Kant's moral theory has received trenchant criticism for its rigorism. Rigorism generally denotes an overemphasis on rules in moral theory, and a consequent neglect of the roles of emotional receptivity and perception in moral judgement. Critics of Kant's ethics have invoked the term rigorism with reference to any one of three overlapping features of Kant's moral theory. Usually rigorism designates the 'rigid and insensitive uniformities of conduct' that result from the mechanical application of rules. Occasionally it refers to the excessively (...) strict moral standard implied by Kant's conception of the good will. But some critics object to rigorism in just the sense in which Kant himself understood and embraced it: as referring to moral theories that admit only two types of moral character, namely good and evil ones. The complaint, which Kant was fully aware of, is that this bipolar view of character is woefully inadequate to our experience of the gradations of virtue and vice. (shrink)

This paper proposes a way to understand transformative choices, choices that change ‘who you are.’ First, it distinguishes two broad models of transformative choice: 1) ‘event-based’ transformative choices in which some event—perhaps an experience—downstream from a choice transforms you, and 2) ‘choice-based’ transformative choices in which the choice itself—and not something downstream from the choice—transforms you. Transformative choices are of interest primarily because they purport to pose a challenge to standard approaches to rational choice. An examination of the event-based transformative (...) choices of L. A. Paul and Edna Ullman-Margalit, however, suggests that event-based transformative choices don’t raise any difficulties for standard approaches to rational choice. An account of choice-based transformative choices—and what it is to be transformed—is then proposed. Transformative choices so understood not only capture paradigmatic cases of transformative choice but also point the way to a different way of thinking about rational choice and agency. (shrink)

While increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the relation between Foucault’s conception of critique and Kant’s, much controversy remains over whether Foucault’s most sustained early engagement with Kant, his dissertation on Kant’s Anthropology, should be read as a wholesale rejection of Kant’s views or as the source of Foucault’s late return to ethics and critique. In this paper, I propose a new reading of the dissertation, considering it alongside 1950s-era archival materials of which I advance the first (...) scholarly appraisal. I argue that Foucault manifests a fundamental ambivalence to Kantian anthropology, rejecting it in theoretical terms while embracing its practical (‘pragmatic’) conception of the subject. Furthermore, I take these texts to collectively evidence Foucault’s attempt to situate himself within the anthropological-critical tradition rather than extricating himself from it. If we interpret Foucault to reject this tradition’s appeal to an essentialized, theoretical conception of subjectivity, what remains of anthropology is its inherent practical reflexivity in structure. Thus, I situate Foucault’s conception of ethics as one’s relation to oneself in continuity with this tradition. (shrink)

Abstract:The literature contains many recommendations, both explicit and implicit, that suggest how an ethics program ought to be designed. While we recognize the contributions of these works, we also note that these recommendations are typically based on either social scientific theory or data and as a result they tend to discount the moral aspects of ethics programs. To contrast and complement these approaches, we refer to a theory of the right to identify the characteristics of an effective ethics program. We (...) draw from Kant’s ethical theory to identify three guiding principles of a moral ethics program and then apply those principles to the specific components of ethics programs as discussed in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. Doing so provides insights as to how an ethics program ought to be designed from a moral point of view and sparks discussion of the moral aspects of ethics programs. (shrink)

A prominent objection to the knowledge norm of belief is that it is too demanding or too strong. The objection is commonly framed in terms of the idea that there is a tight connection between norm violation and the appropriateness of criticism or blame. In this paper I do two things. First, I argue that this way of motivating the objection leads to an impasse in the epistemic norms debate. It leads to an impasse when knowledge normers invoke excuses to (...) explain away a prima facie connection between blamelessness and justified belief. Second, I argue that a way out of the impasse becomes available when we take a closer look at some distinctions in the theory of responsibility. There are at least three different notions of responsibility relevant here. I argue that a weaker notion of responsibility – attributability – should be used to motivate the objection that the knowledge norm of belief is too strong. Insofar as the proposal motivates the objection without appeal to blamelessness, it opens up space to move beyond the impasse. (shrink)

