Can any being worthy of worship make others worship it? I think not. By way of an analogy to love, I argue that it is perfectly coherent to think that one could be made to worship. However, forcing someone to worship violates their autonomy, not because worship must be freely given, but because forced worship would be inauthentic—much like love earned through potions. For this reason, I argue that one cannot be made to worship properly; forced worship would be unfitting. (...) My principal claim is that no being worthy of worship could exercise the power to make others worship it, since the act of making another worship would necessarily make one unworthy of worship. (shrink)

The relationship between self‐realization, and so what I really wholeheartedly endorse and owe to myself, and morality or what we owe to others is normally thought of as antagonism, or as a pleasant coincidence: only if I am indebted to such relations as my fundamental projects that I care wholeheartedly about does morality have a direct connection to self‐realization. The aim of this article is to argue against this picture. It will be argued that the structure of self‐realization and the (...) caring activity involved commits the person to values that are beyond the object of his wholehearted caring, in a way that might just pave the way to morality. (shrink)

Peters' account of the moral life and the conception of practical reason that informed it reflects a sophisticated moral universalism. However, attempts to extend a similarly sophisticated universalism into our understanding of education are not as well received. Yet, such a project is of clear contemporary relevance given the pressure put on educational institutions to achieve certain ends. If we can show that education entails standards that are not entirely contingent upon current interests, we would have a framework that all (...) institutions seriously claiming to be involved in the enterprise would have to acknowledge. In this paper I argue that a reconstruction of the relationship between Peters' work in philosophical ethics and his conceptual analysis may go some way in showing how one can speak of education in universalistic terms. Accordingly, although many of the criticisms laid at Peters' feet are of merit, they overshadow more potentially useful interpretive moves. Finally, I show how a change in the focus of Peters' account of education and practical reason more generally can provide important resources for engaging in a more plausible exploration of universalistic themes in education. (shrink)

. The general issue addressed in this paper is the relation between the rule of law as a matter of national law, and as a matter of international law. Different institutional conceptions of this relationship give rise to different attitudes towards international law. Nonetheless, questions arise that cast doubt on age-old tenets of certain Western countries concerning the radical separability between the rule of law within the domestic system and in the international realm. The article will start considering some recent (...) developments in the United States' treatment of alien detainees. Then it shall address the relation between domestic constitutions and international legal systems, pointing out the challenge coming from the development of "super partes" international law and jus cogens. The question concerning the appeal to the rule of law will be made: Can our attitude to the rule of international law be exempted from consistency with the rule of law that we claim for our domestic system? In order to answer this question (in the negative), an appropriate theoretical perspective is eventually proposed and displayed. (shrink)

A conception of the person as a subjective being plays a crucial, though frequently overlooked, role in the justification of unequal property in liberal theories. Unger's ascription of individualism to general liberal legal theory can be concretely defended with respect to liberal theories of property. Identifying a common fundamental structure calls in question the conventional view that the liberal legal theories rest on an ensemble of different moral foundations. So important is subjective personality to the moral basis for highly unequal (...) property that such property looks to be morally untenable if this concept of the person is invalid. The analysis points to social theory of personality as a major direction for research into an alternative theory of egalitarian property right. (shrink)

Abstract.This paper seeks to suggest a jurisprudential grounding for the European Community, and seeks to do so by using a specifically Kantian philosophy of law. Kant's observations on the nature of transnational orders, like so much of his political theory, have tended to be overlooked. To do so is to overlook one of the great political and jurisprudential treasures in modern western thought. It will be suggested that a proper understanding of a Kantian normative order, and the application of such (...) a model to the European Community will serve to dispel much of the confusion and sometimes near histrionic commentaries which have characterised recent attempts to understand the jurisprudence of the Community. (shrink)

When making moral judgments, people are typically guided by a plurality of moral rules. These rules owe their existence to human emotions but are not simply equivalent to those emotions. And people’s moral judgments ought to be guided by a plurality of emotion-based rules. The view just stated combines three positions on moral judgment: [1] moral sentimentalism, which holds that sentiments play an essential role in moral judgment,1 [2] descriptive moral pluralism, which holds that commonsense moral judgment is guided by (...) a plurality of moral rules2, and [3] prescriptive moral pluralism, which holds that moral judgment ought to be guided by a plurality of moral rules. In what follows, we will argue for all three positions. We will not present a comprehensive case for these positions nor address many of the arguments philosophers have developed against them. What we will try to show is that recent psychological work supports sentimentalist pluralism in both its descriptive and prescriptive forms. (shrink)

