In Ludwig Wittgenstein's writings, ethics takes a central place in his thinking. This element investigates his engagement with ethics in both early and later thinking. Starting from the remarks on ethics in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the framing of these remarks, it presents two influential approaches to Tractarian ethics, before it develops a coherent reading of ethics in the early thinking, focusing on ethical silence and the relationship notions of world and the philosophical 'I'. The reading of 'A Lecture on (...) Ethics' focuses on the critique of ethical theory and the personal dimension of ethics, two themes also running through Wittgenstein's later thinking. It considers Wittgenstein's later ethical investigations, of ethical examples, ethically relevant language uses of language and the connections between reflections on ethics and living. It also considers the role of the other in Wittgenstein's later thinking. (shrink)

Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen presents a new account of the role of moral philosophy and its relationship to our ordinary moral lives. She challenges the idea that moral theories have an authoritative explanatory or action-guiding role, and develops instead a descriptive, pluralistic, and elucidatory conception of moral philosophy.

In this article, I investigate the similarities and differences between the ways we relate to the other in ethics and in love through an engagement with the thinking of K.E. Løgstrup and Emmanuel Levinas. My point of departure will be a reading of a novel by Maja Lucas, Mother, which brings out the important and complicated nature of the relation between ethics and love. My main concern, however, is to investigate how Løgstrup’s and Levinas’s different conceptions of natural love point (...) to differences in their understanding of the ethical relationship to the other. (shrink)

After receiving a copy of Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, Murdoch’s friend Brian Medlin writes back: ‘So far I think I disagree with what you say in “Wittgenstein and the Inner Life,” but I’ll have to make sure that I’ve understood you aright before I launch into a complaint.’ Here, I reconstruct Murdoch’s reading of Wittgenstein and show its ambivalence. While Murdoch acknowledges Wittgenstein’s aim to dissolve illusionary ideas about the inner, she also thinks he presents substantial theses threatening (...) the reality of inner life. Murdoch’s misreading of Wittgenstein as a constructive philosopher may be what worries Medlin, and it also prevents Murdoch from seeing Wittgenstein as an ally in the endeavour to demonstrate the morally transformative potential of our inner lives. (shrink)

Since the publication of Annette Baier’s agenda-setting article entitled ‘Trust and Antitrust’, trust has become an increasingly popular topic, not only in moral philosophy and epistemology but als...

In his diaries from the beginning of the 1930s, Ludwig Wittgenstein comments extensively both on Søren Kierkegaard's view of philosophical method and on his view of love. The aim of this article is to show how Wittgenstein's reflections on Kierkegaard's view of love reveal a fundamental difference between the two thinkers' views of philosophical method, a difference in their view of the role of the reader of and partner in doing philosophy, between Kierkegaard's indirect communication to the reader and Wittgenstein's (...) dialogical engagement with the reader. The article opens with a presentation of substantial similarities between Wittgenstein's and Kierkegaard's conceptions of philosophy. After this, I present an account of Kierkegaard's view of love and marriage, an understanding of which is necessary in order to understand Wittgenstein's reservations towards Kierkegaard. This in turn leads me to the main investigation that shows how a difference in Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein's views on love connects to a fundamental difference in their views of philosophy. This difference between the two thinkers will finally be elucidated through the understanding of love developed by Stanley Cavell in his work on the so‐called Hollywood remarriage comedies. (shrink)

The phenomenon of ‘innocent guilt’ regards cases where people feel guilty without being responsible for the wrongdoing or suffering at which the guilt is directed. The aim of this article is to develop a consistent account of innocent guilt and show how it may arise in the aftermath of conflicts. In order to do this, innocent guilt is contrasted with guilt and collective guilt, and the account is substantiated by drawing on the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Emmanuel Levinas, who (...) both consider the phenomenon of innocent guilt a necessary element in the fundamental structure of the ethical subject. These thinkers, furthermore, show a connection between guilt and possible victims of wrongdoing, rather than between guilt and personal acts of wrongdoing. Innocent guilt may thus appear in the aftermath of conflicts as an ethical and emotional response to the fact of finding oneself in a post-conflict situation still marked by suffering. It thus reveals a fundamental need to contribute to the relieving of such suffering. (shrink)

