In our thinking about what to do, we consider reasons which count for or against various courses of action. That having a glass of wine with dinner would be pleasant and make me sociable recommends the wine. That it will disturb my sleep and inhibit this evening’s work counts against it. I determine what I ought to do by weighing these considerations and deciding what would be best all things considered. A practical reason makes sense of a course of action (...) by recommending it, by highlighting some good or desirable feature of it which could move a reasonable agent to perform it. When thinking about what to do, we also attend to our obligations. Perhaps I have promised to remain clearheaded this evening. Given this I am obliged not to drink. How should this consideration affect my deliberations? According to Davidson, the fact that an action would be a breach of a promise ‘is a count against the action, to be weighed along with other reasons for the action’ (Davidson 2004: 177). This suggests that obligations are a sub-set of our reasons, they are one input into the process of determining what action would be reasonable or justified all things considered. One can see why Davidson might say this. After all, having carefully considered the matter, I may decide not to keep my promise. Furthermore this may be the right thing to do, the most reasonable course of action available to me in the light of all the relevant factors. Nevertheless this description seems to miss something important about a promise. The fact that I promised not to drink does not merely recommend not drinking as does the prospect of a restless night; it places a demand on me. Drinking would not be just inadvisable; it would now be a wrong. And even if such a wrong might on the whole be justified, even if committing this wrong is the right thing to do, in drinking I refuse a demand, I don’t just reject a recommendation. It is widely held that a promise provides you with a moral reason to fulfill it, whereas the fact that drinking would make you lose sleep does not, typically, constitute such a reason.. (shrink)

'Moral luck' refers to the phenomenon whereby one's degree of blameworthiness for what one has done varies on account of factors beyond one's control. Applying concepts of Dworkin's from the domain of distributive justice, I draw a distinction between 'option moral luck,' which is that to which one has exposed oneself as the result of one's voluntary choices, and 'brute moral luck,' which is that which is unchosen and unavoidable. I argue that option moral luck is not ruled out on (...) grounds of unfairness. I also offer a non-fairness-based rejection of brute moral luck and defense of option moral luck. (shrink)

En este artículo argumento que la distinción entre los términos “ética” y “moral” es estipulativa y que nada nos impone un cierto significado de los términos: ni su etimología ni la tradición filosófica. Argumento específicamente en contra de una estipulación según la cual “ética” se refiere a la afirmación de la conciencia individual autónoma o auténtica, mientras que “moral”, a la esfera de la observancia de reglas impuestas por la sociedad. Si el propósito de la estipulación es mostrar la mayor (...) importancia relativa de la primera sobre la segunda, por sí sola, esta distinción no nos da ninguna justificación de por qué la conducta ética es superior a la moral. Nada realmente significativo, fuera del ámbito de la teoría que hace la distinción, depende de la estipulación terminológica entre “ética” y “moral”. (shrink)

While there is now considerable anxiety about whether the psychological theory presupposed by virtue ethics is empirically sustainable, analogous issues have received little attention in the virtue epistemology literature. This paper argues that virtue epistemology encounters challenges reminiscent of those recently encountered by virtue ethics: just as seemingly trivial variation in context provokes unsettling variation in patterns of moral behavior, trivial variation in context elicits unsettling variation in patterns of cognitive functioning. Insofar as reliability is a condition on epistemic virtue, (...) we have reason to doubt that human beings possess the cognitive materials required for epistemic virtue, and thereby reason to think that virtue epistemology is threatened by skepticism. We conclude that while virtue epistemology has resources for addressing this challenge, exploiting these resources forces tradeoffs between empirical and normative adequacy. (shrink)

Kantian virtue can be construed as a condition of an agent which secures adherence to the requirements of morality in the face of the ever-present possibility of inner conflict with counter-ethical considerations. This paper claims that this conception of virtue does not fit in well with one essential characteristic of the virtuous agent; that he or she is attentive to the well-being of others. After some preliminary remarks about virtue-related evaluations, the paper criticises the Kantian conception of virtue in the (...) light of certain characteristics of ethical attentiveness. The paper concludes by developing a notion of ethical habituation which includes the training of attention. (shrink)

