Moral Guidelines Research Articles

Reflexiones para una bioética implicada en la cultura de los derechos humanos

Bioethics can be interpreted as a critical reflection on life and health, a new way to make decisions in these fields, a social reform movement, and an academic discipline. In any case, Bioethics implies an interdisciplinary and intercultural dialogue. At the same time, human rights, as universal moral guidelines, provide a plausible basis for this intercultural dialogue, for they enable the identification of a core of transcultural values that can work as "moral minima" in the dialogue among different cultures and the search for international consensuses. This article sets forth the triple connection (historical-genealogical, conceptual and practical) between bioethics and human rights, and reflects on some of the conditions that should be taken into account for bioethics to be involved in the human rights culture.

Cultivating emotions: the Gita Press and its agenda of social and spiritual reform

In the mid-1920s, the Gita Press in Gorakhpur started to publish high-quality translations of sacred Hindu scriptures, as well as religious tracts, advice books and magazine articles that emphasized devotion to God through the control and cultivation of emotions. Feeling the proper way became an important asset for spiritual salvation, as well as a prerequisite for social reforms. This article focuses on the founders of the Gita Press, and how they promoted a reformatory and religious agenda that defined the moral framework of being and feeling Hindu. The Gita Press gained popularity through its Hindi translation of the Bhagavadgita, which was styled as the central scripture for all Hindus. I argue that the advice books and normative writings published by the press not only popularized the Bhagavadgita, but also provided interpretations and adaptations in the process of a larger social reform project. These writings enunciated the ways of reaching salvation and combined this with social guidance in all aspects of human life. The analysis of writings by Jaydayal Goyandka and Hanuman Prasad Poddar indicates a social reform agenda that was geared towards current social issues of the Marwari trading community. At the same time, these texts also engaged in the larger project of reforming society, thereby constructing and strengthening the traditions of orthodoxy or ‘Sanatan Dharma’. Till today, the popularity of the Gita Press' print products remains intact and their advice books continue to provide spiritual advice enmeshed with moral guidelines.

US warfare in Somalia and the trade-off between casualty-aversion and civilian protection

This article examines the ways in which the two normative concerns of casualty-aversion and civilian protection influenced US military strategy in the particular context of the asymmetric conflict in Somalia in the early 1990s. The article critically evaluates US military operations through the prism of international humanitarian law and examines whether American forces started prioritizing casualty-aversion over the safeguarding of Somali civilians. Finally, by drawing on emerging moral guidelines (such as Michael Walzer's idea of ‘due care’), the article examines whether lower numbers of Somali civilian deaths could have been achieved if marginal increases to the risks faced by US soldiers had been accepted.

The Ethics of War. Part II: Contemporary Authors and Issues

This paper surveys the most important recent debates within the ethics of war. Sections 2 and 3 examine the principles governing the resort to war (jus ad bellum) and the principles governing conduct in war (jus in bello). In Section 4, we turn to the moral guidelines governing the ending and aftermath of war (jus post bellum). Finally, in Section 5 we look at recent debates on whether the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello can be evaluated independently of each other.

Morality of Christian Athletes in Competitive Sports - A Review

Morality of Christian Athletes in Competitive Sports - A ReviewAthletes' moral beliefs and values are challenged by competitive sports just as long as the professional elite-sports system exists. Christian athletes, as a distinguished group among competing athletes, are supposed to be people with specific and distinctive moral guidelines in everyday life that they validly integrate in competitive sports as well. No matter if they are competing in triathlon, athletics, or playing soccer, if they are playing in the lowest or highest division of their sport, or if they are being faced with unmoral situations, that is what we expect. They therefore stand in contrast to some athletes of today's competitive sports who do not seem to have any guideline at all anymore, who would not shy at anything to win a competition and who therefore give competitive sports a rather negative touch. The following review should shed some light on the world of Christian sportsmen. The relationships in the field of Christianity, ethics, morality, and sports will be investigated in-depth via analyzing the relevant literature. Both theoretical and empirical findings will be systematized according to their inner structure. Even though the findings to report are rare, the particular field of study reveals itself as an under-researched topic, likewise theoretically and empirically.

