Moral States and Processes

Abstract: We examine how trustworthy behaviour can be achieved in the financial sector. The task is to ensure that firms are motivated to pursue long-term interests of customers rather than pursuing short-term profits. Firms’ self-interested pursuit of reputation, combined with regulation, is often not sufficient to ensure that this happens. We argue that trustworthy behaviour requires that at least some actors show a concern for the wellbeing of clients, or a respect for imposed standards, and that the behaviour of these (...) actors is copied in such a way that it becomes a behavioural norm. We briefly suggest what such behavioural norms might need to be if trustworthy behaviour is to be achieved, and consider how they might be supported; we describe the research that is necessary in order to understand these norms in more detail. We argue that the norms of traders are different from the norms of those engaged in other activities, since they are inevitably self-interested, and we consider the risk that traders’ norms might undermine those of other actors. We analyse the task for governance in dealing with this problem, and the role which leadership by a corporate board and management might play in doing this. We describe the need for further research in to describe how this might be done. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an account of forgiveness as a process of emotional distancing. The central claim is that, understood in these terms, forgiveness does not require a change in judgment. Rationally forgiving someone, in other words, does not require that one judges the significance of the wrongdoing differently or that one comes to the conclusion that the attitudes behind it have changed in a favorable way. The model shows in what sense forgiving is inherently social, why we should (...) be pluralists about it, and provides a basis for arguing against the existence of necessary conditions of forgiving. (shrink)

This article challenges the individualism and neutrality of modern moral conscience. It looks to the history of the concept to excavate an older tradition that takes conscience to be social and morally responsive, while arguing that dominant contemporary justifications of conscience in terms of integrity are inadequate without reintroducing these social and moral traits. This prompts a rethinking of the nature and value of conscience: first, by demonstrating that a morally-responsive conscience is neither a contradiction in terms nor a political (...) absurdity; second, by suggesting how a morally-responsive conscience can be informed by the social world without being a mere proxy for social power or moribund tradition. (shrink)

Do we insult, offend or slight a speaker when we refuse her testimony? Do we compliment, commend or extol a speaker when we accept her testimony? I argue that the answer to both of these questions is “yes”, but only in some instances, since these respective insults and compliments track the reasons a hearer has for rejecting or accepting testimony. When disbelieving a speaker, a hearer may insult her because she judges the speaker to be either incompetent as a knower (...) or insincere as a teller. However, there are many instances where we reject testimony without making this negative evaluation of the speaker, and as such, without paying her an insult. Testimonial compliments are fewer in number, and are not constitutive of “everyday” testimonial exchanges, since, speakers who are competent as knowers and sincere as tellers are merely behaving correctly in accordance with the norms of testifying. Nevertheless, deferring to an authority on belief can be complimentary to that speaker if by doing so we judge her to have some mastery in a particular domain. Testimonial insults and compliments have important moral implications, particularly with regard to epistemic injustice and therapeutic trust. (shrink)

Trust is vital for individuals to flourish and have a sense of well-being in their community. A trusting society allows people to feel safe, communicate with each other and engage with those who are different to themselves without feeling fearful. In this paper I employ an Aristotelian framework in order to identify trust as a virtue and I defend the need to cultivate trust in children. I discuss the case study of Buranda State School in Queensland, Australia as an instance (...) of successful school reform that reinstates trust in an educational setting. Buranda makes use of the community of inquiry (CoI) pedagogy practiced by advocates of philosophy for children (P4C). Educators may create a safe space in the classroom by using the CoI and giving children the chance to voice their ideas and build upon, as well as question, those of others in a democratic and respectful manner. Through this pragmatic dialogue, trust may be established, along with a sense of belonging that supports well-being in the classroom as well as in life. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that forgiveness involves the cancellation of a moral debt. This way of speaking about forgiveness exploits an analogy between moral forgiveness and economic debt-cancellation. Call the view that moral forgiveness is like economic debt-cancellation the Economic Model of Forgiveness. In this article I articulate and motivate the model, defend it against some recent objections, and pose a new puzzle for this way of thinking about forgiveness.

