Because of the transcendent nature of the experience of my own self, responsibility for myself necessarily leads to responsibility for others. The aim of this paper is to approach this experience of the transcendence of the self and to show how it relates to a new sense of responsibility which transcends the self through a number of stages. First, the author outlines what might be called the "standard" view of authenticity in Husserl and how (...) this particular view yields a certain view of responsibility as the ability to answer completely for "who" one is and "what" one does. Second, this standard view is challenged with another reading of the "self" in Husserl - one that emphasizes a necessary and productive division within the self. Thus, the author suggests that it is this second view of the self which is developed by Heidegger. Third, he demonstrates how this different view of the "authentic" self, that is inextricably linked to a "loss" of self, leads to a radically distinct view of responsibility for oneself, and for others. (shrink)

A particular notion of reason has pervaded studies of practical action throughout the whole tradition of western philosophy up to Wittgenstein and Heidegger. This notion has been centrally located in contexts other than the specific study of practical action itself.This essay examines the relation of reason and practical action by reviewing Habermas' and Husserl's theories of the relation between discourse and action (I), and then proposing Garfinkel's ethnomethodological studies of practical action as an alternative to Husserl's and Habermas' preoccupation with (...) the primacy of theoretical discourse (II). In a final section I shall interpret Garfinkel's studies, following his own suggestions as studies in practical ethics, and make reference to similar themes in philosophical ethics (Ill). (shrink)

The crucial distinction for ethics is between the good and the apparent good, between being and seeming. Tradition is useful for developing our ability to make this distinction and to live ethically or in self-responsibility, but it is also threatening to this ability. The phenomenology of Husserl and of others in the Husserlian tradition, especially Robert Sokolowski, are helpful in spelling out how tradition works; how the difference between the apparent good and the good is bridged in the (...) experience of moral truth but also a permanent, challenging feature of human life; what ethics requires regarding self-responsibility or authenticity; and what the proper voice of tradition is in the ethical or moral life. (shrink)

Roman Stoics of the imperial period developed a distinctive model of social ethics, one which adapted the ideal philosophical life to existing communities and everyday societal values. Gretchen Reydams-Schils’s innovative book shows how these Romans—including such philosophers as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Hierocles, and Epictetus—applied their distinct brand of social ethics to daily relations and responsibilities, creating an effective model of involvement and ethical behavior in the classical world. _The Roman Stoics_ reexamines the philosophical basis that instructed social practice in friendship, (...) marriage, parenting, and community life. From this analysis, Stoics emerge as neither cold nor detached, as the stereotype has it, but all too aware of their human weaknesses. In a valuable contribution to current discussions in the humanities on identity, autonomy, and altruism, Reydams-Schils ultimately conveys the wisdom of Stoics to the citizens of modern society. (shrink)

After acquiring knowledge of the neuroscience of learning, memory, stress and emotions, teachers incorporate more cognitive engagement and student-centered practices into their lessons. However, the role understanding neuroscience plays in teachers own affective and motivational competencies has not yet been investigated. The goal of this study was to investigate how learning neuroscience effected teachers’ self-efficacy, beliefs in their ability to teach effectively, self-responsibility and other components of teacher motivation. A pilot training-of-trainers program was designed and delivered in (...) Liberia combining basic neuroscience with information on social, emotional, behavioral and mental health issues faced by students. Tier I of the professional development was a 2 weeks workshop led by a visiting neuroscientist. A subset of the 24 Tier I secondary science teachers formed a Leadership Team who adapted the content to the Liberian context and subsequently led additional workshops and follow-up sessions for the Tier II secondary science teachers. Science teachers in both tiers completed the affective-motivational scales from the internationally vetted, multiscale Innovative Teaching for Effective Learning Teacher Knowledge Survey from the OECD. Tier II teachers completed the survey in a pre-post-delayed post design. Tier I teachers completed the survey after the workshop with their attitudes at that time and separately with retrospective projections of their pre-workshop attitudes. Ten of the 92 Tier II teachers participated in structured interviews at follow-up. Statistical analysis of survey data demonstrated improved teacher self-efficacy, self-responsibility for student outcomes, and motivation to teach. Qualitatively, teachers expressed more confidence in their ability to motivate students, engage them through active learning, and manage the class through positive rather than negative reinforcement. Teachers’ own self-regulation improved as they made efforts to build supporting relationships with students. Together, these results demonstrated that (i) teacher affective-motivational attitudes can be altered with professional development, (ii) basic neuroscience, as knowledge of how students learn, can improve teacher competency, and (iii) a training-of-trainers model can be effective in a low and middle income country for disseminating neuroscience knowledge, increasing teachers’ knowledge of students’ social and emotional needs, and promoting educational improvement. (shrink)

