Beginning with a brief presentation of the historical data and conceptual issues that have led to the emergence of the doctrine of the notion of Transitional Justice, I will describe the orientation adopted in two paradigmatic historical contexts, the Nuremberg trial at the end of the Second World War and the post-apartheid reconciliation process in South Africa. Supported by documents from International Human Rights Law and other international legal sources (Rome Statute) I will then offer a provisional definition of what (...) I call a Critical Transitional Justice. The conclusion highlights how the relationship between retrospective and prospective responsibility today is not exclusionary: as central principles of Critical Transitional Justice, they contribute in conferring normative legitimacy to transformative processes of adapting the international system to compliance to general principles of human rights. (shrink)

Noninvasive, prenatal whole genome sequencing may be a technological reality in the near future, making available a vast array of genetic information early in pregnancy at no risk to the fetus or mother. Many worry that the timing, safety, and ease of the test will lead to informational overload and reproductive consumerism. The prevailing response among commentators has been to restrict conditions eligible for testing based on medical severity, which imposes disputed value judgments and devalues those living with eligible conditions. (...) To avoid these difficulties, we propose an unrestricted testing policy, under which prospective parents could obtain information on any variant of known significance after a careful informed consent process that uses an interactive decision aid to deliver a mandatory presentation on the purposes, techniques, and limitations of genomic testing, as well as optional resources for reflection and consultation. This process would encourage thoughtful, informed deliberation by prospective parents before deciding whether or how to use NIPW. (shrink)

Disagreements about the success of any given argument often arise because the suppositions of the critic differ from the suppositions of the author of the argument. In maintaining the plausibility of a metaethical argument for theism against the objections articulated by Stephen J. Sullivan, I will probe our differing suppositions with regard to the relation of theological to naturalistic metaethical theories, the starting point for the metaethical argument for theism, and the relation of the qualities of God's will to our (...) obligation to obey God. (shrink)

Paraconsistent responses to vagueness are often thought to represent a revision of logical theory that is too radical to be defensible. The paracomplete logic of supervaluationism, SpV, is not only taken to be more conservative but is also commonly said to 'preserve classical logic'. This chapter argues that this is wrong on both counts. The paraconsistent logic SbV, or subvaluationism, is no less conservative than SpV nor more so. In the end both logics offer equally compelling theoretical approaches to vagueness. (...) Each approach is also equally objectionable, with neither providing an adequate account of vagueness, but this criticism arises from a feature shared by each approach that is independent of their paracompleteness or paraconsistency per se. For all that has been said, a paraconsistent approach, and the associated recourse to truth-value gluts, remains a contender in accounting for vagueness. (shrink)

Machine learning-driven clinical decision support systems (ML-CDSSs) seem impressively promising for future routine and emergency care. However, reflection on their clinical implementation reveals a wide array of ethical challenges. The preferences, concerns and expectations of professional stakeholders remain largely unexplored. Empirical research, however, may help to clarify the conceptual debate and its aspects in terms of their relevance for clinical practice. This study explores, from an ethical point of view, future healthcare professionals’ attitudes to potential changes of responsibility and (...) decision-making authority when using ML-CDSS. Twenty-seven semistructured interviews were conducted with German medical students and nursing trainees. The data were analysed based on qualitative content analysis according to Kuckartz. Interviewees’ reflections are presented under three themes the interviewees describe as closely related: (self-)attribution of responsibility, decision-making authority and need of (professional) experience. The results illustrate the conceptual interconnectedness of professional responsibility and its structural and epistemic preconditions to be able to fulfil clinicians’ responsibility in a meaningful manner. The study also sheds light on the four relata of responsibility understood as a relational concept. The article closes with concrete suggestions for the ethically sound clinical implementation of ML-CDSS. (shrink)

