Basis Of Moral Judgment Research Articles

Полифония, историзм и релятивизм: русская философия и современная аналитическая философия политики

This article is a study of the main directions of the contemporary analytical polit­ical philosophy in the context of the idea of polyphony (pluralism) and related problems of historicism and relativism. This approach, on the one hand, solves the problem of embedding Russian philosophy into the global semantic context, on the other, it allows to identify the philosophical foundations of Western liberal theories of the second half of the twentieth century, the main metaphysical as­sumption of which is diversity. The article analyzes the commonality of world­view positions of the key directions of the analytical political philosophy and the Russian philosophical tradition. It is shown how the combination of Western and domestic conceptual attitudes allows representatives of modern philosophy to understand traditional socio-philosophical problems in a new way: rational disagreement, pluralism of values, the problem of manipulation, the basis of moral judgments, the problem of political justification and consent. J. Gray’s concept of ‘temporary agreement’ is analyzed in the context of polyphony and pluralism. The impact of antinomianism of the Russian thought on the neo-Hobbesians D. Gauthier and K. Baier is examined. The main points of the con­cepts of ‘collective rationality’ by C. McMahon, D. Schmidtz, J. Waldron, P. Pet­tit, and S. Hurley are revealed in the context of the problem of intersubjectivity (M. Bakhtin). J. Habermas’s political and philosophical ideas – public discourse, justification, and deliberation – are studied in the context of the value conflict problem. A comparative analysis of the ‘public justification’ (G. Gaus), of the ‘objective horizon of values’ (I. Berlin), of the concept of ‘Other’ (Bakhtin) is conducted. In the context of historicism, which is expressed in the understanding of the man as a historical, self-creating being, whose needs changed along with changes in self-consciousness, the author analyzes the relationship among A. Kojeve’s, M. Bakhtin’s, I. Berlin’s ideas, deliberative democracy and justifi­able liberalism. Historicism manifests itself in a constant conversation with a personified addressee or ‘second subject’ within which the ideas of the histo­rian of philosophy and the positions of the political philosopher are formulated.

Projetivismo, circularidade e o problema da atitude moral

A projectivist thesis about the nature of morality, broadly understood, aims to explain moral judgments from subjective causal reactions to the world—this world in itself devoid of moral value (in terms of objects, properties and relations). For the projectivist thesis to work, it seems to be necessary that it be capable of specifying the type(s) of subjective reaction(s) which is(are) on the basis of moral judgments and of doing it in non-moral terms, in order to avoid circularity. If the subjective reactions have conceptual priority over moral judgments and predication, then it seems to be necessary that they be specified without referring themselves to the very moral judgments and moral vocabulary that they purport to explain. The moral attitude problem consists in this challenge to moral projectivism. Here in this article, we shall argue that, on the one hand, the projectivist is not able to completely avoid the objection of circularity. However, on the other hand, we shall try to show that, despite incurring in one form of circularity, the projectivist has an answer to the moral attitude problem. The upshot of all this is that, properly conceived, the moral attitude problem is not an obstacle to projectivism, and that the traditional formulation of the problem confuses an epistemic question with a metaphysical one. Keywords : metaethics; moral projectivism; circularity.

Moral Struggles in Markets

AbstractPractices within markets are widely regulated and sometimes contested on the basis of moral judgments. Moral entrepreneurs challenge markets and market practices while firms and industry actors defend them, leading to moral struggles opposing different orders of worth. Based on an historical case study, this paper develops a theoretical framework to study moral struggles in markets as social and political processes around commensurability. It identifies three core arenas in which moral struggles play out: ideas, where the morality of specific practices itself is contested and actors ground their moral claims in different institutional orders for legitimation; the economy, where the market viability of changing moral standards is at stake; and politics, where commensuration reflects political power struggles. Through a socio-historical analysis of the fight against battery cages in Swiss egg production in the 1970s and 1980s, the study fleshes out how this moral struggle played out along these dimensions, focusing on the competing discourses, strategies, and tactics of the main moral entrepreneurs and industry associations.

Respectability, morality and disgust in the night-time economy: exploring reactions to 'lap dance' clubs in England and Wales.

