Ethical Interpretation Research Articles

What is the Meaning of Immanuel Kant’s Notion of the Human Being as the Ultimate End of Nature?

The article explores Kant’s notion of the human being as the ultimate end of nature, presenting an ethical interpretation of this notion. The author of this article believes that the analysis of Kant’s assumptions will allow a deeper understanding of our own hermeneutical situation, in which ecological problems force us to rethink our relationship with nature and the meaning of human existence. Analyzing Kant’s early texts on Lisbon earthquake and his reflection on the sublime in the Critique of Judgement, the author asks how the experience of an uncontrolled natural element complements Kant’s ethical vision of nature’s teleology. Emphasizing the importance of insight into human vulnerability for the implementation of moral purpose in nature, the article outlines guidelines for interpretation that allow the relevance of Kant’s position in the context of contemporary environmental ethics.

‘Gender Verification Issues in Women’s Competitive Sports: An Ethical Critique of the IAAF DSD Regulation’

ABSTRACT In 2018 the World Heath Organization decided to re-examine the classification of gender identity disorder and exclude it from being defined as a mental illness. This re-examination means that sex and gender do not have a single meaning It can be argued that the WHO decision presents an ethical dilemma for competitive sports, since a more concrete definition of gender is required to determine the category in which an athlete will compete without the violation of basic human rights or the violation of fair play in sport. The example of Caster Semenya illustrates the ethical dilemma that arises in this situation. In what follows, I will discuss: 1) the circumstances and background of Semenya’s eligibility; 2) the conflict between moral values that arises here; 3) an ethical interpretation of the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF)’s claim regarding Semenya’s case; and lastly 4) the acceptable level of injustice in competitive sports. From these perspectives, I will offer a practical philosophical discussion of the IAAF’s new regulations using Semenya’s case as an illustrative example and clarifying the difference between ‘discrimination’ and ‘distinction’. This paper partially affirms the Differences of Sexual Development (DSD) regulations issued by the IAAF in 2018. Its intention is not to completely support the IAAF’s regulations, however, but rather to show that the paradigm of modern sports itself can be a target of criticism.

CRIMINAL LEGAL POLICY AND UNCONSTITUTIONALITY ON CONTEMPT OF RULER OR PUBLIC BODY

Contempt of ruler or public body are criminal offence which stipulated in article 207 and 208 Penal Code of Indonesia. In practice, there is legal uncertainty because substantially contradict to Constitutional Court Decision No.013-022/PUU-IV/2006 about contempt of President/ Vice President and No. 6/PUU-V/2007 about contempt of Indonesia Government. This paper wants to found criminal legal policy and constitutionality on contempt of ruler or public body. The research method used is juridical normative with regulation, doctrinal, and decision approaches. The result of study shows changes of criminal law policy on contempt of ruler or public body based on comparison of current Penal Code and future Penal Code Draft with changes elements of formulation: (1) suspect; (2) intention; (3) victim; (4) sanction; (5) impact of action, the norms also transform from general offence to complaint offense. Next, analysis to Constitutional Court decisions about contempt of President/Vice President and Indonesia Government which declared null and void, found related legal reasoning: First, violate freedom of expression; Second, violate right to get information; Third, causing legal uncertainty; Fourth, no longer suitable with society development; Fifth, changes in norms on Criminal Code Draft; Sixth; follow previous decision; Seventh, against universal value in international law. Then, the constitutional interpretation methods used in the decisions are: (1) Ethical Interpretation; (2) Historical Interpretation; (3) Futuristic Interpretation; (4) Doctrinal Interpretation. Therefore, according on similar legal reasoning and constitutional interpretation, article 207 and 208 Penal Code also supposed to be stated unconstitutional.

