In her work on virtue ethics Rosalind Hursthouse has formulated an Aristotelian criterion of rightness that understands rightness in terms of what the virtuous person would do. It is argued here that this kind of criterion does not allow enough room for the category of the supererogatory and that right and wrong should rather be understood in terms of the characteristic behavior of decent persons. Furthermore, it is suggested that this kind of approach has the added advantage of allowing one (...) to make sense of the centrality of negative precepts in commonsense morality. (shrink)

This is a paper about the methodology of normative ethics. I claim that much work in normative ethics can be interpreted as modelling, the form of inquiry familiar from science, involving idealised representations. I begin with the anti-theory debate in ethics, and note that the debate utilises the vocabulary of scientific theories without recognising the role models play in science. I characterise modelling, and show that work with these characteristics is common in ethics. This establishes the plausibility of my interpretation. (...) Taking methodological inspiration from modelling in science gives us new tools for managing idealisations, and a new perspective on pluralism. I demonstrate why this interpretation is a fruitful way of interpreting ethics, by looking at three case studies. First, I return to the anti-theory debate and argue that modelling opens up a new middle ground. Second, I argue that a modelling lens offers a new way of understanding impossibility theorems in population ethics, and their bearing on ethics as a whole. Finally, I show how viewing our work as modelling can be deployed in debates within ethics, using the debate over prioritarianism as an example. I close with further methodological suggestions for those who choose to see themselves as modellers. I discuss the role of counterexamples, our responses to moral disagreement, and the training of new ethicists. (shrink)

In 1958, a group of New-Confucians issued "A Manifesto for a Re-Appraisal of Sinology and Reconstruction of Chinese Culture." Equally in 1958, the British philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe published her classical paper "Modern Moral Philosophy." These two papers have the same target — modern Western morality — and the solutions they proposed respectively. Yet Anscombe's paper did not mention Confucianism, and the "Manifesto" ignored Aristotelian tradition of virtue. Furthermore, from 1960s to 1990s, the revival movement of Confucianism and the revival movement (...) of Aristotelian ethics have not had much dialogue. This paper seeks to explain this phenomenon by comparing these two historically important documents. In particular it tries to understand why the "Manifesto" fails to see the similarities between Aristotle and Confucius. /// 摘要 1958年，现代新儒家发表了 "为中国文化敬告世界人士宣言"。该宣言批判 西方文化的缺陷，并通过探索中国文化对世界人类问题的贡献而倡导中国文化的复 兴。同样在1958年，英国学者安思康发表了 "近代道德哲学"。这两篇文献有着共 同的批评目标一一近现代西方道德，而且，各自提出的解决方案也有相似之处。然 而，安思康并没有提及孔子，而宣言也漠视亚里士多德传统。进一步说，从19世纪 60年代到90年代，由他们所分别推动的新儒学复兴与德性伦理学复兴这两大运动之 间缺少对话和交流。通过比较分析这两篇同年发表的历史性文献，不仅可以找到两 大复兴运动对话缺失的原因，而且还可以解释为什么 "宣言" 没有能够发现孔子与 亚里士多德在德性伦理学方面的一致性。. (shrink)

The concept of moral identity based on virtue ethics has become an issue of considerable import in explaining moral behavior. This attempt to offer adequate explanations of the full range of morally relevant human behavior inevitably provokes boundary issues between ethics and moral psychology. In terms of the relationship between the two disciplines, some argue for ?naturalized (or psychologized) morality,? whereas, on the other hand, others insist on ?moralized psychology.? This article investigates the relationship between virtue ethics and moral identity (...) based on previous research on the relationship between ethics and moral psychology. This article especially attempts to show that meaningful links between the two concepts possible by using theoretical frameworks constructed by the most influential philosophers of science such as Kuhn and Lakatos. (shrink)

In On What Matters, Derek Parfit argues that Nietzsche does not disagree with central normative beliefs that ‘we’ hold. Such disagreement would threaten Parfit’s claim that normative beliefs are known by intuition. However, Nietzsche defends a conception of well-being that challenges Parfit’s normative claim that suffering is bad in itself for the sufferer. Nietzsche recognizes the phenomenon of ‘growth through suffering’ as essential to well-being. Hence, removal of all suffering would lead to diminished well-being. Parfit claims that if Nietzsche understood (...) normative concepts in Parfit’s objectivist sense, he would not disagree with the claim that suffering is bad in itself – that intrinsic facts about suffering count in favour of our not wanting it. I argue that Nietzsche would disagree. Suffering for Nietzsche is not merely instrumentally necessary for psychological growth, nor is it easy to construe it as something bad in itself that contributes value as part of a good whole. Suffering that can be given meaning through growth is something we have reason to want. Suffering that remains brute and uninterpreted is something we have reason not to want. But for Nietzsche, suffering as such has no invariant value across all contexts. (shrink)

