En el presente artículo, el autor analiza el concepto de leyes prácticas propuesto por Kant en la Crítica de la razón práctica, poniendo énfasis en los antecendentes que este concepto tiene en la escuela del derecho natural moderno y en el giro que este concepto representa, ya que en él se hace patente el paso desde una ética de la obligación hacia una ética de la autonomía. Se analizan además las propiedades esenciales del concepto de leyes prácticas y los problemas (...) filosóficos que surgen a partir de él y se sitúa dicho concepto en el contexto general de la ética kantiana y de la filosofía moral. In this article the author analyzes the concept of "practical law" as developed by Kant in his Critique of Practical Reason. The author notes the roots of this concept in the modern school of natural law and states that this concept represents a shift from an ethic of obligation to an ethic of autonomy. In addition, the author analyzes the essential features of the "practical law" concept; the philosophical problems that arise from it, and the place of this concept in the landscape of Kantian ethics and moral philosophy. (shrink)

It’s widely accepted that normativity is not subject to truth values. The underlying reasoning is that truth values can only be predicated of descriptive statements; normative statements are prescriptive, not descriptive; thus truth value predicates cannot be assigned to normative statements. Hence, deonticity lacks logical semantics. This semantic monism has been challenged over the last decades from a series of perspectives that open the way for legal logics with imperative semantics. In the present paper I will go back to Kant (...) and review his understanding of practical judgments, presenting it as supported by a pluralistic semantics. From this perspective a norm of Law is a logical expression that includes as content a generic description of a possible behavior by a generality of juridical agents, and assigns to that content the assertion of its obligatory character, accompanied by a disincentive for non-compliance. From this perspective legal norms can be syntactically formalized and assigned appropriate semantic values in such terms that they can be incorporated into valid inferential schemes. The consequence is that we can put together legal logics that handle both the phenomenal and the deontic dimensions of legality. (shrink)

Stephen Maitzen argues that divine command metaethics must be mistaken because it is committed to the implausible assumption that the sentence ‘God is good’ is a tautology. In this article, I show that a charitable interpretation of R. M. Adams’ version of divine command metaethics is not committed to accept this assumption. I conclude that Maitzen’s objection merely manages to refute a strawman version of divine command metaethics.

This paper aims, firstly, to bridge debates on human rights and Transnational Corporations within practical philosophy and those within the business and human rights literature and, secondly, to determine the extent to which human rights duties can be assigned to TNCs. To justifiably assign human rights duties to TNCs, it is argued that these duties need to be grounded in moral theory. Through assessment of two approaches from practical philosophy, it is argued that positive duties cannot be assigned to TNCs (...) because their bindingness cannot be grounded in moral theory. A positive argument is introduced to interpret TNCs’ human rights duties as corresponding to virtues rather than rights. Though such duties are indeterminate regarding what constitutes adequate performance, they can be made more determinate through legal instruments outside of positive human rights law. An approach is introduced exemplifying how such approaches can achieve the end of TNCs compliance with human rights norms. (shrink)

The fear that business corporations have claimed unwarranted constitutional protections which have entrenched corporate power has produced a broad social movement demanding that constitutional rights be restricted to human beings and corporate personhood be abolished. We develop a critique of these proposals organized around the three salient rationales we identify in the accompanying narrative, which we argue reflect a narrow focus on large business corporations, a misunderstanding of the legal concept of personhood, and a failure to distinguish different kinds of (...) constitutional rights and the reasons for assigning them. Corporate personhood and corporate constitutional rights are not problematic per se once these notions are decoupled from biological, metaphysical, or moral considerations. The real challenge is that we need a principled way of thinking about the priority of human over corporate persons which does not reduce the efficacy of corporate institutions or harm liberal democracies. (shrink)

It is commonly assumed that to educate means to control or guide a person’s acting and development. On the other hand, it is often presupposed that the addressees of education must be seen as being endowed with free will. The question raised in this paper is whether these two assumptions are compatible. It might seem that if the learner is free in her will, she cannot be educated; however, if she is successfully educated, then it is doubtful whether she can (...) be seen as free. Inspired by the current philosophical debate on the compatibility of free will and determinism, this paper spells out two versions of this dilemma. The first version relies on the idea that to be free means being the causal source of one’s actions. The second formulation refers to the notion of freedom as the ability to act otherwise than the way one actually acts. The solution to the dilemma that is developed in this paper, however, uses a third concept of free will—to be free means being able to act on reasons. (shrink)

