even though nature could survive if everyone let their talents languish, Kant claims we cannot will that everyone would have such a natural instinct to eschew all development of talent. 
• As with the not helping others case, here the focus is on what we can will. 
• Possible Objections: 
• How do we appropriately describe a maxim? (Anscombe)
• Every action and goal has numerous descriptions. How we determine which ones are most salient? 
• Mill: “[Kant fails] to show that there would be any contradiction, and logical impossibility, in the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageously immoral rules of conduct. All he show is that the consequences of their universal adoption would be such as no one would choose to incur.”

Moving from CI 1 to CI 2

Kant returns to the question of how a CI is possible. Can we prove, a priori, that there is an imperative that commands (1) absolutely and (2) without further motivation?

• Absolutely: 
• If the law is necessary, then the law must be connected with the concept of the will of a rational being.
• Will is a power of determining oneself to act in conformity with the idea of certain laws.
• An end is what serves the will as the objective (as in object) ground of its self-determining. 
• Basically an end is the effect which the will wills
• A necessary end is given by reason and so must be equally valid for all rational beings (since there is no inclination involved, and form of rationality same in all).
• If it is equally valid for all, then it commands absolutely. 
• Without further motivation
• You can have either a subjective ground of desiring (called a driving-spring) or an objective ground of willing (called a motivating reason).
• Practical principles are formal if they abstract from all subjective ends and material if they are based on subjective ends, or driving-springs. 
• Subjective ends only have value in relation to a subject’s desiring.
• Since CI is formal and has objective grounds, it does not have value in relation to any further desiring, and so the CI commands without further motivation. 
• Since it is possible for an imperative to command in this way, something whose existence in itself had absolute worth (as opposed to subjective value) could be a ground of the CI. 
• Kant claims as rational beings are such things. We, or our rational natures, are ends in themselves.
• Kant asserts that this is the way in which a rational agent must conceive of her own existence. Since we all must hold this on the same grounds, the subjective principle is also objective. 

CI 2: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in any other person, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.”

• What does CI 2 mean?
• We must always treat people as persons instead of things. While we can use others a means, we must never treat them merely as a means but instead must always treat them as beings with worth – a worth that they have independently of subjective desires. 
• In other words: how we treat a barista must differ from how we treat a coffee machine. One has dignity; the other has a price. 
• Explanation of Examples
• Borrowing money: we view the other person merely as means to our own end instead of as an agent desiring of respect. 
• Suicide: we are viewing our own selves as a means to maintaining a tolerable state of affairs.
• Cultivating talents: “It is not enough that an action that an action not conflict with humanity in our own person as an end in itself: it must also harmonize with this end.”
• Helping others: Not helping others will not conflict with humanity, but it will not harmonize with humanity either. 
• Roughly, we can avoid using ourselves or others as means, but we must be sure to also treat ourselves, others, and humanity in general as an end – as something with dignity or value – and we ought to promote things with intrinsic value. 

How do CI1 and CI2 fit together? Well, slightly different ways of looking at the CI.

• Objectively, ground lies in universality
• Subjectively, the ground of legislating lies in the end. So the ground lies in rational beings as end in themselves. 

The Categorical Imperative: 3

From the subjective ground of the CI follows that the supreme condition of the will’s harmony with universal practical reason is the Idea of the will of every rational being as a will that legislates universal law, or…

CI3: “every human will is a will that enacts universal laws in all its maxims”
[This problem is the hardest version of the CI to follow, so just hang in there.]
What it means:

• We should reject maxims that conflict with the law-giving nature of the will. 
• A will that is a supreme law-giver cannot depend on any interest. Why? 
• Such a will would require yet another law in order to restrict the interest of self-love

In this version Kant emphasizes the self-legislating aspect of a will. The will is subject to the law but also gives the law to itself.

• When we thought of beings as merely subject to laws (without legislating such laws to themselves), “the law had to carry some interest, as stimulus or compulsion to obedience”; their will had to be compelled by something else to act in a certain way. The result was then always a conditional imperative. Do X if you have interest Y. 
• The notion of self-legislation shows how the law can constrain us in the absence of an interest or inclination: it constrains us because we give it to ourselves.

This notion of all rational agents as equal lawmakers (and, he tosses in there, as judgers of their own actions from this standpoint) leads to the concept of a kingdom of ends.

• Kingdom: systematic union of different rational beings under common laws. 
• Abstracting from “personal differences” and “private ends”, we can conceive of all ends being so systematically united. 
• This kingdom’s laws would relate to CI2, to the relation of us to each other as ends and means
• We are all members as lawgivers, and we must conceive of ourselves as lawgivers if we conceive of ourselves as ends in themselves. 

In other words, because we have dignity we are a rational being and so a member of the kingdom of ends.

• Dignity versus Price 
• Price indicates that the thing can be replaced; it has only relative worth (worth because someone values it). These things have a market price or attachment price.
• Dignity is what those things which are “exalted above all price” and have no equivalents possess. Dignity is the inner worth of ends in themselves have.
• Since “morality is the only condition under which a rational being can be an end in itself,” morality and humanity are the only things with dignity, though morality can confer dignity to actions though intentions, or maxims of the will.
• The basis of dignity is autonomy. (Autonomy is the ability of a will to legislate as a member of the kingdom of ends.) 