The goal of inclusion is more or less credible depending in part on what it is that learners have in common. I discuss one characteristic that all learners are thought to share, although the learners I am concerned with represent an awkward case for the aspiration of inclusivity. Respect is thought of as something owed to all persons, and I defend the view that this includes persons with profound and multiple learning difficulties and disabilities. I also consider the implications of (...) respecting profoundly disabled learners for teaching and learning, and three aspects in particular: treating the profoundly disabled learner as a person; the close relationship between teaching and caring for a vulnerable learner; and individualised learning as an element of a successful teaching and learning environment. (shrink)

The standard account of Kantian moral weakness fails to provide a psychologically realistic account of moral improvement. It assumes that moral strength is simply a matter of volitional resolve and weakness is a lack of resolve. This leaves the path to moral improvement unclear. In this paper, I reconstruct an alternative character-based account of Kantian moral weakness and strength. On this account, moral strength is the possession of sympathy and self-knowledge, key practical-epistemic virtues from Kant’s Doctrine of Virtue, and moral (...) weakness is a lack of these virtues. This identifies moral strength with a high degree of development, integrity, or fitness in one’s character, and not merely an ability to somehow try harder. It also resolves an exegetical puzzle concerning the change of heart in Kant’s Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. (shrink)

Of the questions concerning the many great minds of the European Enlightenment, the question of what constitutes right and proper government perhaps had the most enduring influence on the world stage. Both Thomas Jefferson and Immanuel Kant attempted to answer the question of what constitutes right government, in particular by basing the system upon the idea of human freedom as an inalienable right. This project is an attempt to compare the systems proposed by these two authors, as well as to (...) critique each on its ability to protect and foster individual freedom. It is my opinion that neither manages to do what it is constructed to do, as each fails to fully protect individual freedom, and each has as part of it a component which conflicts with individual freedom. (shrink)

Torbjörn Tännsjö has written a clear and thought-provoking book on healthcare priority setting. He argues that different branches of ethical theory—utilitarianism, egalitarianism, and prioritarianism—are in general agreement on real-world healthcare priorities, and that it is human irrationality that stands in the way of complying with their recommendations. While I am generally sympathetic to the overall project and line of argumentation taken by the book, this paper raises two concerns with Tännsjö’s argument. First, that he is wrong to set aside deontic (...) constraints as irrelevant or as pointing in the same direction as consequentialism. Secondly, that his argument against prioritarianism in favor of utilitarianism is insufficient and under-developed. Given these problems, I conclude that we should welcome Tännsjö’s contribution but with these qualifications in mind. (shrink)

In discussions on the ethics of genome collections and biobanks, the main worry about whether we are permitted to collect and use individuals’ genomic and genetic data is the potential for the violation of individuals’ right to informational privacy. Yet, if we do not permit these endeavors, we risk giving up on the future benefits of biomedical research. In this paper, I describe a private venture in blockchain genomics that seeks to provide an apt solution to concerns about potential privacy (...) violations in genome collections and biobanks. I then provide some reasons to doubt the kind of solution to the dilemma that such start-ups propose. I argue that the sort of autonomy that grounds the value of the right to informational privacy cannot be secured with blockchain technology alone. So, blockchain genomics ventures are insufficient to establish the permissibility of genome collections and biobanks. I then discuss an additional ethical challenge to genomic biobanks. This challenge takes the form of doubting that future benefits that result from biomedical research dependent on genomic databases will outweigh the costs. Despite criticisms of genomic research, I claim that it is reasonable to think that future net benefits will be gained from research on such databases. Therefore, I conclude that there remains a dilemma in the ethics of genomic biobanks. (shrink)

Modeling and computer simulations, we claim, should be considered core philosophical methods. More precisely, we will defend two theses. First, philosophers should use simulations for many of the same reasons we currently use thought experiments. In fact, simulations are superior to thought experiments in achieving some philosophical goals. Second, devising and coding computational models instill good philosophical habits of mind. Throughout the paper, we respond to the often implicit objection that computer modeling is “not philosophical.”.

McCarthy, Homan, and Rozier (2020) state that the Christian bioethical categories, namely sin, human dignity, and the common good, can shed light on bioethical issues, whereas secular bioethics may...

Kant’s commitment to autonomy raises difficult questions about the very possibility of Kantian moral education, since appeal to external pedagogical guidance threatens to be in contradictio...

