The universalist argument that all children should be educated in inclusive mainstream schools, irrespective of their difficulties or disabilities, is traced to the claims that special schools and disability ‘labels’ are inherently humiliating, and that no decent society tolerates inherently humiliating institutions. I ask whether there is a sound reason for a child to feel humiliated by special schools/disability ‘labels’ as such, and find none. Empirically, some do and some do not find these humiliating, and it is argued that the (...) failure to address the multiple ‘realities’ of disability and learning difficulty is responsible for the policy impasse in this area. (shrink)

In recent decades, P. F. Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” (1962) has had an enormous influence on philosophical views of moral responsibility. Many contemporary views follow Strawson in centering questions of responsibility on the appropriateness of certain attitudes in our interpersonal relations, especially attitudes of blame and anger, rather than on the abstract nature of free will. Strawson’s influence has in many ways been beneficial, but the prevailing Strawsonian views have taken on some of the more dubious tendencies of contemporary moral (...) philosophy. Among them is the tendency to think of our ethical relations narrowly in terms of the sort of respect that we owe friends and strangers alike, while neglecting attitudes of concern and understanding. This tendency distorts our views of our ethical relations and how we should respond to one another’s wrongful conduct. To correct those distortions, I retrieve insights from older traditions of ethical thought—especially Platonic, Stoic, and Christian traditions—which give love and understanding a central place in our ethical relations, along with respect. These traditions, which have profoundly shaped the development of Western ethical thought, are unduly neglected in contemporary moral philosophy. By joining the insights of these traditions with the insights of Strawsonian views of responsibility, I believe we can articulate a more complete and compelling view of ethical life and responsibility. (shrink)

Cases of akratic behavior are generally seen as paradigmatic depictions of the knowledge-action gap (Darnell et al 2019): we know what we should do, we judge that we should do it, yet we often fail to act according to our knowledge. In recent decades attention has been given to a particular instance of akratic behavior, which is that of “inverse akrasia”, where the agent possesses faulty moral knowledge but fails to act accordingly, thus ending up doing the right thing. In (...) particular, two literary examples are considered as exemplifying this kind of akratic situation: Huckleberry Finn (Arpaly & Schroeder 1999, Arpaly 2000, Hursthouse 1999, Kleist 2009, Holton manuscript) and Neoptolemus as understood by Aristotle (NE; Arpaly & Schroeder 1999). In this paper I will argue that those of Neoptolemus and Huck Finn are not cases of inverse akrasia (Holton manuscript) but are much better explained as instances of what Williams (1993) called “moral incapacity”. In particular, the reason why they fail to act according to their original judgments is due to a lack of motivation to act accordingly, which is grounded in their moral self-identities (Blasi 1984; Vigani 2016). The paper will unfold as follows: I will, first, argue that neither Neoptolemus nor Huck Finn show akratic behavior; thus, they cannot be legitimately labeled as “inverse akratics” (par 1.); then, I will argue that they act the way they do notwithstanding their faulty judgments because they are effectively motivated to do so. Such motivation originates in their moral self-identities and is experienced through the threat of self-betrayal (par 2); finally, I will argue that when an agent is motivated to act in a way that is integral with her moral self-identity, acting otherwise is experienced as something one cannot ultimately do; that is, as a moral incapacity (par 3). This “cannot” is neither a metaphor for an “I shouldn’t”, nor an instance of what has been recently labeled a “moral impossibility” (Caprioglio Panizza 2020, 2021), since it does not arise from the normative force of deontic judgments, and it is neither physically nor psychologically impossible for the agent to act otherwise. (shrink)

The ‘Other’ can be near to us, or far from us. We are in-relation with both. Given that, we explore whether, from a moral philosophical perspective, the ‘near-other’ is in tension with the ‘far-other’. We argue that we find our relationship with the near-other through a transcendent metaphysical empathy derived from the noumenon, which is manifest in the phenomenon as compassion and justice. We then argue that perceived differences in the phenomenon mean that we do not reliably transfer this empathy (...) for the near-other, to the far-other. Further, empathic and constructive dialogue is made more difficult because of our proclivity to actively engage in ‘othering’ those not-like-us. Properly, moral decision-making is positioned in a space cognizant of the other. Near-otherness makes consensus in the decision-making process easier, while far-otherness makes consensus more difficult. In our post-modern, multicultural and multifaith era, we need to be alert to the other’s perspective, to find a way to have a meaningful dialogue and thus achieve consensus in our moral decision-making. (shrink)

