ABSTRACTThis article discusses the concept of integrity. Often, integrity is used as a characteristic of individuals showing a high fidelity to generally praised norms. Here, a more independent meaning is suggested so that the concept implies a clear distance to integration instead of mixing up the two concepts. Integrity implies integration within the individual of beliefs, statements, and action. To what degree can society and companies accommodate a pluralism created by individuals with integrity? Here, it is argued that integrity is (...) a useful virtue and that a more integrity‐friendly environment in companies would be beneficial by stimulating the empowered employee to make improved contributions. The concept is central for business ethics and crucial for the company's choice of such policies. A priority of integrity also affects organizational theory and the practical organizing of the company. Integrity is also vital for society at large for both citizens and companies, providing an ideological support for pluralism and a check on demands for conformism. The article also discusses how a virtue such as integrity can function as guidance for the individual operating in a complex world. (shrink)

Recenze knihy:Matti Eklund, Choosing Normative Concepts. Oxford University Press, 2017, 224 s.

A standard view in ethics is that ethical issues concern a different range of human concerns than does politics. This essay goes beyond the long-standing dispute about the extent to which applied ethics needs a commitment to ethical theory. It argues that regardless of the outcome of that dispute, applied ethics, because it presumes something about the nature of authority, rests upon and is implicated in political theory. After internalist and externalist accounts of applied ethics are described, “mixed” approaches are (...) considered that contain inevitable political dimensions. A feminist alternative, Walker’s metaethic of responsibility, shows that authority is best understood as relational and that situations of unequal power are therefore often the places where applied ethics arises. Furthermore, in a democratic society, commitments to democracy should shape the account of authority, and, thus, the nature of applied ethics as well. (shrink)

This article raises a problem for Cornell varieties of moral realism. According to Cornell moral realists, we can know about moral facts just as we do the empirical facts of the natural sciences. If this is so, it would remove any special mystery that is supposed to attach to our knowledge of objective moral facts. After clarifying the ways in which moral knowledge is to be similar to scientific knowledge, I claim that the analogy fails, but for little-noticed reasons. A (...) preliminary conclusion of the article will be that this positive comparison to scientific knowledge hurts, rather than helps, the realist position. Yet, rather than spell trouble for moral realism altogether, I suggest that the apparent failure of Cornell realist moral epistemology points to a better way forward for moral realism. (shrink)

Teaching business ethics to undergraduates has disclosed difficulties for both students and teacher which raise deeper issues about what is the purpose of teaching ethics and of engaging in business. The author is Lecturer in Business Ethics in the Faculty of Business and Social Studies, Cheltenham & Gloucester College of Higher Education, Swindon Road, Cheltenham, Glos GL50 4AZ, UK.

In this article I investigate several "sorts of naturalism" that have been advanced in recent years as possible foundations for virtue ethics: those of Michael Thompson, Philippa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse, John McDowell, and Larry Arnhart. Each of these impressive attempts fails in illuminatingly different ways, and in the opening sections I analyze what has gone variously wrong. I next use this analysis to articulate four criteria that any successful Aristotelian naturalism must meet (my goal is to show what naturalism must (...) deliver, not yet to show that it can deliver it). I then look at Alasdair MacIntyre's approach, which begins with our natural trajectory from complete dependency toward becoming independent practical reasoners; I argue that this sort of naturalism meets the aforementioned criteria and thus provides a good example of what Aristotelian naturalists must do. I close with a consideration of two important objections to any broadly MacIntyrean sort of naturalism. (shrink)

Abstract: In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce argues there is good reason to think that the “moral sense” is a biological adaptation, and that this provides a genealogy of the moral sense that has a debunking effect, driving us to the conclusion that “our moral beliefs are products of a process that is entirely independent of their truth, … we have no grounds one way or the other for maintaining these beliefs.” I argue that Joyce's skeptical conclusion is not (...) warranted. Even if the moral sense is a biological adaptation, developed moralities (such as Aristotelian eudaimonism) can “co-opt” it into new roles so that the moral judgments it makes possible can come to transcend the evolutionary process that is “entirely independent of their truth.” While evolutionary theory can shed much light on our shared human nature, moral theories must still be vindicated, or debunked, by moral arguments. (shrink)

