This research explored the ethical decision-making process of civilians in response to real-world military dilemmas. Results revealed the complexity of these dilemmas, with about equal proportions of civilians choosing each of two response options. The moral intensity dimension of social consensus significantly predicted moral judgment in both dilemmas, whereas that of magnitude of consequences did so in only one dilemma, partially supporting our hypothesis. Both dimensions were significant predictors of moral intent in both dilemmas as was moral judgment, also supporting (...) our hypotheses. We conclude with suggestions for future research questions in this compelling area. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the view that we can literally perceive the morally right and wrong, or something near enough. In defending this claim, I will try to meet three primary objectives: to clarify how an investigation into moral phenomenology should proceed, to respond to a number of misconceptions and objections that are most frequently raised against the very idea of moral perception, and to provide a model for how some moral perception can be seen as literal perception. Because (...) I take “moral perception” to pick out a family of different experiences, I will limit myself to a discussion of the moral relevance of the emotions. (shrink)

An overview of Dai's ethics, highlighting some overlooked or misunderstood theses on moral deliberation and motivation.

It is widely acknowledged that moral principles are not sufficient to guide moral thought and action: they need to be supplemented by a capacity for judgement. However, why can we not rely on this capacity for moral judgement alone? Why do moral principles need to be supplemented, but are not supplanted, by judgement? So-called moral particularists argue that we can, and should, make moral decisions on a case-by-case basis without any principles. According to particularists, the person of moral judgement is (...) a person of empathy, sensibility and virtue, rather than a person of principle. In this paper I argue that this is a false dichotomy. The person of good moral judgement is a person of principle. I propose that we think of moral principles as internalised long-term commitments that form our moral character and sensitivity, and, as such, are constitutive of moral judgement. (shrink)

In the target article, Grant Gillett (2009) has taken an important step toward greater synthesis of neuroethics, philosophy, and neuroscience. In his neo-Aristotelian account, Gillett posits a nece...

The ethic of care has often been opposed to the ethic of justice as offering a different and even a contradictory approach to moral problems. This article argues that, from the perspective of the discourse ethic, both approaches are complementary in a very fundamental sense, since each one applies to one of two stages of moral reasoning that are as different as they are interconnected. It argues, in particular, that while justice is concerned with the justification and elaboration of norms, (...) care is concerned with finding a solution for specific moral situations. The article then places considerations of care at the centre of ideal discourse and subordinates the importance of rational understanding and moral justification to intuitive communication. (shrink)

Ethicists of care have objected to traditional moral philosophy's reliance upon abstract universal principles. They claim that the use of abstraction renders traditional theories incapable of capturing morally relevant, particular features of situations. I argue that this objection sometimes conflates two different levels of moral thinking: the level of justification and the level of deliberation. Specifically, I claim that abstraction or attention to context at the level of justification does not entail, as some critics seem to think, a commitment to (...) abstraction or attention to context at the level of deliberation. It follows that critics who reject a theory's use of abstraction at the level of justification have not shown that the theory recommends abstraction at the level of deliberation and that it, therefore, compels the deliberating agent to overlook morally salient details. (shrink)

You may not know me well enough to evaluate me in terms of my moral character, but I take it you believe I can be evaluated: it sounds strange to say that I am indeterminate, neither good nor bad nor intermediate. Yet I argue that the claim that most people are indeterminate is the conclusion of a sound argument—the indeterminacy paradox—with two premises: (1) most people are fragmented (they would behave deplorably in many and admirably in many other situations); (2) (...) fragmentation entails indeterminacy. I support (1) by examining psychological experiments in which most participants behave deplorably (e.g., by maltreating “prisoners” in a simulated prison) or admirably (e.g., by intervening in a simulated theft). I support (2) by arguing that, according to certain plausible conceptions, character evaluations presuppose behavioral consistency (lack of fragmentation). Possible reactions to the paradox include: (a) denying that the experiments are relevant to character; (b) upholding conceptions according to which character evaluations do not presuppose consistency; (c) granting that most people are indeterminate and explaining why it appears otherwise. I defend (c) against (a) and (b). (shrink)

