Originally published in 1919, this book argues that the origins of the First World War were fundamentally rooted in 'the defective moral standards and moral education of the civilised world'. Walston argues for the importance of truth in public life, domestic politics and in the press, and demonstrates the importance of truth in giving rise to charity and justice in social relationships. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in modern morality in the wake (...) of war. (shrink)

Today, every Muslim is expected to have a personality that can respond to the demands of religion in life. Because this ability can bring global goodness to humans. However, Muslims today are faced with a variety of causes that cause Muslim personalities to deviate and cases of behavior and this character deviation that needs to be addressed. The criminality that exists in society is certainly contrary to religious values to is commonplace and requires special attention in handling it. This article (...) aims to convey Fakhruddīn al-Rāzī’s idea of reconstructing morals based on faith. Using the descriptive method of analysis, researchers analyzed data in the form of the concept of ‘aqīdah and morals from the perspective of Fakhruddīn al-Rāzī. Apart from that, it also discussed the concept of morals and its division, the process, and the role of morals in humans. So ‘aqīdah becomes the main basis of Muslims in determining their outlook on life in every thought, word, action, and produce commendable morals because these praiseworthy morals are proof of the primacy of human faith. ‘Aqīdah and morals have a close relationship which results in human deeds and actions. All of them will be commendable if there is continuity between nafs, ‘aql, spirit, and qalb in interpreting the human itself and the nature of the world. So, this is where the role of ‘aqīdah as a Muslim worldview in equalizing the goals of nafs, ‘aql, spirit, and qalb to achieve ḥaqīqī happiness, namely the return of humans to their Creator. (shrink)

Moral Repair examines the ethics and moral psychology of responses to wrongdoing. Explaining the emotional bonds and normative expectations that keep human beings responsive to moral standards and responsible to each other, Margaret Urban Walker uses realistic examples of both personal betrayal and political violence to analyze how moral bonds are damaged by serious wrongs and what must be done to repair the damage. Focusing on victims of wrong, their right to validation, and their sense of (...) justice, Walker presents a unified and detailed philosophical account of hope, trust, resentment, forgiveness, and making amends - the emotions and practices that sustain moral relations. Moral Repair joins a multidisciplinary literature concerned with transitional and restorative justice, reparations, and restoring individual dignity and mutual trust in the wake of serious wrongs. (shrink)

The most recent restatements of stakeholder theory formulate that approach in terms of the distribution of value: “A stakeholder approach to business is about creating as much value as possible for stakeholders, without resorting to tradeoffs” (Freeman et al. 2010: 28). This formulation marks a shift from earlier work, which included a procedural dimension—a requirement that stakeholders participate in organization decision making. The present paper pushes back against this shift: it argues that orienting the stakeholder approach around the participation requirement (...) provides for a different moral logic, one not available to (now) conventional stakeholder theorizing (without that requirement), and one that may be more compelling to many. This argument requires critical re-examination of the moral arguments offered in the most recent restatements of the stakeholder approach. (shrink)

The so-called Ricardian trade model of contemporary economic textbooks is not a rational reconstruction of Ricardo's famous numerical example in chapter seven of the Principles. It differs from the latter in terms of the definition of the four numbers, relevant cost comparison, rule for specialisation, assumptions and theoretical implications. Thus, the widespread critique regarding the unrealistic assumptions of the textbook trade model does not apply to Ricardo's original proof of comparative advantage.

ABSTRACT This article critically examines Axel Honneth’s account of social freedom by paying particular attention to the conceptual apparatus of normative reconstruction that is supposed to lend social freedom its explanatory force. More specifically, the article demonstrates, through an immanent critique, that Honneth is unable to follow through with his ambitious view of the capitalist market as an institutional expression of social freedom. Furthermore, Honneth’s inability to derive robust relations of cooperative solidarity from the actuality of contemporary liberal democratic (...) ethical life leads him to posit socialism as a regulative idea. Honneth’s idea of socialism risks succumbing to the very pitfalls that he continues to associate with neo-Kantian proceduralism. Such an aporia poses a particular challenge for Honneth’s attempt at advancing a persuasive neo-Hegelian alternative to neo-Kantian proceduralism. As a means of addressing this aporia, I suggest a possible strategy that Honneth could adopt to retrieve his historically informed and radically reformist conception of justice without unwittingly rendering socialism a purely regulative idea. Such a strategy involves re-Hegelianizing Honneth’s socialism and the idea of social freedom that it seeks to actualize. (shrink)