As the rising costs of lifestyle-related diseases place increasing strain on public healthcare systems, the individual’s role in disease may be proposed as a healthcare rationing criterion. Literature thus far has largely focused on retrospective responsibility in healthcare. The concept of prospective responsibility, in the form of a lifestyle contract, warrants further investigation. The responsibilisation in healthcare debate also needs to take into account innovative developments in mobile health technology, such as wearable biometric devices and mobile apps, (...) which may change how we hold others accountable for their lifestyles. Little is known about public attitudes towards lifestyle contracts and the use of mobile health technology to hold people responsible in the context of healthcare. This paper has two components. Firstly, it details empirical findings from a survey of 81 members of the United Kingdom general public on public attitudes towards individual responsibility and rationing healthcare, prospective and retrospective responsibility, and the acceptability of lifestyle contracts in the context of mobile health technology. Secondly, we draw on the empirical findings and propose a model of prospective intention-based lifestyle contracts, which is both more aligned with public intuitions and less ethically objectionable than more traditional, retrospective models of responsibility in healthcare. (shrink)

To analyze the role of automatic processes in the fulfilment of delayed intentions, we extended a typical prospective memory setting with a context signal to indicate whether the intended action is to be carried out or not. Building on dual-process models of cognition, we hypothesized that automatic and controlled processes are in opposition when the action is to be suppressed, because automatic processes trigger the associated response whereas controlled processes exert inhibition. Experiment 1 demonstrates the occurrence of false (...) class='Hi'>prospective memory responses to cues with the “suppress” signal. Experiment 2 shows that the rate of false prospective memory responses is sensitive to a manipulation that strengthens the role of automatic processes in prospective memory. The findings support the use of false prospective memory responses for the study of automatic processes in the execution of delayed intentions. (shrink)

This article employs the notions of exclusivism and inclusivism to categorise the responses of prospective Islamic religion teachers towards various Islamic religious sects. Despite the prevalent criticism surrounding the perceived oversimplification and a lack of insight provided by the two typologies, we have found them to be valuable tools for elucidating the phenomena under investigation. Quantitative data were collected from 154 respondents using questionnaires containing multiple-choice questions. Data frequency, cross-tabulation and gamma values are statistical techniques employed to analyse and (...) characterise data and ascertain the nature of their associations or dependencies. This study provides evidence indicating that a significant proportion of prospective Islamic religious teachers had a worldview characterised by exclusivity. Their exclusivist stance is seen in their acknowledgment of sects that deviate from their own, such as Wahhabism, Shia, and those engaging in non-scriptural forms of worship. Some individuals agree with the designation of heretical being attributed to those who adhere to distinct religious worship customs. Moreover, these individuals perceive contentious theological assertions, such as those made by Sheikh Panji Gumilang, as warped, misguided and beyond redemption.Contribution: This study implies the need to review and reconstruct higher education curricula to prepare prospective Islamic religion teachers who are moderate, tolerant, inclusive, and uphold human rights. (shrink)

This study viewed students majoring in public relations as prospective public relations practitioners and explored their perceptions about corporate social responsibility (CSR) as their job attraction condition. The results showed that the students perceived CSR to be an important ethical fit condition of a company. One of the significant findings is that CSR can be an effective reputation management strategy for prospective employees, particularly when a company’s business is suffering. In examining the effect of CSR efforts on (...) attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, person–organization (P–O) fit appeared to serve as a mediator between CSR performances and organizational attractiveness. (shrink)

Timothy Mahoney discovers and champions an ecologically benign account of Plato in opposition to my own critical analysis of the reason-centeredness, reason-nature dualism, and nature and body devaluation in the Platonic dialogues, in which multiple linked dualisms of reason and nature associated with systems of oppression provide major organizing principles for Platonic philosophy. I show first that Mahoney's criticisms of my interpretation involve some careless and mistaken readings of my own text. Second, I argue that Mahoney* s account of nature (...) is significantly different from Plato's. Mahoney's interpretation of Plato is an overly generous and idealized one which plays on the multiplicity and elasticity of the concept of nature and the notorious vagueness of the concept of participation to conflate, among other things, Plato's attitude to celestial nature with his attitude to biological nature. Mahoney's interpretation involves setting aside Plato's gender politics, playing down some of Plato's most offensive and revealing passages of earth disparagement, and ignoring the network of social meanings from which Plato's philosophy emerges. Finally, I give some reasons why Mahoney's accounts of participation and nature, even considered as a reworking of Plato, would be highly problematic as the foundation for an ecological philosophy. (shrink)

