We considered supererogatory behavior as illustrated by people who rescued Jews in Nazi Europe. When we did so, we encountered a puzzling empirical finding: rescuers insisted they had no choice in their life-or-death actions. Rescuers' perspectives -- how they saw themselves in relation to others -- served as a powerful constraint on choice as traditionally conceived. Traditional moral theories failed to provide satisfactory explanations for this phenomenon, and we turned to virtue ethics to determine whether this approach, with its (...) emphasis on character, would provide a useful philosophical tool for explicating rescue behavior.Our conclusion on virtue ethics is mixed. We find the focus on character found in virtue ethics is superior to the traditional rule-based theories of moral choice, with virtue ethics able to account both for the supererogatory nature of rescue behavior and for rescuers' reports that they had no choice. Yet even as virtue ethics provides insight into the way character forms the preconditions for moral action and affects what people define as moral situations, it fails to capture the critical role of perspective in moral choice. Nor does it provide an answer to the conundrum that troubles us when we consider the implications of rescue behavior: can we assign moral responsibility if character determines actions? The reports of the rescuers present a concrete description of what has been called a perception of a common humanity. It is this perspective that constitutes the particular moral imperative that moved the rescuers to risk their lives for others, and whose full explication eludes us. Supererogatorisches Verhalten zeigt sich bei Menschen, die im Europa der Nazizeit Juden gerettet haben. Dazu sind wir auf einen verwirrenden empirischen Befund gestoßen: Retter bestehen darauf, daß sie mit Bezug auf ihre Handlungen, bei denen es um Leben und Tod ging, gar keine Wahl gehabt haben. Die Retterperspektive - wie sich die Retter selbst in ihrer Beziehung zu anderen sehen - wirkte sich als eine machtvolle Beschränkung der Wahlmöglichkeiten aus, wie sie traditionell angenommen werden. Traditionelle Moraltheorien haben es nicht geschafft, befriedigende Erklärungen für dieses Phänomen zu liefern, und wir haben uns der Tugendethik zugewendet, um herauszufinden, ob sie, die den Charakter betont, ein nützliches philosophisches Hilfsmittel für die Erklärung derartigen Rettungsverhalten bereitstellt.Unsere Schlußfolgerungen bezüglich der Tugendethik sind gemischt. Wir sind der Ansicht, daß die Betonung des Charakters durch die Tugendethik den traditionellen, auf Regeln basierenden Theorien über moralische Wahlmöglichkeiten überlegen ist, wobei die Tugendethik sowohl der supererogatorischen Natur des Rettungsverhaltens als auch den Aussagen der Retter, sie hätten gar keine Wahl gehabt, Rechnung trägt. Obwohl die Tugendethik sogar Einsichten in die Art und Weise liefert, wie der Charakter die entscheidende Vorbedingung für moralisches Handeln bildet und wie Menschen moralische Situationen bestimmen, versagt sie doch dabei, die maßgebliche Rolle zu definieren, die die moralische Perspektive bei der moralischen Wahl spielt. Ebensowenig gibt sie eine Antwort auf das Rätsel, das uns beschäftigt, wenn wir die Implikationen des Rettungsverhaltens bedenken: Können wir moralische Verantwortlichkeit zuschreiben, wenn der Charakter die Handlungen bestimmt? Die Aussagen der Retter geben eine konkrete Beschreibung von etwas, was als Perzeption einer gemeinsamen Menschheit bezeichnet worden ist. Es ist diese Perspektive, die das besondere moralische Gebot in Kraft setzt, das die Retter dazu bewogen hat, ihr Leben für andere zu riskieren. Diese Perspektive läßt sich nicht vollständig erklären. (shrink)

This article examines different medieval explanations of the causes of moral goodness, principally the end of the agent and the object of the action. Special attention is given to Thomas Aquinas, who considers the end (that which is willed) to be not only the origin of moral goodness, but also its main criterion. Peter Abelard, whose ethics I argue to be non-subjectivist, had developed a similar theory, though the vocabulary he uses is not very refined. By contrast, (...) for Albert and Duns Scotus, the end is accidental to the moral act. The importance of this study is to shed light on the subjective and objective criteria by which to evaluate the morality of actions. (shrink)