I argue that partialist critics of deontological theories make a mistake similar to one made by critics of utilitarianism: they fail to distinguish between a theory’s decision procedure and its standard of rightness. That is, they take these deontological theories to be offering a method for moral deliberation when they are in fact offering justificatory arguments for moral principles. And while deontologists, like utilitarians do incorporate impartiality into their justifications for basic principles, many do not require that agents utilize impartial (...) methods of moral deliberation. It follows that insofar as partialists reject impartiality in deliberation, their criticisms may miss their mark. If however, partialists are opposed to justifications for basic principles that rely upon impartiality, they are committed, I argue, to drastic revisions in moral theory that have worrisome implications. (shrink)

In this chapter, Colin Marshall argues that Schopenhauer’s views about the foundations of morality pose important challenges for five tenets of contemporary metaethics. After presenting these challenges, Marshall explores the potential viability of contemporary Schopenhauerian approaches to metaethics that would leave aside his radical metaphysical monism.

Moral perceptualism is the view that perceptual experience is attuned to pick up on moral features in our environment, just as it is attuned to pick up on mundane features of an environment like textures, shapes, colors, pitches, and timbres. One important family of views that incorporate moral perception are those of virtue theorists and sensibility theorists. On these views, one central ability of the virtuous agent is her sensitivity to morally relevant features of situations, where this sensitivity is often (...) spoken of in perceptual terms. However, sensibility theorists have often not been careful to specify how to understand their claims about moral sensibilities as perceptual. In this paper, we distinguish between what we call Attentional Moral Perception and Contentful Moral Perception. We argue that sensibility theorists should endorse Attentional Moral Perception, because it has very powerful empirical evidence in its favor, and it can play all of the explanatory roles that the sensibility theorist needs in her theory of moral sensibilities. (shrink)

This paper argues for the normative significance of attention. Attention plays an important role when describing an individual’s mind and agency, and in explaining many central facts about that individual. In addition, many in the public want answers and guidance with regard to normative questions about attention. Given that attention is both descriptively central and the public cares about normative guidance with regard to it, attention should be central also in normative philosophy. We need an ethics of attention: a field (...) of study of which normative pressures, if any, govern attention. Like the ethics of belief, the ethics of attention will connect those normative questions to issues regarding the nature of attention, i.e. to what is subject to such normative pressures. Philosophers should develop an ethics of attention that helps to provide normative guidance and that is commensurate in its richness to the descriptive significance of attention. The second half of the paper sketches a framework that may help us to get started at developing the ethics of attention. (shrink)

This paper studies one aspect of the great Ming dynasty philosopher Wang Yangming’s (王陽明 1472-1529) celebrated doctrine of the unity of knowledge and action (zhi xing he yi 知行合一). Wang states that his doctrine does not apply to all knowledge, but only to an elevated form of knowledge, which he sometimes calls “genuine knowledge” (zhen zhi 真知). But what is “genuine knowledge”? I develop and compare four different interpretations of this notion: the perceptual, practical, normative and introspective models. The main (...) aim of the paper is to develop these models in more detail than has been done before. But at the end of the paper I argue that the introspective model is to be preferred over the alternatives. (shrink)

Moral particularism is often conceived as the view that there are no moral principles. However, its most fêted accounts focus almost exclusively on rules regarding actions and their features. Such action-centred particularism is, I argue, compatible with generalism at the level of character traits. The resulting view is a form of particularist virtue ethics. This endorses directives of the form ‘Be X’ but rejects any implication that the relevant X-ness must therefore always count in favour of an action.

