Account Of Moral Reasoning Research Articles

Γιατί οι ηθικές βελτιώσεις χαρακτήρα είναι καταδικασμένες να αποτύχουν; Η κριτική των φιλοσοφιών της αρετής

All kinds of enhancements, cognitive, physical, psychological, moral etc. are at the center of moral debates nowadays. In particular the moral enhancements of character by virtue of pharmacological and biotechnological means are widely discussed, as they raise a number of questions regarding human autonomy and freedom. In the present article, we argue that if we study carefully the way in which the moral enhancements are applied according to the bioethicists Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson, we will realize that they are logically impossible. That is, if we analyze the logical procedure of enhancing characters morally, as this is presented in Aristotle’s and Kant’s moral account, then we will understand that the kind of moral enhancement of character by virtue of biotechnological means which the two philosophers put forward is doomed to fail. Furthermore, we will also understand that the two philosophers offer an impoverished conception of morality, since reason, the basic element of the moral process, plays no role in the account of moral reasoning they propound.

Hermeneutic and Teleology in Ethics across Denominations—Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth

This study arises from the context of current debates in the Catholic Church on the place of rule and law in moral reasoning. I suggest that ethics may be best served by approaches that place the human subject in a teleogical context and that recognise the need for interpretation of circumstances surrounding actions to be evaluated. This is in contrast to normative rule approaches. The insights retrieved from the account of moral reasoning in Thomas Aquinas by Joseph Selling are compared with an account of the ethical implications of Karl Barth’s theology of hope as expressed in Volume Four of the Church Dogmatics. It is concluded that, in an ecumenical convergence, neither propose a normative rule approach. Rather both use a teleological context and require a hermeneutic of evaluation.

Questioning Engelhardt's assumptions in Bioethics and Secular Humanism.

In Bioethics and Secular Humanism: The Search for a Common Morality, Tristram Engelhardt examines various possibilities of finding common ground for moral discourse among people from different traditions and concludes their futility. In this paper I will argue that many of the assumptions on which Engelhardt bases his conclusion about the impossibility of a content-full secular bioethics are problematic. By starting with the notion of moral strangers, there is no possibility, by definition, for a content-full moral discourse among moral strangers. It means that there is circularity in starting the inquiry with a definition of moral strangers, which implies that they do not share enough moral background or commitment to an authority to allow for reaching a moral agreement, and concluding that content-full morality is impossible among moral strangers. I argue that assuming traditions as solid and immutable structures that insulate people across their boundaries is problematic. Another questionable assumption in Engelhardt's work is the idea that religious and philosophical traditions provide content-full moralities. As the cardinal assumption in Engelhardt's review of the various alternatives for a content-full moral discourse among moral strangers, I analyze his foundationalist account of moral reasoning and knowledge and indicate the possibility of other ways of moral knowledge, besides the foundationalist one. Then, I examine Engelhardt's view concerning the futility of attempts at justifying a content-full secular bioethics, and indicate how the assumptions have shaped Engelhardt's critique of the alternatives for the possibility of content-full secular bioethics.

Whole-Hearted Motivation and Relevant Alternatives: A Problem for the Contrastivist Account of Moral Reasons

Recently, Walter Sinott-Armstrong and Justin Snedegar have argued for a general contrastivist theory of reasons. According to the contrastivist account of reasons, all reasons claims should be understood as a relation with an additional place for a contrast class. For example, rather than X being a reason for A to P simpliciter, the contrastivist claims that X is a reason for A to P out of {P,Q,R…}. The main goal of this paper is to argue that the contrastivist account of reasons will be ill-fitted for accommodating certain features of moral reasons. In brief, the reason why the contrastivist analysis fails is that it cannot adequately allow for cases of morally correct whole-hearted action—cases where consideration of any alternate course of action would be misguided. But, if all consideration of alternate courses of action is misguided, then it is hard to see how one can set the relevant contrast class that is essential to the contrastivist view—any contrast class will seem out of place. In addition, I address some of the arguments that have been given in favor of the contrastivist account of reasons and argue that there are at least two ways that the non-contrastivist can respond to these arguments.