I TRY TO SHOW THAT CONTRARY TO PRICHARD IN "DUTY AND\nIGNORANCE OF FACT" THERE ARE GOOD REASONS FOR MAINTAINING\nTHAT IN CERTAIN RESPECTS AT LEAST WE MAY BE UNAVOIDABLY\nIGNORANT OF OUR DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS, AND OF WHAT IS\nRIGHT AND WRONG GENERALLY. WHY DID PRICHARD STAND SO FIRMLY\nAGAINST UNAVOIDABLE IGNORANCE OF OUR DUTY? I SUGGEST THAT\nHE IS REALLY THINKING ABOUT ONE OF THE CONDITIONS FOR BEING\nBLAMEWORTHY, FOR CERTAINLY IT WOULD BE CONTRADICTORY TO\nSPEAK OF SOMEONE'S BEING BLAMEWORTHY BY VIRTUE OF\nUNAVOIDABLE IGNORANCE. I ALSO (...) RAISE THE QUESTION OF THE\nCONNECTION BETWEEN MORAL ACTION AND ABILITY, AND I TRY TO\nSHOW THAT THERE IS MUCH TO BE SAID AGAINST THE USUAL VIEW\nTHAT "DUTY TO," "WRONG NOT TO," ETC., ENTAIL "ABLE TO.". (shrink)

There is a problem about the punishment of potential or future consequences under the principles of the invisible hand and of utility. In the free market, a social pattern and institution, in which the wicked merchants have harmed others and been punished, is obviously evolved at least for protecting individual freedom and security. In the views of Smith and Mill, it is related to the sentiment of justice from sympathy extended by morality of our internal sentiment and sanctions to social (...) lives. In a society or poor country, however, which has never experienced a case such as that of the wicked merchants, a baker, who makes bread with less harmful poison and intends only to satisfy self-interest, can be evaluated as a case of exemplary self-interest by both principles, for example, because he gives the greatest help to solve social hunger. At that moment, we cannot expect any possible evolution of social pattern and institution; and, if another result of his own self-interest is the concentration of poison after a generation, and if the baker is punished, this feature is to reveal a contradiction of the principles of the invisible hand and, in particular, of utility. At the moment, this essay will examine two possible resolutions: the responsibility for the actual and potential consequences, and desert or merit by socially useful behaviour. The former is to regulate certain actions or to examine its propriety and moral rules in the free market and the latter is to have a limit that to calculate future values for returns or merits now is improper as well as injust. By exploring the two alternatives, it might be persuasive that the principle of moral action in the free market be modified in terms of potentially wrong consequences. (shrink)

This essay is an expansion and refinement of the key ideas and distinctions that Foot advances in ‘Killing and Letting Die’. Here, she defends two morally relevant distinctions: firstly, that between ‘what we do’ and what ‘we allow to happen’ and secondly, what we aim at and what we only foresee as the result of what we do. Utilitarianism as a moral theory is, Foot claims, at fault in overlooking these important distinctions. She describes cases in which although it (...) would be thought permissible to let one person die if we could then save a greater number, we should be outraged by the idea that we could kill one person in order to save them. Moreover, the impermissibility of even allowing one person to die deliberately in order to use the body to save others shows that the distinction between doing and allowing must be supplemented by the distinction between direct and indirect intention. Foot therefore argues that Utilitarianism is a deficient moral theory in that it overlooks these complexities of agency. This mistake came from the attempt to ground all moral judgements in purely causal relationships to better or worse ‘states of affairs,’ and in the latter part of the essay Foot calls into question the whole idea of ‘good states of affairs from a moral point of view’ that Utilitarians suppose to stand as the one foundation of all moral judgements. (shrink)