Time passed after the commission of a wrong can affect how we respond to its agent now. Specifically it can introduce certain forms of complexity or ambivalence into our blaming responses. This paper considers how and why time might matter in this way. I illustrate the phenomenon by looking at a recent real-life example, surveying some responses to the case and identifying the relevant forms of ambivalence. I then consider a recent account of blameworthiness and its development over time that (...) purports to account for this ambivalence. Blameworthiness, on this account, consists in a psychological flaw; time matters because it brings the possibility of change in the agent, and ambivalence arises because it is hard to know to the extent of such change. This account, I argue, mischaracterises responses to the case and misidentifies the source of their ambivalence. Drawing on recent work in the philosophy of emotion, I sketch an alternative approach. Our responses, I suggest, make sense within processes through which we address wrongdoing. Time matters because these processes take time and because time’s having passed raises the question whether and how the wrong has been addressed. Unaddressed wrongs can elicit ambivalence of a specific form. (shrink)

A common idea about assessing meaning in life is that one draws up a list of those various positive values that one has achieved and subtracts from it one's negative deeds in life. The resulting balance is the meaningfulness of one's existence. I call this the ledger theory. Drawing on the work of Raimond Gaita and Julian Barnes's novel The Sense of an Ending, I argue for a phenomenology of remorse that gives us reason to reject the ledger theory. Even (...) those agents whose lives have been exceptionally meaningful in some respects may remain haunted by their past. Certain sorts of misdeeds – those that involve significant, irreparable damage – leave life marred in such a way that the negative remains, even in the face of all the meaningful deeds of life. (shrink)

Moral reasoning traditionally distinguishes two types of evil:moral and natural. The standard view is that ME is the product of human agency and so includes phenomena such as war, torture and psychological cruelty; that NE is the product of nonhuman agency, and so includes natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, disease and famine; and finally, that more complex cases are appropriately analysed as a combination of ME and NE. Recently, as a result of developments in autonomousagents in cyberspace, a new (...) class of interesting and importantexamples of hybrid evil has come to light. In this paper, it is called artificial evil and a case is made for considering it to complement ME and NE to produce a more adequate taxonomy. By isolating the features that have led to the appearance of AE, cyberspace is characterised as a self-contained environment that forms the essential component in any foundation of the emerging field of Computer Ethics. It is argued that this goes someway towards providing a methodological explanation of whycyberspace is central to so many of CE's concerns; and it isshown how notions of good and evil can be formulated incyberspace. Of considerable interest is how the propensity for anagent's action to be morally good or evil can be determined evenin the absence of biologically sentient participants and thusallows artificial agents not only to perpetrate evil but conversely to `receive' or `suffer from'it. The thesis defended is that the notion of entropy structure,which encapsulates human value judgement concerning cyberspace ina formal mathematical definition, is sufficient to achieve thispurpose and, moreover, that the concept of AE can be determinedformally, by mathematical methods. A consequence of this approachis that the debate on whether CE should be considered unique, andhence developed as a Macroethics, may be viewed, constructively,in an alternative manner. The case is made that whilst CE issues are not uncontroversially unique, they are sufficiently novel to render inadequate the approach of standard Macroethics such as Utilitarianism and Deontologism and hence to prompt the search for a robust ethical theory that can deal with them successfully. The name Information Ethics is proposed for that theory. Itis argued that the uniqueness of IE is justified by its beingnon-biologically biased and patient-oriented: IE is anEnvironmental Macroethics based on the concept of data entityrather than life. It follows that the novelty of CE issues suchas AE can be appreciated properly because IE provides a newperspective. In light of the discussion provided in this paper, it is concluded that Computer Ethics is worthy of independent study because it requires its own application-specific knowledge and is capable of supporting a methodological foundation, Information Ethics. (shrink)

Does the rise of artificial intelligence pose a threat to human sources of meaning? While much ink has been spilled on how AI could undercut meaningful human work, John Danaher has raised the stakes by claiming that AI could “sever” human beings from non-work-related sources of meaning—specifically, those related to intellectual and moral goods. Against this view, I argue that his suggestion that AI poses a threat to these areas of meaningful activity is overstated. Self-transformative activities pose a hard limit (...) to AI’s impingement on meaningful human activities. Contra Danaher, I suggest that a wider range of sources for meaning will continue to exist in a world dominated by AI. (shrink)