The nature of the relation between jurisprudential theories and first-order legal judgments is a strangely uncontroversial matter in contemporary legal philosophy. There is one dominant conception of the relation according to which jurisprudential theories are second-order or meta-legal theories that specify the ultimate grounds of first-order legal judgments. According to this conception, difficult first-order legal disputes are to be resolved by jurisprudential theorizing. According to an alternative conception that Ronald Dworkin has influentially advocated, jurisprudential theories are not second-order theories about (...) the nature of law, but instead covert first-order legal theories. These two conceptions of the relation between jurisprudential theories and first-order legal judgments dominate the contemporary legal philosophical scene and crowd out other possible conceptions. This article scrutinizes the two conceptions, and in the process raises the possibility of a different and arguably more credible conception. According to this new conception, our first-order legal views and a jurisprudential theory that we accept are supposed to form a mutually disciplining and supporting set of views that we accept in our pursuit of the epistemic ideal of wide reflective equilibrium. The two sets of views are supposed to constrain and discipline each other; but neither is meant to underwrite, certify, or ultimately determine the contents of the other. This new conception, which allows the relation between jurisprudential theories and first-order legal judgments to be much looser, untidier, and more complex than what the two dominant conceptions imply, should facilitate progress in legal philosophy and in first-order legal thinking. (shrink)

: Drawing from work in feminist moral philosophy, Tobin argues that the most common methodology used in practical ethics is a questionable methodology for addressing practical problems across diverse cultural contexts because the kind of impartiality it requires is neither feasible nor desirable. She then defends an alternative methodology for practical ethics in a global context and uses her proposed methodology to evaluate a problem that confronts many Sunni Muslim women around the world.

Drawing from work in feminist moral philosophy, Tobin argues that the most common methodology used in practical ethics is a questionable methodology for addressing practical problems across diverse cultural contexts because the kind of impartiality it requires is neither feasible nor desirable. She then defends an alternative methodology for practical ethics in a global context and uses her proposed methodology to evaluate a problem that confronts many Sunni Muslim women around the world.

The questions that I address are: ‘What ought to become of Religious Education (RE)?’ and ‘To what extent do non-religious beliefs belong in RE?’ I will argue that there are compelling reasons for studying religious and non-religious views alongside each other, but that there are serious objections to doing this in the context of any subject called ‘religious education’ and that a new compulsory, national curriculum subject called Ethics would be an appropriate context for such study.

As a response to what I see as the challenge posed by constructivist and narrative pedagogies, this paper seeks to sympathetically reconstruct Bernard Williams’ Absolute Conception from the scattered texts in which he briefly sketched it While ultimately defending the Absolute Conception or something close enough to it, the paper criticizes and distances itself from some aspects of Williams’ version, notably his conception of philosophy as insurmountably perspectival. Williams’ understanding of perspectival knowledge as contrasted to absolute knowledge is illustrated with (...) the concrete, if fictional case of the Dr Manhattan character from Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (2009). Adrian Moore’s reading, and Hilary Putnam’s criticisms of Williams’ Absolute Conception are amongst the positions engaged with. (shrink)

In this paper, we engage with the question of the normative content of the resilience concept. The issues are approached in two consecutive steps. First, we proceed from a narrow construal of the resilience concept – as the ability of a system to absorb a disturbance – and show that under an analysis of normative concepts as evaluative concepts resilience comes out as descriptive. In the second part of the paper, we argue that (1) for systems of interest (primarily social (...) systems or system with a social component) we seem to have options with respect to how they are described and (2) that this matters for what is to be taken as a sign of resilience as opposed to a sign of the lack of resilience for such systems. We discuss the implications of this for how the concept should be applied in practice and suggest that users of the resilience concept face a choice between versions of the concept that are either ontologically or normatively charged. (shrink)

This paper makes the non-monotonicity of a wide range of moral reasoning the basis of a case for particularism. Non-monotonicity threatens practical decision with an overwhelming informational complexity to which a form of ethical generalism seems the best response. It is argued that this impression is wholly misleading: the fact of non-monotonicity is best accommodated by the defence of four related theses in any theory of justification. First, the explanation of and defence of a default/challenge model of justification. Secondly, the (...) development of a theory of epistemic status and an explanation of those unearned entitlements that accrue to such status. Thirdly, an explanation of the basis of epistemic virtues. Finally, an account must be given of the executive capacity of rational decision itself as a ‘contentless ability’. This overall set of views can accommodate a limited role for generalizations about categories of evidence, but not such as to rescue a principled generalism. In particular, the version of particularism defended here explains why one ought not to accept the principled holism that has proved to be a problem for Dancy’s form of particularism. Ethics certainly involves hedged principles. However, principles cannot be self-hedging: there cannot be a that’s it operator in a principle as Richard Holton has claimed that there can be. Practical reasoning is concluded by the categorical detachment of the action-as-conclusion itself. (shrink)

