n the John Locke Lectures, included in Meaning and the Moral Sciences, Hilary Putnam argues that "the 'softness' of social facts may affect the 'hard' notions of truth and reference" Without fully endorsing Putnam's argument, I hope to show that a similar argument could be constructed for a slightly different conclusion: that the 'softness' of ethics may affect the 'hard' notions of truth and reference.

Over a century ago a Western observer recognized an effective morality among Navajo Indians in the American Southwest, yet could not locate its expression, except in mythology recounting contradictory behaviors. Through the 1900s scholars delineated contours of Navajo moral values, myths, and taxonomies upon which moral traditions were based, and situations in which Navajos have engaged in ethical decision-making. Recently individual Navajos have manifested their role as ethical agents, not merely as recipients of moral lore. A contemporary Navajo storyteller, Sunny (...) Dooley, enunciates narrative ethical judgments, grounded in traditional Navajo mythology and its religious milieu, as she addresses the present conditions of her people. Thus she probes the contradictions that are inherent to life. Her stories testify to the insoluble conflicts within the human condition, ultimate and immediate conundrums that must be faced, even though they surely will not be resolved. (shrink)

This article considers the value of adopting a code of professional ethics for teachers. After having underlined how a code of ethics stands to benefits a community of educators – namely, by providing a mechanism for regulating autonomy and promoting a shared professional ethic – the article examines the principal arguments against codes of ethics. Three arguments are presented and analyzed in light of the codes of teacher ethics in place elsewhere in Canada. We conclude that a code of ethics (...) must meet three conditions in order for it to be favorable to autonomous judgment rather than blind adhesion to pre-established norms: openness of meaning, space for dissidence, and avoidance of moralistic language. (shrink)

SummaryParadigmatology as a science of structures of reasoning which vary from culture to culture, from profession to profession, and sometimes from individual to individual is outlined, and communication difficulties between paradigms are discussed. Three paradigms are used as examples: hierarchical, unilateral, homogenistic, universalistic, categorical, classificational, deductive, rank‐ordering, competitive paradigm with predetermined universe; individualistic, isolationists, random, nominalistic, atomistic, statistical, probabilistic, egocentric paradigm with thermodynamically and informationally decaying universe; mutualistic, reciprocally interactive, heterogeneity‐creating, network‐structured, relational, contextual, complementary, symbiotic paradigm with self‐generating and self‐organizing (...) universe based on mutual causality and post‐Shannon information theory.Paradigmatologie et son Application à la Communication entre des Domaines de Spécialisation différents, entre des Professions et entre des Cultures. (shrink)

This essay deals with some philosophical problems concerning the understanding of ethical conceptions in an alien culture. Its aim is to show that in investigating such conceptions we cannot proceed on purely empirical grounds; our own ethical concepts will, in a conceptual sense, determine what it is conceivable that we find.

Descriptions of how managers think about the moral questions that come up in their work lives are analyzed to draw out the moral assumptions to which they commonly refer. The moral standards thus derived are identified as (1) honesty in communication, (2) fair treatment, (3) special consideration, (4) fair competition, (5) organizational responsibility, (6) corporate social responsibility, and, (7) respect for law. It is observed that these normative standards assume the cultural form of social conventions but because managers invoke them (...) as largely private intuitions, their cultural status remains precarious and unclear. This is the second in a research series of three papers. (shrink)

Let it be allowed, though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed consist in affection to and pursuit of what is right and good, as such; yet, that when we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it.—Butler, Sermon XIThere are a number of different grounds on which philosophers have argued that the question “Should (...) I be moral?” is unintelligible or at least somewhat odd. Some evidently are unable to understand ‘should’ in any other way than ‘morally ought’, with the consequence that the question can admit of no answer but the affirmative. Others, influenced by the later Wittgenstein, hold that, although ‘should ’-questions have a role within the moral language game, the ‘should’ in the question above has no real function, it is like a ‘machine idling,’ and we can attribute no real sense to it. Now I consider neither of these arguments to be successful or even very plausible, but I do wish to consider a further argument which is logically independent of the above and which appears, initially at least, to be quite plausible. (shrink)