Most commonplace moral failure is not conditioned by evil intentions or the conscious desire to harm or humiliate others. It is more banal and ubiquitous – a form of moral stupidity that gives rise to rationalization, self‐deception, failures of due moral consideration, and the evasion of responsibility. A kind of crude, perception‐distorting self‐absorption, moral stupidity is the cause of many moral missteps; moral development demands the development of self‐knowledge as a way out of moral stupidity. Only once aware of the (...) presence or absence of particular desires and beliefs can an agent have authority over them or exercise responsibility for their absence. But what is the connection between self‐knowledge and moral development? I argue that accounts which construe instances of self‐knowledge as like the verdicts of a judge cannot explain its potential role in moral development, and claim that it must be conceived of in a way that makes possible a process of self‐refinement and self‐regulation. Making use of Buddhist moral psychology, I argue that when self‐knowledge plays a role in moral development, it includes a quality of attention to one's experience best modeled as the work of the craftsperson, not as judge. (shrink)

I outline what I call a relational account of toleration. This relational account helps explain the apparent paradox of toleration in that it involves two competing moral stances, of acceptance and disapproval, towards the tolerated. It also helps clarify the way toleration is a normative ideal, and not a position one is forced into out of the practical need to accommodate or accept. Specifically, toleration is recommended out of respect for that which the tolerant agent also disapproves of. This combination (...) of respect entangled with disapproval results from two different evaluative perspectives of the tolerant agent. The relational account explains how an agent can hold these competing evaluative perspectives. I also discuss the proper scope of state toleration under this relational account. (shrink)

The studies of ethics had long been under-dealt although it is the kind of primary in sustaining a civility. It is hardly deniable that the concept of efficiency and productivity has hailed on the mindedness and interest of academic community. The narrative of ethics or social justice would be ridiculed as the kind of Greek juggle on philosophy or put to be on neglect for its lacking or default on the modern disciplinary frame in the academics. A cure, however, seems (...) not to be from a juggernaut of modern capitalistic civilization and its supportive paradigm of understanding so that alternative way for any more realistic solution can be made exploitative from the ethics or similar tools of motivation. Now we talk about noblesse oblige or benevolent capitalism as one important dose for the new paradigm of social promise or reformed capitalism. The ethics studies have increasingly made its way as focused in the discipline of business and public administration. Typically, it is profiled in combination of leadership studies, and the civility tends to accept this narrative, beyond the liberal competition and fairness school, as one of important element when we consider the concept of social justice. The modern professionals, for example, bar members, medical doctors, and many of licensees for their business operation, also clone to carry their responsibility under a specific ethical code. This would be the kind of safety code from the abusive or madly profit-driven capitalism. More importantly, I believe that a sheer understanding of ethics and social justice would be assets and equipment for the ruling class in the contemporary society. In this context, the paper would survey an ethical theory or decision making model, history of Korea as well as a recent episode involving the chief prosecutor of South Korea. Korean leadership, typically for the powerful cores or inner circle princelings, can be revisited in purview of ethics studies, such as Cooper‟s design and ethical decision making model. (shrink)

I may feel guilty for situations and events in which I seemed to play no causal role, which (it would seem) would have been exactly the same had I never existed. What is the reason for this guilt? The paper argues that it is to be found in a sense of universal connectedness: I take myself to always make a difference, no matter how distant I appear to be from anything that happens.

Does faith that p entail belief that p? If faith that p is identical with belief that p, it does. But it isn’t. Even so, faith that p might be necessarily partly constituted by belief that p, or at least entail it. Of course, even if faith that p entails belief that p, it does not follow that faith that p is necessarily partly constituted by belief that p. Still, showing that faith that p entails belief that p would be (...) a significant step in that direction. Can we take that step? In this essay, I assess, and reject, seven reasons to think we can. Along the way, I discuss having faith in a person, being a person of faith, believing something by faith, and believing a person. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 24 Accounts of non-naturalist moral perception have been advertised as an empiricist-friendly epistemological alternative to moral rationalism. I argue that these accounts of moral perception conceal a core commitment of rationalism—to substantive a priori justification—and embody its most objectionable feature—namely, “mysteriousness.” Thus, accounts of non-naturalist moral perception do not amount to an interesting alternative to moral rationalism.