The following Review Essay, inspired by Tracy Isaacs’ new book, Moral Responsibility in Collective Contexts, connects the philosophical literature on group agency with recent trends in international criminal law. Part I of the Essay sketches out the relevant philosophical positions, including collectivist and individualist accounts of group agency. Particular attention is paid to Kornhauser and Sager’s development of the doctrinal paradox, Philip Pettit’s deployment of the paradox towards a general argument for group rationality, and Michael Bratman’s account of shared or (...) joint intentions. Part II then analyzes, with cautious support, Isaacs’ two-level solution, which entails both individual and collective moral responsibility. Under this view, collective moral agency is a real phenomenon, though the existence of the collective neither obviates nor eliminates the moral responsibility of the individuals from which it is composed. My own evaluation of the proposed solution concentrates on Davidson’s Principle of Charity and whether behavior interpretation requires viewing such agents in particular ways so as to maximize rationality. By analogy to the distinctive rationality of long-term plans, where the rationality of an individual act can only be understood relative to its place in the rationally justified long-term plan of a single individual, I also consider the rationality of individual acts whose rationality can only be understood relative to the group endeavors of which they are a part. Finally, Part III traces some implications of the two-level solution for legal doctrine, in particular the role of collective organizations in the recent jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court. For example, I note that the ICC has recently become more and more focused on the role played by goal-oriented collectives, especially with regard to the plan or policy requirement for crimes against humanity and, in the context of modes of liability, indirect liability for crimes committed through an organization. (shrink)

Abstract The theory of evolution justifies neither optimistic nor pessimistic inferences regarding human knowledge. Darwinian accounts of knowledge would show the adaptive virtues of beliefs, but this is independent logically and practically of their truth. But equally, considerations derived from evolution should not support a downgrading of the manifest image in favour of the scientific image. As embodied beings our first and most certain interactions with the world are and must remain those of everyday life.

There is a famous saying, whose origin is uncertain, that no good deed goes unpunished. Although not cited by him, this was no doubt the thought that inspired George Mavrodes’s (1986) well-known article “Religion and the Queerness of Morality.” In it he argued that although not logically incoherent, a certain sort of world in which moral obligations existed would be “absurd . . . a crazy world” (Mavrodes 1986, 581). The world he had in mind was what he called “Russellian,” (...) after a notorious passage in Bertrand Russell’s essay “The Free Man’s Worship” (Russell 1903). There, Russell portrayed us as living in a wholly materialistic universe governed by impersonal forces and “accidental collocations of atoms,” with no objective purpose or meaning to existence. The greatest of human achievements would ultimately be buried “beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.” We could only, concluded Russell, safely build the “soul’s habitation” [sic] on a “firm foundation of unyielding despair” (Russell 1903, 32). In such a world, according to Mavrodes, the performance of moral obligations does, at least sometimes, lead to no net Russellian benefit, that is, any benefit to the agent that is possible within a Russellian world. Indeed, such actions sometimes confer a net Russellian loss. “We have,” he says, “moral obligations whose fulfillment will result in a net loss of good to the one who fulfils them” (Mavrodes 1986, 581). That such a world would be “queer,” “crazy” and “absurd,” according to Mavrodes, should only strike those who believe that moral obligations are wholly objective and run deep in the fabric of reality. He does not purport to address the sceptic, the subjectivist, the expressivist, the nihilist or the existentialist. His aim is at those who believe in a rational moral.. (shrink)