Ethical Aspects of social Robotics

The paper explores the ethics of robotics as a branch of technoethics and the history of its formation and development. Three interpretations of ethics in the field of robotics are outlined. The first meaning deals with the professional ethics of robot engineers and designers and coincides with the term “roboethics” proposed by Gianmarco Verrugio. The second meaning (“ethics of robotics”) is related to the development of moral code programmed into robots. The third meaning (“robot’s ethics”) refers to considering robots as fully moral agents and has more to do with science fiction and theorizing rather than with the actual scope of research. The framework for analyzing the development of autonomous moral agents by Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach is used to investigate the dependence between autonomy of robots and their ethical sensitivity, which refers to the capability of robotic systems to be sensitive to morally relevant facts and to make moral choices. In this regard, we consider the option of progressing from operational morality, according to which the actions of machines are completely dependent on engineers and consumers, to the so-called functional morality, when machines will be able to evaluate their own actions and deal with moral challenges. Two main approaches to programming social robots are described: a top-down rule-based approach relying on ethical theories such as deontology and consequentialism (utilitarianism), as well as a bottom-up approach with an emphasis on virtue ethics. The top-down approach is considered from the perspective of anti-imperative criticism drawing upon Kant’s categorical imperative, Asimov’s three laws of robotics, and the utilitarian principle of maximum happiness for the maximum number of people. The paper investigates the potential benefits of virtue ethics and morality as a reflection of socio-cultural values for programming autonomous social robots.

Virtue as Empowerment

Virtue ethical interpretations of Nietzsche are increasingly viewed as a promising way to explain his moral philosophy, although current interpretations disagree on which character traits he regards as virtues. Of the first-, second-, and third-wave attempts addressing this question, only the latter can explain why Nietzsche denies that the same character traits are virtues for all individuals. Instead of positing the same set of character traits as Nietzschean virtues, third-wave theorists propose that Nietzsche only endorses criteria determining whether a specific character trait is a virtue or vice for a specific individual. The article examines the criteria-based approaches of third-wave theorists Lester Hunt and Christine Swanton, showing how they urgently need revising to explain Nietzsche’s endorsement of non-acquisitive character traits (such as those involving sensitivity and receptivity). To do this I explore Nietzsche’s unpublished remarks on Spinoza, which I contend better explains why he understands non-acquisitive character traits as virtues.

Readerly Freedom from the Nascent Novel to Digital Fiction: Confronting Fielding's Joseph Andrews and Burne's "24 Hours with Someone You Know"

This essay compares two novel forms that are separated by more than 250 years: Henry Fielding's Joseph Andrews, published in 1742, and Philippa Burne's hypertext fiction 24 Hours with Someone You Know, copyrighted in 1996. Using narratological, pragmatic, and cognitive tools and theories, confrontation of two distant texts aims to highlight that while the of telling is congruent with ethics of told in both stories (), texts differ in pragmatic positioning of their audiences and freedom that they seem to grant readers, thereby emphasizing evolution of author-reader relationship across centuries and media. The article shows to what extent digital fiction can be said to invite active of reader via computer mouse/cursor. Meanwhile it exposes a paradox: although Joseph Andrews is a highly author-controlled narrative, guiding reader's ethical interpretation of what is told, it seems to leave more space for actual reader, while Burne's participatory framework, conveyed through a second-person pronoun that blurs line between implied and actual audience, requires some forced participation () via virtual performatives that hyperlinks represent. Finally, specificity of you digital fiction as opposed to its print counterpart is theorized in two contrasted models of audience.

About an Ethical Interpretation of the Law. Resolution of the Civil Action during the Criminal Trial

From the provisions of art. 25 para. 1 and art. 397 para. 1 of the Criminal Procedure Code, as in the previous regulation, it results that the legislator took into account an element not only of civil justice, but also of social ethics, when it was established that the criminal court also rules, through the same decision, on the action civil. Basically, the two provisions stated above express the same idea, although this repetition was not absolutely necessary. From the current regulation of solving the civil action during the criminal trial, we notice that the legislator has maintained a series of general principles such as: cases of ex officio settlement of the civil action, dependence of the civil action on the way the criminal action is settled, the disjunction of the civil action from the criminal proceedings, the failure to resolve the civil action as a distinct procedure from that of admitting or rejecting the civil action, resolving the civil action only by the court, and the interdiction to resolve it during the criminal investigation, which, however, were adapted to a new legislative vision.