Evolutionary theories of morality, beginning with Darwin, have focused on explanations for altruism. More generally, these accounts have concentrated on conscience to the neglect of condemnation. As a result, few theoretical tools are available for understanding the rapidly accumulating data surrounding third-party judgment and punishment. Here we consider the strategic interactions among actors, victims, and third-parties to help illuminate condemnation. We argue that basic differences between the adaptive problems faced by actors and third-parties indicate that actor conscience and third-party condemnation (...) are likely performed by different cognitive mechanisms. Further, we argue that current theories of conscience do not easily explain its experimentally demonstrated insensitivity to consequences. However, these results might be explicable if conscience functions, in part, as a defense system for avoiding third-party punishment. If conscience serves defensive functions, then its computational structure should be closely tailored to the details of condemnation mechanisms. This possibility underscores the need for a better understanding of condemnation, which is important not only in itself but also for explaining the nature of conscience. We outline three evolutionary mysteries of condemnation that require further attention: third-party judgment, moralistic punishment, and moral impartiality. (shrink)

In response to challenges to moral philosophy presented by other disciplines and facing a diversity of approaches to the foundation and focus of morality, this paper argues for a pluralist meta-ethics that is methodologically hierarchical and guided by the principle of subsidiarity. Inspired by Deweyan pragmatism, this novel and original application of the subsidiarity principle and the related methodological proposal for a cascading meta-ethical architecture offer a “dirty” and instrumentalist understanding of meta-ethics that promises to work, not only in moral (...) philosophy but also in the (rest of the) real world, and that facilitates collaboration with other disciplines outside moral philosophy. (shrink)

Lest We Forget: Free-Thought and the Environment In the world of modern theology, specifically Western theology, there has been a tendency to knit together religion and morality. It is partially because much work in theology is done with the assumption that since God exists God must care about human intentions and actions. The existence of God and religion, as the public manifestation of shared philosophical and moral beliefs, has been thought to impart moral awareness and behavior, as well as ground (...) morality. Many modern theologians have given voice to sentiments like these. They equate irreligion with iniquity, freethinking with depravity, and atheism with apathy about the world, human life, and morality. This essay challenges such positions by arguing for the validity of naturalistic accounts of morality. It shows how such accounts can be applied to the treatment of our environment as well as give us the motivation to do so. From David Hume to Paul Kurtz a history of freethought is drawn and the human reasons for protecting and conserving our environment are examined. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper I set the debate between Kant and Schiller in terms of the role that an ideal of life can play within an autonomist ethic. I begin by examining the critical role Schiller gives to emotions in tackling specific motivational concerns in Kant's ethics. In the Kantian response I offer to these criticisms, I emphasise the role of metaphysics for a proper understanding of Kant's position whilst allowing that with respect to moral psychology, Kant and Schiller are (...) in agreement about the importance of emotions in our moral lives. I conclude by returning to the themes broached in the introduction to consider the extent to which the teleological concerns that motivate Schiller can be addressed within Kant's autonomist ethics. (shrink)

Autonomy in bioethics is coming under sustained criticism from a variety of perspectives. The criticisms, which target personal or individual autonomy, are largely justified. Moral conceptions of autonomy, such as Kant’s, on the other hand, cannot simply be applied in bioethical situations without moralizing care provision and recipience. The discussion concludes with a proposal for re-thinking autonomy by focusing on what different agents count as reasons for choosing one rather than another course of action, thus recognising their involvement in the (...) decision process. (shrink)