In this chapter, I propose to examine a specific form of self-awareness in which we become aware of our existence in a problematic sense: wistfulness. In thinking about what it means to have a life, one is often haunted by different senses of possibility: of what could or should be, of what might have been, but just as well, of what could never have been. In such latter instances, we become aware of ourselves not in terms of actuality (who (...) I am) or possibility (who I can or could become), but in terms of impossibility, namely, as the impossible selves that nonetheless, in some sense, define and hence belong to us, as attested to in the experience of regret and remorse, not for what we did (or who we have been) but for what was impossible for us to be (or do). Drawing on Georg Simmel’s philosophy of life, I shall explore various senses in which we are responsible for ourselves, of who we have been and could yet be, as well as who it was impossible for us to once have been. In this regard, what Simmel calls the meta-ethical significance of death refers to the responsibility we have for ourselves in terms of what was both possible and impossible for us. (shrink)

Review of Gretchen Reydams-Schils, The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Jan Patočka’s account of responsibility, as developed in Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, is configured through the philosopher’s entire model of history, seen less as a scale of progress, but rather as a rupture. Responsibility is possible only for a very specific form of humanity, centered on history, problematicity and selfdisclosure. This type of historic humanity is in profound contrast with the prehistoric one, focused on “daimonic participation.” Responsibility involves the passage from prehistory to history. (...) Despite the fact that it requires an intense “discipline of the soul,” the passage to responsibility cannot become pure and transparent, which in turn means that history is repeatedly threatened by falling back into prehistory. The positive involved in this assumption is that responsibility is not taken for granted; it is not a matter of following metaphysical principles, but rather a matter of a practical, “heretical” decision of embracing history, with its shaken problematicity, and of resisting the temptation of prehistory.La comprensión de Jan Patočka de la responsabilidad, tal como se desarrolladen Ensayos eréticos de filosofía de la Historia, viene configurada por el modelo completo de Historia, vista más como una ruptura que como una escala de progreso. La responsabilidad es posible sólo para una forma muy concreta de humanidad, centrada en la historia, la problematicidad y el autodescubrimiento. Este tipo de humanidad histórica se halla en profundo contraste con el tipo prehistórico, focalizado sobre la “participación demónica”. La responsabilidad implica el tránsito de la prehistoria a la historia. Pese a requerir una intensa “disciplina del alma”, el tránsito a la responsabilidad no puede tornarse puro y transparente, lo que a su vez significa que la historia está constantemente amenzada por una recaída en la prehistoria. El lado positivo que esta asunción envuelve es que la responsabilidad no se da por garantizada; no es una cuestión de seguir principios metafísicos, sino más bien cuestión de una decisión práctica, “herética”, de abrazar la historia, con su problematicidad conmovida, y de resistir la tentación de la prehistoria. (shrink)

This study investigates the three major educational philosophies behind the medical humanities programs in the United States. It summarizes the characteristics of the Cultural Transmission Approach, the Affective Developmental Approach, and the Cognitive Developmental Approach. A questionnaire was sent to 415 teachers of medical humanities asking for their perceptions of the amount of time and effort devoted by their programs to these three philosophical approaches. The 234 responses constituted a 54.6% return. The approximately 80:20 gender ratio of males to females (...) and other demographic data on age and educational background were consistent with other studies of the field of medical humanities.Reflections on the results in Table II indicate that some changes need to take place in the teaching of the medical humanities if the perceived ideal is to be achieved. In order for the current teachers of the medical humanities to think that the appropriate philosophies behind the teaching of the medical humanities are being implemented as they should be, much less time and effort need to be devoted to the Cultural Transmission Approach. With no other published reports on the educational philosophies behind the medical humanities programs, this study created a new knowledge base about this relatively young and rapidly emerging field. (shrink)

The self-deceived are usually held to be moral responsible for their state. I argue that this attribution of responsibility makes sense only against the background of the traditional conception of self-deception, a conception that is now widely rejected. In its place, a new conception of self-deception has been articulated, which requires neither intentional action by self-deceived agents, nor that they possess contradictory beliefs. This new conception has neither need nor place for attributions of moral (...) class='Hi'>responsibility to the self-deceived in paradigmatic cases. Accordingly, we should take the final step toward abandoning the traditional conception, and drop the automatic attribution of responsibility. Self-deception is simply a kind of mistake, and has no more necessary connection to culpability than have other intellectual errors. (shrink)