Categorical Imperative: Recap

All maxims have…

• A form: universality
• A matter: an end (rational beings)
• A complete determination: see CI3b; basically refers to the totality or all-comprehensiveness of its system of ends.

Autonomy and Heteronomy of the Will (almost done with Chapter 2!!!)

This entire discussion was supposedly started by an investigation into a good will, so Kant returns to this idea and tries to tie everything together.

Good will: a will is absolutely good if it cannot be evil, which means its universalized maxims cannot be in conflict with each other.

• End of a good will is a rational nature/being. 
• Such end must be self-sufficient. If it had to be brought about, then the goodness of the will would depend on consequences, which is bad. 
• Since the good will cannot be submitted to anything lower, the end must be itself.
• This shows the move from CI 2 (humanity as end in itself) to CI 3 (humanity as self-legislating). 
• Autonomy is the ability of a will to self-legislate as a member of the kingdom of ends.
• Morality and autonomy are thus linked, and the moral law is the law of freedom.

Another way to look at the relation between morality and autonomy:

• “Whatever constitutes by itself the absolute worth of human beings is that by which they must be judged”
• Autonomy is what gives persons dignity and so constitutes the absolute worth of humans. 

Autonomy of the will – some other attributes:

• An autonomous will is free from inclinations and does not act upon them. 
• Kant claims that the will is necessarily bound to the principle of autonomy, but to prove this we would have to give a critique of practical reason. 
• He does think that we can show that the principle of autonomy is the sole principle of ethics. This, plus the claim regarding how we must conceive of ourselves as being ends in themselves, is enough to get at basically the same thing.

Heteronomy of the will

• A will governed by inclinations; a will which does something because it wants something else.
• In other words, heteronomy arises when objects have sway over the will. 
• Two types of principles of morality which are based on heteronomy as their foundation:
• Empirical: drawn from principles of perfect happiness; built on either moral (think moral intuitions) or physical feeling.
• Not fit for moral laws because they are based in human constitution and so cannot be universal 
• Rational: drawn from principle of perfection; built on either the rational concept of perfection as a possible effect of our will or on the concept of perfection (God’s will) as a determining cause of our will
• Concept of perfection better than theological conception as a basis for morality, but both are also flawed
• An account based on the concept of perfection is circular; you cannot offer a proof without assuming the consequent at some point.
• Kant isn’t fond of using God as a basis of morality because we cannot directly apprehend Gods’ perfection and can only derive it from our own concepts, and these concepts generally include things like vengefulness, lust for glory and dominion, etc. 
• So (surprise surprise) Kant thinks heteronomy is a flawed foundation of morality for the above reasons, but also because of a more general criticism: such a basis can never command categorically. It always wills for some end, which is in turn a means for some other end, the limit being given by nature, and so is contingent. 
• Morality thus cannot come from a heteronomous will but must instead be bound with an autonomous will. 

The End (of Kant, for now)

— Professor Beth Henzel, Rutgers University

Essentials of Judaism — Nature of Sin

The following is an essay I penned for my Religions of the Western World class taken under Rutgers University conducted by Professor James Pavlin. I present this forth as my Yom Kippur present to the world. Peace!

The Jewish view of human nature is that humans were created with two inclinations: yetzer tov and yetzer hara, supported by the virtue of free-will. Yetzer tov is the inclination to act righteously and selflessly while yetzer hara is the inclination composed of pure and carnal primal instinct leading one to act out selfishly out of the desire for pleasure, self-gratification and survival.

In other words, using Freudian terminology, yetzer hara is the Id and yetzer tov is the Super Ego. Midway from
the two poles stands the Law, the Ego, keeping both in check and formulating a balance between one's desire to satiate one's own passion and hunger while also tending to the needs of others.

Sin, according to the Judaic view, is any action devoid of or going against the Will of God, missing the mark of reconciliation with Them. However, in comparison to the Christian view of sin, it is only that and nothing more.
The Will of God a human must submit to is outlined within the Commandments.

Sin is only an act, not human nature or a state of being: humans have the choice to either perform or abstain from it. Human nature is not inherently sinful and evil but evil and sin are inclinations of the human spirit which often tend to override the inclination to do good. It is important to note, however, that what we call an inclination for evil and sin is not the proper understanding of the yetzer hara. Even the base inclination that is considered somewhat malicious in general thought is not totally seen to be so with proper understanding.

The Gemara notes that there would be no procreation nor would a baby its early years without the yetzer hara.
It and the yetzer tov are like muscles. They are both there from when we are born, but only the former is expressed, and for very good reason too, since the baby's existence and vitality depends on it not caring about the needs of those around it such as not caring about its mother getting a full night of sleep because it itself needs to be fed.
As the baby becomes a child and increasingly less needy, the yetzer tov muscle develops, learning to be patient, to notice and share with others, understand how they feel and put ones own desires aside to do the right thing as
a result of the appropriate modeling, education and social experiences.

When older, it is hoped that both muscles have evenly developed, so which muscle one uses becomes a choice – the choice between right and wrong that they make throughout the day. The Torah is an instruction book with Commandments acting as a guide in knowing the right choice. In the story of Genesis 3, Adam and Eve are, similarly, given an instruction to not eat the fruit at the center of the Garden. If human nature was inherently sinful,
we would see Adam and Eve eat the fruit and violate the Commandment immediately without any temptation. However, such is not seen to be the case. Instead, Adam and Eve are tempted by a snake. The snake here can be seen as the allegorical portrayal of the inclination to sin. Adam and Eve had the choice to reject the suggestion of
the snake, that is, refrain from giving in to their inclination since, in the narrative, it did not serve the purpose of assuring them sustenance or survival. Alas, they exercised their free-will allowed by God to do the opposite.