Most commentators working on Wittgenstein’s remarks on ethics note that he rejects the very possibility of traditional normative ethics, that is, a philosophically justified normative guide for right conduct. In this article, Wittgenstein’s view of ethical reflection as presented in his notebooks from 1936 to 1938 is investigated, and the question of whether it involves ethical guidance is addressed. In Wittgenstein’s remarks, we can identify three requirements inherent in ethical reflection. The first two is revealed in the realisation that ethical (...) reflection presupposes both a clear understanding of oneself and a normative ideal of how one ought to live and reason. The third source of normativity springs from the fact that ethical reflection involves a relationship with the other, not as judge, but as example and addressee. In this way, ethical reflection is essentially relational. In the article, we unfold how these three normative sources figure in Wittgenstein’s remarks, especially how the third requirement, the relationship with the other, shows both a point of conversion and a difference between his view of ethics and religious faith. It will also be argued that even if Wittgenstein thus presents ethical reflection as a normatively guided activity, the content of the guidance is personal, springing solely from the reflecting individual. (shrink)

In this article, I investigate how we may include investigations of actual context in the investigation of moral problems in philosophy. The article has three main parts. The focus of the first is a survey of the dominant view of how to incorporate context into moral philosophy and to exemplify this view, I investigate examples from influential introductions to moral philosophy, identifying what I call the assumption of abstraction. In the second part I present three traditions which attribute a more (...) prominent place to context in philosophical work and which therefore offer resources for thinking about context: moral contextualism, particularism and contextualism in political philosophy. Unconvinced that these resources are sufficient for an understanding of how actual context may be of importance in philosophy, I in the third part turn to a systematic investigation of three suggestions for how to incorporate actual context onto philosophy: the application approach, the bottom-up approach and the contextual approach. Furthermore, I argue that the third and most radical approach develops a superior understanding of how to include context in moral philosophy, reflecting the impossibility of making normatively neutral investigations of context in moral philosophy. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to open the question of this pervasiveness of the moral by arguing for the impossibility of delimiting the moral in one specific case, that of psychological self-ascription. The first part presents two views of the relationship between nature and morality found in forms of scientific and relaxed naturalism. In the main part, I argue, first, that psychological self-ascriptions are in most cases not to be understood on the standard model of observation and descriptions, but (...) rather as expressions of thoughts and feelings already present for us. And in the second, I contend that psychological self-ascriptions therefore always involve elements of endorsement and responsibility, which means that they are ways of situating ourselves morally in relations to others. (shrink)

The amount of data available to healthcare practitioners is growing, and the rapid increase in available patient data is becoming a problem for healthcare practitioners, as they are often unable to fully survey and process the data relevant for the treatment or care of a patient. Consequently, there are currently several efforts to develop systems that can aid healthcare practitioners with reading and processing patient data and, in this way, provide them with a better foundation for decision-making about the treatment (...) and care of patients. There are also efforts to develop algorithms that provide suggestions for such decisions. However, the development of these systems and algorithms raises several concerns related to the privacy of patients, the patient–practitioner relationship, and the autonomy of healthcare practitioners. The aim of this article is to provide a foundation for understanding the ethical challenges related to the development of a specific form of data-processing systems, namely clinical algorithms. (shrink)

A prominent trend in moral philosophy today is the interest in the rich textures of actual human practices and lives. This has prompted engagements with other disciplines, such as anthropology, history, literature, law and empirical science, which have produced various forms of contextual ethics. These engagements motivate reflections on why and how context is important ethically, and such metaethical reflection is what this article undertakes. Inspired by the work of the later Wittgenstein and the Danish theologian K.E. Løgstrup, I first (...) describe one of the ways in which context plays a central role with regard to ethical meaning and normativity. I then examine how ‘context’ is to be defined, and finally I discuss some of the questions which arise when giving context prominence in ethics – namely, how to delimit the scope of relevant context, the relevant traits of a particular context and what ‘the ethical’ is. (shrink)

The editors discuss issues related to the journal, its editing process and publication model.

The editors discuss issues related to the journal, its editing process and publication model.

The editors discuss issues related to the journal, its editing process and publication model.

Most forms of virtue ethics are characterized by two attractive features. The first is that proponents of virtue ethics acknowledge the need to describe how moral agents acquire or develop the traits and abilities necessary to become morally able agents. The second attractive feature of most forms of virtue ethics is that they are forms of moral realism. The two features come together in the attempt to describe virtue as a personal ability to distinguish morally good reasons for action. It (...) follows from the general picture of virtue ethics presented here that we cannot evaluate ethical judgment independently of the viewpoint of the ideal of a virtuous person. We will examine how this ideal unfolds in the realistic form of virtue ethics advanced by John McDowell. McDowell offers a compelling description of virtue as a natural ability grounded in human nature, while at the same time insisting that we cannot understand the judgment resulting from virtue without drawing on that very perspective. However, McDowell’s focus on the passive taking in of reasons in ethical experience and his idea of the silencing of wrong reasons lead us to three related problems. The first is that he cannot account for certain features of the phenomenology of such experience; the second is that he cannot provide any relevant epistemological criteria for correct moral judgment; and the third is that he gives a morally objectionable characterization of the ideal of being a virtuous person. All of these problems arise because McDowell does not take into account the particular nature of ethical experience. If we try to resolve this problem by dropping McDowell’s idea of silencing, we then have to offer another substantial description of our ideal of a virtuous person that includes active and interpersonal ways of evaluating concrete judgments. Proponents of virtue ethics still have to lift this task and develop a position that does not limit ethical experience to the passive intake of reasons. (shrink)