This is a study of Roman adaptations of Stoic doctrine that seeks to portray a model of the self functioning as a mediator between philosophical and traditional values (1). The author’s aim is ‘to let the Roman Stoics’ self arise out of a comprehensive analysis of their extant philosophical work and to conduct that analysis from the vantage point of the specific question of social embeddedness. Such an approach yields a Stoic self that is constituted by the (...) encounter between challenges and normative expectations’ (2). Overall, this aim is met. The Roman Stoics referred to are Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and to a lesser extent Hierocles, who ‘all had to come to terms with the sociopolitical challenges of imperial Rome’ (3). The tame thesis advanced is that the doctrine of these Roman Stoics ‘shows a distinctive pattern of emphasizing social responsibility’ (3). This social responsibility includes commitments to the political community, marriage, and parenthood. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the question of whether and, if so, when people can be responsible for their self-deception and its consequences. On Intentionalist accounts, self-deceivers intentionally deceive themselves, and it is easy to see how they can be responsible. On Motivationist accounts, in contrast, self-deception is a motivated, but not intentional, and possibly unconscious process, making it more difficult to see how self-deceivers could be responsible. I argue that a particular Motivationist account, the Desire to (...) Believe account, together with other resources, best explains how there can be culpable self-deception. In the process, I also show how self-deception is a good test case for deciding important questions about the nature of moral responsibility. (shrink)

I present two different models of moral responsibility -- two different accounts of what we value in behavior for which the agent can legitimately be held morally responsible. On the first model, what we value is making a certain sort of difference to the world. On the second model, which I favor, we value a certain kind of self-expression. I argue that if one adopts the self-expression view, then one will be inclined to accept that moral (...) class='Hi'>responsibility need not require alternative possibilities. (shrink)

We study whether robots can satisfy the conditions of an agent fit to be held morally responsible, with a focus on autonomy and self-control. An analogy between robots and human groups enables us to modify arguments concerning collective responsibility for studying questions of robot responsibility. We employ Mele’s history-sensitive account of autonomy and responsibility to argue that even if robots were to have all the capacities required of moral agency, their history would deprive them from autonomy (...) in a responsibility-undermining way. We will also study whether humans and technological artifacts like robots can form hybrid collective agents that could be morally responsible for their actions and give an argument against such a possibility. (shrink)

In the late preschool years children acquire a "theory of mind", the ability to ascribe intentional states, including beliefs, desires and intentions, to themselves and others. In this paper I trace how children's ability to ascribe intentions is derived from parental attempts to hold them responsible for their talk and action, that is, the attempt to have their behavior meet a normative standard or rule. Self-control is children's developing ability to take on or accept responsibility, that is, the (...) ability to ascribe intentions to themselves. This is achieved, I argue, when they possess the ability to hold an utterance or rule in mind in the form of a quoted expression, and second, when they grasp the causal relation between the rule and their action. The account of how children learn to ascribe intention to themselves and others will then be used to explore the larger question of the relations amongst language, intentional states and the ascription and avowal of those states. (shrink)

A common line of thought claims that we are responsible for ourselves and our actions, while less sophisticated creatures are not, because we are, and they are not, self-aware. Our self-awareness is thought to provide us with a kind of control over ourselves that they lack: we can reflect upon ourselves, upon our thoughts and actions, and so ensure that they are as we would have them to be. Thus, our capacity for reflection provides us with the control (...) over ourselves that grounds our responsibility. I argue that this thought is subtly, but badly, confused. It uses, as its model for the control that grounds our responsibility, the kind of control we exercise over ordinary objects and over our own voluntary actions: we represent to ourselves what to do or how to change things, and then we bring about that which we represent. But we cannot use this model to explain our responsibility for ourselves and our actions: if there is a question about why or how we are responsible for ourselves and our actions, it cannot be answered by appeal to a sophisticated, self-directed action. There must be some more fundamental account of how or why we are responsible. I replace the usual account with a novel but natural view: responsible mental activity can be modeled, not as an ordinary action, but as the settling of a question. This shift will require abandoning the tempting but troublesome thought that responsible activity involves discretion and awareness—which, I argue, we must abandon in any case. (shrink)