— Fahim Ferdous Kibria

Essentials of Judaism — The Path of Transformation

The following is an essay I penned for my Religions of the Western World class at Rutgers University conducted by Professor James Pavlin. It is on the role of the Mitzvot and Halakhah in regards to guiding the soul through
the Jewish Path to Transformation. I present this forth to all as a gift in commemoration of Rosh Hashanah.

The Path of Transformation in Judaism begins with repentance. In its entirety, the Judaic Path of Transformation is
a life devoted to abiding by the Torah, that is, the Divine Law. In other words, the Jewish Path of Transformation is the fulfillment of God's Law.

In order for this to be done, one must follow the Mitzvot, that is, the Commandments, laid down unto Man by God through the Torah. It is the discipline one must uphold in order to purify themselves and reconcile with the Lord.

The role of the Halakhah in this is to explain to the one in the Path to Transformation how the Mitzvot applies to
their lives. It lays out the way one must fulfill the Commandments by daily life governing nearly every aspect of
the person's life, all the way from the cradle to the grave. The Halakhah explains how one must relate to God in prayer and worship, what they are allowed to eat and prohibited to not eat, how the food must be prepared, how to marry, have children, die and bury the dead. It simply is the complete guide to a life in accordance to the Will of God. Through these deeds outlined in the Mitzvot and explained how they are to be done in the Halakhah, a person is to
transform themselves via the practice of external behaviors bringing about an internal metamorphosis of the soul.

Now, living by these rules is not the sole purpose of life and Path to Transformation for a Jew. Judaism asks that
the person not only performs the deeds abiding by and fulfilling the Law of God physically but they are also asked to truly intend to do the act by heart. That is, their deeds are to be driven by intention. Fulfilling the Law of God that is laid out in the Mitzvot and elucidated in the Halakhah, then, becomes not only the mission of the flesh but also of
the soul. In other words, as Rabbi Abraham Heschel has stated, "the true goal for man is to be what he does." Through the performance of good deeds, a person absorbs the holiness of their works and themselves become holy, reconciling their spirit with God. That is the Judaic Path of Transformation.



— Fahim Ferdous Kibria

Ratio @ Rutgers — Ep. 1 Faith and Reason

King of Zion

"Turn us to You, O Lord, and we will return. Renew our days as of old."

[Lamentations 5:21]

The following is an essay I penned for my Religions of the Western World class taken under Rutgers University conducted by Professor James Pavlin.

The definition of the Messiah in Judaism, in stark contrast to the idea of the Messiah in Christianity, is vastly different. The Hebrew word for Messiah, Mashiach, derives from the root "Mem-Shin-Chet" meaning "to smear or to anoint." This anointment was a ritual performed by the Israelites to sire a new king for their kingdom: the head of the one elected to be king was smeared with oil. On the other hand, the Christian concept of the Messiah, which Christendom, and right now most of the world, refers to as savior, stems from the Hebrew word "Moshiah" deriving from the root "Yod-Shin-Ayin" which means "to save." It is important to note here that the Hebrew name of Jesus, Yeshua, is what actually translates to Savior.

Basically, when speaking of the Messiah or "the Anointed One", Jews refer to a future king of their people who shall emerge and take back the Kingdom of David from their oppressors restoring its dominion for them, the elected People of the Covenant — the Children of Israel. If we are to broaden this concept using the narratives of the Bible then we can say that the Jews believe this Messiah will be a great political leader descending from the bloodline of King David as per the words from the Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 23, Verse 5,

"The days are coming" declares the Lord "when I will raise up from David a Righteous Branch, a King who shall reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land."

The Book of Jeremiah also reiterates this in Chapter 33, Verse 15, where the Lord, Yahweh says,

"In those days and at that time I will make a Righteous Branch sprout from David's line; he will do what is just and right in the land."

Jews believe that this descendant of David, who is also sometimes referred to as "Mashiach ben Dah'veed" literally meaning "Messiah, Son of David," will be a charismatic leader, a military general, a political figure who shall charge forward the Israelites into battle and win back the Promised Land. Judaism does not speak of the Messiah as a supernatural being, a god or a demigod but rather a very human king well versed in the Law or Torah and its Commandments bestowed upon the people by God Himself.

Initially, the idea of the messiah was used to refer to any king of the Kingdom of Israel since they were all anointed upon election and "messiah" literally means "the anointed one." The notion arose when the Israelites asked Yahweh to appoint for them a king — a plea Yahweh initially refused but later relented and agreed upon. A tribal king was first chosen in the form of Saul but then it was David who forged the Kingdom of Israel together by uniting all its twelve tribes. The story of the Children of Israel now had reached a tentative form of closure with the establishment of a unified kingdom, and consolidated symbols and traditions.

However, the concept of the Messiah among the Israelites has undergone and evolved much over time, most of it coming off about due to the result of invading foreign forces who eventually wrested away the kingship of the Promised Land from the Children of Israel. At this point in time they believed that the Messiah — a chosen king from the House of David — shall come, restore their land that had been taken away from them and then Israelites shall live within in peace and harmony under the just reign of the Mashiach. Now, here, the Messiah can be seen as a savior but not a savior of mankind from sin who shall lead us to salvation, yet more of a savior for the Jews who shall lead them back to sovereignty of their Holy Land.