Se realizó una investigación en sistemas y servicios de salud de tipo descriptiva transversal, con el objetivo de elaborar un sistema de acciones de capacitación para el profesional de la enfermería comunitaria en la prevención del embarazo en la adolescencia. Se aplicaron métodos teóricos y empíricos propios de la investigación científica. El universo lo constituyeron 20 profesionales de enfermería que laboran en consultorios del Área Salud "Tula Aguilera". La muestra quedó conformada por los 12 profesionales que aceptaron participar en el (...) estudio. El criterio de exclusión fue la libre decisión de cada individuo para participar o retirarse de la investigación. Se aplicó una encuesta estandarizada, previo consentimiento informado, para determinar el nivel de conocimientos sobre salud reproductiva en la adolescencia. Los resultados constatados reflejaron que la mayoría de los encuestados tenían criterios estrechos, no fundamentados científicamente ni actualizados sobre el tema, por lo que se diseñó un sistema de acciones de capacitación basado en conocimientos científicos actualizados, pertinentes y contextualizados. Cada actividad se propuso demostrar la factibilidad e importancia de utilizar técnicas participativas y la fundamentación de las ventajas de su uso en diferentes actividades comunitarias, encaminadas a enfatizar en la organización, movilización, concientización y capacitación a los diferentes sujetos sociales involucrados en la prevención del embarazo en la adolescencia, para que estos se conviertan en transformadores de su propia realidad, en correspondencia con sus necesidades y demandas sociales. A descriptive transversal study was carried out on health systems and services aiming at designing a system of training actions for the community professional nurses in order to prevent pregnancy in adolescence. Theorical and empirical methods were applied. The universe was made up of twenty professionals who consented to participate in the study. The inclusion criterion was the free decision of each individual on either participating or not in the investigation. A standard survey was applied -with a previous informed consent , to determine the knowledge about reproductive health in adolescence. The results revealed that most of the surveyed people had narrow criteria with no updated scientific grounds on the issue, thus a system of training actions based on updated scientific pertinent contextualized information was designed Each activity aimed at demonstrating the feasibility study of using participative techniques as well as the reasons for the advantages of their use in a variety of community activities to emphasize the organization and understanding of the different social subjects involved in the prevention of pregnancy in adolescence. (shrink)

This article frames Zhan Ruoshui's philosophical anthropology in a way as to compare it with two competing positions—those of Chen Xianzhang and Wang Yangming—and explores it as an answer to a set of questions many mid-Ming philosophers shared, rather than to perennial, ahistorical philosophical questions. As against Chen Xianzhang and Wang Yangming, Zhan proposes his characteristic motto, suichu tiren tianli, as a way to unite the self and the world. The implication is that moral knowledge must be pursued neither (...) in the dimension of things and affairs, nor outside the dimension of things and affairs. (shrink)

The central argument of this article is that the standard conception of character given in virtue theory, as exemplified in the work of Rosalind Hursthouse, is seriously flawed. Partially, this is because looking behind a moral action for a ‘character’ is suspiciously akin to looking behind an object for an ‘essence’, and is susceptible to the same interpretive errors as an epistemic strategy. Alternately, a character—once inducted and projected upon a moral agent—is supposed to be a more (...) or less permanent property of that individual; a schema which leaves little room for the real possibility of personal transformation. I argue here that what is often referred to in virtue literature as ‘character’ can be productively re-described as the aggregate of all moral actions performed by any one moral agent: nothing more, and nothing less. My hope is that this interpretive strategy will result in broader and more coherent readings of moral actions, and thus also clarify moral confusion resulting from the current lack of the same. (shrink)

