No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Persons, Character, and Morality
... Sartre (1943Sartre ( /1978 additionally defined a fundamental project as an internal structure comprising one's original choices and subsequent deliberations. Likewise, Williams (1976Williams ( /1981 coined the concept ground project to designate the set of projects related to one's existence in order to provide a meaning in life. According to Williams (1976Williams ( /1981, the absence or frustration of these ground projects may lead to the existential question of whether to continue with life at all. ...
... Sartre (1943Sartre ( /1978 additionally defined a fundamental project as an internal structure comprising one's original choices and subsequent deliberations. Likewise, Williams (1976Williams ( /1981 coined the concept ground project to designate the set of projects related to one's existence in order to provide a meaning in life. According to Williams (1976Williams ( /1981, the absence or frustration of these ground projects may lead to the existential question of whether to continue with life at all. ...
... Likewise, Williams (1976Williams ( /1981 coined the concept ground project to designate the set of projects related to one's existence in order to provide a meaning in life. According to Williams (1976Williams ( /1981, the absence or frustration of these ground projects may lead to the existential question of whether to continue with life at all. ...
This article introduces a theoretical model of projects in motivated behavior. It begins with the discussion of two theoretical traditions that conceived a project as either an anticipation of action or a set of actions aimed at the same goals. The limitations of both traditions are discussed, and a project is then conceived as an integration of internal processes and actions. Next, a theoretical model of projects is presented, comprising cognitive, motivational, volitional, emotional, and behavioral components. A framework interrelating the different components of the model is presented. Considering the framework introduced, a project is then defined as a process comprising the formation, enactment, and maintenance of intentional structures and actions. The definition is comprehensive because it integrates both the previous theoretical traditions of the project in order to overcome the limitations of both. The applications of the new approach in existential theories and management sciences are discussed.
... Next, consider Bernard Williams' notion of ground projects. For Williams (1981), a ground project is a project that is "closely related to [a person's] existence," "to a significant degree give[s] a meaning to his life," and whose pursuit is "a condition of his having any interest in being around in [the] world at all" (pp. ...
... Here, I followWilliams (1981), who writes, "Of course, in general a man does not have one separable project which plays this ground role: rather, there is a nexus of projects, related to his conditions of life, and it would be the loss of all or most of them that would remove meaning" (p. 13). ...
... See, for instance,Buss (2006),Frankfurt (1988b),Frankfurt (1999b), andWilliams (1981). ...
This dissertation offers an account of the role of integrity in our agency. I argue that the unification of our actions, commitments, intentions, and other facets agency into a coherent whole is essential for our self-governance: our ability to be the authors of our own lives and to act in ways that reflect what we stand for. When we are fragmented – when our commitments conflict, or we otherwise fail to live up to what they require of us – we experience inner conflicts that hinder our ability to be self-governing. However, integrity is not the only thing that matters for our agency. Throughout the dissertation, I remain sensitive to the limits of integrity’s value, as well as to ways that non-ideal circumstances prevent many people from integrating their agency.
... Ez a szűkebb szelet a gyakorló politikusok ítélőképessége, még konkrétabban az a kérdés, hogy miként ragadható meg annak működése akkor, amikor demokráciák politikusai olyan rendkívüli helyzetekkel, válságszituációkkal szembesülnek, amelyek felvetik politikai vállalkozásaik (vö. Williams, 1981;Jenkins, 2006: 29-34.) feladásának szükségességét. ...
... Egyfelől, úgy tűnik, hogy a bricolage esztétikai analógiája nem tulajdonít kellő súlyt annak, hogy bizonyos célokhoz, "politikai vállalkozásokhoz" való ragaszkodásnak egy demokráciában kifejezetten politikai jelentősége is van (az etikain túl), mivel ez teszi legalább minimális mértékben előre kalkulálhatóvá a politikusok cselekvését választóik számára. Éppen ezért, ha a bevezetőben kijelölt problémát, demokráciák politikusainak válsághelyzetben való cselekvését akarjuk elemezni, Williams (1981) vállalkozásokkal vagy Sabl (2002) állhatatossággal kapcsolatos fejtegetései érdemben egészíthetnék ki Geuss felfogását. Másfelől, van egy belső feszültség Geuss írásaiban: azok az analógiák, amelyeket az ítélőképesség kapcsán használ, feszültségben állnak a bricoleur képével, és -alighanem Geuss elméletalkotói céljaival ellentétesen -az ítélőképesség puszta instrumentális mérlegelésként való felfogása felé mutatnak. ...
... 11 Sabl demokratikus állhatatosság elméletét ehelyütt csak érinteni tudom, ehhez magyarul bővebben lásd Szűcs, 2016. Bár Sabl kritizálja Bernard Williams karakterről és vállalkozásokról alkotott felfogását (Williams, 1981;Sabl, 2002: 26-27.), a két felfogás érvelésem szempontjából ugyanabba az irányba mutat: a politikai cselekvőt a demokratikus politika legalább bizonyos mértékig kiszámítható szereplőjévé tenni. 12 Ahogy egyik opponensem rámutatott, az Arisztotelészre való hivatkozás felvet egy fontos kérdést: mennyiben is sajátos a politikai ítélőképesség működése, amennyiben a gyakorlati mérlegelésről leírt arisztotelészi gondolatok alkalmazhatóak rá? Úgy vélem, az ítélőképesség fogalma mentén aligha alapozható meg a politika radikális autonómiája (értve ez alatt etika és politika egymás ellen való kijátszását): annak sajátosan politikai voltát sokkal inkább tárgyában (a mérlegelésben szereplő célok specifi kus tartalma, közösségi vonatkozásai), a körülmények megismerésének módjában (politikai tanácsadók, szakértők, párttársak véleményének bevonása a kérdésbe) kereshetjük. ...
