Abstract Six apparent features of Kant's conception of autonomy appear to differentiate it sharply from anything that we can find in an Aristotelian conception of will and practical reason. (1) Autonomy requires a role for practical reason independent of its instrumental role in relation to non-rational desires. (2) This role belongs to the rational will. (3) This role consists in the rational will's being guided by its own law. (4) This guidance by the law of the will itself requires acts (...) of legislation?the making of laws?for oneself. (5) These acts of legislation constitute the law as one's own law, as moral constructivists hold. (6) Kant marks this character of the rational will by using ?autonomy? and cognates. These six apparent features, however, do not mark any discontinuity between Kant and an Aristotelian conception. The first three apparent features are genuinely Kantian, but are not aspects of discontinuity, whereas the last three mark aspects of discontinuity, but are not genuinely Kantian. (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)

Most incidences of dishonesty in research, financial investments that promote personal financial gain, and kickback scandals begin as conflicts of interest (COI). Research indicates that healthcare professionals who maintain COI relationships make less optimal and more expensive patient care choices. The discovery of COI relationships also negatively impact patient and public trust. Many disciplines are addressing this professional issue, but little work has been done towards understanding and applying this moral category within a nursing context. Do COIs occur in nursing (...) and are they problematic? What are the morally appropriate responses to COI for our discipline and for individual practicing nurses? In this paper I examine the nature of 'conflict of interest' as a general ethical category, its characteristics and its application to our discipline. Conflict of interest is an odd moral category that may actually or potentially result in immoral decisions. The moral justification for COI is grounded prime facie by the moral value of respect for persons and principle of fidelity from which trust is developed and maintained. In review of the historical development, there appears to be consensus on some qualities of COI that are presented. I conclude that making judgements about COI are challenging and often difficult to determine from a nursing perspective. Improving nurses' and professional organizations' awareness of COI and sharpening our ability to respond appropriately when COI arise can reduce potential harm and promote trust in those whom we serve. (shrink)

Are inferences, theoretical and practical, subject to requirements of rationality? If so, are these of the form 'if … ought …' or 'ought … if …'? If the latter, how are we to understand the 'if'? It seems that, in all cases, we get unintuitive implications if 'ought' connotes having reason. It is difficult to formulate such requirements, and obscure what they explain. There might also be a requirement forbidding self-contradiction. It is a good question whether self-contradiction constitutes, or evidences, (...) irrationality; but talk of a rational requirement causes trouble. (shrink)

Neurosurgeons have an especially high rate of exposure to serious ethical challenges in their line of work. The aim of this study was to assess the type and frequency of ethical theories used by neurosurgery residents to make extra- ethical decisions in challenging situations and their relation with the level of residency, and curricular training about medical ethics. A total of 12 neurosurgery residents in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (MUMS) were interviewed; all the participants were male and aged 29–40 (...) years old. Of all, six were senior and six were junior. Using a systematic review of neurosurgery and medical ethics textbooks, five common cases were selected and a semi-structured, open-ended interview was developed. The interviews were digitally recorded and analyzed in two separate stages. Comparison of the results of the two stages led us to the final judgment about the dominant ethical theory used in each case. In all 60 cases, the decision-making process was compatible with either Deontology (30 cases) or Consequentialism (30 cases). Only in two cases, beside Deontology, the Virtue ethics was used as an alternative in special situations. The ethical theories were not consistent for all the 12 subjects and all the five questions. No statistically significant difference was found between senior and junior residents, neither for each question nor for the aggregate (Odds Ratio = 1.31, 95 % CI = 0.42-4.09, Relative Risk = 1.41, 95 % CI = 0.69-1.9, P-value > 0.20). Only one of the subjects had extracurricular training in medical ethics, consequently precluding further analysis. Although not intended to be evaluated by this study, similar heterogeneity was observed in final decisions. When faced with medical ethics challenges, neurosurgery residents did not follow a consistent ethical theory for making decisions. The type and frequency of theories did not seem to be changed during the residency period. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 20 What is the relationship between justice and moral permissibility? If an action constitutes an injustice, does that decisively rule it out, morally speaking, or merely count heavily against it? This paper argues that although the injustice of an action counts heavily against performing it, this effect can sometimes be overridden by consequentialist concerns. This suggests that injustice does not conclusively rule out actions that generate it, which in turn suggests that an approach to justice that (...) conceives of it as an object of intrinsic moral value more accurately reflects the behavior of justice than do more traditional deontological approaches. (shrink)