This chapter as the whole book are a result of a Globethics conference in March 2018 at the Catholic University of East Africa (CUEA) in Kenya, focused on the integration of Ethics in Higher Education. The book captures the potential for sharing of knowledge, and triggering interdisciplinary collaboration and research across a wide variety of issues ranging from research practice, religion, entrepreneurship, leadership, fundraising and corruption. While some of the chapters focus on the understanding of ethics and its relationship with (...) the various other aspects of life, others concentrate on the methods and strategies of effectively teaching ethics. Our chapter is concerned by the ways research practices and the value of integrity might be at risk, in very limited situations. We have good hope that responsible answers and proportionate reason-based actions in confronting some of these risks - as with plagiarism - can protect the giving virtues necessary for dynamical and effective research processes, which are all ultimately built on the value of trust. (shrink)

Discussions regarding which norms, if any, govern our practices of forming, maintaining and relinquishing beliefs have come to be collected under the label “The ethics of belief”. Included in the ethics of belief are debates about how those normative issues relate to the nature of belief, whether belief formation is, for example, ever voluntary. The present talk concerns an analogous set of questions regarding our practices of attention. “The ethics of attention” thus concerns the discussion of which norms, if any, (...) govern our practices of attention: what norms govern what we should attend to, how we should engage our capacity for attention, when we should begin and when we should stop to pay attention to something? Like the ethics of belief, the ethics of attention will connect those normative questions to issues regarding the nature of attention, what may or may not be subject to such normative pressures. Compared with rich, complex, and systematic investigation of the ethics of belief, the study of the ethics of attention is more or less undeveloped. This paper aims to begin to change that. Specifically, it shows that attention is an appropriate target for serious normative investigation and then classifies potential norms of attention along three dimensions: whether they are manner or object based, instrumental or non-instrumental, and whether its source is moral, prudential or epistemic. -/- [EDIT. 10. November 2021: this paper has been superseded by a new version. Please cite that in turn]. (shrink)

Moral perceptualism is the theory that perception and perceptual experience is attuned to moral features in our environment. This idea has received renewed attention in the last 15–20 years, for its potential to do theoretical work in moral epistemology and moral psychology. In this paper, I review the main motivations and arguments for moral perceptualism, the variety of theories that go under the heading of “moral perception,” and the three biggest challenges to moral perception. https://youtu.be/9cc_1zykq80.

ABSTRACT What is the ethical significance of the suffering of nonhuman animals? For many, the answer is simple. Such suffering has clear moral significance: nonhuman animal suffering is suffering, suffering is something bad, and the fact that it is bad gives us reason to alleviate or prevent it. The practical problem that remains is how to do this most efficiently or effectively. I argue that this does not exhaust the ethical significance of certain evils, once we consider how the existence (...) of those evils may detract from the meaning of human life, even on fully “naturalistic” conceptions of meaning in life. I will draw a distinction between what I will call “spiritual” problems and “moral” problems and consider why moral philosophers may be well suited to addressing both problems, as long as the domain of the ethical is not taken to be exhausted by the domain of the moral. Finally, I will elaborate on why marking a distinction between these problems—the moral and the spiritual—may help illuminate some disagreements between Utilitarians and their opponents about the ethical significance of the suffering of nonhuman animals. (shrink)

In a market economy, members of professions—or at least those for whom their profession is a vocation—are vulnerable to a distinctive kind of objectionable exploitation, namely the exploitation of their vocational commitment. That they are vulnerable in this way arises out of central features both of professions and of a market economy. And, for certain professions—the care professions—this exploitation is particularly objectionable, since, for these professions, the exploitation at issue is not only exploitation of the professional’s vocational commitment but also (...) of her even more basic commitment to morality. (shrink)

Keskityn siihen miten Leibnizilla yksittäiset mielihyvän tai mielipahan tiedostamattomat havainnot voivat kasautua tai tiivistyä ja muodostaa vähitellen tunteita, joista tulemme tietoisiksi.

The double subjectivity of conscience and the need to test conscientious objections -/- Abstract In spite of the collapse of the traditional objective concept of conscience and the subsequent subjectivation of conscience, conscientious objections are still often considered as a valid ground for exemption from legal and professional obligations. Conscientious objections are seen as more serious than ordinary moral objections. It is not evident why this is so. I argue, with Niklas Luhmann, that the function of conscience is to protect (...) the moral core of a person’s identity. Overruling conscientious objections threatens this core. Claims of conscience are usually founded on the right of freedom of conscience. This right is not absolute. I discuss the view of Richard Arneson who rejects the right of freedom of conscience and defends the right against conscience. I agree with Arneson that, at the one hand, conscientious objectors may constitute a threat to the social and legal order when their objections are not recognised and, at the other hand, too easy giving in to conscientious objections may also threaten the viability of social and legal order. That is why it is needed to determine when conscientious objections cannot be taken at face value, but should be subjected to a series of tests. The aim of these tests is to contain the number of objectors. I discuss 6 criteria for determining whether conscientious objections ground an exemption to legal and professional obligations. At the end of the article I discuss the conscientious objections of medical doctors. (shrink)

