Let us say that a normative conflict is a situation in which an agent ought to perform an action A, and also ought to perform an action B, but in which it is impossible for the agent to perform both A and B. Not all normative conflicts are moral conflicts, of course. It may be that the agent ought to perform the action A for reasons of personal generosity, but ought to perform the action B for reasons of prudence: perhaps (...) A involves buying a lavish gift for a friend, while B involves depositing a certain amount of money in the bank. In general, our practical deliberation is shaped by a concern with a variety of morally neutral goods—not just generosity and prudence, but any number of others, such as etiquette, aesthetics, fun—many of which are capable of providing conflicting reasons for action. I mention these ancillary values in the present setting, however, only to put them aside. We will be concerned here, not with normative conflicts more generally, but precisely with moral conflicts—situations in which, even when our attention is restricted entirely to moral reasons for action, it is nevertheless true that an agent ought to do A and ought to do B, where it is impossible to do both. (shrink)

In symmetrical moral dilemmas, the agent faces a choice between two incompatible actions, which are equally justified on the basis of the same value. These cases are generally discounted as spurious or irrelevant on the assumption that, when there is no failure of commensurability, choice between symmetrical requirements is indifferent and can be determined by randomization. Alternatively, this article argues that the appeal to randomization allows the agent to overcome a deliberative impasse, but it does not really resolve the moral (...) dilemma. This is because randomization fails to provide the agent with a genuine reason for action. The argument is based on an account of arbitrariness as a threat to the agent’s authorship on action. By focusing on lack of authorship, rather than on failure of commensurability, we gain the adequate perspective to assess the philosophical significance of moral dilemmas, their impact on the agential integrity, and their consequences for ethical theory. (shrink)

Thinking about misleading higher-order evidence naturally leads to a puzzle about epistemic rationality: If one’s total evidence can be radically misleading regarding itself, then two widely-accepted requirements of rationality come into conflict, suggesting that there are rational dilemmas. This paper focuses on an often misunderstood and underexplored response to this (and similar) puzzles, the so-called conflicting-ideals view. Drawing on work from defeasible logic, I propose understanding this view as a move away from the default metaepistemological position according to which rationality (...) requirements are strict and governed by a strong, but never explicitly stated logic, toward the more unconventional view, according to which requirements are defeasible and governed by a comparatively weak logic. When understood this way, the response is not committed to dilemmas. (shrink)

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo mostrar o contexto filosófico e literário no qual evolui o seguinte problema: quais são as consequências da morte de Deus para a moral? Para responder a esta questão, focarei minha atenção sobre um período específico do pensamento ocidental, a saber, o que vai de Feuerbach (ou, da publicação da Crítica da razão pura de Kant em 1781) a Sartre e Camus, passando particularmente por Dostoievski e Nietzsche. Mais especificamente, analisarei a relação existente entre a (...) morte de Deus e a gratuidade. (shrink)

Partiendo de la descripción subjetivista que Noël Carroll hace de las ideas estéticas de David Hume en On Criticism, propongo una interpretación objetivista de las mismas. Para ello, muestro que hay cierta confusión en la obra del filósofo escocés cuando vincula los valores estéticos con las cualidades secundarias lockeanas. Creemos que esa vinculación requiere de cierto esclarecimiento. Para ello me apoyo en distinciones ya clásicas propuestas por Kripke. A partir de ahí, muestro que Hume es más objetivista de lo que (...) Carroll y otros autores interpretan. Finalmente señalo en qué sentido Hume, a pesar del objetivismo, sigue siendo un sentimentalista en lo que a los valores se refiere. (shrink)

Global society issues are putting increasing pressure on both small and large organizations to communicate ethically at all levels. Achieving this requires social skills beyond the choice of language or vocabulary and relies above all on individual social responsibility. Arguments from social contract philosophy and speech act theory lead to consider a communication contract that identifies the necessary individual skills for ethical communication on the basis of a limited number of explicit clauses. These latter are pragmatically binding for all partners (...) involved and help to ensure that the ground rules of cooperative communication are observed within a group or an organization. Beyond promoting ethical communication, the communication contract clarifies how individual discursive behaviour can be constructively and ethically monitored by group leaders in business meetings. A case study which shows what may happen when ground clauses of ethical communication are violated is presented. The conclusions of the study highlights why attempting to respect the communication contract is in the best interest of all partners at all levels within any group or organization. (shrink)

Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex identifies the philosophical vantage point from which she will survey the situation of women as existentialist. The ways in which she must later compromise that committment to theory in order to remain true to her feminist insights foreshadow recent developments in feminist ethics and epistemology.

