Moral Agreement Research Articles

Moral Injury Among Youth: Historical Accounts, Current Research and Future Directions

AbstractThis manuscript explores the definition and historical context of Moral Injury (MI), detailing its psychological and spiritual impact on individuals, including youth populations. Morals are our beliefs and understanding of what is right and wrong. They are often informed by cultural and social norms and typically encompass values and responsibilities that individuals use to judge whether an action is right or wrong. MI is a psychological phenomenon that can unfold when there is a loss of trust in these beliefs or others' ability to keep our shared moral agreements. Traditionally associated with military personnel, MI has evolved to include other populations, including youth and family systems. This piece explores moral development among youth populations and how injuries to moral codes are particularly salient in youth populations and family systems. Special attention is given to MI's unique manifestations and implications in childhood and adolescence. The manuscript concludes with a call to action for further research that prioritizes and integrates youths' own voices in understanding and addressing MI.

Legal Philosophy's View of the Role of Advocate Professional Ethics as an Honorable Profession in Carrying Out Good Law Enforcement

The lawyer profession plays a crucial role in maintaining integrity and justice in the legal system. From the perspective of legal philosophy, the professional ethics of advocates is a deep and complex foundation. Several philosophical views, such as utilitarianism, deontology, and contractualism, provide a framework for understanding advocate ethics. The utilitarian view emphasizes the importance of achieving the best outcome for society as a whole, which can create ethical dilemmas when advocates are faced with controversial cases. In contrast, deontology emphasizes the moral obligations that advocates must follow, which can give rise to conflicts between obligations to clients and society. Contractualism links the ethics of advocates to the moral agreements that underlie the legal system, emphasizing their responsibility for better social change. Advocate ethics is also closely related to the concept of social justice, where advocates must ensure that the law is applied fairly, regardless of individual background. In addition, in dealing with ethical conflicts in practice, advocates must refer to the ethical principles of their profession as a guide. Advocates' ethics not only underlie their duties as legal representatives, but also involve moral considerations about how their actions may affect society as a whole. This is a very important foundation in maintaining professionalism and carrying out their role as law enforcers

The Jiminy Advisor: Moral Agreements among Stakeholders Based on Norms and Argumentation

An autonomous system is constructed by a manufacturer, operates in a society subject to norms and laws, and interacts with end users. All of these actors are stakeholders affected by the behavior of the autonomous system. We address the challenge of how the ethical views of such stakeholders can be integrated in the behavior of an autonomous system. We propose an ethical recommendation component called Jiminy which uses techniques from normative systems and formal argumentation to reach moral agreements among stakeholders. A Jiminy represents the ethical views of each stakeholder by using normative systems, and has three ways of resolving moral dilemmas that involve the opinions of the stakeholders. First, the Jiminy considers how the arguments of the stakeholders relate to one another, which may already resolve the dilemma. Secondly, the Jiminy combines the normative systems of the stakeholders such that the combined expertise of the stakeholders may resolve the dilemma. Thirdly, and only if these two other methods have failed, the Jiminy uses context-sensitive rules to decide which of the stakeholders take preference over the others. At the abstract level, these three methods are characterized by adding arguments, adding attacks between arguments, and revising attacks between arguments. We show how a Jiminy can be used not only for ethical reasoning and collaborative decision-making, but also to provide explanations about ethical behavior.

Conciliating to Avoid Moral Scepticism

ABSTRACT A common worry about moral conciliationism is that it entails at best uncertainty about many of our moral beliefs and at worst epistemological moral scepticism. Against this worry, I argue that moral conciliationism saves us from epistemological moral scepticism and enables us to be confident in many of our moral beliefs. First, I show that only taking disagreements seriously as a threat to our beliefs allows us to utilise agreements in support of our beliefs (call this symmetry). Next, I argue that utilising moral agreements as an epistemic resource allows moral conciliationism to resist the potentially worrisome reduction in confidence of our moral beliefs. Taking the relevance of moral agreement into account, I argue that it is anti-conciliationism that must meet the challenge of epistemological moral scepticism. For this, I suggest that moral inquiry is best understood as a collective endeavour. If so, then agreement on our moral judgments is required to justify the confidence we have in many of our moral beliefs. However, by symmetry, this appeal is possible only if one accepts the conciliatory attitude towards disagreements. Hence, accepting, rather than rejecting moral conciliationism, is the way out of moral scepticism.