I try to show that agent responsibility is an inadequate basis for the attribution of liability, by discrediting the Risk Argument and showing how the Responsibility Argument in fact collapses into the Risk Argument. I have concentrated on undermining these as philosophical theories of self-defense, although I at times note that our theory of self-defense should not be predicated on assumptions that are inapplicable to the context of war. The potential combatant, I conclude, should not look (...) to the agency view to ease his conscience about the killing he will do in war. If he is to fight without violating rights, then he will need a different theory of self-defense; if there are no more defensible theories, then he must either accept pacifism—which I think is a live possibility—or seek to identify stronger countervailing reasons, which can override the great force of his victims’ rights to life. (shrink)

The universal mantra, “The customer is our king,” has led to considerable focus on the servant-anthropomorphized brand. However, does your “king” want to be served as a “king”? This research aims to examine how anthropomorphic brand role, self-construals and consumer responses to brands interact. In this study, four sequential experiments show that consumers with an interdependent self-construal are likely to respond more favorably toward anthropomorphic brands playing superior ‘master’ roles than toward those playing subordinate ‘servant’ roles. Here we (...) distinguish between two types of superior role (master and mentor) based on behavior and communications. We also explore the underlying psychological mechanism of followership, as demonstrated through blind followership of someone in a master role and rational followership of someone in a mentor role. Additionally, when a third-party (recipient) is involved in the relationship between a consumer and a brand, the giver–recipient relationship moderates the relationship between an anthropomorphised brand role and self-construals. (shrink)

Moral responsibility is an issue at the heart of the free-will debate. The question of how we can have moral responsibility in a deterministic world is an interesting and puzzling one. Compatibilists arguments have left open the possibility that the ability to do otherwise is not required for moral responsibility. The challenge, then, is to come up with what our attributions of moral responsibility are tracking. To do this, criteria which can adequately differentiate cases in which (...) the agent is responsible from cases in which the agent is not responsible are required. I argue that an agent is responsible for the consequences of an action if they stem, in an appropriate way, from the agent's deep values and desires. These deep values and desires make up the Deep Self. Parts of the Deep Self, first, tend to be enduring; second, desires within it tend to be general ; third, they tend to be reflectively endorsed by the agent; fourth, these traits are often central to the agent's self-conception; and fifth, they are not generally in extreme conflict with other deep traits. Empirical work is drawn upon to help develop a suitable account of what deserves to be called a part of the Deep Self. I also strengthen and extend this view by considering issues of poor judgement and weakness of will, and when and how we can be considered responsible for them. (shrink)

Looking at responsibility within a Lévinasian sense, human beings are firstly seen not in the philosophically traditional sense, of being egocentric, but rather seen as ethical subjects based on “the other” (Lévinas & Hand, 1989). The purpose of this paper is to examine the notion of responsibility as Lévinas conceptualized in the idea that human beings are responsible for not only themselves but for others. Lévinas within “Ethics as First Philosophy” (Lévinas & Hand, 1989) states that before all (...) other forms of being in the world there must be responsibility to the Other (Lévinas & Hand, 1989). Lévinas defines this to mean that before freedom of the subject, and their subjectivity, before self-consciousness, before the consciousness of consciousness, before being, and before relativity there is “responsibility for the Other pre-exists any self-consciousness” (Lévinas & Hand, 1989, p.75). Perhaps, Lévinas is saying that a human beings obligation comes before all of what follows from our being in this world, our obligation to the Other beginning with the “face to face” (Lévinas & Hand, 1989, p.75), interaction, which is our first and foremost responsibility, the responsibility to the Other. And to be ethical beings who begin with responsibility we rely on the fundamental relationship of others. This notion of responsibility appears when we encounter, in the face-to-face interaction, the unknowable other. However, does this responsibility extend to more than two individuals and to those outside our immediate proximity? For example, Lévinas states that it is the “face to face” notion of seeing one in distress, yet what if it is a group of people, and what if they are not in close proximity but on the other side of the world? What if they are on the other side of a screen that can also be artificial intelligence in our modern era. Are we still responsible? And if we are responsible, how does Lévinas’s concept of responsibility fit into that situation or is it limited? I want to examine responsibility in terms of proximity through a Lévinasian ethical lens and plurality, defined as more than two individuals, by questioning responsibility in terms of relationality, and vulnerability. I will be looking mainly at five authors Emmanuel Lévinas, Ernst Van Alphen, Judith Butler, Kevin Quashi, and Lisa Guenther, to answer the question of whether Lévinas’s definition of responsibility includes proximity, and plurality. (shrink)