American Honor: The Creation of the Nation's Ideals during the Revolutionary Era by Craig Bruce Smith

Reviewed by: American Honor: The Creation of the Nation's Ideals during the Revolutionary Era by Craig Bruce Smith Andrew Robertson (bio) Keywords Honor, Ethics, Honor culture, Virtue, Dueling American Honor: The Creation of the Nation's Ideals during the Revolutionary Era. By Craig Bruce Smith. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Pp. 367. Cloth, $35.00.) Craig Bruce Smith has written a different study of honor. Rather than opening on the battlefield or the dueling ground, the book begins with the delegates arriving at Carpenters' Hall for the First Continental Congress in 1774. Before the Revolution began, these Americans shared an understanding of honor and virtue. When many of these same delegates met two years later to declare independence, they pledged their sacred honor to the cause. Smith argues that common and well-defined conceptions of honor, virtue, and ethics united Americans in the patriot cause. As a consequence, "Americans from expansive gender, social and racial categories transformed them as their own" (2). As individuals came to understand honor and virtue as synonymous with ethical precepts, they adapted understandings of honor and virtue to direct their conduct. Smith argues that as these broadened and deepened ethical understandings from the American Revolution created a "continuing ethical ideology" (7). Smith offers us a refreshing and original perspective on the role of ethics in the American Revolution and its aftermath. He sees this ethical interpretation of the Revolution not as challenging economic, political, and social considerations; he offers us instead a complementary narrative. The author urges his readers to take the moral purposes of the [End Page 394] American Revolution and its participants seriously. In this endeavor, Smith directs his attention not only to the elite but also to men and women of the middling and lower orders and also to African Americans, both free and enslaved. For Smith, this "egalitarian shift" in ethics contrasts with "the violent, hierarchical and oppressive aspects of honor culture" (9). Smith acknowledges the importance of honor culture, especially to elite men from the South. Smith argues for regional variations in what was defined as "honor"; for Bertram Wyatt-Brown's southerners, virtue and honor were inseparable. Smith contrasts John Adams as the emblematic New Englander who argued for the supremacy of virtue over honor. The institutions that played the most important role in instilling notions of virtue and honor among elite young men were the colleges. The standard texts in moral philosophy would have included Shaftesbury's Inquiry Concerning Virtue, Hutcheson's Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, and later Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. For Hutcheson and Shaftesbury, honor and virtue were closely related. For Adam Smith, however, virtue was acquired by merit and honor was the adherence to the rules of society. The other source for a wider circle of young men and women to imbibe the principles of honor and virtue was the colonial resistance of the 1760s and 1770s. In 1775, as British troops engaged New Englanders in battle, the notions of honor and virtue, national and personal, northern and southern, gradually blended together. Smith quotes Joseph Warren's observation that henceforward the struggle for independence was not only a political choice; it was an ethical choice as well. Americans of all ranks believed their national honor was based in the moral superiority of their cause. In the early years of the Revolutionary War women like Mercy Otis Warren, Abigail Adams, and poet Hannah Griffitts were at pains to describe the superiority of national honor based in virtue. Washington, on the other hand, was instrumental in creating some collective conception of military virtue. Washington argued for a form of Stoic conduct; Roger Stevenson argued in Military Instructions for Officers that true honor was founded on religion. There were tensions between civilian and military conceptions of honor and virtue: American civil society had fashioned an egalitarian conception of national honor, while the officer corps had internalized a [End Page 395] sense of honor based on hierarchy and rank. Nowhere did these contradictory notions come into more obvious conflict than in the recruitment of free African Americans into New England army units. Smith argues that after the conclusion of the Revolutionary...

De-coding Hermeneutics

Abstract A significant body of literature rests on the premise that the most propitious way of characterizing the way we interpret linguistic signs corresponds to the practices of encoding and decoding. A sender conceives a message, encodes it in linguistic signs, transmits the message (by voice, or in handwriting, or print, or digital media) and the recipient of the message decodes it. This model itself impedes progress in textual interpretation. An approach to hermeneutics that takes its cue from broader phenomena of perception, apprehension, and inference can provide a more illuminating theoretical discourse for evaluating contested interpretations, with the additional benefit that by changing the way that we view linguistic hermeneutics, we stand to integrate our endeavors more fully with the interpretation of art, music, ethics, and gestural action.

