Deontological Views Research Articles

COVID-19 pandemic emergency for the doctrine of asymmetric warfare

Several countries that have involved the military in handling Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been relatively successful. The authors researched the doctrine of asymmetric warfare during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. The Indonesian government assigns the Indonesian National Army (TNI) during an emergency. Help to support the smooth circulation of fulfilling the population's basic needs, cross-regional population transportation, crime is not widespread, offices continue to run with restrictions on the number of people working, and the economy recovers quickly. This research framework uses moral philosophy. Deontological views and utilitarianism become the main assessment instruments to build the doctrine of asymmetric warfare. This research uses a case study approach. The study results show that the Indonesian people see the emergency condition of the COVID-19 pandemic as an asymmetrical warfare. The government is aware of the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic occurring at various government levels in terms of spread, duration, and number. All resources are used to deal with COVID-19, including the military, because civil society does not have many facilities and capabilities of TNI personnel.

Розвиток ідей деонтології та професійної етики в історичному аспекті

The article is devoted to the study of stages of formation and development of deontology and professional ethics, which is relevant in terms of understanding the impact of the historical process of formation and development of deontological ideas on ethical and deontological, psychological and moral aspects of professional activity in various fields. The article presents the evolutionary path of deontology and professional ethics, from the initial understanding of the essence of ethics and moral and ethical norms, to the development of deontology as one of the main components of various professions or activities. The main characteristics of implicit (creation of preconditions for deontology), explicit (delimitation of the concepts «ethics», «morality» and «deontology», image of deontology as a science, formation of ideas about the content of ethics) and institutional (further development) are outlined in the process of the research; the emergence of systems of professional ethical norms set in regulations and documents); stages of formation of deontology as a science; the preconditions for the emergence of deontology as a separate branch of scientific knowledge and the separation of its applied (practical) direction are determined. The essence of deontological views of Immanuel Kant, sources of Jeremy Bentham and Charlie Broad, and their influence on the formation of modern deontological systems and professional ethics are considered.

“Hope will die at last”: an interview with Wolfgang Schirmacher

To Wolfgang Schirmacher philosophy is about reading in the spirit of, so that we may follow the logic of the phenomenon that shows itself to us. It is in this spirit of phenomenology Schirmacher asks whether Martin Heidegger's diagnosis of our age – that we live under a Gestell, or fix, of technology – is sufficient. Should we not consider the supplementary notion of technology as an event (Ereignis) of becoming into our own existence? We have an inborn character that is unassailable and yet unknown to us until the day we perish, and from such an ethical perspective – and in distinction to deontological views – Schirmacher rejects science's promise never to clone humans. He regards such a declaration as “only valid until it’s possible.” Rather, he regards our future as one in which humans will be allowed to procreate for as long as it doesn't interfere unambiguously with the functioning of the machines, “and during that interim the poor humans living there will still have hope.”

Core values versus common sense: consequentialist views appear less rooted in morality.

When a speaker presents an opinion, an important factor in audiences' reactions is whether the speaker seems to be basing his or her decision on ethical (as opposed to more pragmatic) concerns. We argue that, despite a consequentialist philosophical tradition that views utilitarian consequences as the basis for moral reasoning, lay perceivers think that speakers using arguments based on consequences do not construe the issue as a moral one. Five experiments show that, for both political views (including real State of the Union quotations) and organizational policies, consequentialist views are seen to express less moralization than deontological views, and even sometimes than views presented with no explicit justification. We also demonstrate that perceived moralization in turn affects speakers' perceived commitment to the issue and authenticity. These findings shed light on lay conceptions of morality and have practical implications for people considering how to express moral opinions publicly.

Justice, Reason, and Luck in Rationing Lifesaving Medical Resources

Justice, Reason, and Luck in Rationing Lifesaving Medical Resources

What’s wrong with Moorean buck-passing?

In this paper I discuss and try to remove some major stumbling blocks for a Moorean buck-passing account of reasons in terms of value (MBP): There is a pro tanto reason to favour X if and only if X is intrinsically good, or X is instrumentally good, or favouring X is intrinsically good, or favouring X is instrumentally good. I suggest that MBP can embrace and explain the buck-passing intuition behind the far more popular buck-passing account of value, and has the means to avoid the wrong kind of reasons problem. Further, I counter the common suspicion that a Moorean account cannot make sense of deontological views such as Ross’s, and that it generally leaves no room for agent-relative reasons. In order to do this, I appeal to the idea that a Moorean account does not dictate the substantive view that values have to be maximized. In some cases, expressing them might be a better response. Finally I lay out and reply to a potentially devastating argument to the effect that a Moorean account makes oughts and reasons non-normative. I also criticize Scanlon’s attempt to favour his own buck-passing account via consideration of the open question argument. MBP thus emerges as a live option in the buck-passing debate.