A tanulmány a politikai ítélőképesség működését vizsgálja demokratikus környezetben, válságszituációkban, amellett érvelve, hogy a kortárs politikai realizmus legkidolgozottabb, Raymond Geuss nevéhez fűződő ítélőképesség-fogalma két ponton is módosításra szorul ahhoz, hogy egy ilyen elemzésre alkalmassá váljon. Ezen módosítások közül az első a célok és körülmények viszonyának leírása, a második pedig az ítélőképesség látásként való metaforizálása. A szöveg a politikai realizmus két antik görög klasszikusának, Arisztotelésznek és Thuküdidésznek a műveiből kiindulva kíséreli meg kiegészíteni az ítélőképesség Geuss-féle fogalmát, amellett érvelve, hogy a gyakorlati mérlegelés arisztotelészi sémája, illetve a tapogatózás metaforája segíthet megragadni az ítélőképesség válsághelyzetekben való működését. A szöveg a szerző reményei szerint tágabb relevanciával is bír, mivel a politikai moralizmus elleni vita középpontba helyezése helyett a pozitív, empirikus relevanciára is igényt tartó realista elemzés példáját szolgáltatja.
... If I knew it contained petrol, I would no longer desire to drink it. It is the desires of my better-informed self that determine my reasons for action (Williams, 1981). A similar rationale motivates idealization in full information accounts of well-being. ...
... Even if it occasionally makes sense to instrumentalise our own agential development in furtherance of other aims, including by diminishing our agential control over the process of improvement, this will nevertheless come at the cost of the unique agential achievement developing ourselves represents. On this view, self-improvement is not just one 'ground project' among many (Williams, 1976). It is the ground project underpinning all others. ...
This PhD dissertation comprises five chapters on a variety of intersecting topics within moral psychology, metaethics, and epistemology. Broadly speaking, the first half of the dissertation focuses on individual agency, normativity and the self; while the second half explores aspects of our normative lives as social agents. More specifically, the first half contains papers on underdetermination by value, self-improvement, and the problem of self-creation; while the second half contains papers on epistemic angst as a social problem and the normativity of social norms. A theme of the first half is that the internal dynamics of individual agency share more in common with inter-agential social dynamics than is usually thought. A theme of the second half is that the reasons emerging from inter-agential social dynamics are more pervasive and powerful than many working in metanormative theory have allowed. Together, the two halves of the dissertation lay some of the groundwork for a novel account of human agency, together with an improvement on our understanding of the nature of robust normativity. In Chapter 1, I articulate and attempt to solve the problem of rational underdetermination as it confronts idealizing subjectivists. In Chapter 2, I introduce a novel thought experiment designed to sound some skeptical notes about self-improvement and interrogate their significance for our understanding of the relationship between agency, identity and self-improvement. In Chapter 3, I criticise a recent, prominent solution to the old problem of self-creation and propose an alternative I label ‘indirect evaluative voluntarism’. In Chapter 4, I pivot to problems generated by our interactions with other agents. I attempt to establish a claim of a posteriori necessity regarding social norms’ reason-giving power that follows from the best account of what they and we are like. My argumentative strategy for establishing that conclusion is to show that the relevant instrumental normativity is simply contingent on a human agent’s having any desires whatsoever, on the model of a universal hypothetical imperative. In Chapter 5, I articulate a distinctively social, epistemic form of angst and use it to explain some communities’ distrust of experts and one another; identify three structural problems manifesting epistemic angst; sketch a partial solution to it; and explain what remains to be done to solve it. Chapter 1 now appears in Synthese as ‘Too many cooks’.
... For Williams, the point comes to this: it is moralistic and hence wrong to think that the concept of moral obligation should structure all of our practical decision-making or that the demands of morality must always trump other non-universal, personal commitments, where the latter are constitutive of a person's unique character-constitutive in the sense that those commitments are what make life worth living at all for that person. 11 Williams (1982) calls these "ground projects" (p. 13). ...
... 1 On this problem, see, e.g., Williams (1982). 2 See "Is the World a Problem?" in Merton (1988). ...
... When the man rescues his wife because he concluded it was permissible for him to give her priority, he has already had "one thought too many". 32 32 Williams (1981), p.18. ...
... 46 See Williams (1981). 47 Ibid. ...
Consider three moral views that have received significant attention in the philosophical literature: Act Consequentialism: an act is permissible if and only if its performance makes things go best (that is, if and only if it brings about the best state of affairs). Rule Consequentialism: an act is permissible if and only if it conforms to the best set of rules, where the best set of rules is the set such that things would go better if everyone complied with this set (or accepted this set) than if everyone complied with any alternative set (or accepted any alternative set). Rule Contractualism: an act is permissible if and only if it is allowed by a set of rules the universal acceptance of which is appropriately justifiable to everyone. The first two of these views are well-known. The third is a plausible reading of the theory defended by Tim Scanlon. All three are plausible and have enjoyed a great deal of discussion in the literature. Much of this discussion has in part aimed at pushing or addressing various challenges in order to weigh these ethical views against each other. There is another view, however, which is Act Contractualism: an act is permissible if and only if it is appropriately justifiable to everyone. The aim of my project is to carve out a conceptual space for this ethical view, which has so far received almost no explicit attention in the literature. I explain more fully the motivation for considering Act Contractualism by looking at the problems faced by the three other theories – Act Consequentialism, Rule Consequentialism and Rule Contractualism. I then assess the plausibility of Act Contractualism and consider its merits in comparison to Rule Contractualism and Act Consequentialism.
... I am thinking in particular ofSchoenfield (2022) p. 281. 20 This discussion is found in the last few pages ofWilliams (1981). ...