This article introduces the concept of corporate social responsibility in the seemingly oxymoronic context of Chinese “authoritarian capitalism.” Following an introduction to the emergence of authoritarian capitalism, the article considers the emergence of CSR in China using Matten and Moon’s framework of explaining CSR development in terms both of a business system’s historic institutions and of the impacts of new institutionalism on corporations arising from societal pressures in their global and national environments. We find two forms of CSR in (...) China, reflecting the “multiplexity” of its business system: one in the mainly family-owned small and medium-sized enterprise sector reflecting concern with local reputation, and another in the corporate, mainly state-owned enterprise sector, reflecting global and national societal expectations. We investigate the dynamics of CSR in China through the interplay of the global and national societal pressures and mediating and even leading roles played by the State and the Party. We consider the conceptual integrity and practical prospects for “state-led society-driven” CSR and future research opportunities, including those opened up by the three contributing articles to this special issue. (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultations are sometimes deemed complete at the moment when the consultants make a recommendation. In CECs that involve actual ethical conflict, this view of a consult's endpoint runs the risk of overemphasizing the conflict's resolution at the expense of the consult's process, which can have deleterious effects on the various parties in the conflict. This overly narrow focus on reaching a decision or recommendation in consults that involve profound moral disagreement can result in two types of adverse, lingering (...) sequelae: moral distress or negative moral emotions. The problem, succinctly named, is that such consults have insufficient “closure” for patients, families, and providers. To promote closure, and avoid the ills of moral distress and the moral emotions, I argue that CECs need to prioritize assisted conversation between the different stakeholders in these conflicts, what is often referred to as “bioethics mediation.”. (shrink)

In this commentary on Brown and colleagues’ paper, entitled ‘Against Moral Responsibilisation of Health: Prudential Responsibility and Health Promotion’, I highlight the tension between individual responsibility—even when this is prudential and not moral—and systemic factors that impact people's health. Brown and colleagues and I agree that individuals are frequently held inappropriately responsible for health-related behaviours or diseases that have become associated with the so-called ‘lifestyle’ diseases. We further agree that health is an instrumental value to people, allowing them (...) to achieve their goals or plans. However, while Brown and colleagues argue that health promotion is justified in providing education campaigns that highlight the pragmatic reasons people have for improving their health-related behaviours, I argue that this amounts to the same inaction on systemic issues as holding individuals morally responsible. Further, without action on systemic issues such as the social determinants of health, some people lack the kinds of future-oriented pragmatic reasons that Brown and colleagues place at the centre of their argument. Rather, for some groups, the pragmatic thing is to enjoy current pleasures even if unhealthy, rather than to forego them for the sake of health in a mythical future. (shrink)

This paper is designed to help people rationally engage moral issues regarding the treatment of animals, specifically uses of animals in medical and psychological experimentation, basic research, drug development, education and training, consumer product testing and other areas.

As Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) meet in an International Negotiating Body (INB) to negotiate a legally binding agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response for submission to the 77th World Health Assembly in May 2024, this column reflects on creative but pragmatic and complementary means that could be employed in the short timeframe allotted for this important global health law negotiation.

