Ethical Propositions Research Articles

Valori etice

The ethical propositions of the form e = „The fact p is good” have not a determined truth value. Like any other proposition, the truth value of the proposition e is determined only relatively to a context, arriving to „The fact p is good relatively to the context x”. Establishing the truth value for the ethical proposition e means to assert an ethical value to the fact p. This task can be accomplished either giving a value to the variable x or by its quantification. In the first case, the contextual ethical values are defined, while, in the second situation, the modal ethical values are achieved.

Jonas' Ethics of Responsibility – A Necessary Reflection in Times of Pandemic

This work aims to reflect about some aspects of the main work of the German philosopher Hans Jonas, “The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age”published in 1979. The Jonas Principle of Responsibility makes a critical assessment of modern technoscience, considers that man started to maintain a relationship of responsibility with nature, since it is under his power. A new ethical proposition is needed that contemplates nature and not only the human person, who also has a look not only at the present, but at the future, that is, for future generations. Thus, Jonas' ideas, in addition to his contribution in the field of bioethics, has an important contribution in environmental issues. The possible impacts and imbalances that occur as a result of climate change or even the uncontrollable deforestation of the planet's already scarce forest reserves are known, in addition to the repercussions on human health caused by the deterioration of the environment, the Covid-19 pandemic could be a of its repercussions, increasing human vulnerability and producing inequities as its effects are disproportionate among peoples around the world.

Family Matters in Conflict

Abstract Through an ethnographic account of quotidian family activities like cooking or watching the news, this article investigates how authoritarian history and ongoing conflict in Syria play out in the everyday life of Syrians displaced to Lebanon and Turkey. It traces the day-to-day activities through which the value of the anti-authoritarian actions of some family members is recalibrated in friction with the social and material price the family has paid for such actions, the futures various family members imagine for themselves and the particular family history of adaptation to authoritarian rule. The article argues that unfolding these recalibrations among the displaced allows us to see how Syrians formulate the conflict (also) as a family matter. Investigating this family layer of the conflict in turn alerts us to the ways in which political contestation and collaboration in authoritarian contexts is navigated (also) through ethical propositions related to the family.

Confusion over the Concept of ʿAql and Logical Thinking among Young Muslims in Malaysia

A popular phrase we hear when someone said or did something wrong is “he/she succumbed to logical mind”. This paradoxical statement has become a big wall that people would go to hide and escape from giving defensible justifications for claims made especially claims on religious beliefs and the unseen existences. This pose a huge problem for those who use logical thinking to evaluate the truth value of any proposition as if logical thinking would result in wrong judgment on truth and ethical proposition. What is more, some hold the belief that the Qur’ān shuns logic and thus Muslims are prohibited from applying logical thinking to determine truth from falsehood. This study explored young Muslims’ understanding of the concept of logic to get some insight on this phenomenon, so that informed decisions and planning could be made to arrest this confusion. Moreover, an assessment of young Muslims’ understandings is very important to ensure that they are in line with Qur’ānic teachings. Qualitative analysis was used to analyse data collected from 10 participants using semi-structured interviews. Since face to face interaction was not possible because of the current pandemic, interviews were done using Zoom, Google Meet and WhatsApp. The emergent themes that could be extracted from the participants’ responses were confusion on the understanding of ʿaql and the relationship between the spiritual brain and heart; logical mind as means to solve problems of non-religious issues; and the negative consequences of logical thinking (among others, that it could lead to unbelief). However, a minority of the respondents viewed logical thinking as necessary to understand revelation. This study also found that the young Muslims were weak in logical thinking.

Brutal beginnings: the New Brutalism and Western Australia in the 1950s

In June 1956, three recently graduated West Australian architects penned an editorial for the local institute chapter journal in which they outlined their own interpretation of the New Brutalism. Drawing on the recent writings of Alison and Peter Smithson, and Theo Crosby, the editorial framed New Brutalism as a practical ideology which offered an alternative to the conservative and stagnating profession that they saw around them. This article follows the dispersion of the New Brutalist message from its origins within a tight-knit group in London through to Western Australia. It examines the key influences and experiences of those travelling graduates which facilitated its dissemination through established imperial networks, and the influence that the term had on architectural culture in Perth. Drawing primarily on textual analysis and private archival material, the article examines a range of publications, buildings, and performances in Western Australia that were affected by the movement. Significantly, it reveals the existence of another New Brutalism — one that was adopted in the first instance as an ethical proposition which provided a group of young architects with the tools to both confront and engage with the realities of practice in the postwar period.