In this article we pose three questions: 1) What are the questions that gave rise to the introduction of the concept and subdiscipline of meta-ethics? 2) What characterises the view of meta-ethics as a subdiscipline of moral philosophy? And 3) is it in fact possible to uphold a systematic distinction between normative moral philosophy and meta-ethics in a way that allows us to see these two aspects of moral philosophy as independent subdisciplines? In trying to answer these questions, we trace (...) two different roads in the shaping of the current understanding of meta-ethics: the introduction of the word in analytical moral philosophy and the characterisation of meta-ethics in the formative period of meta-ethics and in contemporary introductions. Among the characteristics ascribed to meta-ethics, we identify a special focus on normative neutrality, and we furthermore show that this idea of neutrality as the defining characteristic of meta-ethics cannot be upheld. Our aim is to show that meta-ethics cannot be characterised or construed in a way that is normatively neutral and independent of other work done in normative ethics. We therefore challenge the claim that meta-ethics makes up a subdiscipline that is independent of other work done in moral philosophy. Instead, we suggest a reflective view of the relationship between meta-ethics and normative ethics, according to which we should acknowledge that meta-ethics is inherently normative, and that meta-ethical questions are interwoven with normative questions in moral philosophy. (shrink)

In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus we find Wittgenstein’s first and most substantial published investigation of ethics. I will argue that if the ethical sections of the Tractatus are seen in connection with a particular concept of showing, they then reveal a coherent and radical alternative to traditional conceptions of ethics; an alternative which sheds light on Wittgenstein’s claim that ethics cannot be expressed and the necessity of ethics. But I furthermore want to argue that the reasons leading Wittgenstein to a demand (...) for silence in ethics falls away if one looks at the later investigations of necessity which he makes in On Certainty. (shrink)

Traditionally, the development of moral theories has been considered one of the main aims of moral philosophy. In contrast, Wittgenstein was very critical of the use of theories both in philosophy in general and in moral philosophy in particular, and philosophers inspired by his philosophy have become some of the most prominent critics of both particular, contemporary moral theories and the idea of moral theory as such. Nonetheless, this article aims to show how Wittgenstein’s later philosophy offers us resources for (...) a revised understanding of the role and status of moral theories according to which theories are neither normative nor explanatory, but are rather to be understood as generalisations of particular descriptions of various forms of moral grammar. (shrink)

The phenomenon of ‘innocent guilt’ regards cases where people feel guilty without being responsible for the wrongdoing or suffering at which the guilt is directed. The aim of this article is to develop a consistent account of innocent guilt and show how it may arise in the aftermath of conflicts. In order to do this, innocent guilt is contrasted with guilt and collective guilt, and the account is substantiated by drawing on the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Emmanuel Levinas, who (...) both consider the phenomenon of innocent guilt a necessary element in the fundamental structure of the ethical subject. These thinkers, furthermore, show a connection between guilt and possible victims of wrongdoing, rather than between guilt and personal acts of wrongdoing. Innocent guilt may thus appear in the aftermath of conflicts as an ethical and emotional response to the fact of finding oneself in a post-conflict situation still marked by suffering. It thus reveals a fundamental need to contribute to the relieving of such suffering. (shrink)

Depuis près d'un demi-siècle, Madame Hélène ACKERMANS a coopéré très activement à l'organisation de l'École des sciences philosophiques et religieuses des F.U.S.L. Avec Monseigneur Henri van Camp, elle a donné à la tribune des leçons publiques sa renommée internationale ; auprès de l'actuel comité de direction, elle n'a cessé de prodiguer ses multiples compétences et ses conseils avisés. En hommage à son travail, il a été demandé à quelques-uns des penseurs avec lesquels Madame Hélène ACKERMANS a noué des liens d'amitié, (...) de réfléchir au rôle de la philosophie dans la Cité. (shrink)