This essay is about a special kind of transformative choice that plays a key role in debates about permissivism, the view that some bodies of evidence permit more than one rational response. A prominent objection to this view contends that its defender cannot vindicate our aversion to arbitrarily switching between belief states in the absence of any new evidence. A prominent response to that objection tries to provide the desired vindication by appealing to the idea that arbitrary switching would involve a special kind of transformative choice: the choice to change one’s epistemic standards, i.e., one’s commitments regarding the relative importance of achieving true belief and avoiding false belief. My first aims here are to argue that this response is unsuccessful and propose an alternative. My secondary aim is to consider how this discussion might bear on more general debates about transformative choice.
... According to Williams (1981b), on the other hand, morality itself is isolating. Its universal reasons are impersonal. ...
... This line of argument shares some affinity with BernardWilliams's (1981) famous "one thought too many" thought experiment, in which he suggests that a husband who, when faced with the choice of saving a drowning stranger or his drowning wife, first had to apply some general moral principle to determine that saving his wife was morally permissible or required would require one thought too many. One (but by no means the only) potential upshot of Williams's thought experiment is that morally creditworthy motivation centrally involves being directly concerned for others-from the perspective of the drowning wife, what matters is that the husband acts out of love for her. ...
When do companies deserve moral credit for doing what is right? This question concerns the positive side of corporate moral responsibility, the negative side of which is the more commonly discussed issue of when companies are blameworthy for doing what is wrong. I offer a broadly functionalist account of how companies can act from morally creditworthy motives, which defuses the following Strawsonian challenge to the claim that they can: morally creditworthy motivation involves being guided by attitudes of “goodwill” for others, and these attitudes involve affect and/or phenomenal consciousness, which corporate agents cannot maintain. In response, I show that what matters about being guided by attitudes of goodwill is being directly concerned for others in one’s practical deliberation. Companies can achieve this direct concern through their decision-making procedures without affect or phenomenal consciousness. I also explore how a company’s moral creditworthiness, or lack thereof, should shape stakeholders’ relationship with it.
... (1.2) Herman's Elaborations. Kant is often understood-caricatured-as directing us to constantly be deliberating about what we ought to do (e.g., Hampshire 1978;Williams 1981). Against this, Herman takes Kant's discussion of moral reasoning to be aimed at highlighting the limited role that he sees for moral deliberation. ...
Moral anxiety is the unease that we experience in the face of a novel or difficult moral decision, an unease that helps us recognize the significance of the issue we face and engages epistemic behaviors aimed at helping us work through it (reflection, information gathering, etc.). But recent discussions in philosophy raise questions about the value of moral anxiety (do we really do better when we’re anxious?); and work in cognitive science challenges its psychological plausibility (is there really such an emotion?). Drawing on Kant and Kantians, I develop a model of moral anxiety (or ‘conscience’ in Kant’s terminology) that highlights both its empirical credentials and its distinctive value. Kant, it turns out, was an early—and sophisticated—dual-process theorist.
... See Williams (1973, 1981,Railton (1984), andWolf (1982) respectively. These concerns have more general application; seeBaron (1984) andPiper (1987) for discussion. ...
I develop and defend a maximizing theory of moral motivation: I claim that consequentialists should recommend only those desires, emotions, and dispositions that will make the outcome best. I advance a conservative account of the motives that are possible for us; I say that a motive is an alternative if and only if it is in our psychological control. The resulting theory is less demanding than its competitors. It also permits us to maintain many of the motivations that we value most, including our love for those most important to us. I conclude that we are closer to meeting morality’s demands on our character than has been appreciated.
... sharing this commitment to abstract impartiality with-and often drawing it from-utilitarian and deontological ethical theories (Bosse, Phillips & Harrison, 2008;Godfrey & Lewis, 2018: 19;Jones & Felps, 2013;Phillips, 1997). However, giving each stakeholder group equal weight makes it difficult to understand how stakeholder theory can inform managerial decision-making (Jensen, 2002) or allow for the development of the specific commitments, character traits, and relationships needed to achieve complex objectives (Williams, 1981), such as those typical of joint production. ...
Organizations involve joint production where members engage in purposive coordination and cooperation with others. Scholars have often noted the importance of “moral factors” in facilitating such collaboration but previous research has not adequately explained the nature of these moral factors, how they are embodied within joint production, or why organization members willingly adhere to them. We draw upon virtue ethics to address these questions. We argue that joint production represents a distinct, organization-level practice embodying morally salient standards of professional excellence that contribute to the development of members’ virtues through habituation. We then elaborate microfoundations for this account, developing a virtue ethical account of human agency as directed toward human flourishing such that members willingly adhere to organizational norms and values when they coherently embody goods that contribute to human flourishing.
... Importantly, what we are focused on here is not an abstract conception of morality-such as a Kantian deontological framework or a utilitarian framework-to which an agent is bound by the force of reason. Rather, what we are concerned with is an agent's own considered understanding of morality formed and sifted through the filter of their own life experiences (Williams 1981). What conscience draws an agent's attention to is their own way of conceptualising the moral life and their own deep beliefs about their social and professional responsibilities. ...
Conscience is an idea that has significant currency in liberal democratic societies. Yet contemporary moral philosophical scholarship on conscience is surprisingly sparse. This paper seeks to offer a rigorous philosophical account of the role of conscience in moral life with a view to informing debates about the ethics of conscientious objection in medicine. I argue that conscience is concerned with a commitment to moral integrity and that restrictions on freedom of conscience prevent agents from living a moral life. In section one I argue that conscience is a principle of moral awareness in rational agents, and that it yields an awareness of the personal nature of moral obligation. Conscience also monitors the coherence between an agent’s identity-conferring beliefs and intentions and their practical actions. In section two I consider how human beings are harmed when they are forced to violate their conscience. Restrictions on the exercise of conscience prevent people from living in accord with their own considered understanding of the requirements of morality and undermine one’s capacity for moral agency. This article concludes with a consideration of how a robust theory of conscience can inform our understanding of conscientious objection in medicine. I argue that it is in the interest of individual practitioners and the medical profession generally to foster moral agency among doctors. This provides a prima facie justification for permitting at least some kinds of conscientious objection.