Capitalism, Colonialism, and the War on Human Life

Abstract Dussel’s complex work calls into question the standard history of philosophy, reveals a counter-history at work beneath the official history that gives voice to the victims of capitalism and colonialism, and systematically develops a novel ‘material ethics’ grounded in an unqualified, universal affirmation of life as the foundation of liberatory values. The Ethics of Liberation brings together the major problems explored in Dussel’s prolific body of earlier work: the relationship between Western philosophy and the expansion of European society; the relationship between centre and periphery in global political economy, considered as both a philosophical and an ethical problem; the ethical interpretation of Marxism; the politics of liberation in the colonial context; the defence of universal foundations of ethical norms; and the (all-important) distinction between formal and critical ethics.

The interpreter as researcher: ethical heritage interpretation in Indigenous contexts

ABSTRACTThis paper integrates Indigenous research and heritage interpretation scholarship by addressing how interpretation should be underpinned by research congruent with Indigenous expectations for research ethics and methods. Program research and delivery is a profound exercise of power, for interpreters mold public opinion. In a settler-colonial or Indigenous context, critically analyzing sources for one’s interpretative programs and media is particularly imperative, as Western researchers have historically been on colonialism’s front lines. The interpretation of Indigenous themes is fraught with difficulties, but existing interpretation literature myopically focuses on program delivery and evaluation methods. More attention must be paid by interpreters to the problems of relying on Western, positivist research in Indigenous contexts. This paper considers Indigenous research methods and ethics, provides an overview of the connection between Western knowledge and colonialism, and demonstrates the problems this poses for interpreters working with Indigenous content. I offer concrete suggestions for staff to improve their engagement with Indigenous peoples. Ultimately, I argue, interpreters must become more critical of themselves and their sources to successfully address Indigeneity.

The problem of moral choice in political ethics

«Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Философия и конфликтология» — научно-теоретический рецензируемый журнал, обобщающий результаты исследований ученых всего мира в области традиционных философских дисциплин — онтологии, теории познания, логики, этики, социальной философии, эстетики, истории философии, философии культуры и философии религии, а также актуальные разработки в конфликтологии, философии политики и права.

Logic of care versus logic of choice in modern concepts of medical practice

The article compares two fundamental and conflicting principles in the ethical interpretation of clinical experience — the patient's right to medical choice and care as an immanent ethics of healing. Conceptual attempts to theoretically and empirically justify an unconditional priority of care in modern social and humanitarian research of medicine, as well as the desire to include the logic of choice in the logic of care are made from different methodological perspectives and on the basis of different intellectual traditions. Thus it is more important to compare the key concepts of care on this issue in order to reveal the global trend in understanding the essence of medical experience. The article offers a comparative analysis of the following: firstly, the arguments of an American researcher Joan C. Tronto, formulated in the context of universal political theory and ethics, but relevant to the field of medicine, secondly, the theory of care of the German doctor and philosopher of medicine Klaus Dörner and his opposition to the principle of autonomy, carried out in the practice of informed consent, thirdly, “involved ethnography” of the logic of care, carried out by the Dutch philosopher and anthropologist Annemarie Mol. The comparative analysis of the main texts of these authors on this problem revealed many general statements expressed by them, mainly, the general idea that in the case of chronic disease, which is a typical case of pathology in modern society, the most important is the logic of good care, the logic of interdependence of all subjects of care as a process, and that it is not the political opposition of power and equality here that comes to the centre, but the opposition of care and neglect in everyday medical practices.

Crossing the border between postcolonial reality and the ‘outer world’: Translation and representation of the third space into a fourth space

Stemming from poststructuralist interpretations of space and following Bhabha’s third space enunciation, in this paper we have coined the term fourth space and used this concept as a heuristic tool to address the need to establish a coherent standpoint for the analysis of postcolonial literature reception within a society with no immediate relation to the specific decolonisation process of the author’s country. We explore this concept through the case of the Spanish reception of African postcolonial literature. In Spain, this perspective has remained under-theorised in an era when representation of hybridity is at a vital point, since such representation will provide the social scaffolding for each person’s identity construction. Under these circumstances, literature can be transformative and the role of translation as a decolonising tool can help to create unbiased knowledge through an ethical interpretation of the original texts. We will analyse how those differentiating elements affect the translational process.