I reconsider the relation between love and respect in Kantian ethics, taking as my guide Iris Murdoch's view of love as the fundamental moral attitude and a kind of attention to individuals. It is widely supposed that Kantian ethics disregards individuals, since we don't respect individuals but the universal quality of personhood they instantiate. We need not draw this conclusion if we recognise that Kant and Murdoch share a view about the centrality of love to virtue. We can then see (...) that respect in the virtuous person cannot be blind to the individual, as critics of Kantian ethics contend. My approach contrasts recent efforts to assimilate Kantian respect to Murdochian love, which overlook Murdoch's distinctive claims about the singularity of moral activity. This idea is not as un-Kantian as it seems, and it should inform any Kantian ethics that aims to address the charge about individuals. (shrink)

In the aftermath of national or international tragedies, appeals for action such as, “Never Forget” or “Never Again” are ubiquitous. Theodor Adorno makes a similar call in the wake of the Holocaust, proclaiming that all education should be focused on the prevention of another genocide. While most would agree with such a statement, practically how do we respond to such a call, specifically in light of Adorno’s work? Answering this question is at the heart of this project and I argue (...) that imaginative memorials can fulfill Adorno’s criteria for post-Auschwitz education. I first present a theory of moral imagination by relying on contemporary accounts of the theory and then show how it complements Adorno’s work, specifically by offering an explanatory foundation to a number of his claims. I reveal that many of Adorno’s observations about the world are supported by recent advancements in the understanding of imagination and I argue that the combination of contemporary accounts of moral imagination and Adorno’s thought are mutually beneficial. After the two theories have been sufficiently discussed and integrated, I focus on Adorno’s arguments regarding education following Auschwitz. Adorno argues that we should investigate how such a horror could occur, and the people who committed the acts of genocide. Such information will be helpful for the prevention of another Auschwitz because we can attempt to overcome the values and ideas of those who perpetrated genocide. This dissertation is unique and of philosophical importance because it fleshes out Adorno’s discussion of the characteristics that led to the Holocaust and argues for a specific form of education that meets all of the criteria of Adorno’s post-Auschwitz education: memorials that stimulate the visitor’s imagination. In order to make this point, I highlight specific Holocaust memorials that are imaginative and argue for their efficacy. My goal for the project is to actualize Adorno’s post-Auschwitz education initiative through imaginative memorials. (shrink)

According to the cognitivist strategy, the desire to bring about P provides reasons for intending to bring about P in a way analogous to how perceiving that P provides reasons for believing that P. However, while perceiving P provides reasons for believing P by representing P as true, desiring to bring about P provides reasons for intending to bring about P by representing P as good. This paper offers an argument against this view. My argument proceeds via an appeal to (...) what I call the non-substitutability of perception, the thesis that, given that there is no independent evidence for P, one cannot substitute something that fails to provide reasons with respect to P for the perceptual experience that P, without altering the rational permissibility of believing that P. By contrast, I argue that it is always possible to substitute something that fails to provide reasons for a desire without altering the rational permissibility of an intention based on said desire. I take this to show that a desire does not provide reasons in a way analogous to perceptual experience. (shrink)

Care theorists have made significant gains over the past twenty-five years in establishing caring as a viable moral and political concept. Nonetheless, the concept of caring remains underdeveloped as a basis for a moral and political philosophy, and there is no fully developed account of our moral obligation to care. This article advances thinking about caring by developing a definition of caring and a theory of obligation to care sufficient to ground a general moral and political philosophy.

