Andrew Fiala
Biographic Data
| ID | 459431 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Andrew Fiala |
| GIVEN NAMES | Andrew |
| FAMILY NAME | Fiala |
| SIGNATURE | FIALA A |
| AFFILIATIONS | California State University, Fresno |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7531-8721 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 29 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Asininity and Evil
This paper discusses four axioms of asininity, while defining asininity as a combination of stupidity and assholery. Asininity is a tragic and ubiquitous feature of the human condition. It can be as bad as evil; and it is not easily cured. The paper locates asininity in moral theory, arguing that virtue theory provides a useful analysis and that asinine people are not evil in a deontological sense. It uses ideas from social epistemology and psych…
Nihilistic Authoritarianism
This paper introduces “nihilistic authoritarianism” as a useful concept for political analysis. This term has not been employed before in the scholarly literature, even though the basic idea is familiar from the history of political thought. It is not unusual to say that authoritarians desire power for its own sake. But the basic nihilism of such an idea has not been adequately analyzed. This idea is distinguished from “Platonic authoritarianism,…
Kantian War Abolition Pacifism
Kant is a war abolitionist. He suggests that war is unreasonable, while critiquing the economic, social, and political systems that give rise to war. For Kant, the pursuit of world peace requires the abolition of the systems of war. In describing Kant as a war abolitionist, this paper aims to breathe new life into the scholarly question of whether Kant was a pacifist or a just war theorist. The paper also builds upon recent discussions in the lit…
War abolition and the whole war critique
War is an absurd social practice. It ought to be abolished. Indeed, as I show in the paper, a number of prominent pacifists have argued in support of war abolition. War abolitionism is connected to what I call “the whole war critique.” The whole war critique has been explored by Robert Holmes. But war abolition and the whole war critique have been under‐thematized in the philosophical literature on pacifism and just war theory. This paper seeks t…
Christian Nationalism and the Paradox of Secularism
Critical Character Education
Pacifism Contra the War System
Can War Be Justified
Peace and Hope in Dark Times
The papers collected here apply the insights of the philosophy of peace to contemporary issues and the larger problem of what it means to have hope and to work for peace in dark times. The authors included in this volume respond to contemporary challenges posed by the Trump Era and the COVID-19 crisis. This represents a novel application and exploration of concepts and ideas found in the philosophy of peace and nonviolence. The authors elucidate …
Tragic Wisdom, Vigilance, and the Tyrant’s Return
Peace as Intrinsic Value
Those who think of peace as an intrinsic value might be called “intuitionist pacifists” or “intuitive pacifists.” For pacifists of this sort, peace functions as an unanalyzable foundational value. The pacifist intuition is often meta‐ethical and not the result of argument or inference. Understanding pacifism in this way helps explain some disputes between pacifism and its critics. The article makes this argument with appeal to historical sources,…
Religious and Secular Visions of Peace and Pacifism
Pacifism is a complex and significant moral, political, religious, and philosophical idea. There is an evolving conversation about peace and nonviolence that occurs among secular scholars, religious figures, and activists. This paper explores this conversation, while employing a five-part thematic frame of analysis that attempts to distinguish secular and religious visions of peace and pacifism. The result of this analysis provides a ready framew…
In Memoriam
The Challenge of Developing a Global Ethic
Progress and Meliorism
There is no grand narrative or master plan for historical progress. Contemporary discussions of progress and enlightenment reflect an improved version of an old debate, which has progressed beyond older debates about metaphysical optimism and pessimism. Responding to recent work by John Gray, Steven Pinker, and others, this paper describes meliorism as a middle path between optimism and pessimism. Meliorism is pragmatic, humanistic, secular, and …
Transformative Pacifism
Defending pacifism against the charge that it is nav̐ely utopian, Transformative Pacifism offers a critical theory of the existing world order, and points in the direction of concrete ethical and political action. Pacifism is a transformative philosophy with wide ranging implications. It aims to transform political, social, and psychological structures. Its focus is deep and wide. It is similar to other transformative social theories: feminism, e…
Jesus v. Abortion
Charles Bellinger’s critique of abortion occurs within a larger theological critique of violence and secular politics. Building upon the insights of Søren Kierkegaard and René Girard, Bellinger locates violence in denial of spiritual growth and rejection of the vertical dimension of religious life. Bellinger also criticizes individualism, autonomy, and liberal political philosophy. Arguing that contemporary social and moral systems are based on n…
Secular Cosmopolitanism, Hospitality, and Religious Pluralism
This book explores the idea of religious pluralism while defending the norms of secular cosmopolitanism, which include liberty, tolerance, civility, and hospitality. The secular cosmopolitan ideal requires us to be more tolerant and more hospitable toward religious believers and non-believers from diverse traditions in our religiously pluralistic world. Some have argued that the world’s religions can be united around a common core. This book argu…
Ethics
The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace
The essays collected in The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace consider connections between ecology, environmental ethics, nonviolence, and philosophy of peace. Edited by Andrew Fiala, this book includes essays written by important scholars in the field of peace studies, pacifism, and nonviolence, including Michael Allen Fox, Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, Bill Gay, and others. Topics include: ecological consciousness and nonviolence, environmental act…
Sacrifice, Abandonment, and Historical Nihilism
Historical consciousness leaves us with the problem of historical nihilism: individuals feeling sacrificed and abandoned by the flow of time. This paper considers this problem, while considering Hegel’s philosophy of history as a useful response. The attempt to construct meaning in history can provide a sense of reconciliation with the movement of history. This paper describes the problem of historical nihilism. It explains Hegel’s response to th…
Civility, Religious Pluralism and Education
Political Skepticism and Anarchist Themes in the American Tradition
This article describes a generally trend in American thought that is skeptical of social and political institutions. This trend can be described as a sort of philosophical anarchism. It develops out of pragmatist and skeptical criticism of absolutism in both philosophical and political systems. This paper traces this theme from its early roots in American Christian anarchism, through transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau, and on to the w…
The Democratic Peace Myth
A bstract This paper examines the ideal of the democratic peace and the recent misuse of this ideal in the war on terrorism. It argues against the idea that aggressive military force can be employed to bring about the ideal of the democratic peace. By looking at John Stuart Mill's utilitarian justification of benevolent despotism for “barbarians,” it examines how idealism can lead to a defense of aggressive intervention. And it considers how idea…
The Crusade for Freedom
This paper critically examines the Bush Doctrine in American foreign policy. It describes the crusading spirit of the Bush Doctrine and its connection with American Exceptionalism, with a special focus on the Bush administration's policy statements. It then uses the theoretical framework of the just war tradition to argue against this new sort of crusading idealism and its eschatological aim of transforming the world through military force. The p…
Stoic Tolerance
Peace as Intrinsic Value
Those who think of peace as an intrinsic value might be called “intuitionist pacifists” or “intuitive pacifists.” For pacifists of this sort, peace functions as an unanalyzable foundational value. The pacifist intuition is often meta‐ethical and not the result of argument or inference. Understanding pacifism in this way helps explain some disputes between pacifism and its critics. The article makes this argument with appeal to historical sources,…
Religious and Secular Visions of Peace and Pacifism
Pacifism is a complex and significant moral, political, religious, and philosophical idea. There is an evolving conversation about peace and nonviolence that occurs among secular scholars, religious figures, and activists. This paper explores this conversation, while employing a five-part thematic frame of analysis that attempts to distinguish secular and religious visions of peace and pacifism. The result of this analysis provides a ready framew…
The Democratic Peace Myth
A bstract This paper examines the ideal of the democratic peace and the recent misuse of this ideal in the war on terrorism. It argues against the idea that aggressive military force can be employed to bring about the ideal of the democratic peace. By looking at John Stuart Mill's utilitarian justification of benevolent despotism for “barbarians,” it examines how idealism can lead to a defense of aggressive intervention. And it considers how idea…
Crusades, Just Wars, and the Bush Doctrine
This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while... —G.W. Bush, September 2001 The Bush Doctrine has been described in various ways by Jonathan Monten, Francois Heisbourg, John Lewis Gad
Toleration and Pragmatism
Toleration is a pragmatic response to the practical need to coexist with others who have different conceptions of the good. Toleration develops out of the recognition that in practice diversity cannot be eradicated by either philosophical argument or political force. We see this pragmatic approach in both the history of discussions of toleration and contemporary accounts. Locke argued, for example, that since it was not practically possible to pr…
Stoic Tolerance
Citizenship and preemptive war
Crusades, Just Wars, and the Bush Doctrine
This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while... —G.W. Bush, September 2001 The Bush Doctrine has been described in various ways by Jonathan Monten, Francois Heisbourg, John Lewis Gad
The Bush Doctrine, Democratization, and Humanitarian Intervention
What has come to be known as ‘the Bush Doctrine’ is an idealistic approach to international relations that imagines a world transformed by the promise of democracy and that sees military force as an appropriate means to utilize in pursuit of this goal. The Bush Doctrine has been described in various ways. It has been called ‘democratic realism,’ ‘national security liberalism,’ ‘democratic globalism,’ and ‘messianic universalism’.1 Another common …
The Crusade for Freedom
This paper critically examines the Bush Doctrine in American foreign policy. It describes the crusading spirit of the Bush Doctrine and its connection with American Exceptionalism, with a special focus on the Bush administration's policy statements. It then uses the theoretical framework of the just war tradition to argue against this new sort of crusading idealism and its eschatological aim of transforming the world through military force. The p…