INFLUENCE THE CHANNEL PATH ON HYDRO-THERMAL PERFORMANCE IN SERPENTINE MINI- CHANNEL HEAT SINK

The current work aims to inspect the influence of formation flow on hydrothermal performance and the uniformity of base temperature in the serpentine mini channel heat sink. The study was conducted by changing the flow formation with the straight channel model [A] and the wavy channel model [B] and by changing the place of inlet and outlet by putting the entrance at the heat sink center and using water as the working fluid. To obtain the numerical results, a 3D (ANSYS Fluent program) is used. A comparison between the numerical findings in the current work and experimental results from the literature review is carried out. The comparison shows moral agreement between the numerical and experimental findings. Moreover, the outcomes display that flow configuration has a great influence on the distribution of temperature and pressure drop. Although the model with straight channels enhances the temperature uniformity and pressure drop. Additionally, the overall performance factor (OPF) for all new models under study is better than traditional model. The average OPF for model [A] is (1.43) and for model [B] is (1.26). In addition, model [A] is better as compared with model [B] by 11.89% due to the efficient OPF and the uniformity of temperature in the base.

Moral Disagreement in Anglican – Roman Catholic Relations

Abstract The belief that the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches were divided by moral disagreements came to prominence in the early 1980s and affected the direction of ecumenical dialogue. But no moral disagreements go back to the Reformation era, and the perception of moral difference has undergone many changes since that time, especially reflecting differences of social and political setting. A moral agreement or disagreement is difficult to chart with precision. It is not embodied in a formulation of moral doctrine, since moral reason functions on two planes, that of evaluative description and that of deliberation and decision. Disagreement is phenomenologically present as offence, which has its own dynamic of expansion. Addressing offence, a task involving lay, theological and episcopal contributions, is the primary way in which moral agreement has to be sought and defended.

MATERIAL SCOPE OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND PUBLIC ORDER IN THE CONTEXT OF POLICE RESPONSIBILITIES

This article presents the material scope of public safety and public order in the context of the Polish police jurisdiction. The considerations are based on the assumption that safety, as one of the social rights, is an inalienable human right while human rights are the product of moral and political agreements between people. When attempting to define the material scope of the notions of "public safety" and "public order", it should be noted that both in the process of making and applying the law and in the legal literature, the use of the term "public safety and order" has been accepted. Nevertheless, the concepts of public safety and public order are not unequivocal. The relevant literature presented in this article is dominated by approaches that define both public safety and public order as a desirable state. Most often, public safety is related to the functioning of the state and its citizens, while public order refers to a narrower sphere of complying with norms and maintaining the efficiency of public institutions . Both concepts are of an administrative nature, i.e. they are concerned with issues related to the implementation and observance of regulations in force in a given country. Public order, just like public safety, is also a certain internal condition of a state, as no organised community can allow its members to exercise their will without any restrictions. Rules governing the conduct and coexistence of community members are defined by appropriate norms, such as customs, moral and religious principles or legal norms, all of which are subject to permanent changes, which in turn makes it necessary for the institutions established to protect public order and safety to adapt by systematic improvement of their organisation in the functional dimension.