This article outlines and develops the concept of ‘ethics work’ in social work practice. It takes as its starting point a situated account of ethics as embedded in everyday practice: ‘everyday ethics’. This is contrasted with ‘textbook ethics’, which focuses on outlining general ethical principles, presenting ethical dilemmas and offering normative ethical frameworks (including decision-making models). ‘Ethics work’ is a more descriptive account of ethics that refers to the effort people put into seeing ethically salient aspects of situations, developing themselves (...) as good practitioners, working out the right course of action and justifying who they are and what they have done. After identifying seven features of ethics work, including work on framing, roles, emotion, identity, reason, relationships and performance, each element is illustrated with reference to two case examples from social work practice. It is argued that the concept of ethics work, with its focus on the practitioners as moral agents in context, is an important antidote to the rules-based managerialism of much contemporary practice. (shrink)

What is a moral argument? A straightforward answer is that a moral argument is an argument dealing with moral issues, such as the permissibility of killing in certain circumstances. I call this the thin sense of ‘moral argument’. Arguments that we find in normative and applied ethics are almost invariably moral in this sense. However, they often fail to be moral in other respects. In this article, I discuss four ways in which morality can be absent from moral arguments in (...) the thin sense. If these arguments suffer from an absence of morality in at least one of these ways, they are not moral arguments in what I will call the thick sense of ‘moral argument’. Because only moral arguments in the thick sense could possibly qualify as proper responses to moral problems, the absence of morality in thin arguments means that these arguments will fail to give us a reason to do whatever they claim that we ought to do, even if we see no independent reason to question the truth of the premises or the logical validity of the argument. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the metaphysical ethics of Emmanuel Levinas captures some essential moral intuitions that are central to health care. However, there is an ongoing discussion about the relevance of ethical metaphysics for normative ethics and in particular on the question of the relationship between justice and individualized care. In this paper I take part in this debate and I argue that Levinas' idea of an ethics of the Other that guides politics and justice can shed important (...) light on issues that are central to priorities in health care. In fact, the ethics of Levinas in seeking the foundation of normativity itself, captures the ethical coreand central values of health care. (shrink)

One popular reason for rejecting moral realism is the lack of a plausible epistemology that explains how we come to know moral facts. Recently, a number of philosophers have insisted that it is possible to have moral knowledge in a very straightforward way—by perception. However, there is a significant objection to the possibility of moral perception: it does not seem that we could have a perceptual experience that represents a moral property, but a necessary condition for coming to know that (...) X is F by perception is the ability to have a perceptual experience that represents something as being F . Call this the ‘Representation Objection’ to moral perception. In this paper I argue that the Representation Objection to moral perception fails. Thus I offer a limited defense of moral perception. (shrink)

Jonathan Dancy has developed a very refined theory called ethical particularism. He has argued extensively for the metaphysical part of his position. However, the accompanying epistemology is not yet clear. In this paper I will sketch a particularist epistemology that is consistent with Dancy’s particularist metaphysics, although my approach differs in certain respects from epistemological claims Dancy has made. I will defend an epistemology that states: 1. that moral knowledge is based on intuitions and 2. that we need emotions in (...) order to have moral knowledge. I will call this approach ‘affectual intuitionism’. Dancy rejects both claims, but I will argue that his arguments against these claims are not convincing. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to introduce a logically grounded approach to action semantics and action interpretation. The main idea is to present the context of action as a set of questions demanding an action to answer. I introduce (a) a basic procedure of action interpretation, which is a reformulation of Hilpinen's semantical procedure for imperatives; (b) a procedure of what-interpretation; (c) a procedure of why-interpretation. The conditions of mutual reducibility of interpretation procedures are explicated. The paper concludes by (...) putting forth the problem of interpretive bounds of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Individuals with conditions like borderline personality disorder experience chronic, pervasive impairments that interfere with moral functioning. Even in recovery these individuals are plagued by residual symptoms, requiring diligence and management. First, I stipulate that some individuals who recover from BPD act morally. I argue that by acting morally while managing residual symptoms these individuals expand the boundaries of traditional Aristotelian virtue. Individuals who recover from BPD are simultaneously virtuous and outside the boundaries of traditional Aristotelian virtue if they meet the (...) following conditions: they experience marked, unchangeable morally-relevant difference in moral faculties; act morally at approximately the same rate or better than other moral agents; and act morally for the right reasons. These individuals challenge the boundaries of traditional Aristotelian virtue by demonstrating that many views of temperance and virtue are too restrictive. I evaluate multiple interpretations of McDowell’s [1] silencing view and call for a more inclusive virtue ethics that embraces continence in the vein of Foot’s [2] corrective view. (shrink)