Recent developments in philosophy and in criminology indicate that there are significant respects in which the two disciplines can be mutually informing. Many philosophers are increasingly interested in exploring empirical aspects of philosophical claims, and criminologists are finding their way past the alleged fact/value distinction and are rediscovering the moral significance of facts, especially regarding punishment and desistance. In some recent criminological studies there are implicit links to the British moralists such as David Hume and Adam Smith, and to Aristotle (...) as well. This paper explicates those links and some of the possibilities for philosophy and criminology to be mutually informing. (shrink)

RésuméJ'examine ici la plausibilité du perfectionnisme, compris comme une théorie morale dotée d'une structure conséquentialiste maximisante et du principe d'action suivant: maximise la valeur perfectionniste. Je soutiens que: 1) la structure en question ne répond pas aux préoccupations principales qui ont été responsables de l'intérêt récent pour ce type de théorie; 2) le principe d'action n'a que l'apparence de la précision; 3) nous ne pouvons promouvoir la valeur perfectionniste, vue comme une exigence morale, qu'en l'intégrant à un cadre moral pluraliste; (...) et 4) si nous l'intégrons à un cadre moral pluraliste, alors le principe requérant sa promotion ne peut pas être un principe de maximisation. (shrink)

According to G.E.M Anscombe’s paper ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, modern moral philosophy has introduced a spurious concept of moral obligation, and has therefore made a mistake that the Greeks, and Aristotle in particular, avoided. Anscombe argues that the modern concepts of obligation, duty, and the moral ‘ought’ are the remnants of an earlier, but post-Aristotelian conception of ethics, and that they ought to be abandoned. An examination of Anscombe’s historical and philosophical claims shows that we have no reason to take them (...) seriously. In particular, they rest on a misinterpretation of Scholastic views on ‘ought’ and obligation. (shrink)

This article contributes to philosophical reflections on public health law by drawing on virtue jurisprudence, which rests on the straightforward observation that a political community and its laws will inevitably shape the character of its officials and subjects, and that an excellent character is indispensable to fulfilment. Thus, the law is properly set to encourage virtue and discourage vice. This opens a new perspective onto the ultimate purpose of public health law that is human flourishing. The means of pursuing this (...) end is to entrust public health powers to officials to virtuously serve the common good, of which population health is one of its most important constituents, within the bounds of the law of the land. This article calls for the adoption of a Prudent Public Health Official standard into the law, in order to cultivate prudent, just, courageous and temperate characters in officialdom. Interestingly, this standard already chimes with certain pre-existing core principles of public health judicial doctrine in the USA, the European Union and the UK. (shrink)

G.E.M. Anscombe argued that we should dispense with deontic concepts when doing ethics, if it is psychologically possible to do so. In response, I contend that deontic concepts are constitutive of the common moral experience of guilt. This has two consequences for Anscombe's position. First, seeing that guilt is a deontic emotion, we should recognize that Anscombe's qualification on her thesis applies: psychologically, we need deontology to understand our obligations and hence whether our guilt is warranted. Second, the fact that (...) guilt is a deontic moral emotion debunks Anscombe's claim that deontic concepts are a relic of the Western, religious past: guilt feelings–hence the idea of moral duty as well–can be found in cultures without an ethics of divine command. Modern moral philosophers' interest in oughts and obligations is not an academic hobbyhorse, but a vital concern arising out of a primeval human emotion. (shrink)

Questions concerning the role (or lack thereof) of God in morality are implicitly or explicitly important in Western philosophical ethics. I describe some of the different ways philosophers treat (or ignore) God and the foundations of morality more generally, and I highlight some of the implications of these approaches for bioethics. I demonstrate that the starting points we choose for morality set the course for fundamentally different accounts of what is permissible and impermissible, good and bad, and right and wrong.