The social intuitionist approach to moral judgments advanced by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt presupposes that it is possible to provide an explanation of the human moral sense without normative implications. By contrast, Iris Murdoch’s philosophical work on moral psychology suggests that every description of morality necessarily involves evaluative features that reveal the thinker’s own moral attitudes and implicit philosophical pictures. In the light of this, we contend that Haidt’s treatment of the story about Julie and Mark, two siblings who decide (...) to have casual, protected, and in his view harmless sex, provides a too simplistic picture of what is involved in understanding human morality. Despite his aim to explain the roots of moral judgments, he fails to provide a deeper understanding of morality in two different respects. First, he does so by suggesting that his story contains all the relevant information needed to take a moral stand on it, and by rejecting as irrelevant the wider human context in which questions about sexual and family relations arise. Second, he simplifies the responses of the people who are subject to his experiment by disregarding their various reasons for disapproving and by equating understanding human morality with explaining an impersonal psychological process. (shrink)

I argue for a novel understanding of the nature of agent-regret. On the standard picture, agent-regret involves regretting the result of one’s action and thus regretting one’s action. I argue that the standard picture is a flawed analysis of agent-regret. I offer several cases of agent-regret where the agent feels agent-regret but does not regret the result itself. I appeal to other cases where an agent’s attitude towards something depends upon whether or not they are involved in that thing. I (...) argue that the same applies to actions: sometimes an agent’s attitude towards a result differs from their attitude to their involvement in bringing about that result. Agent-regret is regret about my own action, but it need not involve regret about something in the world. I end by considering how this picture of agent-regret allows us to respond to a particular criticism of agent-regret. (shrink)

Within the rough ground that is the field of education there is a complex web of ethical obligations: to prepare our students for their future work; to be ethical as educators in our conduct and teaching; to the ethical principles embedded in the contexts in which we work; and given the Southern context of this work, the ethical obligations we have to this land and its First Peoples. We put out a call to colleagues whose work has been concerned with (...) the pedagogies of professional ethics, the ethical burdens of institutional injustice, and the application of ethical theory to education’s applied fields. In the responses we received it can be seen that ethical concerns in education are broad ranging, covering terrain varying from the preparation of preservice teachers, ethics in higher education, early childhood and care, educational leadership, relational and communicative ethics. Perhaps it could also be argued that this paper demonstrates Gibbon’s observation that ‘Assumptions about the particularity of this time as new and ripe with opportunity to make a difference through philosophy of education are not new and there’s much to learn from the persistence of wanting to imagine that they are’. However, while the field of ethics is perennially concerned with human relations and pedagogical interventions to improve these, the responses collected here show that educational ethics is far from static. Educational ethics is a field that continues to develop in response to changing contexts. (shrink)

Perhaps the most central feature in Nietzsche’s philosophy is his effort to formulate a philosophy that would constitute a ”yes” to life. According to Nietzsche, this task presupposes a revaluation of all values. This is because philosophy from Socrates onwards is in his view a denial of life and Christianity, the other pillar of Western thought, is an even more insidious ”no” to life. I think that Nietzsche’s project of revaluating all values is a failure. The central ideas that guide (...) his criticism do not constitute any revaluation of Western, moral values. In the present paper my aim is to show in what sense the central elements in Nietzsche’s thought are firmly anchored in those very values that he took himself to have undermined. However, Nietzsche’s critique of our ”highest” values does reveal some deeply troubling features of these values. This becomes visible in Nietzsche’s struggle with his relationship to other human beings, more particularly with ”love for one’s neighbour”. His difficulties with love – and in question is not the Christian idea of love – produces an ethics of ”decency” that despite its unusually high pitch is still easily recognisable as a typical ethics of respect of a basically Kantian cut. Thus, I will also discuss Kant’s difficulties with love. The high pitch in Nietzsche’s thought is internally connected to the fact that Nietzsche makes explicit some moral ideas that form the repressed core of Western ethics but which are normally (no quotation marks needed) considered too embarrassing and too revealing to be touched upon. One could say that the repression that comes out in Nietzsche’s text drags so to speak with it issues that connect to ”shame” in a way that transcends the normal, social tolerance for shame. Thus, Nietzsche unwittingly reveals the fundamental shame-character of not only his own moral responses, but also of Western ethics in general. Nietzsche’s ethics is, then, not a revaluation but a revelation of Western values or, as I think: of value based ethics in general. (shrink)

