Ethical Criticism Research Articles

Blameless Moral Criticism – the Case of Moral Disappointment

In discussing the ways in which we hold each other accountable for immoral conduct, philosophers have often focused on blame, aiming to specify adequate responses to wrongdoing. In contrast, theorizing about the ways we can appropriately respond to minor moral mistakes – i.e., criticizable conduct that is bad but not wrong – has largely been neglected. My first goal in this paper is, thus, to draw attention to this blind spot and argue that a separate account of blameless moral criticism is desirable. My second goal is to propose one way to explicate the contrast between blaming and blameless moral criticism in terms of the contrast between moral anger and moral disappointment: while moral anger, as many argue, is an appropriate response to moral wrongdoing, moral disappointment, but not moral anger, is an appropriate response to these minor moral mistakes.

The Emergence of a Theatrical Science of Man in France, 1660–1740

The Emergence of a Theatrical Science of Man in France, 1660–1740

Ideology Critique without Morality: A Radical Realist Approach

What is the point of ideology critique? Prominent Anglo-American philosophers recently proposed novel arguments for the view that ideology critique is moral critique, and ideologies are flawed insofar as they contribute to injustice or oppression. We criticize that view and make the case for an alternative and more empirically oriented approach, grounded in epistemic rather than moral commitments. We make two related claims: (a) ideology critique can debunk beliefs and practices by uncovering how, empirically, they are produced by self-justifying power and (b) the self-justification of power should be understood as an epistemic rather than moral flaw. Drawing on the recent realist revival in political theory, we argue that this genealogical approach has more radical potential, despite being more parsimonious than morality-based approaches. We demonstrate the relative advantages of our view by discussing the results of empirical studies on the contemporary phenomenon of neopatriarchy in the Middle East and North Africa.

Tendensi Natural Manusia ke arah Kebaikan dalam Perspektif Tomas Aquinas

In Thomas Aquinas’ view, every human being by nature is directed towards goodness. The goodness as the form of being (ens) is inside the human self. According to Thomas, human goodness is a participation in the highest goodness, namely, God, and thus every human being desires the perfection of the goodness by directing his or herself towards God. This natural tendency (appetitus naturalis) proves that human is directed towards an ‘end’. This goodness appears externally in the human action, and as an external action it is named actus humanus, which manifests the moral aspect of a human being. A person who actualises the goodness in his or her external action affirms his or her essence to the highest goodness. Goodness in morality depends on God as the supreme criterion of morality. It is good if it nears God and is evil if it moves away.

To the question of professional and moral criteria in the organization of the educational process

The publication is devoted to aspects of the development and understanding of professional and moral criteria in the organization of the educational process in the system of higher professional education in the Russian Federation. The crisis of the ethical component in the professional training of Russian students is argued , the importance of the development of professional ethics in the development of human potential in the interests of the Russian state and society is shown . A distinction is made between moral and professional criteria for the organization of the educational process . A system of professional and moral criteria in the educational process in the system of higher professional education , aspects of their assessment , as well as recommendations for implementation in practice are presented .

Correction to: Review of “The Sympathetic Consumer: Moral Critique in Capitalist Culture”

Correction to: Review of “The Sympathetic Consumer: Moral Critique in Capitalist Culture”

A Wittgensteinian Antitheodicy

Contrary to the majority of contemporary analytic philosophers of religion, James Sterba argues in his book Is a Good God Logically Possible? (2019) that Alvin Plantinga with his famous free will defense has not succeeded in solving the logical problem of evil. However, Sterba is not alone in disputing this generally accepted view in analytic philosophy of religion. D. Z. Phillips (1934–2006) has argued that the logical problem of evil has not been solved and he further holds that it has not even got off the ground. The aim of this article is to explore Phillips’ criticism of the free-will defense and mainstream theodicies. His critique is relevant for Sterba’s atheistic stance because Phillips’ arguments are partly applicable to forms of philosophical atheism that share the same assumptions with philosophical theism. In the first part of the article, I will briefly describe the starting points of the best-known solutions to the problem of evil in analytic philosophy of religion and refer to some aspects of Sterba’s arguments. After that I will explore Phillips’ ethical and conceptual criticism against frameworks used in the discussion of theodicy. Finally, I will pay attention to Phillips’ Wittgensteinian view of the task and the aim of philosophy in order to clarify some problematic aspects of his thought.