If the social environment were arranged so that most people in the West could, with relatively little effort, be morally good to a reasonable degree, would this be a good thing? I claim that it is not entirely obvious that we should say yes. This is no idle question: mainstream Western social morality today seems to be approaching the prospect for a morality that is not taxing. This question has substantial theoretical interest because exploring it will help us understand the (...) paradoxical relationship between morality and moral worth. (shrink)

There has been limited research investigating the effects of the recognition form of respect between leaders and their followers within the organisation literature. We investigated whether mutual recognition respect was associated with follower job performance and well-being after controlling for measures of liking and appraisal respect. Based on data we collected from 203 matched leader–follower dyads in the Insurance industry in Malaysia, we found mutual recognition respect predicted both follower job performance and well-being. Significantly, appraisal respect was only found to (...) be positively associated with job performance. Our findings suggest mutual recognition respect is an important form of respect in workplace relationships that can bring benefits to both the individual and the organisation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThere is a wide consensus that violence in schools is something so morally wrong that it must not be tolerated. Therefore, the intolerance shown by a teacher towards students’ violent behaviour in school could be understood as a virtue and his moral obligation and legal duty. On the other hand, extreme toleration towards an evil such as violence becomes a vice, for example, when a teacher makes it possible for an innocent student to become a victim of other students’ physical (...) or verbal violence. It seems, therefore, that the idea of ‘zero tolerance’ policies is the right one, although the results of its application in practice have been many times problematic, inefficient and unjust. (shrink)

Moral pluralism is the norm in contemporary society. Even the best philosophical arguments rarely persuade moral opponents who differ at a foundational level. This has been vividly illustrated in contemporary debates in bioethics surrounding contentious issues such as abortion and euthanasia. It is readily apparent that bioethics discourse lacks an empirical explanation for the broad differences about various topics in bioethics and health policy. In recent years, social and cognitive psychology has generated novel approaches for defining basic differences in moral (...) intuitions generally. We propose that if empirical research using social intuitionist theory explains why people disagree with one another over moral issues, then the results of such research might help people debate their moral differences in a more constructive and civil manner. We illustrate the utility of social intuitionism with data from a national physician survey. (shrink)

A new book by Stephen Engstrom repeats a criticism of Bruce Aune's of Kant's derivation of the universalizability formula of the categorical imperative. The criticism is that Kant omitted at least one substantive premise in the derivation of the formula: ‘Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.’ The grounds for the formula that are given in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, however, are said to support (...) only a weaker requirement, namely, that a maxim conform to a universal law. Hence, Kant omits at least one necessary substantive premise of the derivation. This paper attempts to show that nothing substantive is omitted from the argument. It only needs two principles of inference that it is assumed add nothing substantive to the premises. (shrink)

This article explores three aspects of interpretation—musical interpretation of notated Western art music, hermeneutics, and poetry —based on ongoing music education research focusing on the learning of musical interpretation within the one-to-one context of higher music education. The broad philosophic poetic inquiry of interpretation has the form of an autoethnodrama containing both haiku and found poetry. Poetry is both used as a process of inquiry and as a means of representation. The autoethnodrama explores the author’s struggle with finding his cogito (...) for conducting arts-based research and touches upon his personal history. Through the combination of autoethnodrama and a philosophic poetic inquiry, he finds a deeper understanding of musical interpretation, usage of poetry and autoethnodrama in research, as well as of his personhood. Concluding reflections on one possible way of interpreting the autoethnodrama in relation to teaching and learning of musical interpretation within higher music education are also presented. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the Ontario College of Teachers’ most recent versions of the Standards of Practice with William Hare’s counsel on being open-minded regarding open-mindedness in mind. Specifically, I insist that the use of the Standards of Practice as guidelines for working through cases of professional and ethical issues requires yet another rule to indicate when to deviate from this or that standard. In this way, open-mindedness consists of developing and following rules to indicate when and where specific (...) standards should be bypassed. These rules vary, however, one source of these can be found in what Barbara Herman has called, “Rules of Moral Salience”—rules that guide us in our day-to-day moral decision-making and that we draw on when called upon to make moral-ethical judgments. What this means for various ethics (ethics of care; Kantian-type ethics, psychological and/or developmental accounts of ethics) is also broached. (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)