Trust can be thought of as a three place relation: A trusts B to do X. Trustworthiness has two components: competence (does the trustee have the relevant skills, knowledge and abilities to do X?) and willingness (is the trustee intending or aiming to do X?). This chapter is about the willingness component, and the different motivations that a trustee may have for fulfilling trust. The standard assumption in economics is that agents are self-regarding, maximizing their own consumption of goods and (...) services. This is too restrictive. In particular, people may be concerned with the outcomes of others, and they may be concerned to follow ethical principles. I distinguish weak trustworthiness, which places no restrictions on B’s motivation for doing X, from strong trustworthiness, where the behaviour must have a particular non-selfish motivation, in finance the fiduciary commitment to promote the interests of the truster. I discuss why strong trustworthiness may be more efficient and also normatively preferable to weak. In finance, there is asymmetric information between buyer and seller, which creates a need for trustworthy assessment of products. It also creates an ambiguity about whether the relationship is one of buyer and seller, governed by caveat emptor, or a fiduciary relationship of advisor and client. This means that there are two possible reasons why trust may be breached: because the trustee didn’t realise that the truster framed the relationship as a fiduciary one, or because the trustee did realise but actively sought to take advantage of the trust. Correspondingly, there are two possible types of agent: normal people who are not always self-regarding and who are trust responsive (if they believe that they are being trusted then they are likely to fulfill that trust), and knaves, after Hume’s character who is always motivated by his own private interest. We can increase the trustworthiness of normal people by getting them to re-frame the situation as one of trust, so they will be strongly trustworthy (i.e. change of institutional culture), and by providing non-monetary incentives (the correct choice of incentive will depend on exactly what their non-selfish motivation is). Knaves need sanctions, which can make them weakly trustworthy. However, this is a delicate balance because sanctions can crowd out normative frames. We can also increase the trustworthiness of financiers by making finance less attractive to knaves; changing the mix of types in finance could help support the necessary cultural change. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider how the theological virtue of hope might be practiced. I will first explain Thomas Aquinas’s account of this virtue, including its structural relation to the passion of hope, its opposing vices, and its relationship to the friendship of charity. Then, using narrative and character analysis from the film The Shawshank Redemption, I examine a range of hopeful and proto-hopeful practices concerning both the goods one hopes for and the power one relies on to attain those (...) goods. In particular, I show how the film’s picture of the role friends and friendship play in catalyzing hope is a compelling metaphor for Christian hope’s reliance on God. (shrink)

Feminist philosophers do not take well to criticism, and while many scholars are appalled at the idea of an academic field adhering to a controversial political philosophy and pursuing a controversial agenda within the academy, very few have been willing to take on the daunting and unrewarding job of examining and criticizing the feminists’ arguments and assumptions. In consequence, a feminist philosophy that is inspiring the successful effort to transform the American academy goes on virtually unchallenged. In this paper I (...) will briefly be discussing some serious moral and pedagogic weaknesses of feminist philosophy. My intentions are to initiate discussion on some important and controversial topics. The hope is that others will enter the fray and that a more open and less diffident debate will ensue. (shrink)

Latent in John Rawls’s discussion of envy, resentment and voluntary social segregation is a plausible (partial) explanation of two striking features of contemporary American life: (1) widespread complacency about inequality and (2) decreased political participation, especially by the least advantaged members of society.

Understanding cooperative human behaviour depends on insights into the biological basis of human altruism, as well as into socio-cultural development. In terms of evolutionary theory, kinship and reciprocity are well established as underlying cooperativeness. Reasons will be given suggesting an additional source, the capability of a cognition-based empathy that may have evolved as a by-product of strategic thought. An assessment of the range, the intrinsic limitations, and the conditions for activation of human cooperativeness would profit from a systems approach combining (...) biological and socio-cultural aspects. However, this is not yet the prevailing attitude among contemporary social and biological scientists who often hold prejudiced views of each other's notions. It is therefore worth noticing that the desirable integration of aspects has already been attempted, in remarkable and encouraging ways, in the history of thought on human nature. I will exemplify this with the ideas of the fourteenth century Arab-Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun. He set out to explicate human cooperativeness - "asabiyah" - as having a biological basis in common descent, but being extendable far beyond within social systems, though in a relatively unstable and attenuated fashion. He combined psychological and material factors in a dynamical theory of the rise and decline of political rulership, and related general social phenomena to basic features of human behaviour influenced by kinship, expectation of reciprocity, and empathic emotions. -/- . (shrink)

Trust is generally held to have three different dimensions or aspects: a behavioral aspect, a cognitive aspect, and an affective aspect. While there is hardly any disagreement about trusting behavior, there is some disagreement as to which of the two other aspects is more fundamental. After presenting some of the main ideas concerning the concept of trust as used in the analysis of social cooperation. I will argue that affective aspects of trust must be included in any adequate account of (...) the role of trust in social dilemma situations involving multiple equilibria. Cooperation in such situations requires coordination even though information on what another player might do is not available. A trusting person can handle such problems of cooperation by framing the situation in a way that goes beyond cognitive trust and solves what I shall call the problem of normative consent. I will conclude with some remarks about the design of institutions that foster trustful cooperation, especially in the context of the Internet. (shrink)

