More than a century before Anscombe counseled us to jettison concepts such as that of the moral ought, or moral law, Schopenhauer mounted a vigorous attack on such prescriptive moral concepts, particularly as found in Kant. In this chapter I consider the four objections that constitute this attack. According to the first, Kant begs the question by merely assuming that ethics has a prescriptive or legislative-imperative form, when a purely descriptive-explanatory conception such as Schopenhauer’s also presents itself as a possibility. (...) According to the second, Kant’s purportedly philosophical ethics is in fact a theological ethics in disguise, because the moral ought and its prescriptive cousins presuppose a divine lawgiver. According to the third, Kant’s conceptions of the moral law as a law of freedom, and of moral imperatives as categorical or unconditioned, involve him in contradictions. Finally, Schopenhauer objects that there can be no such thing as a moral ought because a binding ought or law must be understood to operate through appeals to self-interest, which stands in opposition to morality. I contend that these last three objections are sound and that the fourth in particular succeeds in confuting the prescriptivist conception of morality. (shrink)

Carol Gilligan heard a ‘distinct moral language’ in the voices of women who were subjects in her studies of moral reasoning. Though herself a developmental psychologist, Gilligan has put her mark on contemporary feminist moral philosophy by daring to claim the competence of this voice and the worth of its message. Her book, In a Different Voice, which one theorist has aptly described as a best-seller, explored the concern with care and relationships which Gilligan discerned in the moral reasoning of (...) women and contrasted it with the orientation toward justice and rights which she found to typify the moral reasoning of men. (shrink)

Innovation processes are extremely complex and opaque, which makes it tough or even impossible to govern them. Innovators lack control of large parts of these developments and lack of foreknowledge about the possible consequences of emerging technologies. Because of these features some scholars have argued that innovation processes should be structurally reformed and the agent-centered model of responsibility for innovation should be dismissed altogether. In the present article it will be argued that such a structural idea of responsible research and (...) innovation presumes rational agents who can be motivated by reasons. Instead of dismissing the agent-centered approach to responsibility for innovation processes a virtue ethical approach will be developed. Virtues should be considered as the intellectual and moral dispositions presumed for good decision making. It will be shown that creativity and eagerness are creditable character traits that have a distinct positive value for managing the opaqueness of innovation processes. Such traits are mandatory for change and betterment. Furthermore, it will be argued that the notion of responsibility of innovators should not be understood merely as means for constraining them but also as a tool to perpetuate their integrity and happiness. Through discussing the captivating examples of Steve Jobs and the protagonist of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein it will be shown how to apply this virtue ethical framework for innovators in practice. (shrink)