Christian visions of homosexuality: new debates of old churches

The article is devoted to the study of the relationship between the processes of erosion of the traditional norm vs deviation matrix in the public consciousness and changes in the position of Christian denominations and churches, new tendencies in theological research, canon law, social work, pastoral practice.
 The purpose of the work is to characterize the processes of diversification of Christian churches for their attitude towards homosexuality under the pressure of changes in the structure of social deviations and the liberalization of the Christian environment. The author defines the main types of historical stigma of homosexuality; characterizes changes in the public opinion of the population of traditionally Christian countries (based on the modern sociological studies); highlights the main innovations in the social doctrine and practice of various Christian denominations; and identifies the dominant trends in eastern and western Christianity in relation to homosexuality.
 It is substantiated that the contradiction between the official doctrine, the conservative position of the church hierarchy, on the one hand, and liberal tendencies in the public opinion of the secular community, on the other hand, are more or less common to all Christian denominations. The most difficult situation related the Roman Catholic Church, whose followers live in Western countries with a high level of tolerance for homosexuality. Under the pressure of changes in legal institutions, public morals and public opinion, the traditional Christian interpretation of homosexuality is filled with new connotations; changes were introduced in canon law, institute of spiritual education, other religious institutions; the church becomes more open to discuss problems that have long been taboo. Church policy and pastoral practice are based on the clear delineation of the concepts of "homosexuality", "acts of homosexuality", "homosexual inclinations", "homosexual intentions", "homosexual temptation", etc.
 It has been shown that despite the existing changes in rhetoric, canon law and church practice, the official position of churches is subject to constant critical attacks. Criticism refers not only to the "lack of" acts of homosexuality, the preservation of religious stigma of homosexuality as sin, the condemnation by the church of homosexual behavior, same-sex marriages and gay culture, but also the rooting of patterns of such behavior in monastic and priestly structures. An alternative to the official position of traditional Christian churches is the growing theological movement, which was called "Queer-Theology", which produces its own version of Christian anthropology.
 Processes of destroying of traditional structure of deviations in the globalized world, from one side, and processes of post-secularizing - from other, generate contradictory consequences for functioning of religious institutes; the palette of possible attitudes to homosexuality becomes complicated. Overall, the differently directed trends were done distinctly in western and east Christianity. In Catholicism, there are processes of liberalization of Christianity, the search for ways to adapt homosexuals to the religious environment, and in the problem field of Christian anthropology new theological interpretations of gender ethics are proposed. In the flow of Orthodoxy, especially of Russian, the fundamentalization and nationalization of Orthodoxy, the defense of the matrix of traditional values will preserve the religious stigma of homosexuality in the future.
 Research results can be drawn on in the courses of religious-studies and sociological disciplines; in research of the problems of social and religious deviation.
 Foreseeable assumptions about the development of the research object are finding the best ways to investigate the newest tendencies in attitude of Christian churches toward the social issues of the day; to provide comparative and cross-cultural analysis of processes of diversification of Christian environment.

The Discussion on the Principle of Universalizability in Moral Philosophy of the 1950s and 1960s: An Analysis

The article offers a review and analysis of the discussion on the principle of universalizability at its initial stage (1950s and 1960s). The author determines the theoretical roots and key points of the discussion and reveals the directions of controversy and the position of researchers. In particular, the problem field depends on the divergence of the ethical and logical aspects of the principle of universalizability. As a result, two areas of discussion are formed: 1) the search for an ethical interpretation of the principle of universalizability, 2) an analysis of the principle of universalizability in its relation to the ethical idea of the action. The author proposes the semantic models (versions) of the principle of universalizability designed to turn it into a substantive moral principle (within the framework of the first direction). These models are based on ideas: a) impartiality, b) justice, c) equality. The models of harmonization of universal normativity and moral experience, law and action are designed to protect the idea of universalizability from accusations of formalism and dogmatism (within the framework of the second direction). The grounds and vulnerabilities of the proposed semantic models of the principle of universalizability are examined (within the framework of the first direction) and the possibility of harmonizing law and action is analyzed (within the framework of the second direction). The understanding of universalizability in analytic philosophy is metaphysical. Within the limits of the metaphysical understanding of universality, the problem of harmonizing the universal law and the idea of individuality cannot be solved. A possible way of solving the problem is an appeal to such a concept of universality in which the idea of universality can be reconciled with the idea of the individual freedom.