Due to the domain characteristics of business ethics, a contractarian theory for business ethics will need to be essentially different from the contract model as it is applied to other domains. Much of the current criticism of contractarian business ethics (CBE) can be traced back to autonomy, one of its three boundary conditions. After explaining why autonomy is so important, this article considers the notion carefully vis à vis the contracting partners in the contractarian approaches in business ethics. Autonomy is (...) too demanding a condition for the realm of CBE. But a less stringent version of the contract may be possible, a version which uses the contract as a heuristic device, which merely requires moral responsibility. Furthermore, it is argued that views of (human) agency and the moral subject should be made explicit in such a theory. (shrink)

The philosophy of “ human dignity” remains a young, piecemeal endeavor with only a small, dedicated literature. And what dedicated literature exists makes for a rather slapdash mix of substantive and formal metatheory. Worse, ironically we seem compelled to treat this existing theory both charitably and casually. For how can we definitively assess any of it? Existing suggestions about the general features of dignity are necessarily contentious in virtue of being more or less blissfully uncritical of themselves. Because none of (...) the suggested features are conscientiously situated in their own right, their justification is taken to rest solely on whether each is borne out by some substantive account. But absent the sort of second-order considerations that would make for a proper metatheory, what can we do with their substantive suggestions? Of course, the concept of dignity has other forums. It figures prominently into insular analyses of either Kantian or Biblical ethics, and, to various degrees, an array of subsidiary fields of practical philosophy including human rights, bioethics, law, theories of respect, race theory, Judaic studies, feminism, care ethics, war, technology, and political philosophy. Each of these areas has an established literature. Each contributes interesting observations to the nature of dignity. But, again, ultimately, without a proper metatheory, it is unclear what to do with any of them. My goal is to remedy this, or at least reverse the trend. In doing so I will have in view one particular subfield, namely, the ever-pressing subject of human rights. (shrink)

The stigmatization of some groups of people, whether for some characteristic they possess or some behavior they engage in, will initially strike most of us as wrong. For many years, academic work in public health, which focused mainly on the stigmatization of HIV-positive individuals, reinforced this natural reaction to stigmatization, by pointing out the negative health effects of stigmatization. But more recently, the apparent success of anti-smoking campaigns which employ stigmatization of smokers has raised questions about whether stigmatization may sometimes (...) be justified, because of its positive effects on public health. Discussion of the issue so far has focused on consequences, and on some Kantian considerations regarding the status of the stigmatized. In this article, I argue that further Kantian considerations regarding the treatment of the general public (the potential stigmatizers) also count against any public health policy involving stigmatization. Attempts to encourage stigmatization are likely to fail to appeal to the rational decision-making abilities of the general public, and the creation of stigmatized groups (even if they are stigmatized for their voluntary behavior) is an obstacle to the self-improvement of members of the general public. (shrink)

Joshua Greene has argued that several lines of empirical research, including his own fMRI studies of brain activity during moral decision-making, comprise strong evidence against the legitimacy of deontology as a moral theory. This is because, Greene maintains, the empirical studies establish that “characteristically deontological” moral thinking is driven by prepotent emotional reactions which are not a sound basis for morality in the contemporary world, while “characteristically consequentialist” thinking is a more reliable moral guide because it is characterized by greater (...) cognitive command and control. In this essay, I argue that Greene does not succeed in drawing a strong statistical or causal connection between prepotent emotional reactions and deontological theory, and so does not undermine the legitimacy of deontological moral theories. The results that Greene relies on from neuroscience and social psychology do not establish his conclusion that consequentialism is superior to deontology. (shrink)

The Ladies of Besiktas are a discrete group of followers of Turkey's Besiktas FC. They propose a different ethos from that of the dominant fan culture. They refuse to downplay their femininity, they wear natty black-and-white garb to games, they make breezy videos and they blow whistles when they hear Besiktas fans express foul or insulting sentiments during matches. It seems that the Ladies have motivated most of the offending Besiktas fans to moderate their behaviour in their presence. This discussion (...) paper argues that, while the Ladies are genuinely oppositional and should be affirmed, critical facets of gender introduce a moral and ideological ambiguity, a result of which is the possible reinforcement of masculine hegemony. The discussion concludes with the recommendation that the Ladies elevate, alongside their femininity, elements of their identities that are not identifiably feminine. (shrink)