POLITINIS REALIZMAS TARPTAUTINIUOSE SANTYKIUOSE: SAMPRATA IR NESUSIPRATIMAI PO ŠALTOJO KARO

Political realism is the major theoretic tradition in IR. But in contrast to the ever-gro­wing variety of realist theories, one meets growing difficulties while trying to define the realistic approach to international politics. Contemporary theorizing in the name of “realism” marks the retreat from the basic assumptions inherent to the original tra­dition. This process has its immanent logic and important implications, and therefore must be analysed on its own terms.The task of this paper is to reveal the relation between the core principles of the original tradition of realism and new theories of realism after the Cold War. In the first part, the works of historically most influential classical realists are examined. Careful analysis of the main descriptive and prescriptive elements in the theories of Thucydi­des, Machiavelli and Hobbes enables to reveal three common descriptive principles: (I) the object of realism is politics – the never-ending and diversiform struggle for power, rooted in man’s will to power. (II) Political agents behave under Athenian thesis: power boosts their necessity to dominate. (III) Political outcomes are hardly predictable and eventually develop under the scenario of tragedy. The principles of pure realism deny the worth of abstract prescriptive reasoning. In the XXth century, these same principles were perfectly reflected in theories of Carr and Morgenthau. They both restored the old tradition and made it relevant in the age of “total” wars and nuclear weapons.In the second part, misconceptions of realism after the Cold War are analysed. It is shown that the shifts in content of contemporary realist theories are path-dependent and rooted in “Waltz paradox”. The paradox led to three different modes of realist enterprise: (i) conservative reaction; (ii) “middle way”; and (iii) radical reaction. These stages purport the gradually increasing deviation from the original descriptive principles of realism. Conservative reaction is based on a false assumption that states can follow rational winning strategies. Middle-way “realists” (mis)treat the political struggle for power only as an outgrowth of specific circumstances. More and more of them follow the liberal agenda, trying to find and neutralise the “irrational factors”, and thereby secure the rational (universally acceptable) political outcomes. Finally, radical reaction means reconstruction of realism as an entirely prescriptive discourse and moral guidelines for peaceful accommodation and liberal political order. The implications of these theoretical changes are exemplitied by discussing stan­dard “realistic” explanations of US foreign policy after the Cold War. It is shown that none of today’s “realist” approaches is realistic enough to grasp the operation of the principles once known to realism. The findings of this research challenge the false truths about the relation between political realism, scientific IR enterprise and political practice.

God has a Plan: Moral Values and Beliefs of Christian Athletes in Competitive Sports

Kretschmann R, Benz C. God has a Plan: moral values and beliefs of Christian athletes in competitive sports. J. Hum. Sport Exerc. Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 495-519, 2012. Christian athletes are people with specific and distinctive moral guidelines in everyday life as well as in competitive sports. No matter if they are competing in triathlon, athletics, or playing soccer, if they are playing in the lowest or highest division of their sport, or if they are being faced with unmoral situations, that is what we expect. They therefore stand in contrast to some athletes of today’s competitive sports who do not seem to have any guideline at all anymore, who would not shy at anything to win a competition and who therefore give competitive sports a rather negative touch. But is that really the case? Do Christian athletes fulfil this expectation? In the following study some light will be shed on the world of Christian sportsmen. Their ways of thinking, coping

At the Edge of Viability: Moral and Ethical Guideline Proposals

The paper proposes moral and ethical guidelines for medical treatment at the edge of viability. The proposed principles are defended on the grounds of a general conceptual framework presented by elucidating the notions of viability, the edge of viability, person, sanctity of human life, dignity, and the slope of dignity protection, as well as the distinction between ethics and morality.

“When the class goes on too long, the Devil takes part in it”: adab al-muḥaddith according to Ibn aṣ-Ṣalâḥ ash-Shahrazûrî (d. 643/1245)*

The two chapters in Ibn aṣ-Ṣalâḥʼs (d. 643/1245) Muqaddima on the proper behaviour of teachers and students of ḥadîth (adab al-muḥaddith) form the core of this study. Therein Ibn aṣ-Ṣalâḥ advices the muḥaddithûn how to conduct a class of ḥadîth. For the students he offers moral guidelines, recommends a particular curriculum and gives practical pedagogical advice. The search for possible precursors led to the main argument of this study, i.e. that Ibn aṣ-Ṣalâḥ used ʿAbd al-Karîm as-Samʿânîʼs (d. 562/1166) work Adab al-imlâʾ wa-ʼl-istimlâʾ as a direct source. Although Ibn aṣ-Ṣalâḥ modeled his Muqaddima after al-Ḥâkim an-Naysâbûrîʼs (d. 405/1014) Kitâb maʿrifat ʿulûm al-ḥadîth there are – quite unexpectedly – only minor similarities in both works regarding issues of adab al-muḥaddith. Taking the adab al-muftî or adab al-qâḍî literature as a model, the article finally argues that simultaneously with the canonization of ḥadîth, Muslim scholars, in particular al-Ḥâkim an-Naysâbûrî, proposed rules according to which ḥadîth had to be taught.

Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, Tradition: A Sociocultural Critique of MacIntyre's Three Moral Discourses

The paper provides a critical account of Alasdair MacIntyre's moral theory. It argues that, contrary to his position, the three discourses that he examines, as attempts to provide moral guidelines to one's life trajectory are complementary, under late-modern conditions, rather than contradictory.