Moral and political philosophers no longer condemn harm inflicted on nonhuman animals as self-evidently as they did when animal welfare and animal rights advocacy was at the forefront in the 1980s, and sentience, suffering, species-typical behavior, and personhood were the basic concepts of the discussion. The article shows this by comparing the determination with which societies seek responsibility for human harm to the relative indifference with which law and morality react to nonhuman harm. When harm is inflicted on humans, policies (...) concerning negligence and duty of care and principles such as the ‘but for’ rule and the doctrine of double effect are easily introduced. When harm is inflicted on nonhumans, this does not happen, at least not any more. As an explanation for the changed situation, the article offers a shift in discussion and its basic terminology. Simple ethical considerations supported the case for nonhuman animals, but many philosophers moved on to debate different views on political justice instead. This allowed the creation of many conflicting views that are justifiable on their own presuppositions. In the absence of a shared foundation, this fragments the discussion, focuses it on humans, and ignores or marginalizes nonhuman animals. (shrink)

To my knowledge, the term “flourishing” was introduced into contemporary philosophy in Elizabeth Anscombe's 1958 article “Modern Moral Philosophy.” In this article and in much of the writing subsequent to it, the concept of flourishing seems to have three principal facets, or to be associated with three philosophical views.

Consequentialism is a state of affairs centered moral theory that finds support in state of affairs centered views of value, reason, action, and desire/preference. Together these views form a mutually reinforcing circle. I map an exit route out of this circle by distinguishing between two different senses in which actions can be understood as bringing about states of affairs. All actions, reasons, desires, and values involve bringing about in the first, deflationary sense, but only some appear to involve bringing about (...) in a second, rationalizing sense. I demonstrate that the views making up this circle hold, implausibly, that all reasons, values, desires, and actions involve bringing about in both senses, and that failure to distinguish these senses obscures the implausibility of these views as a set. I demonstrate, in addition, that the distinction blocks two common arguments that otherwise threaten to leverage us back in to the consequentialist circle. (shrink)

I challenge the common picture of the “Standard Story” of Action as a neutral account of action within which debates in normative ethics can take place. I unpack three commitments that are implicit in the Standard Story, and demonstrate that these commitments together entail a teleological conception of reasons, upon which all reasons to act are reasons to bring about states of affairs. Such a conception of reasons, in turn, supports a consequentialist framework for the evaluation of action, upon which (...) the normative status of actions is properly determined through appeal to rankings of states of affairs as better and worse. This covert support for consequentialism from the theory of action, I argue, has had a distorting effect on debates in normative ethics. I then present challenges to each of these three commitments, a challenge to the first commitment by T.M. Scanlon, a challenge to the second by recent interpreters of Anscombe, and a new challenge to the third commitment that requires only minimal and prima facie plausible modifications to the Standard Story. The success of any one of the challenges, I demonstrate, is sufficient to block support from the theory of action for the teleological conception of reasons and the consequentialist evaluative framework. I close by demonstrating the pivotal role that such arguments grounded in the theory of action play in the current debate between evaluator-relative consequentialists and their critics. (shrink)

I offer a novel conception of the nature of wanting. According to it, wanting is lacking something one needs. Lacking is not a normative notion but needing is, and that is how goodness figures in to wanting. What a thing needs derives from what it is to be a good thing of its kind. In people, wanting is connected to both knowledge and the will. A person can know that she wants something and can act on that knowledge. When she (...) does, she is acting in light of that want and her want is a reason why she acted. There is a close connection between wanting and our wills, not just because we can sometimes choose how to get what we need, but because our choices can determine what we want. We can't simply choose to want something, but in deciding how to live our lives, who to be, and what to pursue, we are free to settle what we want, at least within limits. These connections to knowledge and the will make human wanting rich and morally relevant, but they don't transform human wanting into something special. Wanting is everywhere just a matter of lacking something one needs. (shrink)

