David Decosimo
Biographic Data
| ID | 1694940 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Decosimo |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Decosimo |
| SIGNATURE | DECOSIMO D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2064-7779 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Ordering Reasons, Mediating Virtues
How should we conceive the interplay of nature and grace in Christian ethical life when it comes to the virtues? How did Thomas Aquinas conceive it? For Thomas, grace-given, infused moral virtues can use virtues acquired by habituation, ‘commanding’ their own proper act with its distinct, subordinate proper end and ‘referring’ or ‘mediating’ that act to beatitude. These diverse species of virtue effect distinct movements of will, practical reason…
The New Genealogy of Religious Freedom
This article pursues an immanent critique of a scholarly movement and mood that I call “the new genealogy of religious freedom” and sketches an alternative proposal. The new genealogy of religious freedom claims that religious freedom is incoherent, systemically biased, oppressive, ideological—and necessarily so. Its critique deploys a methodology inherited from Nietzsche and targets a vision of religious freedom associated with “foundationalists…
Political Freedom as an Islamic Value
The esteemed scholar Michael Cook has recently argued that political freedom is “not an Islamic value” but is in tension with Islam. This paper contends that Cook is mistaken. It moves in four steps. First, I consider the very idea of an “Islamic value,” sketching a nonessentialist way of conceiving such a thing. Next, I show that the particular “liberal” notion of political freedom that Cook rightly claims is absent is but one of three distinct …
For big comparison
The nearly unanimous scholarly consensus is that one should not compare entire religious traditions. "Big comparison," we're told, is vague, unilluminating, and misleading. And this is because religions are just too big and internally diverse to helpfully compare. Worse, big comparison implicates and extends the essentialist and colonialist legacies of the field's origins. This article contends that such arguments fail, and it argues for the inev…
Sin, Consent, and Apparent Confusion in Abelard's Ethica
An Umma of Accountability Al-Ghazālī against Domination
This article elucidates the place of domination, or subjection to another's arbitrary power, in al-Ghazālī's political thought, especially his Counsel for Kings. Scholars have long thought conceptions of liberty unimportant to or absent from medieval Islamic political thought but have neglected the possible presence of conceptions of liberty as non-domination. Drawing on recent work stressing his lifelong political engagement and self-understandi…
Just Lies
Augustine famously defends the justice of killing in certain public contexts such as just wars. He also claims that private citizens who intentionally kill are guilty of murder, regardless of their reasons. Just as famously, Augustine seems to prohibit lying categorically. Analyzing these features of his thought and their connections, I argue that Augustine is best understood as endorsing the justice of lying in certain public contexts, even thou…
Comparison and the Ubiquity of Resemblance
Since at least the nineteenth century and arguably centuries earlier, comparison has figured prominently in the study of religion. It continues to do so today, especially in the subfield of comparative religious ethics (“CRE”). This article considers the implications for comparative work more broadly and CRE in particular if we take seriously Nelson Goodman's insight that “similarity is relative, variable and context-dependent ... [and that] ever…
Comparison and the Ubiquity of Resemblance
Since at least the nineteenth century and arguably centuries earlier, comparison has figured prominently in the study of religion. It continues to do so today, especially in the subfield of comparative religious ethics (“CRE”). This article considers the implications for comparative work more broadly and CRE in particular if we take seriously Nelson Goodman's insight that “similarity is relative, variable and context-dependent ... [and that] ever…
For big comparison
The nearly unanimous scholarly consensus is that one should not compare entire religious traditions. "Big comparison," we're told, is vague, unilluminating, and misleading. And this is because religions are just too big and internally diverse to helpfully compare. Worse, big comparison implicates and extends the essentialist and colonialist legacies of the field's origins. This article contends that such arguments fail, and it argues for the inev…
Just Lies
Augustine famously defends the justice of killing in certain public contexts such as just wars. He also claims that private citizens who intentionally kill are guilty of murder, regardless of their reasons. Just as famously, Augustine seems to prohibit lying categorically. Analyzing these features of his thought and their connections, I argue that Augustine is best understood as endorsing the justice of lying in certain public contexts, even thou…
Comparison and the Ubiquity of Resemblance
Since at least the nineteenth century and arguably centuries earlier, comparison has figured prominently in the study of religion. It continues to do so today, especially in the subfield of comparative religious ethics (“CRE”). This article considers the implications for comparative work more broadly and CRE in particular if we take seriously Nelson Goodman's insight that “similarity is relative, variable and context-dependent ... [and that] ever…
An Umma of Accountability Al-Ghazālī against Domination
This article elucidates the place of domination, or subjection to another's arbitrary power, in al-Ghazālī's political thought, especially his Counsel for Kings. Scholars have long thought conceptions of liberty unimportant to or absent from medieval Islamic political thought but have neglected the possible presence of conceptions of liberty as non-domination. Drawing on recent work stressing his lifelong political engagement and self-understandi…
The New Genealogy of Religious Freedom
This article pursues an immanent critique of a scholarly movement and mood that I call “the new genealogy of religious freedom” and sketches an alternative proposal. The new genealogy of religious freedom claims that religious freedom is incoherent, systemically biased, oppressive, ideological—and necessarily so. Its critique deploys a methodology inherited from Nietzsche and targets a vision of religious freedom associated with “foundationalists…
Political Freedom as an Islamic Value
The esteemed scholar Michael Cook has recently argued that political freedom is “not an Islamic value” but is in tension with Islam. This paper contends that Cook is mistaken. It moves in four steps. First, I consider the very idea of an “Islamic value,” sketching a nonessentialist way of conceiving such a thing. Next, I show that the particular “liberal” notion of political freedom that Cook rightly claims is absent is but one of three distinct …
For big comparison
The nearly unanimous scholarly consensus is that one should not compare entire religious traditions. "Big comparison," we're told, is vague, unilluminating, and misleading. And this is because religions are just too big and internally diverse to helpfully compare. Worse, big comparison implicates and extends the essentialist and colonialist legacies of the field's origins. This article contends that such arguments fail, and it argues for the inev…
Sin, Consent, and Apparent Confusion in Abelard's Ethica
Ordering Reasons, Mediating Virtues
How should we conceive the interplay of nature and grace in Christian ethical life when it comes to the virtues? How did Thomas Aquinas conceive it? For Thomas, grace-given, infused moral virtues can use virtues acquired by habituation, ‘commanding’ their own proper act with its distinct, subordinate proper end and ‘referring’ or ‘mediating’ that act to beatitude. These diverse species of virtue effect distinct movements of will, practical reason…
Philosophy (8 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Politics (4 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Psychology (3 works) · Theology (3 works)