The salience network causally influences default mode network activity during moral reasoning

Large-scale brain networks are integral to the coordination of human behaviour, and their anatomy provides insights into the clinical presentation and progression of neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease, which targets the default mode network, and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, which targets a more anterior salience network. Although the default mode network is recruited when healthy subjects deliberate about 'personal' moral dilemmas, patients with Alzheimer's disease give normal responses to these dilemmas whereas patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia give abnormal responses to these dilemmas. We hypothesized that this apparent discrepancy between activation- and patient-based studies of moral reasoning might reflect a modulatory role for the salience network in regulating default mode network activation. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging to characterize network activity of patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia and healthy control subjects, we present four converging lines of evidence supporting a causal influence from the salience network to the default mode network during moral reasoning. First, as previously reported, the default mode network is recruited when healthy subjects deliberate about 'personal' moral dilemmas, but patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia producing atrophy in the salience network give abnormally utilitarian responses to these dilemmas. Second, patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia have reduced recruitment of the default mode network compared with healthy control subjects when deliberating about these dilemmas. Third, a Granger causality analysis of functional neuroimaging data from healthy control subjects demonstrates directed functional connectivity from nodes of the salience network to nodes of the default mode network during moral reasoning. Fourth, this Granger causal influence is diminished in patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia. These findings are consistent with a broader model in which the salience network modulates the activity of other large-scale networks, and suggest a revision to a previously proposed 'dual-process' account of moral reasoning. These findings also characterize network interactions underlying abnormal moral reasoning in frontotemporal dementia, which may serve as a model for the aberrant judgement and interpersonal behaviour observed in this disease and in other disorders of social function. More broadly, these findings link recent work on the dynamic interrelationships between large-scale brain networks to observable impairments in dementia syndromes, which may shed light on how diseases that target one network also alter the function of interrelated networks.

Perfectionism and Moral Reasoning

Stanley Cavell presents Moral Perfectionism as a set of methods of self-knowledge, aiming at the clarification of one’s understanding of oneself. Cavell also claims that Moral Perfectionism is a form or a dimension of moral reasoning. One might wonder, in this perspective, what relation can be drawn between perfectionist methods of self-knowledge and the practice of providing moral reasons for a certain action. In this paper, I propose to understand this connection on the background of Cavell’s account of moral reasoning in Part 3 of The Claim of Reason. Cavell here contrasts the rationality of moral discourse with arguments that recur in epistemological and scientific contexts. While in these latter areas of investigation, the activity of giving and asking for reasons serves to establish one’s position (i.e. one’s authority to enter a given claim), in morality the aim is rather one of making one’s position (that is, one’s cares and commitments) intelligible, both to others and to oneself. I argue that this account may enable us to clarify to sense in which, in Cavell’s perspective, perfectionism is both pertinent and vital for moral reasoning: since a dedication to self-knowledge is constitutive of moral discourse, the avoidance of such a dimension may impoverish and distort our conception of moral rationality.

Aristotle, Akrasia, and the Place of Desire in Moral Reasoning

This paper serves both as a discussion of Henry’s (Ethical Theory Moral Practice, 5:255–270, 2002) interpretation of Aristotle on the possibility of akrasia – knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway – and an indication of the importance of desire in Aristotle’s account of moral reasoning. As I will explain, Henry’s interpretation is advantageous for the reason that it makes clear how Aristotle could have made good sense of genuine akrasia, a phenomenon that we seem to observe in the real world, while maintaining non-trivial distinctions between temperance (sophrosune), self-indulgence (akolasia), self-control (enkrateia) and akrasia. There are, however, some interpretive challenges that follow from Henry’s account and this paper is intended to explain and resolve those.