Conventionalists about promising believe that it is wrong to break a promise because the promisor takes advantage of a useful social convention only to fail to do his part in maintaining it. Anti-conventionalists claim that the wrong of breaking a promise has nothing essentially to do with a social convention. Anti-conventionalists are right that the social convention is not necessary to explain the wrong of breaking most promises. But conventionalists are right that the convention plays an essential role in any (...) satisfactory account of promising. A new conventionalism can explain this by appealing to special features of social conventions. Two of these special features have important implications for any moral requirements they mediate, such as the requirement to keep one's promises and the moral requirements attached to social or occupational roles. First, these requirements will not depend on features of a situation that are inaccessible to typical participants in the convention. Second, these requirements often cannot be tailored to fit the overly unusual circumstances of participants. (shrink)

Contemporary American medical ethics was born during a period of social ferment, a key theme of which was the espousal of individual rights. Driven by complex cultural forces united in the effort to protect individuality and self-determined choices, an extrapolation from case law to rights of patients was accomplished under the philosophical auspices of ‘autonomy’. Autonomy has a complex history; arising in the modern period as the idea of self-governance, it received its most ambitious philosophical elaboration in Kant's moral philosophy. (...) In examining the Kantian construction, it is evident that neither his universal moral imperative nor his rigorous application of self-legislated ethical action can sustain our own notions of moral agency in a pragmatic, pluralistic society. But the Kantian position is useful in highlighting that self-governance is not equivalent to ‘autonomy’, and this distinction defines the limits of autonomy in the clinical setting. A critique of Engelhardt's idea of ‘principle of permission’ is used to illustrate autonomy's eclipse as a governing principle for medical ethics. (shrink)

What is the relation between the concept good and more specific or ‘thick’ concepts such as admirable or courageous? I argue that good or more precisely good pro tanto is a general concept, but that the relation between good pro tanto and the more specific concepts is not that of a genus to its species. The relation of an important class of specific evaluative concepts, which I call ‘affective concepts’, to good pro tanto is better understood as one between a (...) determinable and its determinates, whereas concepts such as courageous can be analysed in terms of affective concepts and purely descriptive concepts. (shrink)

The topic of cruelty features regularly in discussions concerning animals’ moral status. Further, condemnation of cruelty to animals is virtually unanimous. As Regan points out, ‘[i]t would be difficult to find anyone who is in favour of cruelty.’ What is to count as cruelty is therefore important. My aim here is to gain a clearer understanding of one aspect of our moral landscape: cruelty to animals. I will start by analyzing the concept of cruelty in section II. In section III (...) I will examine some implications of this analysis. I will present two arguments for why we should reassess whether modern farming practices are cruel. First, farming practices have changed and our understanding of the concept of cruelty needs to change with them. Second, our application of the concept of cruelty is inconsistent: we would consider many routine practices involving farm animals to be cruel if they involved pets. This inconsistency presents a dilemma: either extending farming practices to pets would not be cruel, or continuing our current farming practices is cruel. In section IV I consider some objections. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of the notion “the quest for identity.” The discussion emphasizes the importance of communal belonging, but rejects the view that one ought to belong to the community one was born to. It suggests that the quest for identity may lead individuals to follow many avenues: while some individuals might affirm their “inherent” affiliations and traditions, others may remain within their community of origin and strive to change its ways, or chose to leave their social group (...) and opt for membership in a new one. This analysis suggests that choice, characteristic of the liberal conception of the person, and rootedness, characteristic of the communitarian conception of the person, both play an important role in the formation of personal identity. (shrink)