Perfectionist views of well-being maintain that well-being ultimately consists, at least partly, in excellence or virtue. This paper argues that such views are untenable, focusing on Aristotelian perfectionism. The argument appeals, first, to intuitive counterexamples to perfectionism. A second worry is that it seems impossible to interpret perfection in a manner that yields both a plausible view of well-being and a strong link between morality and well-being. Third, perfectionist treatments of pleasure are deeply implausible. Fourth, perfectionism rests on a misunderstanding (...) about the nature of our interest in prudential and perfectionist values. Finally, perfectionism’s appeal seems to depend heavily on a failure to distinguish the notions of well-being and the good life. (shrink)

Emancipation is a legitimate human interest. It may be said that Foucault in his last works is concerned with putting forward a strategy for emancipation. The strategy consists in an aesthetic construction of the self. It is argued that this strategy ultimately fails and that, instead of retreating to the self, we need to return to the community level and to examine the rules of discourse that operate there. Contrary to Foucault's strategy, Habermas argues that what we need is a (...) communicative rationality capable of correcting discursive distortions. Coming from a different angle, Lyotard argues that what we need at the community level is a set of rules that prevent any one discourse totalizing all others. Such rules would ensure just gaming. Together, Lyotard and Habermas offer us an ethics that has the potential to serve the human interest in emancipation. (shrink)

How does the human animal who thinks and loves relate to criminal justice? This essay takes up the idea of a moral psychology of guilt promoted by Bernard Williams and Herbert Morris. Against modern liberal society’s ‘peculiar’ legal morality of voluntary responsibility, it pursues Morris’s ethical account of guilt as involving atonement and identification with others. Thinking of guilt in line with Morris, and linking it with the idea of moral psychology, takes the essay to Freud’s metapsychology in Civilization and (...) Its Discontents. Two conflicting routes to guilt are noted in Freud, one involving internalisation of external anger to suppress destructive instincts, the other loving identification with others in the process of self-formation. This second route is developed through the psychoanalytic thought of Hans Loewald and Jonathan Lear. Following Loewald, the moral psychology of self-formation makes loving identification with others the root of responsibility, guilt and atonement. Following Lear, the moral psychology of guilt developed on these lines renders psychoanalysis part of a broadly understood philosophical project following Aristotelian and Socratic principles. Underlying Morris’s account of guilt is the possibility of ‘prospective identification’, understood as the moral and psychological ground of guilt and reconciliation. This is the rational core of criminal justice, which maintains an uneasy relationship with law’s ‘peculiar’ morality. (shrink)

Ethical reasoning as an action (praxis) as opposed to a knowing (epistemology) strategy is not always effective in guilding ethical, stopping or turning around unethical organizational behavior. In contrast, nonviolent forcing strategies can be very effective, but also destructive. If reasoning is an idealistic thesis and forcing is its pragmatic, material antithesis, then do we need a synthesis action (praxis) strategy such as problem solving negotiating? There are also limitations with negotiating.

For both philosophers and managers, reasoning with ourselves and others can be used both as (1) a way of knowing what is ethical and (2) a way of acting to help ourselves, others and organizations behave ethically. However, for many of us, knowing is frequently not the same as acting. Four areas are addressed: (1) thirteen limitations of ethical reasoning as an action strategy; (2) how a better understanding of these limitations can strengthen ethical reasoning as an action strategy; (3) (...) how an understanding of these limitations can serve as a conceptual foundation for exploring other ethical action strategies; and, (4) implications for experiential learning and teaching. (shrink)