A virtue centred approach to ethics has been criticized for being vague owing to the nature of its central concept, the paradigm person. From the perspective of the practitioner the most damaging charge is that virtue ethics fails to be action guiding and, in addition to this, it does not offer any means of act appraisal. These criticisms leave virtue ethics in a weak position vis-à-vis traditional approaches to ethics. The criticism is, however, challenged by Hursthouse in her analysis of (...) the accounts of right action offered by deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics. It is possible to defend the action guiding nature of virtue ethics: there are virtue rules and exemplars to guide action. Insights from Aristotle’s practical approach to ethics are considered alongside Hursthouse’s analysis and it is suggested that virtue ethics is also capable of facilitating action appraisal. It is at the same time acknowledged that approaches to virtue ethics vary widely and that the challenges offered here would be rejected by those who embrace a radical replacement virtue approach. (shrink)

This book explores five Platonic dialogues: Lysis, Charmides, Protagoras, Euthydemus, and the Republic. This book uses Socrates’ narrative commentary as its primary interpretive framework. No one has engaged in a sustained attempt to explore the Platonic dialogues from this angle. As a result, it offers a unique contribution to Plato scholarship. The portrait of Socrates that emerges challenges the traditional view of Socrates as an intellectualist and offers a holistic vision of philosophical practice.

This article is presented as a defence of voluntary active euthanasia from a virtue perspective and it is written with the objective of generating debate and challenging the assumption that killing is necessarily vicious in all circumstances. Practitioners are often torn between acting from virtue and acting from duty. In the case presented the physician was governed by compassion and this illustrates how good people may have the courage to sacrifice their own security in the interests of virtue. The doctor's (...) action created huge tensions for the nurse, who was governed by the code of conduct and relevant laws. Appraising active euthanasia from a virtue perspective can offer a more compassionate approach to the predicament of practitioners and clients. The tensions arising from the virtue versus rules debate generates irreconcilable difficulties for nurses. A shift towards virtue would help to resolve this problem and support the call for a change in the law. The controversial nature of this position is acknowledged. The argument is put forward on the understanding that many practitioners will not agree with the conclusions reached. (shrink)

The article claims that Ziauddin Sardar's contribution to the religion-science conversation is primarily a performance situated in a social location that gives him access to a highly significant perspective. Sardar places Western science within the context of the Western culture from which it emerged and which it continues to serve. The contemporary hegemonous science of today is one form of science. Its acceptance as a universal and objective form enables its users and promoters to exercise imperialistic control over much of (...) the world. Sardar's critique receives its effective bite from his social location as an immigrant Muslim, raised and educated in Western culture. The article examines the relevance of his social location to the issues with which he is most concerned, such as promotion of the rights and responsibilities of cultures, in particular Islamic cultures, traditionally cast as "Other" by the West. They too have their sciences and these sciences function often within worldviews that are "religious." Sardar's critique of science and his call for the recognition of the so-called Other cultures is significant for its performativity. His work is not merely a descriptive or explanatory account, but bears also the performative characteristics that seek to effect the change for which he calls. (shrink)

This paper forms part of a wider study examining the history and sociology of nursing education in England between 1860 and 1948. It argues that the question of whether nursing was an art, science and/or social science has been at die ‘heart’ of a wider debate on die occupational status and disciplinary identity of nursing. The view that nursing was essentially an art and a ‘calling’, was championed by Florence Nightingale. Ethel Bedford Fenwick and her allies insisted that nursing, like (...) other professions, was a ‘scientific’ and technical enterprise. Social scientists later came to challenge nursing's claim to professionalism by analysing nursing work first within die context of industrial psychology. But they also advocated a rapprochement between nursing, health services and social science research, a challenge which we are in nursing, still striving to meet This paper argues for a strong coalition of nursing with its former nineteenth century ally, social science, in die continuing struggle for change within nursing and health care policy. Rather than searching for some rarified and purified essence of nursing knowledge, it argues that nurses need to join forces with sociologists and economists in striving to shape die agenda for health services research and provide die evidential basis for health policy transformation more generally. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to add to the research surrounding nurses' work in hospitals. Throughout history, nurses have faced adverse working conditions, an aspect of their work that remains remarkably unchanged today. Prevailing historical ideologies and sociopolitical conditions influences the context of nurses' work in contemporary hospitals. This research revealed how ruling patriarchal power and nurses' altruistic ways normalize the conditions in hospitals as nurses' work. Moving discourses further add to the work of nurses in hospitals. For example, (...) cost containment strategies, overcapacity and short staffing have resulted in practices to accommodate these problems. While contemporary hospitals may look different, clearly, inside, little has changed since the early days; hospital issues have clearly become an ordinary part of nurses' work. This article discusses how the conditions in hospitals have become an ordinary part of nurses' work. The research in this article emphasizes how prevailing ideologies and institutional discourses make invisible and taken‐for‐granted, how this normalizing of nurses' work contributes to sustaining the hospital's power. (shrink)