The evolutionist challenge to moral realism is the skeptical challenge that, if evolution is true, it would only be by chance, a “happy coincidence” as Sharon Street puts it, if human moral beliefs were true. The author formulates Street’s “happy coincidence” argument more precisely using a distinction between probabilistic sensitivity and insensitivity introduced by Elliott Sober. The author then considers whether it could be rational for us to believe that human moral judgments about particular cases are probabilistically sensitive to strongly (...) universal fundamental moral standards of cooperation and fair division. The author provides an explanation of why there would be a benign correlation between human moral judgments in particular cases and the requirements of strongly universal fundamental moral standards. The explanation of the benign correlation is based on group selection for groups of individuals with an egalitarian satisficing psychology and egalitarian norms, because of the ability of such groups to more efficiently solve gene-propagation collective action problems. (shrink)

RésuméCet article examine diverses façons d'exploiter l'éthique aristotélicienne pour rendre compte philosophiquement de l'hypocrisie. Aristote lui-même n'apas dit grand chose d'explicite à ce sujet, mais nous nous employons à identifier et à scruter les passages qui sont les plus pertinents pour un traitement distinctif de l'hypocrisie, élucidant en cours de route un certain nombre de confusions à propos d'Aristote. Nous envisageons divers domaines d'émotion et d'action qui pourraient fournir un lieu propre au vice de l'hypocrisie, ceux en particulier de l'engagement (...) personnel, du souci à l'égard des opinions d'autrui, et de la sincérité. Nous concluons de cet examen que la doctrine du juste milieu ne fournit pas une explication satisfaisante de l'hypocrisie. Nous proposons alors que si un système moral comme celui d' Aristote doit rendre compte de la moralité dans son entièreté, il lui faut trouver place pour des phénomènes qui excèdent les limites de la doctrine du juste milieu. L'hypocrisie, selon nous, appartient précisément à cette famille de phénomènes. Finalement, nous esquissons une approche de l'hypocrisie qui fait usage d'éléments aristotéliciens, mais sans pour autant s'y confiner. (shrink)

There might not be a specific nano-ethics, but there definitely is an ethics of new & emerging science and technology (NEST), with characteristic tropes and patterns of moral argumentation. Ethical discussion in and around nanoscience and technology reflects such NEST-ethics. We offer an inventory of the arguments, and show patterns in their evolution, in arenas full of proponents and opponents. We also show that there are some nano-specific issues: in how size matters, and when agency is delegated to smart devices. (...) Our overall approach is a pragmatist ethics, and we conclude that struggle (and learning) might be more productive than models emphasizing consensus. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that virtue ethics should be understood as a form of ethics which integrates various domains of the practical in relation to which virtues are excellences. To argue this it is necessary to distinguish two senses of the “moral”: the broad sense which integrates the domains of the practical and a narrow classificatory sense. Virtue ethics, understood as above, believes that all genuine virtue should be understood as what I call virtues proper. To possess a virtue (...) proper (such as an excellent disposition of open-mindedness, an epistemic virtue) is to possess a disposition of overall excellence in relation to the sphere or field of the virtue (being open to the opinions of others). Overall excellence in turn involves excellence in integrating to a sufficient degree, standards of excellence in all relevant practical domains. Epistemic virtues, sporting virtues, moral virtues, and so on are all virtues proper. In particular it is impossible for an epistemic virtue to be a moral (narrow sense) vice. (shrink)

Debates about the legitimacy of embryonic stem-cell research have largely focused on the type of ethical value that should be accorded to the human embryo in␣vitro. In this paper, I try to show that, to broaden the scope of these debates, one needs to articulate an ontology that does not limit itself to biological accounts, but that instead focuses on the embryo’s place in a totality of relevance surrounding and guiding a human practice. Instead of attempting to substantiate the ethical (...) value of the embryo exclusively by pointing out that it has potentiality for personhood, one should examine the types of practices in which the embryo occurs and focus on the ends inherent to these practices. With this emphasis on context, it becomes apparent that the embryo’s ethical significance can only be understood by elucidating the attitudes that are established towards it in the course of specific activities. The distinction between fertilized embryos and cloned embryos proves to be important in this contextual analysis, since, from the point of view of practice, the two types of embryos appear to belong to different human practices: (assisted) procreation and medical research, respectively. In my arguments, I highlight the concepts of practice, technology, and nature, as they have been analyzed in the phenomenological tradition, particularly by Martin Heidegger. I come to the conclusion that therapeutic cloning should be allowed, provided that it turns out to be a project that benefits medical science in its aim to battle diseases. Important precautions have to be taken, however, in order to safeguard the practice of procreation from becoming perverted by the aims and attitudes of medical science when the two practices intersect. The threat in question needs to be taken seriously, since it concerns the structure and goal of practices which are central to our very self understanding as human beings. (shrink)