I offer a novel conception of the nature of wanting. According to it, wanting is lacking something one needs. Lacking is not a normative notion but needing is, and that is how goodness figures in to wanting. What a thing needs derives from what it is to be a good thing of its kind. In people, wanting is connected to both knowledge and the will. A person can know that she wants something and can act on that knowledge. When she (...) does, she is acting in light of that want and her want is a reason why she acted. There is a close connection between wanting and our wills, not just because we can sometimes choose how to get what we need, but because our choices can determine what we want. We can't simply choose to want something, but in deciding how to live our lives, who to be, and what to pursue, we are free to settle what we want, at least within limits. These connections to knowledge and the will make human wanting rich and morally relevant, but they don't transform human wanting into something special. Wanting is everywhere just a matter of lacking something one needs. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a four component model of ethical behavior (PRIMES) that integrates literature in moral psychology, computing ethics, and virtue ethics as informed by research on moral exemplars in computing. This is part 1 of a two‐part contribution.Design/methodology/approachThis psychologically based and philosophically informed model argues that moral action is: grounded in relatively stable PeRsonality characteristics (PR); guided by integration of morality into the self‐system; shaped by the context of the surrounding moral ecology; and facilitated (...) by morally relevant skills and knowledge (S).FindingsThe model seeks to explain the daily successful (and unsuccessful) performance of moral action by computing professionals and to provide groundwork for a pedagogy that emphasizes ethically effective performance.Practical implicationsThe model has significant implications for how ethical action might be taught to computer professionals and other design professionals. It also makes recommendations about what is needed to measure to construct a complete picture of sustained ethical action in a profession.Originality/valueMost accepted models of ethical behavior are unidimensional, emphasizing either principled reasoning or a simplistic model of integrity/character. This model brings together a variety of disparate literatures in the light of its emphasis on sustained moral action in the profession. It thereby provides researchers and educators with a picture of what is needed to construct a complete understanding of moral action in the profession. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a four component model of ethical behavior that integrates literature in moral psychology, computing ethics, and virtue ethics as informed by research on moral exemplars in computing. This is part 2 of a two part contribution, part 1 having appeared in Vol. 6 No. 3.Design/methodology/approachThis psychologically based and philosophically informed model argues that moral action is grounded in relatively stable personality characteristics, guided by integration of morality into the self‐system, shaped by the (...) context of the surrounding moral ecology, and facilitated by morally relevant skills and knowledge.FindingsThe model seeks to explain the daily successful (and unsuccessful) performance of moral action by computing professionals and to provide groundwork for a pedagogy that emphasizes ethically effective performance.Practical implicationsThe model has significant implications for how ethical action to computer professionals and other design professionals might be taught. It also makes recommendations about what need to be measured to construct a complete picture of sustained ethical action in a profession.Originality/valueMost accepted models of ethical behavior are unidimensional, emphasizing either principled reasoning or a simplistic model of integrity/character. This model brings together a variety of disparate literatures in the light of its emphasis on sustained moral action in the profession. It thereby provides researchers and educators with a picture of what is needed to construct a complete understanding of moral action in the profession. (shrink)

Contemporary accounts of medical ethics and professionalism emphasize the importance of social justice as an ideal for physicians. This ideal is often specified as a commitment to attaining the universal availability of some level of health care, if not of other elements of a “decent minimum” standard of living. I observe that physicians, in general, have not accepted the importance of social justice for professional ethics, and I further argue that social justice does not belong among professional norms. Social justice (...) is a norm of civic rather than professional life; professional groups may demand that their members conform to the requirements of citizenship but ought not to require civic virtues such as social justice. Nor should any such requirements foreclose reasonable disagreement as to the content of civic norms, as requiring adherence to common specifications of social justice would do. Demands for any given form of social justice among physicians are unlikely to bear fruit as medical education is powerless to produce this virtue. (shrink)

If Hume is correct that the descriptive and the normative are “entirely different” matters, then it would seem to follow that endorsing a given account of action-explanation does not restrict the account of practical normativity one may simultaneously endorse. In this essay, I challenge the antecedent of this conditional by targeting its consequent. Specifically, I argue that if one endorses a Humean account of action-explanation, which many find attractive, one is thereby committed to a Humean account of practical normativity, which (...) many find unattractive. The key to this argument is showing that the justificatory base of any anti-Humean normative view is a generic representation of ideal rationality, which precludes any such view from combining coherently with a Humean account of action-explanation. If my arguments are successful, they demonstrate a way in which one’s views in action theory can both limit and be limited by the ethical views one endorses. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has become an important rival to deontology and consequentialism, the two dominant moral theories in modern Western philosophy. What unites various forms of virtue ethics and distinguishes virtue ethics from its rivals is its emphasis on the primacy of virtue. In this article, I start with an explanation of the primacy of virtue in virtue ethics and two dilemmas, detected by Gary Watson, that virtue ethics faces: (1) virtue ethics may maintain the primacy of virtue and thus leave (...) virtue non-explanatory, or it may attempt to explain virtue in terms of something else and thus render virtue secondary at most; (2) the explanation of virtue may be objective and thus become morally indeterminate, or it may be normative and thus lack objectivity, merely re-expressing the virtue it intends to explain (Section II). After showing the failure of both classical Aristotelian and contemporary neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics to escape these dilemmas, I turn to the ethical theory of Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200)—the greatest synthesizer of neo-Confucianism, whose place in Confucianism is comparable to that of Thomas Aquinas in the Christian tradition—to show how it can successfully avoid both dilemmas. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article explores how Charles Taylor’s account of moral personhood and Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot’s account of justificatory regimes can add breadth, depth, and specificity to discussions of ethical dilemmas in public relations. These frameworks are analyzed for their potential to make the following contributions to public relations ethics. First, they convey that there is more to ethics than choosing the right duties and actions. Second, they reveal the diversity of goods that people consider to be ethically worthy and (...) admirable, as well as the complex personal issues involved in ranking these goods. Third, they emphasize that these different goods often need to be articulated and evaluated in different ways. Last, they can either point toward new ways of resolving ethical dilemmas or show why such resolutions are not possible. (shrink)

