Certain difficulties pervade the course of moral education and in this essay a broad picture of these shall be sketched. Moral educators need to understand the problems they will face if they intend to enhance their performance; this includes knowing the limits of moral education, and not going beyond their capacities. These difficulties may be put in two groups, one internal, which is within the control of moral educators; the other external, which is beyond the control of moral educators. Internal (...) difficulties concern the gap between moral cognition and moral conduct. Since moral educators are not saints and suffer from vices themselves, students might learn the contrary of what educators mean to convey. External difficulties are more complicated. In this essay the author concentrates on proving how moral education provides an incentive to breach morality itself. The author shall also endeavor to show that a higher standard of morality might cause greater failure in moral education. Under this logic, we need to first deal with the external difficulties in order to tackle internal ones, for they are intertwined. (shrink)

This article tries to study the evolution of the place and significance of the term “fiction” in Bentham’s critical strategy against English law. If, in an initial phase, Bentham uses fictions to bring to light mystification operating in English law, he then attacks the theories that sought to justify and ground political society and law. Bentham proposes a foundation justified with the help of the principle of utility, which he presents as a “fundamental axiom” that needs no proof. Paradoxically, his (...) argumentation, taken as a whole, becomes intrinsically problematical on recognizing the inevitable linguistic necessity of fictions and the fictitious character of utility: every legal discourse will, in consequence, invoke the fictions that it previously criticised. He must therefore refine his theory of fictions and construct its positivity with the aim of drawing up a legal discourse that satisfies the demands of his theory of law. (shrink)

The history of the political thought on pleasure is not a cloistered affair in which scholars only engage one another. In political thought, one commonly finds a critical engagement with the wider public and the ruling classes, which are both perceived to be dangerously hedonistic. The effort of many political thinkers is directed towards showing that other political ends are more worthy than pleasure: Plato battles vigorously against Calicles' pleasure seeking in the Gorgias, Augustine argues in The City of God (...) against the human tendency to hedonism in favor of a profound distrust of pleasure, and even Machiavelli claims in The Prince that it is in the prince's best interest to separate his pursuit of pleasure from his pursuit of political power. The thrust of the majority of political thought is to interrupt the popular equation that links pleasure with the good. Instead, political thought has largely followed Plato's lead and has worked to contain hedonism on two fronts. First, pleasure is rigorously separated from ethical and political good: what is good is not identical with what is pleasurable even if the two sometimes overlap. Second, even where the pursuit of pleasure is judged to be coincident with the good, pleasure should only be pursued to the degree it is rational to do so and pursued in the most rational way. Of course, it is not true that all thinkers hold to these two positions on pleasure. Epicureanism and utilitarianism are two major schools of thought that challenge the first precept equating pleasure with the good. Both Epicureanism and utilitarianism argue that the only good is pleasure. However, it is much less frequently that one finds a thinker challenging the second Platonic position that reason must master and guide our pursuit of pleasure—even the Epicureans and utilitarians believe that pleasure is best pursued rationally. However, Foucault has attracted recent attention by challenging the idea that reason should dominate the pursuit of pleasure. (shrink)

Abstract Bentham favored a free press as an instrument of public control of the state, in the interest of the general happiness. Kant favored free public discussion as an instrument for the development and expression of autonomous rationality. But a free press embodied in the property rights of the owners of the press may well fail to achieve either Benthamite or Kantian goals. Such goals lead to a personal right to communicate rather than to a corporate right to press freedom.

“Virtue jurisprudence” is a normative and explanatory theory of law that utilises the resources of virtue ethics to answer the central questions of legal theory. The main focus of this essay is the development of a virtue–centred theory of judging. The exposition of the theory begins with exploration of defects in judicial character, such as corruption and incompetence. Next, an account of judicial virtue is introduced. This includes judicial wisdom, a form of phronesis, or sound practical judgement. A virtue–centred account (...) of justice is defended against the argument that theories of fairness are prior to theories of justice. The centrality of virtue as a character trait can be drawn out by analysing the virtue of justice into constituent elements. These include judicial impartiality (even–handed sympathy for those affected by adjudication) and judicial integrity (respect for the law and concern for its coherence). The essay argues that a virtue–centred theory accounts for the role that virtuous practical judgement plays in the application of rules to particular fact situations. Moreover, it contends that a virtue–centred theory of judging can best account for the phenomenon of lawful judicial disagreement. Finally, a virtue–centred approach best accounts for the practice of equity, departure from the rules based on the judge’s appreciation of the particular characteristics of individual fact situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]. (shrink)

Este artículo revisa los fundamentos del utilitarismo de Jeremy Bentham y las principales críticas a esta doctrina, profundizando en aquella que sostiene su incompatibilidad con el respeto irrestricto de los derechos humanos. Insertándose en esta problemática, analiza una paradigmática propuesta política del filósofo inglés: el panóptico, proyecto arquitectónico formulado por Bentham a finales del siglo XVIII con el fin de reformar el sistema penitenciario europeo. A partir del análisis del Panóptico –que se descubre como una aplicación coherente del utilitarismo benthamiano–, (...) se postula que: a) esta doctrina fomenta un trato humanitario; b) los derechos humanos no quedan garantizados, sino condicionados al grado de beneficio colectivo que generen; c) este utilitarismo supone un cuestionamiento por la universalidad e irrevocabilidad de dichos preceptos. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe goal of this paper is to locate indirect legislation within Bentham’s art of legislation, and to distinguish it, as far as possible, from direct legislation. Along the way, some parallels are drawn between indirect legislation on the one hand, and the Nudge theory of Thaler and Sunstein on the other. It will be argued that many expedients categorized by Bentham as indirect legislation are simultaneously exercises of direct legislation. Another set of indirect expedients act on knowledge, and involve efforts (...) to eliminate asymmetries of information between potential offender and potential victim by providing official standards and disseminating a plethora of factual information. Other forms of indirect legislation threaten the coherence of Bentham’s theory of law, firstly by regarding all government actions as exercises in legislation, and secondly by turning the formers of public opinion into legislators. Insofar as some forms of indirect legislation operate by sleight of hand, they conflict with Bentham’s commitment to transparency in the exercise of public power, reflecting a tension between reality and appearance which runs through his thought. (shrink)

