This paper examines the ethical issues of the inclusion of workers with disabilities in the workplace with a cross-fertilization approach between organization studies, the ethics of care, and a movement from the field of architecture and design that is called Universal Design (UD). It explores how organizations can use UD to develop more inclusive workplaces, first by applying UD principles to workspaces and second by showing how UD implies an integrative understanding of inclusion from the workspace to the (...) workplace. Moreover, this paper discusses the ethical challenges and complexities that this design practice faces in regard to its applicability to diverse organizations and industries. Finally, this paper demonstrates that inclusion requires abandoning any notion of a perfect, productive body and, therefore, recognizing our shared vulnerability and fundamental interdependence in the workplace. (shrink)

Progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) requires making difficult trade-offs. In this journal, Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO Director-General, has endorsed the principles for making such decisions put forward by the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and UHC. These principles include maximizing population health, priority for the worse off, and shielding people from health-related financial risks. But how should one apply these principles in particular cases and how should one adjudicate between them when their demands conflict? (...) This paper by some members of the Consultative Group and a diverse group of health policy professionals addresses these questions. It considers three stylized versions of actual policy dilemmas. Each of these cases pertains to one of the three principal dimensions of progress towards UHC: which services to cover first, which populations to prioritize for coverage, and how to move from out-of-pocket expenditures to pre-payment with pooling of funds. Our cases are simplified to highlight common trade-offs. While we make specific recommendations, our primary aim is to demonstrate both the form and substance of the reasoning involved in striking a fair balance between competing interests on the road to UHC. (shrink)

This article considers the development of the idea of universal moral principles in the work of Thomas Aquinas and his predecessors in the thirteenth century. Like other medieval authors who sought to place the principles of moral practice on a foundation more secure than on the choices of the good person, as described by Aristotle, Thomas chooses to introduce a measure of ethical certitude through the concept of the innate habit of synderesis. This idea, introduced (...) by Jerome in his commentary on Ezekiel, locates an inextinguishable spark of conscience in all humans. Thomas, influenced by Philip the Chancellor and Albert the Great, locates the principles of natural law in this innate habit of synderesis. By so doing he can claim that all human beings have the ability to recognize universally binding moral imperatives, regardless of their background and societal influences. Through this natural ability the human basis for moral action found in Aristotle's Ethics yields to one based upon the eternal immutable laws of a divine being. (shrink)

The goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) can generally be realized only in stages. Moreover, resource, capacity and political constraints mean governments often face difficult trade-offs on the path to UHC. In a 2014 report, Making fair choices on the path to UHC, the WHO Consultative Group on Equity and Universal Health Coverage articulated principles for making such trade-offs in an equitable manner. We present three case studies which illustrate how these principles can guide practical (...) decision-making. These case studies show how progressive realization of the right to health can be effectively guided by priority-setting principles, including generating the greatest total health gain, priority for the worse off, and financial risk protection. They also demonstrate the value of a fair and accountable process of priority setting. (shrink)

Every political theorist will need this book . . . . It is more 'important' than 90% of the work published in philosophy."--Joel Feinberg, University of Arizona.

DAVID WARD, in his interesting essay, advances a number of propositions: -/- That moral (including evil) behavior must be governed by a principle. That the principles involved in evil actions are unconscious. That these unconscious evil principles may be the product of malignant narcissism. And somewhat tentatively, that evil is driven "independent of any conscious desires" and by implication the evil person may be stripped of moral responsibility for their behavior. -/- To begin with common ground: (...) Those who act in an evil manner, in my experience, do not usually acknowledge that they acted on an evil principle (nor do those who commit good acts, excepting the terminally self-righteous, usually explain their behavior in terms of adherence to principles). Among serious offenders, self-justification in terms of having no choice is more common or the hapless claim that "I don't know why I did that" or even "I can't believe I did that" (which all too often becomes "I can't remember doing that" for as Nietzche (1886) wrote "I have done that—says my memory. I could not have done that—says my pride and remains inexorable. Eventually memory gives in"). Those who do appeal to principle to justify their evil actions almost inevitably cite value systems that have considerable, if not universal, acceptance. I have encountered men who proudly declared their killings to be part of the pursuit of righteous aims, such as protecting children from pedophiles, stopping the killing of the unborn child, reducing AIDS, and cleansing their city of vice. Interestingly the combination of dreadful, and in many cases repeated, violence with self-righteous superiority often attracts from fellow prisoners and prison staff a label of evil. (shrink)

