Meta-Ethics

Beginning in The Gay Science, Nietzsche repeatedly exhorts his readers to laugh. But why? I argue that Nietzsche wants us to laugh because the emotion that laughter expresses, mirth, plays an important psychological-cum-epistemological role in his attack on traditional morality. I contend that Nietzsche views mirth as an attitude that is uniquely suited to rooting out beliefs that have covertly infiltrated our psychologies. And given that Nietzsche considers morality to be insidious, or to maintain its hold over us even after (...) we think that we have freed ourselves from it, we need mirth to expose its nefarious workings. Thus, while mirth is not the only attitude that Nietzsche recommends that we adopt toward the dictates of traditional morality – indeed, he suggests that we adopt many others as well – mirth nevertheless enjoys a privileged status within Nietzsche’s spirited polemics, which is why he dubs his philosophy a ‘gay science.’. (shrink)

In this chapter, we explore three social functions of emotion, which parallel three interpretations of Herman Melville's Bartleby. We argue that emotions can serve as commitment devices, which nudge individuals toward social conformity and thereby increase the likelihood of ongoing cooperation. We argue that emotions can play a role in Machiavellian strategies, which help us get away with norm violations. And we argue that emotions can motivate social recalibration, by alerting us to systemic social failures. In the second half of (...) the chapter, we then argue that emotions guide behavior by attuning us to our social environment through a process of error-driven learning. We suggest that their most basic social function is to reveal tensions between individuals and social norms; and we contend that because emotions are socially scaffolded, they leave open multiple strategies for resolving such tensions. Specifically, we argue that differences in conceptualization, as well as differences in circumstance, can generate emotions that nudge us toward cooperation, lead us to adopt Machiavellian strategies, or motivate us to engage in forms of social recalibration. Bartleby’s despair signaled a mismatch between his expectations and the expectations of Wall Street, and each of these three strategies could have moderated his misery. (shrink)

Dans ses écrits sur l’éthique, Brentano affirme que les propriétés morales — comme « bon » — sont l’objet d’une représentation intuitive non sensible dont le contenu est de nature « mentale ». Si la nature mentale de ces contenus en garantit le caractère d’évidence, elle en complexifie aussi l’élucidation ontologique et épistémologique, qui doit tenir compte de la classification brentanienne des actes psychiques. C’est justement cette complexité constitutive qui a fait de la théorie éthique de Brentano un passage obligé (...) pour beaucoup de courants philosophiques importants du xxe siècle, par exemple pour la phénoménologie des valeurs et l’intuitionnisme éthique. Le but de cette étude est de rappeler les aspects les plus significatifs de la théorie éthique de Brentano et de montrer si — et si oui, en quel sens — elle peut être qualifiée de « réaliste ». (shrink)

Can morality be so demanding that we have reason not to follow its dictates? According to many, it can, if that morality is a consequentialist one. We take the plausibility and coherence of this objection – the Demandingness Objection – as a given and are also not concerned with finding the best response to the Objection. Instead, our main aim is to spell out the intuitive background of the Objection and to see how this background could be investigated. This double (...) aim leads to different albeit connected threads of inquiry. We first outline the Objection, its different forms and how intuition figures in them. After this, we move on to consider the ongoing debate about the use of intuitions in (moral) philosophy with a focus on two challenges: what intuitions are and how we can find them. To answer these challenges, we propose an account according to which moral intuitions are distinguished by seven " markers ". Armed with this account, we put forward experimental designs testing some of these markers. We argue that, and show how, cognitive science can ascertain whether intuitions supporting the Objection share the markers of moral intuitions. (shrink)

The extent to which individuals with a variety of cultural backgrounds differ in empathic responsiveness is unknown. This paper describes the differences in trait empathy in one independent and one interdependent society (i.e., United States and Iran respectively). The analysis of data collected from self-reported questionnaires answered by 326 adults indicated a significant difference in the cognitive component of empathy concerning participants’ affiliation to either egocentric or socio-centric society: Iranian participants with interdependent cultural norms, reported higher cognitive empathy compared to (...) American participants who share independent cultural norms. In line with previous studies, gender differences were observed in all subscales of questionnaires except the Empathy Quotient. Female participants demonstrated more empathy than males in both samples. Implications for understanding the cross-cultural differences of various components of empathy are discussed. (shrink)