To be self-compassionate is to show compassion not (only) for others but for yourself. Research in psychology suggests that self-compassion leads to improved well-being and functioning. With the psychological research in the background, we give a philosophical account of self-compassion and its ethical significance. We build a definition of self-compassion, suggesting that self-compassion is different from but closely analogous to compassion for others. Our definition departs from the most prominent definition in the psychological literature but is well-equipped to guide ongoing (...) empirical research. We then argue that self-compassion is a virtue. Self-compassion makes ordinary people happier and more likely to act well, and the self-compassionate person understands and values herself correctly; she sees herself accurately as a needy, vulnerable, limited human whose interests matter. If we are right, then the ethical relationship with self is more complicated than philosophical treatments have so far acknowledged. The virtuous person does not only meet moral duties to herself or exercise permissions to favor her own interests. She also has an emotional relationship with herself, which incorporates enlightened self-understanding and self-care. (shrink)

In this paper we challenge the idea that valid consent is the golden standard by which a sexual encounter is deemed ethical. We begin by reviewing the recent public focus on consent as an ethical standard, and then argue for a standard that goes beyond legalistic and contractual foci. This is the standard of mutuality which extends beyond the assurance that all parties engaging in a sexual encounter are informed, autonomous, and otherwise capable of making a valid choice: one must (...) also encounter the other with care and loving attention. We develop this claim using Iris Murdoch’s concept of an attitude of “loving attention,” which differentiates our view from the duty of due diligence to ensure that each person is a willing participant in sex, that the rights of others have not been violated, as emphasized by Dougherty. We also address three objections to using mutuality as a measure of ethical sex, namely that it is patronizing, that it is a maximalist position that puts too great a burden on individuals and inhibits their freedom, and that it is an ideal rather than a requirement. We then look at three examples that test the construct of mutuality: the typical college hook-up, sex work, and anonymous sex through glory holes and similar set-ups. (shrink)

Emotions are often met with suspicion in political debates about risky technologies, because they are seen as contrary to rational decision making. However, recent emotion research rejects such a dichotomous view of reason and emotion, by seeing emotions as an important source of moral insight. Moral emotions such as compassion and feelings of responsibility and justice can play an important role in judging ethical aspects of technological risks, such as justice, fairness, and autonomy. This article discusses how this idea can (...) be integrated into approaches for political decision making about risk. The article starts with an analysis of the dichotomous view of reason and emotion in risk theory, in approaches to participatory risk assessment as well as in relevant approaches to political philosophy. This article then presents alternative approaches in political philosophy and political theory that do explicitly endorse the importance of emotions. Based on these insights, a procedural approach for policy making is presented, in which emotional responses to technological risks, and the ethical concerns that lie behind them, are taken seriously. This approach allows for morally better political decisions about risky technologies and a better understanding between experts and laypeople. (shrink)

We investigated the ethical decision-making processes and intentions of 151 military personnel responding to 1 of 2 ethical scenarios drawn from the deployment experiences of military commanders. For each scenario, option choice and perspective affected decision-making processes. Differences were also found between the 2 scenarios. Results add to the emerging literature concerning operational ethical conflicts and highlight the complexity and challenge that often accompanies operational ethics.