The night‐time economy is often described as repelling consumers fearful of the ‘undesirable Others’ imagined dominant within such time‐spaces. In this paper we explore this by describing attitudes towards, and reactions to, one particularly contentious site: the ‘lap dance’ club. Often targeted by campaigners in England and Wales as a source of criminality and anti‐sociality, in this paper we shift the focus from fear to disgust, and argue that Sexual Entertainment Venues (SEVs) are opposed on the basis of moral judgments that reflect distinctions of both class and gender. Drawing on documentary analysis, survey results and interview data collected during guided walks, we detail the concerns voiced by those anxious about the presence of lap dance or striptease clubs in their town or city, particularly the notion that they ‘lower the tone’ of particular streets or neighbourhoods. Our conclusion is that the opposition expressed to lap dance clubs is part of an attempt to police the boundaries of respectable masculinities and femininities, marginalizing the producers and consumers of sexual entertainment through ‘speech acts’ which identify such entertainment as unruly, vulgar and uncivilized. These findings are considered in the light of ongoing debates concerning the relations of morality, respectability and disgust.

Confabulating the Truth: In Defense of “Defensive” Moral Reasoning

Empirically minded philosophers have raised questions about judgments and theories based on moral intuitions such as Rawls’s method of reflective equilibrium. But they work from the notion of intuitions assumed in empirical work, according to which intuitions are immediate assessments, as in psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s definition. Haidt himself regards such intuitions as an appropriate basis for moral judgment, arguing that normal agents (nonphilosophers) do not reason prior to forming a judgment and afterwards just “confabulate” reasons in its defense. I argue, first, that the notion of “considered intuitive judgment” that Rawls spells out when he first presents his method is pre-theoretical, but not at all pre-reflective, in the way Haidt’s definition supposes; it may rest on various forms of reasoning short of systematic derivation from theoretical principles. I go on to take issue with Haidt’s dismissal of ex post facto moral reasoning, arguing that it can play both a causal role in an individual’s later intuitions or judgments and a legitimate normative role, as required by moral competence in judging non-taboo cases. I suggest that the move from intuition to judgment and thence to ex post facto reasoning makes sense as a justificatory version of Peircean abduction, or what is now mainly called “inference to the best explanation.”

Criticism of the Theory of Motivation

The theory of motivation is a theory which takes the executora’s motivation as the basis of moral judgment. One presupposition of the theory is that motivation can be a common object of understanding. However, motivation exists only in the heart of the executor, and cannot be known exactly by others, so motivation cannot be perceived like a common object, and thus, logically, cannot be the basis of moral judgment. Even if the executor’s motivation is accepted by others and turned into a common object, the motivation still cannot become the valid basis of a moral judgment. This is the dilemma of the theory of motivation. In practice, the dilemma appears as follows: if one insists on the theory of motivation, one can be led to the result that people do evil with good intentions. However, just because motivation cannot be the basis of moral judgment does not mean that motivation is of no significance. Good motivation is always better than evil motivation. Therefore, in moral education we should carry out motivation education and teach people to strive to have good motivations for their behavior. This is the value of motivation theory.

CHALLENGING THE EMPIRICAL EMPIRE

Many of the problems in the British public sector directly relate to the attempt to create a world fit for the central planner in which all tasks can be set down in a system of rules. The philosophy of ‘empirical consequentialism’ underpins this entire venture. This is the view that the empirically-proven consequences of an action are the most valid basis for moral judgment of the action and that these can be fully evaluated through expert research rather than democratic dialogue. A crucial policy challenge is to restore the value of ‘tacit knowledge’ in the public sector, allowing individuals to exercise choice and judgment responding to feedback in a process of trial and error.

From 'Convention' to 'Ethical Life': Hume's Theory of Justice in Post-Kantian Perspective

AbstractHume and contemporary Humeans contend that moral sentiments form the sole and sufficient basis of moral judgments. This thesis is criticized by appeal to Hume's theory of justice, which shows that basic principles of justice are required to form and to maintain society, which is indispensable to human life, and that acting according to, or violating, these principles is right, or wrong, regardless of anyone's sentiments, motives or character. Furthermore, Hume's theory of justice shows how the principles of justice are artificial without being arbitrary. In this regard, Hume's theory belongs to the unjustly neglected modern natural law tradition. Some key merits of this strand in Hume's theory are explicated by linking it to Kant's constructivist method of identifying and justifying practical principles (à la O'Neill), and by showing how and why Hegel adopted and further developed Kant's constructivism by re-integrating it with Hume's central natural law concern with our actual social practices.