THE PHENOMENON OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN THE SOCIAL EXISTENCE OF HUMAN

Purpose. The research is aimed at determining the influence of negative ethical emotions on social life and the activity of the individual, which involves solving the following problems: a) to find out approaches to the typology of ethical emotions, b) to highlight individual negative ethical emotions and to determine their ability to influence human behaviour. Theoretical basis. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is the recognition of the significant influence of negative emotions on human activity in society. In this regard, it is proposed to consider them as a complex multidisciplinary phenomenon, which is predetermined by both social and personal factors of origin and has a certain specificity of objectification. Originality. The authors determined that in addition to destructive effects on a person of negative emotions, they can also have a constructive effect on person’s behaviour, due primarily to the fact that a person does not want to experience these emotions and therefore tries to avoid situations they cause. Conclusions. The ethical emotions of guilt, embarrassment, anger, disgust and contempt can affect, through the cognitive aspect of the emotional process, the decision-making process of people when they predict situations in which they risk to feel such emotions. So the emotion of guilt creates a constructive setup aimed at correcting inappropriate social norms of human behaviour. The emotion of embarrassment motivates a person to behave more benevolently in society in order to integrate in it and get its approval, thus encouraging the person to adhere to social and moral agreements and norms. The emotion of anger motivates a person to act to eliminate injustice, herewith not only in relation to himself, but also in relation to others. Rejecting those people who cause moral and social aversion, society creates a system of punishments and rewards that acts as a strong deterrent to the socio-cultural behaviour. The emotion of contempt performs the function of preventing punishment in relation to the despised individual.

Evolution and Moral Disagreement

Several philosophers have recently argued that evolutionary considerations undermine the justification of all objectivist moral beliefs by implying a hypothetical disagreement: had our evolutionary history been different, our moral beliefs would conflict with the moral beliefs of our counterfactual selves. This paper aims at showing that evolutionary considerations do not imply epistemically relevant moral disagreement. In nearby scenarios, evolutionary considerations imply tremendous moral agreement. In remote scenarios, evolutionary considerations do not entail relevant disagreement with our epistemic peers, neither on a narrow nor on a broad conception of peerhood. In conclusion, evolutionary considerations do not reveal epistemically troubling kinds of disagreement. Anti-objectivists need to look elsewhere to fuel their sceptical argument.

Online moral rhetoric and violent protests

Psychology Peaceful protests sometimes turn violent. To find out why, Mooijman et al. analyzed 18 million tweets sent during the 2015 Baltimore protests related to the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. They found that tweets expressing moral rhetoric predicted daily violence and police arrests in the hours after being sent. These data did not explore specific content or level of moral agreement in social networks. Follow-up vignette experiments and attitude surveys found that people endorse violent protest when they see an issue in moral terms and perceive that everyone agrees with them. These data have implications for understanding how online echo chambers may lead to violence and how to predict, and possibly prevent, the eruption of violence in social groups. Nat. Hum. Behav. 2 , 389 (2018).

A mulher na vida pública: um mapa das moralidades no Facebook

O artigo investiga entendimentos morais sobre a participação da mulher na vida pública a partir de comentários dos posts no Facebook sobre as matérias As explosões nervosas da presidente, da IstoÉ, e Bela, recatada e do lar, da Veja. Traçamos um mapa das moralidades sobre atividade profissional, temperamento e relações sociais, que aponta como consensos tácitos: a visão positiva da mulher discreta e responsável pelo lar, e a visão negativa da mulher afeita às emoções. Desafiam essas concepções: a ideia de mulher forte e que pode escolher a vida profissional. Identificamos que moralidades tidas como ofensivas podem criar identificação e afinidades a fim de instaurar novas gramáticas morais.

