Evil and the Secular

下一代欧洲思想家可能面临的一个有趣的智力挑战是如何选择定义其道德身份。在过去的一千年里，欧洲人如何定义，也许更重要的是如何想象自己是道德代理人，有两个广泛的范式;一个是基督教的遗产，另一个是世俗的启蒙。当然，这两种理论都要归功于柏拉图，归功于一个单一的普遍本质的伟大，它把明显的多样性放在“真正的真实”之下;理性，逻各斯或爱。最近，宗教和世俗的思想家对目前的知识流动状态进行了调解。前大主教罗文威廉姆斯建议，英国应重新被视为一个后基督教社会，承认构成当代英国的信仰和非信仰马赛克的多元化。德国社会理论家尤尔根·哈贝马斯认为，欧洲正在进入一个后世俗时代，这个时代的定义不是对主体导向理性的普遍承诺，而是从世俗和宗教/传统理性之间的后形而上学联盟的角度来看，竞争社区之间的主体间共识。

Evil and the Secular An interesting intellectual challenge that is likely to face European thinkers in the coming generation is how it chooses to define its moral identity. For the last millennium, there have been two broad paradigms of how Europeans have defined and perhaps more importantly imagined themselves as moral agents; one is the legacy of Christianity and the other is the secular enlightenment. Both are of course indebted to Plato and the grandeur of a single universal essence that puts together apparent multiplicity under the 'really real'; reason, the logos or love. Recently religious and secular thinkers have mediated upon the current state of intellectual flux. The former archbishop Rowan Williams has suggested that Britain be reconceived as a post-Christian society in recognition of the plurality of faith and non-faith mosaic constituting contemporary Britain. Whilst the German social theorist Jurgen Habermas believes Europe is entering into an era of post-secularity defined less by universal commitment to subject orientated reason but an intersubjective consensus amongst rival communities from a standpoint of post-metaphysical alignments between secular and religious/traditional reason.