Safe-by-Design (SBD) frameworks for the development of emerging technologies have become an ever more popular means by which scholars argue that transformative emerging technologies can safely incorporate human values. One such popular SBD methodology is called Value Sensitive Design (VSD). A central tenet of this design methodology is to investigate stakeholder values and design those values into technologies during early stage research and development (R&D). To accomplish this, the VSD framework mandates that designers consult the philosophical and ethical literature to (...) best determine how to weigh moral trade-offs. However, the VSD framework also concedes the universalism of moral values, particularly the values of freedom, autonomy, equality trust and privacy justice. This paper argues that the VSD methodology, particularly applied to nano-bio-info-cogno (NBIC) technologies, has an insufficient grounding for the determination of moral values. As such, an exploration of the value-investigations of VSD are deconstructed to illustrate both its strengths and weaknesses. This paper also provides possible modalities for the strengthening of the VSD methodology, particularly through the application of moral imagination and how moral imagination exceed the boundaries of moral intuitions in the development of novel technologies. (shrink)

This book sits at the crossroads of philosophy of mind and cognitive science, taking up a topic that has become increasingly important in these fields: attention. It will offer a new theoretical stance on the concept of attention and how it intersects with other concepts of mind, such as perception, consciousness, memory, and action. In short, I understand attention to be the act of mental selection by a subject, which is essential for perception, but not consciousness or action. Importantly, this (...) theoretical stance takes seriously the existence of a subject, which separates it from the current trend in philosophy and cognitive science of denying the existence of a subject. In this book I will offer an account of the subject and its role in attention that will both help motivate a subject-centered account and avoid some of the common criticisms regarding its existence. (under contract, Cambridge University Press) . (shrink)

Corruption prevention can be more effective if it does not rely merely on legal enforcement. This theoretical review aimed to propose a hypothetical psychological model capable of explaining the behavior of corruption. Moral disengagement is a variable that is considered ontologically closest in “distance” to the variable of corruption behavior. Counterfeit self, implicit self-theory, ethical mindset and moral emotion are taken into account as the pivotal factors of the corruption behavior and its mechanism of moral disengagement. Counterfeit self along with (...) some moderating variables are regarded to “set” one’s future corrupt behavior based on his/her past/prior ethical or unethical behavior and moral emotions. This review discovered a conjectural-theoretical model of the corruption psychology. It can be used to design a social intervention and training for individuals to manage the mindset and emotion that can buffer counterfeit self effect. In addition, the users of these research findings are recommended to be aware of the surroundings that consist of groups of people with particular ethical mindset, moral emotion proneness and self-theory. (shrink)

Rawls is famous for two things: his attempt to ground morality in rationality and his conception of justice as fairness. His work has been resounding on both fronts, the first constituting the justificatory framework for the second. Yet from the beginning, the outcome has been more doctrinaire than the method should have allowed with design details promising objectivity. This article goes to that beginning, or to a reasonable proxy for it, in the “Outline of a Decision Procedure for Ethics,” with (...) the aim of exposing and examining the discrepancy where it originates. The goal is not to prey on the earliest version of an initiative later undergoing revision but to identify and investigate the inception of a systematic bias that is retained rather than revised in subsequent iterations. The primary finding is that justice as fairness is too dogmatic an outcome for the decision procedure proposed. The corresponding principles (of justice as fairness) are consistent with the proposed procedure only relative to a specific system already presumed valid. A secondary finding, supported by the same considerations as the first, is that the decision procedure itself, regardless of whether it works well with the particular principles in question, may not be as useful as it appears, turning out to justify only, or mostly, what is widely accepted anyway. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose and defend a structural ownership condition on moral responsibility. According to the condition I propose, an agent owns a mental item if and only if it is part of or is partly grounded by a coherent set of psychological states. As I discuss, other theorists have proposed or alluded to conditions like psychological coherence, but each proposal is unsatisfactory in some way. My account appeals to narrative explanation to elucidate the relevant sense of psychological coherence.

In this review of essays on the topic of practical reason, the neo-Humeanism of philosophers such as James Drier, according to whom reasons are instrumental, is shown to be susceptible to the objections of Kantian philosophers such as Christine Korsgaard: the fact that you desire to X can never entail that you ought to X. Kantianism, however, comes under attack from neo-Aristotelian philosophers such as Berys Gaut, who argues that it is a mistake to identify goodness with being the object (...) of free rational choice. (shrink)

In this review I consider Gorman's arguments for redescrbiing the history of ethics, from Plato to Isaiah Berlin, as the history of theories of human rights, and for the conclusions that human rights are dependent, that they change over time, and that they may conflict with each other. I disagree with his interpretations of Plato, Hobbes, and Kant, as well as the idea that their moral theories can be converted into theories of human rights without loss, and I argue that (...) his various conclusions about human rights depend upon assumptions - such as that ethics is essentially concerned with motivation, that human nature is changing to the extent that human reason is changing, and that moral reality is inconsistent – that many would reject. Along the way I point out various blunders, such as the claim that that the Hobbesian social contract is a "covenant with the sovereign", and the claim that, according to Kant, "If I act wrongly... I may be acceptably treated as a means.". (shrink)