Collaborative filtering is being used within organizations and in community contexts for knowledge management and decision support as well as the facilitation of interactions among individuals. This article analyzes rhetorical and technical efforts to establish trust in the constructions of individual opinions, reputations, and tastes provided by these systems. These initiatives have some important parallels with early efforts to support quantitative opinion polling and construct the notion of “public opinion.” The article explores specific ways to increase trust in these systems, (...) albeit a “guarded trust” in which individuals actively seek information about system foibles and analyze the reputations of participants. (shrink)

In this paper I respond to Samantha Vice’s prescriptions for living morally as a white person in South Africa today. I allow that her ‘How do I live in this strange place?’ (2010) is convincing when read – probably against intent – as a descriptive account. It fails, though, in its attempt to provide an attractive set of moral prescriptions. I set out an argument against both shame and silence, focussing primarily on shame as I contend that the need to (...) withdraw or keep silent follows from feeling ashamed. I argue that shame is experienced as a diminution of the self, whereas guilt is experienced as a burdening of the self by wrongful behaviour; the diminution of the self in shame experiences is intrinsically harmful, and instead of enabling the self to be moral, actually inhibits the moral instincts of a person by cutting the self off from other selves. In a group context this type of severance has unhealthy moral features, as well as negative consequences for inter-group relations. (shrink)

In the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas offers an adept account of the vice of envy. Despite the virtues of his account, he nevertheless fails to provide an adequatedefinition of the vice. Instead, he offers two different definitions each of which fails to identify what is common to all cases of envy. Here I supplement Aquinas’saccount by providing what I take to be common to all cases of envy. I argue that what is common is a “perception of inferiority”—when a person perceives (...) her ownself-worth to be inferior to another and thereby feels her own self-worth diminish. By incorporating perceptions of inferiority into the definition of envy, we obtain adefinition that retains the spirit of Aquinas’s thought, while improving upon its letter. (shrink)

The Kantian ethical position, especially as represented in Alan Donagan, rejects the possibility of unavoidable blameworthiness. Donagan also holds that morality is learned by participation. But consider: there must be some first instance of an agent’s being held blameworthy. To hold the agent blameworthy in that instance supposes that the agent could have known what morality required so as to be able to avoid blameworthiness. But before experiencing blameworthiness the agent can have no real understanding of the significance of morality’s (...) requiring anything, if morality is learned by participation. Hence the agent could not have known to avoid violating morality’s requirement. The agent could not have knowingly avoided being blameworthy in the first instance of blameworthiness, as he or she would not understand the significance of doing so. This is unavoidable blameworthiness. (shrink)

This paper sketches a Kantian account of forgiveness and argues that it is distinguished by three features. First, Kantian forgiveness is best understood as the revision of the actions one takes toward an offender, rather than a change of feeling toward an offender. Second, Kant’s claim that forgiveness is a duty of virtue tells us that we have two reasons to sometimes be forgiving: forgiveness promotes both our own moral perfection and the happiness of our moral community. Third, we have (...) a duty to withhold forgiveness if with think forgiveness will cause or encourage our offender to wrong us again. This duty to sometimes withhold forgiveness stems from our duty of self-respect, which Kant repeatedly describes as a duty to ourselves to ensure that we are not harmed again. (shrink)

This essay makes a number of distinctions between the motives of love and of duty, and argues that ideally they act in concert so as to generate constancy in loving relations. The essay revolves around a case in which a husband or wife is tempted to infidelity. It is argued that resistance to the temptation is optimally grounded in love for the spouse rather than simply in a duty to resist initiated perhaps through promise or vow. This is not, however, (...) to undermine altogether the significance of promises of this sort; it is rather to put a proper emphasis on the sentiment of love as an effective spring to action and to suggest that the sentiment itself ideally brings a past promise or vow of fidelity into present relief in a choice situation. (shrink)

Govier conceives of forgiveness as “a process of overcoming attitudes of resentment and anger that may persist when one has been injured by wrongdoing” (viii). She offers an account of bilateral, unilateral, and mutual forgiveness. Her work has pronounced political import in that she argues that attitudes and dispositions can be attributed to groups, that groups can suffer harm, and that groups can be responsible agents of wrongdoing. As a consequence, Govier contends that groups can forgive. Her method is to (...) employ a host of examples taken from recent (World War II and after) history, sprinkle in a few invented examples, and lay out long-winded and typically repetitive arguments. The result is an occasionally provocative and often overly one-sided treatment punctuated by earnestness. (shrink)