This book investigates the ubuntu theory-based conception of virtue and moral character formation in the northern, western, and eastern regions of Africa, suggesting a critical reconstruction of ubuntu by conceptualising the four different forms of practices in moral character formation. Arguing for the critical reconstruction of ubuntu virtue theory as more nuanced than simply the standard ubuntu normative virtue theories (which give priority to the community as the sole locus for understanding virtues and character formation in (...) Africa), the book builds a comprehensive model of virtue and moral character formation that draws insights from the reconstructed notion of ubuntu and other theories within and beyond the African thought. Chapters feature experience from across Africa including Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa, and centre on topics such as traditional cultural views and practices, political systems in various nations, neoliberalist thought, and primary, secondary and tertiary education systems in Africa and further afield. This is a valuable resource for scholars, academics, and postgraduate students, working in the fields of moral and values education, philosophy of education, and the theory of education more broadly. Those also interested in educational psychology may also find the volume of interest. (shrink)

In this new contribution to moral theory, Todd Lekan argues for a pragmatist conception of morality as an evolving, educational, and fallible practice of everyday life. Drawing on the work of John Dewey, Lekan asserts that moral norms are neither timeless truths nor subjective whims, but habits transmitted through practices. Like the habits that make up medicine or engineering, moral habits are subject to rational evaluation and change according to new challenges and circumstances.

Kenneth R. Westphal presents an original interpretation of Hume's and Kant's moral philosophies, the differences between which are prominent in current philosophical accounts. Westphal argues that focussing on these differences, however, occludes a decisive, shared achievement: a distinctive constructivist account of the basic principles of justice which justifies their strict objectivity without invoking moral realism nor moral anti- or irrealism. Westphal explores how Hume developed a kind of constructivism for basic property rights and for government, and how (...) Kant greatly refined Hume's construction of justice within his 'metaphysical principles of justice', whilst preserving the core model of Hume's innovative account. Westphal contends that Hume's and Kant's constructivism avoids the conventionalist and relativist tendencies latent if not explicit in contemporary forms of moral constructivism. (shrink)

At the center of medical morality is the healing relationship. It is defined by three phenomena: the fact of illness, the act of profession, and the act of medicine. The first puts the patient in a vulnerable and dependent position; it results in an unequal relationship. The second implies a promise to help. The third involves those actions that will lead to a medically competent healing decision. But it must also be good for the patient in the fullest possible sense. (...) The physician cannot fully heal without giving the patient an understanding of alternatives such that he or she can freely arrive—together with the physician—at a decision in keeping with his or her personal morality and values. In today's pluralistic society, universal agreement on moral issues between physicians and patients is no longer possible. Nevertheless, a reconstruction of professional ethics based on a new appreciation of what makes for a true healing relationship between patient and physician is both possible and necessary. (shrink)

At the center of medical morality is the healing relationship. It is defined by three phenomena: the fact of illness, the act of profession, and the act of medicine. The first puts the patient in a vulnerable and dependent position; it results in an unequal relationship. The second implies a promise to help. The third involves those actions that will lead to a medically competent healing decision. But it must also be good for the patient in the fullest possible sense. (...) The physician cannot fully heal without giving the patient an understanding of alternatives such that he or she can freely arrive—together with the physician—at a decision in keeping with his or her personal morality and values. In today's pluralistic society, universal agreement on moral issues between physicians and patients is no longer possible. Nevertheless, a reconstruction of professional ethics based on a new appreciation of what makes for a true healing relationship between patient and physician is both possible and necessary. (shrink)

In this paper I raise and respond to the question, Is John Dewey's understanding of growth sufficiently responsive to problems associated with race and racism? A growing number of scholars have asked similar questions of Dewey's philosophy.1 These scholars generally start with an expression of disappointment—how could someone so concerned with social issues devote so little attention to the problem of racism—and conclude with some variant of the following: While Dewey's philosophy offers us resources that can help as we construct (...) responses to problems of race and racism, his philosophy needs to be reconstructed (often by placing it in conversation with texts that more explicitly address these problems) in order to .. (shrink)

A traditional association of judgment with "reason" has drawn upon and reinforced an opposition between reason and emotion. This, in turn, has led to a restricted view of the nature of moral judgment and of the subject as moral agent. The alternative, I suggest, is to abandon the traditional categories and to develop a new theory of judgment. I argue that the theory of judgment developed by Justus Buchler constitutes a robust alternative which does not prejudice the case (...) against emotion. Drawing on this theory I then develop how to conceptualize the ways in which feeling and emotion can be (or be components of) moral judgments. (shrink)