The political shift toward an economic liberalism in many developed market economies, emphasizing the importance of the marketplace rather than government intervention in the economy and society (Dorman, Systematic Occupational Health and Safety Management: Perspectives on an International Development, 2000; Tombs, Policy and Practice in Health and Safety 3(1): 24-25, 2005; Walters, Policy and Practice in Health and Safety 03(2):3-19, 2005), featured a prominent discourse centered on the need for business flexibility and competitiveness in a global economy (Dorman, 2000; Tombs, (...) 2005). Alongside these developments was an increasing pressure for corporate social responsibility (CSR). The business case for CSR - that corporations would benefit from voluntarily being socially responsible — was increasingly promoted by governments and corporations as part of the justification for self-regulation. The aim of the article is to examine more closely the proposition that self-regulation is effective, with particular reference to the business case for workplace equality and safety. Based on a comprehensive literature review and documentary analysis, it was found that current predominant management discourse and practice focusing on diversity and safety management systems (OHSMS) resonate well with a government and corporate preference for the business case and self-regulation. However, the centrality of individual rather than organizational factors in diversity and OHSMS means that systemic discrimination and inherent workplace hazards are downplayed, making it less likely that employers will initiate structural remedies needed for real change. Thus, reliance on the business case in the argument for self-regulation is problematic. In terms of government policy and management practice, the business case needs to be supplemented by strong, proactive legislation, and worker involvement. (shrink)

According to Dewey, we are responsible for our conduct because it is “ourselves objectified in action”. This idea lies at the heart of an increasingly influential deep self approach to moral responsibility. Existing formulations of deep self views have two major problems: They are often underspecified, and they tend to understand the nature of the deep self in excessively rationalistic terms. Here I propose a new deep self theory of moral responsibility called the (...) class='Hi'>Self-Expression account that addresses these issues. The account is composed of two parts. The first part answers the question, What is a deep self? Theorists have tended to favor cognitive views that understand the deep self in terms of rationally formed evaluative judgment. I propose instead a conative view that says one’s deep self consists of a distinctive kind of pro-attitude, cares, and I provide an account of cares in terms of their distinctive psychological functional role. The second part answers the question, When does an action express one’s deep self? I criticize the agentially demanding conditions set out in existing views and propose a more minimalist alternative. I show that the Self-Expression account handles issues that bedeviled traditional deep self views, including how to explain moral responsibility for spontaneous, out of character, and weak-willed actions. (shrink)

The Responsible Self was H. Richard Niebuhr's most important work in Christian ethics. In it he probes the most fundamental character of the moral life and it stands today as a landmark contribution to the field. The Library of Theological Ethics series focuses on what it means to think theologically and ethically. It presents a selection of important and otherwise unavailable texts in easily accessible form. Volumes in this series will enable sustained dialogue with predecessors though reflection on classic (...) works in the field. (shrink)

Robert Kane has for many years claimed that in our underivatively free actions, what he calls “self-forming acts”, we actually try to do both of the two acts we are contemplating doing and then we ultimately end up doing only one of them. This idea of dual willings/efforts was put forward in an attempt to solve luck problems, but Randolph Clarke and Alfred Mele argue that for this to work agents must, then, freely engage in the dual efforts leading (...) up to their SFAs. In response, Kane has said they do so freely by meeting compatibilist criteria of freedom. In Free Will and Luck , Mele argues that this move is deeply problematic. In this essay, I defend Kane's position. In doing so, I clarify important differences between the SFAs of adults and those of young children, making more clear the connections between SFAs, character, and responsibility. (shrink)

According to Michael Zimmerman, no interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal captures a significant truth. He raises several worries about the Strawsonian view that moral responsibility consists in susceptibility to the reactive attitudes and claims that this view at best supports only an etiolated interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. He outlines three problems. First, the existence of self-reactive attitudes may be incompatible with the interpersonal nature of moral (...) responsibility. Secondly, Zimmerman questions the significance of the interpersonal nature of moral responsibility, according to the Strawsonian view. Thirdly, he argues that that view may be taken to suggest the wrong kind of priority relation between ‘P is morally responsible’ and ‘it is appropriate to adopt some reactive attitude toward P’. I discuss each of these problems in turn and conclude that Strawsonians can respond to all three problems raised by Zimmerman. The Strawsonian view supports a significant interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. (shrink)