Orthodox Jews look up to these prophetic promises outlined in the Torah about a king rising up from the bloodline of David in a literal sense, believing that a physical, human ruler shall come from the lineage of David who shall rule over the Israelis upholding the Judaic Law of the Torah and the Commandments of God; on the other hand, liberal Jews perceive the promise of the Messiah to be an allegorical metaphor delineating the progress of the Israelite people towards peace, harmony and justice.

— Fahim Ferdous Kibria

Say No Condo

In less than a few weeks, Rutgers University approaches the graduation date of its 2014 candidates. And as we head down the road to the commencement of that ceremony, the focal point of the event so far has been the controversy surrounding the Condi Debate: Should Rutgers allow Condoleezza Rice, a war criminal, to speak at their 2014 Graduation Ceremony? A point of note here is the fact that not only has Condoleezza Rice been penciled as the commencement speaker of this year’s event but she is also to be awarded an honorary Doctor of Law degree from the institution. Why is this wrong?

First and foremost, there is the aforementioned allegation of the person in question being a war criminal, responsible for one of the greatest travesties of justice in recent history: leading a charge against a nation, namely Iraq, by inciting the emotions and sentiments of the American people opposing an entire population of a country, their race, their religion, on the basis of lies and deception.

It is a known fact today that the Iraq War was unjust and against the American principles of freedom and liberty, regardless of what the Bush Administration would have us believe. The rationale for the war that was provided to the world was the elimination of WMD’s assumed to be, illegally, in the possession of the Iraqi Government and the independence of the Iraqi people. A decade after the war, we now know that no such weapons were found, that in the January of 2005 the United States effectively terminated the search effort for unconventional weaponry in Iraq, and the Iraq Intelligence Commission concluded that the judgments of the U.S. intelligence community about the continued existence of weapons of mass destruction and an associated military program were wrong. And if the aftermath of the Iraq War has taught us anything, it is that the Iraqi people have not been liberated, they are not free, their lives have been wrongly disrupted and, tragic to state, destroyed.

The country of Iraq is now in shambles. Women and girls forced into prostitution to feed their families; the men of the house, dead; children orphaned and mothers widowed, the Iraq War has been nothing more than outright carnage, slaughter of innocent civilians in the name of America, a country founded on the values of justice, freedom and liberty. There should be absolutely no doubt that Condoleezza Rice and her cohorts in the Bush Administration do not stand for said values. Thus, the future leaders of the United States should not be made to believe that a lady of her standpoint is, by any means, a hero.

In honoring Condoleezza Rice as the commencement speaker of this year’s graduation ceremony, Rutgers does not only condone her actions and decisions which have cost the lives of half a million people, loss of lives that Dr. Rice coined as “collateral damage,” but the institution glorifies them, portrays them as actions that are praiseworthy, that should be looked up to, and it is utterly appalling and morally reprehensible to do so, or stand by and allow it to be done. The future leaders of America are not to view the waste of human life as collateral damage, as a difference of opinion; these loss of lives, not just Iraqi lives but American lives, could have, and should have been avoided.

The aftermath of the Iraq War is a laundry list of crimes against humanity with war veterans living through the effects of terminal depression, anxiety and PTSD, along with the Iraqi people left with not even the most basic of resources required to sustain life. Resources such as clean water, electricity, shelter and food have been rendered absent. Diseases run rampant and medical aid is non-existent. Women raped, men murdered and crippled mentally and physically to the point that the lines between life and death have been blurred and erased. This is only the tip of the iceberg when we are talking about the tally of brutalities left at the wake of Condoleezza Rice who signaled the unjustified butchery of so many lives. Should the University of Rutgers really be allowed to honor such a person?

What exactly are we honoring here? Are we honoring the meaningless deaths of half a million people? Are we honoring the decision to water-board Abu Zubaydah? Are we honoring the rape of Iraqi women, the murder of Iraqi children, the pillage of a nation based on false suppositions? And, let us think of the war veterans and the soldiers who died in battle. Why were they sent to the gallows for no reason? What was the end goal and has it been met? Survey says, no.

The resultant effects of the Iraq War is not only the literal deaths of the people involved but the metaphorical deaths of two nations, not just Iraq but the United States as well, for with the breach of the values that this proud country was founded upon is the death of this nation. The United States is no longer seen as the beacon of justice and hope. Rather, it is now a country deeply entrenched in Islamophobia, responsible for the unjust demonization of Arabs, South Asians and Muslims. Dr. Rice has been, at times, a complying bystander, and in others, an active participant in this tragedy. And one of the greatest tragedies if Condoleezza Rice is allowed to speak at the commencement ceremony of the Rutgers 2014 graduations is that there will be students of Iraqi heritage graduating and they will have to bear the fact that the murderer of their fellow countryfolk will be speaking at their graduation. How would the children of Holocaust survivors feel if a Nazi general were asked to speak at their graduation?

As a student of Rutgers and a proud Bangladeshi-American Muslim, I state that it is not too late for us to fall back on our values of justice and do the right thing. I urge each and everyone of you to stand up against the decision to invite Condoleezza Rice to our great university. Please say no to this injustice.