Education and Free Will critically assesses and makes use of Spinoza’s insights on human freedom to construe an account of education that is compatible with causal determinism without sacrificing the educational goal of increasing students’ autonomy and self-determination. Offering a thorough investigation into the philosophical position of causal determinism, Dahlbeck discusses Spinoza’s view of self-determination and presents his own suggestions for an education for autonomy from a causal determinist point of view. -/- The book begins by outlining the free will (...) problem in education, before expanding on a philosophical understanding of autonomy and how it is seen as an educational ideal. It considers Spinoza’s determinism and discusses his denial of moral responsibility. Later chapters consider the relationship between causal determinism and autonomy, the educational implications of understanding free will and how free will can be utilised as a valuable fiction in education. -/- This book will be of great interest to academics and postgraduate students in the field of education, especially those with an interest in moral education and philosophy of education. It will also be of interest to those in the fields of philosophy and psychology and specifically those focusing on the free will problem, on Spinoza studies, and on the relation between moral psychology and external influence. (shrink)

Constitutivist accounts in metaethics explain the normative standards in a domain by appealing to the constitutive features of its members. The success of these accounts turns on whether they can explain the connection between normative standards and the nature of individuals they authoritatively govern. Many such explanations presuppose that any member of a norm-governed kind must minimally satisfy the norms governing its kind. I call this the Threshold Commitment, and argue that constitutivists should reject it. First, it requires constitutivists to (...) restrict the scope of their explanatory ambitions, because it is not plausibly true of social kinds. Second, despite the frequent reliance on physical artifacts in constitutivists’ illustrations of the Threshold Commitment, it counter-intuitively entails that physical artifacts can cease to exist without being physically destroyed. Third, it misconstrues the normative force of authoritative norms on very defective kind-members because it locates this force not in the norm, but in the threat of non-existence. Fortunately, constitutivism can be decoupled from the Threshold Commitment, and I close by sketching a promising alternative account. (shrink)

Metaethics of Goldel Rule -/- --- It is worthy to mention that this book entitled "Metaethics of Golden Rule" which is an academic Persian book of Philosophy and adapted from my M.A. dissertation: Lotfi Yazdi, Mohammad Reza (2015), Survey of Meta-ethical foundation of Golden rule, Tehran: Payame Noor University, M.A. in Ethics (Moral Philosophy). --- I have been working on Golden Rule since ten years ago, directly and indirectly. It has included an introduction to Metaphilosophy and generalities of Ethics. In (...) addition, I have presented the following here: 1) My interpretation of Golden Rule; 2) Presenting three arguments for selecting Golden Rule as a deontological normative theory; 3) Arguing that respect is a moral value and then combining respect as a valued content at three human nature's levels with Golden rule for resolving ethical dilemmas and improving Golden Rule: One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself, respectably; 4) Understanding Metaethics of Golden Rule with root in universalizability by 1. Conceptual analysis of Golden Rule and universalizability, then finding and revealing Law of non-contradiction in both of them through a deduction 2. Arguing that moral reasoning is their connection 3. Normative universalizability is the same as Golden rule, and so, Golden Rule has been connected to Metaethical universalizability by normative universalizability; 5) Presenting an argument for the contrasting of Relativism and Nihilism with Golden Rule and its Metaethical foundation: universalizability; 6) Studying and comparing theories of Moral Metaphysics with the Golden Rule and understanding their consistence or inconsistence or neutralization with Golden Rule and its root in universalizability; 7) Studying and presenting an argument that Skepticism is in challenge with universalizability or Golden Rule. --- I have published this book owing to two reasons. First and foremost, Iran is one of the most ancient countries for Golden rule and its root in universalizability. Secondly, this book has been written due to my constant moral worries and considerations. ---Pouya Lotfi Yazdi ---Spring 2017 . (shrink)

Wilson's book has two aims: a metaethical aim, to provide a non-moral-realist account of moral judgment and moral theorizing in terms of preferences for certain 'paraworlds' over other 'paraworlds,' and a normative ethical aim, to argue for greater socio-economic, and gender, equality. I am sympathetic to the second normative ethical aim, but I do not consider the metaethical redescription of moral judgment and moral theorizing in terms of preferences for paraworlds to be accurate or helpful. Her critique of "immanentism," or (...) merely making visible and understandable the moral aspects of particular ways of life, in the second part of the book, is valuable, along with her criticisms of virtue theory as the most conservative of the Big Three moral theories. Her rejection of Rawlsian redistribution, in favor of a qualified egalitarianism that includes merit, is also worthy of consideration. (shrink)