According to a widespread view, Kant's claim that moral wrongness has its ground in a contradiction underlying every immoral action is a “bluff” rooted in “dogmatic moralism”. Ever since Benjamin Constant's exchange with Kant, counterexamples have played a crucial role in showing why Kant's “universalization procedure” fails to determine the moral validity of our judgments. Despite recent attempts to bring Kant's ethics closer to Aristotle's, these counterexamples have prevailed. Most recently, Jesse Prinz has launched another attack along the same lines. (...) Prinz insists that Kant's universalization procedure fundamentally begs the question and fails to generate plausible results. Even authors who are very sympathetic to Kant, such as Allen Wood, have tried to downplay universalization, focusing instead on other formulations of the categorical imperative. In this paper, I respond directly to four of the most prominent counterexamples. In each case, I aim to show how we can uphold Kant's fundamental claim that the universal law formulation of the categorical imperative articulates the form of our particular moral judgments. (shrink)

This paper presents a critique of a prevailing conception of the relation between moral reasoning and judgment on the one hand, and moral goodness on the other. I argue that moral reasoning is inescapably vulnerable to moral, as opposed to merely theoretical, failure. This, I argue, means that there is something deeply misleading in the way that Kant's moral theory, and some of its main rivals, have invited us to conceive of their subject matter.

There is a decided consensus that Kantian ethics yields an absolutist case against torture – that torture is morally wrong and absolutely so. I argue that while thereisa Kantian case against torture, Kantian ethics does not clearly entail absolutism about torture. I consider several arguments for a Kantian absolutist position concerning torture and explain why none are sound. I close by clarifying just what the Kantian case against torture is. My contention is that while Kantian ethics does not support a (...) variety ofmoralabsolutism about torture, it does suggest a strong version oflegalabsolutism. (shrink)

This paper challenges the assumption that reasons are intrinsic to rational action. A great many actions are not best understood as ones in which the agent acted for reasons--and yet they can be understood as rational, and as open to rational criticism. The relative paucity of explicit reason-giving, practical arguments in daily life presents a general philosophical problem. It reflects the existence of a class of ways in which reason can regulate action, which goes far beyond producing reasons or applying (...) principles. Much practical reasoning takes the form of what H. P. Grice called 'thought-transitions'. These are neither in the form of standard practical arguments, nor can they be so reconstructed without distorting the ways in which an agent thinks. Some actions to which one is led by a thought transition are rational, namely when what Grice called a 'propension' towards a given class of actions--a standing inclination to act in certain ways--would itself stand up to rational evaluation. The paper examines two bases for such endorsement, one local and limited, and one much more speculative, due to Grice himself. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In a series of reports the United Nations Special Representative on the issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations has emphasized a tripartite framework regarding business and human rights that includes the state “duty to protect,” the TNC “responsibility to respect,” and “appropriate remedies” for human rights violations. This article examines the recent history of UN initiatives regarding business and human rights and places the tripartite framework in historical context. Three approaches to human rights are distinguished: moral, political, and legal. (...) It is argued that the tripartite framework’s grounding of the responsibility of TNCs to respect human rights is properly understood as moral and not merely as a political or legal duty. A moral account of the duty of TNCs to respect basic human rights is defended and contrasted with a merely strategic approach. The main conclusion of the article is that only a moral account of the basic human rights duties of TNCs provides a sufficiently deep justification of “the corporate responsibility to respect human rights” feature of the tripartite framework. (shrink)

This paper is a survey of the generalism-particularism debate and related issues concerning the relationship between normative reasons and moral principles.

A brief explanation and overview of constitutivism.