... But given Tomasello's account, moral obligation is necessarily reflectively unstable (Williams, 1985). That is, if participants in a specific culture come to understand why they experience a specific pattern of moral obligation in relation to specific persons, specifically if they understand their sense of moral obligation as a product of their arbitrary commitment to a given culture, this sense of obligation will become unstable (Williams, 1981). That is, they will have reason to reject these obligations as arbitrary products of their cultural formation, which are experienced as binding but that do not actually provide valid reasons to restrict their behavior accordingly. ...
Alasdair MacIntyre has developed a theory of virtue ethics that is closely integrated with sociology and organization studies. While rejecting reductive views of the virtues, MacIntyre appeals to their functional role in facilitating collaboration as a basis for justifying their normative requirements. This raises the question of how agents within cooperative contexts come to appreciate their intrinsic value. I argue that MacIntyre's account of the virtues is undergirded by an implicit personalist moral psychology. To make this evident, I draw upon the account of moral psychology developed by Michael Tomasello, who argues that a sense of moral obligation is generated when persons engage in collective action. Tomasello's account complements MacIntyre's by explaining how participation in social practices generates a sense of moral obligation but it does not address the problem of relativism. As a result, it does not fully explain how and why participants in practices come to see themselves as bound by moral norms since the threat of relativism undermines the idea that moral norms are binding. This limitation further illustrates the role of a personalist moral psychology in MacIntyre's work: through the experience of cultural breakdown persons are able to view themselves as engaged in a shared inquiry concerning the good that transcends any specific culture. This provides the basis for a self-conscious sense of moral obligation that is not threatened by relativism.
... In reminding ourselves of the moral significance of partiality (Keller, 2013;Kolodny, 2010;MacIntyre, 1984;Scheffler, 1997Scheffler, , 1999Scheffler, , 2004Williams, 1982;Wolf, 1992), can we construct a plausible rationale for a positive rate of pure intergenerational time preference? This idea has been raised by a number of economists (Arrow, 1996;Beckerman and Hepburn, 2007;Schelling, 1995;Stern, 2008). ...
I consider the plausibility of discounting for kinship , the view that a positive rate of pure intergenerational time preference is justifiable in terms of agent-relative moral reasons relating to partiality between generations. I respond to Parfit's objections to discounting for kinship, but then highlight a number of apparent limitations of this approach. I show that these limitations largely fall away when we reflect on social discounting in the context of decisions that concern the global community as a whole, such as those related to global climate change.
... Second, we want our friends to act without further thought, and we think that they ought to. The fact that our friends are in trouble provides us with "one thought too many" (Williams, 1981). We would not like to know that our friends helped us after a long deliberation about the moral nature of the action; neither that they wondered about it afterwards (Wolf, 2012). ...
The love that we feel for our friends plays an essential role in both our moral motivation to act towards them; and in our moral obligations towards them, that is, in our special duties. We articulate our proposal as a reply to Stephen Darwall’s second-person proposal, which we take to be a contemporary representative of the Kantian view. According to this view, love does not have a necessary role neither in moral motivation, nor in moral obligation; just a complementary one. Yet this proposal faces three difficulties: a psychological problem, a practical problem, and a theoretical problem. In contrast, we argue that both moral motivation, and moral obligations emerge from our interpersonal relations with particular others. We further argue that obligations in the context of friendship are moral because they come with a feeling of obligation and have been internalized. Thus, the three problems raised to the Kantian position are clarified, and the role of love is emphasized in both our moral motivation, and our moral obligations towards friends.
Confucius endorses a balance between generalism and particularism in ethics and aesthetics. Rather than standards, his rules are defeasible guides for perception, thought, and action balanced by particularizing capacities of judgment. These rules have opaque and open-ended hedges that strengthen a generalization by restricting its application. A similar architecture for ethical and aesthetic rules reflects a broad view of ethics and aesthetics as intertwined and continuous. Hence, whether one chooses a generalist or particularist ethics depends on one's corresponding choices in aesthetics, and vice versa. This fundamental finding about value theory invites philosophers everywhere to investigate the teachings of Confucius.
There are many parts of our lives for which it seems perfectly right and proper that we differ from each other in our relation to value: we pursue different careers, choose different spouses, prefer different flavors of ice cream. Even the most robust of realists typically assumes that where this is so—where the value on the scene is properly ‘idiosyncratic’, as I put it—we cannot understand this value on a realist model, and must instead see it as deriving from the person’s attitudes or preferences. I argue that this assumption is mistaken, and that the phenomenon of idiosyncrasy is fully compatible with realism. The world contains many different forms of value, and we each possess different forms of ‘value-expertise’—different kinds and degrees of ability to experience, understand, and engage with that value. This model allows us to make sense of idiosyncrasy within a fully realist framework.
Part of T. M. Scanlon’s project in What We Owe to Each Other (1998) is to explain the importance and priority of moral reasons. But Scanlon also argues that this priority of moral reasons is compatible with the pursuit of other things we value, such as friendship. To this end, Scanlon claims that contractualist moral reasons internally accommodate our interests in such values. In this paper, I argue that Scanlon is unsuccessful in showing the compatibility of morality and the pursuit of our other values. The contractualist may not be able to be a good friend.
This paper is a critical discussion of the recent tendency to moralize various aspects of life that were previously viewed as private and discretionary. The paper takes as its starting point six recently unearthed moral prohibitions, and it examines the prospects for defending each as an extension of some familiar moral requirement. Its conclusion is not only that none of the extended prohibitions are defensible, but also that each impedes morality's function by limiting the ability of those whose lives it governs to pursue their own aims as they see fit.
