Although scholars use the term moral ecology and commentators frequently employ environmental analogies in depicting the cultural milieu, the profound implications of such formulations remain unexplored. This article provides the first systematic analysis of the theory of moral ecology as a philosophical, empirical, and practical construct. It applies environmental thought, particularly insights from the “tragedy of the commons,” to the moral and cultural realm. It suggests that the concept of moral ecology is a compelling depiction of genuine human dynamics. Corroboration flows from the way the theory of moral ecology synthesizes a vast empirical literature on media violence, family decline, and gambling into a parsimonious nomological formulation.

Whereas traditionally self–love was considered a moral evil, Rousseau contended that some self–love is benign—and not only benign, but morally necessary and even praiseworthy. The following article offers an interpretation of Rousseau's criteria for distinguishing between good self–love and bad. The distinction between good and bad self–love is neither as simple as many readers think—it does not correspond exactly to the distinction between amour de soi and amour–propre—nor as blurry as many others think. It is, rather, both subtle and coherent. And it might well prove useful in our current efforts to inculcate pride and self-esteem without encouraging complacency or exploitation, efforts which themselves owe much to Rousseau's influence.

The central claim of this article is that Habermas's program of discourse ethics fails to “detranscendentalize” the Enlightenment subject. On the contrary, tacit assumptions concerning a transcendental conception of reason and a subject that is teleologically predisposed toward its rightful end are the logical pillars of Habermas's two most crucial claims. First, unless Habermas presupposes an abstract and decidedly unencumbered moral discussant, he cannot maintain his claim concerning the rationality—and hence the unconditionality—of the moral principle he describes. Secondly, unless Habermas begs the question of the proper end of individual and collective development, he fails to support the claim that discourse ethics speaks to the emphatic dimension of moral reason.

Two striking features of Alfarabi's Book of Religion remind us of Machiavelli's Prince. Alfarabi is very much concerned with what Machiavelli would call a new prince, the founder of a political order. Like Machiavelli, Alfarabi emphasizes the extent to which the founder needs prudence, understood as the faculty by which political men make sound determinations about particular circumstances. The status of prudence is enhanced by the pervasiveness of change over time as Alfarabi sees it. The pervasiveness of change entails that any political founding will require repeated, and prudent, renewal. For Alfarabi, as for Machiavelli, the varying dictates of prudence in response to specific political situations pose a challenge to the universal rules or laws found in religion. Alfarabi differs from Machiavelli in carefully distinguishing prudence from mere cunning or cleverness, depending on whether or not the end sought is morally good.

Michael Baxter's long review provides an outline of David Schindler's useful first book; concentrates on its treatment of John Courtney Murray; gives a free pass to its lengthy ontological and theological speculations; and calls attention to its impracticality. Like Baxter, I share de Lubac's view of grace and nature (mediated to me by three Jesuits, Henry Bouillard, Juan Alfaro, and Bernard Lonergan), although I draw from it practical applications quite different from those of Schindler and Baxter. Further, I agree with the main thrust of Baxter's criticism: just where one wants to test Schindler's grand hypotheses about how grace ought to work in a “civilization of love,” particularly with regard to politics and economics, Schindler has almost nothing practical to say, and such few gestures as he offers seem lamely indistinguishable from those he criticizes, for example Murray (on the First Amendment) and Richard John Neuhaus (on the public square). His reading of my own work, too, is excessively polemical.

I. I begin with a discussion of Father Michael Baxter's reflections on my Heart of the World, Center of the Church (HWCC). I am deeply grateful for the evident care and thoroughness with which he read the book, and can suggest here only the beginning of a reply to his serious questions.

Appropriately for the audience of the Review of Politics, Baxter develops his reflections mostly in terms of my argument regarding John Courtney Murray. Granting a basic validity to my critique of Murray, Baxter nonetheless argues that, in the end, my own constructive proposal “gets vague,” and he suspects that “it will turn out not to be substantially different from what has already been proposed by Murray and his successors.”