Stichter’s The Skillfulness of Virtue provides an original and contemporary discussion of virtue-acquisition from an interdisciplinary standpoint. By equating virtues to skills, he offers an empirically informed progression towards virtue expertise. With the focus on gaining proficiency, there is little room to analyse the status of the virtue-novice, who is equated to a novice in any other skill: an agent consciously following simple rules, gaining experience in order to respond to normatively-laden situations with more automaticity in the following stages of (...) skill-acquisition. This paper argues for a disanalogy between the virtue novice and novices in other skills, resulting from the understanding that follows from learning virtue words such as ‘kindness’ and ‘honesty’. Our brains are structured to find and subsequently use patterns to skilfully move around in our environment. These patterns can be represented in what Stichter calls ‘schemas’ or mental models of categorisations. Virtue words refer to patterns that would be difficult to categorise without linguistic labels, as instances of these categories are highly divergent. Virtue words are thus learned through examples of virtuous behaviour. Moreover, as virtue words are thick ethical concepts, they contain a normative load. I argue that due to these characteristics, novices who use virtue vocabulary are in a more advanced position than novices in other skills. So, a kindness novice who understands the word ‘kind’ has a better idea of how to act kindly than the chess novice has an idea of how to play chess by understanding the word ‘chess’. (shrink)

Problems with representing friendship in painting and the novel and its more successful displays in drama reflect the fact that friends seldom act as inspiringly as traditional images of the relationship suggest: friends' activities are often trivial, commonplace and boring, sometimes even criminal. Despite all that, the philosophical tradition has generally considered friendship a moral good. I argue that it is not a moral good, but a good nonetheless. It provides opportunities to try different ways of being, and is crucial (...) to the processes through which we establish our individuality. (shrink)

This study investigates the association of a broad set of variables with the ethical decision making of management accountants in Libya. Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire including four different ethical scenarios was used to gather data from 229 participants. For each scenario, ethical decision making was examined in terms of the recognition, judgment and intention stages of Rest’s model. A significant relationship was found between ethical recognition and ethical judgment and also between ethical judgment and ethical intention, but ethical (...) recognition did not significantly predict ethical intention—thus providing support for Rest’s model. Organizational variables, age and educational level yielded few significant results. The lack of significance for codes of ethics might reflect their relative lack of development in Libya, in which case Libyan companies should pay attention to their content and how they are supported, especially in the light of the under-development of the accounting profession in Libya. Few significant results were also found for gender, but where they were found, males showed more ethical characteristics than females. This unusual result reinforces the dangers of gender stereotyping in business. Personal moral philosophy and moral intensity dimensions were generally found to be significant predictors of the three stages of ethical decision making studied. One implication of this is to give more attention to ethics in accounting education, making the connections between accounting practice and Islam. Overall, this study not only adds to the available empirical evidence on factors affecting ethical decision making, notably examining three stages of Rest’s model, but also offers rare insights into the ethical views of practising management accountants and provides a benchmark for future studies of ethical decision making in Muslim majority countries and other parts of the developing world. (shrink)

Many philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition have held that the predominant modern western theories of ethics like Kant’s deontological theory and Mill’s Utilitarianism have failed to deliver as a “theory” of ethics. In other words, they are not successful as “decision procedures” whereby one can determine which action from a multitude of actions open before the agent would be right and therefore morally obligatory for him to do. In fact, the basic concepts of moral obligation, impartiality, and objectivity of moral (...) standards has been questioned and pitted against the “personal point of view” of the agent. It has been held that the “moral goods” have to be given up for the sake of the “personal goods.” Is this a systemic fault which is linked with the normative nature of ethics? Or, can we understand ethics in a manner where it can be objective and yet not have to give up on the plurality of moral and nonmoral goods? Can ethical theory in this sense function as an “action guide to moral practice”? These are some questions that will be taken up in the paper against the backdrop of the views of the critics of ethical theory. (shrink)

I present an account of the good life as one in which wholesale engagement in the social practices that human agents take up is the signature feature. I then argue that sport, because it is one of a select few human undertakings in which such full-blown action is the rule rather than the exception, is a paradigmatic example of such a good life. I close by claiming that equating the good life with wholehearted action is an especially promising way not (...) only to appreciate the contribution sport makes to our lives but to legitimize that contribution to would-be detractors. (shrink)