University students will be our future business leaders, and will have to address social problems caused by business by implementing solutions such as social entrepreneurship ventures. In order to facilitate the learning process that will foster social entrepreneurship, however, a more holistic pedagogy is needed. Based on learning theory, we propose that students’ social entrepreneurship actions will depend on their learning about CSR and their absorptive capacity. We propose that instructors and higher education institutions can enhance this absorptive capacity by (...) exploiting Web 2.0 technologies. We tested our proposition with a sample of 425 university students using structural equation modeling and found support for the proposed relationships. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline Kant’s philosophy of culture in relation to teleological judgments, chiefly as exposited in the Critique of Judgment, and I show what roles teleological judgment in general and culture in particular play in Kant’s philosophy of moral action. I begin with Kant’s view of nature as organic, i. e., as possessing a systematic purposive unity even with regard to apparently contingent particulars. Nature is organic in at least two senses for Kant. First, it contains (...) organisms, living beings whose parts (organs) stand in a purposive relation to the whole being and its survival. Second, and by extension, Kant holds that nature as a whole may be viewed as having an organic unity, such that the various species of life (and even the arrangements of inorganic matter) are regarded as standing in systematic relations of purposiveness with one another. I argue here that interpreting nature organically is instrumental for the work that judgment performs, according to Kant, in applying the moral law to lived experience through culture. (shrink)

I want to examine a relationship between rationality and moral behavior. To do this, I shall first set out some basic intuitions. Then, within that framework I shall raise a problem about the relationship between rationality and moral behavior; in particular, I shall suggest that present in these basic intuitions is an inconsistency which can be remedied only by a radical alteration of one intuition.It is rational to perform a morally right action. The sense of this claim (...) is fairly clear, but the claim itself needs further articulation. For example, it is rational to conclude that the sum of 37 and 22 is 59, but the conclusion has not been reached rationally if the way in which one hit on 59 as the answer was to pluck a pea - luckily enough, number 59 - from the bingo basket. In speaking about a belief or an action being rational, reference must be made to an agent, to reasons, and to the agent's reasons. (shrink)

ABSTRACTApproving or disapproving of athletes’ moral conduct and character is commonplace. In this essay I explore to what extent such judgements are valid and reliable moral judgements. I identify some methodological problems associated with making moral judgements particularly, but not exclusively, from a virtue perspective. I argue that we have no reliable access to states of mind needed to make informed evaluations. Moreover, even if such access was available, the validity of our judgements would be compromised or (...) limited by our own moral character.Abbreviations: ECB: England and Wales Cricket Board; VAR: Video Assistant Referee. (shrink)

"This book," the author tells us in his introduction, "rests on two supports, on the thought of Husserl and on the moral philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. We will use issues from classical moral philosophy, issues such as deliberation, choice, character, and action, as a kind of magnet to draw out potentials in Husserl's thought that have not yet been actualized. At the same time we will use the superbly rigorous technique and the powerful insights found in (...) Husserl's writing to refresh the ancient understanding of human conduct". By this point Sokolowski has already introduced the Husserlian terms 'intentionality', 'categoriality', and 'constitute', which roughly define that portion of Husserl's thought he will draw upon. (shrink)

Schopenhauer bases morality on the concept of compassion, which he assumes to be the “great mystery of ethics”. He sees it and as a spontaneous action that can neither be taught or planned. However, some elements of his theory of human action allow us to conceive of an ethical-moral action (the compassionate act) as something less mysterious or immediate, rather a mediated and planned action in its social or sociability dimension, or even as one which (...) is suggested. In this paper I propose what may be called a “valorization of the empirical apparatus” of Schopenhauerian thinking on human action (vís-a-vis the metaphysical apparatus) by distinguishing between what I call great ethics and small ethics, a differentiation that I believe can be inferred from some of the philosopher’s elaborations. (shrink)

How do we determine whether an action is right or wrong? Until recently, philosophers assumed that this question could be answered by means of a theory of morality, which set forth clearly established rules for moral behaviour. More recently, however, a number of philosophers have challenged a theory of morality in this sense. Porter is sympathetic to their criticisms but questions whether they go far enough in offering a positive alternative to a modern view of the moral (...) act. She argues that the work of Aquinas offers an alternative account of moral rationality, in terms of which moral reasoning is understood as dialectical rather than deductive, and questions are resolved in a wider context of ethical thought. Aquinas's account of the moral virtues and prudence is seen to offer unexpected insights into the relationship between moral rules and the practice of the virtues, thus contributing to our own moral reflection. (shrink)

In Kant and the Role of Pleasure in Moral Action, Iain Morrisson offers a new view on Kant’s theory of moral action.