An interpretation and critical re-construction is offered of David Hume's argument on cultural relativism in the essay ‘A Dialogue’. For any issue of moral disagreement, Hume contends, either one side can be shown right and the other wrong, or imprecision in moral principles leaves room for more than one reasonable view, or the disagreement concerns a morally indifferent aesthetic matter, or it is caused by ‘artificial’ moral sentiments. In each case, relativism is the wrong view. Following (...) an analysis of each disagreement type, and the crucial notion of ‘artificial’ views, it is concluded that Hume's anti-relativist argument is sound. (shrink)

In her political philosophy, Martha C. Nussbaum defends liberal political principles on the basis of an objective conception of the good of human beings. This paper examines whether her argument succeeds. It identifies three methods to which Nussbaum refers in order to select the central human capabilities, whose exercise is seen as constituting the human good. It asks whether these methods – the interpretation of actual ways of human self-understanding, the search for necessary anthropological features, and the idea of (...) an overlapping consensus – can yield liberal political principles. The paper concludes that it is doubtful that the first two methods will lead to this result. As to the third method, it may yield liberal principles only insofar as it relies on the notion of human dignity which is interpreted in a way that contains a strong view of equality of all human beings. In this way, universal liberal principles are not primarily based on considerations of the human good, but on a genuine moral standpoint. (shrink)

Raanan Gillon is a noted defender of the four principles approach to healthcare ethics. His general position has always been that these principles are to be considered to be both universal and prima facie in nature. In recent work, however, he has made two claims that seem to present difficulties for this view. His first claim is that one of these four principles, respect for autonomy, has a special position in relation to the others: he holds (...) that it is first among equals. We argue that this claim makes little sense if the principles are to retain their prima facie nature. His second claim is that cultural variation can play an independent normative role in the construction of our moral judgments. This, he argues, enables us to occupy a middle ground between what he sees as the twin pitfalls of moral relativism and moral imperialism. We argue that there is no such middle ground, and while Gillon ultimately seems committed to relativism, it is some form of moral imperialism that will provide the only satisfactory construal of the four principles as prima facie universal moral principles. (shrink)

It is with these words that Alan Gewirth opened his 1972 Lindley Lecture at the University of Kansas. And he immediately followed up his opening words with a more or less blanket indictment of almost the entire group of contemporary writers on meta-ethics, who, he would aver, while claiming to be "rationalists" in the matter of the rational justification of moral principles, and while making much of how far they have distanced themselves from the old-line emotivists in this (...) very regard, have nevertheless just not brought it off, so far as their own provision for any such rational justification is concerned. Thus while the emotivists had tended to hold that such reasons as a person might give in support of moral principles could not really function as reasons, but only as causes that might impel or compel acceptance of such principles, the latter-day "rationalists," as Gewirth calls them, insist that good reasons are always in order and logically relevant, so far as any moral or even evaluative judgment is concerned. Indeed, merely to call a thing good, or to judge an action right or wrong, already implies that such a judgment is put forward as one that is universalizable and for which good reasons can be given. Unfortunately, however,—Gewirth goes on to insist—reasons and justifications of this sort turn out, even on the admission of the rationalists themselves, to be valid only on the prior assumption of what might be called "the moral point of view.". (shrink)

This book seeks to construct and establish the metaphysics of Chinese morals as a formal and independent branch of learning by abstracting and systemizing the universal principles presupposed by the primal virtues and key imperatives in Daoist and Confucian ethics.

According to a widely accepted conceptual model, principles play essential roles in moral reasoning: it is asserted that they hold universally and cannot be avoided in the justification of human action and belief. This paper challenges that view. It argues that, though some principles play such substantive roles, most do not. They can be characterized instead as being fragile or defeasible, i.e., they are capable of being weakened, voided or undone. The claim is made that it is (...) the pressures exerted by particular cases of moral dilemmas that are the sources of such fragility. The paper contains detailed examples illustrating how the process of defeasibility, including a retreat into moral vacuity, arises from such pressures. (shrink)