I argue that several recent criticisms Lopez Frias has made against my conventionalist version of broad internalism fail to hit their mark. I further argue that the author's use of Habermas's account of discourse ethics to make his criticisms also misfires because Habermas expressly warned against using his account to resolve normative conflicts that arise from the often conflicting ways different communities order their ethical lives, to include their athletic lives. My main aim in responding to Lopez Frias was to (...) bring critical attention to the normative difficulties that result when we cannot agree on how sport should be done because we cannot agree on what is/are the purpose of sport. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with solipsism, understood as the extreme sceptical view that I have no knowledge except of my subjective state. A less rough formulation of the view is mooted, inspired by a Quinean combination of naturalism and empiricism. An objection to the resultant position is then considered, based on Putnam’s argument that we are not brains in vats. This objection is first outlined, then pitted against a series of counter-objections. Eventually it is endorsed, but only at the price (...) of exposing the formulation of solipsism in question as not, after all, a satisfactory formulation. This leads to further speculation about the status of solipsism itself. Two of the possibilities that are considered are, firstly, that it is incoherent and, secondly, that it is inexpressible. (shrink)

1. If it is true that ‘an ethic is the propositional reflection of the dispositions and attitudes, policies and stances, of people,’ as Simon Blackburn says in summary of the quasi-realism that he champions in this excellent and wonderfully provocative book, then it seems to follow that different dispositions, attitudes, policies and stances—different conative states, for short—will issue in different ethics, each with an equal claim to truth; and this in turn seems to be one thing that could be reasonably (...) meant by that slippery polyseme ‘relativism’. If such relativism does follow, a good deal remains to be said about how much force it has. At the limit it might do no more than signal the abstract possibility of an ethic rivalling that of humans. More potently, it might somehow legitimize the different ethics of different groups of humans in actual conflict with one another. But without the possibility of some such variability of ethic to match a possible variability of conative state, the quasi-realist’s claim that an ethic ‘reflects’ a particular combination of conative states appears hollow. (shrink)

Associative duties—duties inherent to some of our relationships—are most commonly discussed in terms of intimate associations such as of families, friends, or lovers. In this essay I ask whether impersonal associations such as state or nation can also give rise to genuinely associative duties, i.e., duties of patriotism or nationalism. I distinguish between the two in terms of their objects: the object of patriotism is an institutionalized political community, whereas the object of nationalism is a group of people who share (...) a common identity, often grounded in a belief in shared history, and an aspiration for collective self-government together. I explore three arguments for the thesis that a special concern for one’s polity and fellow-citizens, or one’s nation and co-nationals, is an associative duty: from reciprocity, from collective self-determination, and from the well-being of compatriots or co-nationals. I argue that the relationship among compatriots is a more plausible contender for generating associative duties than the relationship among co-nationals, although even in this case there are questions whether these are genuinely associative duties, or simply special duties. Although the relationship among co-nationals is a less plausible contender for associative duties, the well-being argument does apply to the relationship among both co-nationals and compatriots. I also suggest that there is a certain privileging of the status quo in the way that associative duties arguments work, because they tend to operate from existing relations and associations. (shrink)

It is argued that, although there are no ineffable truths, the concept of ineffability nevertheless does have application—to certain states of knowledge. Towards the end of the essay this idea is related to religion: it is argued that the language that results from attempting (unsuccessfully) to put ineffable knowledge into words is very often of a religious kind. An example of this is given at the very end of the essay. This example concerns the Euthyphro question: whether what is right (...) is right because God wills it, or whether God wills it because it is right. (shrink)

This paper argues that many leading ethical theories are incomplete, in that they fail to account for both right and wrong. It also argues that some leading ethical theories are inconsistent, in that they allow that an act can be both right and wrong. The paper also considers responses on behalf of the target theories.