This book offers a phenomenological perspective on the criminal law debate on robots. Today, robots are protected in some form by criminal law. A robot is a person’s property and is protected as property. This book presents the different rationale for protecting robots beyond the property justification based on the phenomenology of human-robot interactions. By focusing on robots that have bodies and act in the physical world in social contexts, the work provides an assessment of the issues that emerge from human interaction with robots, going beyond perspectives focused solely on artificial intelligence (AI). Here, a phenomenological approach does not replace ontological concerns, but complements them. The book addresses the following key areas: Regulation of robots and AI; Ethics of AI and robotics; and philosophy of criminal law.
It will be of interest to researchers and academics working in the areas of Criminal Law, Technology and Law and Legal Philosophy.
The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love offers a wide array of original essays on the nature and value of love. The editors, Christopher Grau and Aaron Smuts, have assembled an esteemed group of thinkers, including both established scholars and younger voices. The volume contains three dozen essays addressing both issues about love as well as key philosophers who have contributed to the philosophy of love, such as Plato, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Murdoch. The topics range from central issues about the nature and variety of love, the possibility of its rational justification, and whether it is an emotion, to the significance of love for law, economics, morality, and free will. The volume also contains an introduction to the subject as well as essays on love’s relation to jealousy, polyamory, religion, knowledge, and several other topics. This wide-ranging handbook will be a key resource for specialists working on the philosophy of love, and a helpful guide for those looking to learn more about the area.
According to a popular line of thought, moral exemplars have a key role to play in moral development and moral education and by paying attention to moral exemplars we can learn about what morality requires of us. However, when we pay attention to what many moral exemplars say about their actions, it seems that our moral obligations are much more demanding than we typically think they are. Some philosophers have argued that this exemplar testimony gives us reason to accept a radically demanding view of morality. We argue against this view by appealing to similar testimony from aesthetic exemplars. If we accept that the testimony of moral exemplars gives us reason to accept a radically demanding view of morality, then we should accept that the testimony of aesthetic exemplars supports a radically demanding view of aesthetic normativity. We argue that we should reject both arguments for radically demanding views, and instead see the testimony of exemplars as having something important to tell us about the nature of ideals. What we learn about morality and aesthetics from attending to the lives of moral exemplars is that those who embody an ideal are subject to obligations that others are not.
Commentators often interpret the resentment of supporters of populism as blindly emotional and unconnected to facts and principles. Democratic Respect argues instead that we should approach the populist politics of resentment as a struggle for recognition based on moral experiences that are intimately connected to people's factual and moral beliefs. By associating populist resentment with alleged violations of democratic principles, we can discuss what citizens and governments owe one another in terms of recognition and respect. Populism advances a unique interpretation of democracy and recognition, which Rostbøll confronts with the notion of democratic respect. How democracy should recognize the people is shown to be connected to debates over the meaning and value of democratic procedures, rights, majority rule, compromise, and public deliberation. The book builds a bridge between empirical research and philosophical analysis, while providing insights relevant to a public grappling with the challenges many democracies face today.
Recent Kant scholarship has argued that sympathetic feeling is necessary for the fulfilment of duty (e.g. Fahmy, Sherman, Guyer, and others). This view rests on an incorrect understanding of Kant and the historical context in which he wrote. In this paper, I compare Kant’s conception of sympathy with Hume's and Smith’s, arguing that Kant adapts central features of Smithian sympathy. I then examine Kant’s lectures on ethics and anthropology, arguing that in them we can distinguish between two types of sympathy: one that is instinctual or pre-reflective, which we might call empirical sympathy, and one that is reflective and properly moral, which we might call rational sympathy. On these grounds I reconstruct an account of Kantian sympathy as a cognitive virtue for which feeling may be useful but not necessary, since its primary purpose is to provide information about the well-being of others, leading to action which honours their worth.
The paper focuses on one of the most urgent risks of artificial intelligence, and more specifically of algorithmic decision-making (ADM), that is, the risk of being unfair. In the first section we provide an overview of the discus- sion on fairness in ADM and show its shortcomings; in the second section we pursue an ethical inquiry into the concept of fairness, and identify its main dimensions and components, drawing insight from a renewed reflection on respect, which goes beyond the idea of equal respect to include respect for particular individuals too. In the third section we show how our conceptual re-elaboration of fairness can help identify the criteria that ought to steer the ethical design of ADM-based systems to make them really fair.
Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; algorithmic decision-making; fairness; ethical design.
The defection thesis holds that members of marginalized social groups are obligated not to express views important to others in the group that are regarded by the others as substantively wrong. In this essay, I evaluate arguments that seek to vindicate the defection thesis and conclude they all fail. Then, I argue that we have reason to believe sanctioning defectors in certain ways is wrongful and that the expression of their contentious ideas is good for members of marginalized groups. We are left to conclude both that members of marginalized groups have no obligation to suppress certain heterodox views and that it is likely wrong to sanction them for expressing these views even if it were wrong for them to do so.
The dominant justificatory framework for democracy is deliberative democratic theory. It holds that democracy is legitimate to the extent it instantiates, and is guided by, the ideals and processes of good deliberation. This thesis challenges the dominance of the deliberative paradigm by highlighting an under-explored, and yet critical, element of the theory – its dependence on participants’ open-mindedness. The thesis addresses two central issues – the empirical feasibility and normative desirability of open-mindedness. By surveying the psychological literature on directionally motivated reasoning this thesis identifies robust findings across a range of contexts and subjects that people engaged with, or knowledgeable about, politics are systematically closed-minded in a manner resistant to straightforward correction. This analysis is twinned with a novel methodological approach to feasibility. This entails that if we are to maintain any connection to ‘ought implies can’ we cannot draw any firm dividing line in feasibility analysis between impossibility and the types of probabilistic discoveries produced by the social sciences, such as motivated reasoning. Therefore such results have to be accounted for in normative theorising. This thesis builds a novel account of open-mindedness and its related phenomena – credulity and closed-mindedness – and finds that whether one ought to be open-minded is sensitive to a range of contextual criteria. It applies this context-sensitive approach to the case of elected representatives as centrally important figures in modern democracies. In particular, the practice of elections and electoral campaigning require elected representatives to uphold their electoral commitments while in office, an obligation put at risk by open-mindedness. The adversarial political context faced by elected representatives and their limited internal capabilities provides further reasons to deviate from open-mindedness. These findings call into question the central role open-mindedness plays in deliberative democratic theory. As a result, they open up theoretical space to explore alternative justifications for democracy’s legitimacy.