An important yet often unacknowledged aspect of moral discourse is the phenomenon of moral impossibility, which challenges more widely accepted models of moral discussion and deliberation as a choice among possible options. Starting from observations of the new possibilities of anti immigrant attitudes and hate crimes which have been described by the press as something being “unleashed,” the paper asks what it means for something to enter or not the sphere of possibility in the moral sense, and whether it is (...) ever desirable for something to remain or be pushed back outside the realm of the morally possible. Three forms of moral impossibility are identified: the unconceived, the unthinkable, and moral incapacity. Through the discussion of a stark fictional example of moral impossibility, the paper concludes that while the category of moral impossibility cannot settle disagreement, it sheds light on some of the most fundamental aspects of moral life. (shrink)

The significance of narrative artworks as resources for, and possibly as instances of, philosophical thinking has increasingly been recognized over recent decades. Utilization of such resources in philosophy of religion has, however, been limited. Focusing on film in particular, this article develops an account of film’s importance for a ‘contemplative’ approach to philosophizing about religious ethics, an approach that prioritizes the elucidation of possibilities of sense over the evaluation of ‘truth claims’. Taking Dead Man Walking as a case in point, (...) the article shows how this film facilitates an enhanced comprehension of specific concepts, most notably the concepts of faith, truth and love, as they feature within a characteristically Christian form of life. (shrink)

The fact that real-world decisions made by artificial intelligences (AI) are often ethically loaded has led a number of authorities to advocate the development of “moral machines”. I argue that the project of building “ethics” “into” machines presupposes a flawed understanding of the nature of ethics. Drawing on the work of the Australian philosopher, Raimond Gaita, I argue that ethical dilemmas are problems for particular people and not (just) problems for everyone who faces a similar situation. Moreover, the force of (...) an ethical claim depends in part on the life history of the person who is making it. For both these reasons, machines could at best be engineered to provide a shallow simulacrum of ethics, which would have limited utility in confronting the ethical and policy dilemmas associated with AI. (shrink)

There is a prima facie conflict between the values of love and autonomy. How can we bind ourselves to a person and still enjoy the fruits of self-determination? This chapter argues that the solution to this conflict lies in recognizing that love is the basis of autonomy: one must love a person in order to truly appreciate their autonomy. To make this case, this chapter defends a minimalist account of love, according to which love is an agreeable sensation that is (...) experienced when considering the existence of another person. On this view, the lover does not desire anything from the beloved but works to attend to their presence. Love, then, puts us in a position to appreciate the beloved in their particular way of being. By accepting the presence of the beloved we gain a sense of their autonomy. The roots of this account of love are found in the writings of Damaris Cudworth Masham. This chapter draws on the work of Kieran Setiya, David Velleman, and Kyla Ebels-Duggan to elaborate on and defend Masham’s views. (shrink)

The purpose of the text is to demonstrate a distinction between good or virtue and evil or vice, introduced by Hannah Arendt on the grounds of the novel by Hermann Melville Billy Budd. I analyze this distinction in relation to the life story of Romulus Gaita, the hero of the autobiographical novel My father Romulus, written by the Australian ethicist Raimond Gaita. The first paragraph deals with the said distinction, indicating the re-evaluation of such concept as virtue and vice in (...) Melville’s novel and his understanding of virtue. Then, I make an attempt to answer the question of why Gaita writes about his father using a category of character instead of virtue. Then, I reflect on the relationship between virtue, character, goodness and Romulus’s mental illness. Finally, I answer the question about the metaphysical foundation on which Gaita forms his conviction about the superiority of Good and goodness over virtue, and I show what particular components make up the ethics of goodness assumed by Romulus. (shrink)

