The author draws a distinction between active and passive resistance. The latter is defined as a mental protest against some events in public life that is not followed by additional action. The former, or active resistance, is further divided by the author into resistance with the use of violence and resistance which renounced violence. She concentrates on the concept of violence and puts the question if, and in what circumstances, a recourse to violence is justified. She quotes various opinions on (...) that matter. The problem of using violence is the problem of the admissibility of various modes of action, or means of action, she says. As every method of protest in every society can be adopted in defence of either good or bad ends, the author focuses on the question, what criteria of evaluation of the objectives defended by resistance can be relied upon. She ends her paper by pointing out that resistance is the most important form of non-violent resistance. (shrink)

By professional ethics I mean written standards which answer the question.

Pojęcie godności używane bywa przede wszystkim w dwóch znaczeniach. W znaczeniu egalitarnym godność jest walorem przysługującym wszystkim ludziom jako takim, walorem niestopniowalnym i niezbywalnym. W znaczeniu selektywnym człowiek wykazuje się godnością lub nie wykazuje, a także wykazuje się w mniejszym lub większym stopniu, zależnie od swoich indywidualnych cech i od swojego indywidualnego sposobu postępowania. Artykuł poświęcony jest problemom godności w sensie egalitarnуm. Autorka szuka w nim odpowiedzi na trzy pytania: Jakie postulaty moralne kojarzone są współcześnie z godnością człowieka? W jaki (...) sposób argumentuje się na rzecz ludzkiej godności? Jakimi motywami kierują się ludzie, szanując godność człowieka? (shrink)

The widely acclaimed components of the humanistic ethical program are to be found at present in personalism, universalism, and humanitarianism. The author unreservedly subscribes to this program and postulates that the value of every human individual be recognized irrespective of his individual characteristics, that all actions which affect any human being be performed only with due respect to the autonomous good of the human being, and that no man be ever treated only as an instrument in his existence. Trying to (...) supply a justification for these postulates most authors point out that human dignity is presumably founded on such merits as reason and conscience. The author resolved to expose the weakness of this line of argument. A recourse to empirical features that allegedly distinguish human species from the others may not serve as a good reason in defense of those particular human individuals who clearly lack them. The author endavours to show that universalism which gives ~very man a minimum rights may justly be treated as unacceptable particularism, as typically ‚human speciesism’, indeed. It excludes from the regions of moral concern all animals, which like humans, are capable of suffering. Many authors take the sentience to be the single most important feature shared by animals and humans, which imposes on us the obligation to take care of animals as well as humans. The author contents that the delineation of the range of creatures with respect to whom we have moral obligation is one of the axioms which cannot be argued for or against. There are no logical reasons for drawing the boundaries here or there. We must rely on our ultimate moral convictions that we perceive as our feeling of being morally right. The delineation of the range of the creatures whose autonomous good we will take into account in our activity is a question of an axiomatic decision. We will not find any empirical features either in men or animals, which could impose a logical necessity for counting certain specimens in or others out. We must rely on the most elementary sense of solidarity which makes another creature our fellow-creature. The numerous controversies between different degrees and different kinds of particularism, or between particularism and universalism with respect to humans, or between universalism encompassing only humans and universalism extended to the whole reach of creatures capable of suffering has its source not so much in the differences in knowledge of facts but as in different emotional evaluative attitudes towards them. (shrink)

The first part of the article presents Petrażycki’s theory of moral and legal phenomena, which he called collectively ethical phenomena. The second part is devoted to normative issues. Petrażycki appreciated a specific moral ideal of personality; he wished that men should refute blameworthy acts instinctively and impulsively. Moral rules, according to him, are to be observed not because of the possible consequences of the acts but because of a positive or negative emotional attitude towards the acts as such. He believed (...) that moral rules are always obligatory, independently of the circumstances. (shrink)

Moralists and philosophers of law often demand that the axiological systems be in conformity with “human nature”, or with “nature”. Among conceptions which look for footing in human nature two main trends may be distinguished.

A common expectation of moralists is that man will develop some positive characteristics in himself. However, they disagree as regards the solution of two problems.