This paper incorporates the work that Jeffrey Gold, Jim Robinson, and Jonathan Schonsheck have done into an innovative method for teaching Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The method involves breaking students into small groups and asking them to draw three images that depict the plot of the Allegory of the Cave. In addition to giving a description of this activity and detailing the pedagogical benefits, the paper considers possible objections to this exercise and suggests that this method provides a model (...) that can be used to teach other highly descriptive images that are found in philosophical texts. (shrink)

Since the 1970s, anthropologists have moved into diverse workplaces, including private and public settings, that raise new issues for anthropology as a discipline as well as for the discourse on science more generally. In the context of increasing globalization, the articulation of new ethical dilemmas around such issues as technology, indigenous knowledge and rights, government regulation and bioethics among others, can and do inform and shape scientific public policy. The authors in this volume work in traditional research centres and universities, (...) as well as in private and public sectors, and across specialties from medical anthropology and social medicine to archaeology and cyberspace. They explore the dimensions of an ethical anthropology in today's world, and the unique contribution of anthropology to the sciences. (shrink)

Using enunciative semiotics, this study shows that Gen 2:15-17 and Gen 3:1-14 provide two models for evaluating the reversal of the actor Paul in Phil 3:4-14. Paul’s fiduciary relationship to Christ corresponds structurally to the ternary model of Gen 2:15-17 where the word of Adonai Elohîm is inserted as the third pole that enables the relationship between himself and the adam. Paul’s former posture, “trust in the flesh”, was based on the binary structure described in Gen 3:1-7, taking it to (...) its extreme : recourse to an object as a basis for life. Paul invites the Philippians to adopt the same existential posture. (shrink)

While numerous studies show that brain signals contain information about an individual’s current state that are potentially valuable for smoothing man-machine interfaces, this has not yet lead to the use of brain computer interfaces (BCI) in daily life. One of the main challenges is the common requirement of personal data that is correctly labelled concerning the state of interest in order to train a model, where this trained model is not guaranteed to generalize across time and context. Another challenge is (...) the requirement to wear electrodes on the head. We here propose a BCI that can tackle these issues and may be a promising case for BCI research and application in everyday life. The BCI uses EEG signals to predict head rotation in order to improve images presented in a Virtual Reality (VR) headset. When presenting a 360° video to a headset, Field-of-View approaches only stream the content that is in the current field of view and leave out the rest. When the user rotates the head, other content parts need to be made available soon enough to go unnoticed by the user which is problematic given the available bandwidth. By predicting head rotation, the content parts adjacent to the currently viewed part could be retrieved in time for display when the rotation actually takes place. Eleven participants generated left- and rightward head rotations while head movements were recorded using the headsets motion sensing system and EEG sensors. We trained neural network models to distinguish EEG epochs preceding rightward, leftward and no rotation. Applying these models to streaming EEG data that was withheld from the training showed that 400 ms before rotation onset, the probability ‘no rotation’ started to decrease and the probabilities of an upcoming right- or leftward rotation started to diverge in the correct direction. In the proposed BCI scenario, users already wear a device on their head allowing for integrated sensors. Moreover, it is possible to acquire accurately labeled training data on the fly, and continuously monitor and improve the model’s performance. The BCI can be harnessed if it will improve imagery and therewith enhance immersive experience. (shrink)

This article approaches the problem of multifetal pregnancy reduction from a moral perspective. It is one of many complex moral issues arising from reproductive technology and is one with which midwives and nurses are faced more frequently with advancing technology. The work is intended to be used as an educational tool for those who prepare tomorrow’s nurses and midwives. The subject is discussed from three perspectives, the pregnant woman and her partner (clients), a midwife, and from a philosophical ethical perspective. (...) In an attempt to introduce a degree of reality, the perspective of the clients is presented as a dialogue. The midwife’s moral position and her professional difficulties are also discussed. The dialogue and discussion are supplemented with notes in which the issues raised by the characters are critically analysed and discussed. This article is designed to encourage reflection and critical thinking in tomorrow’s health care professionals, and in those who have the responsibility of educating them for a future where reproductive technology is posed to generate more major moral quandaries. (shrink)