This chapter offers a fine-grained analysis of the relationship between autonomy and responsibility in order to address a challenge according to which considering autonomy and responsibility as closely related is misleading since these concepts serve different normative objectives. In response to this challenge, I first explore two criteria of ascription – rationality and control – that autonomy and responsibility seem to share. I then contrast and compare three pairs of autonomy and responsibility conceptions. Examining these pairs (...) rescues the idea that there are normatively significant connections between autonomy and responsibility, albeit that what that connection is and why it matters is highly sensitive to the different understandings of autonomy and responsibility one might adopt. The first pair, self-governance and accountability, posits a notion of core agency as irreducibly valuable. The second, authenticity and attributability, rests on a shared ideal of actively becoming a distinctive self. The third and final, relational autonomy and answerability, derives from the thought that unequal standing impacts heavily on whether and how the criteria of rationality and control are applied in specific cases. This analysis demonstrates that rationality and control are not independent criteria but always work in tandem. Failing to appreciate these conceptual interactions could obfuscate promising pathways for both supporting personal autonomy and challenging unwarranted responsibility ascriptions. (shrink)

Diagnostic self-testing devices are being developed for many illnesses, chronic diseases and infections. These will be used in hospitals, at point-of-care facilities and at home. Designed to allow earlier detection of diseases, self-testing diagnostic devices may improve disease prevention, slow the progression of disease and facilitate better treatment outcomes. These devices have the potential to benefit both the individual and society by enabling individuals to take a more proactive role in the maintenance of their health and by helping (...) society improve health and reduce health costs. However, the full implications of future home-based diagnostic technology for individuals and society remain unclear due to their novelty. We argue that the development of diagnostic tools, especially for home use, will heighten a number of ethical challenges. This paper will explore some of the ethical implications of home-based self-testing diagnostic devices for the autonomous and relational dimensions of the person. This will be facilitated by examining the impact of diagnostic devices for individual autonomy, for the delivery of accurate diagnosis and for the personal significance of the information for the user. The latter will be examined using Charles Taylor's view of personhood and his emphasis on human agency and interpretation. While the ethical issues are not necessarily new, the development of home-based self-testing diagnostic devices will make issues regarding autonomy, accuracy of information and personal significance more and more demanding. This will be the case particularly when an individual's autonomous choices come into conflict with the person's relational responsibilities. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of nationality (U.S. vs. China) and personal values on managers’ responses to the Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility (PRESOR) scale. Evidence that China’s transition to a socialist market economy has led to widespread business corruption, led us to hypothesize that People’s Republic of China (PRC) managers would believe less strongly in the importance of ethical and socially responsible business conduct. We also hypothesized that after controlling for national differences, managers’ personal values (more (...) specifically, self-transcendence values) would have a significant impact on PRESOR responses. The hypotheses were tested using a sample of practicing managers enrolled in part-time MBA programs in the two countries. The results indicate that nationality did not have a consistent impact on PRESOR responses. After controlling for national differences, self-transcendence values had a significant positive impact on two of the three PRESOR dimensions. Conservation values such as conformity and tradition also had a significant association with certain dimensions of the PRESOR scale. (shrink)

The self is not a metaphysical object but a mode of temporal organization unified by responsibility. Learning to be responsible constitutes the self as a self-identical entity over time. Responsibility depends on the current self interpreting previous events, attributing them to itself and thereby committing itself for the future. (2004) .

Corporate social responsibility has an impact on many areas of society, and it has recently been active in the digital space, a growing area of business activity. However, certain factors prevent it from firmly establishing itself in this area. One of these factors is the lack of user trust. Certain instruments have been created to address this issue, such as codes of conduct that seek to mitigate the causes of distrust by making significant improvements in the regulations and ethical (...) standards applicable to business transactions. These instruments are the product of industry self-regulation and complement rather than substitute for effective legal regulations. In light of some European Community directives, European legislators are addressing certain issues in this area, especially unfair business practices. (shrink)

This article sets out to undertake a thorough, point-by-point examination of the theory postulated by Campbell (2007), in which an attempt is made to specify the conditions under which corporations may or may not act in socially responsible ways. In order to ensure the overall reliability of our study, and to attempt to provide a new understanding of, and greater insights into, whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) is affected by financial and institutional variables, we empirically investigate a total of (...) 520 financial firms in 34 countries, between the years 2003 and 2005. Our empirical findings are: (i) finns with larger size are more CSR minded, and the financial performance and CSR are not related; (ii) finns would actually act in more socially responsible ways to enhance their competitive advantages when the market competitiveness is more intense; (iii) financial firms in countries with stronger levels of legal enforcement tend to engage in more CSR activities; however, interestingly and rather strikingly, those finns in countries with stronger shareholder rights tend to engage in less CSR activities; and (iv) self-regulation within the financial industry has a significantly positive effect on CSR, with firms being found to act in more socially responsible ways in those countries which have more cooperative employer-employee relations, higher quality management schools, and a better macroeconomic environment. (shrink)