Since the emergence of the innovative field of artificial intelligence in the 1960s, the late Hubert Dreyfus insisted on the ontological distinction between man and machine, human and artificial intelligence. In the different editions of his classic and influential book What computers can’t do, he posits that an algorithmic machine can never fully simulate the complex functioning of the human mind—not now, nor in the future. Dreyfus’ categorical distinctions between man and machine are still relevant today, but their relation has (...) become more complex in our increasingly data-driven society. We, humans, are continuously immersed within a technological universe, while at the same time ubiquitous computing, in the words of computer scientist Mark Weiser, “forces computers to live out here in the world with people” The cell phone reader. Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 2006, p 20). Dreyfus’ ideas are therefore challenged by thinkers such as Weiser, Kevin Kelly, Bruno Latour, Philip Agre, and Peter Paul Verbeek, who all argue that humans are much more intrinsically linked to machines than the original dichotomy suggests—they have evolved in concert. Through a discussion of the classical concepts of individuum and ‘authenticity’ within Western civilization, this paper argues that within the ever-expanding data-sphere of the twenty-first century, a new concept of man as ‘aggregate of data’ has emerged, which further erodes and undermines the categorical distinction between man and machine. This raises political and ethical questions beyond the confines of technology and artificial intelligence. Moreover, this seemingly never-ending debate on what computers should do provokes the philosophical necessity to once again define the concept of what it is to be ‘human.’. (shrink)

I explore the Because Constraint—the idea that moral facts depend on natural facts and that moral judgements ought to respect the dependence of moral facts on natural facts. I consider several issues concerning its clarification and importance.

Various moral theories are essentially welfare-involving in that they appeal to the promotion or the respect of well-being in accounting for the moral rightness of at least some acts. Further, various theories of well-being are essentially morality-involving in that they construe well-being in a way that essentially involves morality in some form or other. It seems that, for any moral theory that is essentially welfare-involving and that relies on a theory of well-being that is essentially morality-involving, a circularity problem may (...) well arise, one where moral rightness will end up being accounted for partly in terms of well-being, which itself is already being accounted for partly in terms of moral rightness. In this paper I will elaborate on this last point. Then I will examine five responses to the circularity problem at issue, and I will argue that one of them appears to be at least slightly better than all of the others. (shrink)

Two recent articles in this journal – one by Morris, the other by Pfleegor & Rosenberg – have revived the philosophical discussion of the ethics of deception in sport which had largely laid dormant since the 1973 publication of Pearson’s ‘Deception, Sportsmanship, and Ethics’. Morris and Pfleegor & Rosenberg both share with Pearson the view that ethical deceptive sport acts are those that relate to sport-specific skills. However, whereas Pearson ultimately grounds this view in the agreement she takes to obtain (...) amongst sport participants, both recent treatments overlook this fundamental aspect of her account and offer alternative justifications for that view. I argue, though, that in both cases the arguments offered are incomplete precisely because they require an appeal to the agreement amongst participants that lies at the foundation of Pearson’s account. On all three treatments, I argue, what ultimately determines an action’s ethical status is not its relation to sport-specific skills, but its conformit... (shrink)

Against non-analytic naturalism and quietist realism, I defend a robust form of non-naturalism. The argument proceeds as follows: In the face of extensional underdetermination, quietist realism cannot non-question-beggingly respond to alternative accounts that offer formally identical but substantively different interpretations of what reasons are. They face what we might call the reasons appropriation problem. In light of this problem, quietists ought to abandon their view in favor of robust realism. By permitting substantive metaphysical claims we can then argue, based on (...) reasonhood being a relation, that reasonhood is an abstract universal. If reasonhood is an abstract universal, then we can non-question-beggingly assert that the counting in favor of relation is a general kind or genus. This poses a dilemma for non-analytic naturalists: either they need to give the same reductive analysis for epistemic and practical reasons, or they can give a different analyses by treating epistemic and practical reasons as a species of the larger genus. However, the former looks extensionally implausible epistemic reasons are not desire-based and the latter entails that the reduction, via a violation of irreflexivity, fails to ground reasonhood. Naturalistic reductions of the normative, accordingly, face a damning dilemma. We should, in the face of this argument, thus accept a robust form of non-naturalist realism. (shrink)

