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42 found
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  1. The Fundamental Divisions in Ethics.Matthew Hammerton - 2022 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy:1-24.
    What are the fundamental divisions in ethics? Which divisions capture the most important and basic options in moral theorizing? In this article, I reject the ‘Textbook View’ which takes the tripartite division between consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics to be fundamental. Instead, I suggest that moral theories are fundamentally divided into three independent divisions, which I call the neutral/relative division, the normative priority division, and the maximizing division. I argue that this account of the fundamental divisions of ethics better captures (...)
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  2. Dewey's Independent Factors in Moral Action [preprint].Steven Fesmire - 2020 - In Roberto Frega & Steven Levine (eds.), John Dewey’s Ethical Theory: The 1932 Ethics. New York: Routledge. pp. 18-39.
    Drawing on archival and published sources from 1926 to 1932, this chapter analyzes “Three Independent Factors in Morals” (1930) as a blueprint to Dewey’s chapters in the 1932 Ethics. The 1930 presentation is Dewey’s most concise and sophisticated critique of the quest in ethical theory for the central and basic source of normative justification. He argued that moral situations are heterogeneous in their origins and operations. They elude full predictability and are not controllable by the impositions of any abstract monistic (...)
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  3. Moral Offsetting.Thomas Foerster - 2019 - Philosophical Quarterly 69 (276):617-635.
    This paper explores the idea of moral offsetting: the idea that good actions can offset bad actions in a way roughly analogous to carbon offsetting. For example, a meat eater might try to offset their consumption of meat by donating to an animal welfare charity. In this paper, I clarify the idea of moral offsetting, consider whether the leading moral theories and theories of moral worth are consistent with the possibility of moral offsetting, and consider potential benefits of moral offsetting. (...)
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  4. Distinguishing agent-relativity from agent-neutrality.Matthew Hammerton - 2018 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (2):239-250.
    The agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction is one of the most important in contemporary moral theory. Yet, providing an adequate formal account of it has proven difficult. In this article I defend a new formal account of the distinction, one that avoids various problems faced by other accounts. My account is based on an influential account of the distinction developed by McNaughton and Rawling. I argue that their approach is on the right track but that it succumbs to two serious objections. I then (...)
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  5. What matters and how it matters: A choice-theoretic representation of moral theories.Franz Dietrich & Christian List - 2017 - Philosophical Review 126 (4):421-479.
    We present a new “reason-based” approach to the formal representation of moral theories, drawing on recent decision-theoretic work. We show that any moral theory within a very large class can be represented in terms of two parameters: a specification of which properties of the objects of moral choice matter in any given context, and a specification of how these properties matter. Reason-based representations provide a very general taxonomy of moral theories, as differences among theories can be attributed to differences in (...)
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  6. Agent-Relativity and the Foundations of Moral Theory.Matthew Hammerton - 2017 - Dissertation, Australian National University
  7. Consequentializing and its consequences.S. Andrew Schroeder - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (6):1475-1497.
    Recently, a number of philosophers have argued that we can and should “consequentialize” non-consequentialist moral theories, putting them into a consequentialist framework. I argue that these philosophers, usually treated as a group, in fact offer three separate arguments, two of which are incompatible. I show that none represent significant threats to a committed non-consequentialist, and that the literature has suffered due to a failure to distinguish these arguments. I conclude by showing that the failure of the consequentializers’ arguments has implications (...)
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  8. Rightness as Fairness.Marcus Arvan - 2016 - In Rightness as Fairness: A Moral and Political Theory. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. pp. 153-201.
    Chapter 1 of this book argued that moral philosophy should be based on seven principles of theory selection adapted from the sciences. Chapter 2 argued that these principles support basing normative moral philosophy on a particular problem of diachronic instrumental rationality: the ‘problem of possible future selves.’ Chapter 3 argued that a new moral principle, the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative, is the rational solution to this problem. Chapter 4 argued that the Categorical-Instrumental Imperative has three equivalent formulations akin to but superior to (...)