The Democratic Peace Myth
A bstract This paper examines the ideal of the democratic peace and the recent misuse of this ideal in the war on terrorism. It argues against the idea that aggressive military force can be employed to bring about the ideal of the democratic peace. By looking at John Stuart Mill's utilitarian justification of benevolent despotism for “barbarians,” it examines how idealism can lead to a defense of aggressive intervention. And it considers how idea…
Civility, Religious Pluralism and Education
Political Skepticism and Anarchist Themes in the American Tradition
This article describes a generally trend in American thought that is skeptical of social and political institutions. This trend can be described as a sort of philosophical anarchism. It develops out of pragmatist and skeptical criticism of absolutism in both philosophical and political systems. This paper traces this theme from its early roots in American Christian anarchism, through transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau, and on to the w…
The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace
The essays collected in The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace consider connections between ecology, environmental ethics, nonviolence, and philosophy of peace. Edited by Andrew Fiala, this book includes essays written by important scholars in the field of peace studies, pacifism, and nonviolence, including Michael Allen Fox, Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, Bill Gay, and others. Topics include: ecological consciousness and nonviolence, environmental act…
Sacrifice, Abandonment, and Historical Nihilism
Historical consciousness leaves us with the problem of historical nihilism: individuals feeling sacrificed and abandoned by the flow of time. This paper considers this problem, while considering Hegel’s philosophy of history as a useful response. The attempt to construct meaning in history can provide a sense of reconciliation with the movement of history. This paper describes the problem of historical nihilism. It explains Hegel’s response to th…
Secular Cosmopolitanism, Hospitality, and Religious Pluralism
This book explores the idea of religious pluralism while defending the norms of secular cosmopolitanism, which include liberty, tolerance, civility, and hospitality. The secular cosmopolitan ideal requires us to be more tolerant and more hospitable toward religious believers and non-believers from diverse traditions in our religiously pluralistic world. Some have argued that the world’s religions can be united around a common core. This book argu…
Ethics
Jesus v. Abortion
Charles Bellinger’s critique of abortion occurs within a larger theological critique of violence and secular politics. Building upon the insights of Søren Kierkegaard and René Girard, Bellinger locates violence in denial of spiritual growth and rejection of the vertical dimension of religious life. Bellinger also criticizes individualism, autonomy, and liberal political philosophy. Arguing that contemporary social and moral systems are based on n…
Transformative Pacifism
Defending pacifism against the charge that it is nav̐ely utopian, Transformative Pacifism offers a critical theory of the existing world order, and points in the direction of concrete ethical and political action. Pacifism is a transformative philosophy with wide ranging implications. It aims to transform political, social, and psychological structures. Its focus is deep and wide. It is similar to other transformative social theories: feminism, e…
Progress and Meliorism
There is no grand narrative or master plan for historical progress. Contemporary discussions of progress and enlightenment reflect an improved version of an old debate, which has progressed beyond older debates about metaphysical optimism and pessimism. Responding to recent work by John Gray, Steven Pinker, and others, this paper describes meliorism as a middle path between optimism and pessimism. Meliorism is pragmatic, humanistic, secular, and …
In Memoriam
The Challenge of Developing a Global Ethic
Tragic Wisdom, Vigilance, and the Tyrant’s Return
Peace as Intrinsic Value
Those who think of peace as an intrinsic value might be called “intuitionist pacifists” or “intuitive pacifists.” For pacifists of this sort, peace functions as an unanalyzable foundational value. The pacifist intuition is often meta‐ethical and not the result of argument or inference. Understanding pacifism in this way helps explain some disputes between pacifism and its critics. The article makes this argument with appeal to historical sources,…
Religious and Secular Visions of Peace and Pacifism
Pacifism is a complex and significant moral, political, religious, and philosophical idea. There is an evolving conversation about peace and nonviolence that occurs among secular scholars, religious figures, and activists. This paper explores this conversation, while employing a five-part thematic frame of analysis that attempts to distinguish secular and religious visions of peace and pacifism. The result of this analysis provides a ready framew…
Can War Be Justified
Peace and Hope in Dark Times
The papers collected here apply the insights of the philosophy of peace to contemporary issues and the larger problem of what it means to have hope and to work for peace in dark times. The authors included in this volume respond to contemporary challenges posed by the Trump Era and the COVID-19 crisis. This represents a novel application and exploration of concepts and ideas found in the philosophy of peace and nonviolence. The authors elucidate …
Critical Character Education
Pacifism Contra the War System
Philosophy (21 works) · Political science (21 works) · Law (19 works) · Politics (16 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Global Peace and Security Dynamics (12 works) · Law (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · War, Ethics, and Justification (7 works)