Beginning from an analysis of moral obligation's form that I defend in The Second-Person Standpoint as what we are answerable for as beings with the necessary capacities to enter into relations of mutual accountability, I argue that this analysis has implications for moral obligation's substance. Given what it is to take responsibility for oneself and hold oneself answerable, I argue, it follows that if there are any moral obligations at all, then there must exist a basic pro tanto obligation not (...) to undermine one another's moral autonomy. (shrink)

Divine command theories come in several different forms but at their core all of these theories claim that certain moral statuses exist in virtue of the fact that God has commanded them to exist. Several authors argue that this core version of the DCT is vulnerable to an epistemological objection. According to this objection, DCT is deficient because certain groups of moral agents lack epistemic access to God’s commands. But there is confusion as to the precise nature and significance of (...) this objection, and critiques of its key premises. In this article, I try to clear up this confusion and address these critiques. I do so in three ways. First, I offer a simplified general version of the objection. Second, I address the leading criticisms of the premises of this objection, focusing in particular on the role of moral risk/uncertainty in our understanding of God’s commands. And third, I outline four possible interpretations of the argument, each with a differing degree of significance for the proponent of the DCT. (shrink)

In this paper I will address whether the restriction on the creation of human embryos solely for the purpose of research in which they will be used and destroyed in the creation of human stem cell lines is ethically justified. Of course, a cynical but perhaps accurate reading of the new Obama policy is that leaving this restriction in place was done for political, not ethical, reasons, in light of the apparent public opposition to creating embryos for use in this (...) research. But the issue of whether the restriction is ethically justified remains important, even if only for another day in the policy arena. (shrink)

Prevailing philosophies about parental and other caregiver responsibilities toward children tend to be protectionist, grounded in informed benevolence in a way that countenances rather than circumvents intrusive paternalism. And among the kinds of children an adult might be called upon to parent or otherwise care for, children with disabilities figure among those for whom the strongest and snuggest shielding is supposed be deployed. In this article, we examine whether this equation of securing well-being with sheltering by protective parents and other (...) care-givers should unreflectively be adopted for disabled children. We also consider why healthcare providers might reasonably be reluctant to yield to this principle, even if parents instinctively suppose that protectionism is the parenting policy that best serves their disabled child’s interest. We contend that caregivers owe children with disabilities at least as much, and possibly more, respect for self-governance than other children need. In spite of disabled children’s vulnerability and even in view of it, we argue that they should be accorded not only welfare rights to well-being but at least a modified version of liberty rights as well. Healthcare providers are especially favorably positioned to facilitate the latter response. The main components of respectful caregiving can come into conflict with one another, but we present some priorities that advise against adopting a protectionist account of parenting rights, or at least against accepting protectionist views that focus parenting narrowly on shaping ideas about the child’s welfare. In sum, caring for a disabled child, we argue, involves more than creating conditions that will afford her contentment and comfort over the course of life. (shrink)

Kantian moral theories must explain how their most basic moral values of dignity and autonomy should be interpreted and applied to human conditions. One place Kantians should look for inspiration is, surprisingly, the utilitarian tradition and its emphasis on generally accepted, informally enforced, publicly known moral rules of the sort that help us give assurances, coordinate our behavior, and overcome weak wills. Kantians have tended to ignore utilitarian discussions of such rules mostly because they regard basic moral principles as a (...) priori requirements that cannot be tailored to human foibles and limitations. I argue that Kantian moral theories should incorporate public moral rules as mid-level moral requirements for embodied and socially embedded human agents. I explain how certain specific moral judgments about how we ought to act are justified by public moral rules, which are themselves justified by more fundamental moral requirements. (shrink)

The leading accounts of respect for others usually assume that persons have a rational nature, which is a marvelous thing, so they should be respected like other objects of ‘awesome’ value. Kant's views about the ‘value’ of humanity, which have inspired contemporary discussions of respect, have been interpreted in this way. I propose an alternative interpretation in which Kant proceeds from our own rational self‐regard, through our willingness to reciprocate with others, to duties of respect for others. This strategy, which (...) shares some similarities with moral contractualism, offers a way to justify other‐regarding moral requirements from self‐regarding rational dispositions. (shrink)