Inference of Mulla Sadra's Ethical Views in the Four Realms of Meta-Ethics

Meta-ethics is an important and fundamental part of ethical philosophy. Normative ethics discusses the ethical criterion and definition of happiness and obligation; but Meta-ethics deals with its background. In other words, it puts ethical propositions into philosophical questions in terms of meaning, cognition, and truth. In the intellectual system of transcendent wisdom, metaphysical issues and sheer philosophy are studied in order to help human beings to develop and transcend. In fact, human ethics and transcendence along with theology are two main goals of transcendent wisdom. In this regard, it is important to understand Mulla Sadra's views on meta-ethics as well as to discover and deduce it among Mulla Sadra's philosophical views. While defining meta-ethics, explaining its domains and asking main questions about each of these domains, the method of comparative study is used in this paper in order to provide the most appropriate and consistent possible answers to questions in the realm of meta-ethics - based on Mulla Sadra's views on the originality of existence Substantial motion and Union of Intelligent and Intelligible and so on.

The is-ought gap and the substitution criterion

Ever since its formulation by Hume, the idea of an inferential barrier between non-ethical (“is”) propositions and ethical (“ought”) propositions (also known as Hume’s is-ought thesis) has received much philosophical attention. Prior’s Paradox appears to demonstrate that the ban on “is”-“ought” inferences is violated in every possible instance, from which it follows that Hume’s is-ought thesis must be false. In this article, I will formulate a logically rigorous version of Hume’s is-ought thesis, introduce Prior-style counterexamples, and suggest how they might demonstrate the falsity of Hume’s is-ought thesis, identify the substitution criterion, and develop at length the unrestricted and restricted versions of this criterion as it is applied by Pigden and Schurz. Thereafter, I will outline Schurz’s defence of the is-ought gap in accordance with his interpretation of the substitution criterion, before introducing a more sophisticated version of Prior-style objections, proposing a possible response from Pigden, identifying the costs of Pigden’s response and counter proposing a response on behalf of Schurz through an extension of his approach, and offering concluding remarks.

Por uma filosofia política do luto

Este artigo se propõe a uma revisão bibliográfica do tema do luto na obra de Judith Butler tomando como argumento central a ideia de que o luto é o conceito em torno do qual a autora organiza sua filosofia. Ao entrelaçar reivindicação de direito ao luto público, crítica à violência de Estado, despossessão de si e interdependência, Butler desenha uma proposição ética a partir da condição de enlutável, dada desde o início da vida. A condição de enlutável nas vidas é desigualmente enquadrada e, nesse sentido, Butler procurar revelar os quadros que sustentam a condição de possibilidade de manter certas vidas como precárias. No percurso do texto, articulo ao tema do luto em Butler com as noções de biopolítica (Foucault), necropolítica (Mbembe) e estado de exceção (Agamben) a fim para refletir como a pandemia de covid-19 nos expõe a uma condição de vulnerabilidade global e, ao mesmo tempo, acentua desigualdades entre as vidas precárias.

The ethics–mathematics analogy

AbstractEthics and mathematics have long invited comparisons. On the one hand, both ethical and mathematical propositions can appear to be knowable a priori, if knowable at all. On the other hand, mathematical propositions seem to admit of proof, and to enter into empirical scientific theories, in a way that ethical propositions do not. In this article, I discuss apparent similarities and differences between ethical and mathematical knowledge, realistically construed—that is, construed as independent of human mind and languages. I argue that some are merely apparent, while others are of little consequence. There is a difference between the cases. But it is not an epistemological difference per se. The difference, surprisingly, is that ethical knowledge, if it is practical, cannot fail to be objective in a way that factual knowledge can. One upshot of the discussion is radicalization of Moore's Open Question Argument. Another is that the concepts of realism and objectivity, which are widely identified, are actually in tension.

Regionalism, Well-Being, and Domestic Violence in Tony Birch’s “The Red House”

It is generally accepted that the creative arts make a positive contribution to regional well-being and a diverse range of actors (government bodies, commercial entities, artists, researchers) are active in this space. Given this, it is concerning that the voices of creative artists themselves are sometimes not heard in the conversation. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s work on “resistant speech” is important here for the strategic recourse it offers to a range of subalternate populations, including regional artists, women and children, and for its solidarity with modes of being reliant on qualitative research engagements. Admittedly, examples of creative work that dramatize and interrogate the problem of well-being across the divide between urban and regional areas are comparatively rare. One standout is Tony Birch’s short story “The Red House” (2006), in which a storyline of well-being under threat from domestic violence is interwoven with a peripatetic narrative of the characters’ movements within the city of Melbourne and between the regional community of Clunes and Melbourne. As the lead piece in Birch’s collection of linked stories, Shadowboxing, “The Red House” is a significant literary exploration of how a variety of human relationships and responses to place (regional and urban) might bring about, but also help to alleviate, the circumstances of domestic violence as a threat to the well-being of women and children. Even as it posits a link between regional life and well-being, “The Red House” eschews a simple binary opposition between bucolic Clunes and the inner-city grime and unease of Fitzroy. Some of the violence and threats to well-being sourced from Melbourne re-appear in Clunes, while certain props of well-being first experienced in Clunes are subtly reincorporated back into the red house in Fitzroy. The relationship between medical well-being (health) and well-being as a more general index of happiness, comfort and security is also explored. Birch’s story is a valuable, fine-grained creative analysis of well-being (extending from happiness, comfort and security to the negative well-being that is domestic violence), which is matched to an equally fine-grained engagement with multiple modalities of place. It contests certain more reductive definitions of the regional and challenges the reader to creatively re-think how regionalism and well-being might align.