Dreary useless centuries of happiness: Cordwainer Smith’s “Under Old Earth” as an ethical critique of our current Emotion AI goals

This paper explores the ways in which Cordwainer Smith’s short story “Under Old Earth” problematizes emotions, who/what has them, and who/what is granted moral status. Most importantly, however, “Under Old Earth” questions the primacy of happiness in human society, especially where happiness is understood as the absence of other (negative) emotions. As such, “Under Old Earth” challenges the notion, widely held in contemporary ethics, that our moral obligation to one another is mediated through the goal of the attainment of happiness. Through this challenge, Smith’s short story speaks directly to the current understanding of emotion in the field of AI, and complicates what the goal of affective computing should be.

Will Moralization of Science Lead to “Better” Science?

In the fall of 2018, The US National Science Foundation (NSF) implemented a new policy on sexual harassment. A few months later, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), took a further step in the fight against harassment by announcing that researchers accused of harassment, but not yet found guilty, could nonetheless be excluded from the lists of potential reviewers of submitted projects. We also observe a recent tendency to call for the retraction of published peer-reviewed results on the basis that their conclusions are considered to go against the moral convictions of some social groups, though the lack of validity of the results has not been proven. It is certainly a legitimate question to ask whether these kinds of policies and moral critiques, which directly link the practice of science to the moral behavior of the scientists in the larger society, do not initiate a profound transformation in the relations between science and society by adding to the usually implicit norms governing the scientific community a new form of moralization of the scientists themselves. We analyze these recent events in terms of a new process of moralization of science and ask whether these new rules of conduct may lead to doing better or more robust science.

The article Social Criticism[ in the short story of Orang Gila Yang Bijak Dan Merdeka by Jefta H. Atapeni.

This study raises about the social criticism contained in the short story Orang Gila Yang Bijak dan Merdeka by Jefta H. Atapeni. The problem raised in this study is social criticism and the form of delivery of social criticism in the short story of Orang Gila Yang Bijak dan Merdeka by Jefta H. Atapeni. This study aims to describe social criticism and the form of delivery of social criticism in the short story Orang Gila Yang Bijak dan Merdeka by Jefta H. Atapeni. This study uses Antonio Gramsci's theory of Domination and Hegemony. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative research method. The source of the data in this research is the short story of Orang Gila Yang Bijak dan Merdeka by Jefta H. Atapeni. The results of this study are: 1) The most dominant social criticism discussed is socio-economic criticism, while the dominant form of criticism that appears is a symbolic and simple form of criticism. 2) Social criticism includes, social criticism of political, economic, cultural, religious, morality, gender, power, and government issues. 3) The forms of delivery of criticism include direct criticism, namely in a straightforward manner, indirect forms, namely, symbolically, subtly, and cynically. The results of this study are expected to be useful for broadening the horizons of appreciation of literary readers for social criticism in literary works in the form of short stories and its application with Antonio Gramsci's theory of Domination and Hegemony. The results of this study are also expected to be used as reference material and as a reference or comparison material for literary researchers in the future.

Foreigner, migrant, or refugee? How laypeople label those who cross borders

AbstractIn this article, we seek to exercise reflexivity in migration research by looking at the symbolic boundary work that sustains laypeople’s understanding and use of specific labels. We do so through a qualitative, cultural sociological investigation of migration attitudes in Czechia. We explore the labels foreigner, migrant, and refugee, commonly used labels in Czech migration discourse. In short, we argue that research participants rely on different grounds for boundary work, informed by available cultural repertoires, when characterizing foreigners, migrants, and refugees. While boundary work related to the label foreigner calls upon criteria of citizenship and perceived cultural closeness, the boundary work concerning the other two labels—migrant and refugee—involves the moral criteria of deservingness. Our study addresses three major shortcomings in migration studies. First, the opinions of laypeople influence public policies and approaches to migration, yet in-depth qualitative studies of migration attitudes are scarce. Second, even though migration attitudes shape the character of the receiving context for people who cross borders, how laypeople engage with labels remains understudied. Finally, we heed the call for a ‘reflexive turn’ in migration studies, arguing that researchers must remain reflexive, not only about labels they use, but also how such labels are understood and used by research participants.