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  9. A MacIntyrean Critique of Theoretical Pluralism in Applied Ethics.Brandon Boesch - 2016 - American Journal of Bioethics 16 (9):41-43.
    According to the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, there is an incommensurability between different theories of normative ethics. MacIntyre’s view on the incommensurability of ethical discourse casts doubt upon the pluralistic proposal of Magelssen and colleagues, since the insights gained from the various theories will themselves be incommensurate with one another. However, since there are obvious benefits provided both by arguments for pluralism and the insights of Magelssen and colleagues, I utilize some later work of MacIntyre to offer an alternative means (...)
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  10. Patient-Relativity in Morality.Matthew Hammerton - 2016 - Ethics 127 (1):06-26.
    It is common to distinguish moral rules, reasons, or values that are agent-relative from those that are agent-neutral. One can also distinguish moral rules, reasons, or values that are moment-relative from those that are moment-neutral. In this article, I introduce a third distinction that stands alongside these two distinctions—the distinction between moral rules, reasons, or values that are patient-relative and those that are patient-neutral. I then show how patient-relativity plays an important role in several moral theories, gives us a better (...)
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  11. Review of Torbjörn Tännsjö's Taking Life, Three Theories on the Ethics of Killing. [REVIEW]Charlotte A. Newey - 2016 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
    The punchy central claim of Torbjörn Tännsjö's book is that act-utilitarianism best explains our considered intuitions about the moral status of different kinds of killing. An interesting aspect of this book is Tännsjö's revisionary methodology, which he names 'Applied Ethics (Turned Upside Down)'. So, why does Tännsjö choose applied ethics (turned upside down) to argue for act-utilitarianism's role in explaining our considered intuitions about killing and what, exactly, is his innovative method of moral investigation?
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  12. The Challenges of Extreme Moral Stress: Claudia Card's Contributions to the Formation of Nonideal Ethical Theory.Kathryn J. Norlock - 2016 - Metaphilosophy 47 (4-5):488-503.
    Open Access: This essay argues that Claudia Card numbers among important contributors to nonideal ethical theory, and it advocates for the worth of NET. Following philosophers including Lisa Tessman and Charles Mills, the essay contends that it is important for ethical theory, and for feminist purposes, to carry forward the interrelationship that Mills identifies between nonideal theory and feminist ethics. Card's ethical theorizing assists in understanding that interrelationship. Card's philosophical work includes basic elements of NET indicated by Tessman, Mills, and (...)
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  13. Differential Demands.Vanessa Carbonell - 2015 - In Marcel van Ackeren & Michael Kühler (eds.), The Limits of Moral Obligation: Moral Demandingness and Ought Implies Can. New York: Routledge. pp. 36-50.
    If the traditional problem of demandingness is that a theory demands too much of all agents, for example by asking them to maximize utility in every decision, then we should ask whether there is a related problem of “differential demandingness”, when a theory places vastly different demands on different agents. I argue that even according to common-sense morality, the demands faced by particular agents depend on a variety of contingent factors. These include the general circumstances, the compliance of others, the (...)
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  14. Goods, Interests and the Language of Morals.Piotr Machura - 2015 - In Andrius Bielskis & Kelvin Knight (eds.), Virtue and Economy: Essays on Morality and Markets. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.
    The aim of this chapter is to examine tentatively the difference between two kinds of moral frameworks based on the concepts of the good and that of interest. I shall start with some introductory remarks on language taken as an explanatory framework rooted in Gadamer and a hermeneutical reading of MacIntyre. In parts two and three, I use this hermeneutical background to analyse the difference between the concept of the good as seen within the classical tradition and that of interest (...)
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  15. partisk vs. opartisk moral.Lars Samuelsson - 2015 - Filosofisk Tidskrift 36 (3):35-43.