The Authority Account provides a new explanation why commonsense morality contains prudential options—options that permit agents to perform actions that promote their own wellbeing more than the action they have most reason to do, from the moral point of view. At the core of that explanation are two claims. The first is that moral requirements are traditionally widely taken to have an authoritative status; that is, to be rules that morality imposes by right. The second is that in order for (...) moral requirements to have such a status, morality must contain prudential options. If both of these claims are true, then they will create a pressure to think of morality as containing prudential options. And according to the Authority Account, the fact that commonsense morality contains such options is the result of this pressure. (shrink)

The direct reference point for these analyses is the process of making moral decisions, but a particular point of interest is the difficulty associated with making decisions when acting subjects are aware that their choice of moral good can lead to the breakdown of relationships with those close to them or to their exclusion from the group that have been most important to them so far in their lives, consequently causing them to experience loneliness. This difficulty is a challenge for (...) education, which in supporting the moral development of a maturing person should prepare her/him for choosing moral good even if this requires personal sacrifices. In these analyses, assuming that knowledge of moral good is not sufficient for morally good actions, I refer mainly to the virtues of character that facilitate making morally good decisions and I seek the answer to the question: what character traits should be shaped in maturing persons, so that as adults they can resist moral evil, even when this will clearly lead to the experience of loneliness? I propose these character traits as expressing moral virtues—especially the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. In this way, I join in the discussion relating to the teleology of education. I do not touch on the methodology of education, however. The argument is presented in two parts. In the first, I introduce the problem of decision-making implying consent to loneliness. In the second, I reflect on the characteristics of a person who is capable of making such a decision. (shrink)

In my contribution I ask whether the version of secular reason Jürgen Habermas characterises as “post-metaphysical” can really provide us children of modernity with a comprehensive self- and world-understanding. I begin by asking what it means to claim that secular reason is “post-metaphysical” (1). There are various possible ways of understanding this characterisation, some stronger than others; but there needs to be clarity on this issue to address my second question: What would secular reason really have to achieve in order (...) to make good on its claim that it can still provide us with a comprehensive understanding of our relation both to ourselves and to the world? I will split this question along two dimensions: from a theoretical standpoint we should explore how reality has to be understood in order to allow us to attain a consistent understanding of self and world; from a practical standpoint, we need to ask which attitudes we would actually have to adopt towards reality in order to find in it the kind of orientation that Habermas believes his version of secular reason holds in store (2). In a third step, I follow up on these practical considerations by asking whether, at the level of everyday praxis, an orienting conception of self and world in this day and age does not in fact demand more than Habermas seems to have in mind (3). Finally, and returning, albeit indirectly, to the meaning of “post-metaphysical”, I cast some doubt on the Habermasian thesis that secular reason can survive only in the form of a tradition that reaches back either to Kant or to Hume; I want to question whether this division is exhaustive and briefly bring a third alternative into play (4). (shrink)

The discussion of moral dilemmas is often proposed as one way to teach ethics. But can ethics be taught to everyone? Do participants’ value orientations predict the acquisition of moral competence in an educational context? This study presents data from an evaluation of a course on the social consequences of information technology. IT-related dilemma discussions were used extensively in the course. The participants answered questionnaires at the beginning of the course and before their final exam at the end of term. (...) Moral competence was measured with the Moral Judgment Test. A questionnaire on individual reflexive values was used for the assessment of value orientations. Although the participants’ average level of moral competence did not change significantly, there was evidence that participants with a high degree of materialistic values were less likely to acquire moral competence during the course. (shrink)