Moral criticism as a criterion for evaluating Bakhtiar Zewar's poems

Moral criticism as a criterion for evaluating Bakhtiar Zewar's poems

Sexual racism and colourism among Australian men who have sex with men: A qualitative investigation

Sexual racism, referring to discrimination in the context of sexual and romantic partner-seeking, is pernicious among men who have sex with men (MSM). Two gaps exist in the literature on sexual racism among MSM: the potential role of colourism, wherein non-White MSM experience additional discrimination due to their skin tone; and the lack of current qualitative data about how Australian MSM construe sexual racism and colourism. We qualitatively investigated the manifestations and construals of sexual racism and colourism within an Australian sample of MSM (N = 39, 64% non-White) recruited via Grindr. Reflexive thematic analysis identified three themes: Manifestations of sexual racism; Recognising the racial hierarchy of desirability; and Diverse understandings of sexual racism. Participants recognised a racial hierarchy of desirability that privileges Whiteness and gives rise to multiple manifestations of sexual racism that harm non-White MSM. Notably, this hierarchy is intertwined with a skin colour hierarchy that favours lighter complexions among non-White men. Construals of sexual racism and colourism were diverse and ranged from beliefs that race-based sexual preferences are sacrosanct and beyond the purview of moral critique, through to beliefs that race-based sexual preferences are inherently political and entail a moral obligation for individuals to introspect and modify.

The metamorphosis of "Butterfly"

AbstractIn 2017, David Henry Hwang reworked his Tony Award‐winning play M. Butterfly (1988). This paper explores how Hwang wrote and rewrote M. Butterfly from the perspective of ethical literary criticism, probing into the role of brain text played in the process of drama writing. By investigating the variations of the Madame Butterfly story—from love legend to spy story—and the Madame Butterfly image—from Madame Butterfly to M. Butterfly, from Oriental Butterfly to Chinese Butterfly—this paper explains the forming of Hwang's brain text and his creation of M. Butterfly, the decoding of brain text and his writing of two Monsieur Butterflies, as well as the recoding of brain text and his building of a new cultural identity. It argues that brain text determines the playwright's writings and styles, and the dynamic revisions of M. Butterfly can be the manifestation and reconstruction of Hwang's brain texts, which represent his ethical choices made in the process of writing and rewriting. The metamorphosis of “Butterfly” in the two scripts of M. Butterfly reveals the playwright's dynamic thoughts on culture, gender, and identity: cultural stereotypes and the power relation between East and West; the cultural misunderstanding of Orientalism; and gender identity and fluidity in the twenty‐first century.

Le marché noir de l’argent en France (1944-1949) : approches transnationales d’une crise de souveraineté monétaire

During and after the Second World War, the French traded goods on several markets: the official market controlled by the State, the free market and the black market. At the time of the resumption of monetary circulation in June 1945, a black market in bills deprived of legal tender developed in metropolitan France, in the empire and in neighbouring countries. This black market resulted in a vast international traffic that damaged the external value of the franc and jeopardized French monetary sovereignty abroad. It highlighted the inability of the new Republican authorities to impose a single currency between metropolitan France and the French Union (October 1946). It also revealed their inability to carry out genuine economic diplomacy: monetary diplomacy was presented as a monetary purge based on moral and political criteria. On the other hand, this great crisis allowed the financial elites to gain a better understanding of the functioning of money in the multilateral framework of the post-war period.

Nietzsche and Contemporary Ethics

Nietzsche and Contemporary Ethics

Abortion in Watsujian Ethics: An Argument for a New Understanding

Watsuji Tetsurō's model of human existence (ningen sonzai) and his ethical principle of selfless solicitude (kokorozukai) imply not only a broadly permissive position on reproductive rights but a clearer vision of pregnancy and the fetus, and also a deeper moral critique of the anti-abortion movement.