— Fahim Ferdous Kibria

Rutgers Community Must Stand Against Rice Invitation

Brandeis University reversed its decision to award Ayaan Hirsi Ali with an honorary degree last week because of her Islamophobic rhetoric. The argument for rescinding her honorary degree is hefty, but not nearly as formidable as the argument to rescind Condoleezza Rice’s invitation and honorary degree here at Rutgers. Unlike Rice, Ali is not considered by most of the world to be a war criminal. For a much lesser offense, the Brandeis administration moved forward anyway. At Rutgers, President Robert L. Barchi has confined the debate on Rice’s invitation to a question of free speech in America, instead of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people who had families, dreams, friends and passions. This neglects the reality of the invitation and simplifies the issue to one that is incredibly narcissistic. Rutgers is one of the greatest universities in the world, and as such, it is imperative that we intellectually engage the question of our commencement speaker as an inclusive, thoughtful community. With this in mind, we must also remember that some of our own community members are deeply hurt and personally affected by the consequences of the Iraq War. The invitation to Condoleezza Rice began on the foot of exclusivity and disregard for consciousness and justice on this campus.

As a graduating senior, my commencement was ruined the moment I found out Rice was this year’s speaker. I find it difficult knowing that my soon-to-be alma mater is honoring a woman who is complicit in some of the worst human rights violations. This is a level of dehumanization that I never foresaw from the current Rutgers administration.

Let’s think about this objectively. The United States was adamantly against the utilization of chemical weapons in the Syrian crisis and threatened to take military action if a solution was not reached in which such weapons would no longer be used. Ironically, the Bush administration used chemical weapons in Fallujah, Iraq. This is an overt double standard. As Americans, we must hold ourselves accountable to our own standards of morality — otherwise, the rest of the world will not respect us. Rutgers will become a propellant of this hypocrisy if we invite and honor Condoleezza Rice. We have the power as a university community to make the choice to rescind her invitation or welcome her. Her invitation is not set in stone. With the stroke of a pen, Barchi can rescind her invitation and her honorary Doctor of Laws degree. For justice, we must stop at nothing, and we cannot forget why she has done more harm than good.

To be a war criminal is a dishonor. This title is reserved for those who commit crimes against humanity. Holistically, this is not just in reference to the usage of chemical weapons in Fallujah. It includes the usage of the term “collateral damage” to decrease the number of reported deaths, the Abu Ghraib prison and the Iraqi refugee crisis, in which more than 4 million Iraqis have no permanent home, and millions of Iraqi children were left parentless as a result of the war. These children have no homes, and since the country is still in shambles, there is no education system and no mechanism to ensure that the youth of Iraq will ever find the opportunity and hope that we have in abundance. We must have more compassion and empathy when discussing this issue.

Are we as Rutgers students going to sit down and give Barchi and the Board of Governors the right to assert that her invitation is impossible to rescind? Barchi frankly does not speak for me or for many of us. This decision alone, and his adamant unwillingness to introduce debate as a means to actually rescinding her invitation, essentially highlights his callousness — the same callousness that could push the Board of Governors to send a war criminal an invitation to speak at our University’s commencement.

Ask yourself this question: Does Rice really deserve an honorary degree? Disregard Barchi’s email in which he asserted that he would not compromise on his decision to invite her — the power should be in our hands to decide whether or not she is welcome to speak at our commencement on May 18. At the heart of this question is whether or not we will stand up for what is right. All human life is precious and invaluable. We hold the ones we love as close as we possibly can. This invitation ignores the idea of loving one another, no matter where they come from. At Rutgers, I believe the love I’ve received here has brought me to where I am today, up until this moment at the very end of my four years on the banks. In the words of Cornel West, “justice is what love looks like in public.” This cannot hold more truth than in these moments leading up to this year’s commencement. We can choose to love those we’ve never met by respecting their dignity and loving their humanity, or we can choose to ignore them and honor a woman who, along with the rest of the Bush administration, took it away from them.

Rutgers, we can do better than this. And by better, I mean that we can make a difference in our world — together. Rescinding her invitation does not look nearly as bad as inviting Rice to speak in the first place. In fact, in 20 years, our university will be commemorated for retracting the invitation because it was the right thing to do, in the same way we are commemorated for being the first public university to partially divest from Apartheid South Africa. Back then, we did the right thing, and the entire world reveres us for it. The movement to divest came from the students and faculty who tirelessly pushed for what they believed in. It seems that Barchi and the Board of Governors threw these principles out of the window when they decided to invite and honor Rice. We, however, have not.

— Sherif Ibrahim, The Daily Targum

RUSA & RUDU Debate: Condoleezza Rice as 2014 Commencement Speaker

Rutgers Should Learn From Brandeis

With Rutgers University’s 248th commencement ceremony just weeks away, protests over having Condoleezza Rice as the commencement speaker are still going strong. The administration has made its stance on the issue very clear: In an email to the entire University, President Robert L. Barchi said despite the opposition, Rice will still be welcomed as the commencement speaker, given a hefty $35,000 honorarium and shall also be presented with an honorary Doctorate of Laws degree.