Hacia una cartografía del dispositivo democrático global

El texto parte de la sospecha de la existencia de un dispositivo democrático que funciona globalmente. Basándose en Michel Foucault, concibe al dispositivo como una red que conecta elementos heterogéneos y cuyo efecto es la producción de subjetividades. Así, haciendo un uso metodológico del mismo, vincula proposiciones éticas sobre la libertad, construcciones teóricas de las relaciones internacionales, prácticas políticas de Estados y organismos internacionales, y construcciones normativas (específicamente, la responsabilidad de proteger) que acompañan las intervenciones internacionales en el Sur global, para reflexionar sobre la producción de un sujeto democrático, predicado de un gobierno liberal global.

Toward a Model for Ethical Cybersecurity Leadership

With no clear model for ethical cybersecurity leadership, the field of cybersecurity is largely unregulated. The advances in technology and the Internet of Things come at a price—security. Since there is a lack of regulation, no clear guidelines exist. Furthermore, there is a gap in the literature to identify a set of global ethical standards for cybersecurity leaders. This article proposes an international model of ethical standards with three ethical propositions to ensure the users of technology in today's global industry remain confident in the corporations entrusted with the users' information.

Paradox and possibility: voluntarism and the urban environment in a post-political era

Environmental discourse in western democracies has become embroiled in a post-political crisis in which environmental problems that were once seen as public concerns to be debated openly are now defined as problems that are placed outside of politics. Meanwhile, a focus on urban sustainability has come to heavily influence both the management and the conduct of everyday urban life. This concurrence presents a paradox in which the de-politicization of the environment occurs even as environmental concerns are politically mobilized through various policy initiatives, consumer discourses, and environmentalist calls to action. In this paper, I consider the role of public engagement in the management of urban environments and its ability to undermine post-political discourses. In particular, I explore the ways in which the ethical propositions of an apoliticized environment are variously taken up uncritically, challenged, and sometimes modified through the public’s engagement with de-politicized discourses of environment management. Drawing from a case study in Philadelphia involving ecological restoration volunteers, I argue that volunteerism provides opportunities for the marginalization of the public, but also for confrontation and modification of expert knowledge. Volunteers contest the conceptual underpinnings and desired outcomes of environmental management even as they discipline themselves according to its goals.

Violence, Morality, and Religion

Violence, Morality, and Religion

Family Mediation: Which Ethical Model Are We Following?

Recent moves towards a non-legal presumption of child-inclusive family mediation propose removing the need for both parents to consent when a child is tested as Gillick–competent. This is intended to let consenting children share their experiences, and express their concerns and views for sensitive consideration by their parents, so that these can be taken into account in the dispute resolution process (J Walker and A Lake-Caroll ‘Child-inclusive divorce resolution: Time for Change’ [2015] Fam Law 695). This paper explores the potential consequences of adopting such a model, based on an earlier analysis of the ethical propositions informing four of the most prominent Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) texts (Wilson, 2010). It contends that shifts of practice that involve overruling a dissenting parent have fundamental implications in terms of the mediator’s duty of care and, therefore, the communitarian principles upon which family mediation is founded. There should be further debate regarding how practising mediators should address the application of differing ethical models in circumstances where these are likely to compete with one another.

IFLA Code of Ethics for Librarians and other Information Workers (full version)

The Code of Ethics for Librarians and other Information Workers, posted on the IFLA official website, is offered as a series of ethical propositions for the guidance of individual librarians, as well as other information workers. It can also serve as a model reference document for consideration of National associations when creating or revising their own Codes of ethics. There are described the functions of Codes of Ethics: Encouraging reflection on principles on which librarians and other information workers can form common ethical standards, rules and policies; Improving professional self-awareness; Providing transpa-rency and openness to users and society in general. In the Preamble there are set forth the basic principles of the Code. The document includes the following sections: Access to information; Responsibilities towards individuals and society; Privacy, secrecy and transparency; Open access and intellectual property; Neutrality, personal integrity and professional skills; Colleague and employer/ employee relationship. For further study of the question there is provided a number of literary sources.