There is now increasing evidence for significant ?moral universals??that is, patterns of ethical principles that are recognized by virtually every human society. James Q. Wilson has assembled an engaging collection of this evidence for the existence of a ?moral sense.? At least in regard to the universality of the key features of sympathy and a sense of fairness or reciprocity, Wilson is right. Indeed, these features are even more universal than Wilson realizes: they extend to our (...) closest nonhuman relatives as well. Yet the claim that these facts are best accounted for by positing the existence of a ?moral sense? remains vague. Particularly when we consider what Wilson calls ?the universal aspiration,? the basis of this tendency in our moral thinking is as likely to lie in our capacity to reason as in our moral sentiments. (shrink)

In her seminal attack on modern moral philosophy, G. E. M. Anscombe claims that Kant's ‘rule about universalizable maxims is useless without stipulations as to what shall count as a relevant description of an action with a view to constructing a maxim about it’. Although this so-called problem of relevant descriptions has received considerable attention in the literature, there is little agreement on how it should be understood or solved. My aim in this paper is, first, to clarify the (...) problem by clearing up several misunderstandings, and, second, to show that the problem is rooted in a standard assumption about Kant's stance on the scope of moral principles—an assumption that precludes its solution. I argue that the problem consists in the fact that Kant's formula of universal law seems to stand in need of an account of moral sensibility that does not render the formula superfluous. But, as my discussion of existing solutions reveals, there can be no such account. Instead, I propose a dissolution: we should think of the formula of universal law itself as Kant's account of moral sensibility. In order to do so, we must reject the standard assumption that a principle is universal if and only if it holds for all instances of the action type that it specifies. (shrink)

Mark Mason, in his ‘A Justification, After the Postmodern Turn, of Universal Ethical Principles and Educational Ideals’ Educational Philosophy and Theory, 37 , attempts to justify transcultural multiculturalism. In this paper I argue that he fails to refute moral relativism, and that multiculturalism as he interprets it is not morally acceptable.

The implementation of education programmes in different cultures invites the question whether we are justified in doing so in cultures that may reject the programmes’ underlying principles. Are there indeed ethical principles and educational ideals that can be justified as applicable to all cultures? After a consideration of Zygmunt Bauman's postmodern rejection of the possibility of universal ethics, Ι cite and extend Harvey Siegel's defence of multiculturalism as a transcultural ethical ideal. I conclude the paper with a (...) justification of the transcultural normative reach of moral principles that I have elsewhere defended as the ethics of integrity. The paper's significance lies in its justification of educational interventions founded in these principles across different cultures. (shrink)

Mark Mason, in his ‘A Justification, After the Postmodern Turn, of Universal Ethical Principles and Educational Ideals’ Educational Philosophy and Theory, 37 (2005), attempts to justify transcultural multiculturalism. In this paper I argue that he fails to refute moral relativism, and that multiculturalism as he interprets it is not morally acceptable.

The thesis of this essay is that human relationships are deeper than moral principles or moral rules human relationships generate and fashion moral principles. This thesis has three elements: moral principles have their provenance in human relationships and are intelligible only in their application to the relevant human relationship; relationships determine what counts as a violation of a principle and so determine if a principle is violated or even applies; relationships inform our understanding (...) of the specific demands of principles. The thesis of this essay is supported by advancing each of its three elements. It is acknowledged that it can be argued that moral rules must in some way be accommodated by moral philosophy and that they play a role in our moral lives. Several claims about moral rules that are compatible with the thesis of this article are identified, such as the claim that moral rules are universal and the claim that they are not. Cogent views about the importance of relationships for morality, developed in feminist thought, are acknowledged but distinguished from this essay’s thesis. (shrink)

I argue that theoretical developments in the study of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) should occur alongside progress in moral psychology, particularly moral cognition. More specifically, I argue that Universal Moral Grammar (UMG), a model positing an innate, regulative, and universal moral faculty characterizable in terms of rules and principles, fulfills the role of the foundational model needed to usefully conceptualize the UDHR. As such, I provide a detailed account of (...) UMG against competing models in moral psychology. Furthermore, I combine UMG with Talbott’s Historical-Social Process of Moral Discovery and Rawls’s reflective equilibrium to show how the UDHR represents a major development in moral exploration, one indicating a more penetrative look into the inner moral nature of humans that attempts to reach, but does not attain, one interpretation of reflective equilibrium tied to cognitive moral psychology. (shrink)

Current frameworks on ethical decision-making process have some limitations. This paper argues that the consideration of moral competencies, understood as moral virtues in the workplace, can enhance our understanding of why moral character contributes to ethical decision-making. After discussing the universal nature of four moral competencies (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance), we analyse their influence on the various stages of the ethical decision-making process. We conclude by considering the managerial implications of our findings and proposing (...) further research. (shrink)