In order to articulate an account of erotic love that does not attempt to transcend its personal features, Robert Solomon and Martha Nussbaum lean on the speeches by Aristophanes and Alcibiades in Plato’s Symposium. This leads them to downplay the sense in which love is not only for another person, but also for the good. Drawing on a distinction between relative and absolute senses of speaking about the good, I mediate between two features of love that at first may seem (...) irreconcilable. The first is the sense in which love is deeply personal in character. The second is the sense in which we in love come to articulate ethical demands. With the help of the Diotimian ascent of love that Socrates presents in his speech, I submit that these two can come together in the realization that our personally conditioned responses in love are transformed to accommodate demands that carry an unconditional meaning. (shrink)

I explore what BernardWilliams means by regarding one’s action ‘purely externally, as one might regard anyone else’s action’, and how it links to regret and agent-regret. I suggest some ways that we might understand the external view: as a failure to recognize what one has done, in terms of Williams’s distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic luck, and as akin to Thomas Nagel’s distinction between an internal and external view. I argue that none of these captures what Williams was getting at (...) because they do not allow one to take a view on one’s action. I offer two alternative accounts. One turns around what we identify with, the other concerns what we care about. Both accounts capture how I might regret, rather than agent-regret, my own action. I demonstrate that these accounts can explain the relationship between an insurance payout and the external view, and they can explain the agent-relativity of agent-regret. (shrink)

I examine the ‘momentous’ choices that one makes early in life – about career or spouse, for example – and I ask what it means to regret such choices at the end of one’s life. I argue that such regrets are almost meaningless because of the difficulty of imaginatively accessing a much earlier self. I then contrast long-term regret to remorse, and argue that the two are qualitatively different experiences because remorse involves another person as victim.

In this essay, I propose a novel hybrid metanormative theory. According to this theory, speakers making normative claims express both cognitive and motivational attitudes in virtue of the constitutive norms of the particular speech acts they perform. This view has four principal virtues: it is consistent with traditional semantic theories, it supports a form of motivational judgment internalism that does justice to externalist intuitions, it illuminates the connection between normative language and normative thought, and it explains how speakers can express (...) different conative states when speaking in different normative domains. In the first section, I discuss the theories of Stephen Finlay and David Copp. I show that they each come very close to having it both ways but ultimately fail. Understanding the shortcomings of these views is instrumental to a clear presentation of my own Hybrid Speech Act theory in section two. In the final section, I demonstrate how my view achieves its four advantages. (shrink)

Polemizując z poglądami niektórych filozofów moralności, autor broni tezy, iż jednoznacznie dobrzy ludzie mogą być pewni spokoju swej duszy.

Forgiveness is clearly an important aspect of our moral lives, yet surprisingly Kant, one of the most important authors in the history of Western ethics, seems to have very little to say about it. Some authors explain this omission by noting that forgiveness sits uncomfortably in Kant’s moral thought: forgiveness seems to have an ineluctably ‘elective’ aspect which makes it to a certain extent arbitrary; thus it stands in tension with Kant’s claim that agents are autonomous beings, capable of determining (...) their own moral status through rational reflection and choice. Other authors recognise that forgiveness plays a role in Kant’s philosophy but fail to appreciate the nature of this duty and misrepresent the Kantian argument in support of it. This paper argues that there is space in Kant’s philosophy for a genuine theory of forgiveness and hopes to lay the grounds for a correct interpretation of this theory. I argue that from a Kantian perspective, forgiveness is not ‘elective’ but, at least in some cases, morally required. I claim that, for Kant, we have an imperfect duty of virtue to forgive repentant wrongdoers that have embarked on a project of self-reflection and self-reform. I develop a novel argument in support of this duty by drawing on Kant’s theory of rational agency, the thesis of radical evil, Kant’s theory of moral development, and the formula of humanity. However, it must be noted that this is a conditional duty and Kant’s position also entails that absence of repentance on the part of the wrongdoer should be taken as evidence of a lack of commitment to a project of self-reflection and self-reform. In such cases, Kant claims, we have a perfect duty to ourselves not to forgive unrepentant wrongdoers. I argue that this duty should be understood as one of the duties of self-esteem, which involves the duty to respect and recognise our own dignity as rational beings. (shrink)

Over several decades, Cora Diamond has articulated a distinctive way of thinking about ethics. Prompted by a recent critique of Diamond, we elucidate some of the main themes of her work, and reveal their power to reconfigure and deepen moral philosophy. In concluding, we suggest that Diamond’s moral philosophical practice can be seen as one plausible way of fleshing out what Wittgenstein might have meant by his dictum that “ethics is transcendental”.