Deontologists believe that it is wrong to violate a right even if this will prevent a greater number of violations of the same right. This leads to the paradox of deontology: If respecting everyone's rights is equally important, why should we not minimize the number of rights violations? One possible answer is agent‐based. This answer points out that you should not violate rights even if this will prevent someone else's violations. In this paper, I defend a relational agent‐based justification that focuses on the relation in which the agent stands to her would‐be victims. I argue that this justification can avoid two key objections levelled against agent‐based justifications: It can explain why we are not permitted to minimize our own rights violations, and the justification avoids the charge of being excessively self‐concerned.
In this paper, I offer an account of social alienation, a genre of alienation engendered by contemporary work that has gone largely overlooked in the ethics of labor. Social alienation consists in a corruption of workers’ relations to their social life and the people that make it up. When one is socially alienated, one’s sociality and close relations exist as a mere afterthought or break from work, while labor is the central activity of one’s life. While one might think that existing solutions to alienated labor would resolve this social alienation, I suggest that such solutions at best leave the problem intact and may in fact contribute to it by giving labor the place of priority in workers’ lives. Resolving social alienation, I suggest, requires rethinking the amount of time we commit to work, the rigidity of the work schedule, and most crucially, the value that we attribute to work as the primary source of purpose in our lives.
In his famous ‘Integrity Objection’, Bernard Williams condemns utilitarianism for requiring us to regard our projects as dispensable, and thus precluding us from being properly committed to them. In this paper, I argue against commitment as Williams defines it, drawing upon insights from the socialist tradition as well as mainstream analytic moral philosophy. I show that given the mutual interdependence of individuals (a phenomenon emphasised by socialists) several appealing non-utilitarian moral principles also require us to regard our projects as dispensable. This means that those who endorse those principles cannot appeal to Williams’s argument against utilitarianism. It also puts pressure on his thought that moral theories ought to permit commitment – in fact, it suggests that they ought not. Regarding one’s projects as dispensable may be alienating, and this may motivate us to hang onto commitment and reject these non-utilitarian principles along with utilitarianism. However, commitment also threatens a kind of alienation – from other people. Drawing upon the socialist tradition again, I argue that avoiding this form of alienation is necessary for proper engagement with our projects, and thereby with ourselves.
This series aims to provide, on an annual basis, some of the best contemporary work in the field of normative ethical theory. Each volume features new chapters that contribute to an understanding of a wide range of issues and positions in normative ethical theory, and represents a sampling of recent developments in this field. This twelfth volume brings together thirteen new essays, each by a different contributor, that collectively cover a range of fundamental topics in the field. The topics are: the vices of greed and arrogance, harmless wronging, Kantian ethical theory and partialist reasons, moral contractualism, explaining value comparisons in cases of parity, weighing reasons for action, the burdens of trust, attributive silencing, forgiveness, offsetting harm, paternalism and interpreting others, consequentializing moral theories, and the nature of moral worth.
Actions and inactions of our political leaders, like all other members of our society, are subject to moral consideration since what they do or fail to do affects governance and our quest for social good. However, the morality or otherwise of their actions is not judged outside our moral intuitions if we must be fair to them. As Africans, is our ethical framework best captured and defined in terms of impartiality or partiality? In this work, we defend the idea that African ethics is defined in terms of partiality. Adopting Molefe's defense of partiality as characterizing African ethics but beyond his characterization, we argue that African ethics defined in terms of partiality rests fundamentally on human nature/personal identity. Given that our public office holders involved in governance are members of our society, then it is only natural to expect them to live and operate within this ethical framework. But then, the questions that agitate the mind are, what are the implications of an ethic of partiality for good governance? In administering the peoples of Nigeria and managing her resources for the good of all, has partialism fared well and if not why? We argue that strong partialism defeats our quest for a just society, fans the embers of disunity, separation and above all hampers development because of its proclivity to moral myopism and parochialism. However, based on the African maxim of 'charity begins at home', we argue that partialism is not averse to good governance based on the principle of permeable boundaries.
In this paper, I argue that accounts of the normative basis of morality face the following puzzle, drawing on a case found in Susan Wolf’s influential discussion of conflicts between the moral and personal points of view. On the one hand, morality appears to constitute an independent point of view that can intelligibly conflict with, and can conceivably be overruled by, the verdicts of other points of view. On the other hand, moral demands appear to carry a distinctive sort of authority; moral reasons normally seem to take priority over other kinds of considerations, and the verdicts of morality seem to possess a distinctive place in our deliberations, in that they appear to represent standards that we are open to legitimate complaint for failing to honor. After clarifying the nature of the problem, I argue that a contractualist theory of morality can resolve the puzzle by offering a compelling vindication of the independence of the moral perspective, the normal priority of moral reasons, and the deliberative significance of moral verdicts, within a unified theoretical framework. Furthermore, I claim that this contractualist analysis can help account for the sense of deep conflict that is characteristic of the sort of troubling moral choices that Wolf calls to our attention.