ResumenLa teoría según la cual las acciones humanas son eventos causados por otros eventos según leyes de la naturaleza, inspirada en el pensamiento de David Hume, ha predominado en la filosofía de la acción contemporánea. Algunos se han opuesto a dicho planteamiento, proponiendo que la causa última de las acciones humanas es el agente. Entre ellos ha destacado Richard Taylor, quien se inspiró en Thomas Reid, filósofo ilustrado escocés contemporáneo de Hume, cuya noción de la agencia moral tiene una (...) importancia histórica especial, a pesar de encontrarse implícita en la filosofía antigua y medieval, porque distingue con agudeza la noción de agencia de la noción de evento como causa de las acciones morales. Dicha contraposición abre otra discusión: ¿en qué consiste pues la actividad del agente? Tanto Reid en la Ilustración, como Taylor, en la filosofía contemporánea, responden a esta pregunta desde la experiencia, sin fundamentarse en antiguos esquemas metafísicos. Sin embargo, Reid descubre, por inducción experiencial, que la voluntad es una causa metafísica eficiente, por lo cual puede completar el planteamiento de Taylor, quien evita hablar de causas de las acciones por su connotación contemporánea, diciendo que el inicio de las acciones estaría solo en razones y propósitos.Palabras claves: agente; evento; razón; volición; eficiencia. (shrink)

This article describes the results of qualitative research into the moral issues faced by social work professionals working in projects targeted at teenage mothers. The research is part of the tradition of empirical and practice-driven ethics. The main questions were: How does morality become visible in the social services for teenage mothers and how do social workers deal with the moral dimension of their work? (How) can education, training and peer review offer space for moral reflection? Interviews (...) and group meetings ('focus groups') were held to answer these questions. Nineteen professionals (front-line professionals as well as professionals in executive roles) participated in the research. The findings describe the moral issues and the moral actions of professionals and the organizational context respectively. The results reveal that the everyday practice of social work professionals can raise complex issues inherent to their work and that there is often no explicit reflection on the moral dimension of these issues. The authors argue that there needs to be greater focus on the complexity of moral issues and elaborate on three dimensions of this complexity. (shrink)

This book is a detailed study of how, according to Thomas Aquinas and his works, God's Holy Spirit is continuously at work in and through human moral activity.

This book is a detailed study of how, according to Thomas Aquinas and his works, God’s Holy Spirit is continuously at work in and through human moral activity.

This essay compares Aquinas' understanding of the precepts of justice with the various accounts of moral rules developed in the debate over proportionalism among contemporary moral theologians. It is argued that both sides in this debate oversimplify Aquinas' account of moral rules so drastically as to misread him. Moreover, it is argued that because Aquinas' account reflects a sense of the communal context for moral discernment, it is superior to both traditionalism and proportionalism.

Purpose/methods: This study investigated the relationship between ethics education and training, and the use and usefulness of ethics resources, confidence in moral decisions, and moral action/activism through a survey of practicing nurses and social workers from four United States (US) census regions. Findings: The sample (n = 1215) was primarily Caucasian (83%), female (85%), well educated (57% with a master's degree). no ethics education at all was reported by 14% of study participants (8% of social workers had (...) no ethics education, versus 23% of nurses), and only 57% of participants had ethics education in their professional educational program. Those with both professional ethics education and in-service or continuing education were more confident in their moral judgments and more likely to use ethics resources and to take moral action. Social workers had more overall education, more ethics education, and higher confidence and moral action scores, and were more likely to use ethics resources than nurses. Conclusion: Ethics education has a significant positive influence on moral confidence, moral action, and use of ethics resources by nurses and social workers. (shrink)