Kant offers the following argument for the formula of humanity (FH): Each rational agent necessarily conceives of her own rational nature as an end in itself and does so on the same grounds as every other rational agent, so all rational agents must conceive of one another's rational nature as an end in itself. As it stands, the argument appears to be question-begging and fallacious. Drawing on resources from the formula of universal law (FUL) and Kant's claims about the primacy (...) of duties to oneself, I propose a contractualist reconstruction of this puzzling line of reasoning. (shrink)

The people's right to know and press rights to gather and publish information remain dominant justifications for controversial media activities. Yet, the power of the media to set the agenda for public discourse in our country warrants a careful analysis of these rights, their corresponding responsibilities, and their moral limits. This article examines the right to know and press freedom from the perspective of their shared purpose, facilitation of informed decision making. This article also demonstrates moral justification of limits on (...) right to know and press freedom based on traditional ethics theories and media impact on public discourse. (shrink)

According to "the argument from discernment", sympathetic motivation is morally faulty, because it is morally undiscriminating. Sympathy can incline you to do the right thing, but it can also incline you to do the wrong thing. And if so, it is no better as a reason for doing something than any other morally arbitrary consideration. The only truly morally good form of motivation--because the only morally non-arbitrary one--involves treating an action's rightness as your reason for performing it. This paper attacks (...) the argument from discernment and argues against its conclusion. (shrink)

Management scholars and social scientists investigate dynamics of subjective fairness perceptions in the workplace under the umbrella term “organizational justice.” Philosophers and ethicists, on the other hand, think of justice as a normative requirement in societal relationships with conflicting interests. Both ways of looking at justice have neither remained fully separated nor been clearly integrated. It seems that much could be gained and learned by more closely integrating the ethical and the empirical fields of justice. On the other hand, it (...) may simply not be possible to bridge the divide between the subjective empirical and the normative prescriptive justice as both fields pose different questions and rely on different assumptions and methods. In this paper, we propose a “reconciliation” model, as a third way of considering justice in the workplace, taking into account normative and psychological issues pertaining to justice. Through applying a reconciliation model, we provide a new way of looking at the interconnections between justice philosophy and organizational justice that could advance future research in both fields. Our model also implies that justice researchers can and should be concerned with the moral implications of their own subject of research. (shrink)

Social and moral issues in business have drawn attention to a gap between theory and practice and fueled the search for a reconciling perspective. Finding and establishing an alternative remains a critical initiative, but a daunting one. In what follows, the assumptions of two prominent contenders are considered before introducing a third in the form of Aristotle’s ancient theory of virtue. Comparative case studies are used to briefly illustrate the practical implications of each paradigm. In the quest for a better (...) sense-making and sense-giving lens, this paper refines and encourages the search by highlighting some of the key features required of a worthy paradigmatic challenge. The author proceeds to identify a particular type of institutional community, and a promising champion, for the practical unification of strategic and normative excellence. (shrink)

Most incidences of dishonesty in research, financial investments that promote personal financial gain, and kickback scandals begin as conflicts of interest (COI). Research indicates that healthcare professionals who maintain COI relationships make less optimal and more expensive patient care choices. The discovery of COI relationships also negatively impact patient and public trust. Many disciplines are addressing this professional issue, but little work has been done towards understanding and applying this moral category within a nursing context. Do COIs occur in nursing (...) and are they problematic? What are the morally appropriate responses to COI for our discipline and for individual practicing nurses? In this paper I examine the nature of 'conflict of interest' as a general ethical category, its characteristics and its application to our discipline. Conflict of interest is an odd moral category that may actually or potentially result in immoral decisions. The moral justification for COI is grounded prime facie by the moral value of respect for persons and principle of fidelity from which trust is developed and maintained. In review of the historical development, there appears to be consensus on some qualities of COI that are presented. I conclude that making judgements about COI are challenging and often difficult to determine from a nursing perspective. Improving nurses' and professional organizations' awareness of COI and sharpening our ability to respond appropriately when COI arise can reduce potential harm and promote trust in those whom we serve. (shrink)

A critical notice of Christine Korsgaard, Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity and Integrity. Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. 230. ISBN 978-0-19-955280-1. £19.99 (pbk). 1 Korsgaard’s Self-Constit...