The 'moral problem', roughly, involves the inconsistency between the following three independently plausible claims: (1) that moral judgements express beliefs, (2) that rational agents who judge that an action is right have at least some desire to perform that action, and (3) that rational agents might combine their beliefs with any desires. Michael Smith seeks to solve the moral problem by arguing that (3) is false. He argues that rational agents who believe that an action is right must have some (...) desire to perform that action. In this paper we first reconstruct Smith's main argument for this claim. Second, we offer an argument for one of its key premises. The argument that we offer is the best one that we can extract from Smith's work. As far as we can see, the argument is sound, but it does rely upon two crucial assumptions about the rational agent in question: (a) that facts about this agent's desires are transparent to her, and (b) that the agent believes that she is rational. This means that if Smith has solved the moral problem then he has done so only for a restricted class of subjects ­­ those who satisfy these two assumptions. (shrink)

Moral debunking arguments are meant to show that, by realist lights, moral beliefs are not explained by moral facts, which in turn is meant to show that they lack some significant counterfactual connection to the moral facts (e.g., safety, sensitivity, reliability). The dominant, “minimalist” response to the arguments—sometimes defended under the heading of “third-factors” or “pre-established harmonies”—involves affirming that moral beliefs enjoy the relevant counterfactual connection while granting that these beliefs are not explained by the moral facts. We show that (...) the minimalist gambit rests on a controversial thesis about epistemic priority: that explanatory concessions derive their epistemic import from what they reveal about counterfactual connections. We then challenge this epistemic priority thesis, which undermines the minimalist response to debunking arguments (in ethics and elsewhere). (shrink)

In this article the phenomenon of an icon (as described by Jean-Luc Marion) is considered in relation with its media of appearance. Asking whether it can appear and be recognized as such in any medium or only in “iconic” media, attention is directed towards electronic media, namely the television, film and computer screens. The main question is whether “crossing of gazes” and recognition of the face is possible on screen. If not, the screen remains univocally a medium of an idol. (...) -/- Relation of an invisible icon to its medium (or environment) is found to be twofold: on the one hand, an icon itself is of ‘mediatic’ structure, since it implements the “medium is the message” phrase, given by Marshall McLuhan. The visible side of an icon is fully subservient to its invisible message – in other words, it becomes its message. On the other hand, an icon uses some kind of (additional) medium for its appearing. The medium can become an obstacle or a means due to its capabilities of presenting a situation of image and certain image logic with it. -/- Although, J.-L. Marion is strictly sceptical about the possibilities of audio-visual technologies to transmit the phenomenon of the face, several occasions for a doubt and further investigation are found. Firstly, the liberation from the status of an idol to a certain extent and hence a suggestion of an icon is found where the ‘content’ of the medium reveals the medium itself. Thus, it enables recognising the image as image and implies the segmentation of ‘layers’ of images. Secondly, strong suggestion of the face of the other addressing me (the viewer) personally is observed in the situation of accepted prayer. However, this possibility is only discovered in examples and it is still lacking theoretical background. Except of this, the screen remains a medium which ‘filters out’ the phenomenon of an icon. -/- On the whole, at least a suggestion of an icon is thought to be able to use the screen as its medium. (shrink)

The question of a «subject» appears in a new way in the context of a «third type» of phenomenon, introduced explicitly by a French philosopher Jean-Luc Marion. His idea of saturated phenomenon opens a discussion about the possibility and way of cognition with regard to the saturated phenomenon as well as the one who manages to receive it – the givee. I chose to approach this question through the aspect of cognition, since it is so radically transformed in this perspective, (...) which can be called as phenomenology of givenness. First I shortly introduce the scene of action by sketching the concept of the saturated phenomenon and its incompatibility with the traditional concept of cognition (or knowledge). Ken the problem of cognition in the context of saturated phenomenon is addressed by a double analysis: that of the recipient of such givenness and a particular case of the saturated phenomenon – the face as icon. Ways in which the encounter with the saturated phenomenon retains the right to be called cognition are explicated, as well as the way in which it is incompatible with conceptual knowledge. Ke role and status of the one who knows, i. e. transformation from «subject» to the givee, is also discussed. (shrink)