In this article, I will defend the so-called buck-passing theory of value. According to this theory, claims about the value of an object refer to the reason-providing properties of the object. The concept of value can thus be analyzed in terms of reasons and the properties of objects that provide them for us. Reasons in this context are considerations that count in favour of certain attitudes. There are four other possibilities of how the connection between reasons and value might be (...) formulated. For example, we can claim that value is a property that provides us with reasons to choose an option that has this property. I argue that none of these four other options can ultimately be defended, and therefore the buck-passing account is the one we ought to accept as the correct one. The case for the buck-passing account becomes even stronger, when we examine the weak points of the most pressing criticism against this account thus far. (shrink)

Rule-consequentialists tend to argue for their normative theory by claiming that their view matches our moral convictions just as well as a pluralist set of Rossian duties. As an additional advantage, rule-consequentialism offers a unifying justification for these duties. I challenge the first part of the ruleconsequentialist argument and show that Rossian duties match our moral convictions better than the rule-consequentialist principles. I ask the rule-consequentialists a simple question. In the case that circumstances change, is the wrongness of acts determined (...) by the ideal principles for the earlier circumstances or by the ideal ones for the new circumstances? I argue that whichever answer the rule-consequentialists give the view leads to normative conclusions that conflict with our moral intuitions. Because some set of Rossian duties can avoid similar problems, rule-consequentialism fails in the reflective equilibrium test advocated by the rule-consequentialists. (shrink)

Kant speaks repeatedly about the relations between ends or aims and scientific research, but the topic has mostly been ignored. What is the role of ends, especially (though not exclusively) practical ones, in his views on science? I will show that while Kant leaves ample space for recognizing a function of ends both in the definition and the pursuit of inquiry, and in the further practical application of scientific cognition, he does not claim that science is simply an instrument for (...) achieving practical ends. I explain his complex conception, pointing out that Kant argues (1) that the sciences require ends for their very definition, (2) that ends come in fundamentally different kinds, (3) that the relation between science and ends requires the rational determination and hierarchization of all our ends, with “wisdom” as the highest, and (4) that this determination and hierarchization – which ought to be done by metaphysics – has itself to be carried out in a “scientific way”. I show further that (5) Kant gives sui generis weight to the epistemic aims and standards of science and to the autonomy of science from our practical lives. This places his position between separatism and anti-separatism with regard to the relation between science and our ends or values. (shrink)

This paper argues that the best way to think about intellectual norms, or an ethics of belief, is by reflecting on the virtues and vices of inquiry. A theory of intellectual virtue provides a promising framework for evaluating different practices of inquiry in relation to the generic aim of truth. However, intellectual virtues are too often conflated with measures of reliability in mainstream epistemology, resulting in an overly narrow conception of epistemic value. Prominent reliabilists such as Alvin Goldman state that (...) a practice of inquiry is virtuous just in case it maximizes true belief. I argue that this reliabilist interpretation of virtue lacks the resources to explain evaluative distinctions between ways of maximizing true belief, such as the difference between maximizing accuracy and maximizing precision. With the aid of examples, I show that praiseworthy attributions of reliability are parasitic on attributions of topic-specific aims and skills that constitute their own characteristic standards of success, suggesting that bare truth-maximization is not the fundamental criterion of epistemic value. To accommodate the full range of intellectual norms that shape our practices, I conclude that we need a concept of virtue thicker than mere reliability. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 18 Bart Streumer argues that all normative properties are descriptive properties. His first argument is based on the principle that necessarily coextensive predicates ascribe the same property, and the claim that there is a descriptive predicate that is necessarily coextensive with normative predicates. From this Streumer concludes that normative properties are identical with descriptive properties. I argue that, even if we accept, this conclusion does not follow. Normative properties could only be descriptive properties if there is (...) some descriptive way in which all instances of normative properties are similar. But Streumer does not show that, and the prospects for doing so are, I believe, not good. His second argument rests on the premise that the nature of normative properties cannot depend on which first order normative theory is true. I argue that this premise is false, and that the argument for it does not sit comfortably with. (shrink)