There is mounting evidence that methylphenidate (MPH; Ritalin) is being used by healthy college students to improve concentration, alertness, and academic performance. One of the key concerns associated with such use of pharmaceuticals is the degree of freedom individuals have to engage in or abstain from cognitive enhancement (CE). From a pragmatic perspective, careful examination of the ethics of acts and contexts in which they arise includes considering coercion and social pressures to enhance cognition. We were interested in understanding how (...) university students, parents of university students, and healthcare providers viewed autonomy and coercion in CE using MPH. We found that perspectives converged on the belief that CE is a matter of personal and individual choice. Perspectives also converged on the existence of tremendous social pressures to perform and succeed. Parents emphasized personal responsibility and accountability for CE choices, and expressed feelings of worry, sadness and fear about CE. Students emphasized the importance of personal integrity in CE, expressed tolerance for personal choices of others, and highlighted the challenge that CE poses to maintaining one’s personal integrity. Healthcare providers emphasized the health consequences of CE. These results illustrate: (1) the importance of understanding how context is viewed in relation to perspectives on autonomous choice; (2) the limitations of individualistic libertarian approaches that do not consider social context; and (3) the ethical implications of public health interventions in a value-laden debate where perspectives diverge. (shrink)

Este artigo trata do problema da passagem do animal ao homem na obra de Bataille, processo marcado por três elementos: a construção de ferramentas e as operações implicadas no trabalho, as interdições ligadas à morte e à sexualidade e as transgressões das quais essas interdições e os limites do mundo do trabalho são vítima. Salientarei a maneira pela qual o produto desse processo – um animal humanizado – será portador de uma irresolução essencial. A essa irresolução, que encontrará sua expressão (...) em variados quadros culturais e subjetivos da humanidade, Bataille fornece um sentido preciso: um fascínio exercido sub-repticiamente por aquilo que a ferramenta obrigou o homem a abandonar ao longo da via por ela aberta. (shrink)

“No one can serve two masters.” This Bible quotation highlights an irreducible contradiction, which echoes numerous organizational settings. This article considers the under-explored ethical implications of paradoxical injunctions created by such a contradiction at the managerial level. Contradictory organizational constraints turn into paradoxant systems , where the organization structurally settles paradoxical injunctions which challenge managerial ethics in practice. We then ask what managerial responsibility means in such contexts and find that managers have then to reshape their practice as a situated (...) construction through constant mediation between different “masters” and bricolage (i.e., tinkering with concepts). An ethnographic case study of an anti-money laundering service in an investment bank illuminates this phenomenon from a practice perspective. The possibility to enact an actual ethical practice within the contradictory organization relies on a new role of the manager. This implies drawing on an approach of responsible management as an enactment of ethics in practice which is situated within the framework of a new conception of both the organization, as a structurally “paradoxant system,” and the manager as a mediator in charge of enacting coherence. (shrink)

Heidegger's Being and Time sets out a view of ourselves that shows in positive terms how a reification of ourselves as minded beings can be avoided. Heidegger thereby provides a view of ourselves that fits into one of the main strands of today's philosophy of mind: the intentional vocabulary in which we describe ourselves is indispensable and in principle irreducible to a naturalistic vocabulary. However, as far as ontology is concerned, there is no commitment to the position that being minded (...) is something beyond the physical. In particular, this paper shows how Heidegger's claim that being minded is tied to being-in-the-world links up with (a) externalism and (b) a social theory of intentionality. (shrink)

For the larger part of modern western intellectual history, it has been assumed that the study of morality and religion requires special methodology, insulated from, and in some important aspects incongruent with, the scientific method commonly used in the realm of natural sciences. Furthermore, even if it would be granted that moral and religious behavior is amendable to scientific analysis, the prospects of using evolutionary theory in particular to do the heavy lifting in explanation of these phenomena have been bleak, (...) since many scholars doubted that a biological theory could possibly offer any valuable contribution. Recent advances in the fields of Evolutionary Ethics and Cognitive Science of Religion disprove both claims, emphasizing empirically founded explanations, demonstrating extraordinarily high degree of methodological consilience, and revealing utmost importance of the application of evolutionary theory in fields of study once deemed to be exclusive domains of social sciences and philosophy. (shrink)