This paper concerns the problem of moral luck—the fact that our moral judgements appear to depend, perhaps unjustifiably, on matters of luck. The history and scope of the problem are discussed. It is suggested that our result-sensitive sentiments have their origin in views about moral pollution we might now wish to reject in favour of a volitionalist ethics.

The prominent burden-sharing principles in the emerging literature of the political theory of climate change fail to sufficiently tackle the task they set out to solve. This paper sets out properties that an alternative principle should aim to meet. Based on these properties, it develops a consequentialist moral principle – the wastefulness principle. This principle holds that it is wrong to waste a shared, scarce resource. The paper argues that this principle can be used to solve the question of who (...) should bear the burdens of anthropogenic climate change in a more suitable way than existing principles. After developing the wastefulness principle, this paper discusses in a non-exhaustive manner how it can be employed in the real world, which challenges it might meet, and how additional principles might solve them. (shrink)

Reconstructing the evolution of Gramsci’s judgement about the Russian Revolution implies an overall rethinking of his own relation to Marx as well as to Kant. Already in the spring of 1917, Gramsci foresaw that the February Revolution could become a proletarian revolution and that this would realise in fact Kant’s moral: only a society completely freed from oppression and exploitation would allow people to be free and autonomous. After the fall of the Winter Palace, Gramsci wrote that the revolution happened (...) “against Marx’s Capital”, or better, against its literal interpretation as spread by the positivistic Marxism of the Second International. Between the end of the 1910s and the beginning of the 1920s, Gramsci thought it possible for Italy and the whole of Europe “to do as in Russia”; yet, from 1924, he started elaborating a different vision of the revolution in the Western World, which in the Prison Notebooks became a contraposition between a war of movement and a war of position. At the same time, he developed the concepts of caesarism/bonapartism and passive revolution which allowed the analysis of phenomena such as americanism and fascism from the perspective of a conservative modernisation, or revolution without a revolution. Still, and most of all, Gramsci developed the concept of hegemony, highlighting the importance of the moment of consensus in the fight for gaining and maintaining power. This drew Gramsci quite far from the marxism-leninism of his time, both from the political and theoretical point of view; for instance, he rejected the “ingenuous realism” of Lenin’s Materialism and Empiriocriticism in favour of a phenomenalism explicitly drawn by Kant. (shrink)

In this paper, I first examine the classification of mental derangements contained in Kant’s "Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View", in order to highlight the role played by imagination in their pathogenesis. Later, on the basis of this examination, I reflect on the origins of critical philosophy, which can be seen as an attempt to construct a control device for the imagination structured as a systematic, organic space.

In this paper, we present a formal interpretive account of Jean Piaget’s theory of the morality that regulates social exchanges, which we call interactional morality. First, we place Piaget’s conception in the context of his epistemological and sociological works. Then, we review the core of that conception: the two types of interactional moralities that Piaget identified to be usual in social exchanges, and the role that the notion of respect-for-the-other plays in their definition. Next, we analyze the main features of (...) social exchanges that are subject to each of those two types of interactional moralities. Following, we formalize Piaget’s account of how the two types of interactional moralities can be put to regulate social exchanges in which values, norms, beliefs, and goals are exchanged, so that interactional commitments can be established among the participants. Then, we sketch a moral reasoning system able to support formal reasonings about interactional moralities. Finally, we illustrate the usefulness of the overall formal model of interactional moralities that resulted from our study by applying it to the explication of some of the conclusions achieved by Piaget in his moral studies about children games. (shrink)

I show that some famous arguments against moral responsibility — most notably, Galen Strawson’s Basic Argument and Susan Wolf’s Troubling Train of Thought — reason in an unnatural way: if a clearly has some property that results in our saying that a is F, and if b less clearly has that property, then it is the case that b is F. I argue that this problem is not present in reasons-responsiveness theories of responsibility. I do so by applying Boolos’s elegant (...) technique of generating spanning conditionals from universal instantiations of mathematical induction premises. (shrink)