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  16. British Ethical Theorists from Sidgwick to Ewing.Thomas Hurka - 2014 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Thomas Hurka presents the first full historical study of an important strand in the development of modern moral philosophy. His subject is a series of British ethical theorists from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, who shared key assumptions that made them a unified and distinctive school. The best-known of them are Henry Sidgwick, G. E. Moore, and W. D. Ross; others include Hastings Rashdall, H. A. Prichard, C. D. Broad, and A. C. Ewing. They disagreed on some (...)
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  17. Understanding Peace within Contemporary Moral Theory.Court Lewis - 2013 - Philosophia 41 (4):1049-1068.
    In this essay, I continue Nicholas Wolterstorff’s work of developing a rights-based theory of ethics called eirenéism, which maintains the good life only occurs when justice—as a moral state of affairs where agents enjoy the goods to which they have a right—is achieved. As a result, justice is eirenē (the Greek word for peace). In the process of developing eirenéism I explain how eirenē differs from other conceptions of peace, and I offer several interpretive arguments for how best to understand (...)
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  18. (1 other version)African Ethics.Thaddeus Metz - 2013 - In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell. pp. 129-38.
    I critically discuss contemporary work in African, i.e., sub-Saharan, moral philosophy that has been written in English. I begin by providing an overview of the profession, after which I consider some of the major issues in normative ethics, then discuss a few of the more noteworthy research in applied ethics, and finally take up the key issues in meta-ethics. My aim is to highlight discussions that should be of interest to an ethicist working anywhere in the world, focusing on ideas (...)
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  19. Person-affecting views and saturating counterpart relations.Christopher J. G. Meacham - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 158 (2):257-287.
    In Reasons and Persons, Parfit (1984) posed a challenge: provide a satisfying normative account that solves the Non-Identity Problem, avoids the Repugnant and Absurd Conclusions, and solves the Mere-Addition Paradox. In response, some have suggested that we look toward person-affecting views of morality for a solution. But the person-affecting views that have been offered so far have been unable to satisfy Parfit's four requirements, and these views have been subject to a number of independent complaints. This paper describes a person-affecting (...)
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  20. Five Elements of Normative Ethics - A General Theory of Normative Individualism.Dietmar von der Pfordten - 2012 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (4):449 - 471.
    The article tries to inquire a third way in normative ethics between consequentialism or utilitarianism and deontology or Kantianism. To find such a third way in normative ethics, one has to analyze the elements of these classical theories and to look if they are justified. In this article it is argued that an adequate normative ethics has to contain the following five elements: (1) normative individualism, i. e., the view that in the last instance moral norms and values can only (...)
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  21. Philosophie der Moral. Texte von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart [Moral Philosophy. Texts from Antiquity to the Present].Stefan Gosepath & Robin Celikates - 2011 - Frankfurt am Main, Deutschland: Suhrkamp.
    A collection of Classical Texts in Moral Philosophy from Antiquity to the Present.
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  22. Conflict, Regret, and Modern Moral Philosophy.Leonard Kahn - 2011 - In Thom Brooks (ed.), New Waves in Ethics. Palgrave-Macmillan.
    I begin this paper by discussing the difference between outweighing and canceling in conflicts of normativity. I then introduce a thought experiment that I call Crash Drive,and I use it to explain the nature of a certain kind of moral conflict as well as the appropriate emotional response – regret – on the part of the primary agent in this case. Having done this, I turn to a line of criticism opened by Bernard Williams and recently expanded by Jonathan Dancy (...)
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  23. Two Levels of Moral Thinking.Daniel Star - 2011 - Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 1:75-96.
    The purpose of this paper is to introduce a two level account of moral thinking that, unlike other accounts, does justice to three very plausible propositions that seem to form an inconsistent triad: (1) People can be morally virtuous without the aid of philosophy. (2) Morally virtuous people non-accidentally act for good reasons, and work out what it is that they ought to do on the basis of considering such reasons. (3) Philosophers engaged in the project of normative ethics are (...)
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  24. The Importance of Personal Relationships in Kantian Moral Theory: A Reply to Care Ethics.Marilea Bramer - 2010 - Hypatia 25 (1):121-139.