The most interesting and perilous issue at present in comparative religious ethics is comparative ethical judgment—when and how to judge others, if at all. There are understandable historical and conceptual reasons for the current tendency to prefer descriptive over normative work in comparative religious ethics. However, judging those we study is inescapable—it can be suppressed or marginalized but not eliminated. Therefore, the real question is how to judge others (and ourselves) well, not whether to judge. Instead of bringing supposedly universal (...) moral scoring systems to bear on reified "traditions" and "cultures," it would be better to focus on the precise details of particular practices, motifs, and theories in various settings, and compare them with an eye to substantive issues of current ethical concern. (shrink)

Chenyang Li argues, in an article originally published in Hypatia, that the ethics of care and Confucian ethics constitute similar approaches to ethics. The present paper takes issue with this claim. It is more accurate to view Confucian ethics as a kind of virtue ethics, rather than as a kind of care ethics. In the process of criticizing Li's claim, the distinctiveness of care ethics is defended, against attempts to assimilate it to virtue ethics.

Anthropologists often claim to have understood an ethical outlook that they nevertheless believe is largely false. Some moral philosophers---e.g., Susan Hurley---argue that this claim is incoherent because understanding an ethical outlook necessarily involves believing it to be largely true. To reach this conclusion, they apply an argument of Donald Davidson’s to the ethical case. My central aim is to defend the coherence of the anthropologists’ claim against this argument.To begin with, I specify a candidate-language that contains a significant number of (...) alien thick descriptions. A thick description is a term that has both descriptive and evaluative content, e.g., “courageous.” I then argue that, because of its alien thick descriptions, this candidate-language cannot be interpreted by someone who adheres to the strictures of Davidson’s account of interpretation. To complete my criticism, I demonstrate that the meaningfulness of this candidate-language cannot be impugned on Davidson’s own terms. This involves showing that an interpreter’s correctly assigning truth-conditions, expressed in her own language, to sentences featuring alien thick descriptions is consistent with her believing those sentences to be false. (shrink)

In this article I am concerned with analogical reasoning in ethics. There is no doubt that the use of analogy can be a powerful tool in our ethical reasoning. The importance of this mode of reasoning is therefore commonly accepted, but there is considerable debate concerning how its structure should be understood and how it should be assessed, both logically and epistemically. In this paper, I first explain the basic structure of arguments from analogy in ethics. I then discuss the (...) diversity of analogical arguments that can be found in ethics. I analyse their structure, assess them from a logical viewpoint, and show how they can be epistemically challenged and defended. The result of this investigation is that, contrary to a commonly held view, analogical reasoning can be a logically valid type of ethical reasoning that can provide reasons for action that are not worse than the reasons provided by any other kind of practical reasoning. (shrink)

Good journalism is based—and to some extent thrives—on a diversity of perspectives from those who supply information and informed opinions to the public. New media journalism is a contemporary newsgathering and disseminating method with enormous communication potential because it is an online forum that can connect a great number of diverse contributors and audiences. Citizen journalism—performed on a global level through the Web—is a potential marvel because of its wide reach and range of diversity. This paper offers an examination and (...) philosophical analysis that shows which facets of new media information ethics and epistemology can be reconciled with universal ethical and epistemological principles and which, if any, cannot. To that end, we wish to provide groundwork for the description and critical evaluation of universal ethical and epistemic standards consistent with the phenomenon of new media journalism. (shrink)

This paper is part of a broader argument that seeks to offer a justification for political authority. It aims to investigate the role of truth in political argument and to place the problem of reasonable disagreement. The argument focuses on the possibility of political deliberation, that figures as a stage of political decision-making. It has to do with a confrontation between incompatible substantive beliefs which, however, all seem to be reasonable. How can citizens holding incompatible beliefs engage in an enterprise (...) of justifying them to one another? That is the question. (shrink)

Christian bioethics springs from the worship that is the response of the Church to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Such worship is distinctively political in nature, in that it acknowledges Christ as Lord. Because it is a political worship, it can recognize no other lords and no other prior claims on its allegiance: these include the claims of an allegedly universal ethics and politics determined from outside the Church. However the Church is called not just to be a contrast society, (...) but also to witness to the freeing of the world from salvific pretensions in order that it may embrace its proper temporality. The implications of this for the distinctiveness of Christian bioethics are brought out in three movements: first, the Church's itself learning how it is to conceive bioethics; second, the Church's role in unmasking the idols of secular bioethics; and third, the Church's witnessing to the freeing of medicine from idolatrous aspirations. (shrink)