In this article I maintain that when employers could free workers from the space constraint of the office without incurring unbearable economic losses, it is morally wrong not to grant workers the possibility to work remotely, as this violates the humanity formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative. The article therefore aims to contribute to the development of Kantian business ethics, taking into account a series of empirical evidence gathered in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. I firstly discuss the Kantian concept (...) of meaningful work and explain why, due to a prejudice that existed with respect to remote work before the Covid-19 pandemic, the issue of freedom from the office was not given normative relevance. I then introduce a Kantian argument in defence of remote work and proceed to discuss two objections. The first objection is that remote work may well foster productivity, but it creates problems in terms of innovation and training of new staff. The second objection is that remote work hinders rather than fosters meaningful work because it deprives employees of social relations and inhibits workplace identity. I conclude by explaining why neither objection undermines the normative argument that workers should be allowed to work remotely as long as the “bearable costs” clause is met. (shrink)

Abstract: There is much that I admire in Richard Moran's account of how first-person authority may be consistent with self-knowledge as an achievement. In this paper, I examine his attempt to characterize the goal of psychoanalytic treatment, which is surely that the patient should go beyond the mere theoretical acceptance of the analyst's interpretation, and requires instead a more intimate, first-personal, awareness by the patient of their psychological condition.I object, however, that the way in which Moran distinguishes between the deliberative (...) and the theoretical attitudes is ultimately inconsistent with a satisfactory account of psychoanalytic practice; mainly because, despite Moran's claims to the contrary, such a distinction is still inspired by a Cartesian picture of the self. I argue that, in the light of his distinction, Moran may emphasize that an agent's psychological dispositions should be permeable to her decisions and projects, but is forced to reject the idea that permeability could go the other way too. I explore Bernard Williams' notion of acknowledgment and Simone Weil's distinction between two notions of necessity, in order to articulate a notion of receptive passivity which may help us to characterize this second direction of permeability. I finally outline why receptive passivity (and, thereby, the double direction of permeability) is crucial in order to identify the goal of psychoanalytic treatment and, derivatively, to understand how a certain kind of awareness may have a significant therapeutic effect. (shrink)

Many people, such as Adam Smith, Milton Friedman, Irving Fisher, and William Sharpe, assume that free markets full of rational people automatically lead to ethical actions and outcomes. After all, at its equilibrium point, a perfectly competitive free market maximizes utility, respects autonomy, and fulfills justice’s dictates. Unfortunately, in some technology markets, there are a significant number of people who have undergone epistemic closure. Epistemic closure entails that all reliable evidence that would challenge deeply held beliefs is dismissed as corrupted, (...) whereas all supporting evidence, no matter how unreliable, is accepted as incontrovertible. Those who have the condition act irrationally within that domain. As a result, business decisions become much more difficult than they would be in a rational market. In this article, epistemic closure’s ethical issues are developed. First, although they are acting irrationally within the closure’s domain, those with epistemic closure can still be held accountable for their actions. Second, to deal ethically with epistemic closure and its consequences, then it is vital to know what it is and its root causes, as well as to have a practical principle that can assist in making pragmatic decisions. Because some new technologies face epistemic closure, then focusing on a particular representative case of it will help to illustrate the issue’s ethical dimensions. (shrink)

At the end of their article in the September 2014 issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, Douglas R. May, Matthew T. Luth, and Catherine E. Schwoerer state that they are “hopeful in outlook” about the “evidence that business ethics instructors are….able to encourage students…to develop the courage to come forward even when pressures in organizations dictate otherwise”. We agree with May et al. that it is essential to augment students’ moral courage. However, it seems overly optimistic to believe that (...) this improvement will result from any course in business ethics. Indeed, we question the appropriateness of their measure of moral courage and assert that business ethics educators must purposely design their courses to develop students’ moral courage. In particular, we advocate introducing business ethics students to works of literature featuring protagonists who exercise moral courage in organizations. Fiction provides rich accessible narratives that show students worlds beyond their experience, awaken their imaginations, and evoke their emotions. Further, we highlight morally courageous exemplars because they inspire the cultivation of character. Joining those who underscore the role of virtue in business ethics education, we argue that exposure to moral exemplars in fiction will help students to build the moral courage they need to carry out ethical decisions in the workplace. Results from 46 students at the end of an MBA ethics course featuring moral courage provide preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of our approach. (shrink)

This article is a textual analysis of messages and themes in "Calvin and Hobbes," a comic strip nationally syndicated from 1985 to 1995. The article examines the content found in "Calvin and Hobbes" to determine underlying messages concerning ethics and values. Specifically, the messages are analyzed to determine under which category of metaethics-deontological, teleological, and virtue-they fall.