정치철학자 아이리스 영(Iris Young)은 사회구조적 부정의에 대해 행위자들이 책임을 갖고 개입하기 위해서는 그저 개인 행위자의 관점에서만 책임을 묻는 게 아니라 구조적 관점에서 책임을 구상하는 모델이 요구된다고 주장한다. 영은 이러한 책임 모델을 “사회적 연결 모델(social connection model)”이라고 명명하고 있다. 그에 따르면, 구조적인 문제에 대해 제기되는 책임의 형태인 ‘정치적 책임’은 (영이 “법적 책임(liability) 모델”이라고 명명하는) 기존의 개인적-원자론적인 책임과 크게 5가지 측면(책임의 고찰 방법, 대상, 방향, 주체, 실현방식)에서 대비된다.BR 본고에서 나는 사회적 연결 모델에서 가장 핵심적인 지점으로 간주되는 미래지향적 책임과 과거지향적 책임 사이의 구분에 (...) 대해 논의하려 한다. 영에 따르면, 기존의 도덕적 책임은 과거 행위에 대한 비난 혹은 처벌에 초점을 맞춰왔으나, 부정의한 사회구조적 과정에 대해 이러한 비난중심적 접근은 유의미하지 않다. 따라서 정치적 책임은 과거의 개별 행위를 비난하거나 처벌하는 대신, 이 부정의한 상태를 개선하는 미래지향적 방향에 중점을 둔다.BR 영의 이 구분은 사회적 연결 모델에 대한 논의에서 가장 핵심적인 논쟁지점이 되어 왔는데, 대표적으로 『정의를 위한 책임』 서문에서 마사 누스바움(Martha Nussbaum)은 책임의 두 방향성에 대한 구분이 유지될 수 없다는 반론을 제기한다. 두 책임성은 서로 얽혀 있을 수밖에 없으며, 이를 개념적으로 엄밀하게 구분하는 것은 가능하지 않다는 것이다. 더욱이 비난성이라는 요소를 책임에서 제거할 때, 이와 같은 의미에서의 책임은 매우 무력해진다는 반론이 제시된다. 우리는 누스바움의 비판 및 유사한 비판적 논의를 추가로 살펴본 뒤, 사회적 연결 모델을 방어하는 입장에서 이 비판들에 답변을 모색할 것이다. 이 답변은 구조적 과정 속에서 책임이 발생하는 근거와 의미를 재확인하고, 이를 통해 행위자들에게 정치적 책임이 어떻게 주어지는가를 해명하는 방식으로 이루어진다. (shrink)

This essay examines novel threats to peace – social and political threats as well as military and technological. It worries that familiar conceptions of state sovereignty cannot sustain a legal order capable of meeting those threats, not even if we understand sovereignty as responsibility to protect human rights. The essay tentatively proposes that recent efforts to reformulate state sovereignty as responsibility to humanity – ‘R2H’ for short – offer a better hope. Under this reformulation, states must take into (...) account the interests of those outside their sovereign territory as well as those of the of their own people – in particular, the shared interest in subduing dire threats to world peace. Responsibility to humanity raises practical as well as philosophical questions. Some may fear that R2H would become a Trojan horse for powerful interests wishing to impose their will on the less powerful. The essay argues that these fears misunderstand what R2H requires. Alternatively, R2H may sound preposterously utopian, in an era of waning trust in internationalism and an upsurge of reactionary nationalism. In response, I argue that reactionary nationalism is itself a dire mistake – a symptom of our current ills, not a cure. (shrink)

Responsible research and innovation features the dialog of science “with society,” and research performed “for society,” i.e., for the benefit of the people. I focus on this latter, outcome-oriented notion of RRI and discuss two kinds of problems. The first one concerns options to anticipate the future course of science and technology. Such foresight knowledge seems necessary for subjecting research to demands of social and moral responsibility. However, predicting science and technology is widely considered impossible. The second problem concerns (...) moral evaluation. The benefit or harm produced by certain research and innovation achievements is often hard to estimate. Against this background of uncertainty in factual and moral assessment, I explore opportunities left for RRI. First, RRI should contribute to maintaining a wide range of approaches. Second, judgments about RRI should draw on zones of convergence among the variety of research approaches pursued. Third, decisions about implementing a technology should be revisable. Fourth, the more specific inclusion of demands from society should be reserved to technology development. Fifth, in many respects, the social compatibility of a new technology is due rather to the social context than the inherent features of the product. Favorable circumstances are transparency, representation of all relevant parties, and procedural fairness. As a result, some of the benefits and detriments of research and innovation can be identified without detailed knowledge of future findings. (shrink)