This study is a contribution to the bioethical debate about new and possibly emerging reproductive technologies. Its point of departure is the intuition, which many people seem to share, that using such technologies to select non-disease traits – like sex and emotional stability - in yet unborn children is morally problematic, at least more so than using the technologies to avoid giving birth to children with severe genetic diseases, or attempting to shape the non-disease traits of already existing children by (...) environmental means, like education. The study employs philosophical analysis for the purpose of making this intuition intelligible and judging whether it is justified. Different ways in which the moral problems posed by reproductive technologies are often framed in bioethical debates are criticised as inadequate for this task. In particular, it is argued that the intuition cannot fully be made sense of in terms of harm to the children that such technologies help create. The study attempts to elaborate an alternative to that broadly consequentialist approach, by drawing on Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, Hans Jonas’s ethics, and Aristotle’s practical philosophy, as it has been received and developed in the hermeneutical tradition. It is suggested that reproductive choices, unlike decisions for already born children, are characterised by a peculiar one-sidedness: the future child appears to the parents as something wholly theirs to decide about, not as a concrete other with whom they must interact in a responsive and attuned way. This is problematic because it means that such choices cannot call upon the particularised moral understanding only gained in interpersonal encounters. In particular, it makes them easily shaped by various tendencies, to which parents are always susceptible, to relate to children in instrumentalising ways, and at risk of reinforcing such tendencies. However, this does not mean that all uses of reproductive technologies are equally troubling. When selecting against severe disease the parents can rely on a widely shared illness experience to escape the dangers that one-sidedness involves. It is concluded that the intuition under discussion, thus explicated and in some ways qualified, makes sense morally. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to defend the position that aesthetics and ethics in sport are not two separate domains or aspects. In sport, the aesthetic and the ethical both arise from sport’s attractiveness or from the pleasure sport offers to its activists and consumers. To think about sport philosophically, we should find a link and a principle beyond this division as a source of both the aesthetic and the ethical in sport. The philosophy and philosophical sociology of Jean-Marie (...) Guyau is presented as a response to this problem. Two points of fundamental importance are considered critically here: his criticism of any reductionism, and life or the idea of life as key principle of a philosophical system which puts ethics and aesthetics together. (shrink)

How can Deleuzians make his philosophy as accessible as possible to political theorists and democratic publics? This essay provides principles to enter Deleuze's political vision, namely, to research the etymology of words, to discover the image beneath concepts, to diagram schemata using rigid lines, supple lines and lines of flight, and to construct rules that balance experimentation and caution. The essay then employs this method to explicate a fecund sentence about politics in A Thousand Plateaus and presents a case why (...) Deleuze deserves greater visibility in the political theory canon. (shrink)

This article examines the role of physical education in the process of moral education, and argues that physical education is a necessary prerequisite for the possibility of human virtue. This discussion is divided into four parts. First, I examine the nature of morality and moral decision-making. Drawing on the moral theories presented by Plato, Aristotle and Kant, I argue that morality is connected with reason and the attainment of objectively good goals. Second, I examine the role of moral education in (...) helping individuals to cultivate a virtuous character state. I outline the approaches to moral education taken by Plato, Aristotle and Kant—dialectic, dogmatic and catechistic—and examine the ability of each approach to develop the appropriate moral disposition within individuals. Third, I examine the cultivation of this disposition by considering the connection between virtue and happiness and the possibility of producing an individual who is both virtuous and happy through moral education. Fourth, although there is disagreement about the means of moral education, I argue that there must be agreement concerning one necessary component of moral education: physical education. Physical education, while connected to non-moral exercises, allows individuals to develop the strength to become apathetic to bodily desires (e.g. the desire to obtain pleasure or pursue pain), desires that lead them away from virtue. (shrink)

The major normative recommendations in the literature on food risk communication can be summarized in the form of seven practical principles for such communication: (1) Be honest and open. (2) Disclose incentives and conflicts of interest. (3) Take all available relevant knowledge into consideration. (4) When possible, quantify risks. (5) Describe and explain uncertainties. (6) Take all the public's concerns into account. (7) Take the rights of individuals and groups seriously. We show that each of these proposed principles can be (...) justified both in terms of more fundamental ethical principles and instrumentally in terms of the communicating agent's selfinterest. The mechanisms of this concordance of justifications are discussed. It is argued that the concordance is specific for areas such as food risks in which agents such as companies and public authorities are highly dependent on the public's trust and confidence. The implications of these findings both for moral philosophy and for practical food risk communication are discussed. (shrink)

We provide experimental evidence that subjects blame others based on events they are not responsible for. In our experiment an agent chooses between a lottery and a safe asset; payment from the chosen option goes to a principal who then decides how much to allocate between the agent and a third party. We observe widespread blame: regardless of their choice, agents are blamed by principals for the outcome of the lottery, an event they are not responsible for. We provide an (...) explanation of this apparently irrational behavior with a delegated-expertise principal-agent model, the subjects’ salient perturbation of the environment. (shrink)

This analysis comments on Bernstein’s lack of clear understanding of subjectivity, based on his book, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis. Bernstein limits his interpretation of subjectivity to thinkers such as Gadamer and Habermas. The authors analyze the ideas of classic scholars such as Edmund Husserl and Friedrich Nietzsche. Husserl put forward his notion of transcendental subjectivity and phenomenological ramifications of the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity. Nietzsche referred to subjectivity as perspectivism, the inescapable fact that any and (...) all consciousnesses exist in space and time. Consciousness is fundamentally constituted of cultural, linguistic, and historical dimensions. (shrink)