New Directions in Ethics: Naturalisms, Reasons and Virtue

This paper discusses three topics in contemporary British ethical philosophy: naturalisms, moral reasons, and virtue. Most contemporary philosophers agree that 'ethics is natural' - in Section 1 I examine the different senses that can be given to this idea, from reductive naturalism to supernaturalism, seeking to show the problems some face and the problems others solve. Drawing on the work of John McDowell in particular, I conclude that an anti-supernatural non-reductive naturalism plausibly sets the limits on what we can do in ethics. Moral reasons are widely discussed - in Section 2 I describe some of the criteria that used to distinguish moral practical reasons, and note possibilities and problems. Drawing on the work of Elizabeth Anscombe in particular, I suggest that an inclusive, minimalist account of moral reasons may be most fruitful. There has been a revival of philosophical interest in virtue ethics, which I take to be linked to the emergence of non-reductive naturalisms - in Section 3 I describe three points where virtue ethics has an especially significant contribution to make: learning, motivational self-sufficiency, and the question of whether virtues can be reasons. The naturalism of Section 1 constrains the accounts of moral reasons considered in Section 2, and depends upon an account of virtue as learned second nature, discussed in Section 3.

More on Moral Dilemmas

Lyle V. Anderson’s Moral Dilemmas, Deliberation, and Choice, is a paper that moves in many directions and attempts to cover much ground. But, sorting through these intricacies, one can see that Anderson sets for himself two major tasks: one is to reject some of the principal claims made by Ruth Barcan Marcus in her recent work on moral dilemmas; the other, to present his own (Aristotelian) account of moral reasoning which supposedly rectifies some of the problems found in Marcus's essay. Although there is much in Anderson's interpretation of Marcus and in his own positive position with which one might argue, I shall here confine myself to several misunderstandings of Marcus which I believe reveal more basic confusions about the issues raised by moral dilemmas and their implication for ethical theory.

Culture, Morality and Rights: Or, Should Alasdair Maclntyre’s Philosophical Driving License Be Suspended?

Abstract Taken at face value, Professor Maclntyre’s charge that modern culture is “emotivist” is conceptually incoherent and betrays epistemological confusion. Examination of the modern concept and practice of rights indicates hat his comparisons between modern and pre-modern cultures exaggerate the irrationality, individualism, and fragmentation of the former, the rationalism, unity, and communalism of the latter. There are important differences among the several cultural forms that Maclntyre distinguishes. It is less clear that, lacking (as he admittedly does) a satisfactory account of moral reasoning, Maclntyre has made persuasive his case for abandoning modern liberalism in favor of communalisms inspired by pre-modern cultures.

Moral Reasoning and Moral Education

Abstract It is argued that R.W. Beardsmore's account of moral reasoning provides the most satisfactory explanation of moral behaviour and this is supported by an examination of his main criticisms of R.M. Hare and Philippa Foot. The chief educational implication of Beardsmore's account of moral development is, it is suggested, that, though educators cannot be uncommitted on fundamental moral issues, they can, nevertheless, ensure that rational procedures are followed. A committed teacher is not, therefore, necessarily a moral indoctrinator. In conclusion it is suggested that arguments for neutrality rest on mistaken assumptions about the nature of morality and that, without a background of established and accepted values moral education cannot even be considered.

Hare's Account of Moral Reasoning

IN BOTH of his books1 R. M. Hare raises the question: What is it to accept a moral proposition-either a general moral principle or a moral verdict about a particular situation? Hare's answer is that to accept a moral proposition entails acting, or at least attempting to act, upon it. As he puts it, to accept such a proposition is to prescribe something to oneself and to others, and prescribing to oneself logically involves acting or trying to act. But there is an alternative answer to the question which Hare does not consider. One might propose that to accept a moral proposition entails not acting upon it but reasoning with it. In the case of a general principle this would mean that one will heed it in arriving at a moral verdict or, if it has slipped from one's mind or has been repressed, that one will acknowledge its relevance when reminded of it. In the case of a moral verdict on a particular situation this will mean that one will draw the moral consequences of his judgment in terms of praise and blame and whatever else might be required. One virtue of this latter view is that it can frankly face the fact that we do not necessarily do what we believe is the morally required thing to do. But Hare, though clearly disturbed by this fact,2 is not dissuaded by it. Rather than explain acceptance in terms of moral reasoning, he has attempted to explain moral reasoning in terms of his prescriptive theory of acceptance. I want to argue that in this attempt he fails.