Attributions of what we shall call normative responsibilities play a central role in everyday moral thinking. It is commonly thought, for example, that parents are responsible for the wellbeing of their children, and that this has important normative consequences. Depending on context, it might mean that parents are morally required to bring their children to the doctor, feed them well, attend to their emotional needs, or to see to it that someone else does. Similarly, it is sometimes argued that countries (...) that emit most greenhouse gases are responsible for preventing catastrophic climate change. This responsibility might imply that these countries are morally required to take necessary steps individually and jointly to come to an agreement on and implement a workable plan, and to avoid steps that worsen the situation. More trivially, the grading of your student’s essays might be your responsibility, as might making sure there is wine at tomorrow’s picnic, and you might thus be required to see to it that essays are competently graded and suitable wine brought to the picnic. -/- Though attributions of normative responsibilities are legion, such responsibilities have received surprisingly little philosophical attention compared to its normative relatives, obligations and reasons, and compared to retrospective responsibility. This chapter hopes to improve on this situation by taking on two main tasks. The first, attempted in section 1, is to spell out the general structure of normative responsibility, in particular the relation between normative responsibilities and corresponding obligations and demands. We suggest that normative responsibilities are constituted by normative requirements that the responsible agents care appropriately about how well things go in certain regards, and that obligations generally can be seen as straightforward upshots of requirements to care. -/- The second task, taken on in section 2, is to provide an overview of prominent sources of normative responsibility and its distribution among agents. Why would the children’s wellbeing be the parents’ responsibility? Why not the neighbor’s, or the state’s, or everyone’s? Here we discuss a range of possible sources, including agents’ abilities, costs involved in taking on the responsibility in question, retrospective responsibility for the situation, promises or contracts, and certain social relationships. (shrink)

Some interesting exceptions notwithstanding, the traditional logic of economic efficiency has long favored hierarchical forms of organization and disfavored democracy in business. What does the balance of arguments look like, however, when values besides efficient revenue production are brought into the picture? The question is not hypothetical: In recent years, an ever increasing number of corporations have developed and adopted socially responsible behaviors, thereby hybridizing aspects of corporate businesses and social organizations. We argue that the joint pursuit of financial and (...) social objectives warrants significant rethinking of organizational democracy’s merits compared both to hierarchy and to non-democratic alternatives to hierarchy. In making this argument, we draw on an extensive literature review to document the relative lack of substantive discussion of organizational democracy since 1960. And we draw lessons from political theory, suggesting that the success of political democracy in integrating diverse values offers some grounds for asserting parallel virtues in the business case. (shrink)

Panentheism is best understood as a philosophical research program. Identifying the core of the research program offers a strong response to the demarcation objection. It also helps focus both objections to and defenses of panentheism — and to show why common objections are not actually criticisms of the position we are defending. The paper also addresses two common criticisms: the alleged inadequacy of panentheism’s double “in” specification of the relationship between God and world, and the “double God” objection. Once the (...) research program framework is in place, topics like these become opportunities for panentheists to engage in the kind of careful constructive work in theology and philosophy — historical, analytic, and systematic — that is required for making long-term, positive contributions to our field. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

This edited volume evaluates how sport organizations in the public, private, and non-profit sectors define responsible management and sustainability and what these mean in their daily operations. Using country-specific cases, the chapters provide an empirical investigation of sport organizations in each sector, analyzing managerial decisions and policies through a sustainability lens. All chapters are structured in the same way, providing a truly comparative approach. Offering insights for scholars interested in responsibility and sustainability in different context, this volume will be (...) important to undergraduate and postgraduate sport management, event management, sport science, and sport study programs around the globe. (shrink)