    Care ethicists have long insisted that Kantian moral theory fails to capture the partiality that ought to be present in our personal relationships. In her most recent book, Virginia Held claims that, unlike impartial moral theories, care ethics guides us in how we should act toward friends and family. Because these actions are performed out of care, they have moral value for a care ethicist. The same actions, Held claims, would not have moral worth for a Kantian because of the (...)
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  25. Morality, Politics, and Law.John-Michael Kuczynski - 2010 - Kendall Hunt Publishing.
    It is argued (a) that laws are assurances of protections of rights and (b) that governments are protectors of rights. Lest those assurances be empty and thus not really be assurances at all, laws must be enforced and governments must therefore have the power to coerce. For this reason, the government of a given region tends to have, as Max Weber put it, a "monopoly on power" in that region. And because governments are power-monopolizers, it is tempting to think that (...)
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  26. Worthy Lives.Lisa Rivera - 2010 - Social Theory and Practice 36 (2):185-212.
    Susan Wolf's paper "Meaning and Morality" draws our attention to the fact that Williams's objection to Kantian morality is primarily a concern about a possible conflict between morality and that which gives our lives meaning. I argue that the force of Williams's objection requires a more precise understanding of meaning as dependent on our intention to make our lives themselves worthwhile. It is not meaning simpliciter that makes Williams's objective persuasive but rather meaning as arising out of our positive evaluation (...)
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  27. Ethical Theories and the Transparency Condition.Johan Brännmark - 2009 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12 (5):449-462.
    Following John Rawls, writers like Bernard Williams and Christine Korsgaard have suggested that a transparency condition should be put on ethical theories. The exact nature of such a condition and its implications is however not anything on which there is any consensus. It is argued here that the ultimate rationale of transparency conditions is epistemic rather than substantively moral, but also that it clearly connects to substantive concerns about moral psychology. Finally, it is argued that once a satisfactory form of (...)
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  28. African and western moral theories in a bioethical context.Thaddeus Metz - 2009 - Developing World Bioethics 10 (1):49-58.
    The field of bioethics is replete with applications of moral theories such as utilitarianism and Kantianism. For a given dilemma, even if it is not clear how one of these western philosophical principles of right (and wrong) action would resolve it, one can identify many of the considerations that each would conclude is relevant. The field is, in contrast, largely unaware of an African account of what all right (and wrong) actions have in common and of the sorts of factors (...)
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  29. Utilitarianism and Dewey's “Three Independent Factors in Morals”.Guy Axtell - 2008 - ISUS-X Conference Proceedings, Kadish Center for Morality, Law and Public Affairs, Boalt Hall, Berkeley CA.
    The centennial of Dewey & Tuft’s Ethics (1908) provides a timely opportunity to reflect both on Dewey’s intellectual debt to utilitarian thought, and on his critique of it. In this paper I examine Dewey’s assessment of utilitarianism, but also his developing view of the good (ends; consequences), the right (rules; obligations) and the virtuous (approbations; standards) as “three independent factors in morals.” This doctrine (found most clearly in the 2nd edition of 1932) as I argue in the last sections, has (...)
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  30. The Golden Rule Principle in African Ethics and Kant’s Categorical Imperative.Godwin Azenabor - 2008 - Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 10:17-23.
    This research attempts to throw light on and show the fundamental similarities and differences between the African and Western ethical conceptions by examining the foundation of ethics and morality in the two systems, using the Golden rule principle in African ethics and Kant’s categorical imperative in Western ethics as tools of comparative analysis. The African indigenous ethics revolves round the “Golden Rule Principle” as the ultimate moral principle. This principle states that “Do unto others what you want them to do (...)
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  31. From the Golden Rule to the Diamond Rule.Mikhail Epstein - 2008 - Proceedings of the Xxii World Congress of Philosophy 10:77-89.
    Aristotle stated one of the most influential postulates in the history of ethics: virtue is the middle point between two vicious extremes: "…excess and defect are characteristic of vice, and the mean of virtue. For men are good in but one way, but bad in many." The paper argues that between two vices there are two virtues that comprise two different moral perspectives as perceived by stereoethics. For example, two virtues can be found between the vices of miserliness and wastefulness: (...)