This paper examines the possibility of setting a boundary between religion and “pseudo-religion” (or superstition). Philosophers of religion inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ideas, in particular, insist that religious language-use can be neither legitimated nor criticized from the perspective of non-religious language-games. Thus, for example, the “theodicist” requirement that the existence of evil should be theoretically reconciled with theism can be argued to be pseudo-religious (superstitious). Another example discussed in the paper is the relation between religion and morality. The paper concludes (...) by reflecting on the issue of relativism arising from the Wittgensteinian contention that the religion vs. pseudo-religion division can only be drawn within a religious framework, and on Wittgenstein’s own suggestion that the religious person “uses a picture”. (shrink)

In this article I will address the question of determining the moral limits of reproductive decisions. In so doing I will examine the contributions made by John Harris, who has over the years consistently addressed the ethical implications of advancing reproductive technologies. In addressing these matters, Harris has centred his arguments on the principle of harm and with this in mind has set out a specific theoretical framework from which decisions about disability and causing harm, as in the case of (...) reproductive decisions, can be rationally addressed. This discussion will attempt to question the conceptual scheme that he proposes. The aim here is not to present an alternative theoretical contribution to the morality of reproductive choice. Rather, in the attempt to follow some of the directives in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, the aim is to demonstrate some of the pitfalls of what Wittgenstein has described as the “craving for generality” in contemporary philosophy. I propose that this craving can distort, in this instance, our ordinary usage of concepts such as harm, suffering and disability and their role in the moral vocabulary of reproductive decision making. (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)

The “disability paradox” is the idea that for those who become severely disabled, their own quality of life assessment remains at or slightly below the QoL assessments of normal controls. This is a source of skepticism regarding third-person QoL judgments of the disabled. I argue here that this skepticism applies as well to those who are in the minimally conscious state. For rather simple means of sustaining an MCS patient’s life, the cost of being wrong that the patient would not (...) want further support is high. Pair this cost with the reason to be skeptical of third-person judgments, and my argument suggests not withholding food and water from MCS patients. (shrink)

This paper examines the relationship between monadic and bipolar forms of normativity. As the distinction is usually drawn, monadic normativity concerns whether a given action is right or wrong while bipolar normativity concerns who, if anyone, is wronged in any putative instance of wrongdoing. My central thesis is that in the moral realm, we do well to discard the notion of monadic normativity altogether and focus instead on the contours and limits of bipolar normativity. For by placing greater weight on (...) the significance of wronging particular others, as opposed to simply doing something wrong, we get a more compelling picture of the distinctive importance of morality and its relationship to other norms that govern our lives. (shrink)

It is often assumed that moral questions ask for answers in the way other questions do. In this article, moral and non-moral versions of the question ‘Should I do x or y?’ are compared. While non-moral questions of that form typically ask for answers of the form ‘You should do x/y’, so-called ‘narrow answers’, moral questions often do not ask for such narrow answers. Rather, they ask for answers recognizing their delicacy, the need for a deeper understanding of the meaning (...) of the alternatives and the fact that moral decisions are, as Gaita formulates it, ‘non-accidentally and inescapably’ the agent’s to make. In short, moral questions often ask for a kind of answer that is highly different from the kind of answer non-moral questions ask for. In presupposing the ideal answer to a moral question to be a narrow answer, moral philosophers have tended to overlook this. (shrink)

The paper argues that metaphysical thought, or thought in whose context our general framework of sense is under scrutiny, involves, legitimates, and requires a variety of informal analogues of the ‘true contradictions’ supported in some paraconsistent formal logics. These are what we can call informal ‘legitimate logical inadequacies’. These paradoxical logical structures also occur in deeply pluralist contexts, where more than one, conflicting general framework for sense is relevant. The paper argues further that these legitimate logical inadequacies are real or (...) inherent in sense itself rather than conventional, shows how they can feature in argumentative practice in these metaphysical and pluralist contexts, and discusses some of their implications for metaphysical truth and for philosophical inquiry and disagreement. (shrink)