Central to the discourse ethics advanced by Jürgen Habermas is a principle of universalization (U) amounting to a dialogical equivalent of Kant's Categorical Imperative. Habermas has proposed that ?U? follows by material implication from two premises: (1) what it means to discuss whether a moral norm ought to be . adopted and (2) what those involved in argumentation must suppose of themselves if they are to consider a consensus they reach as rationally motivated. To date, no satisfactory derivation of (...) ?U? from these two premises has been presented. Thus the present study attempts to show how one can, without begging the question, arrive at ?U? by assuming a suitable explication of these two premises, supplemented with a fairly innocuous assumption about the context of discourse. If the argument is sound, then ?U? brings both deontological and consequentialist intuitions together with a notion of solidarity that requires an intersubjective account of insight. (shrink)

Despite the fact that business people and business students often cast doubt on the relevance of universal moral principles in business, the rejection of relativism is a precondition for business ethics to get off the ground. This paper proposes an educational strategy to overcome the philosophical confusions about relativism in which business people and students are often trapped. First, the paper provides some conceptual distinctions and clarifications related to moral relativism, particularism, and virtue ethics. More particularly, (...) it revisits arguments demonstrating that virtues in business are not in contradiction with the relevance of universal principles, despite the fact that virtue ethics is often identified with particular relationships and contexts. It goes on to show how students and managers, but also researchers, often mix up radically different conceptions of moral relativism. It is also argued that this confusion is in part created by the cross-cultural management literature in which the methodological stance of the value-freedom of the social sciences is, in a perplexingly mistaken way, transformed into a rejection of all normative discussion and a plea for relativism. The remainder of the paper presents some tools that may be helpful in steering people toward less simplistic views about moral relativism and virtue ethics. It further argues that it is equally important to spell out that moral universalism can be understood in a humble way, without implying either arrogant ethnocentrism or omniscience, as part of an ongoing debate that progresses gradually. (shrink)

International institutions such as the International Labour Organization (ILO) have been examined from various industrial relations viewpoints. This article seeks to discuss the ILO from the standpoint of moral philosophy. Traditionally, philosophy has not been concerned with industrial relations (IR) and IR writers have not engaged with ethics either. Nonetheless, all IR agents and institutions, international or otherwise, are moral agents. Being part of the United Nations (UN), the ILO follows the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). (...) In philosophical terms, the ILO carries connotations of the German moral philosopher Kant's (1724-1084) concept of universalism. Ethical universalism is also the core of American psychologist and philosopher Laurence Kohlberg's developmental model that allows an assessment of moral values and ethical behaviours. To ascertain the ILO's morality, an empirical study (n=121) was conducted at a regional University. The study indicated that most respondents (68%) saw the ILO as a reflection of the morality of " defending everyone's right to justice and welfare, universally applied while applying well-thought principles and being ready to share and debate these openly and non-defensively with others". In line with the ILO's self-understanding, survey respondents also viewed it as a thoroughly moral agent committed to the advancement of humanity as a whole. Respondents also thought that the ILO goes beyond the confinements of the standard industrial relations framework, actively engaging with the universality of all people. The overall conclusion is that the way the ILO is perceived to act along the scale of Kohlberg's text matches the ILO's actual existence and work. For the first time, the ILO's moral status has been tested using Kohlberg's scale of morality. This provides a significant contribution to our understanding of the morality of a very important universal institution that has virtually all countries as members. (shrink)

In Minimal Morality, Michael Moehler justifies what he calls the weak principle of universalization as a principle of pure instrumental morality. This article addresses the application of this principle and problems associated with it. Specifically, the article focuses on the principle’s ability to protect the interests of the most vulnerable members of society: agents without primary moral standing, specifically non-human animals; and the weakest members of society, either as a result of their diminished relative bargaining power in certain cases (...) of conflict, or because of their present standing in society, made worse off by historical injustices. To this end, the article considers, respectively, the problems of moral standing, indivisible goods and historical injustice. (shrink)