This last point is probably the most problematic, as we find it difficult to understand the reasoning behind presenting an honorary degree to someone who is clearly not considered worthy of the honor by several University affiliates. But Rutgers is not the only university dealing with controversy over commencement this year. Brandeis University made headlines last week with its decision to cancel the presentation of an honorary degree at commencement to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a renowned women’s rights activist who is scheduled to speak at a graduation event. While she is respected for her academic accomplishments and for overcoming challenges in her personal life that she is certainly entitled to speak to, Ali is also known for her blatantly Islamophobic comments and her campaign against the entire religion — in her words, “Once [Islam is] defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. … I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars.”

What kind of message would Brandeis be sending if it presented its most prestigious honor to a woman who is responsible for this kind of hate speech and for condemning an entire religion? It was a very poorly made decision, but we still think it is commendable that Brandeis realized this and corrected its mistake.

We wish we could say the same about our own university. Despite the controversy, the protests across the Rutgers community and a faculty petition with more than 350 signatures, Barchi and the Board of Governors have made it clear they will not compromise on their decision. Instead, those in favor of having Rice insist that rescinding her invitation or even revoking her honorary degree would be in violation of the First Amendment’s right to free speech. This is a weak defense that completely misses the point. It’s not that Rice is not welcome at Rutgers, it’s that our commencement ceremony is supposed to be about celebrating graduates’ hard work and accomplishments, and it’s not the appropriate venue for such a polarizing figure to deliver the address and receive an honorary degree.

Besides, what does it even mean to be presented with an honorary degree? According to the Rutgers University website, “This degree recognizes an individual’s exceptional achievement or distinction in a field or activity consonant with the mission of the university. Through this major public action, the university is able to acknowledge worthy individuals of national and international acclaim whose accomplishments support the ideals of the university and serve as an example for our students, alumni and society.”

By presenting Rice with an honorary degree, the University makes clear that it believes Rice’s achievements — which include the political decisions made during her time as Secretary of State, specifically, the invasion and subsequent destruction of Iraq — are in line with the values of the University and are worthy of this honorary degree. It means that the University considers her to be someone the graduating class should look to as a role model. But who gets to make that call? There needs to be a more transparent process of selecting commencement speakers and recipients of an honorary degree because the decision to invite and honor Rice is clearly not representative of our entire university, or even a majority of it, in any way.

We commend Brandeis University for reversing its decision and taking the opinion of its community into consideration. Of course, it is a major embarrassment for the university to have offered the degree to a bigoted person in the first place, but it has at least done the right thing instead of stubbornly refusing to consider a majority opinion to try and save its own face. By refusing to compromise on the issue of not only inviting, but also honoring Rice at our commencement ceremony this year, Rutgers is only digging itself into an even deeper hole.

— Editorial Staff, The Daily Targum

Operation Iraqi Freedom

— Hadiya Abdelrahman

Muslim in America

— Sara Zayed

What Do Muslims Believe? — God, Creation, Faith, Disbelief, Sin and Salvation

The following is a compilation of essays I penned for my Islamic Scriptures and Religions of the Western World class at Rutgers University, both conducted by Professor James Pavlin. It is on the beliefs of the Muslim faith regarding the Nature of God, Sin and Salvation, the role of Creation, the concept of Faith and Disbelief within Islam.

Arguably one of the most misunderstood religions of the world, it is no secret that the Islamic faith largely remains to many a concept shrouded in mystery. Yes, we often hear many Muslims trying to reach out to their non-Muslim brethren with messages of "We Love Jesus Too!" and "Islam Means Peace" but what do Muslims really believe in – about God, about Sin, about Salvation?

Now, before we begin I must tell you that the following piece is not an expository of Islamic theology speaking for all creeds existing within the religion – the sectarian divisions and variety of schools of thought. Instead, it is a very basic yet comprehensive overview of the faith. The article shall try to answer the following questions:

• What is Islam? Who or what is a Muslim?
• What status does the creation hold in the Eyes of God?
• Who is God? What is the Islamic definition of the Divine Deity?
• What does Islam believe of Sin and Salvation?
• How does Islam deal with the question of Faith and Disbelief?

The word “Islam,” deriving from the root words “Silm,” meaning “submission,” and “Salam,” meaning “peace,” literally translates to “in peace through submission to the Will of God.” In Arabic, the doer of an action is defined by adding the prefix “mu” before the verb. In regards to this, anyone who performs the action of submitting themselves voluntarily and peacefully to the Will and Commandments of God is a “Mu-Islam” or “Muslim.”

Thus, the Islamic creed proclaims every object in creation is a Muslim because every object in creation is a loyal servant of God, created to obey His Laws without transgression. The sun, the moon, the stars, the trees and the animals are all prescribed laws to follow, which they do. The laws of gravity, thermodynamics and energy conservation are three of many set in place to govern the workings of the universe, matters concerning both animate and inanimate objects. The Qur’an tells us that the courses of all these things are set in motion by God and they loyally abide by it, not possessing the ability to deny or disobey as they have rejected the burden of free-will. They wished to remain obedient to their Lord and as such they are in peace through submission to Him making them all Muslims.

This is treated as an honor. Since God is the Supreme Creator and there is none higher than He, being objects of His creation and His design is obviously the greatest of all privileges and glory. We can take into consideration the work of a well-known artist being credited highly because of the reputation of the artist. Similarly, all creation has been given dignity and value as creatures created by God as default due to His Absolute Esteem and Majesty.

All creation finds its worth in being the servant of the Master Creator. God created everything in the universe with an intention in mind, and not merely for jest as He has decreed in the Qur’an: “We have not created the Heavens and the Earth, and what is between them, merely out of vanity” [38:17], nor as a matter of play [21:16].