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  32. (1 other version)Toward an african moral theory.Thaddeus Metz - 2007 - Journal of Political Philosophy 15 (3):321–341.
    In this article I articulate and defend an African moral theory, i.e., a basic and general principle grounding all particular duties that is informed by sub-Saharan values commonly associated with talk of "ubuntu" and cognate terms that signify personhood or humanness. The favoured interpretation of ubuntu (as of 2007) is the principle that an action is right insofar as it respects harmonious relationships, ones in which people identify with, and exhibit solidarity toward, one another. I maintain that this is the (...)
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  33. Review of Joel J. Kupperman, Ethics and Qualities of Life[REVIEW]Christian Miller - 2007 - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (10).
    Joel Kupperman's latest book is a wide ranging discussion of many of the leading issues in contemporary ethical theory. Its main aim is to advance a view which he calls "multi level indirect consequentialism" as a viable alternative to traditional act and rule consequentialist positions. Such a view purports to secure many of the agent centered constraints and options which are familiar from ordinary morality, as well as to take seriously considerations of fairness and respect for persons. Needless to say, (...)
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  34. Ethical theories and moral guidance.Pekka Väyrynen - 2006 - Utilitas 18 (3):291-309.
    Let the Guidance Constraint be the following norm for evaluating ethical theories: Other things being at least roughly equal, ethical theories are better to the extent that they provide adequate moral guidance. I offer an account of why ethical theories are subject to the Guidance Constraint, if indeed they are. We can explain central facts about adequate moral guidance, and their relevance to ethical theory, by appealing to certain forms of autonomy and fairness. This explanation is better than explanations that (...)
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  35. Ethics of Maimonides.Hermann Cohen - 2004 - University of Wisconsin Press.
    Almut Sh. Bruckstein provides the first English translation and her own extensive commentary on this landmark 1908 work, which inspired readings of medieval and ...
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  36. Normative ethical theories.W. David Solomon - 1998 - Encyclopedia of Bioethics 2.
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  37. Act and value: Expectation and the representability of moral theories.Graham Oddie & Peter Milne - 1991 - Theoria 57 (1-2):42-76.
    According to the axiologist the value concepts are basic and the deontic concepts are derivative. This paper addresses two fundamental problems that arise for the axiologist. Firstly, what ought the axiologist o understand by the value of an act? Second, what are the prospects in principle for an axiological representation of moral theories. Can the deontic concepts of any coherent moral theory be represented by an agent-netural axiology: (1) whatever structure those concepts have and (2) whatever the causal structure of (...)
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  38. Rights and Moral Personality in Contemporary Ethical Theories.Deborah Goldberg - 1981 - Dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University
    In this dissertation we will analyse accounts of rights and moral personality in three major contemporary ethical theories. We will examine the doctrines defended by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice, by Abraham Melden in Rights and Persons, and by representative proponents of utilitarianism. Our purpose in this analysis will be fourfold. ;First, we will be concerned to present and accurate and careful exposition of the accounts of rights and moral personality in the three major theories. Thus, in our (...)
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  39. (1 other version)The schizophrenia of modern ethical theories.Michael Stocker - 1976 - Journal of Philosophy 73 (14):453-466.
  40. A meta-theory for ethical theories.Bernard Rosen - 1975 - Journal of Value Inquiry 9 (1):12-23.
    I have attempted to present a meta-theory for ethical theories which naturally fits in with a general pragmatic philosophical orientation. There are standard problems for such philosophical views to which I have tried to offer solutions. In addition to the meta-theory one would like to see an actual ethical theory which would exemplify that meta-theory, but that is a topic more appropriate for another time.
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  41. Testing ethical theories.Kenneth Stern - 1966 - Journal of Philosophy 63 (9):234-238.
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  42. Should the World be There?Frode Alson Bjørdal - manuscript