Just how care moves us is the subject of Katherine Gardiner’s thesis. Gardiner wants to know how care moves us – or in philosophical terms, how it motivates us. She describes caring as a morally ‘necessary’ activity, which means that we cannot escape responding to the care appeal. However, Gardiner uses the example of ‘Pim’, who cannot care and feels really bad about it - not because he is incapable of caring, but who just can’t. She reviews several versions of (...) care ethics that might persuade him to care, containing concepts like ‘engrossment’, ‘responsibility’, ‘solidarity’, ‘virtue’ and ‘reason’. According to Gardiner, none will do, because they are not compelling enough. She concludes that we need to understand how morality has effect, how it works. Christine Korsgaard’s concept of ‘normativity’ does just this. Korsgaard makes necessary links between making moral decisions and having an identity and being human and argues that acting contrary to any of these will make one “feel worse than death”. Caring for and about others is an important human activity and for some people is a crucial part of their practical identity. Without Korsgaard, we would have to reject Pim as a moral deviant (someone insensible to moral reason); with Korsgaard we can understand Pim’s pain, according to Gardiner. (shrink)

Error theory turns on a particular presupposition about the conceptual commitments of moral realism, namely that the moral facts posited by realists need to be categorical. True moral propositions are said to have an absolute authority in their prescriptions in the sense that an agent, regardless of her own ends, needs or desires, is categorically obligated and has reason to act in accordance with their prescriptions. But, nothing in the world has such a queer property as categoricity, and therefore we (...) ought to be suspect of the enterprise of moral discourse. Some philosophers, like Stephen Finlay, have argued that this categoricity is not a necessary feature of moral language, and in so doing hope to have shown that the error theoretic critique is thus refuted. In this article I offer a survey of the literature on this topic and then contribute independent motivations for siding with those who think moral facts need not be categorical. (shrink)

Does the fact that humans are vulnerable, needy and dependent beings play an important role in Kantian ethics? It is sometimes claimed that it cannot and does not. I argue that it can and does. I distinguish between broad (all persons are vulnerable) and narrow (only some persons are vulnerable) senses of vulnerability, and explain the role of vulnerability in both senses in Kantian ethics. The basis of this argument is to show that the core normative focus of Kantian ethics (...) is on the dignity that human beings have in virtue of their capacity for rational agency. This implies that the empirical conditions under which human beings can acquire, sustain, exercise, and develop their rational capacities are of core moral importance in Kantian ethics. This explains why human vulnerabilities, including the vulnerability of human bodies, are important in Kantian ethics, since rational capacities in human agents (and the bodies those rational capacities depend upon) are highly vulnerable in all persons (vulnerability in the broad sense) and especially vulnerable in some sub-groups of persons (vulnerability in the narrow sense). (shrink)

Most work in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics begins by supposing that the virtues are the traits of character that make us good people. Secondary questions, then, include whether, why, and in what ways the virtues are good for the people who have them. This essay is an argument that the neo-Aristotelian approach is upside down. If, instead, we begin by asking what collection of character traits are good for us---that is, what collection of traits are most likely to promote our own (...) well-being---we find a collection of traits a lot like the traditional slate of virtues. This suggests an egoistic theory of the virtues: the virtues just are those traits of character that reliably promote the well-being of their possessor. In addition to making the positive case for character egoism, I defend it from anticipated objections. I argue that character egoism doesn't inherit the problems of ethical egoism, and conclude by offering character-egoist accounts of two virtues traditionally thought to be fundamentally other-regarding: honesty and justice. (shrink)

World economy has been doing well in recent decades even taking into account the current financial crisis. However, there are even more people suffering from poverty and related issues than earlier. I am going to discuss the issue of helping poor people in the context of ethics. In my thesis, I will firstly state the standard of absolute poverty, which will be the main focus in the remainder of the text. Then, I will present the argument given by a contemporary (...) philosopher, Peter Singer, that urges us to give money to the poor people. I will go through his argument and his analogy between saving a drowning child and giving out our money for charity on poverty relief. Many people may think his theory controversial and difficult to accept. Afterwards, I will present main arguments against Singer. I will assess these arguments and claim that some of them fail as criticisms of Singer’s central claims. However some do successfully point out the flaws of Singer’s argument, and some actually aim at questioning the entire discussion of poverty relief. I will try to present and assess the effectiveness of the alternative arguments by other philosophers that avoid these criticisms and that try to support the aid in a different way. The main question in my thesis in whether we have any moral obligation to help the poor people around the world. And if we have such duties, to what extent we are obliged to do so. I will do the literature review on different arguments and try to give my own opinions in different parts in my thesis. (shrink)