Instead, everything in creation is an important piece of a puzzle, a significant part of a well-oiled machine, the absence of which may cause a disastrous butterfly effect all over the pattern. In other words, all objects in creation, whether animate or inanimate, is assigned a place in a scheme of grandiose proportions, carefully knit together by the Master of the Worlds to follow their course of action as decreed by Him, and in this is great honor and value.

Take for example someone working for the king of a country or the president. Whatever duty he is given, he takes great pride in it because it comes from the king or the president. Similarly, the duty prescribed for the sun, the moon, the stars, the cloud, the rains, the water, the animals and plants, fire and wind, and everything else in existence has been prescribed to them by God, King of Kings and the Most Supreme of all masters. He is Almighty and thus there is no greater honor than to serve Him. Therefore, the value of creation comes through the reputation of their Master and to ascribe other creators than the Most High God is degrading to them because that would be similar to the servant of a king being called the servant of a pauper. All creation is thus given equal dignity, value and honor of being creatures of the One and Only Almighty Creator, God.

Islam believes God is transcendent and emphasizes this point very strongly going as far as to claim God does not exist in our plane of being. The two realms are vehemently held as entirely separate from one another. Our realm is the created realm and His is the One that is Eternal like Him. He doesn't reside on Earth nor even in Heaven. He is not of physical design and He is not constituted of matter but His Visage is inconceivable by the limited human mind. To mix God together with the created realm would be to compromise His Oneness and Uniqueness.

However, the Essence of God is immanent throughout the universe and all that exists. He is not present within the created realm physically but His Mercy abides within us all. One Name for God used in Islam is Ar-Rahman meaning Most-Merciful which emphasizes the aforementioned point. Another Name attributed to God in Islam is al-Muqsith meaning the One Who Sustains connoting that it is the Power and Absolute Majesty of God that sustains and supports everything around us. He provides the crutch to hold up all of creation. These are only but two names out of ninety-nine in Islam describing the Divine Qualities of God through which he is present among us not physically but in an ethereal and spiritual sense. Islam claims in the Qur'an: "To God belong the East and the West; wherever you may turn, there is the Face of God" [2:115] meaning that God's Reach is Infinite and even though physically separated in another Realm of His Own, we are always eternally within His Grasp.

Similar to Judaism and Christianity, the nature of Sin and Salvation is explained in Islam through its Creation Lore, that is, the story of the Genesis of Humankind – the Conception of Adam and Eve, or Hawwa, as she is called in Arabic. There are significant differences between the Genesis story of Judeo-Christian beliefs and Islam, as there are differences in the faiths’ ideas of Sin and Salvation. When discussing the idea of sin in Islam, Muslims do not speak of it as default human nature. In other words, being sinful is not something that is inherent in us as it was not inherent in either Adam or Eve. Instead, what happened was they were negligent and forgetful and thus they forgot or neglected God’s order as to not eat of the fruit in the Garden due to a relapse of judgment in their part thus causing them to slip for a moment and transgress God’s command. And so is defined the nature of all humankind.

When God created Adam and Eve, He appointed them to be His representatives on Earth – His caliph. So, humans were naturally created, as per Islamic beliefs, to carry out the Will of God and establish His Design on Earth through His Laws and His Commandments. Humans were thus given the duty to protect all of God’s creation and enjoin peace in the world. This was our covenant with the Lord. However, humans are also described to be weak in memory, always forgetting who they are and neglecting the natural law of submission to God as the way of fulfilling their true nature. They become oblivious and unaware of who they are and what they should be doing in this world.

Thus, humans then fall into temptation, become subservient to their own desires, passions and obsessions. However, Islam does not describe these cravings and desires to be evil by nature. They are only evil when they are pursued in excess and through unlawful means which overrides against God’s Commandments. For example, let us take eating or sexual intercourse as an example. Both of them elicit a form of hunger in humans and both require to be satisfied in order for us to be complete. Now, there are various methods of appeasing the hunger. One can eat all that is lawful, avoiding pork and alcohol and the meat of cattle or animals which have been tortured to death, and involve themselves in intercourse with partners in wedlock. This is lawful. On the other hand, one can also maim and kill another to eat or rape and pillage another for intercourse. That is when our desires lead to sin.

In Islam, God has prescribed boundaries for us not to cross and as long as our desires and cravings are pleased within these boundaries, it is not sinful. However, due to our negligent nature, we, humans, forget these boundaries that have been put in place for us and we begin to sin. As per the story of Genesis in Islam goes, Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden where they could have had all they ever desired and fulfilled their desires through those means as long as they did not eat of the fruit, this was their boundary. But, they forgot about it and fell into sin.

Now comes the idea of Salvation in Islam. A primary difference between the Genesis story in the Bible and the Qur’an is that in the latter, Adam and Eve repent after they eat of the fruit in the Garden and their repentance is accepted by God and God forgives them. This is the notion of Salvation is Islam. God forgives as long as one repents sincerely. In the end, Islam is about struggling and striving to fulfill God’s Commandments but not perfecting it because our limited, forgetful nature makes it impossible to do so. Humans are to strive to follow the Qur’an and Sunnah to accomplish God’s Command. Humans are to strive and remember God and His Laws, and resist falling into sin and temptations, but humans cannot avoid sin completely. However, this is not a problem; this is the point. Islam is about earning God’s Mercy and Forgiveness through devotion to Him, His worship and remembrance in Man’s daily lives, not about overcoming his or her humanity.