A Comparative Study of Ethical Perceptions of Managers and Non-Managers

This study provides a comparison of the ethical perceptions of managers and non-managers, including professionals, teachers, sales persons and clerks, as well as technical and plant workers. Data of working individuals were collected in Hong Kong in the form of questionnaires which contain vignettes of questionable ethical issues. Factor analysis was used to identify the major ethical dimensions which were then used as the basis of comparison. Regression analyses were used to study the effect of various variables on ethical perceptions in terms of the identified dimensions. Our study reviews that managers tend to possess deontological views that are more ethical than that found in other occupations. The gap between managers and professionals in perceiving unethical behavior is narrower compared to that between the former and individuals in other occupations. The acceptability of unethical behavior tends to decline with income. Besides, there are indications that people working in non-profit organizations tend to have higher ethical standards. Based on our results, recommendations are made to improve the ethical culture of organizations.

Use and Misuse of Examples in Normative Ethics

The use of examples and thought-experiments is a common tool in professional philosophical argumentation. Sometimes examples are used to test a certain position or even an entire moral theory. There is one specific area of moral discussion in which this strategy is common –the discussion between deontological and consequentialist moral views and, more specifically, on some relevant varieties of deontologism. My aim is to show that examples are often misconstrued in both cases, so that they cannot be used as reliable tests for or against moral views. The methodological lesson to be taken from such a failure is that we must be extremely cautious when applying examples to evaluate moral theories.

Biocentric Ethics and Animal Prosperity

Singer's utilitarian and Regan's deontological views must be rejected because: (1) they rely on criteria for moral standing that can only be known a priori and (2) if these criteria were successful, they'd be too restrictive. I hold that while mental properties may be sufficient for moral standing, they are not necessary. (3) Their criteria of moral standing do not unambiguously abrogate needless harm to animals. I defend a theory of biocentric individualism that upholds the principle of species egalitarianism while at the same time recognizing that in certain cases, human needs must outweigh the needs of non-humans. On this view, moral consideration is not conferred only on beings that have human-life mental properties. Finally, it offers an unambiguous recommendation for the abolition of harmful animal experimentation, factory farming, and killing animals for sport.

The Moral Basis of Stakeholder Theory

Stakeholder theory is an important and commonly used framework for business ethics. Several of the most popular business ethics and business and society texts such as Archie Carroll's Business and Society: Ethics and Stakeholder Management (1993) and Joseph Weiss's Business Ethics: A Managerial, Stakeholder Approach (1994) rely on the concept. In the past two years, over two hundred articles on stakeholder theory have appeared in philosophical and business journals.1 In this paper I will examine the claim that businesses should consider the interests of stake holders, and question whether there is a moral basis for that claim. I will point out three approaches to stakeholder theory: prudence, agency, and deontological views. Of these, deontology has offered the strongest arguments for a normative stakeholder approach. However, on examination it turns out that deontology in this context relies on an embedded notion of corporate personhood. When this is made explicit, it both underwrites duties to some, but not all, stakeholders, and provides a way to distinguish between competing stakeholder claims.

The shape of the good: Christian reflections on the foundations of ethics

An introduction to ethical theory from a Christian perspective, The Shape of the Good examines the connection between moral theory, theology, and metaphysics, approaching standard ethical theories from the standpoint of Christian theology. A range of standard theories are discussed in the first four chapters: relativism, subjectivism, the divine command theory, ethical egoism, act and rule utilitarianism, Kant's view, contractarianism, and pluralistic deontological views. Chapters five and six develop a Christian teleological view of ethics and show its implications in a series of contemporary moral issues, such as world hunger, human rights, abortion and criminal punishment. In the final chapters, C.Stephen Layman proposes a specifically Christian consequentialist theory of ethics that should be of interest to professionals and non-specialists alike.

Right-Based Justification of Punishment

The deontological justification of punishment is generally associated with the notion of “retributive justice”. This notion, however, underlies only one of two distinct approaches by which one may attempt to justify punishment within deontological morality. According to this, the classical approach, punishment is to be regarded as an end in itself, intrinsically valuable, from the moral point of view. According to other deontological views, however, punishment has only instrumental value – not, as in consequentialism, in the maximization of some general social good, but in the maintenance and equal distribution of basic individual rights. Borrowing Dworkin's terminology, this view can be called a “right-based” conception of punishment.