We raise three issues for Philip Kitcher's "Ethical Project" (2011): First, we argue that the genealogy of morals starts well before the advent of altruism-failures and the need to remedy them, which Kitcher dates at about 50K years ago. Second, we challenge the likelihood of long term moral progress of the sort Kitcher requires to establish objectivity while circumventing Hume's challenge to avoid trying to derive normative conclusions from positive ones--'ought' from 'is'. Third, we sketch ways in which Kitcher's (...) metaethical opponents could respond to his arguments against them. (shrink)

To know the nature of any phenomenon or practice, it is often a good idea to learn about how it might have emerged or might have been constructed. The Birth of Ethics offers an account of how morality might have emerged, without any planning, in a society with language but without any properly ethical concepts or practices. The conjectural history that it documents serves a philosophical purpose, for it directs us the role that morality plays in human life and the (...) nature of morality that enables it to play that role. (shrink)

The article reconstructs, in economic terms, managerial business ethics perceptions in the Japanese consumer market for fast-moving daily consumption products. An economic, three-level model of moral agency was applied that distinguishes unintentional moral agency, passive intentional moral agency and active intentional moral agency. The study took a qualitative approach and utilized as empirical research design an interview procedure. The study found that moral agency of Japanese firms mostly extended up to unintentional and intentional passive (...) class='Hi'>moral agency. Certain myopic managerial views were found to affect active moral agency. This leaves room for business ethics program that aim at the development of active moral agency. (shrink)

This work is an investigation of the ongoing methodical reconstruction of Catholic moral theology. As such it is based on and honors the work of Norbert Rigali, S.J., one of the most important contributors to this reconstruction.The decisive break from the traditional manual approach to moral theology represented by Vatican II reoriented moral theology away from universal natural law morality based on the commandments to a morality based on specifically Christian sources. This reorientation, however, was (...) not an either/or but a both/and proposition. Father Norbert Rigali, S.J. has been an inspiration and a challenge to moral theologians working toward reconstruction. This essays in this collection address four questions in the renewal movement: an investigation of normative methods, a clarification of sources, an investigation of the tension between natural law morality and Christian ethics and/or morality, and a combination of methodical insights of philosophy and traditional Christian sources in their investigation of biomedical ethical issues. (shrink)

Far from being indiscriminately critical of the ideas he associated with the morality system, Bernard Williams offered vindicatory explanations of its crucial building blocks, such as the moral/non-moral distinction, the idea of obligation, the voluntary/involuntary distinction, and the practice of blame. The rationale for these concessive moves, I argue, is that understanding what these ideas do for us when they are not in the service of the system is just as important to leading us out of the system (...) as the critique of that system. I then show how regarding the aspiration to shelter life from luck as the system’s organizing ambition explains why the system elaborates and combines these building blocks in the way it does. Finally, I argue that the ultimate problem with the resulting construction is its frictionless purity. It robs valuable concepts of their grip on the world we live in, and, by insisting on purity from contingency, threatens to issue in nihilism about value and scepticism about agency. (shrink)

Readers familiar with Philip Pettit’s work will not be surprised to find that The Birth of Ethics is at once very ambitious – offering nothing less than a basis for a complete naturalistic reconstr...

Dewey's understanding of growth is inseparably intertwined with his distinctively pragmatic understanding of the self-community relation and of knowledge as experimental. Within this framework, growth emerges as a process by which individual communities achieves fuller, richer, more inclusive, and more complex interactions with their environment by incorporating the perspective of "the other". Growth involves reintegration of problematic situations in ways which lead to expansion of self, of community, and of the relation between the two. In this way growth and workability (...) go hand in hand, for growth involves the resolution of conflict through reconstructive expansion of contexts which work in bringing about the desired resolution. And in this way growth and workability properly understood in their concrete fullness are inherently moral, and the ethical dimension of business decisions involves consideration of both. In this sense, pragmatism can hold that the ultimate goal in the nurturing of moral maturity, whether for individuals, communities, or corporations, is the development of the ability for ongoing self-directed growth. (shrink)