Are There Any Environmental Rights?

This paper extends the argument in H.L.A. Hart's ‘Are there any natural rights?’ to argue that there is an environmental moral right against pollution. This right is composed of a right against negligent, reckless or intentional risk imposition, together with the liberty to act in a way that does not negligently, recklessly or intentionally impose risks on others. This right is understood as overrideable or prima facie, and this paper does not claim that this right is the only basis of moral judgment in the cases it considers. The hypothesis that there is a right against pollution does, however, explain some moral reasoning about pollution that otherwise is difficult to explain.

Embodied and Embedded Morality: Divinity, Identity, and Disgust

AbstractOur understanding of human morality would benefit from an integrated interdisciplinary approach, built on the assumption that human beings are multidimensional unities with real, irreducible, and mutually interdependent spiritual, relational, emotional, rational, and physiological aspects. We could integrate relevant information from neurobiological, psychosocial, and theological perspectives, avoiding unnecessary reductionism and naturalism. This approach is modeled by addressing the particular limited role of disgust in morality. Psychosocial research reveals disgust as a universal emotion that enables evaluation and regulation of certain moral behaviors and is involved in cultural identity. Theologically, many religious traditions, including the Judeo‐Christian, use disgust in conjunction with moral codes designed to preserve purity and communal identity as the people of God. The concept of natural moral law suggests that morality is embodied in human nature. Neurobiology is beginning to trace the neural circuitry involved in disgust and in moral evaluation, suggesting that emotions are a necessary basis for moral judgment and revealing intriguing relationships between disgust, morality, and other aspects of the psyche. Several problems that arise within these disciplines and at their intersections are identified. Extension of the model to other aspects of human morality would further illuminate our understanding of morality without sacrificing its complexity and richness.

On the Relationship between Science and Ethics

Abstract. The relationship between ethics and science has been discussed within the framework of continuity versus discontinuity theories, each of which can take several forms. Continuity theorists claim that ethics is a science or at least that it has deep similarities with the modus operandi of science. Discontinuity theorists reject such equivalency, while at the same time many of them claim that ethics does deal with objective truths and universalizable statements, just not in the same sense as science does. I propose here a third view of quasi‐continuity (or, equivalently, quasi‐discontinuity) that integrates ethics and science as equal partners toward the uncovering of new knowledge. In this third way, a program envisioned by William James but made practicable only by contemporary scientific advancement, science can and must inform ethics at a deep level, and ethical theory— while going beyond science—cannot do without it. In particular, I identify four areas of ethics‐science collaboration: neurobiological research into the basis of moral judgment, comparative anthropology, comparative evolutionary biology of primates, and game‐theoretical modeling. I provide examples within each of these fields to show how they link to ethical theories (including prescriptive work) and questions. The essay concludes with a brief discussion of the light that a scientifically informed ethics can shed on some classical problems in moral theory, such as the relationships between rationality and selfishness, egoism and altruism, as well as the concept of social contract. A joint research program involving both philosophers and scientists is called for if we wish to move ethical theory into the twenty‐first century.

