Online research in philosophy

In this article, we describe the influence of violations of community standards of fairness (Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler, 1986a) on subsequent ethical decision-making and emotions. Across two studies, we manipulated explanations for a common action, and we find that explanations that violate community standards of fairness (e.g., by taking advantage of an in crease in market power) lead to greater intentions to behave unethically than explanations that are consistent with community standards of fairness (e.g., by passing along a price increase). (...) We find that perceptions of justifiability mediate this relationship. We also find that individuals derive significant psychological benefits (greater satisfaction, greater happiness, and reduced anger) from engaging in unethical behavior following perceived violations of fairness. (shrink)

Some environmentalists have argued that an effective ecological conscience may be rooted in a perspective that is either anthropocentric or sentiocentric. But, neither seems to have had any substantial effect on the ways in which our species treats nature. In looking to successfully awaken the ecological conscience, the focus should be on extending moral consideration to the land (wherein doing so includes all of the soils, waters, plants, animals, and the collectivity of which these things comprise) by means of coming (...) to love the land. Coming to love the land involves coming to view the land’s interests as our own—and, conferring upon the land a kind of moral patient-hood. In order to perceive the land’s “subjectivity,” and so, to come to love the land, we must relearn the way to look at the land by viewing its personality through the lens of he or she who can already do so, i.e., the nature writer. (shrink)

Nowadays, nature is something foreign to the human being. It is material that the human being uses, makes available, and exploits without scruples. But the human being is never a subject outside of space: he is always in lived and experienced relations to space, which determine and influence him. The individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. In order to fulfil his or her life, the human being has to be able to listen to the voice of (...) nature, and abstain from the wish to control it. In such a field the lost reverence for the living world can be cultivated. Responsibility for nature is not an empty phrase, but a moral imperative that is directly connected with human life and survival. This is why we must protect the integrity of nature, and demand there be a better relationship between the human being and nature. This paper discusses the bioethical principle of 'reverence' (German Ehrfurcht ) for the living world, a concept initially presented by Albert Schweitzer using anthropological-pedagogical methods. The point of view advanced here is based on the anthropological approach of the philosopher and pedagogue O. F. Bollnow, and makes use of work by the pedagogue Yukichi Shitahodo about the anthropological preconditions of relations between a human being and the exterior world. The thesis that 'reverence' could be the basic bioethical principle governing the relationship between a human being and his environment is also founded on the modern bioethics, particularly the 'principle of responsibility' and the 'ethical imperative of prudence' as these have been formulated by philosophical biology and anthropology. (shrink)