Bernard Williams argues that human mortality is a good thing because living forever would necessarily be intolerably boring. His argument is often attacked for unfoundedly proposing asymmetrical requirements on the desirability of living for mortal and immortal lives. My first aim in this paper is to advance a new interpretation of Williams' argument that avoids these objections, drawing in part on some of his other writings to contextualize it. My second aim is to show how even the best version of (...) his argument only supports a somewhat weaker thesis: it may be possible for some people with certain special psychological features to enjoy an immortal life, but no one has good reason to bet on being such a person. (shrink)

This paper offers an account of human dignity based on a discussion of Kant's moral and political philosophy and then shows its relevance for articulating and developing in a fresh way some normative dimensions of Marx’s critique of capitalism as involving exploitation, domination, and alienation, and the view of socialism as involving a combination of freedom and solidarity. What is advanced here is not Kant’s own conception of dignity, but an account that partly builds on that conception and partly criticizes (...) it. The same is the case with the account of socialism in relation to Marx’s work. As articulated, Kantian dignity and Marxian socialism turn out to be quite appealing and mutually supportive. (shrink)

Morality is demanding; this is a platitude. It is thus no surprise when we find that moral theories too, when we look into what they require, turn out to be demanding. However, there is at least one moral theory – consequentialism – that is said to be beset by this demandingness problem. This calls for an explanation: Why only consequentialism? This then leads to related questions: What is the demandingness problematic about? What exactly does it claim? Finally, there is the (...) question of what we do if we accept that there is a demandingness problem for consequentialism: How can consequentialists respond? The present chapter sets out to answer these questions (or at least point to how they could be answered). (shrink)

It appears that Rousseau has annulled the dichotomy between man and citizen for the benefit of the citizen – after all, the social contract implies the “total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community”. Does this not mean the individual is completely absorbed by the collectivity? The paper takes up the role of religion for politics in Rousseau’s work to show that even civil religion cannot help to re-establish the lost unity between man and (...) citizen, on the contrary, it only makes this division visible. As long as the individual is part of the body politic, he or she has to accept having a fragmented existence. The text aims to clarify that Rousseau blamed the protagonists of the established churches as well as his fellow Enlightenment philosophers for striving to overcome the contradictions of human existence, while Rousseau himself defended the distinction between “res privata” and “res publica” and the tensions it might cause in the individual. The paper therefore suggests a liberal reading of Rousseau. (shrink)

Moral distress is the sense that one must do, or cooperate in, what is wrong. It is paradigmatically faced by nurses, but it is almost a universal occupational hazard.

In this essay I argue that if Kantian and consequentialist ethical theories are vulnerable to the so-called “problem of alienation,” a virtue ethics based on Xunzi’s ethical writings will also be vulnerable to this problem. I outline the problem of alienation, and then show that the role of ritual ( li ) in Xunzi’s theory renders his view susceptible to the problem as it has been traditionally understood. I consider some replies on Xunzi’s behalf, and also discuss whether the problem (...) affects other Confucian and eudaimonian approaches to virtue ethics. I close by considering some solutions to the problem and the affect that this result has on the argumentative dialectic between the three major ethical traditions. (shrink)

Recent research has relied on trolley-type sacrificial moral dilemmas to study utilitarian versus nonutili- tarian modes of moral decision-making. This research has generated important insights into people’s attitudes toward instrumental harm—that is, the sacrifice of an individual to save a greater number. But this approach also has serious limitations. Most notably, it ignores the positive, altruistic core of utilitarianism, which is characterized by impartial concern for the well-being of everyone, whether near or far. Here, we develop, refine, and validate a (...) new scale—the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale—to dissociate individual differences in the ‘negative’ (permissive attitude toward instrumental harm) and ‘positive’ (impartial concern for the greater good) dimensions of utilitarian thinking as manifested in the general population. We show that these are two independent dimensions of proto-utilitarian tendencies in the lay population, each exhibiting a distinct psychological profile. Empathic concern, identification with the whole of humanity, and concern for future generations were positively associated with impartial beneficence but negatively associated with instrumental harm; and although instrumental harm was associated with subclinical psychopathy, impartial beneficence was associated with higher religiosity. Importantly, although these two dimensions were independent in the lay population, they were closely associated in a sample of moral philosophers. Acknowledging this dissociation between the instrumental harm and impartial beneficence components of utilitarian thinking in ordinary people can clarify existing debates about the nature of moral psychology and its relation to moral philosophy as well as generate fruitful avenues for further research. (shrink)