We often hold people morally responsible for their emotions. We praise individuals for their compassion, think less of them for their ingratitude or hatred, reproach self-righteousness and unjust anger. In the cases I have in mind, the ascriptions of responsibility are not simply for offensive behaviors or actions which may accompany the emotions, but for the emotions themselves as motives or states of mind. We praise and blame people for what they feel and not just for how they (...) act. In cases where people may subtly mask their hatred or ingratitude through more kindly actions, we still may find fault with the attitude we see leaking through the disguise. (shrink)

We have argued elsewhere that moral responsibility over time depends in part upon the having of psychological connections which facilitate forms of self-control. In this chapter we explore the importance of mental time travel - our ordinary ability to mentally travel to temporal locations outside the present, involving both memory of our personal past and the ability to imagine ourselves in the future - to our agential capacities for planning and control. We suggest that in many individuals with (...) dissociative disorders, forms of amnesia, or other frontal lobe damage, our capacity for mental time travel is impaired, resulting in commensurate losses to agency autonomy, and a forensic condition essential for holding persons responsible: in legal terms, the capacity for mens rea. (shrink)

He finds the key in the concept of responsibility, which implies not only the freedom and flexibility of responsiveness to others but also a guiding ideal of ...

Responsibility theorists frequently discuss psychopathy because it challenges various accounts of the capacities required for appropriate ascriptions of moral and legal responsibility. As often described, the psychopath has the capacity to reason practically but lacks the capacity to grasp and control himself in light of moral considerations. As portrayed, then, the psychopath resides in the area of disagreement between two philosophical camps: (i) theorists who put forth the general capacity for practical reasoning or rational self-governance as sufficient (...) for an agent to be appropriately held morally responsible for his conduct; and (ii) theorists who view that general capacity as necessary but not sufficient for moral responsibility, additionally requiring the capacity to grasp and respond to distinctly moral reasons. On the former view, we may appropriately hold psychopaths responsible for their wrongful actions, but not on the latter. This article does not aim to describe the opposing views and argue for one over the other. Rather, I propose to deflate the debate as far as possible, attempting to reduce the area of disagreement. Meaningful disagreement exists only if there are, or could be, agents who have an undiminished capacity for practical reasoning or rational self-governance, yet truly are incapable of moral reasoning. However, I suggest that the capacity for rational self-governance entails the capacity to comprehend and act on moral considerations; thus, to the extent that an individual truly is incapable of grasping moral reasons, we should expect to find deeper, more general deficiencies in that individual's rational capacities. I appeal to the work of leading researchers who study individuals with psychopathy to determine whether psychopaths do represent rational self-governors without the capacity to grasp moral considerations. I argue that this work strongly suggests that the psychopath's incapacity for moral reasoning is, indeed, evidence of more general deficits in the rational capacities required for fully accountable agency. The Article closes with relevant considerations for thinking about any implications for criminal law. (shrink)

Richard Moran's Authority and Estrangement offers a subtle and tantalizing exploration of asymmetries that arise between first‐person and third‐person self‐knowledge. According to Moran's central claim, the distinction of first‐person self‐knowledge is to engage the responsibility of the person. I will focus my remarks on this issue. I wish to raise some questions about the nature of the third‐person perspective, and about how assuming it affects the responsibility of the person. In this connection, I examine in some (...) detail Moran's main examples of third‐person loss of responsibility. Moran's discussions are rich and provocative, and the questions I sketch out all too briefly here are primarily pleas for clarification. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We frequently accuse heavy drinkers and drug users of self‐deception if they refuse to admit that they are addicted. However, given the ways in which we usually conceptualize it, acknowledging addiction merely involves swapping one form of self‐deception for another. We ask addicts to see themselves as in the grip of an irresistible desire, and to accept that addiction is an essentially physiological process. To the extent this is so, we, as much as the addicts, suffer from (...) self‐deception, and the responsibility for their state is in part ours. Conversely, since addicts are compelled to accept a self‐deceptive image of themselves, they are at least partially excused from blame for their self‐deception. (shrink)

Drawing on contemporary agency theory and the phenomenological-existential tradition, this paper uses Mr. Stevens, the narrator-butler of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, to examine the interplay and potential tensions between different aspects (and thus different standards) of human agency. Highlighting the problem of mission creep described by John Martin Fischer, in which a notion expands beyond the original purpose, I use Stevens’s thoughts on dignity to outline three different ways actions can (or can fail to) trace back to (...) agents—autonomy as self-control, authenticity as sincerity, and authenticity as ownership. I then propose that the way Stevens embraces and acts consistently within his subservient professional role (autonomy as self-control) weakens his ability to take responsibility for his life in the sense required by authenticity as ownership. Because the self-responsibility of authenticity requires normative flexibility (the ability to revise and reshape one’s commitments and values), when normatively inflexible agents act in self-controlled ways according to their roles or welfare standards, they may limit their ability to take responsibility for their lives. In addition to illuminating debates about whether robust human agency is compatible with subservience, the normative flexibility involved in authenticity has implications for human agency more broadly. (shrink)