What is morally permissible, and what is morally obligatory? These questions form the core of a vast amount of philosophical reasoning. In his Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant developed a basis for the answers. In this landmark work, the German philosopher asks what sort of maxim might function as a guide to appropriate action under a given set of circumstances. By universalizing such a maxim, would morally permissible behavior not become clear? Suppose that everyone were (...) to behave in accordance with this maxim. If everyone followed the maxim in the same way without harm to civilized culture, then the behavior would be morally permissible. But what if no one followed the maxim? Would civilization thereby be at risk? In such a case, the behavior would be morally obligatory. Kant's test, known as the Categorical Imperative, is a logical proof of the Golden Rule and the centerpiece of this work. It constitutes his best-known contribution to ethical discussion, and a familiarity with his reasoning in this book is essential to students of philosophy, religion, and history. (shrink)

In this essay, “The Principle of Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory: Its Rise and Fall,” Pauline Kleingeld notes that Kant’s Principle of Autonomy, which played a central role in both the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason, disappeared by the time of the Metaphysics of Morals. She argues that its disappearance is due to significant changes in Kant’s political philosophy. The Principle of Autonomy states that one ought to act as if one were (...) giving universal laws through one’s maxims. The criterion of just legislation that Kant accepted in the mid-1780s does not require any actual consent on the part of the citizens—genuine universality is sufficient for a law to be just. Hence, at that time, Kant could indeed explicate the criterion governing the moral permissibility of one’s maxims by drawing an analogy with the criterion governing the justice of political laws. In the Metaphysics of Morals and in other works in the 1790s, however, he added the further condition that laws must be given with the consent of the citizens. With this further condition, the moral criterion was no longer fully analogous to the criterion for political laws being just. Accordingly, Kleingeld argues, Kant dropped the Principle of Autonomy, which was firmly based on that analogy. (shrink)

Psychologists live in a globalizing world where traditional boundaries are fading and, therefore, increasingly work with persons from diverse cultural backgrounds. The Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psychologists provides a moral framework of universally acceptable ethical principles based on shared human values across cultures. The application of its moral framework in developing codes of ethics and reviewing current codes may help psychologists to respond ethically in a rapidly changing world. In this article, a model (...) is presented to demonstrate how to use the Universal Declaration as a guide for creating or reviewing a code of ethics. This model may assist psychologists in various parts of the world in establishing codes of ethics that will promote global understanding and cooperation while respecting cultural differences. The article describes the steps involved in the application of the model and provides concrete examples as well as several useful comments and suggestions. This guide for the application of the Universal Declaration may also be used for consultation, education, and training relative to the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Psychologists. (shrink)

One of the central, abiding, and unresolved questions in environmental ethics has focused on the criterion for moral considerability or practical respect. In this essay, I call that question itself into question and argue that the search for this criterion should be abandoned because (1) it presupposes the ethical legitimacy of the Western project of planetary domination, (2) the philosophical methods that are andshould be used to address the question properly involve giving consideration in a root sense to everything, (...) (3) the history of the question suggests that it must be kept open, and (4) our deontic experience, the original source of ethical obligations, requires approaching all others, of all sorts, with a mindfulness that is clean of any a priori criterion of respect and positive value. The good work that has been doneon the question should be reconceived as having established rules for the normal, daily consideration of various kinds of others. Giving consideration in the root sense should be separated from giving high regard or positive value to what is considered. Overall, in this essay I argue that universal consideration—giving attention to others of all sorts, with the goal of ascertaining what, if any, direct ethical obligations arise from relating with them—should be adopted as one of the central constitutive principles of practical reasonableness. (shrink)

The threats we face today are unprecedented, from the existential crisis of climate change to the prospect of self-annihilation brought about by the uncontrolled expansion of AI. Add to this the crisis of liberal democracy and we seem to be swirling in a state of moral disarray, unsure whether there are any principles to which we can appeal today that would be anything other than particularistic. In contrast to this view, Markus Gabriel puts forward the bold argument that (...) there are guiding moral principles for human behaviour. These guiding principles extend across cultures, they are universally valid and form the source of universal values in the twenty-first century. In developing what he calls a 'New Moral Realism', Gabriel breathes new life into the idea that humanity's task on our planet is to enable moral progress through co-operation. It is only by achieving moral progress in a way that incorporates universal values - and thus embraces all of humanity - that we can avoid the abyss into which we will otherwise slide. Written with verve, wit and imagination, Gabriel's call for a new enlightenment is a welcome antidote to the value relativism and nihilism of our times and it lays out a moral framework within which we can work together, as surely we must, to deal with the great challenges we now face. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

The forty items in this volume also include an analysis of Thomas Hobbe's philosophy; an affectionate commemorative tribute to Theodore Roosevelt, our Teddy; the syllabus for Dewey's lectures at the Imperial University in Tokyo, which were ...