Should those who get dirty hands be punished? There is strong disagreement among even those who support the existence of such scenarios. The problem arises because the paradoxical nature of dirty hands - doing wrong to do right - renders the standard normative justifications for punishment unfit for purpose. The Consequentialist, Retributivist and Communicative approaches cannot accommodate the idea that an action can be right, all things considered, but nevertheless also a categorical wrong. This paper argues that punishment is indeed (...) appropriate for those who dirty their hands and that there are three normative justifications that can be used to support this claim. These are the justifications from ‘Catharsis’, ‘Recognition of Evil Suffered’ and ‘Causal Responsibility’. Together they provide the sui generis justifications for punishing dirty hands. (shrink)

Language suggestive of natural law ethics, similar to the Catholic understanding of ethical foundations, is prevalent in a number of disciplines. But it does not always issue in a full-blooded commitment to objective ethics, being undermined by relativist ethical currents. In law and politics, there is a robust conception of "human rights", but it has become somewhat detached from both the worth of persons in themselves and from duties. In education, talk of "values" imports ethical considerations but hints at a (...) subjectivist view of them. In the psychology and sociology of drug use, ethically thin concepts of "harm minimisation" and "selfimage" dominate discussion and distract attention from the virtue of temperance and the training of character. A more forceful assertion of an ethics based on the worth of persons in these cases would be most desirable. Arguments against objectivity in the fundamentals may be replied to by examining the parallel between ethics and the discipline whose objectivity has been least challenged by relativist arguments, mathematics. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 3, Page 297-319, July 2022.

Does remorse imply self-hatred? In this paper, I argue that self-hatred is a false response to one’s wrongdoing because it is corrupted by the vice of pride, which affects the perception of its object. To identify the detrimental operation of pride, I propose to study the process of change of heart and its impediments. I use the example of Kostelnička, from Janáček’s opera Jenůfa, to show that the impediment to remorse is active already as a source of wrongdoing and self-deception. (...) I identify three different aspects of Kostelnička’s pride: social ambition, defensive anger, and moral ambition. I show that it is pride as moral ambition that prevents the wrongdoer’s acknowledgment of her blameworthiness by causing her obsession with her blameless self-image and corrupting her self-love. In the last part of the paper, I reject Kostelnička’s initial self-hatred before her change of heart, because it is not based on an accurate judgement of her agency. Kostelnička’s true remorse is thereupon connected with her inner transformation towards humility and with a reorientation of her attention towards the victim of her wrongdoing, as testified in her plea for forgiveness. The implied moral improvement and reconstitution of her relationship to herself and others opens the way for her coming to terms with her guilt. (shrink)

In the concluding lines of Part Three of The Claim of Reason, Stanley Cavell writes: ‘If the moralist is the human being who best grasps the human position, teaches us what our human position is, better than we know, in ways we cannot escape but through distraction and muddle, then our first task in subjecting ourselves to judgment is to tell the moralist from the moralizer’. Cavell then proceeds to characterize the moralizer as one who is ‘speaking in the name (...) of a position one does not occupy, confronting others in positions of which one will not imagine the acknowledgement’. Beginning with an exposition of Cavell’s notion of ‘moral position’, I will offer an interpretation of the distinction he draws between the moralist and the moralizer; I will then explain how the moral philosopher’s use of morally significant words may come to resemble the moralizer’s; and then I will argue that contemporary English-speaking moral philosophy as represented by the recent debates concerning ‘moral testimony’, or ‘moral deference’, has been failing its moralist aspirations, and that, by Cavell’s lights, the morality reflected in those debates is, in essence, that of the moralizer. (shrink)

It is twelve years since the article you are about to read was published. During that time, the philosophy in schools movement has expanded and diversified in response to curriculum developments, teaching guides, web-based resources, dissertations, empirical research and theoretical scholarship. Philosophy and philosophy of education journals regularly publish articles and special issues on pre-college philosophy. There are more opportunities for undergraduate and graduate philosophy students to practice and research philosophy for/with children in schools. The Ontario Philosophy Teachers Association reports (...) that in English-speaking Canada there are over 28,000 senior high school students studying philosophy in over 440 schools, and philosophy is now a Teachable Qualification. In the USA, the Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization was founded in 2009 to create a network of pre-college philosophy teachers. With the loss of its founders—Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp and Gareth Matthews —the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children is developing a digital archive in P4C. My original article was inspired by the design and pilot of a new philosophy elective for the Victorian Certificate of Education. This initiative garnered considerable interest from the P4C community because many believed that the decision to offer a VCE philosophy elective reflected the effectiveness and popularity of P4C in elementary schools, and the new philosophy elective would establish P4C as an essential prerequisite for the study of philosophy in senior secondary school and at university. In my view, enthusiasts overlooked an important difference in the conception of philosophy informing the new philosophy elective: it introduced students to the theoretical or academic discipline of philosophy, whereas P4C conceived of philosophy as a wisdom tradition—otherwise known as the art of living. (shrink)