Benefits and costs on prospective memory performance, of enactment at encoding and a semantic association between a cue-action word pair, were investigated in two experiments. Findings revealed superior performance for both younger and older adults following enactment, in contrast to verbal encoding, and when cue-action semantic relatedness was high. Although younger adults outperformed older adults, age did not moderate benefits of cue-action relatedness or enactment. Findings from a second experiment revealed that the inclusion of an instruction to perform a (...) prospective memory task led to increments in response latency to items from the ongoing activity in which that task was embedded, relative to latencies when the ongoing task only was performed. However, this task interference ‘cost’ did not differ as a function of either cue-action relatedness or enactment. We argue that the high number of cue-action pairs employed here influenced meta-cognitive consciousness, hence determining attention allocation, in all experimental conditions. (shrink)

Many philosophers endorse the idea that there can be no moral responsibility without a moral community and thus hold that such responsibility is essentially interpersonal. In this paper, various interpretations of this idea are distinguished, and it is argued that no interpretation of it captures a significant truth. The popular view that moral responsibility consists in answerability is discussed and dismissed. The even more popular view that such responsibility consists in susceptibility to the reactive attitudes is (...) also discussed, and it is argued that this view at best supports only an etiolated interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal. (shrink)

It is often assumed that, except perhaps in a few rare cases, people with addiction can be aptly held responsible for having acquired the condition. In this chapter, I consider the argument that supports this view and draw attention to a number of challenges that can be raised against it. Assuming that early decisions to use drugs were made in possession of normal-range psychological capacities, I consider the key question of whether drug users who later became addicted should have known (...) that addiction was a likely outcome of their decisions to use drugs in a way that makes them blameworthy for their lack of foresight. I focus on three different points of contention surrounding this claim: how likely the outcome to be predicted was, how tolerable risk should be weighed against the expected value of decisions to use, and how reliable the relevant predictive abilities of the average person are. Once we consider in some detail what would have to be true in order for someone to be aptly held responsible for becoming addicted, the prospects for making a convincing case to that effect look, I argue, somewhat more uncertain than they might at first appear. (shrink)

Scientific realists endeavour to secure inferences from empirical success to approximate truth by arguing that despite the demise of empirically successful theories the parts of those theories responsible for their success do in fact survive theory change. If, as some anti-realists have recently suggested, those parts of theories that are responsible for their success are only identifiable in retrospect, namely as those that have survived, then the realist approach is trivialised for now success and survival are guaranteed to coincide. The (...) aim of this paper is to counter this argument by identifying successful theory parts independently from their survival. (shrink)

While the postmodern critique of universals provides important insights, it also leaves us in an unacceptable position---lacking solid justification for moral judgments and political action, and unable to generalize about human experience. I argue that the best response to relativism lies in a new humanism. Any new humanism must be "post-humanist"---taking into account valid critiques of past humanisms, incorporating multicultural voices, and building upon an understanding of the common human condition that does not erase or ignore difference. My project is (...) to present a re-conceptualized notion of the "human condition" that meets these conditions, to serve as a basis for a new humanism. ;As a starting point, I take up the framework found in Jean-Paul Sartre's later Marxist-Existentialist works. These are helpful in two respects. First, as he attempts to reconcile Marxism and Existentialism, Sartre re-examines central categories of human experience and ultimately arrives at an understanding of the human that transcends both essentialism and anti-essentialism. Second, I argue that the methods Sartre develops anticipate crucial postmodern insights without losing moral and political ground, and that a reworking of these methods enables us to theorize beyond postmodernism today. My project also draws upon Feminism, Critical Race Theory, Postcolonialism, African Philosophy, and the Frankfurt School. ;The central elements of my articulation of the human condition include: a rethinking of the relationship of the individual and the social; an account of the social constitution of the individual; a new approach to understanding freedom and necessity in human experience; and a reconsideration of social identities such as race, class, and gender. I ask, given this understanding of the human condition, what problems remain inherent to human relationships, and what are the possibilities? Are we doomed to alienating and objectifying interactions with others, or are authentic love and cooperation also possible? Finally, I explore the ways in which we might achieve equality and reciprocity in a democracy necessarily built upon differences in identity and social power. (shrink)