the term as used by sunstein seeks to bring together various traditions. however, there are significant differences between uses of the term in the cognitive and the social psychological research, and these differences are accompanied by very distinct evidential criteria. we suggest the term should refer to processes, which means that further evidence is required.

In this paper I consider three widespread assumptions: (1) the assumption that we are accountable for our intentional actions only if they are in some special sense ours; (2) the assumption that it is possible for us to be more or less “true to” ourselves, and that we are flawed human beings to the extent that we lack “integrity”; and (3) the assumption that we can sometimes give ourselves reasons by giving ourselves commands. I acknowledge that, as Ruediger Bittner has (...) argued, each of these assumptions is problematic, and that the failure to appreciate the problems has led many philosophers astray. I try to show, however, that it is possible to make sense of each assumption in a way that addresses Bittner’s concerns. (shrink)

Suppose you intend now to φ at some future time t. However, when t has come you do not φ. Something has gone wrong. This failing is not just a causal but also a normative failing. This raises the question how to characterize this failing. I discuss three alternative views. On the first view, the fact that you do not execute your intention to φ is blameworthy only if the balance of reasons pointed to φ-ing. The fact that you intended (...) to φ does not add to the reasons for φ-ing at t. On the second view, the fact that you do not execute your intention to φ is blameworthy because you violate a requirement of rationality. Both these views have in common that they deny that intending to φ at t creates a reason to φ at t. The third alternative, the one I defend, claims that you often create reasons to φ by intending to φ. (shrink)

Although the criteria of double effect is usually used with issues of warfare and human health, such as abortion and euthanasia, the authors suggest using T. A. Cavanaugh's version of double effect reasoning when deliberating about cases that deal with the social media. With the creation of a modified version of Cavanaugh's three criteria, both social media users and those who evaluate decisions in that medium will have an alternate ethical decision-making model to use. The authors show how one might (...) use this model in the age of anytime, anywhere technology. (shrink)

In this article, I address the various objections raised by Simone Chambers, Stephen White and Lea Ypi concerning my version of a critical theory of politics. I explain the basic assumptions that inform my account of a critique of relations of justification, its particular method and aims.

Peter Singer’s arguments against the morality of the typical American diet focus on the pain of animals, and lead to the conclusion that we must become committed vegans. His approach ignores the impact that different psychological capacities can legitimately have on our moral appraisal of the interests of beings. Although we ought to eat less meat because of the externalized environmental costs that factory farming inflicts upon future people, an ideal diet may contain some environmentally sustainably raised meat. Finally, the (...) perception of ethical puritanism in committed vegans may be an obstacle to achieving the real reductions in animal suffering that they advocate. (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)

We commonly identify something seriously defective in a human life that is lived in ignorance of important but unpalatable truths. At the same time, some degree of misapprehension of reality may be necessary for individual health and success. Morally speaking, it is unclear just how insistent we should be about seeking the truth. Robert Sparrow has considered such issues in discussing the manufacture and marketing of robot ‘pets’, such as Sony’s doglike ‘AIBO’ toy and whatever more advanced devices may supersede (...) it. Though it is not his only concern, Sparrow particularly criticizes such robot pets for their illusory appearance of being living things. He fears that some individuals will subconsciously buy into the illusion, and come to sentimentalize interactions that fail to constitute genuine relationships. In replying to Sparrow, I emphasize that this would be continuous with much of the minor sentimentality that we already indulge in from day to day. Although a disposition to seek the truth is morally virtuous, the virtue concerned must allow for at least some categories of exceptions. Despite Sparrow’s concerns about robot pets (and robotics more generally), we should be lenient about familiar, relatively benign, kinds of self-indulgence in forming beliefs about reality. Sentimentality about robot pets seems to fall within these categories. Such limited self-indulgence can co-exist with ordinary honesty and commitment to truth. (shrink)