In the 17th century, ‘reflexivity’ was coined as a new term for introspection and self-awareness. It thus was poised to serve the instrumental function of combating skepticism by asserting a knowing self. In this Cartesian paradigm, introspection ends in an entity of self-identity. An alternate interpretation recognized how an infinite regress of reflexivity would render ‘the self’ elusive, if not unknowable. Reflexivity in this latter mode was rediscovered by post-Kantian philosophers, most notably Hegel, who defined the self in its self-reflective (...) encounter with an other, and whose full articulation would occur at the final culmination of Reason's evolution. In the rising tide of 19th-century individualism, Emerson and Kierkegaard formulated constructions both in debt to, and in opposition against, Hegelian metaphysics. For each, although employing distinct strategies of self-consciousness, ‘the self’ reached its apogee through divine encounter. Characterized by personal responsibility and individual choice, their philosophies would later be subsumed by secular existentialists committed to defining moral individualism and asserting the possibilities for human freedom and selfauthentication. (shrink)

Résumé — Cet article défend une interprétation de la catharsis qui intègre la psychologie, l’éthique et l’esthétique. Un réexamen attentif de la référence à la catharsis musicopoétique en Politique VIIImontre que, contrairement à l’opinion reçue, la catharsis n’est pas ici séparée de la conception aristotélicienne de l’importance éthique des réactions émotionnelles face aux formes d’art mimétique. Politique VIII donne également une raison de supposer que la catharsis est associée au plaisir, mais pas identifiée à lui. La catharsis tragique se comprend (...) mieux comme un profit retiré de la transformation des émotions pénibles en émotions agréables dans la contemplation de l’art mimétique. Cette lecture permet d’harmoniser catharsis et psychologie morale d’Aristote dans son ensemble : une réactivité émotionnelle intense aux objets esthétiques peut contribuer à l’entraînement approprié de dispositions éthiques. La catharsis n’est pas seulement le résultat final du spectacle de la tragédie ; elle vient couronner une expérience tout entière, à la fois cognitive et morale.— This paper argues for an interpretation of catharsis that integrates psychology, ethics and aesthetics. A careful reexamination of the reference to musico-poetic catharsis in Politics 8 shows that, contrary to received opinion, catharsis is not there divorced from Aristotle’s view of the ethical significance of emotional responses to mimetic art-forms. Politics 8 also supplies reason to suppose that catharsis is closely associated with, but not identical to, pleasure. Tragic catharsis is best understood as the benefit accruing from the transformation of painful into pleasurable emotions within the contemplation of mimetic art. This reading allows catharsis to be harmonised with Aristotle’s moral psychology as a whole : intense emotional responsiveness to « aesthetic » objects can contribute to the appropriate exercise of ethically attuned dispositions. Catharsis is not just the end-result of watching a tragedy ; it supervenes on the entire cognitive-cum-emotional experience. (shrink)

In my paper, I shall take seriously Kant’s puzzling statements about the moral feeling of respect, which is, according to him, “a feeling self-wrought by means of a rational concept and therefore specifically different” from all common feelings. I will focus on the systematic position of the moral feeling of respect within the framework of Kant’s transcendental idealism. By considering its volitional structure, I argue for a compatibilist account of the moral feeling of respect, according to which (...) both intellectualist and affectivist interpretations are true. As such, respect can be understood in terms of a process of moral self-consciousness and self-formation, which means that the will must be freed from initial empirical motives, and finally be determined only by rational principles. (shrink)

A major figure in New Confucianism,1 Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 is often considered one of the most important thinkers of twentieth-century China. His philosophical work he labeled "moral metaphysics," a caption inspired by Kant's term "moral theology," marking, at one and the same time, both an homage to and a disapproval of the German philosopher's work. In Mou's view, Kant, unable to come up with a convincing solution to the problem of integrating practical and theoretical philosophy, fails to provide (...) a viable notion of the "Highest Good".2 Mou's own proposal to emend this alleged deficiency rests on two main pillars: the concept of intellectual intuition and the figure of a "perfect teaching"... (shrink)

I argue that Johanna Meehan's call to examine the extra-linguistic psychic, affective and biological dimensions of gender identity is extremely important both for feminist theory in particular and for contemporary Continental philosophy in general. However, I suspect that such an examination might necessitate more than a mere expansion or reconstruction of Habermas' views; on the contrary, I suggest that Meehan's line of argument might lead instead toward a radical deconstruction of Habermasian critical theory. Key Words: feminism • Habermas • (...) identity • moral vs ethical. (shrink)

Though many mistook his intentions as blasphemes, Voltaire meant to defend God’s reality when he wrote, in 1768: ‘If God didn’t exist, we would have to invent h.

Readers familiar with Philip Pettit’s work will not be surprised to find that The Birth of Ethics is at once very ambitious – offering nothing less than a basis for a complete naturalistic reconstr...