In The Idea of Justice (2009), Amartya Sen distinguishes between ?transcendental institutional? approaches to justice and ?realization-focused comparisons,? rejecting the former and recommending the latter as a normative approach to global justice. I argue that Sen?s project fails for three principal reasons. First, he misdiagnoses the problem with accounts that he refers to as transcendental-institutionalist. The problem is not with these kinds of accounts per se, but with particular features of prominent approaches. Second, Sen?s realization-focus does not account well for (...) the value of institutions of global justice. And even Sen agrees that reforms to institutions are urgently needed. And third, the distinction between transcendentalism and comparative approaches is implausible. I close by suggesting a strategy for an alternative institutionalist approach that can offer the kind of guidance for reforming the global order that Sen rightly takes as urgent. (shrink)

Philosophy is often divided into two traditions: analytic and continental philosophy. Characterizing the analytic-continental divide, however, is no easy task. Some philosophers explain the divide in terms of the place of argument in these traditions. This raises the following questions: Is analytic philosophy rife with arguments while continental philosophy is devoid of arguments? Or can different types of arguments be found in analytic and continental philosophy? This paper presents the results of an empirical study of a large corpus of philosophical (...) texts mined from the JSTOR database (n = 53,260) designed to find patterns of argumentation by type. Overall, the results suggest that there are no significant differences between the types of arguments advanced in analytic and continental philosophy journal articles. The findings, therefore, provide no empirical support to the hypothesis that the divide between analytic and continental philosophy has to do with the place of argument in these traditions. (shrink)

The paper examines three tenets of Dancy’s meta-ethics, finds them incompatible, and proposes a response-dependentist (or response-dispositional) solution. The first tenet is the central importance of thick concepts and properties. The second is that such concepts essentially involve response(s) of observers, which Dancy interprets in a way that fits the pattern of context-dependent resultance: thick concepts are well suited for the particularist grounding of moral theory. However, and this is the third tenet, in his earlier paper (1986) Dancy forcefully argues (...) against response-dispositional accounts of moral concepts and properties. The present paper argues that an anti-dispositional view is incompatible with the first two points concerning thick concepts. If thick concepts and properties are paramount and ubiquitous in moral thought and reality, and if they are essentially tied to human responses, then anti-dispositionalism is false. Dancy himself avoids obvious contradiction by characterizing thick items (concepts) differently from the usual characterization of response-dependent items. Actions that satisfy thick concepts do so in virtue of meriting a determinate response. The (non-reductionist) response-dependentist usually puts it slightly differently: such actions satisfy a given moral concepts in virtue of eliciting a merited response. I have argued at length that this tenuous difference in formulation is too weak to support a relevant difference in rebus. If the argument is right, Dancy is implicitly committed to a kind of response-dependentism. Finally, the particularist should embrace thick concepts and properties, and reject anti-dispositionalism. However, this would bring back the analogy with color and other secondary qualities. Since there are ceteris paribus laws governing such properties, the analogy suggests that moral properties might also be best accounted for by a ceteris paribus, or hedged account, a compromise between traditional generalism and the particularism of Dancy’s variety. (shrink)

Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is expressed in quantitative terms, but this has been hard for some people to take literally, its more elaborate versions sometimes being described as “extremely silly.” Roughly two books of the Nicomachean Ethics are permeated with talk of character traits which are either deficient or excessive, however, and the aim of this paper is to examine how the doctrine might meet the objections of its critics.

In a number of recent papers, I have begun to develop a new theory of character which is conceptually distinct both from traditional Aristotelian accounts as well as from the positive view of local traits outlined by John Doris. On my view, many human beings do have robust traits of character which play an important explanatory and predictive role, but which are triggered by certain situational variables which preclude them from counting as genuine Aristotelian virtues. Like others in this discussion, (...) I have focused on helping behavior in particular, and have gone on to argue that much of the social psychology literature is compatible with this new approach. The goal of this paper is to develop the model as it pertains to helping behavior further by examining how helping-relevant traits can serve as impediments to helping behavior. (shrink)