BackgroundTo explore how self-disclosure leads to post-traumatic growth in adults who have experienced traumatic events, this study identified the relationship between self-disclosure and post-traumatic growth in Korean adults. We examined a parallel multiple mediating model for this relationship.MethodsParticipants were 318 Korean male and female adult participants aged 20 years or older who had experienced trauma. We measured deliberate rumination, positive social responses, and the meaning of life as mediating variables.ResultsThe results revealed that the study variables positively correlated with (...) PTG. Self-disclosure was positively correlated with deliberate rumination, positive social responses, and meaning of life. In the multiple mediating model, deliberate rumination, positive social responses, and meaning of life mediated the relationship between self-disclosure and PTG.ConclusionSelf-disclosure, deliberate rumination, positive social responses, and meaning of life play an important role in the growth of adults who have experienced traumatic events. The findings of this study should provide valuable information for future research and for mental health professionals who want to promote the PTG of their clients. (shrink)

This study investigated gender related moral reasoning in student essays containing arguments on moral issues. Undergraduate students in a medical ethics course viewed two films on morally controversial issues. The students wrote brief essays about the films which were transcribed and numerically coded to conceal the author's gender from the evaluator. Using a coding scheme originated by Lyons, the evaluator classified each essay as a justice/right essay or a care/response essay or an equal response essay. Subsequently, calculations were made to (...) determine the percentage of male authored essays that were justice/rights essays or care/response essays and the percentage of female authored essays that were justice/rights or care/response essays. The males (87.7%) tended to exhibit the justice/rights moral orientation, and the females (69.4%) exhibited the care/response moral orientation. Several different calculations were made to determine various degrees of gender related orientations also. The difference in orientation was highly statistically significant (p≤0.001). These data contribute to understanding moral orientation and development. Interpretations are given to explain some differences between the genders and help explain the traditional roles in society that males and females have played historically. (shrink)

Self-compassion is a mechanism of symptom improvement in post-traumatic stress disorder, however, the underlying neurobiological processes are not well understood. High levels of self-compassion are associated with reduced activation of the threat response system. Physiological threat responses to trauma reminders and increased arousal are key symptoms which are maintained by negative appraisals of the self and self-blame. Moreover, PTSD has been consistently associated with functional changes implicated in the brain’s saliency and the default mode networks. In (...) this paper, we explore how trauma exposed individuals respond to a validated self-compassion exercise. We distinguish three groups using the PTSD checklist; those with full PTSD, those without PTSD, and those with subsyndromal PTSD. Subsyndromal PTSD is a clinically relevant subgroup in which individuals meet the criteria for reexperiencing along with one of either avoidance or hyperarousal. We use electroencephalography alpha-asymmetry and EEG microstate analysis to characterize brain activity time series during the self-compassion exercise in the three groups. We contextualize our results with concurrently recorded autonomic measures of physiological arousal, parasympathetic activation and self-reported changes in state mood and self-perception. We find that in all three groups directing self-compassion toward oneself activates the negative self and elicits a threat response during the SC exercise and that individuals with subsyndromal PTSD who have high levels of hyperarousal have the highest threat response. We find impaired activation of the EEG microstate associated with the saliency, attention and self-referential processing brain networks, distinguishes the three PTSD groups. Our findings provide evidence for potential neural biomarkers for quantitatively differentiating PTSD subgroups. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers of moral responsibility are in widespread agreement that we can only be blamed for actions that express, reflect, or disclose something about us or the quality of our wills. In this paper I reject that thesis and argue that self disclosure is not a necessary condition on moral responsibility and blameworthiness: reactive responses ranging from aretaic appraisals all the way to outbursts of anger and resentment can be morally justified even when the blamed agent’s action (...) expresses or discloses nothing significant about his or her “deep self,” judgments and cares, or the quality of his or her will. I argue that the self-disclosure requirement on responsibility overestimates the extent to which our blaming practices and responsibility judgments are responsive to agents as opposed to actions, and that this mistake has the potential to distort both our reactive responses and our understanding of blamed agents’ characters. (shrink)