Global health and environmental wellbeing are mutually reinforcing and interdependent. This mutuality invokes two major analytical orientations: it emphasizes a direct nexus between ecological strategies and global health outcomes. These in turn revitalize the essential quest for comprehensive policies and responsible strategies for enhancing both ecology and health within the discourse of sustainability. With orientation towards political conception of corporate responsibility, I problematize the root questions of the democratic embeddedness of the firm under conditions of weakened institutional structures. I (...) highlight the inherent power relations in global health and ecological governance through literature mapping. I address the question: Why and how might ecological strategies be embedded in corporate day-to-day actions to produce optimal outcomes that have positive effects on global health and human dignity? Besides resource and ethical/political constraints, there are several micro-political, geopolitical, industrial, institutional and structural impediments to ecological and health sustainability. This grim diagnosis is clearly a description of a ‘disturbingly fascinating’ pathology of global capitalism whose industrial effects culminate in the accumulation of more profits for a few at the expense of the ecological sustainability of the majority. That notwithstanding, there are several grounds for optimism with a move from anthropocentrism to humanistic eco-centrism via deliberative democratic procedures. Here, the centrality of human dignity is emphasized. This study provides an interdisciplinary theoretical model that seeks to reorient strategies towards restoration, protection, mitigation, adaptation, harm avoidance and innovative sustainability of the whole economic gamut and biodiversity that supports global health. Thus, I rearticulate ecological sustainability in terms of its most fundamental means and end: sustainable global health and the tutelage of human dignity. (shrink)

This article explores ethical theories as variations on two biblical stories of the origins of morality: morality as the necessity to make choices and assume responsibility and morality as conformity to a rule set by a supreme power. It looks at Knud Løgstrup's and Emanuel Levinas's theories as the most prominent examples of the first approach — and thus best fit to grasp the realities of moral life under contemporary conditions of existential uncertainty and the only ones which perceive (...) in the plurality of choices the natural home of the moral self, rather than a threat to morality. The meaning of Løgstrup's `unspoken demand' and Levinas's `unconditional responsibility'; responsibility to the weaker versus obligations to the stronger; moral choice as the aspect of human condition versus justice as the outcome of social action are also explored. (shrink)

Timbre is that property of a sound that distinguishes it other than pitch and loudness, for instance the distinctive sound quality of a violin or flute. While the term is obscure, the concept has played an important, implicit role in recent philosophy of sound. Philosophers have debated whether to identify sounds with properties of waves, events, or objects. Many of the intuitive considerations in this debate apply most clearly to timbre qualities. Two prominent forms of timbre physicalism have emerged: one (...) identifying timbre with the spectral composition of proximal waves; the second identifying timbre with the mechanical vibrations at a sound source. I demonstrate that the first possibility is conceptually unsatisfying, while the second fails to meet the standards of rigor established by the color physicalism literature. One response to these worries might be to adopt a more modest, non-reductive realism about timbre, such as the ecological view of J. J. Gibson. (shrink)