Review and explain the of consequentialism and Deontologists in Islamic Doctrines

One of the most important issues in normative ethics is investigation and explanation of the problem Consequentialism and Deontologism. Many intellectuals have focused in the West and the Islamic world (partly) on this issue and researches also have remained. The problem Consequentialism and Deontologism one of the valuable researches that can be applied as beginning in the teachings of Islam, especially in the realm of ethics .The fact that ethical Islamic propositions related to consequentialism or Deontologism itself is very important and in this area researches demands to be done. In many ethical doctrines Islam, such as Qur'an, the sayings of Imams clearly referred to deontologists and in some doctrine is provided to consequentialism. In this research we sought to investigate the important point that the ethical doctrines of Islam, related to Consequentialism or Deontologism. In addition to be important the pursuit of the fact that Islam is considered in the discussion of ethical education, Consequential or De-ontological. To achieve this objective, descriptive - analytic method has been investigated to investigate this issue with a focus on religious texts especially the Holy Qur'an. The results of this study, the separation between the two fields of Islamic teachings the field of relationship with God Deontologism and Consequentialism in society and people sphere. Please cite this article as: Shiravand M, Ranjkesh M. Review and explain the of consequentialism and Deontologists in Islamic Doctrines. Iran J Bioethics 2016; 6(19): 7-25.

At the Boundaries of Language: Galdós, Wittgenstein, and the Problem of Pacifism

AbstractSometimes, pacifism finds itself in a paradoxical situation. Renouncing war as an acceptable means to settle a dispute, the pacifist runs the risk of neglecting the defense of those whose very existence is threatened by violent forces. When this is the case, pacifism may be considered as a peculiar form of involuntary wrongdoing. This paper explores the dilemmas and the internal inconsistencies of pacifism by means of two different strategies: (1) the analysis of the ethics of war and peace in Benito Pérez Galdós’ Aita Tettauen, and (2) the comparison of said ethics with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s notion of ethics as expounded in his Notebooks 1914-1916, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, and “A Lecture on Ethics.” This article argues that Galdós deconstructs the dichotomy war/peace by placing pacifism - embodied by the main character, the writer Santiuste - within the structure of war. He does so, however, in an ambiguous way. Instead of openly denouncing or supporting Santiuste’s pacifism, Galdós presents his main character with irony, a literary technique that makes it difficult to determine whether the novel endorses or criticizes Santiuste’s brand of pacifism. Uttered always in absolute terms, ethical propositions go against the boundaries of our language by trying to say what cannot be expressed. Aita Tettauen demonstrates the ambiguity inherent to ethical stances such as pacifism. Galdós, like Wittgenstein years later, placed ethical issues at the boundaries of language.

Eliminating Ethics

This paper is about what might be called the philosophical tradition of ethics, and Wittgenstein’s opposition or hostility to that tradition. My aim will be to argue that ethics, or a large part of what we think of as ethics, is nonsense, and in doing so I shall be developing the line of argument that I take to lie behind Wittgenstein’s claim in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that there can be no ethical propositions. That argument has its basis in the simple thought that value is not arbitrary or accidental, and what I shall show is how thinking through what is involved in that thought leads to a radically different conception of the possibilities open to ethical thinking than that which is assumed within the prevailing conception of ethics today.

Potential directions for the IWC to address the conservation and welfare challenges faced by cetacean species

The gulf between ethical propositions of animal welfare and the scientific basis of wildlife conservation has, at times, impeded a practical working relationship between the two (Harrop 2003). Indeed, quite often the two disciplines are capable of looking in different directions. The conservationist fixes on the species and its population status whilst the welfarist focuses on any animal, regardless of its conservation status, that is phylogenetically sophisticated enough to be capable of suffering. In consequence, welfare components are rare in international wildlife management law and are restricted to being subordinate to conservation objects (Harrop 1997, 2010). Nevertheless, the two disciplines are moving closer in many ways with the development of scientific indicators of welfare and also the need to refine the principal drivers of conservation strategies which must ultimately derive from an ethical objective. In this connection, the recent review of the CBD's strategy at Nagoya founded its new targets on a vision of ‘Living in Harmony With Nature’ (Harrop 2011c). Such an achievement would probably be a first for humanity and an utterly impractical aspiration. However, I would like to construe this vision, with the freedom of poetic licence, as conceiving both a materially and ethically harmonious future for humans and animals.