Radical virtue serves two distinct purposes: consolation in unfavorable circumstances, and prescription to achieve better ones. This paper maps out the theoretical nuances important for practical guidance. For a Stoic, radical virtue is a way to live well through environmental tragedy. For a consequentialist, it is an instrument to motivate us to combat climate change. For an Aristotelian, it is both. I argue that an Aristotelian approach fares the best, balancing the aim of external success with the aim of living (...) well through practical wisdom. This involves criticizing assumptions about living well that underlie behaviors that contribute to climate change. Some might object virtue theory suffers from application problems, and an Aristotelian approach suffers even more because it does not tell the virtuous person how to negotiate her aims. In response, Aristotelian revision starts with moral perception that adds valuable content by navigating through the messiness. (shrink)

This article examines the moral-theoretic implications of a species of moral incapacity which is frequently acknowledged, but nowhere fully explored, in the extant literature. This is the species ‘moral incapacity of vice,’ comprised of those strict limits to intentional action that manifest a weakness or corruption of moral character. Such incapacities demand closer attention, because they block a prominent line of skepticism about the moral incapacities (skepticism resulting partly from theorists’ heretofore exclusive concern with moral incapacities of virtue). A literary (...) example of moral incapacity of vice is analyzed by means of a Thomistic concept of capital vice. The case blocks moral incapacity skepticism, illustrates that moral incapacities of vice share all of the major criterial (i.e., significant and collectively distinctive) features of moral incapacities of virtue, and brings out the significance of such incapacities for our understanding of character, practical reasoning, and agency. (shrink)

In her book Iris Murdoch, Gender and Philosophy, Sabina Lovibond argues that Iris Murdoch's philosophical and literary work is covertly dedicated to an ideology of female subordination. The most central and interesting aspect of her multifaceted argument concerns Murdoch's focus on the individual person's moral self-scrutiny and transformation of consciousness. Lovibond suggests that this focus is antithetical to the kind of communal and structural criticism of society that has been essential for the advance of feminism. She further reads Murdoch's dismissal (...) of “structuralism” as proof of Murdoch's alleged conservatism and neglect of feminist concerns. In this article I will argue that this line of argument—though not completely off-base concerning the awkwardness of Murdoch's relation to feminism— gives a misleading picture of Murdoch's philosophical and ideological position, and establishes a problematic antagonism between moral self-scrutiny and social criticism, which a closer look at Murdoch's work can help us overcome. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the lack of interest, among analytic moral philosophers, in the contingencies of our moral present, produces an impoverished moral philosophy, unable to address the moral problems and quandaries of ordinary people. What is needed to remedy this is a broadening of the scope of the moral philosopher’s thought to include a rich attention to moral phenomena of the present. One such phenomenon, attended to by sociologists and critical journalists over the past few decades, is (...) the contemporary proliferating genre of psychologically oriented self-help literature. I display a range of sociological responses to self-help in order to point out aspects of morality that are made visible in these discussions, whereas they often remain invisible in standard moral philosophy. The aim is not to suggest a specific methodology for including such material into philosophical discussions, but rather to urge philosophers to reconsider the range of materials they attend to in their work, in order to produce a more lively engagement with and understanding of contemporary morality. (shrink)

Contemporary moral philosophy is split between an inherently a-historical moral philosophy/theory on the one hand and a growing interest in moral history and the historicity of morality on the other. In between these, the very moments of moral change are often left insufficiently attended to and under-theorized. Yet moral change is, arguably, one of the defining features of present day moral frameworks, and thus one of the main things we need to make sense of in moral philosophy. In this paper, (...) I present an account of moral change through the use of three metaphors: the tipping point, the bargaining table and the strong rope. I suggest these as coordinates for the development of a full-blown, historically sensitive conception of morality. (shrink)

Beginning with Barry Hoffmaster’s charge that we reclaim bioethics from the moral philosopher’s top-down theorizing, I discuss two moral philosophy contexts that offer resources for the kind of complex attention Hoffmaster demands: Iris Murdoch and Cora Diamond in moral philosophy and Margaret Urban Walker, Hilde Lindeman, and Marian Verkerk’s joint take on bioethics. My aim is: 1) to dispel a simplified notion of philosophy in bioethics; 2) to unite two strands of philosophy, which converge on important issues relevant to contemporary (...) bioethics; and 3) to explore these strands in terms of enabling, maieutic work on our ethical points of departure. (shrink)

I argue that the separation of the conjoined Attard twins of Manchester was not morally justified as it involved intentionally internally affecting (“invading”) the body of the weaker twin without permission and without any advantage to her.