Several philosophers have recently argued that decision-theoretic frameworks for rational choice under risk fail to provide prescriptions for choice in cases of moral uncertainty. They conclude that there are no rational norms that are “sensitive” to a decision-maker's moral uncertainty. But in this paper, I argue that one sometimes has a rational obligation to take one's moral uncertainty into account in the course of moral deliberation. I first provide positive motivation for the view that one's moral beliefs can affect what (...) it's rational for one to choose. I then address the problem of value comparison, according to which one cannot determine the expected moral value of one's actions. I argue that we should not infer from the problem of value comparison that there are no rational norms governing choice under moral uncertainty. (shrink)

Philosopher Peter Sjöstedt-H’s Noumenautics traverses the mindscape of metaphysics, nihilism and psychedelic phenomenology. It navigates through subjects such as the sentience of cells, the constrictions of consciousness, the metaphysics of might, the magic of mushrooms, the narcotics of Nietzsche, and the neologism of neo-nihilism – the last of which may itself cause flashbacks. -/- Tracing the fall of western morality through Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, the book descends deeper still into a metaphysics further upheld by Henri Bergson and Alfred North (...) Whitehead. This collection of essays and notes provides a most idea-provoking, educational, and original piece of literature for the thoughtful lay-reader and specialist alike. -/- Contents: I. Philosophy and Psychedelic Phenomenology II. Myco-Metaphysics: a Philosopher on Magic Mushrooms III. Psychedelics and Empiricism IV. Bergson and Psychedelic Consciousness V. Vertexes of Sentience: Whitehead and Psychedelic Phenomenology VI. Antichrist Psychonaut: Nietzsche and Psychedelics VII. Neo-Nihilism: the Philosophy of Power VIII. The Teutonic Shift from Christian Morality: Kant – Schopenhauer – Nietzsche IX. Schopenhauer and the Mind X. The Will to Power. (shrink)

This dissertation explores arguments and questions related to moral error theory – the idea that morality inevitably involves a fundamental and serious error such that moral judgments and statements never come out true. It is suggested that the truth of error theory remains a non-negligible possibility, and that we for this reason should take a version of moral fictionalism seriously. I begin by defining error theory as the claim that moral judgments are beliefs with moral propositions as content, moral utterances (...) are assertions of moral propositions, and no positive moral proposition is true. Second, after giving an account of J.L. Mackie’s error theory, I argue that neither Richard Joyce’s nor Jonas Olson’s argument for error theory gives us strong reasons to believe it. According to Joyce, moral discourse presupposes non-institutional desire-transcendent reasons and non-institutional categorical requirements. I challenge this claim by arguing that morality can be understood as an institution, and that the assumption that there are non-institutional moral reasons and requirements can be understood as entering pragmatically into moral conversations. According to Olson, moral discourse involves a commitment to irreducibly normative favoring relations between facts and actions. I challenge this claim by challenging Olson’s response to Stephen Finlay’s argument against absolutist accounts of moral discourse. Third, I discuss two objections to error theory, and argue that neither gives us strong reasons to reject it. According to the first objection, which is suggested by Terence Cuneo, error theory entails epistemic error theory, which has problematic consequences. After indicating some possible responses on part of the epistemic error theorist, I challenge the entailment claim by defending Hilary Kornblith’s account of epistemic reasons as hypothetical reasons. According to the second objection, error theory entails normative error theory, which cannot be believed. Although he does not defend this objection, Bart Streumer has given an argument for the unbelievability claim. I challenge Streumer’s argument by suggesting that we might have hypothetical reasons to believe normative error theory and that, properly understood, Streumer’s conclusion is not as radical as it may first appear. Fourth, I discuss what practical implications the discovery that error theory is true would have for first-order moral thinking and discourse. I argue that if this practice is overall non-morally valuable to us, we ought to revise engagement in it on the model of role-playing in live action role-playing games if we find out that error theory is true. Some have claimed that Richard Joyce’s fictionalism encounters problems. I argue that by incorporating the suggestion that engagement in revised moral practice is modeled on role-playing, fictionalism can escape these problems and preserve the benefits of first-order moral practice. (shrink)

I argue that in order to account for normative uncertainty, an expressivist theory of normative language and thought must accomplish two things: Firstly, it needs to find room in its framework for a gradable conative attitude, degrees of which can be interpreted as representing normative uncertainty. Secondly, it needs to defend appropriate rationality constraints pertaining to those graded attitudes. The first task – finding an appropriate graded attitude that can represent uncertainty – is not particularly problematic. I tackle the second (...) task by exploring whether we can devise expressivist versions of the standard arguments used to support rationality constraints on degrees of uncertainty, Dutch book arguments and accuracy-dominance arguments. I show that we can do so, but that the resulting arguments don’t support the same rationality constraints as the original versions of the arguments. (shrink)