In the article, the author investigates the correlations between the bounds of individual freedom and external constraints, aiming to view the present pandemic as an opportunity to study the boundaries of freedom. She supports the point of view, which understands the whole period since the end of the Middle Ages till nowadays as a period of constant liberation of human’s creative forces. Nevertheless, she agrees that the philosophy of humanism contains a paradox in itself. The more one affirms oneself, liberating (...) his/her personality – the more he/she loses this inner self. This loss of self results in a feeling of individual isolation and powerlessness when a personality is dissolved in different behavioral patterns adopted from the outside. The author also pays much attention to distinguishing between the notions of personality and identity. She claims that despite the fact that these two concepts are very close to each other and are often used as synonyms, they still are of different nature, and there is a significant difference between them.Based on the understanding of freedom in Immanuel Kant’s philosophy and Erich Fromm’s approach, the author turns to sociological surveys of the artistic sphere in 2020 to show that despite the obvious loss caused by the pandemics, and the fact that art as a professional sphere suffers a deep crisis, the pandemic has unexpectedly become a stimulus for a search of a new combination of “personality” and “identity.” Several lockdowns in Europe and the US have suddenly become the stimuli for more personal freedom, which is found in art as a way to break the chain of causality. (shrink)

United States Army Special Forces who deployed to Iraq in mid-2014, and who were seeking to help Iraqi forces to combat Islamic State faced a considerable challenge: how could a force of fewer than 50 operators provide guidance and support to their Iraqi allies while also keeping in line with Washington’s policy of seeking to avoid any possibility of combat casualties among deployed U.S. Special Forces? Their solution to this dilemma came to be dubbed ‘Remote Advise and Assist’. By cobbling (...) together a system of voice and text communications, cameras, interactive maps and mobile handsets, these Special Forces personnel found they could ‘virtually accompany’ their Iraqi partners into hot zones where U.S. boots on the ground were forbidden. This approach seems to have been extremely successful, but potentially raises a range of ethical concerns. Against the backdrop of a general account of the ethics of employing surrogate forces, this paper explores the ethical questions raised by the practice of ‘Remote Advise and Assist’. (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)

Even though social engineering has gained a bad reputation, due to new possibilities in the information age, it may be time to reconsider Karl Popper’s conception of “piecemeal social engineering.” Piecemeal social engineering is not only an element within Popper’s open society. It also connects his political philosophy to his philosophy of science and his evolutionary epistemology. Furthermore, it seems to fit well into the search for implementation strategies for policies and social actions in the context of nonideal theory. Nevertheless, (...) this does not necessarily undermine the need for political ideals and first-order principles, which are inhabitants of “World 3.”. (shrink)

In this paper, we present a formal interpretive account of Jean Piaget’s theory of the morality that regulates social exchanges, which we call interactional morality. First, we place Piaget’s conception in the context of his epistemological and sociological works. Then, we review the core of that conception: the two types of interactional moralities that Piaget identified to be usual in social exchanges, and the role that the notion of respect-for-the-other plays in their definition. Next, we analyze the main features of (...) social exchanges that are subject to each of those two types of interactional moralities. Following, we formalize Piaget’s account of how the two types of interactional moralities can be put to regulate social exchanges in which values, norms, beliefs, and goals are exchanged, so that interactional commitments can be established among the participants. Then, we sketch a moral reasoning system able to support formal reasonings about interactional moralities. Finally, we illustrate the usefulness of the overall formal model of interactional moralities that resulted from our study by applying it to the explication of some of the conclusions achieved by Piaget in his moral studies about children games. (shrink)