The return of the Iberian lynx to Portugal: local voices

BackgroundEthnographic research can help to establish dialog between conservationists and local people in reintroduction areas. Considering that predator reintroductions may cause local resistance, we assessed attitudes of different key actor profiles to the return of the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) to Portugal before reintroduction started in 2015. We aimed to characterize a social context from an ethnoecological perspective, including factors such as local knowledge, perceptions, emotions, and opinions.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured interviews (n = 131) in three different protected areas and observed practices and public meetings in order to describe reintroduction contestation, emotional involvement with the species, and local perceptions about conservation. Detailed content data analysis was undertaken and an open-ended codification of citations was performed with the support of ATLAS.ti. Besides the qualitative analyses, we further explored statistic associations between knowledge and opinions and compared different geographical areas and hunters with non-hunters among key actors.ResultsLocal ecological knowledge encompassed the lynx but was not shared by the whole community. Both similarities and differences between local and scientific knowledge about the lynx were found. The discrepancies with scientific findings were not necessarily a predictor of negative attitudes towards reintroduction. Contestation issues around reintroduction differ between geographical areas but did not hinder an emotional attachment to the species and its identification as a territory emblem. Among local voices, financial compensation was significantly associated to hunters and nature tourism was cited the most frequent advantage of lynx presence. Materialistic discourses existed in parallel with non-economic factors and the existence of moral agreement with its protection.The considerable criticism and reference to restrictions by local actors concerning protected areas and conservation projects indicated the experience of an imposed model of nature conservation. Opinions about participation in the reintroduction process highlighted the need for a closer dialog between all actors and administration.ConclusionsLocal voices analyzed through an ethnoecological perspective provide several views on reintroduction and nature conservation. They follow two main global trends of environmental discourse: (1) nature becomes a commodified object to exploit while contestation about wildlife is centered on financial return and (2) emblematic wild species create an emotional attachment, become symbolic, and gather moral agreement for nature protection.Lynx reintroduction has been not only just a nature protection theme but also a negotiation process with administration. Western rural communities are not the “noble savages” and nature protectors as are other traditional groups, and actors tend to claim for benefits in a situation of reintroduction. Both parties comprehend a similar version of appropriated nature.Understanding complexity and diverse interests in local communities are useful in not oversimplifying local positions towards predator conservation. We recommend that professional conservation teams rethink their image among local populations and increase proximity with different types of key actors.

Good Form: The Ethical Experience of the Victorian Novel by Jesse Rosenthal

Reviewed by: Good Form: The Ethical Experience of the Victorian Novel by Jesse Rosenthal Isabella Cooper Rosenthal, Jesse. Good Form: The Ethical Experience of the Victorian Novel. Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017. 256 pp. $45.00 hardcover. Jesse Rosenthal's Good Form: The Ethical Experience of the Victorian Novel provides a meticulously researched and original approach to both Victorian literature and novel theory, all the more impressive given that this is the author's first book. Rosenthal's readings reveal an expansive knowledge of Victorian culture, novel theory, and the history of Western moral philosophy. His examination of particularities of Victorian thought and behavior ranges from theories about the difference between wit and humor, to the generic classification of the "Newgate" novel, to nineteenth-century gambling and statistics. His argument is that for the Victorians the moral dimensions of a novel were linked to its formal properties, and that "the moral principles that attached to the Victorian understanding of the novel form have persisted, and become an implicit part of our ongoing critical practice" (2). Thus, examining Victorian moral thought allows a "greater understanding of the moral undercurrents of our critical and theoretical heritage" (7). From his first chapter on, Rosenthal seeks to demonstrate how Victorian moral concerns are conflated with "what we have come to see as a satisfying narrative structure" (11). Our feeling of what is "supposed" to happen in a novel's plot development or conclusion is still central to novel reading and novel theory. "Narrative necessity" (4) is an ongoing staple of novel criticism, though we have come to see it as "ethically neutral"—whether in the form of Georg Lukács's "poetic necessity" or Peter Brooks's "narrative desire" (5). Rosenthal traces the roots of this idea back to the "intuitionist" moral philosophy that set itself against utilitarianism in the nineteenth century. Using Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton as an example, he reveals the way that in the Victorian novel the individual's moral sentiments are formed more internally than through social interaction, and how this is reflected in [End Page 292] Gaskell's formal choice to focus on a single individual's feelings (the heroine's) as she makes her social critique. In his second chapter, Rosenthal uses Oliver Twist and the lesser-known novel Jack Sheppard to demonstrate how the novels that survived in the canon as recognizably Victorian shared formal properties, in particular that of suspense, that stimulate the reader's interest in what could be considered a "moral" way. Such novels create suspense by temporarily withholding information from the reader, but always suggest that the plot is directed by an outside moral law. Rosenthal also observes that literary theorists have dismissed novels that maintain the reader's interest only through representations of vice and crime as bad literature, while novels like Oliver Twist that may depict vice or crime, but are not about them so much as they are about a character's moral progress, survive in the canon. In his third chapter, Rosenthal argues that humor, like suspense, functioned as both a formal and a moral property in Victorian novels, creating a sense of shared, if tacit, moral agreement in the reader, and thus a moral connectedness or fellow-feeling with other members of society. Of David Copperfield, for example, he notes that the characters' eccentricities and differences are fodder for sympathetic humor but not for judgment or ridicule, so that the narrative builds a sense of community around such characters. "What is most moral in humor, then, is that it is a sort of sympathy that maintains distinctions" (99), he observes. In making these claims, Rosenthal addresses the abundant recent scholarship on sympathy in the Victorian novel, while also seeking to expand our thinking about Victorian ethics beyond that focus. In his fourth chapter, Rosenthal argues that the Bildungsroman structure represents "the communal basis of moral intuition" (132), as characters develop by coming to recognize their role not only as individuals but as part of a social whole. The choices of characters like Great Expectations' Pip, Rosenthal suggests, are underwritten by a narrative necessity rooted in that character's communal context. The book's last...

