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

Das Wort "Kulturrelativismus" wird in Bezug auf mehrere, methodologisch recht unterschieliech Überzeugungen angewandt, von denen ich drei hervorhebe: 1. den deskriptiven, 2. den methodolgischen, 3. den axiologischen Relativismus. Die Aufgabe des Referates beschränkt sich auf Erörterungen, 1. worin die Meinungsdifferenzen in Bezug auf den deskriptiven Relativismus beruhen, 2. ob der deskriptive und methodologische Relativismus den axiologischen zur Folge hat, 3. ob es gegenwärtig Ansätze von einem überkulturell anerkannten Maß des Guten gibt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Identyfikacja z grupą etniczną lub narodową jest o tyle skomplikowanym zagadnieniem, że obejmuje szereg zjawisk decydujących o różnorodności kultur. Szczególnie istotny jest mechanizm oddzielający „swoich” od „obcych”, a więc konstytuujący wszelkie sfery aktywności, które z jednej strony są oczywistością kulturową, a z drugiej mogą być przyczyną wartościowania innych przez pryzmat tego, co jest możliwe do zaakceptowania. Stawiam tezę, że o tożsamości kulturowej decyduje ethnos, a dokładniej jego cztery elementy strukturalne : język, obyczaje, historia oraz religia. Stanowią one odrębne systemy, których (...) porządek wynika z korelacji zachodzących na poziomie interpretacyjnym. Szczególnie ważna w tej strukturze jest religia, która zabarwia emocjonalnie pozostałe elementy wierzeniami w istnienie rzeczywistości pozaempirycznej, a sądy i przekonania obowiązujące w grupie etnicznej lub narodowej czyni podstawowymi dla ukonkretnienia tożsamości kulturowej. (shrink)

Although taste and smell seem hard to imagine, some people nevertheless report vivid imagery in these sensory modalities. We investigate whether experts are better able to imagine smells and tastes because they have learned the ability, or whether they are better imaginers in the first place, and so become experts. To test this, we first compared a group of wine experts to yoked novices using a battery of questionnaires. We show for the first time that experts report greater vividness of (...) wine imagery, with no difference in vividness across sensory modalities. In contrast, novices had more vivid color imagery than taste or odor imagery for wines. Experts and novices did not differ on other vividness of imagery measures, suggesting a domain‐specific effect of expertise. Critically, in a second study, we followed a group of students commencing a wine course and a group of matched control participants. Students and controls did not differ before the course, but after the wine course students reported more vivid wine imagery. We provide evidence that expertise improves imagery, exemplifying the extent of plasticity of cognition underlying the chemical senses. (shrink)

Evolutionary accounts of the origins of human morality may lead us to doubt the truth of our moral judgments. Sidgwick tried to vindicate ethics from this kind of external attack. However, he ended The Methods in despair over another problem—an apparent conflict between rational egoism and universal benevolence, which he called the “dualism of practical reason.” Drawing on Sidgwick, we show that one way of defending objectivity in ethics against Sharon Street’s recent evolutionary critique also puts us in a position (...) to support a bold claim: the dualism of practical reason can be resolved in favor of impartiality. (shrink)

Sidgwick's defence of esoteric morality has been heavily criticized, for example in Bernard Williams's condemnation of it as 'Government House utilitarianism.' It is also at odds with the idea of morality defended by Kant, Rawls, Bernard Gert, Brad Hooker, and T.M. Scanlon. Yet it does seem to be an implication of consequentialism that it is sometimes right to do in secret what it would not be right to do openly, or to advocate publicly. We defend Sidgwick on this issue, and (...) show that accepting the possibility of esoteric morality makes it possible to explain why we should accept consequentialism, even while we may feel disapproval towards some of its implications. (shrink)

Razprava se ukvarja z analizo prvega pisma iz Hieronimove korespondence. Avtor je imel do njega očitno ambivalenten odnos, kar kliče k iskanju večplastne sporočilnosti spisa. Po poskusu datacije, retorični in slogovni analizi ter predstavitvi osnovne zgodbe, ki je vključena vanj, se pokaže, da je pismo kljub navidezni hagiografski šablonskosti vsebinsko bogato. Analiza se zato nadaljuje na dveh področjih. Kraj dogajanja, poznoantično mesto, ne more preživeti brez nove vodilne osebnosti, škofa. Je s pismom Hieronim želel tlakovati pot na vercelski škofovski sedež (...) prijatelju Evagriju iz Antiohije? Ob analizi nejasnih spolnih identitet obeh glavnih oseb iz zgodbe, nemoškega mladeniča in moško neuklonljive ženske, se pokaže, da je Hieronim v novem času iskal nov krščanski ideal, meništvo, ki ga je preko te zgodbe umestil v kontinuiteto z mučeništvom. (shrink)