Specters of Minks: Postcapitalist Elegies and Multispecies Solidarities

While narrative approaches in International Relations (IR) have become increasingly prominent, posthumanist narratives of capitalism remain on the margins. Informed by feminist avant-garde poet Susan Howe and philosopher Jacques Derrida, I develop a ‘drift narrative’ approach to human-mink relations during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, wherein millions of minks in fur farms were infected by the coronavirus and culled. This approach employs the use of postcapitalist elegies constructed in a wildlife refuge located near a mink factory farm. In a context of global mink culls, the wildlife refuge – where minks live freely – proximate to a local industrial mink fur farm – where minks are caged and killed for profit – became the site of (re)writing IR in drift narrative form. This poetic analysis highlights trans-spatial links of animal capital and employs intermixed elegiac images, sound recordings, and textual fragments to help us become attuned to nonhuman dreams, desires, losses, and futures. Grounding persistence for postcapitalist futures within the dreams of the dead, the drift narrative generates a spectral form of global multispecies solidarity. Contributing to the interspecies and narrative turns in IR, as well as multidisciplinary work on multispecies solidarity, the drift narrative offers an aesthetic and ethical critique of past and future animal capital systems that render more-than-human life as killable.

An Interpretation of A Study of Jewishness Cynthia Ozick

A Study of Jewishness in Cynthia Ozick’s Fiction (2021) is a masterpiece of Chinese research circles on Cynthia Ozick, and the latest contribution made by Chinese scholars to the study of American Jewish literature. This book presents an exhaustive overview of Cynthia Ozick’s studies at home and abroad, with emphasis on the Jewishness in Ozick’s fiction and it follows the principles of Ethical Literary Criticism in analyzing how Ozick inherits and develops the Jewishness in American Jewish fiction and its literary presentation. The author’s ‘Midrash’ of Cynthia Ozick shows great international perspective and nuanced understanding and empathy. There are three impressive features of the book Firstly, it is rich in materials with a large number of first-hand foreign research materials, and its content is decorous. The monograph is a comprehensive, systematic, and cutting-edge research in this field, which starts a new situation in the study of Ozick; Secondly, it focuses on Jewishness and its artistic expression in Ozick’s fiction by combining historical, cultural, and theoretical research with textual analysis, revealing the rich connotation and internal unity of the works, and demonstrating the researchers’ profound and thorough understanding of the research object. Thirdly, it features dialectical thinking. It dialectically analyzes writers and works from multiple perspectives such as feminist criticism new historicism criticism, postmodern narrative research, and cultural research, and makes horizontal and vertical comparisons in the historical context. The monograph demonstrates well the author’s penetrating dialectical thinking.

An Interpretation of A Study of Jewishness Cynthia Ozick

A Study of Jewishness in Cynthia Ozick’s Fiction (2021) is a masterpiece of Chinese research circles on Cynthia Ozick, and the latest contribution made by Chinese scholars to the study of American Jewish literature. This book presents an exhaustive overview of Cynthia Ozick’s studies at home and abroad, with emphasis on the Jewishness in Ozick’s fiction and it follows the principles of Ethical Literary Criticism in analyzing how Ozick inherits and develops the Jewishness in American Jewish fiction and its literary presentation. The author’s ‘Midrash’ of Cynthia Ozick shows great international perspective and nuanced understanding and empathy. There are three impressive features of the book Firstly, it is rich in materials with a large number of first-hand foreign research materials, and its content is decorous. The monograph is a comprehensive, systematic, and cutting-edge research in this field, which starts a new situation in the study of Ozick; Secondly, it focuses on Jewishness and its artistic expression in Ozick’s fiction by combining historical, cultural, and theoretical research with textual analysis, revealing the rich connotation and internal unity of the works, and demonstrating the researchers’ profound and thorough understanding of the research object. Thirdly, it features dialectical thinking. It dialectically analyzes writers and works from multiple perspectives such as feminist criticism new historicism criticism, postmodern narrative research, and cultural research, and makes horizontal and vertical comparisons in the historical context. The monograph demonstrates well the author’s penetrating dialectical thinking.