Skepticism about moral responsibility, or what is more commonly referred to as moral responsibility skepticism, refers to a family of views that all take seriously the possibility that human beings are never morally responsible for their actions in a particular but pervasive sense. This sense is typically set apart by the notion of basic desert and is defined in terms of the control in action needed for an agent to be truly deserving of blame and praise. Some moral (...) responsibility skeptics wholly reject this notion of moral responsibility because they believe it to be incoherent or impossible. Others maintain that, though possible, our best philosophical and scientific theories about the world provide strong and compelling reasons for adopting skepticism about moral responsibility. What all varieties of moral responsibility skepticism share, however, is the belief that the justification needed to ground basic desert moral responsibility and the practices associated with it—such as backward-looking praise and blame, punishment and reward (including retributive punishment), and the reactive attitudes of resentment and indignation—is not met. Versions of moral responsibility skepticism have historically been defended by Spinoza, Voltaire, Diderot, d’Holbach, Priestley, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Clarence Darrow, B.F. Skinner, and Paul Edwards, and more recently by Galen Strawson, Derk Pereboom, Bruce Waller, Neil Levy, Tamler Sommers, and Gregg D. Caruso. -/- Critics of these views tend to focus both on the arguments for skepticism about moral responsibility and on the implications of such views. They worry that adopting such a view would have dire consequences for our interpersonal relationships, society, morality, meaning, and the law. They fear, for instance, that relinquishing belief in moral responsibility would undermine morality, leave us unable to adequately deal with criminal behavior, increase anti-social conduct, and destroy meaning in life. Optimistic skeptics, however, respond by arguing that life without free will and basic desert moral responsibility would not be as destructive as many people believe. These optimistic skeptics argue that prospects of finding meaning in life or of sustaining good interpersonal relationships, for instance, would not be threatened. They further maintain that morality and moral judgments would remain intact. And although retributivism and severe punishment, such as the death penalty, would be ruled out, they argue that the imposition of sanctions could serve purposes other than the punishment of the guilty—e.g., it can also be justified by its role in incapacitating, rehabilitating, and deterring offenders. (shrink)

This study uses an integrated model of resource conservation theory and social learning theory to explore the antecedents of hotel interns’ perceptions of occupational stigma and to explore the mechanisms inherent to retention willingness. This study first manipulated relevant subjects’ experimental materials through a contextual experiment and used a one-way ANOVA to test the effects of competence stereotypes and occupational stereotypes on hotel interns’ stigma perceptions, respectively, and then used partial least squares structural equation modeling as a statistical tool and (...) the SmartPLS 3.0 program to validate the model of hotel interns’ occupational stigma perceptions-intention. The effects of both competence stereotypes and occupational stereotypes on hotel interns’ perceptions of occupational stigma were significant. The results of the partial least squares structural equation model showed that hotel interns’ perceptions of occupational stigma significantly contributed to emotional exhaustion and that emotional exhaustion significantly influenced hotel interns’ retention willingness, hotel interns’ perceptions of occupational stigma had a significant effect on their retention willingness, while the role of emotional exhaustion as a mediating variable and occupational commitment as a moderator. The inner psychological and behavioral linkage mechanisms of hotel interns’ occupational stigma perceptions and their retention willingness under COVID-19 were explored, and the resource dynamics operating mechanism and professional commitment were also confirmed. (shrink)

This chapter addresses a general question: What is responsible risking? It explores the notion of "responsible risking" as a thick moral concept, and it argues that the notion can be given moral content that could be action-guiding and add an important tool to our moral toolbox. To impose risks responsibly, on this view, is to take on responsibility in a good way. A core part of responsible risking, this chapter argues, is some version of a Forethought Condition. Such a (...) condition requires us to not make decisions or plans such that we could not deliver on our responsibility obligations. This chapter argues that three moral obligations can be derived from descriptive notions of responsibility. They are (1) the control condition, (2) the responsibility to fix condition, and (3) the responsibility to explain condition. The idea is that in order to impose risks responsibly we ought not act in ways that undermine our ability to remain in control over the risks, undermine our ability to sort out negative outcomes by reparations or compensation, or undermine our prospects of providing an explanation for our actions that also makes sense in hindsight and to those affected. This idea is then tried out on the case of germline gene editing. It is argued that such a moral notion of responsibility is also action-guiding when we do not know for certain what is the morally right or obligatory action all-things-considered due to epistemic gaps. (shrink)