In this paper I argue that Martha Nussbaum's Aristotelian analysis of compassion and pity is faulty, largely because she fails to distinguish between an emotion's basic constitutive conditions and the associated constitutive or "intrinsic" norms, "extrinsic" normative conditions, for instance, instrumental and moral considerations, and the causal conditions under which emotion is most likely to be experienced. I also argue that her defense of compassion and pity as morally valuable emotions is inadequate because she treats a wide variety of objections (...) as all stemming from a common commitment to a Stoic conception of the good. I argue that these objections can be construed as neutral between conceptions of the good. I conclude by arguing that construed in this way there are nonetheless plausible replies to these objections. (shrink)

This paper draws from the fields of history, sociology, psychology, moral philosophy, and organizational theory to establish a theoretical connection between a social/organizational influence (ethical work climate) and an individual cognitive element of moral behavior (moral awareness). The research was designed to help to fill a gap in the existing literature by providing empirical evidence of the connection between organizational influences and individual moral awareness and subsequent ethical choices, which has heretofore largely been merely assumed. Results of the study provide (...) evidence that ethical work climate (EWC) is a primary predictor of individual moral awareness, and that the influence of social factors often overrides the effects of individual differences in a work group setting. Implications for future research are provided. (shrink)

El texto propone una confrontación entre la fenomenología de la vita activa de Hannah Arendt y la ética del cuidado. Se trata, por una parte, de aplicar las distinciones arendtianas entre esferas pública y privada, y entre labor, trabajo y acción , a la actividad de cuidar, para reafirmar su relevancia; por otra parte, tomando el concepto de «mundo» como clave de la definición de cuidado, se ensaya una reinterpretación crítica de los conceptos de Arendt a partir de algunos análisis (...) feministas y de una fenomenología responsiva y del cuerpo, a fin de plantear una reivindicación matizada de las implicaciones públicas del cuidar, en línea con las propuestas de paso de una ética a una «política del cuidado». (shrink)

Ethical perception involves seeing what is ethically salient about the particular details of the world. This kind of seeing is like informed judgment. It can be shaped by what we know and what we come to learn about, and by the development of moral virtue. I argue here that we can learn to see food justice, and I describe some ways to do so using three narrative case studies. The mechanism for acquiring this kind of vision is a “food justice (...) narrative” that is particular and concrete. These kinds of stories are counter narratives to a popular and dominant “script” about food that disguises the identity of people who eat, and obscures how constraints on free choice are created by particular lived circumstances. Food justice narratives specify the social and political location of individual people who are trying to nourish themselves. Once this contextual surround is included we are in a position to ask why this person, in this set of circumstances, is impeded in their access to nutritious food. This is not a question we are likely to consider if we leave out the identity of food consumers. Food justice narratives are forward looking as well because they bring into clearer focus what actions and kinds of social activism are appropriate responses to constraints on free choice. (shrink)

Engineers are normally seen as the archetype of people who make decisions in a rational and quantitative way. However, technological design is not value neutral. The way a technology is designed determines its possibilities, which can, for better or for worse, have consequences for human wellbeing. This leads various scholars to the claim that engineers should explicitly take into account ethical considerations. They are at the cradle of new technological developments and can thereby influence the possible risks and benefits more (...) directly than anybody else. I have argued elsewhere that emotions are an indispensable source of ethical insight into ethical aspects of risk. In this paper I will argue that this means that engineers should also include emotional reflection into their work. This requires a new understanding of the competencies of engineers: they should not be unemotional calculators; quite the opposite, they should work to cultivate their moral emotions and sensitivity, in order to be engaged in morally responsible engineering. (shrink)

The goal of this study is to support game designers in the selection and implementation of game mechanisms to promote players’ moral sensitivity. A lack of moral sensitivity may lead people to behave unethically, without awareness for their actions’ moral implications. In this study, we conduct a theory-based evaluation of 20 distinct game mechanisms in view of their potential to promote moral sensitivity. Moral sensitivity is thereby operationalized in terms of three learning outcomes: Empathic concern for relevant groups, alertness to (...) values/principles, and awareness for one’s vulnerability to biases. This study suggests that moral sensitivity is best promoted through a careful combination of game mechanisms, addressing all three learning outcomes. (shrink)