In his famous ‘Integrity Objection’, Bernard Williams condemns utilitarianism for requiring us to regard our projects as dispensable, and thus precluding us from being properly committed to them. In this paper, I argue against commitment as Williams defines it, drawing upon insights from the socialist tradition as well as mainstream analytic moral philosophy. I show that given the mutual interdependence of individuals (a phenomenon emphasised by socialists) several appealing non-utilitarian moral principles also require us to regard our projects as dispensable. This means that those who endorse those principles cannot appeal to Williams’s argument against utilitarianism. It also puts pressure on his thought that moral theories ought to permit commitment – in fact, it suggests that they ought not.
Regarding one’s projects as dispensable may be alienating, and this may motivate us to hang onto commitment and reject these non-utilitarian principles along with utilitarianism. However, commitment also threatens a kind of alienation – from other people. Drawing upon the socialist tradition again, I argue that avoiding this form of alienation is necessary for proper engagement with our projects, and thereby with ourselves.
In the Stoic view, perception (aisthanesthai, antilēpsis), positive and negative non-indifference (oikeiōsis and allotriōsis) and care (epimeleia, syntērēsis) are not exactly the same. But this does not prevent them from being inseparably connected with each other, like different aspects of the same thing. As it turns out, they cannot take place independently from one another: (a) all perception is intrinsically non-indifference-related and care-related, (b) all positive and negative non-indifference is intrinsically perception-related and care-related, and (c) all care is intrinsically perception-related and non-indifference-related. Secondly, perception has nothing to do with a multiplicity of isolated fragments – with an ‘archipelago’ of unconnected ‘perceptual patches’ scattered across a ‘sea’ of non-perception. And pretty much the same holds true for positive viz. negative non-indifference and for care: there is no such thing as an ‘archipelago’ of isolated ‘enclaves’ of non-indifference – or, for that matter, of isolated ‘enclaves’ of care – scattered across a ‘sea’ of total indifference and carelessness. All three – perception, positive viz. negative non-indifference and care – work as an uninterrupted, unified, complete and coherent whole. In other words, all three have the structure of what might be termed a field: the field-of-perception-non-indifference-and-care. Thirdly, this field has the shape of what might be described as a centred multiplicity or a centred manifold: a series of concentric circles, as it were, revolving around a focal point and constituted in such a way that everything in them is intrinsically related to the focal point and defines itself in terms of its connection with it. Put another way, the field-of-perception-non-indifference-and-care has the structure of Hierocles’ well-known circles. The latter do not describe a particular phenomenon (the specific network of ‘intersubjective’ relationships): in the final analysis they highlight the structure of the whole field – i.e. at the same time (a) its invariable form and (b) the very form of its variability.
The book provides a detailed introduction to a major debate in bioethics, as well as a rigorous account of the role of conscience in professional decision-making. Exploring the role of conscience in healthcare practice, this book offers fresh counterpoints to recent calls to ban or severely restrict conscience objection. It provides a detailed philosophical account of the nature and moral import of conscience, and defends a prima facie right to conscientious objection for healthcare professionals. The book also has relevance to broader debates about religious liberty and civil rights, such as debates about the rights and duties of persons and institutions who refuse services to clients on the basis of a religious objection. The book concludes with a discussion of how to regulate individual and institutional conscientious objection, and presents general principles for the accommodation of individual conscientious objectors in the healthcare system. This book will be of value to students and scholars in the fields of moral philosophy, bioethics and health law.
Few would deny that some central questions in business ethics are normative. But there has been, and remains, much skepticism about the value of traditional philosophical approaches to answering these questions. I have three central aims in this chapter. The first is to defend traditional philosophical approaches to business ethics against the criticism that they are insufficiently practical. The second is to defend the view that the appropriate methodology for pursuing work in business ethics is largely continuous with the appropriate methodology in moral and political philosophy more broadly. And the third is to offer a brief characterization of how we should think about the substance of business ethics, in light of my arguments about its proper aims and methodology.
Boredom has dominated discussions about longevity thanks to Bernard Williams’s influential “The Makropulos Case.” I reveal the presence in that paper of a neglected, additional problem for the long-lived person, namely alienation in the face of unwanted change. Williams gestures towards this problem but does not pursue it. I flesh it out on his behalf, connecting it to what I call the ‘curmudgeonly attitude to change.’ This attitude manifests itself in the tendency, amongst those getting on in years, to observe that things are getting worse. Curmudgeonliness is typically met with dismissal because it often concerns changes that don’t radically inhibit the curmudgeon’s well-being or autonomy. I believe that taking the curmudgeonly attitude more seriously will provide insight into the longer-lived self and its relation to the future. Using Williams’s approach to longevity as the framework, I contend that—as with boredom—a sense of alienation born of curmudgeonliness can become terminal for the subject, rendering her unable to envision the future as a site of worthwhile activity. However, I also uncover ways in which this agential stasis is significantly distinct from boredom and constitutes a different worry and a different risk for the long-lived individual.
Bernard Williams thought that philosophy should address real human concerns felt beyond academic philosophy. But what wider concerns are addressed by Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, a book he introduces as being ‘principally about how things are in moral philosophy’? In this article, we argue that Williams responded to the concerns of his day indirectly, refraining from explicitly claiming wider cultural relevance, but hinting at it in the pair of epigraphs that opens the main text. This was Williams’s solution to what he perceived as the stylistic problem of how to pursue philosophy as cultural critique. Taking the epigraphs as interpretative keys to the wider resonances of the book, we show how they reveal Williams’s philosophical concerns—with the primacy of character over method, the obligation to follow orders, and the possibility of combining truth, truthfulness, and a meaningful life in a disillusioned world—to be recognisably rooted in the cultural concerns of post-war Britain. In the light of its epigraphs, the book emerges as the critique of a philosophical tradition’s inadequacies to the special difficulties of its cultural moment.
Whether or not we call a love-like relationship with robots true love, some people may feel and claim that, for them, it is a sufficient substitute for love relationship. The love relationship between humans has a special place in our social life. On the grounds of both morality and law, our significant other can expect special treatment. It is understandable that, precisely because of this kind of relationship, we save our significant other instead of others or will not testify against her/him. How as a society should we treat love-like relationships humans with robots? Based on the assumption that robots do not have an inner life and are not moral patients, I defend the thesis that this kind of relationship should be protected by criminal law.