Investigation on the ethical implications of the principle of identity and of the principle of reason. The logical principle of identity (A=A), along with the principle of non­contradiction and the principle of the third middle costitute the basis of ocidental logic. However, its dominance is not restricted to logic. As the dominance of the principle of reason is not restricted to epistemology and ontology. This principles constitute a whole worldvew with serious ethical implications. We’ll try, at the end of the (...) article, to indicate contemporary alternatives to this principles – alternatives which bring with themselves different ethical implications. (shrink)

This book explores a universal question of human social order: Under what circumstances and to what extent is the individual to be held morally responsible for collective events? This question reaches far beyond the intentions and actions of a particular business enterprise, state or a similar large-scale collective. The philosopher Wolfgang Sohst (Berlin, Germany) investigates the subject with unprecedented thoroughness, covering the whole range of contemporary discussion on this subject. He provides a detailed analysis of the functions of individual members (...) in such a collective, the structural prerequisites for them to be held responsible for acts which they have not directly committed themselves and the transmission of responsibility even to successor generations of the perpetrators collective. -/- Table of contents: -/- Introduction 1 Actors and Moral Action 1.1 On the concepts of actors and action 1.2 The simultaneous emergence of actor and action 1.3 The difference between a unit of event and a unit of action 1.4 The difference between legal and moral responsible action -/- 2 The Continuum Between Individual and Corporate Actor 2.1 The relationship between a single human actor and a corporate actor 2.1.1 The primary responsibility of the individual actor and the ontological status of the collective 2.1.2 Additional arguments for putting collective responsibility onto the individual actor 2.2 The levels within structural consolidation 2.3 A different schematic view: Community, Society, State 2.4 Direct vs. organized sociality 2.5 Conflicts of application in assigning collective responsibility -/- 3 Individual and Collective Actions 3.1 A better form of social reductionism 3.2 Corporate bodies as a bundle of agency relationships 3.3 The horizon of view for collective social phenomena -/- 4 The Corporate Entity as a Moral Subject 4.1 Are corporate actors also morally responsible? 4.2 Corporate bodies as norm subjects -/- 5 Possible criteria for the moral qualification of collective action 5.1 Membership in a group 5.2 Success of an action 5.3 Shared intentionality or purpose, common interests and common consciousness 5.4 Social relationships between actors as a condition of collective action 5.5 Subjective and factual feelings of collective responsibility 5.6 The community of shared values 5.7 Social identity 5.8 Origin and ethnic belonging 5.9 No equality in injustice -/- 6 Norm-based and Purpose-oriented Organization 6.1 No collective responsibility without inner organization 6.2 Collective shame as an indication of collective responsibility 6.3 Individual responsibility for collective norms 6.4 The collective organization as an independent unit of purpose for the collective 6.4.1 The actualistic perspective 6.4.2 Structural persistence 6.4.3 Possible counter-examples of structural persistence 6.5 The other side of collective responsibility 6.6 Interim Result -/- 7 Moral Responsibility of the Individual from an International Perspective -/- 8 Social Norms and Our Responsibility for their Fulfillment 8.1 Norm dimensions 8.2 The overarching importance of norm ranking in assigning collective moral responsibility 8.3 Private and public norms 8.4 Subjective ‘ought’ and personal responsibility 8.5 The obligation to morally acceptable and coherent behavior -/- 9 The Difference between Culpability and Responsibility 10 The Temporal Horizon of Collective Moral Responsibility Index Bibliography. (shrink)

According to moral error theorists, moral claims necessarily represent categorically or robustly normative facts. But since there are no such facts, moral thought and discourse are systematically mistaken. One widely discussed objection to the moral error theory is that it cannot be true because it leads to an epistemic error theory. We argue that this objection is mistaken. Objectors may be right that the epistemic error theory is untenable. We also agree with epistemic realists that our epistemological claims are not (...) systematically in error. However, this is not because there are robustly normative facts, but rather because the truth of our epistemic claims doesn’t turn on whether there are such facts. Epistemic facts, we argue, are not robustly or categorically normative. Moral error theorists should therefore respond to the objection that their view does not commit them to the epistemic error theory. (shrink)