On the face of it, normative conflicts are commonplace. Yet standard deontic logic declares them to be logically impossible. That prompts the question, What are the proper principles of normative reasoning if such conflicts are possible? This paper examines several alternatives that have been proposed for a logic of 'ought' that can accommodate normative conflicts, and finds all of them unsatisfactory as measured against three criteria of adequacy. It then introduces a new logic that does meet all three criteria, and (...) so allows for the possibility of genuine normative conflicts. (shrink)

Gibbard''s theory of rationality is evolutionary in terms of its result as well as its underpinning argument. The result is that judgments about what is rational are analyzed as being similar to judgments of morality — in view of what Darwin suggests concerning the latter. According to the Darwinian theory, moral judgments are based on sentiments which evolve to promote the survival and welfare of human societies. On Gibbard''s theory, rationality judgments should be similarly regarded as expressing emotional attachments to (...) behavioral norms which originate and function to coordinate social interaction. Consequently, Gibbard''s theory of rationality might be used to illuminate Darwin''s theory of morality, and vice versa. Additionally, as argued in the present essay, both can be further elaborated, and defended, by developing related themes in philosophical ethics: viz., connected with Hume and 20th-century emotivists. The main problem is that this general Darwinian approach faces widespread opposition nowadays, not only in ethics but in philosophy of science. The purpose of this essay is to analyze Gibbard''s theory, critically and constructively, with emphasis on the pertinent commonalities in Darwin, Hume and the emotivists, while also critically addressing their common enemies. The pervasive methodological orientation is to relate this analysis to (philosophy of) science in general, and biological science in particular. (shrink)

Este artigo tem por objetivo apresentar e avaliar o pensamento da filósofa Yvonne Picard, a partir do único texto por ela publicado, Le temps chez Husserl et chez Heidegger. Por ser uma filósofa pouco conhecida no Brasil, será feita uma breve contextualização do seu escrito, que se insere em um momento decisivo para a recepção da fenomenologia na França, ao final dos anos 1930 e início dos anos 1940. Depois disso, mostraremos em diferentes etapas como ela procurou confrontar a filosofia (...) de Heidegger à de Husserl através da fenomenologia da consciência do tempo. Pretendemos mostrar, ao final, como a sua solução retorna a Husserl com base em uma perspectiva dialética. (shrink)

Can a technological culture accommodate spiritual experience and spiritual thinking? If so, what kind of spirituality? I explore the relation between technology and spirituality by constructing and discussing several models for spirituality in a technological culture. I show that although gnostic and animistic interpretations and responses to technology are popular challenges to secularization and disenchantment claims, both the Christian tradition and contemporary posthumanist theory provide interesting alternatives to guide our spiritual experiences and thinking in a technological culture. I analyze how (...) creational, network, and cyborg metaphors defy suggestions of (individual) animation or alienation and instead offer different ways of conceptualizing and experiencing communion between the material and the spiritual. (shrink)

This article begins with Feuerbach’s critique of religion in order to recover the humanist sense of such critique, which is more than an affirmation of atheism or a denial of God’s existence, it is a defense of dignity and freedom Human. Throughout this study Feuerbach’s thinking is placed beyond the discussion between atheism and theism, establishing a dialogue that set aside the limitations of this dichotomy. In the history of philosophy, the importance of Feuerbach’s thought for the later philosophy of (...) suspicion has been emphasized, but in this case a less explored path is followed: his relation to dialogical thinking and the religion of love. (shrink)

The paper addresses the integration of ethics into professional education related to the disciplines responsible for the conception and creation of the artificial (artefactual or technology). The ontological-epistemological paradigm of those disciplines is understood within the frame of the sciences of the artificial as established by Herbert Simon (1969). According to that paradigm, those sciences include disciplines not only related to the production of artefacts (technology), such as engineering, architecture, industrial design, etc, but also disciplines related to devised courses of (...) action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones, like medicine, law, education, etc. They are centered on intentional action and at their core is the activity of design, which is their common foundation and attitude, or their common culture. The science of design becomes the broader foundational discipline for any professions engaged in the intentional transformation of the world. The main distinction between design disciplines and scientific ones rests on the object-project dichotomy. Indeed, contrary to Science that sees the world as an object to be observed, Design sees the world as a project and acts upon the world through projects, which are grounded in intentions, ends, and values. Design disciplines are meant to transform the world, or part of it, and are teleological. Being so, they are embodied in an act that is ethical and their ontology-epistemology must be addressed also through practical reason to resituate all professional disciplines according to their involved nature. (shrink)