This thesis reconstructs John Rawl's Original Position in order to show that within a liberal democratic culture, the institution of punishment ought to conform to the Moral Education Theory of Punishment, put forth by Jean Hampton. According to Hampton, punishment should facilitate a medium where the state educates the criminal on the moral implications of her wrongdoing. I argue that citizens would select the Moral Education Theory of Punishment in the Original Position, since it offers the best opportunity to redress (...) two calamities related to the criminal's wrongdoing---namely, that it threatens the moral status of the victim, and that it results from the wrongdoer's deficient moral sensibility. Upon consideration, the representatives in the Original Position recognize that redressing either of the two calamities necessitates redressing the other; thus, both objectives reinforce one another. Consequently, the representatives would unanimously select the principles of punishment manifest in the Moral Education Theory. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Critics have charged that there are gaps in the logic of Kant’s derivation of the formula of universal law. Here I defend that derivation against these charges, partly by emphasizing a neglected teleological principle that Kant alluded to in his argument, and partly by clarifying what he meant by actions’ “conformity to universal law.” He meant that actions conform to universal law just when their maxims can belong to a unified system of principles. An analogy with objects’ conformity to (...) universal law in nature helps show how Kant was correct in deriving the formula of universal law from the premises of his argument. RÉSUMÉ: Certains ont critiqué la dérivation de la formule de la loi universelle de Kant parce que la logique en serait lacunaire. Je prends la défense de la dérivation, en mettant d’abord l’accent sur un principe téléologique auquel Kant fait allusion dans son argument et, ensuite, en clarifiant ce que celui-ci entend par la «conformité à la loi universelle» des actions. Kant maintenait que les actions étaient conformes à une loi universelle seulement lorsque leurs maximes appartiennent à un système unifié de principes. Une analogie avec la conformité à la loi universelle des objets dans la nature aide à montrer pourquoi Kant avait raison de dériver la formule de la loi universelle des prémisses de son argument. (shrink)

This paper investigates the possibility of understanding the rudimentary elements of clinical sensitivity by investigating the works of Edmund Husserl and Emmanuel Levinas on sensibility. Husserl's theory of intentionality offers significant reflections on the role of pre-reflective and affective intuition as a condition for intentionality and reflective consciousness. These early works of Husserl, in particular his works on the constitution of phenomenological time and subjective time-consciousness, prove to be an important basis for Levinas’ works on an ethics of alterity and (...) infinite responsibility for the other person. In fact, it is difficult to understand the core of Levinasian ethics, of vulnerability as proximity, of ethical sensitivity as passivity and a suffering for the suffering of another, without understanding the influence from Husserl's work. Crucially, the paper will, on the basis of Levinasian ethics, establish an understanding of sensibility as vulnerability and receptivity that is fundamental also for understanding significant intuitions in clinical nursing. Clinical sensitivity and carefulness in nursing are shaped by the concrete and also bodily expressions of vulnerabilities in a receptivity that is pre-reflective and pre-ontological. (shrink)

Heidegger’s critique of European nihilism seeks to expose self-legislation as the governing principle of central manifestations of modernity such as science, technology, and the interpretation of art as aesthetics. Need we accept the conclusion that modern constitutional democracies are intrinsically nihilistic, insofar as they give political and legal form to the principle of collective self-legislation? An answer to this question turns on the concept of power implied in constituent and constituted power. A confrontation of the genealogies of modern subjectivity proposed (...) by Heidegger and Blumenberg suggests that there is indeed a metaphysical core to the concept of constituent power developed by various political theorists, including Schmitt and Habermas. By contrast, closer consideration of the paradoxical relation between constituent and constituted power illuminates the ambiguity of collective self-legislation, which means both enactment of a legal order by a collective self and the enactment of a collective self by a legal order. To the extent that constitutional democracies are a way of preserving rather than dissolving this ambiguity, they imply an interpretation of power and human finitude that parries the charge of nihilism. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is two-fold. First, I begin by reviewing several of themajor points of emphasis among health educatorsas they begin to incorporate multiculturalissues into healthcare education. I thenconsider the role of moral relativism, which iscurrently being endorsed by some healtheducators, as the foundation for resolvingcross-cultural conflicts in healthcare. Iargue that moral relativism is ultimatelyinconsistent with the stated goals inmulticultural curricular proposals and fails toprovide an effective framework for consideringmoral conflicts in cross-cultural settings. Instead, I propose that those (...) methods seekingto establish a common morality, built uponmutually shared values, offer the mostpromising means of resolving cross-culturalconflicts. This leads to my second goal, tocompare recent work in moral pragmatism withwhat is now widely known in bioethics as moral``principlism.'' I argue that while proponentsof principlism and pragmatism each seek toestablish a common foundation for moraldeliberation, they fail to appreciatesignificant similarities between theirrespective approaches. Instead of offeringtwo completely unique and independent methodsof moral deliberation, I suggest thatprinciplism and pragmatism embrace commonthemes that point us in a positive direction,providing an effective framework useful forconsidering cross-cultural conflicts inhealthcare. (shrink)