The Golden Rule is (roughly) as follows: treat others as you would have others treat you. Philosophical reactions to it vary; it has both supporters and detractors. In any case, almost nobody who things critically about morality takes the literal version of the Golden Rule seriously, since there are just too many problems with it. To demonstrate this, I will look at a literal version of the Golden Rule espoused by John C. Maxwell, a well-known and influential motivational speaker, and (...) briefly discuss some of the obvious problems that it faces. I will then examine a more sophisticated version of the Golden Rule espoused by philosopher Harry Gensler. While able to overcome some of the problems of the literal Golden Rule, Gensler's version nevertheless shares a common difficulty with it: in both cases, the moral agent is asked to imagine themselves in the place of another. Maxwell things this is easily done, and Gensler asks for vividness and accuracy in this act of imagination. I wish to show that any version of the Golden Rule that takes seriously the need to imagine oneself in the place of another is to ask one to do the impossible, so any versions of the Golden Rule that require this should be rejected. (shrink)

There is a tension between deliberation and desire when both are relevant to explaining the same action. A common way of understanding this situation, as contained in a standard version of the practical syllogism, is problematic. This paper attempts to resolve the tension by explaining what 'motivation by what one wants' comes to when deliberation is involved.

As the intuitions about moral phenomenology shows the metaphysical distinction between mind-dependent and mind-independent properties has set the metaethical distinction between normativity and objectivity in ethics. Traditionally, many arguments were built in order to show that moral realists cannot account, in naturalist vocabulary, for the process of determining moral reference due to the desiderative disposition taken to be necessarily part of the meaning of moral terms. This dissertation assess some anti-realists arguments like is-ought thesis, the argument from queerness, the argument (...) from relativity and the open question argument. In what follows I propose the semantics elaborated by Cornell realism in order to address these arguments, especially the open question argument. However, as Moral Twin Earth test shows us the semantic proposed by Boyd is incomplete. Therefore I also evaluate a second attempt taken by Cornell realists such as Brink and Copp, based on Putnan's notion of referential intentions. (shrink)

This review considers Michael Brady's account of the positive epistemic role of emotions. Brady claims that emotions can facilitate evaluative understanding because they "capture and consume" a person's attention. This review claims that there is a difference between emotions that are intrinsically productive of evaluative understanding and those are productive of evaluative understanding only because of the contribution of other, non-emotional states. Accordingly, Brady has not yet established that emotions fall in the former category, rather than the latter, and thus (...) leaves open that emotions may have a neutral or negative epistemic role on their own. (shrink)

In The moral problem (1994), Michael Smith tries to link three conflicting theories that alone are intuitively plausible, nevertheless, they do not seem to work well together. The first proposes that moral judgments are in fact beliefs about objective matters. The second states the concept of “practicality requirement”. The third is a humean belief-desire psychology, i.e. if a moral judgment is sufficient to explain actions, then it must involve a desire. If that is the case, it cannot be simply a (...) belief. For Smith, any attempt to solve the moral problem must find a way to hold all three doctrines. I will argue that his solution rests on two false assumptions. The first, a rationalist one which supports that what we have reason to do is what we would desire to do if we were fully rational. The second is the internalist thesis about moral motivation according to which a person who believes she is morally required to do something is either necessarily motivated to do it or she is practically irrational. I will base my critics on four objections raised by Copp, Miller, Shafer-Landau, Brink and Sayre-McCord. (shrink)

This article argues that existing approaches to programming ethical AI fail to resolve a serious moral-semantic trilemma, generating interpretations of ethical requirements that are either too semantically strict, too semantically flexible, or overly unpredictable. This paper then illustrates the trilemma utilizing a recently proposed ‘general ethical dilemma analyzer,’ GenEth. Finally, it uses empirical evidence to argue that human beings resolve the semantic trilemma using general cognitive and motivational processes involving ‘mental time-travel,’ whereby we simulate different possible pasts and futures. I (...) demonstrate how mental time-travel psychology leads us to resolve the semantic trilemma through a six-step process of interpersonal negotiation and renegotiation, and then conclude by showing how comparative advantages in processing power would plausibly cause AI to use similar processes to solve the semantic trilemma more reliably than we do, leading AI to make better moral-semantic choices than humans do by our very own lights. (shrink)

How do we make good moral decisions? There is a tendency to answer this question by developing methods and procedures of moral decision making. In this paper I will show some limits and pitfalls of this approach. Good moral decisions need to take into account factors which cannot be codified into procedures. I draw attention to how analyzing the type of context is a necessary preamble for a better handling of procedures.