Core values in bioethics: A natural law perspective

Summary Natural law ethics has much to contribute to an assessment of core values in bioethics. In natural law ethics, reason recognizes intrinsic goods persons seek for human fulfillment. Among these goods are life itself, practical reasonableness, aesthetic experience, play, bodily integrity, friendship, and others; and natural law asserts that there is a structure to moral meaning that presents to reason ‘objective moral principles’ that help in securing these goods. These are common moral agreements that reasonable people of good will can affirm. Despite being described as ‘objective,’ these common moral agreements are not moral absolutes. Reasonable persons of good will affirm them universally, and the work of moral reasoning is to consider how these principles or agreements apply in particular situations. Moral problems arise when some challenge of situation or circumstance suggests that good reason might exist to consider making an exception to a common moral agreement. Just war thinking, which is a product of natural law ethics, is a primary example of how a natural law ethic works—the common moral agreement that force should not ordinarily be used to settle conflicts is accompanied by several justice-related criteria, which, if satisfied, allow an exception to be made for a justified yet constrained use of force. Just war provides a model for how a natural law ethic approaches moral problems, and it is applicable to issues in bioethics. Medical futility illustrates how a natural law ethic works in the bioethics arena. Reasonable people of good will agree that persons facing distressful end-of-life medical conditions should receive care, but futility raises the issue about the extent of that care. The case of Baby K is presented. Baby K was an anencephalitic baby born without a cerebral cortex. Her situation was medically catastrophic, and she had no reasonable prospect of flourishing, that is, of enjoying the goods of life. The good of life itself had no value to her. Baby K's mother, however, because of sanctity of life commitments, requested aggressive care, including surgeries, which medical staff did not want to perform given the baby's futile medical condition. The courts, following an American federal law that requires hospitals to provide emergency care to any patient, sided with the mother, and the baby received aggressive treatment, living longer than babies with this condition usually do. The case raises bioethics issues related to futility. Baby K received treatment because reasonable people of good will universally agree that even severely distressed patients should receive medical care. On the natural law ‘just war’ model, however, given Baby K's dire situation, several criteria can be advanced that, if satisfied, would allow for a justified withdrawal or withholding of treatment in favor of palliation. Those criteria deal with such things as physician determinations that therapeutic interventions can no longer provide a patient any benefit, clear communications with families and surrogate decision-makers about medical prognosis, and attention to gender or racial bias that might affect the delivery of care and decisions about futility. The emphasis of the natural law approach is on reasoned deliberation as medical professionals address issues identified in the criteria of ‘just futility’ and consider the next steps in patient care. Values related to goods of life emerge from deliberating futility concerns. The patient as person and the life of the patient are clearly core values as is practical reasonableness, which, as a good of life, comes into conflict with the good of life itself in futility cases. Natural law ethics moves toward decision-making by means of rational and informed deliberations over ethical matters, and it values as well equity and equality of persons, open communications, and approaching death as a natural part of the life process. Attention is given to patient-centered care, dialogue and clear communications between medical staff and families, as well as to the possibility that beneficence may overrule autonomy should families resist the justified withholding of aggressive care. Core values related to futility and to patient care, in general, can be identified in this discussion of a natural law approach to bioethics.