The human ability to represent, conceptualize, and reason about mind and behavior is one of the greatest achievements of human evolution and is made possible by a “folk theory of mind” — a sophisticated conceptual framework that relates different mental states to each other and connects them to behavior. This chapter examines the nature and elements of this framework and its central functions for social cognition. As a conceptual framework, the folk theory of mind operates prior to any particular conscious (...) or unconscious cognition and provides the “framing” or interpretation of that cognition. Central to this framing is the concept of intentionality, which distinguishes intentional action (caused by the agent’s intention and decision) from unintentional behavior (caused by internal or external events without the intervention of the agent’s decision). A second important distinction separates publicly observable from publicly unobservable (i.e., mental) events. Together, the two distinctions define the kinds of events in social interaction that people attend to, wonder about, and try to explain. A special focus of this chapter is the powerful tool of behavior explanation, which relies on the folk theory of mind but is also intimately tied to social demands and to the perceiver’s social goals. A full understanding of social cognition must consider the folk theory of mind as the conceptual underpinning of all (conscious and unconscious) perception and thinking about the social world. (shrink)

The hypothetical approach to the supersensible developed by Kant in his three Critiques, exemplified by his analysis of the aesthetic and reflective judgment in his third Critique, with their principle fortuitous purposiveness, can be considered as the basis for a new foundation of metaphysics. According to Kant’s limitation of cognition to the realm of sense intuition, theoretical knowledge of God, the subject, things-in-themselves, transcendental ideas is impossible. This leads to a kind of “negative theology” of the highest principle and the (...) supersensible as a whole. The reasons are rooted in the character of propositional thought, which can only circumscribe a singular, supersensible reality by means of predicative sentences and discursive thought. Taking Kant’s lead, but in contrast to his terminology, I call really existent singularities, including the thinking, knowing, desiring, feeling unique individuals we know as human beings, spontaneities, in order to distinguish them from descriptive characteristics attributed to them by predicative thought. Kant’s “practico-dogmatic” account of the postulates of God and immortality of the soul, based on the “fact of freedom” and its connection to the moral imperative, ensure the possibility of the “highest good” as final aim of moral behaviour — but cannot satisfy our need for knowledge of the supersensible. To “lay the groundwork” for experience of our own self-conscious reality, the reality of others like ourselves, of things which transcend the boundaries of sense intuition, and of true reciprocity, a different method is needed, one which leads us “beyond being and thought” to the unconditional beginning of conditional reality. (shrink)

En el presente artículo, el autor analiza el concepto de leyes prácticas propuesto por Kant en la Crítica de la razón práctica, poniendo énfasis en los antecendentes que este concepto tiene en la escuela del derecho natural moderno y en el giro que este concepto representa, ya que en él se hace patente el paso desde una ética de la obligación hacia una ética de la autonomía. Se analizan además las propiedades esenciales del concepto de leyes prácticas y los problemas (...) filosóficos que surgen a partir de él y se sitúa dicho concepto en el contexto general de la ética kantiana y de la filosofía moral. In this article the author analyzes the concept of "practical law" as developed by Kant in his Critique of Practical Reason. The author notes the roots of this concept in the modern school of natural law and states that this concept represents a shift from an ethic of obligation to an ethic of autonomy. In addition, the author analyzes the essential features of the "practical law" concept; the philosophical problems that arise from it, and the place of this concept in the landscape of Kantian ethics and moral philosophy. (shrink)

The author investigates the prospects of holistic ethics in the contemporary world. From the standpoint of individual existence observed three modes of ethical attitude towards the world in their historic genesis: home, environment, and common world. The ancient idea of home as a place of love and revelation of God was eroded by the expansion of human civilization on the natural, social, and cosmic scale. This process is reflected in the concept of a multiform environment as a source of material, (...) biological, economic, political, cultural possibilities, and a space of physical, social, and informational mobility. The crises of those environments put the problem of the proper ethical norms and values for human survival and further development. The ethical dimension of its solution presents the idea of a common world and the relevant ethical principles of advocacy, responsibility, solidarity, justice with the aim of consensus on the basis of a rational discourse where people represent all the other being’s interests. Thus, based on regularly open for better arguments discussion, the author views the possibility of the formation of a cosmos friendly ethics. (shrink)