Many of those working on moral responsibility assume that "once blameworthy, always blameworthy." They believe that blameworthiness is like diamonds: it is forever. We argue that blameworthiness is not forever; rather, it can diminish through time. We begin by showing that the view that blameworthiness is forever is best understood as the claim that personal identity is sufficient for diachronic blameworthiness. We argue that this view should be rejected because it entails that blameworthiness for past action is completely divorced from (...) the distinctive psychological features of the person at the later time. This is because on none of the leading accounts of personal identity does identity require the preservation of any distinctive psychological features, but merely requires some form of continuity. The claim that blameworthiness is forever should therefore be rejected. We then sketch an account of blameworthiness over time, and consider two objections. (shrink)

In this essay I examine the moral message presented in Woody Allen's film, "Crimes and Misdemeanors.".

Celem niniejszego artykułu jest zwrócenie uwagi na pewne, z rzadka jedynie podnoszone aspekty pojęcia dobra. Zadanie takie poprzedzić należy pewnymi wstępnymi założeniami, ponieważ pojęcie to, będąc kluczowym terminem filozofii moralnej od początku jej historii, obrosło wieloma konotacjami i stało się częścią wielu, często wzajemnie sprzecznych, koncepcji moralnych. Należy zatem zaznaczyć, że w opracowaniu poniższym chodzić zatem będzie o pojęcie dobra rozumiane na sposób arystotelesowski, a rozważania koncentrować się będą w głównej części na rozstrzygnięciach normatywnych wysuwanych w obrębie współczesnego anglosaskiego neoarystotelizmu. (...) Zasadniczą tezą mojej pracy jest, że tak ujmowane, pojęcie to charakteryzuje się dwiema cechami, czy też może należałoby raczej powiedzieć, że jego normatywność organizuje się według dwóch wektorów wyznaczających sposób orientacji bardziej szczegółowych normatywów: natury jako źródła idei dobra, oraz pewnej formy emancypacji wynikającej z jej zastosowania. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is twofold. Firstly, I argue for the thesis of the necessity of involvement of a concept of social imaginary1 into the traditional dialectic of freedom and responsibility. Secondly, I trace those forms of social imaginary which are crucial for development of contemporary Central-European ethos, and particularly its Polish version. My general thesis is that to understand contemporary form of the ethos, we need to look for its roots in certain social and world views shared by (...) the societies of the region in the last few decades based in their political and economic environment of the late communist era. The call for freedom, at least from the beginning of the Solidarity movement to the Velvet Revolution and the Round Table, should not only be seen as the call for self-governance, but primarily as rejection of the poverty of conditions of life compared with those of the Western world. For this reason there is no simple symmetry between the demand of freedom (and well-being) and the consciousness of responsibility among the societies of the region. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to refute the instrumental conception of practical reason, and thus defend a rationalist conception of practical reason. I argue that, far from merely playing an instrumental role, reason can be used by an agent to evaluate, that is, to approve or reject, final ends, which might be suggested by desires, and further to determine final ends independently of any desires, whether actual or potential, that the agent might have. My argument relies on an analysis of (...) the concept of intention, and, more specifically, on the distinction between want and intention. I argue that the notion of an intentional action entails that reason can be used to evaluate and determine final ends. (shrink)

This article is a critique of Gal Yehezkel’s attempt to refute subjectivism about normative practical reasons, a school of thought inspired by Hume. Yehezkel believes reason, far from being, as Hume puts it, “the slave of the passions,” has the normative authority to be a critic of basic desires and argues that subjectivism lacks the theoretical resources both to acknowledge this alleged truth and to analyze the distinction between wanting an outcome and intending to pursue it. I contend his refutation (...) fails, largely because it operates with a strikingly attenuated view of the subjectivist theory. (shrink)

Martha Nussbaum argues that “garden-variety anger” is normatively irrational, politically unnecessary, and inevitably destructive (Nussbaum 2015). Anger, on this account, is portrayed as a primitive vestige of bygone days, an impediment to the genuine pursuit of justice and the honoring of obligations. Yet, on Nussbaum’s account, there is one exception: “transitional anger” – anger that quickly transitions into compassionate hope, focusing on future welfare. Martin Luther King, Jr. is evoked as an exemplar here. In response, this paper revisits Aristotle’s Nicomachean (...) Ethics to point out that (even-tempered) anger was listed among the virtues, and to discuss the practical wisdom required to approximate the mean in these cases. A case is made for the approbation of anger (in relation to the right person(s), in the right amount, at the right time, with the right aim in view, and in the right way). The argument hinges on the persistence of institutionalized oppressions, situated ignorance, and the role anger plays in galvanizing social agency among those who suffer social injustice. (shrink)

This paper argues that agents can be directly blameworthy for unwitting omissions. The view developed focuses on the capacities and abilities of agents.