Lessons Learned About Resilience

Children, Youth and Environments Vol 13, No.1 (Spring 2003) ISSN 1546-2250 Lessons Learned About Resilience James Garbarino Citation: Garbarino, James. “Lessons Learned about Resilience.” Children, Youth and Environments 13(1), Spring 2003. Retrieved [date] from http://colorado.edu/journals/cye What have I learned from almost three decades’ experience as a researcher, educator, author, program consultant, and legal expert witness dealing with issues of violence in the lives of children? I have written several books to report on those experiences,1 but I can outline some of what I have learned briefly by speaking about resilience. Human beings are adaptive and resourceful, but resilience is not unlimited, automatic, or universal. Under conditions of numerous serious threats experienced in hostile environments, no child may escape unscathed, no matter how well-equipped the child may be temperamentally. Every child has limits. Much is made in the scientific literature and the popular press of resilience. Although it is defined in numerous ways, resilience generally refers to an individual's ability to bounce back from adverse experiences, to avoid long-term negative effects, or otherwise to overcome developmental threats. Every one of us knows someone whose life is a testament to resilience. The concept of resilience rests on a key research finding: while experiencing any specific negative influence increases the odds of a particular negative outcome, most children escape severe harm. However, as the concept of resilience has been promoted in everwider circles there has been a parallel concern that the concept may easily be misused or misunderstood. Three such limitations are of particular importance in our conceptual toolbox as we look at the lives of children living with violence. First, we must remember that resilience is not absolute. Virtually every youth has a breaking point. Research conducted by psychiatrist Bruce Perry on the impact of trauma and deprivation on brain development leads him to assert that kids are "malleable" rather than "resilient," in the sense that 300 each threat costs them something. What is more, as psychologist Patrick Tolan points out, in some environments virtually all youth demonstrate negative effects of highly stressful and threatening environments. For example, he investigated African-American, adolescent males facing the combination of highly dangerous and threatening low income neighborhoods coupled with low resource/high stress families in Chicago. His data demonstrated that none of the youths were resilient at age 15 when measured by continuing for a two year period without being more than one grade level behind in school nor requiring professional mental health services to deal with psychological problems. Second, we must remember that resilience in gross terms may obscure real costs to the quality of an individual’s inner life. Some people manage to avoid succumbing to the risk of social failure as defined by poverty and criminality but nonetheless experience real harm in the form of diminished capacity for successful intimate relationships. Thus, even apparent social success- performing well in the job market, avoiding criminal activity, and creating a family may obscure some of the costs of being resilient. Though resilient in social terms, these individuals may be severely wounded souls. This has long been evident in comparing the resilience of boys versus girls. Boys who succumb to the accumulation of risk have long been prone to act out in explicitly anti-social behavior (juvenile delinquency) while girls have been more likely to respond with selfdestructive behavior and internalized symptoms such as stomach aches, nightmares, and wretchedly low self-esteem. Does this mean girls are more resilient than boys? A simple accounting of social success variables might lead us to think so. However, if we take into account the full range of harm we can see that such an answer would be wrong. Kids adapt: for better and for worse. Third, we must not forget that resilience does not mean “moral superiority.” The youth who demonstrates resilience has extraordinary attributes and resources that the non-resilient child does not have. Being unable to protect oneself against the accumulation of risk factors does not constitute moral turpitude. Some environments are too much for anyone, and to use the 301 concept of resilience as a basis for moral judgment in these settings may...

Hume on Regulating Belief and Moral Sentiment

There have been numerous discussions in recent years of Hume's general point of view. Some of the issues raised have been (1) Is the general point of view the moral point of view? (2) Is the general point of view necessary in order for a judgment to count as a moral judgment? (3) Does the general point of view provide a justificatory perspective or is it a psychological explanatory concept that explains how moral judgments are made without necessarily offering a standard or normative basis for moral judgments? (4) If a general point of view yields some notion of impartiality, then how does it do so without introducing rationalistic elements that would undermine the sentimentalist approach Hume defends?1 In this paper I offer an interpretation of Hume's general point of view in morals as, employing a photographic analogy, a kind of focusing activity. It allows for strengthening of sentiments for those remote and, through contrariety, weakening of sentiments for those near such that we are moved to focus on those effects that are typical and, through conversing with others, arrive at general principles of praise or blame. I also examine the general point of view in comparison to what Hume has to say about regulation of belief. The comparison with belief sheds new light, I think, on how production of contrariety through the general point of view is regulative in morals. On my interpretation of the general point of view, it does not undermine Hume's sentimentalist thesis in morals, but rather is a device by which sentiment is properly aroused and directed. The comparison with the belief-regulating

Mediation and production deficiencies in children's judgments of morality

This study investigated the influence of intentions and consequences on moral judgments. Children's and adults' production of inferences about an actor's intentions was assessed separately from their use of intentions as mediators of moral judgments. Two hundred and sixteen kindergarten, fourth grade and adult subjects viewed one of four videotaped episodes in which an actor either intentionally or accidentally produced a positive or negative result. Participants received one of two prompts to produce inferences about the actor's intentions or received no prompt. Each subject rated the actor's intent and the good-ness-badness of the actor. Results supported a mediational deficiency explanation for children's objective moral judgments. Both 6- and 10-year-old children made reliable, adult-like inferences of intentions. However, children's moral evaluations were based primarily on objective consequences while adults' evaluations were based primarily on the intentions of the actor. Young children did have intentionality information available, yet even with prompting this information did not mediate their judgments in an adult-like way; suggesting that there may be a period in development during which the child understands and produces subjective inferences but does not use this information as a basis for moral judgments.