Revitalized interest in "the virtues" has affected the study of Buddhism in recent years, and in this regard we may benefit by focusing on the Zen Master Dōgen (1200-1253). Seeking to describe Dōgen's moral virtues, we might begin by a study of his primer, the "Shōbōgenzō" Zuimonki; a particularly efficacious template for this project would appear to be one provided by Edmund L. Pincoffs in his book "Quandaries and Virtues: Against Reductivism in Ethics". This "modus operandi" reveals Dōgen's exhortation of (...) a broad array of mandatory and nonmandatory virtues, partially depend- ing on whether or not the intended recipient is a layperson or one leading the religious life. If valid, this description may benefit Dōgen Studies as well as contribute to, and encourage, other "Western" efforts to articulate Buddhist ethics. (shrink)

Moral luck – which seems to appear when circumstances beyond a person’s control influence our moral attributions of praise and blame – is troubling in that modern moral theory has supposed morality to be immune to luck. In business, moral luck commonly influences our moral judgments, many of which have economic consequences that cannot be reversed. The possibility that the chance intervention of luck could influence the way in which we assign moral accountability in business ethics is unsettling. This paper (...) argues that if we cannot explain moral luck away, we should give consideration to moral risk in our moral judgments and the associated assignment of economic rewards regarding episodes in which moral luck plays a role. (shrink)

The paper addresses issues of scientific conduct regarding relations between science and the media, relations between scientists and journalists, and attitudes towards the public at large. In the large and increasing body of literature on scientific conduct and misconduct, these issues seem underexposed as ethical challenges. Consequently, individual scientists here tend to be left alone with problems and dilemmas, with no guidance for good conduct. Ideas are presented about how to make up for this omission. Using a practical, ethical approach, (...) the paper attempts to identify ways scientists might deal with ethical public relations issues, guided by a norm or maxim of openness. Drawing on and rethinking the CUDOS codification of the scientific ethos, as it was worked out by Robert K. Merton in 1942, we propose that this, which is echoed in current codifications of norms for good scientific conduct, contains a tacit maxim of openness which may naturally be extended to cover the public relations of science. Discussing openness as access, accountability, transparency and receptiveness, the argumentation concentrates on the possible prevention of misconduct with respect to, on the one hand, sins of omission—withholding important information from the public—and, on the other hand, abuses of the authority of science in order to gain publicity. Statements from interviews with scientists are used to illustrate how scientists might view the relevance of the issues raised. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article addresses the question‘What is the justification of higher education in modern society?’ It takes issue with writers such as Alasdair Macintyre and Allan Bloom, who argue that the fragmentation of value characteristic of modernity has undermined the possibility of providing a coherent justification of higher education. Against MacIntyre and Bloom, I argue that we should understand education as a means of developing reflective consciousness in students, and that that will require fragmentation and the immanent conflict of traditions (...) rather than a background of agreed values. (shrink)

Some virtue ethicists are reluctant to consider principles and standards in business ethics. However, this is problematic. This paper argues that realistic Personalism can be integrated into virtue-based business ethics, giving it a more complete base. More specifically, two principles are proposed: the Personalist Principle (PP) and the Common Good Principle (CGP). The PP includes the Golden Rule and makes explicit the duty of respect, benevolence, and care for people, emphasizing human dignity and the innate rights of every human being. (...) The CGP entails cooperation to promote conditions which enhance the opportunity for the human flourishing of all people within a community. Both principles have practical implications for business ethics. (shrink)

John Gray argues that the doctrine of value pluralism poses a serious challenge for liberalisms of the Rawlsian and Millian kind. The only proper political doctrine that is compatible with value pluralism is a modus vivendi that can take various forms. But in truth, value pluralism does little to diminish the appeal of liberalism. Under modern conditions, any half‐decent modus vivendi will look more like liberalism than Gray supposes.