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Corporate/collective moral responsibility is a thorny topic in business ethics and this paper argues that this is due a number of unacknowledged and connected epistemic issues. Firstly, CSR, Corporate Citizenship and many other research streams that are based on the assumption of collective and/or corporate moral responsibility are not compatible with Kantian ethics, consequentialism, or virtue ethics because corporate/collective responsibility violates the axioms and central hypotheses of these research programmes. Secondly, in the absence of a sound theoretical moral philosophical foundation, (...) business ethicists have based their ideas on legal and political epistemologies, yet still claim to be ethics-based. Thirdly, research is often driven by an intention to prove that a specific social goal is right, not by open and critical inquiry. Finally, today, corporate/collective moral responsibility is widely accepted as the Truth as most researchers are unaware of any issues because they are untrained in philosophy. The paper identifies the confusion about the epistemic basis as a major impediment for delivering a thick concept of the role of corporations as moral agents. Thus, the paper does not argue against corporate or collective agency as such, but points out an obvious but forgotten paradox: corporate and collective personhood cannot, at the moment at least, be epistemologically grounded in the field in which business ethics claims to operate: moral philosophy. (shrink)

This paper transforms a development of an argument against pantheism into an objection to the usual account of God within contemporary analytic philosophy. A standard criticism of pantheism has it that pantheists cannot offer a satisfactory account of God as personal. My paper will develop this criticism along two lines: first, that personhood requires contentful mental states, which in turn necessitate the membership of a linguistic community, and second that personhood requires limitation within a wider context constitutive of the ’setting’ (...) of the agent’s life. Pantheism can, I argue, satisfy neither criterion of personhood. At this point the tables are turned on the Swinburnian theist. If the pantheist cannot defend herself against the personhood-based attacks, neither can the Swinburnian, and for instructively parallel reasons: for neither doctrine is God in the material world; in the pantheist case God is identical with the world, in the Swinburnian case God transcends it. Either way both the pantheist and the Swinburnian are left with a dilemma: abandon divine personhood or modify the doctrine of God so as to block the move to personhood. (shrink)

Moral exemplarism, which insists on the centrality of particular embodiments of exemplary virtue to the moral life, is currently receiving significant attention within moral philosophy as well as theological and religious ethics. This introductory essay situates the contributions made by this focus issue on moral exemplarity in relation to the history of attention to moral exemplars, the twentieth‐century turn to virtue, philosopher Linda Zagzebski’s exemplarist moral theory, Stanley Hauerwas’s particularist embrace of Christian discipleship, Foucauldian turns to critique and self‐cultivation, and (...) the significance of exemplars in Jeffrey Stout’s democratic piety. Arguing for the critical importance of articulating the authority of exemplars, this essay points to the ways in which the present focus can assist us to navigate between the shoals of nostalgic deference to tradition and dismissive critiques of authoritarianism. (shrink)

Can the theology of Thomas Aquinas serve as a resource for reflection on democratic civic virtue? That is the central question taken up by Mark Jordan, Adam Eitel, John Bowlin, and Michael Lamb in this focus issue. The four authors agree on one thing: Aquinas himself was no fan of democracy. They disagree, though, over whether Aquinas can offer resources for theorizing democratic virtues. Bowlin, Eitel, and Lamb believe he can, and propose Thomistic accounts of tolerance, civic friendship, and democratic (...) hope, respectively. Jordan, in contrast, issues a cautionary note against such enterprises. This divergence is due in part to different judgments about what it would mean to claim certain resources as “Thomistic.” In part, too, it flows from a disagreement about whether Aquinas himself countenances genuine virtues among non-Christian citizens, and about whether Christians and non-Christians can be said to share even proximate ends. This conversation is an important one, since accounts of the democratic virtues constructed using Thomistic resources have the potential to move discussions of democratic and theological virtues beyond common impasses. (shrink)