In regards to matters of belief and disbelief, Islam does not cite blind faith to be one’s mean to approach the former and dismiss the latter. Instead, Islam encourages belief through rationality. Islam holds the idea that humans are not inherently sinful by default but rather they are negligent and forgetful in nature, disobeying God’s Laws through ill memory and overlooking the signs of God’s existence via similar methods. In other words, humans forget.

Disbelief, or the act “kufr,” in Islam, is believed to be the consequence of human beings forgetting and neglecting the obvious signs present in the universe of God’s existence. Humans see around them the natural order of things: the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, the moon follows shift and on comes nightfall, specific times allocated for the two and neither clash against one another. There is a harmoniously set hierarchy present among animals of the wild and even the plants. Each celestial body – the sun, the moon, the planet, the stars – are all assigned their respective orbits and one orbit is not occupied by more than one planet to cause disruption between them. The laws of gravity are put in place to hold everything down in order. The water cycle is in balance. Even in our own bodies we have the intricate detailing of the blood vessels, the bones, the muscles, the bundles of nerves, the cardiovascular system, the digestive system with its optimum pH levels and presence of natural catalysts in the form of enzymes for reactions to take place, mytochondria in cells, minutely crafted organelles, etc. and the designing of it all is so complex and efficient that Islam argues it could not have been possible without an Intelligent Designer in charge, an Almighty Creator, One Who puts it all into motion for the benefit of us all so that we may be grateful to Him in return and worship Him. Regarding this, God, through the Qur’an, tells us in the first thirteen verses of Surah ar-Rahman:

Most Gracious
Taught the Qur'an.
Created man:
Taught him speech.
The sun and the moon move by precise calculation;
And the herbs and trees bow in adoration.
And the Firmament has He raised high, and He has set up the Balance,
In order that ye may not transgress it.
So establish weight with justice and fall not short in the scale.
It is He Who has spread out the earth for His creatures:
Therein is fruit and date-palms, producing sheaths and spathes;
Also corn, with its leaves and stalk for fodder, and sweet-smelling plants.
Then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny?

Islam treats the issue of disbelief or “kufr” as a result of humans being oblivious to the signs around them. Similar to the excerpt I quoted above, the Qur’an mentions multitudes of times about the natural laws holding the universe in place and asking the readers if they believe have they created it all, even their own selves, by themselves, or have they come from nothing:

“Were they created by nothing? Or were they themselves the creators?”
[Qur’an 52:35]

Islam argues that those immersed in the act of kufr, also known as the kuffar, are covering up the truth. Hence, the Arabic word “kufr” being used to describe the act which literally means “to cover up.” Islam holds the notion that these men and women, the kuffar, they see the world around them, the signs, they study them, the complex workings of it all and yet they fail to see the truth or they deny it through neglect. They are unaware of the Creator. When they see the various laws and processes of the world around them in motion, they struggle to understand the “how” and come to their various conclusions about, debate and discuss over it but they fail to comprehend the “Who.”

In doing so, the kuffar start to believe that they have full knowledge of all things and they have attained what they believe through logic and reasoning but Islam also argues that the intelligence of humans is limited and thus the knowledge they have attained is not complete. It is flawed and it has overlooked some very important details causing them to travel down the road to disbelief. Eventually, this cause the kuffar to become mushriks, that is, those who commit shirk – the act of elevating a creation to the stature of God, by attributing divinity to nature believing they are self-sustaining and godlike.

“Yet they have taken besides Him other gods who created nothing but are themselves created, and possess neither harm nor benefit for themselves, and possess no power of causing death, nor giving life, nor of raising the dead.”
[Qur’an 25:3]

Thus, they commit the ultimate sin, the greatest injustice and treason possible: they live in God’s created universe, enjoying His bountiful gifts and provisions, and then they turn away from Him, disobeying Him and worshiping His creation rather than the true Lord, Master and Creator.

In order to avoid falling into disbelief, Islam asks us to seek knowledge. In the Qur’an, God orders man to, “Read in the Name of thy Lord” [96:1]. Because through knowledge humans will begin to understand the world around them, the complexity of it and the beauty of it, the intricate engineering behind it all and only then shall men and women begin to comprehend that there is indeed an Architect Who has designed the blueprint.

The guidance to learn in the Qur’an comes from God but no-one is compelled to follow it: “Let there be no compulsion in religion” [2:256]. Instead, humans are to hear of the Revelation in the Qur’an, study it, examine it and scrutinize it, test it as they please and inquire of it, until finally their reason leads them to faith. Islam believes this is the natural way because the same God did both, created human reason and sent down the Qur’an.

Islam encourages its followers to push their intellect on towards belief through knowledge and rationality. Islam asks the followers of its creed to traverse the lands and gain understanding of our world and the universe because everywhere in this universe the same truth is to be found, for everything is of one piece in God’s Design. In this way, through using our intelligence in studying God’s Revelation, the Qur’an, and the world around us, humans are asked to shun disbelief and arrive at Imaan – Faith in God, the Truth and certain knowledge, as proclaimed in the Qur’an: “The Truth has come, and falsehood has perished” [17:81].

— Fahim Ferdous Kibria