Volume 11 brings together all of Dewey's writings for 1918 and 1919. A Modern Language Association Committee on Scholarly Editions textual edition. Dewey's dominant theme in these pages is war and its after-math. In the Introduction, Oscar and Lilian Handlin discuss his philosophy within the historical context: The First World War slowly ground to its costly conclusion; and the immensely more difficult task of making peace got painfully under way. The armi-stice that some expected would permit a return to normalcy (...) opened instead upon a period of turbulence that agitated fur-ther a society already unsettled by preparations for battle and by debilitating conflict overseas. After spending the first half of 1918-19 on sabbatical from Columbia at the University of California, Dewey traveled to Japan and China, where he lectured, toured, and assessed in his essays the relationship between the two nations. From Peking he reported the student revolt known as the May Fourth Move-ment. The forty items in this volume also include an analysis of Thomas Hobbe's philosophy; an affectionate commemorative tribute to Theodore Roosevelt, our Teddy; the syllabus for Dewey's lectures at the Imperial University in Tokyo, which were later revised and published as Reconstruction in Philosophy; an exchange with former disciple Randolph Bourne about F. Mat-thias Alexander's Man's Supreme Inheritance; and, central to Dew-ey's creed, Philosophy and Democracy. His involvement in a study of the Polish-American community in Philadelphia--resulting in an article, two memoranda, and a lengthy report--is discussed in detail in the Introduction and in the Note on the Confidential Report ofConditions among the Poles in the United States. (shrink)

The new dilemmas and responsibilities which arise in bioethics both because of the unprecedented pace of scientific development and of growing moral pluralism are more and more difficult to grapple with. At the ‘global’ level, the call for the universal nature at least of some fundamental moral values and principles is often being contended as a testament of arrogance, if not directly as a new kind of subtler imperialism. The human rights framework itself, which provided the (...) basis for the most relevant international declarations and documents, is not exempt from the charge. However, the refusal of a top-down conception of the universal as a sort of product for exportation should not be confused with a relativistic landscape, where all the cows can be indifferently black or white. This contribution aims at outlining an approach, which reconciles universalism as enshrined in founding human rights declarations with respect for cultural diversity. In order to do so, two conceptual frameworks are discussed: the ‘tool-kit’ model and the morals/ethics difference. The example of the right to quality health care confirms the argument that striking a balance between cherishing pluralism and defending some fundamental rights and obligations does not amount to an assertion of moral imperialism. (shrink)

In spite of its dominance, there are well-known problems with Rawls’s method of reflective equilibrium (MRE), as a method of justification in meta-ethics. One issue in particular has preoccupied commentators, namely, the capacity of this method to provide a convincing account of the objectivity of our moral beliefs. Call this the Lack-of-Objectivity Charge. One aim of this article is to examine the charge within the context of Rawls’s later philosophy, and I claim that the lack-of-objectivity charge remains unanswered. A (...) second aim of this article is to examine the extent to which, despite Rawls’s express intention to avoid reliance on Kant’s moral philosophy, supplementing Rawls’s political constructivism with some Kantian elements, in particular Kant’s idea of a universal principle of right, not only addresses some of the issues raised by the lack-of-objectivity charge, but also does so without compromising the ability of the Rawlsian account to accommodate the pluralism of conceptions of the good, which he takes to be a fact of modern democracies. I argue for a revised justificatory methodology, which combines Rawls’s MRE and Kant’s Critical Method. (shrink)