Martin Heidegger y el intento por pensar la esencia de la técnica como una reorientación en el ethos

El presente artículo intenta exponer uno de los problemas más prominentes yvigentes en la filosofía de Martin Heidegger: la esencia de la técnica. Si bien, lareflexión parte sustancialmente de aquello que el filósofo de Selva Negra consideracomo técnica moderna, el sentido de pensarla en los límites de su esencia,nos lleva directamente a proponer allí, donde se le piensa como un riesgolatente en nuestros días, la posibilidad de una reorientación desde aquello queHeidegger piensa como Ethos. Hoy por hoy, la discusión se centra entre expertosy académicos, y entre defensores y opositores del pensamiento heideggeriano,en determinar si efectivamente el filósofo alemán propuso o no, un tratado éticoo moral en su labor filosófica. Lo que también se intenta defender en la presentereflexión, es sostener que aunque Heidegger no elabora y propone una filosofíamoral como algunos de sus antecesores lo hicieron, si procuró por dar “un pasoatrás” hacia el Ethos griego tal como aparece en Sófocles y Heráclito, es decir,anterior a toda configuración de una disciplina ética platónica y aristotélica. Enconsecuencia, la propuesta de Heidegger no es ya por un Ethos tradicional entérminos del deber y la normatividad, sino por un Ethos en relación a la esenciade la técnica moderna donde el hombre more y habite en medio del ente en el todo, sin ser él el medio y el fin de la misma. Visto de este modo, el Ethos posibilitará que se reestablezca la relación originaria entre la naturaleza, el hombre, la técnica y la verdad en la esencia de la técnica moderna.

An Examination of Income Effect on Consumers' Ethical Evaluation of Counterfeit Drugs Buying Behaviour: A Cross-Sectional Study in Qatar and Sudan.

There are limited studies on consumer behaviour toward counterfeit products and the determining factors that motivate willingness to purchase counterfeit items. This study aimed to fill this literature gap through studying differences in individual ethical evaluations of counterfeit drug purchase and whether that ethical evaluation affected by difference in income. It is hypothesized that individuals with lower/higher income make a more/less permissive evaluation of ethical responsibility regarding counterfeit drug purchase. To empirically test the research assumption, a comparison was made between people who live in the low-income country Sudan and people who live in the high-income country Qatar. The study employed a face-to-face structured interview survey methodology to collect data from 1,170 subjects and the Sudanese and Qatari samples were compared using independent t-test at alpha level of 0.05 employing SPSS version 22.0. Sudanese and Qatari individuals were significantly different on all items. Sudanese individuals scored below 3 for all Awareness of Societal Consequences (ASC) items indicating that they make more permissive evaluation of ethical responsibility regarding counterfeit drug purchase. Both groups shared a basic positive moral agreement regarding subjective norm indicating that influence of income is not evident. Findings indicate that low-income individuals make more permissive evaluation of ethical responsibility regarding counterfeit drugs purchase when highlighting awareness of societal consequences used as a deterrent tool, while both low and high-income individuals share a basic positive moral agreement when subjective norm dimension is exploited to discourage unethical buying behaviour.