One class of central debates between normative realists appears to concern whether we should be naturalists or reductionists about the normative. However, metaethical discussion of naturalism and reduction is often inconsistent, murky, or uninformative. This can make it hard to see why commitments relative to these metaphysical categories should matter to normative realists. This paper aims to clarify the nature of these categories, and their significance in debates between normative realists. I develop and defend what I call the joint-carving taxonomy, (...) which builds on David Lewis’ notion of elite properties. I argue that this taxonomy is clear and metaphysically interesting, and answers to distinctive taxonomic interests of normative realists. I also suggest that it has important implications for the project of adjudicating debates among normative realists. (shrink)

Organizational virtue orientation (OVO), an organizational-level construct, refers to the integrated set of beliefs and values that support ethical character traits and virtuous behaviors. To advance the study of organizational virtue, we examine OVO in firms making their initial public offerings (IPOs), with respect to key external stakeholders that serve as financial intermediaries (i.e., venture capital firms and underwriting banks). Drawing on stakeholder and resource dependence theories, we argue that mutual interdependencies occur between financial intermediaries and IPO firms such that (...) venture capital firms’ ownership levels and underwriter reputation are positively associated with the selection of more virtuous IPO firms. We also argue for the moderating relationship of IPO firm age on these main relationships; since IPO firms have more history and information availability, less importance will be placed on OVO in the selection process. In support of our hypotheses, the results of this study suggest the organizational virtue of IPO firms influences the selection decisions of financial intermediaries by reflecting positively on these key stakeholders to improve legitimacy and reputation. (shrink)

Ethics are of interest to business scholars because they influence decisions, behaviors, and outcomes. While scholars have increasingly shown interest in business ethics as a research topic, there are a mounting number of studies that examine ethical issues at the organizational level of analysis. This manuscript reports the results of a systematic review of empirical research on organizational ethics published in a broad sample of business journals over a 33-year period. A total of 184 articles are analyzed to reveal gaps (...) in the literature and, subsequently, lead to suggestions for future research; this is done in an effort to stimulate and perpetuate high quality research that more broadly impacts business scholars and practitioners. (shrink)

Kent Greenawalt, Conflicts of Law and Morality New York: Oxford University Press, 1987; xii, 383pp.

Peters' account of the moral life and the conception of practical reason that informed it reflects a sophisticated moral universalism. However, attempts to extend a similarly sophisticated universalism into our understanding of education are not as well received. Yet, such a project is of clear contemporary relevance given the pressure put on educational institutions to achieve certain ends. If we can show that education entails standards that are not entirely contingent upon current interests, we would have a framework that all (...) institutions seriously claiming to be involved in the enterprise would have to acknowledge. In this paper I argue that a reconstruction of the relationship between Peters' work in philosophical ethics and his conceptual analysis may go some way in showing how one can speak of education in universalistic terms. Accordingly, although many of the criticisms laid at Peters' feet are of merit, they overshadow more potentially useful interpretive moves. Finally, I show how a change in the focus of Peters' account of education and practical reason more generally can provide important resources for engaging in a more plausible exploration of universalistic themes in education. (shrink)

Virtue ethicists argue that modern ethical theories aim to give direct guidance about particular situations at the cost of offering artificial or narrow accounts of ethics. In contrast, virtue ethical theories guide action indirectly by helping one understand the virtues—but the theory will not provide answers as to what to do in particular instances. Recently, this had led many to think that virtue ethical theories are self-effacing the way some claim consequentialist and deontological theories are. In this paper I defend (...) virtue ethics against the charge of self-effacement. I distinguish between modestly self-effacing theories, immodestly self-effacing theories and theories that recommend indirect guidance. Though all self-effacing theories are indirect, not all indirect theories are self-effacing. I argue that virtue ethics is not self-effacing, but rather indirectly action-guiding. The response I articulate draws on the distinctive virtue ethical mode of action-guidance: namely, that thinking hard about virtue and what kind of person one aims to be offers the kind of guidance we want (or should want) as we face practical moral problems. (shrink)