Raimond Gaita’s work in moral philosophy is unusual and important in focusing on the concept of sainthood. Drawing partly on the work of George Orwell, and partly on the life and work of Simone Weil, as well as on further material, I argue that Gaita’s use of this notion to help make sense of the concept of human preciousness is unconvincing, not least because he does not properly explore the figure and psychology of the saint in any detail. I relatedly (...) argue that the notion of human preciousness in question is implausible and, in some ways, sentimental. I also explore Gaita’s concept of “speaking personally” in moral philosophy, and suggest that matters here are a great deal more complicated than he supposes. (shrink)

ExtractOn 28th September 2008, Frank McGarahan was viciously attacked, receiving fatal injuries, after intervening when he saw two homeless people being attacked in Norwich city centre. He had been out with friends and relatives and was waiting to go home when the incident occurred. A relative said later: ‘Frank was a fair- minded person. He wouldn't see anyone treated unfairly.’ There have, tragically, been several other incidents of a similar kind in recent years. The case of Jamie Mizen springs to (...) mind – the teenager who was fatally stabbed in the throat with a broken plate for refusing to fight outside the shop where he had gone to buy his first lottery ticket on his 16th birthday. Many of us are profoundly moved to pity and sorrow when we learn of such incidents; frequently we are horrified.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.HUMAN RIGHTS AND INDIVIDUALITYVolume 12, Issue 34Adrian BrocklessDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175613000031Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. HUMAN RIGHTS AND INDIVIDUALITYVolume 12, Issue 34Adrian BrocklessDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175613000031Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. HUMAN RIGHTS AND INDIVIDUALITYVolume 12, Issue 34Adrian BrocklessDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175613000031Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation. (shrink)

An influential view of education is that it prepares young people for adult life, usually in the areas of civic engagement, leisure and contemplation. Employment may be a locus for learning some worthwhile skills and knowledge, but it is not itself the possible locus or one of the possible loci of a worthwhile life. This article disputes that view by drawing attention to those aspects of employment that make it potentially an aspect of a worthwhile life. The exercise and development (...) of one's abilities, co-operation with others, self-discovery and the pursuit of excellence are all identified as potential components of a worthwhile life. If such an aspect of life is worth striving for then education should prepare one for it. Objections to this argument are reviewed and ultimately rejected. (shrink)

Discussions of responsibility typically focus on the person who is held responsible: what are the conditions or criteria of responsibility; what can be done to or demanded of a person who is responsible? This paper shifts focus onto those who hold, rather than those who are held, responsible: what do we owe to those whom we hold responsible? After distinguishing responsibility as answerability from responsibility as liability, it attends mainly to the former, and points out the ways in which it (...) is multiply relational: I am responsible for something to someone who has the standing to call me to account for it, under the norms of some particular practice. Responsibility as thus understood is also reciprocal: if you are to be answerable to me, I must treat you with a certain respect, attend seriously to your answer, and be ready to answer to you myself. The paper explores some of the implications of this point both for our moral dealings with each other, and for criminal law and the criminal trial. (shrink)

Contemporary moral philosophy assumes an account of what it means to legitimately change one’s mind in ethics, and I wish to challenge this account by enlarging the category of the legitimate. I am just as eager to avoid illegitimate mind-changing brought on by deceit or brainwashing, but I claim that legitimacy should be defined in terms of transparency of method. A social reformer should not be embarrassed to admit that he acquired many beliefs about justice while reading Dickens. As such, (...) appeals to the heart and the imagination are just as legitimate, within limits, as appeals to the mind; and showing can be as legitimate as telling. To demonstrate this, I consider the example of a vegetarian trying to ‘convert’ a carnivore. I then ask what it means when the carnivore claims to have been previously mistaken. (shrink)