Pre-commitment directives or Ulysses contracts are often defended as instruments that may strengthen the autonomous self-control of episodically disordered psychiatric patients. Autonomy is understood in this context in terms of sovereignty ("governing" or "managing" oneself). After critically analyzing this idea of autonomy in the context of various forms of self-commitment and pre-commitment, we argue that what is at stake in using Ulysses contracts in psychiatry is not autonomy as sovereignty, but autonomy as authenticity. Pre-commitment directives do not function to protect (...) autonomous self-control. They serve in upholding the guidance that is provided by one's deepest identity conferring concerns. We elucidate this concept of autonomy as authenticity, by showing how Ulysses contracts protect the possibility of being "a self.". (shrink)

Though the art of compromise, i.e. of settling differences by mutual concessions, is part of communal living on any level, we often think that there is something wrong in compromise, especially in cases where moral convictions are involved. A first reason for distrusting compromises on moral matters refers to the idea of integrity, understood in the basic sense of 'standing for something', especially standing for the values and causes that to some extent confer identity. The second reason points out the (...) objective nature of moral values, which seems to make them immune from negotiation and barter. If one sincerely holds some moral conviction to be true, than compromising on that belief must be a sign of serious confusion.In order to reach a better understanding of these two reasons, I analyse what is involved in personal integrity and how this relates to moral integrity. I argue that the search for moral integrity naturally brings us to the question of how one could accept moral compromises and still uphold the idea that moral values and principles have an objective authority over us. To address this question I will present a version of moral pluralism which tries to capture the enormous complexity of what should matter to us as moral persons, and which explains why value-rankings are often deeply indeterminate. The general position I defend in this paper is that compromises involving moral values and norms may be morally required and, therefore, be laudable. To sustain this position I will arrive at a view of ethical objectivity that allows the possibility to negotiate about the truth of moral beliefs. (shrink)

This articles concerns the compatibility of orthonomy (making the right choices) and autonomy (making one’s own choices). On the one hand we have the experience that we do not just want to govern ourselves, but that we want to do so rightly. the other hand, it seems that the very fact that our choices are responsive to reasons is insufficient to explain why making these choices adds up to leading a life of one’s own. Iit is argued that we can (...) develop a viable view on the co-realisation of autonomy and orthonomy by using the concept of a concern which is closely linked to the concept op caring. (shrink)

I oppose the way John Skorupski characterizes morality in terms of the blameworthy and the role he consequently assigns to punitive feelings in directing one's will and shaping one's character. Skorupski does not hold that the punishment involved in blame- and guilt-feelings grounds the normativity of moral obligation. He defends a specific view of moral psychology and moral practice in which the blame-feeling disposes to the withdrawal of recognition, which involves some sort of casting the transgressor out of the community (...) resulting in the suffering of repentance which is necessary to make atonement possible. I argue that this picture threatens to socialize morality. I defend the Kantian idea that the will is not aligned to obligation through castigation, but through our consciousness of our vocation as takers and givers of reasons. This highlights very different feelings as essential to the typically moral stance, feelings that are not necessarily punitive, like feelings of respect and reverence. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to review the recent popularity of casuistry as a model of moral inquiry. I argue that proponents of casuistry do not endorse the particularist epistemology that seems to be implied by their position, and that this is why casuistry does not seem to present something really new in comparison to 'top-down' generalist approaches. I contend that casuistry should develop itself as a (moderately) particularist position and that the challenge for the defender of casuistry is (...) to come up with ideas that strengthen the ('intuitionist') model of rationality that underlies most forms of particularism. (shrink)