Arguably the most foundational principle in perception research is that our experience of the world goes beyond the retinal image; we perceive the distal environment itself, not the proximal stimulation it causes. Shape may be the paradigm case of such “unconscious inference”: When a coin is rotated in depth, we infer the circular object it truly is, discarding the perspectival ellipse projected on our eyes. But is this really the fate of such perspectival shapes? Or does a tilted coin retain (...) an elliptical appearance even when we know it’s circular? This question has generated heated debate from Locke and Hume to the present; but whereas extant arguments rely primarily on introspection, this problem is also open to empirical test. If tilted coins bear a representational similarity to elliptical objects, then a circular coin should, when rotated, impair search for a distal ellipse. Here, nine experiments demonstrate that this is so, suggesting that perspectival shapes persist in the mind far longer than traditionally assumed. Subjects saw search arrays of three-dimensional “coins,” and simply had to locate a distally elliptical coin. Surprisingly, rotated circular coins slowed search for elliptical targets, even when subjects clearly knew the rotated coins were circular. This pattern arose with static and dynamic cues, couldn’t be explained by strategic responding or unfamiliarity, generalized across shape classes, and occurred even with sustained viewing. Finally, these effects extended beyond artificial displays to real-world objects viewed in naturalistic, full-cue conditions. We conclude that objects have a remarkably persistent dual character: their objective shape “out there,” and their perspectival shape “from here.”. (shrink)

The COVID-19 global health emergency has greatly impacted the educational field. Faced with unprecedented stress situations, professors, students, and families have employed various coping and resilience strategies throughout the confinement period. High and persistent stress levels are associated with other pathologies; hence, their detection and prevention are needed. Consequently, this study aimed to design a predictive model of stress in the educational field based on artificial intelligence that included certain sociodemographic variables, coping strategies, and resilience capacity, and to study the (...) relationship between them. The non-probabilistic snowball sampling method was used, involving 337 people from the university education community in south-eastern Spain. The Perceived Stress Scale, Stress Management Questionnaire, and Brief Resilience Scale were administered. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences was used to design the architecture of artificial neural networks. The results found that stress levels could be predicted by the synaptic weights of coping strategies and timing of the epidemic, with a predictive capacity of over 80% found in the neural network model. Additionally, direct and significant associations were identified between the use of certain coping strategies, stress levels, and resilience. The conclusions of this research are essential for effective stress detection, and therefore, early intervention in the field of educational psychology, by discussing the influence of resilience or lack thereof on the prediction of stress levels. Identifying the variables that maintain a greater predictive power in stress levels is an effective strategy to design more adjusted prevention programs and to anticipate the needs of the community. (shrink)

Introspection is a fundamental part of our mental lives. Nevertheless, its reliability and its underlying cognitive architecture have been widely disputed. Here, I propose a principled way to model introspection. By using time-tested principles from signal detection theory (SDT) and extrapolating them from perception to introspection, I offer a new framework for an introspective signal detection theory (iSDT). In SDT, the reliability of perceptual judgments is a function of the strength of an internal perceptual response (signal- to-noise ratio) which (...) is, to a large extent, driven by the intensity of the stimulus. In parallel to perception, iSDT models the reliability of introspective judgments as a function of the strength of an internal introspective response (signal-to-noise ratio) which is, to a large extent, driven by the intensity of conscious experiences. Thus, by modelling introspection after perception, iSDT can calibrate introspection’s reliability across a whole range of contexts. iSDT offers a novel, illuminating way of thinking about introspection and the cognitive processes that support it. (shrink)

Kant's formulae ought to effectively produce the same result when applied to the moral validity of any particular maxim; further, no valid maxim produces contradictory results when applied against Kant's Universal Law and Humanity formulae. Where one uses all formulae in the assessment of a maxim, one gains a more complete understanding of the moral law, thereby bridging principles of reason with intuition within the agent who has undertaken to evaluate the morality of a particular action. (...) These formulae command without regard to any particular interests, but are instead unconditional; further, these formulae effectively limit choice of action and therefore give rise to duty. Kant implies that the structure of all maxims requires different formulae of the same moral law, i.e., all maxims have a ‘form’ and a ‘matter’, which prompt reconfiguring of the categorical imperative into different formulae in order to test the morality of a maxim. (shrink)

We can distinguish two kinds of moral universalization tests for practical principles. One requires that the universal practice of the principle, i.e., universal conformity to it by all agents in a given world, satisfies some condition. The other requires that conformity to the principle by any possible agent, in any situation and at any time, satisfies some condition. We can call these universal practice and universal applicability tests respectively. The logical distinction between these tests (...) is rarely appreciated, and many philosophers systematically confuse them with each other. In practice, UP tests are more frequently used to defend deontological norms, while UA tests are used to defend consequentialist norms. Both conceptual argument and practical examples of their applications will show that UA tests are decisively superior to UP tests for grounding moral norms, casting greater doubt upon deontological theories which rely upon the latter unless they can reformulate their arguments using some version of a UA test. (shrink)