The present article studies Bernard Williams’s view on moral responsibility using an analytical-critical approach. The discussion of moral responsibility includes the definition, conditions, and problem of moral responsibility. In Western philosophical texts, moral responsibility refers to the praise and blame of the agent by himself or others for an act he has committed. This is while, according to our moral appetites and the theories based on them such as Kant’s, moral responsibility is conditioned on free action and every healthy human (...) being has the capacity for moral understanding, the ability to act accordingly and to deserve moral praise and blame for one’s actions as they all equally benefit from reason and free-will. Thus, the foundation of moral responsibility is empirical and safe from factors beyond control, that is, luck. In addition, the problem of moral responsibility is the conflict of free-will or freedom and determinism, and different philosophers have theorized regarding the three approaches of compatibility, incompatibility, and impossibility. Bernard Williams, a great philosopher on ethics with an Aristotelian influence - though he does not seem to define moral responsibility as opposed to what has been mentioned - offers a completely different view of the conditions and problem of moral responsibility and challenges our moral intuitions and theories such as Kant’s and distinguishes between morality and ethics. He considers voluntary action to be the result of deliberation and intention but by innovating the term moral luck and relying on it, he even considers human voluntary action to be influenced by constitutive luck and resultant luck. Therefore, by violating a completely voluntary act, he breaks the relation between freedom and moral responsibility and considers moral responsibility to be superficial or dependent on the concept of luck and gives it an empirical basis. Faced with the problem of moral responsibility, he criticizes compatibilists and incompatibilists in three ways. According to Williams, there is a misunderstanding in the concept of blame used by compatibilists and incompatibilists. In addition, compatibilists must compromise between determinism, psychological concepts, and moral responsibility. Also, the compatibilists do not pay attention to the difference between what free-will is and the will we have. On the other hand, incompatibilists have used determinism in the sense of fatalism. Finally, the incompatibilist view fails to establish a relationship between choice, intention, and action. By claiming a compatibilist view that is safe from these problems, Williams argues that there is a compromise between the above-mentioned items if we separate ourselves from our moral intuitions and the present ethics. This article explains Williams’ moral responsibility, with an introduction to Williams and moral responsibility. It then describes Williams’ compatibilism while also expresses his critique of compatibilism and incompatibilism. Finally, by assessing Williams’s view, it concludes it to be a truly deterministic view that violates freedom and moral responsibility and the basis of its evidence and arguments as weak. For this reason, it is difficult and indefensible to accept it. (shrink)

In this paper, I will suggest an unorthodox hybrid theory of ethical justification that combines, on an ontological level, a realist approach with constructivist elements. On an epistemological level, the realist part of the theory will be squared with an intuitionist account. Eventually, the suggested hybrid theory will take the form of an intuitionist ethics of persons. I will start with briefly sketching the ontological shape of the relevant concept of person whereby I will extensively draw on Kant and endorse (...) a realist reading of his ethical theory (2.). Subsequently, I will explain why and how constructivist elements must complement the picture (3.). Then, I will focus on the epistemological shape of the theory. In particular, I will suggest an intuitionist reading of Kant’s doctrine of “the fact of reason” (4.). Next, I will briefly comment on classical intuitionism and on Bernard William’s notion of convergence in ethics (5.). Subsequently, I will compare my approach with Robert Audi’s attempt to refine a Rossian type of intuitionism (6.). Finally, I will revisit the charge of dogmatism that has traditionally been raised against intuitionism (7.). (shrink)

Kant argues that we have a duty to perfect ourselves morally and promote the happiness of others. He also argues that we have an innate propensity to evil. Our duty to perfect ourselves suggests that we struggle with our innate propensity to wilfully deviate from doing our duty. And we do this when we struggle against the depravation of our heart, namely our propensity to reverse ‘the ethical order as regards the incentives of a free power of choice’, namely, our (...) propensity to wilfully comply with the principle of self-love and override the moral law. It seems, however, that education does not enable those concerned to fulfil their duties. It seems, instead, that education basically makes them efficacious with regard to desired ends and with the devised means. It seems, too, that education does not necessarily make it possible for those concerned with duty to perfect themselves morally and help others to do the same, which in turn suggests that those concerned are not being enabled to make themselves ‘as conscientious as possible in [their] moral self-examination’. I argue that education ought to enable those concerned to cultivate their moral strength to do so and enable others to do the same. (shrink)