The standard view in current philosophy of creativity says that being creative has two requirements: being novel and being valuable. The standard view on creativity has recently become an object of critical scrutiny. Hills and Bird have specifically proposed to remove the value requirement from the definition, as it is not clear that creative objects are necessarily valuable or creative people necessarily praiseworthy. In this paper, I argue against Hills and Bird, since eliminating the element of value from the explanation (...) of creativity hinders the understanding of the role that creative products play in actual epistemic practices, which are fundamentally normative. More specifically, I argue that the terms ‘creativity’ and ‘creative’ function as thick epistemic concepts when employed by competent epistemic agents in practice, that is, these concepts have both a descriptive and an evaluative content that cannot be disentangled from one another. Accordingly, I suggest that philosophers should prefer thick accounts over thin accounts of creativity. A thick account of creativity is one that endorses the standard view at its basis, but further develops it in two ways: by stressing the entanglement of the value and novelty requirements; by permitting to encompass a range of domain-specific characterizations of such entanglement for different epistemic situations. In order to take the first steps in the development of such a thick account of creativity, I look at the domain of scientific practices as a case in point, and try to spell out what the thickness of creative instances typically entails here. Namely, I identify the worthy novelty of creative models and methods with their potential to clarify a tradition, with fruitfulness, and with the fulfilment of exploratory aims. (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)

This paper explores one facet of Paul Russell’s unique “critical compatibilist” position on moral responsibility, which concerns his rejection of R. Jay Wallace’s “narrow construal” of moral responsibility as a concept tied exclusively to the Strawsonian reactive attitudes of resentment, indignation, and guilt. After explaining Russell’s critique of Wallace’s view, the paper considers a Wallace-inspired challenge based on the idea that questions of moral responsibility raise distinct issues of “fairness” that apply only to a narrow subset of the Strawsonian reactive (...) attitudes. The paper offers a defense of Russell’s view against this challenge. (shrink)

According to the most detailed articulation and defence of moral particularism, it is a metaphysical doctrine about the nature of reasons. This paper addresses aspects of particularist epistemology. In rejecting the existence and efficacy of principles in moral thinking and reasoning particularists typically appeal to a theory of moral knowledge which operates with a ‘perceptual’ metaphor. This is problematic. Holism about valence can give rise to a moral epistemology that is a metaethical variety of atomistic empiricism. To avoid what could (...) be called the Myth of the Moral Given, particularism has made use of a judgement-centred account of moral epistemology. This paper critically examines that account with reference to a proposed analogy between our moral knowledge and our knowledge of similarities. (shrink)

In Part I, I reflect in some detail upon the free will problem and about the way its understanding has radically changed. First I outline the four questions that go into making the free will problem. Second, I consider four paradigmatic shifts that have occurred in our understanding of this problem. Then I go on to reflect upon this complex and multi-level situation. In Part II of this essay, I explore the major alternative positions, and defend my views, in new (...) ways. Instead of trying to spread over many issues, I present one new argument against compatibilism, which I call “The Trap”. This tries to explicate the main problem that I find with this position. Then I present an exposition of what we nevertheless need to follow, which I call “the Appreciation of Agency”. This supports a measure of compatibilism in a more modest form, and opposes hard determinism. On this basis, we can confront the philosophical and practical questions, as to what we ought to believe and how we ought to live, with respect to free will and moral responsibility. This leads to what I call “The Bubble,” which addresses the way in which we deal with the tension between the absence of libertarian free will and The Trap, and the crucial need for the Appreciation of Agency. I conclude by reflecting upon three attributes of the free will problem that I consider central, but that have been neglected in the debate: complexity, risk and tragedy. (shrink)

Sir Peter Strawson’s ‘Freedom and Resentment’ was a landmark in the philosophical understanding of the free will problem. Building upon it, I attempt to defend a novel position, which purports to provide, in outline, the next step forward. The position presented is based on the descriptively central and normatively crucial role of illusion in the issue of free will. Illusion, I claim, is the vital but neglected key to the free will problem. The proposed position, which may be called ‘Illusionism’, (...) is shown to follow both from the strengths and from the weaknesses of Strawson’s position. (shrink)