While there is extensive literature on both the expansion of human rights and solidarity movements, and on micro-solidarity and violent actions, here I ask what is the relationship between human rights, micro-solidarity and social action? Based on a case study of structured, face-to-face dialogue group encounters in the Israeli/Palestinian context, I draw on Randall Collins’s interaction ritual chain theory to demonstrate why emotional energy and the ritualization of historical narratives have very limited potential to translate into human rights-based (...) class='Hi'>moral actions. Instead, I suggest, these encounters produce micro-solidarity that ascribes additional weight to ethnic categories, serving to polarize and homogenize groups along ethnic lines. (shrink)

The concept of distributed moral responsibility (DMR) has a long history. When it is understood as being entirely reducible to the sum of (some) human, individual and already morally loaded actions, then the allocation of DMR, and hence of praise and reward or blame and punishment, may be pragmatically difficult, but not conceptually problematic. However, in distributed environments, it is increasingly possible that a network of agents, some human, some artificial (e.g. a program) and some hybrid (e.g. a group (...) of people working as a team thanks to a software platform), may cause distributed moral actions (DMAs). These are morally good or evil (i.e. morally loaded) actions caused by local interactions that are in themselves neither good nor evil (morally neutral). In this article, I analyse DMRs that are due to DMAs, and argue in favour of the allocation, by default and overridably, of full moral responsibility (faultless responsibility) to all the nodes/agents in the network causally relevant for bringing about the DMA in question, independently of intentionality. The mechanism proposed is inspired by, and adapts, three concepts: back propagation from network theory, strict liability from jurisprudence and common knowledge from epistemic logic. (shrink)

This article argues that William James's thinking in The Varieties and elsewhere contains the view that social institutions, such as religious congregations and schools, are mediators between the private and public spheres of life, and are necessary for transforming personal feelings, ideals and beliefs into moral action. The Exercises of St Ignatius and the Just Community moral education approach serve as examples. Criticisms of the more commonly held view that James recognised only individual personal experiences as valid (...) religious expressions are marshalled. Furthermore, we argue that moral action or saintliness, the ultimate expression of religious faith according to James, is fundamentally social. The commonalities that the phenomenologies of moral action of St Ignatius and Lawrence Kohlberg have with William James's view are used to support the argument. (shrink)

One rationale policy-makers sometimes give for declining to fund a service or intervention is on the grounds that it would be ‘unaffordable’, which is to say, that the total cost of providing the service or intervention for all eligible recipients would exceed the budget limit. But does the mere fact that a service or intervention is unaffordable present a reason not to fund it? Thus far, the philosophical literature has remained largely silent on this issue. However, in this article, we (...) consider this kind of thinking in depth. Albeit with certain important caveats, we argue that the use of affordability criteria in matters of public financing commits what Parfit might have called a ‘mistake in moral mathematics’. First, it fails to abide by what we term a principle of ‘non-perfectionism’ in moral action: the mere fact that it is practically impossible for you to do all the good that you have reason to do does not present a reason not to do whatever good you can do. And second, when used as a means of arbitrating between which services to fund, affordability criteria can lead to a kind of ‘numerical discrimination’. Various attendant issues around fairness and lotteries are also discussed. (shrink)

In this paper a standard that can enable us to judge the alleged legitimacy of an interventional war is proposed. The paper consists of three parts. In the first part, it is shown that the opinion that waging a war is illegitimate in every case cannot be reconciled with the legitimacy of individual and collective self-defence, which is widely accepted in all civilizations. For this reason the second part specifies, in accordance with traditional just-war theory, six conditions of a justified (...) war and substantiates the view that assistance in an emergency is the only reason that can, under certain circumstances, morally justify a war of aggression. In the third part the term ‘humanitarian intervention’ is defined by stating special legitimacy conditions that must be satisfied to make a war of aggression a humanitarian intervention and by rejecting an influential objection against the legitimacy of such an interventional war. (shrink)