Anna Doyle Wheeler was a nineteenth‐century, Irish‐born socialist and feminist. She and another Irish‐born socialist and feminist, William Thompson, produced a book‐length critique in 1825, Appeal of One Half the Human Race, Women: Against the Pretensions of the Other Half, Men, to Retain Them in Political, and Thence in Civil and Domestic, Slavery: In Reply to a Paragraph of Mr. Mill's Celebrated “Article on Government,” to refute the claims of liberal philosopher James Mill in 1820 that women did not need (...) to be enfranchised. In so doing the Appeal undermined the philosophical credibility of Mill's liberal utilitarianism. The Appeal exposed the hypocrisy of the language of contract (whether social, sexual, or marriage) by showing that men's freedom and claims to rights presupposed the unfreedom and sexual subjugation of women. The article argues that the Appeal was an original formulation of feminist political theory that still retains its relevance in the twenty‐first century. (shrink)

Išplitusio moralinio nihilizmo bei klasikinio moralinio realizmo problemų ir kritikos kontekste teisininkų etikos vertybių galimybė įgyti daugiau ar mažiau realų pavidalą bei įgauti priimtino modelio formą yra tapusi neapibrėžta. Kita vertus, akademinėje ir ypač profesinėje teisininkų bendruomenėje teisininko buvimo etišku reikšmė ir poreikis vis labiau akcentuojami. Analitiškai ir kritiškai aptarus tokį status quo šiame straipsnyje pristatoma alternatyvi teisininkų etikos vertybių realaus egzistavimo perspektyva, taip pat formuluojant teisininkų etikos modeliavimo gaires. Ši perspektyva remiasi subjektyviąja ontologija ir pamatiniais moralinio proto principais: altruizmu (...) ir teisingumo kaip proporcinės lygybės nuostata. (shrink)

Can compensation repair the moral harm of a previous wrongful act? On the one hand, some define the very function of compensation as one of restoring the moral balance. On the other hand, the dominant view on compensation is that it is insufficient to fully repair moral harm unless accompanied by an act of punishment or apology. In this paper, I seek to investigate the maximal potential of compensation. Central to my argument is a distinction between apologetic compensation and non-apologetic (...) compensation. Apologetic compensation, I argue, is an act that expresses regret and apology by means of some offer of money, goods, or services. Non-apologetic compensation is an act that seeks to restore loss or harm without expressing regret or apology. In the paper, I defend the view that acts of compensation can be apologetic and argue that such apologetic compensation is sufficient for moral repair. (shrink)

Climate change is the first anthropogenic alteration of a global Earth system. It is globally catastrophic in terms of food production, sea level rise, fresh water availability, temperature elevation, ocean acidification, species disturbance and destruction to name just a few crisis concerns. In addition, while those changes are occurring now, they are amplifying over decadal periods and will last for centuries and possibly millennia. While there are a number of pollutants involved, carbon dioxide which results from the combustion of any (...) fossil fuel is the primary pollutant. It has not been considered a pollutant until recently because of its natural dissociation into oxygen and carbon compounds like wood. However, because of its molecular durability and ability to acidify water, it has become the primary pollutant as a result of the exponential increase in fossil fuel use for the production of energy by Earth’s population that has doubled over the last six decades. That increase has exceeded Earth’s ability to handle humanity’s waste CO2. Obviously, the involved changes detrimentally affect all life on Earth. Because of the evolving nature of the changes, climate change is presently denied primarily in the United States because of the costs of eliminating our carbon addiction. Because no similar global natural or anthropogenic situation has previously occurred during the lifetime of Homo sapiens, our extant ethical theories are incapable of confronting the crisis. Consequently, new ethical paradigms are necessary. This dissertation attempts to provide thoughts about the use of Aristotelian ethical theory, the aidōs feeling, Aquinian psychology and a possible new virtue of proper primility in an effort to further nurture the growth of the new climate change ethics. (shrink)

O objetivo do presente artigo é discutir os vínculos existentes entre a teoria humeana e o Utilitarismo. Nesse contexto, mencionando a divergência existente entre os comentadores de Hume a respeito de seu lugar diante do Utilitarismo, conclui-se que, embora o caráter descritivo de fato predomine na teoria humeana, ela não é inteiramente desprovida de pretensão prescritiva. Será ainda necessário discutir em que consiste essa pretensão, isto é, o que ela busca prescrever.

The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act and its subsequent backlash serve as a case-study to raise ethical concerns both about the characterization of contemporary western liberal democracy as a political theory and a prevailing religious extremism acting as a legislative power within governments; Developing and reflecting on these issues this study will attempt to show a need to evaluate the moral principles attributed to modern political systems and the governmental delineation of power over individuals within a society. Applying Rawlsian concepts, (...) this study will show that laws such as the RFRA are representative of weak and superficial democracies that in most cases are actually centres of power, funded by corporations and organisations in direct conflict with liberal principles. (shrink)