I argue that there are some situations in which it is praiseworthy to be motivated only by moral rightness de dicto, even if this results in wrongdoing. I consider a set of cases that are challenging for views that dispute this, prioritising concern for what is morally important (de re, and not de dicto) in moral evaluation (for example, Arpaly, 2003; Arpaly & Schroeder, 2013; Harman 2015; Weatherson, 2019). In these cases, the agent is not concerned about what is morally important (de re), does the wrong thing, but nevertheless seems praiseworthy rather than blameworthy. I argue that the views under discussion cannot accommodate this, and should be amended to recognise that it is often praiseworthy to be motivated to do what is right (de dicto).
In “Other-Sacrificing Options” (2020), Benjamin Lange argues that, when distributing benefits and burdens, we may discount the interests of the people to whom we stand in morally negative relationships relative to the interests of other people. Lange’s case for negative partiality proceeds in two steps. First, he presents a hypothetical example that commonly elicits intuitions favourable to negative partiality. Second, he invokes symmetry considerations to reason from permissible positive partiality towards intimates to permissible negative partiality towards adversaries. In this paper, I argue that neither the intuition elicited by Lange’s example nor the invoked symmetry considerations support a permission for negative partiality. This does not mean that negative partiality is unjustified. It means only that the justification, if there is one, must take a different form. I end by suggesting an alternative justification of negative partiality, one that mirrors gratitude-based justifications of positive partiality rather than justifications based on intimacy.
Background
Even in countries with an opt-out or presumed consent system, relatives have a considerable influence on the post-mortem organ harvesting decision. However, their reflection capacity may be compromised by grief, and they are, therefore, often prone to choose refusal as default option. Quite often, it results in late remorse and dissatisfaction. So, a high-quality reflection support seems critical to enable them to gain a stable position and a long-term peace of mind, and also avoid undue loss of potential grafts. In practice, recent studies have shown that the ethical aspects of reflection are rarely and often poorly discussed with relatives and that no or incomplete guidance is offered. No review of the literature is available to date, although it could be of value to improve the quality of the daily practice.
Objectives
The objective was to review and synthesize the main concepts and approaches, theories and practices of ethical reflection support of the relatives or surrogates of potential post-mortem organ donors.
Research design
A narrative review was performed in the medical, psychological and ethical fields using PubMed, PsycArticles and Web of Science databases (1980–2020).
Results
Out of 150 papers, 25 were finally retained. Four themes were drawn: the moral status of the potential post-mortem organ donor, the principlistic approach with its limits and critics, the narrative approach and the transcendental approach.
Discussion
This review suggests an extension of psychological support towards ethical reflection support. The process of helping relatives in their ethical exploration of post-mortem organ donation is psychologically and morally characterized. The need for specialized professionals educated and experienced both in clinical psychology and in health ethics to carry out this task is discussed.
Practical impact
This review could contribute to optimize the quality of the ethical reflection support by initiating an evolution from an empirical, partial and individual-dependent support to a more systematized, professionalized and exhaustive support.
This volume is a collection of chapters on contemporary issues within African philosophy. They are issues African philosophy must grapple with in order to demonstrate its readiness to make a stand against some of the challenges society faces in the coming decade. Examples of such issues are xenophobia, Afro-phobia, extreme poverty, democratic failure and migration. This text covers new methodical directions and there is focus on the conversationalist, complementarist and consolationist movements within the field as well as the place of Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS). The collection speaks to African philosophy’s place in intellectual history with coverage of African Ethics and African socio-political philosophy.
Contributors come from a variety of backgrounds, institutions and countries. Through their innovative ideas, they provide fresh insight and intellectual energy. The book appeals to students and researchers in philosophy and African studies.
Especially during the last three decades, there has been a fine-grained debate on the notion of personal autonomy. This article will suggest taking one important distinction within this debate more seriously: the differentiation between (a) “personal autonomy” designating a family of ideal, gradual, and hence at least moderately perfectionist conceptions about what an autonomous person is and (b) what is called “autonomy as right” (Feinberg. 1986. 47). These are not different dimensions of one concept, but independent concepts with disparate, even conflicting normative functions and should be kept clearly separate from each other. Treating these two concepts merely as different aspects of one and the same notion of personal autonomy, as done by most authors, is severely misleading. For clarity, we will ultimately need different words for divergent concepts. It will be suggested that “autonomy as (moral or legal) right” should no longer be called “autonomy”, but forthrightly the “right to self-determination” or, in accordance with Thomas Hobbes, “authority”.
A major point of debate about morally good motives concerns an ambiguity in the truism that good and strong-willed people desire to do what is right. This debate is shaped by the assumption that “what’s right” combines in only two ways with “desire,” leading to distinct de dicto and de re readings of the truism. However, a third reading of such expressions is possible, first identified by Janet Fodor, which has gone wholly unappreciated by philosophers in this debate. I identify Fodor’s nonspecific reading of “desire to do what’s right” and briefly discuss its merits.
This chapter explores the place of agent-centred duties in African philosophy. To do so, I investigate influential moral theories in the literature, namely: Kwasi Wiredu’s ‘sympathetic impartiality’, Kwame Gyekye’s ‘moderate communitarianism’ and Thad Metz’s ‘friendship’ principle. This chapter ultimately demonstrates that these moral theories fail to imagine a place for agent-centred duties in their moral frame. The problem, I suggest, is the tendency to construe morality entirely in other-regarding terms, which is not surprising in a moral culture that tends to prize the community over the individual. This chapter is one way to challenge the literature to re-think the importance of collective goods in light of imagining some place for agent-centred duties.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.