Questioning Engelhardt's assumptions in Bioethics and Secular Humanism.

In Bioethics and Secular Humanism: The Search for a Common Morality, Tristram Engelhardt examines various possibilities of finding common ground for moral discourse among people from different traditions and concludes their futility. In this paper I will argue that many of the assumptions on which Engelhardt bases his conclusion about the impossibility of a content-full secular bioethics are problematic. By starting with the notion of moral strangers, there is no possibility, by definition, for a content-full moral discourse among moral strangers. It means that there is circularity in starting the inquiry with a definition of moral strangers, which implies that they do not share enough moral background or commitment to an authority to allow for reaching a moral agreement, and concluding that content-full morality is impossible among moral strangers. I argue that assuming traditions as solid and immutable structures that insulate people across their boundaries is problematic. Another questionable assumption in Engelhardt's work is the idea that religious and philosophical traditions provide content-full moralities. As the cardinal assumption in Engelhardt's review of the various alternatives for a content-full moral discourse among moral strangers, I analyze his foundationalist account of moral reasoning and knowledge and indicate the possibility of other ways of moral knowledge, besides the foundationalist one. Then, I examine Engelhardt's view concerning the futility of attempts at justifying a content-full secular bioethics, and indicate how the assumptions have shaped Engelhardt's critique of the alternatives for the possibility of content-full secular bioethics.

Moral judgment as a natural kind

In this essay I argue that moral judgment is a natural kind by developing an empirically grounded theory of the distinctive conceptual content of moral judgments. Psychological research on the moral/conventional distinction suggests that in moral judgments right and wrong, good and bad, praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, etc. are conceptualized as (1) serious, (2) general, (3) authority-independent, and (4) objective. After laying out the theory and the empirical evidence that supports it, I address recent empirical and conceptual objections. Finally, I suggest that the theory uniquely accounts for the possibility of genuine moral agreement and disagreement.

The promise and perils of hybrid moral semantics for naturalistic moral realism

In recent years, several philosophers have recommended to moral realists that they adopt a hybrid cognitivist–expressivist moral semantics. Adopting a hybrid semantics enables the realist to account for the action-guiding character of moral discourse, and to account for the possibility of moral (dis)agreement between speakers whose moral sentences express different cognitive contents. I argue that realists should resist the temptation to embrace a hybrid moral semantics. In granting that moral judgments are partly constituted by conative attitudes, the realist concedes too much to her anti-realist opponents: she concedes that, at its most fundamental level, moral disagreement is disagreement in attitude, and the resolution of deep moral disagreement is best guided by non-epistemic norms of inquiry. Furthermore, on a hybrid semantics, moral thought and truth ascriptions turn out to be more responsive to the conative contents of moral judgments than to the supposed propositional contents. Finally, a hybrid semantics makes it difficult to preserve the realist’s claim that moral truths are in a certain sense independent of appraisers’ attitudes.

The Clinical Disputes Forum code to candour

Medical authorities have historically either been silent or circumspect about the role of candour in clinical relationships. Hippocrates told doctors to abstain from doing harm, not entertaining the possibility that they might be negligent, while in 1847 the American Medical Association declared that doctors have: ‘a sacred duty … to avoid all things which have a tendency to discourage the patient and depress his spirits’. Being candid about an injurious mistake in the course of treatment would no doubt discourage even the worldliest of 19th century patients. However, in recent years, the focus has shifted: doctors in 21st century have an obligation to disclose even the most depressing of mistakes. This modern ‘duty of candour’ is found in a mish-mash of moral principles, regulatory guidelines and contractual agreements but following the Francis Report it will be buttressed by statute.