For a couple of years, “Aristotelian Naturalism” has been the subject of intensive debates. Among the most prominent proponents of this type of ethical theory are Philippa Foot and John McDowell. At first sight, these approaches are quite attractive for they seem to combine a number of advantages. The central thesis of the present paper is, however, that they do not succeed in developing a convincing ethical theory. To substantiate this claim, Foot’s approach will be presented in a first step. (...) In a second step, McDowell’s critique on Foot will be out- lined. Foot’s attempt to provide an external foundation for morality takes centre stage here. In a third step, McDowell’s own version of Aristotelian Naturalism, which has an explicitly anti-foundational shape, will be delineated. Although McDowell’s critique on Foot proves to be valid, it leads him to the wrong con- clusions. He ignores that a reason-internal foundation of morality is available which resists his legitimate critique while being superior to his own anti-foun- dational theory. At the core of such an approach lies a non-reductive concept of person, which stands in clear contrast to Foot’s concept of “life form” as well as to McDowell’s concept of “second nature”. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This article draws on a study investigating how 11–14 year olds growing up in England understand cyber-bullying as a moral concern. Three prominent moral theories: deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics, informed the development of a semi-structured interview schedule which enabled young people, in their own words, to describe their experiences of online and offline bullying. Sixty 11–14 year olds from six schools across England were involved with the research. Themes emerging from the interviews included anonymity; the absence of rules, monitoring (...) and guidance and, the challenges associated with determining the consequences of online actions. The findings demonstrate the advantages of adopting a character-based moral theory to compliment rules and/or consequence based moral theories as the basis for future research into cyber-bullying. The findings evoke some wider implications for future research into cyber-bullying that might equally be applied to investigations into other Internet related moral concerns. (shrink)

In the management domain the revival of interest in virtue ethics has been not so much in seeking a deeper understanding of the virtues themselves as in finding exemplars and pursuing the concept that virtue is a proper end of business. The aim of this paper is to show that a philosophical treatment of the great virtues can enlighten management understanding of them and to examine in more detail courage, love and wisdom. The paper includes an overview of the approach (...) to the virtues in contemporary management literature, a brief summary of the traditional account of the moral virtues, and discussion of six contemporary concepts of management. The contribution which an understanding of individual virtues can make to effective management will then be explored, drawing on earlier work by the author in relation to both courage and love as management virtues. (shrink)

Psychoanalytic writing rarely features on university ethics curricula, so the idea that psychoanalysis has a place in the history of ethics may be a surprise. The aim of the paper is to show that it should not be. The strategy is to sketch in outline an enduring line of inquiry in the history of ethics, namely the Platonic-Aristotelian investigation of the relationship between human nature, human excellence and the human good, and to suggest that psychoanalysis exemplifies it too. But since (...) the suggestion, once made, seems not only true but obviously true, the paper spends some time exploring why the place of psychoanalysis in the history of ethics has so often been overlooked, before developing the outline more fully and offering detailed reasons as to why psychoanalysis fits it. One consequence is that Freudian and ‘relational’ variants of psychoanalysis continue the Platonic-Aristotelian line of inquiry in interestingly different ways. (shrink)

The authors propose a framework to integrate virtue ethics into marketing theory and apply it to the development of marketing strategies. Virtue ethics, a philosophy that focuses on an individual's moral character, has received limited attention from marketing scholars and researchers. The authors argue that without consideration of virtue ethics a comprehensive analysis of the ethical character of marketing decision makers and their strategies cannot be achieved. They provide an overview of virtue ethics supplemented by a case study of The (...) Body Shop, International to demonstrate how evaluation of the ethics of corporate executives and their marketing strategies is completed by virtue ethics. (shrink)

One of the dominant traditions in normative ethics is characterised by the attempt to develop a comprehensive moral theory that can distinguish right from wrong in a range of cases by drawing on a philosophical account of the good. Familiar versions of consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics have emerged from this tradition. Yet such theories often seem to lack the resources needed to evaluate the broader contexts in which moral dilemmas arise, which may cause them to encourage moral complicity. Context-insensitive (...) complicity of this sort receives surprisingly little direct philosophical attention, despite its being a ubiquitous concern for ordinary moral agents and despite the threat it poses to this form of ethical theorising. The present paper sketches the problem more formally and canvasses some leading responses before locating its source in the implicit distinction between moral and non-moral domains at the root of much traditional normative theorising. (shrink)

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