Philosophers often talk as though each ability is held by exactly one agent. This paper begins by arguing that abilities can be held by groups of agents, where the group is not an agent. I provide a new argument for—and a new analysis of—non-agentive groups’ abilities. I then provide a new argument that, surprisingly, obligations are different: non-agentive groups cannot bear obligations, at least not if those groups are large-scale such as ‘humanity’ or ‘carbon emitters.’ This pair of conclusions is (...) important, since philosophers who endorse large-scale non-agentive groups’ abilities almost universally endorse their obligations. More importantly, the twin arguments (one for abilities, one against obligations) make the following novel contribution: abilities imply agency-involving explanations, while obligations imply action-guidance. This general conclusion should be of interest beyond social ontology. (shrink)

Diana Tietjens Meyers and Margaret Urban Walker argue that women's autonomy is impaired by mainstream representations that offer us impovenshed resources to tell our own stories. Mainstream picture books apprentice young readers in norms of representation. Two popufor picture books about child storyteüers present competing views of a child's authority to tell his or her own story. Hence, they offer rival models of the development of autonomy: neoAiberal versus relational. Feminist critics should attend to such implicit models and the hidden (...) assumptions they represent in children's books. (shrink)

Should we grant rights to artificially intelligent robots? Most current and near-future robots do not meet the hard criteria set by deontological and utilitarian theory. Virtue ethics can avoid this problem with its indirect approach. However, both direct and indirect arguments for moral consideration rest on ontological features of entities, an approach which incurs several problems. In response to these difficulties, this paper taps into a different conceptual resource in order to be able to grant some degree of moral consideration (...) to some intelligent social robots: it sketches a novel argument for moral consideration based on social relations. It is shown that to further develop this argument we need to revise our existing ontological and social-political frameworks. It is suggested that we need a social ecology, which may be developed by engaging with Western ecology and Eastern worldviews. Although this relational turn raises many difficult issues and requires more work, this paper provides a rough outline of an alternative approach to moral consideration that can assist us in shaping our relations to intelligent robots and, by extension, to all artificial and biological entities that appear to us as more than instruments for our human purposes. (shrink)

The reasons view holds that morally worthy actions are right actions motivated by the reasons that make them right. Opponents object that such actions are only accidentally right, and it is widely held that morally worthy actions cannot be accidentally right. My aim here is to defend the reasons view from this objection by considering conditional reasons. Once these reasons are in view, actions motivated by the reasons that make them right will no longer appear accidentally right. Keywords: Moral worth; (...) Moral reasons; Conditional reasons. (shrink)

This paper argues that a comparative study of the idea of a sense of justice in the work of John Rawls and the early Chinese philosopher Kongzi is mutually beneficial to our understanding of the thought of both figures. It also aims to provide an example of the relevance of moral psychology for basic questions in political philosophy. The paper offers an analysis of Rawls’s account of a sense of justice and its place within his theory of justice, focusing on (...) the features of this capacity and how it develops. It then provides an account of the sense of justice in Kongzi’s thought as it is seen in the Analects. Finally, it shows how examining the similarities and differences between the two accounts can deepen our understanding of both views, as well as our appreciation for the importance of understanding how a sense of justice develops. (shrink)

This essay reflects on issues raised by commentators regarding my book, The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil (Oxford 2002). They are (1) Robin Schott's observation of the tension between my discussion of forgiveness and of castration fantasies; (2) Bat-Ami Bar On's questions regarding whether evil is ethical, political, or both; (3) Adam Morton's queries regarding the relative seriousness of evils and injustices; and (4) María Pía Lara's concerns regarding what is valuable in Kant's ethics.