MacIntyre holds that there is no practical reasoning capacity for human beings independent of his training and upbringing in moral traditions. Human beings should acquire moral virtues by following moral exemplars before being able to reason about them. MacIntyre’s position here approaches the virtue ethics view, which emphasizes the role of moral training and habituation in acquiring the capacity for practical reasoning. This position is at odds with the Kantian view according to which morality is a matter of practical and (...) rule-based reasoning, which is independent of moral traditions; and in fact, serves as a measure for the evaluation of these traditions. (shrink)

As its criticisms have revealed, a closer look at the concept of the Real, the thesis of “all experiencing is experiencing-as,” and the criterion of the soteriological transformation have shown some difficulities in John Hick’s pluralistic hypothesis. Focusing on the theory of religious experience contended by Hick, this research explores the Kantian and Wittgensteinian elements of his hypothesis to ease the tension between its metaphysical and epistemological aspects. Since Hick’s hypothesis is based on the doctrines of religions within the Indo-European (...) language group, this research introduces those traditions from outside this group to rethink its criteriology. These two attempts inevitably call for a refined model of Hick’s hypothesis. Both Hick’s hypothesis and the refined model reflect certain understandings of the notion of Religion. Meanwhile, every religious tradition also manifests its various dimensions. This research consequently suggests that the ideal of Religion can be considered in terms of the idea of functional unity and can be taken as the regulative principle to direct any model of religious pluralism, which is subject to be modified when it encounters any “anomalies” of religious phenomena -- this pattern can be further illustrated in light of the Confucian proposition of “the Li is one but its manifestations are many.”. (shrink)

The use of deception in psychological research continues to be a controversial topic. Using Rawls's explication of utilitarianism, I attempt to demonstrate how professional organizations, such as the American Psychological Association, can provide more specific standards that determine the permissibility of deception in research. Specifically, I argue that researchers should examine the costs and benefits of creating and applying specific rules governing deception. To that end, I offer 3 recommendations. First, that researchers who use deception provide detailed accounts of the (...) procedures they used to minimize the harm created by deception in their research reports. Second, that the American Psychological Association offer a definition of deception that describes techniques commonly used in research. Finally, I recommend that the informed consent procedure be revised to indicate that the researcher may use deception as a part of the study. (shrink)

In Homo Sacer, Giorgio Agamben makes the claim that Kant’s moral philosophy is prophetic of legal nihilism and modern totalitarianism. In doing so, he draws an implicit parallel between Kantian ethics of respect and autonomy, and the authoritarian constitutional theory of Carl Schmitt. This paper elucidates and evaluates this claim through an analysis of Agamben’s assertion that the legal condition of modernity is a nihilistic law that is ‘in force without significance’. I argue that the theoretical continuity between totalitarianism and (...) the Moral Law is the problem of the undecidable, which arises when the empty ground of normative judgment comes to light. (shrink)

Communication between medical professionals and patients is an important aspect of therapy and patient satisfaction. Common barriers that get in the way of effective communication in this sphere include: (1) gender, age, and cultural differences; (2) physical or psychological discomfort or pain; (3) medical literacy; and (4) distraction due to technological factors or simply being overworked. The author examines these communicative barriers from a philosophical lens and then utilizes Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology and hermeneutics to provide guidance for medical professional–patient interactions. (...) The phenomenological approach espoused emphasizes the particular, contextual nature of such interactions, and thus is opposed to abstract, theoretical principles. Heidegger’s hermeneutics provides a philosophical approach to communication that may guide the back-and-forth interpretation that should happen between medical professionals and patients to achieve effective communication. (shrink)

The use of law enforcement officers in American schools has rapidly expanded since its inception in the 1950s. This growth can in part be attributed to the Safe Schools Act of 1994, the establishment of the Community Oriented Policing Services Office, and tragic events that have occurred in our nation's schools. Law enforcement officers in the school environment traditionally have primary roles of protection and enforcement, although many have ancillary roles of educating and mentoring students. However, the use of police (...) in schools has also been associated with the formalization of student discipline and the criminalization of minor misconduct. Specifically, an increase in the number of officers in schools has mirrored an increase in the number of arrests and citations for relatively minor offenses. We argue that officers' socialization and training create role conflict in that the duty to enforce the law competes with other duties to mentor and nurture students. We present several hypothetical dilemmas and then illustrate how the “right thing to do” is determined by the perceived duties of the school safety officer. We conclude by presenting some modest suggestions on how to address the potential role conflict experienced by law enforcement officers working in schools. (shrink)