This paper concerns what I take to be the primary epistemological motivation for defending moral perception. Offering a plausible account of how we gain moral knowledge is one of the central challenges of metaethics. It seems moral perception might help us meet this challenge. The possibility that we know about the instantiation of moral properties in something like the way we know that there is a bus passing in front of us raises the alluring prospect of subsuming moral epistemology under (...) the comfortable umbrella of perceptual or, more broadly, empirical knowledge. The good news on this front is that various combinations of metaethical positions and theories of perception arguably have the potential to vindicate moral perception. The bad news, I’ll argue, is that moral perception would be dependent for its epistemic merit on background knowledge of bridge principles linking moral and non-moral properties. Thus, in order to defend a purely perceptual moral epistemology, one would have to argue that knowledge of those principles is likewise perceptual. I further argue it is not. (shrink)

We sometimes decide what to do by applying moral principles to cases, but this is harder than it looks. Principles are more general than cases, and sometimes it is hard to tell whether and how a principle applies to a given case. Sometimes two conflicting principles seem to apply to the same case. To handle these problems, we use a kind of judgment to ascertain whether and how a principle applies to a given case, or which principle to follow when (...) two principles seem to conflict. But what do we discern when we make such judgments—that is, what makes such judgments correct? The obvious answer is that they are made correct by whatever makes other moral judgments correct. However, that cannot be right, for a principle can be inconsistent with morality yet still apply in a particular way to a given case. If the principle is inconsistent with morality, then morality cannot be what we discern when we judge whether and how that principle applies to a given case. I offer an alternative account of what makes such judgments correct. (shrink)

The normative significance of proximity in ethics is considered, giving an overview of the contemporary debates about proximity in ethics and focusing on three main perspectives that take proximity to have normative significance. The first perspective is represented by meta-ethical positions, where a basic moral claim is said to originate from an irreducible, particular and unique otherness that shows up in human vulnerability. The second perspective presents a psychologically and philosophically based analysis of human emotions, which is taken to form (...) a basis for rudimentary moral sensitivity and care. The third version of an ethics of proximity claims that personal relationships and partiality overrride impartialist and universalist ethical considerations. On the basis of this analysis, the sources of normativity and the essence of proximity as a normative consideration are elaborated. Finally, the relevance of an ethics of proximity to professional ethics in healthcare is discussed. From an ethics of proximity, it might be argued that institutions must attempt to organise medical care and nursing care so that a certain partiality and patient-centred care might be favoured and trump distributivist considerations of justice in healthcare. (shrink)

At the heart of the uniqueness debate is the possibility that the computer revolution may demand more in the way of ethical analysis than our traditional (that is, modern) ethical edification has prepared us for. In short, it may present new and unique problems and therefore demand new and unique solutions. In this article I argue that the solution is in fact an old and not‐so‐unique one: casuistry. Appealing to Jonsen and Toulmin's analysis of casuistry (1988), I argue that a (...) casuistic methodology is a more accurate description of the moral reasoning used by contemporary computer ethicists than are other accounts. In addition, I argue that the strengths that enabled casuistry to deal successfully with radical social, economic, and religious changes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries render casuistry well suited to the task of dealing with radically new situations like those found in twentieth‐ and twenty‐first‐century computer technology. Before concluding, I briefly explore Pascal's fatal critique of casuistry and its relevance for contemporary computer ethics. (shrink)

This paper examines Mencius’ view on compassion in the political realm by proposing that Mencius defends compassionate governance by reconciling the two extremes of Yangist self-love and Mohist universal love. This paper proposes a reading of two famous stories, namely, the story of a young child on the verge of falling into a well, and the story of King Xuan of Qi sparing an ox as paradigmatic cases for understanding Mencius’ account of compassion in the political realm. This paper argues (...) that Mencius succeeds in his defense of governance with compassion against the other two extremes of self-love and altruism. To provide an argument for compatibility with egoism or self-love, this paper offers an analysis of Mencius’ idea of the ruler sharing pleasure with his people instead of denying pleasure for himself. In this sense, a good ruler does not need to sacrifice his self-interest. To counter the demand of universal love of the Mohists, Mencius develops a position that the Confucian ideal ruler, while not sacrificing his self-interests, those interests need to be guided and directed by a proper process of moral cultivation of his compassionate heart so that he can readily share his pleasures with all the peoples in his kingdom. These readings indicate Mencius’ expanded argument for political implications of compassion in the moral universe of the Confucian school. (shrink)