Pragmatismo é um movimento filosófico que inclui aqueles que afirmam que uma proposição é verdadeira se funciona de forma satisfatória, que o significado de uma proposição pode ser encontrado nas conseqüências práticas de aceitá-la, e que as idéias pouco práticas devem ser rejeitadas. O Pragmatismo começou no final do século XIX, com Charles Sanders Peirce (Como tornar nossas idéias mais claras, Fixação da Crença) e foi desenvolvido na obra de William James (Peirce e James eram membros do Clube Metafísico). O (...) pragmatismo tem uma idéia principal: a verdade é mutável. Este artigo é uma discussão teórico-conceitual sobre o direito de crer, a partir da filosofia pragmatista de William James. O artigo inicia com uma breve discussão sobre a religião, em seguida, discute a posição de Nietzsche e, por fim, discute-se a perspectiva da filosofia americana pragmatista criada por Charles Peirce e William James. Palavras-chave : Religião; Pragmatismo; Filosofia; Morte de DeusPragmatism is a philosophical movement that includes those who claim that a proposition is true if it works satisfactorily, and that the meaning of a proposition is to be found in the practical consequences of accepting it, and that unpractical ideas are to be rejected. The Pragmatism began in the late nineteenth century with Charles Sanders Peirce (How to Make Our Ideas Clear; The Fixation of Belief) and it was developed further in the works of William James (Peirce and James were members of The Metaphysical Club). The Pragmatism has a major idea: truth is mutable. This article is a theoretical-conceptual discussion about the right to believe, from the perspective of pragmatist philosophy of William James. The article begins with a brief discussion about religion, and then discusses the position of Nietzsche and, finally, the perspective of American philosophy created by the pragmatist Charles Peirce and William James is discussed. Keywords: Religion; Pragmatism; Philosophy; Death of God. (shrink)

Abstract: A 1991 article by psychologist John D. Carter offers an underdeveloped insight that typologies for relating science and religion might be fruitfully formulated in discipline-specific perspectives. This essay thus covers a specifically theological perspective only briefly outlined in Carter, and it expands four models that theologians have used to relate religion and science. This essay renames these models and expands their implications, especially for addressing the behavioral sciences. (1) The contrarian model generally opposes science, (2) the apologetic makes theology (...) congenial to science, (3) the correlational holds both disciplines in tension, and (4) the synthetic attempts a grand unification of them. Arguing from the theologian's perspective, this essay is intended to demonstrate that different models/methods for relating science and religion are really reflections of deeper religious attitudes and argues that the task for which a method is employed ultimately determines its adequacy within that attitude's constraints. (shrink)

Corporate citizenship, social responsibility and sustainability reports could be analyzed from a philosophical viewpoint. In this article, we will use Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic philosophy to assess the narrativity of such reports. Out of a philosophical viewpoint, our exploratory study analyzes the contents of ten reports: two corporate citizenship reports, three corporate social responsibility reports, and five sustainability reports. Those reports are arising in-time and are thus referring to past corporate events and phenomena. Sometimes such reports introduce a corporate world-dream that (...) could emphasize various issues such as human dignity and inclusiveness/diversity, global health, and planetary stewardship. They could even convey a subversive ideal that could strongly shake the foundations of business. The way business corporations are understanding corporate citizenship and sustainability could, more or less radically, change the way we are doing business. However, those corporate citizenship, social responsibility and sustainability reports do not have any emplotment. They are thus stories that cannot be considered as narratives. We could call them “would-be” narratives. (shrink)

Ante la escasez de investigaciones sobre el asunto en lengua romance, el autor se plantea la posibilidad de encontrar un punto de encuentro entre las filosofías de Fichte y Sartre con el fin de comprender mejor sus singulares aportes. Tras descartar la posibilidad de un acercamiento a estos dos pensadores a través de una crítica textual de la recepción del primero en la obra del segundo, identifica posibles cruces y coincidencias entre ellos. Se concentra luego el escrito, primero a partir (...) de La Trascendencia del ego y El ser y la nada y luego de las dos primeras exposiciones de la Doctrina de la Ciencia, en el tema de la libertad como piedra angular de los dos pensamientos y como puente que permite salvar la distancia entre el yo y el no-yo fichteano y el ser-en-sí y el ser-para-sí sartreano. (shrink)