1. The concept of group subjectivity (a.k.a. corporate personality) is not a relic of the past, but rather is the key to integrating (but not subsuming) the individual's moral personality into the groups of which he/she is a member.
Phillip L. Engle's book WORLDVIEWS relies heavily on the great work done by Alasdair MacIntyre in his book AFTER VIRTUE (see right), but offers the solution of group subjectivity (a.k.a. corporate personality), coupled with theism, as the answer to the essential ethical questions posed by MacIntyre. These ethical questions are: How can inter-subjective agreement concerning questions of ethics and morality be achieved in the post-modern world? What is the correct (or best) basis for truth in the field of ethics? (Or must we simply accept the disintergration of ethical questions into pure moral relativism?)
In addition, WORLDVIEWS clearly lays out two separate, but necessary and complementary, approaches to truth: the "bracket out the subject" method of science and the "bracket out the object" method of religion, ethics, and aesthetics.
To view or download a free online edition of WORLDVIEWS, click here. To order a printed paperback edition of WORLDVIEWS for $17.84 USD, click on the picture below.
Alasdair MacIntyre's book AFTER VIRTUE: A Study in Moral Theory, 2nd Edition is one of the greatest books on moral theory ever written.
AFTER VIRTUE begins by conclusively demonstrating the utter failure of the Enlightenment attempt to ground morality in the mind and will of the putatively radically autonomous human individual acting in his own "enlightened self-interest" (as opposed to grounding morality in the mind and will of a God to whom the human individual is expected to submit).
AFTER VIRTUE then goes on to give a concise, but deep, history of "the virtues", including "the virtues" in early heroic societies, in Greek societies, in medieval Christian societies, and in modern societies. Finally, the book poses a stark choice: either a cynical, Nietzschean morality that recognizes only the "will to power" of the "superman", or a purposeful Aristotelian morality whose basis MacIntyre sees as badly in need of restoration.
H. Wheeler Robinson's groundbreaking study Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel makes explicit the key ideas of corporate personality which are implicit within the Old Testament. Although the focus and examples are taken from the Hebrew Bible, the corporate-personality ideas which Robinson explicates apply also to non-Hebrew ancient societies, to medieval societies, and even to modern theories of legal corporate personality. Although frequently studied as a supposed relic of the past, corporate personality is, in fact, the vital link that is missing from modern moral reasoning.
An important supplement to Robinson's study is Aubry R. Johnson's The One and the Many in the Israelite Conception of God, which shows how the ancient Israelites applied corporate-personality ideas to God.