The Tyranny of Ethics? Political Challenges and Tensions When Applying Ethical Governance to Qualitative Social Work Research

ABSTRACTThis paper examines problems which current ethical governance processes generate for qualitative researchers within social work. It draws upon case studies and critical theory to detail the unpredictable and diverse nature of much social work qualitative research. It argues that too often this research is pitted against a narrow institutional focus placed on positivist-orientated empirical research and income generation. Overtly instrumental interpretations of ethics – often determined by realist and bioethical paradigms – can quickly inhibit the methodological dynamism required to meaningfully capture the complex and non-binary issues which social workers accommodate in their work and subsequent research. Arguments that policy-led, institutional and professional cultures have generated a conservative culture of risk-aversion within the neo-liberal university are also considered.

The Biblical Idea of Creation and Its Ethical Interpretation in the Philosophy of Levinas

[Figure: see text] Levinas provides an original interpretation of the biblical idea of creation ex nihilo, which goes beyond the traditional understanding in terms of divine power and fabrication. In the first part, this article presents the challenge that the idea of creation poses to traditional logic and ontology by referring to Maimonides’s advocacy of creation in opposition to Aristotle’s assumption of the eternity of the world. Levinas repeats Maimonides’s gesture by enlarging the notion of logos and transposing the idea of creation from the ontological realm to the ethical domain of interpersonal relations. In the second part, it shows how Levinas subjects the idea of creation to a phenomenological reduction, tracing its representational content back to the paradoxical experience of “createdness” within the subject itself. The original meaning of creation is to be sought in relation to the ethical call of the other (person), and within the subject’s passive condition qua responsibility. In this way, the initially religious idea of creation receives a broader philosophical significance as it draws upon a common human experience.

Peace of mind: The quintessential luxury

Abstract Phoenix-like the luxury sector renews itself, whether by innovation in design, or in response to social changes and consumer psychographics. It is an intriguing anomaly: enacting sustainability methodologies and practices like ‘slow make’ (production), low waste and careful garment care. But it excludes potential customers due to the price and availability of the product, which could be perceived as opposite to the perceived holistic inclusive tenets underpinning sustainability. International luxury fashion corporations and labels like Kering who own Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Brioni and Prada, have begun to refocus their priorities, and lead change with their published sustainability goals via reports and websites. Inherently luxury references the highest quality fabrication, design, make and service. Yet across the fashion industry, consumers are experiencing unease or cognitive dissonance, fuelled by media reporting ethical dilemmas. In the luxury end of the market understandably the client/customer will desire both the luxury product and the confidence of an ethical supply chain. Logically, with their established resources the luxury sectors’ interpretation of sustainability, responsibility and ethics could offer to their clients the quintessential luxury: peace of mind. In the past the sustainability discourse has been predominately located around fast fashion in middle and lower markets. Whether a recent addition, or a deeply embedded (previously unmarketed) inherent value, the ethical intent of a sustainable supply chain presents a strategic facet of future luxury. This article is a speculative analysis and overview of both the relationship and proximity of luxury and sustainability focusing on ethics. Specifically, applied ethics within the luxury sector (examined in 2016 and 2018) are one of the highly desirable outcomes: the peace of mind of their clients will be discussed. In the light of the Paris Agreement (2015) from COP 21 and the UK Modern Slavery Bill (2015), ethics are no longer only the playing field of the enlightened. It is timely, as there are changes to be mapped and lessons to be applied and methodologies to be modelled and shared. Undoubtedly, there is a potentiality for courageous concepts of ethics within luxury; thus it is vital to speculate and reflect on the future of ethics in the luxury sector.

Monismo e inmanencia en la cosmología estoica

The aim of this paper is to bring out to light the monistic cosmological foundations on which any interpretation of Stoic ethics must be constructed, articulated around the concepts of immanence and necessity.