Teaching Wildlife Research Ethics

Animals have long been used in laboratory research aimed at improving human lives. In contrast, disciplines such as ecology, wildlife management, and conservation biology aim at the management and long-term survival of species or populations under growing human pressures. Although modeling approaches are sometimes helpful, field studies of animals are typically the only way to test hypotheses and develop realistic management strategies in such research. Concerns over the ethical treatment of animals have led to legislation that prescribes a common-sense account of which practices are acceptable in animal laboratory research (the three Rs, see below) (USDA 2005; ILAR 1996), but both moral theory and the law are almost completely silent about field research1 which is conducted under very different conditions and where the moral questions typically focus on the well-being of free-living populations or species rather than individual animals. Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs), required by law to review and approve every study involving live vertebrates, find themselves struggling to apply the language and prescribed moral approaches of laboratory research to the questions and methodologies of field biological research. The absence of moral guidelines appropriate to field research results haphazardly in both unnecessary restrictions on some research and permission for ethically questionable research in other cases. Not only is some morally innocuous research barred, some morally questionable research is approved. Professional scientific societies have expressed their concern over the situation2 and identified some ethical concerns for field researchers within their respective sub-disciplines (Putnam 1995).

Beyond Speculative Robot Ethics: A Vision Assessment Study on the Future of the Robotic Caretaker

In this article we develop a dialogue model for robot technology experts and designated users to discuss visions on the future of robotics in long-term care. Our vision assessment study aims for more distinguished and more informed visions on future robots. Surprisingly, our experiment also led to some promising co-designed robot concepts in which jointly articulated moral guidelines are embedded. With our model, we think to have designed an interesting response on a recent call for a less speculative ethics of technology by encouraging discussions about the quality of positive and negative visions on the future of robotics.

The problem of ‘thick in status, thin in content’ in Beauchamp and Childress' principlism

For many, Thomas Beauchamp and James Childress have elaborated moral reasoning by using the four principles whereby all substantive problems of medical ethics (and of ethics more generally) can be...

Etyka dla nauczycieli etyki

The teaching method of a discipline is dictated by its specific character. This is also the case with ethics. The article is an attempt to derive from the specific character of ethics the moral guidelines that should be followed in teaching it. The article considers three issues. The first is an initial distinction between morality and ethics, the latter being the philosophical interpretation of the former. Next, there follows a presentation of the specifics of teaching ethics which result generally from the peculiar tension that exists between its theoretical character and its practical nature. The last part of the article formulates the guidelines which should be followed in teaching ethics.

Моральні заповіді та настанови монотеїстичних релігій як джерело легітимації приватної власності

Моральні заповіді та настанови монотеїстичних релігій як джерело легітимації приватної власності

Beyond a code of ethics: phenomenological ethics for everyday practice

Physical therapy, like all health-care professions, governs itself through a code of ethics that defines its obligations of professional behaviours. The code of ethics provides professions with a consistent and common moral language and principled guidelines for ethical actions. Yet, and as argued in this paper, professional codes of ethics have limits applied to ethical decision-making in the presence of ethical dilemmas. Part of the limitations of the codes of ethics is that there is no particular hierarchy of principles that govern in all situations. Instead, the exigencies of clinical practice, the particularities of individual patient's illness experiences and the transformative nature of chronic illnesses and disabilities often obscure the ethical concerns and issues embedded in concrete situations. Consistent with models of expert practice, and with contemporary models of patient-centred care, we advocate and describe in this paper a type of interpretative and narrative approach to moral practice and ethical decision-making based on phenomenology. The tools of phenomenology that are well defined in research are applied and examined in a case that illustrates their use in uncovering the values and ethical concerns of a patient. Based on the deconstruction of this case on a phenomenologist approach, we illustrate how such approaches for ethical understanding can help assist clinicians and educators in applying principles within the context and needs of each patient.

The Politics of Advice: Samuel Richardson's Use of Sexual Violence and “Counter Advice“ in the Name of Didacticism

This paper studies the narrative strategy underlying Samuel Richardson's great fictional work-Clarissa. Demonstrating how Richardson puts the rape event to profitable use in his great scheme of moral reform, I contend that Richardson deploys sexual violence and counter advice to extirpate eroticism and to subvert aristocratic libertinism and bourgeois conformism. In so doing, Richardson challenges a long eighteenth-century tradition of abiding by public opinion, which advocates the marriage of the victim to her rapist, so long as the rapist is rich. The violent event of Clarissa's rape, long anticipated before the occurrence, reverberates throughout the remainder of the novel and serves as Richardson's praxis for the moralizing project of Christian reform. By having Clarissa reject over and over again the advice from her friends and relatives to marry Lovelace in order to superficially patch up an injured reputation post facto, Richardson overhauls predominant ideologies of aristocratic libertinism and bourgeois conformism with the help of sexual violence. The deployment of counter advice that Clarissa rejects repeatedly allows Richardson to establish new moral and behavioral guidelines with Clarissa, our paragon of virtue. Clarissa's refusal of Lovelace's marriage proposal categorically denigrates a long tradition of the marriage panacea frequently prescribed for violated virginity and proposes a closer match between moral theory and practice. Though Richardson's representation of Clarissa's rape might seem to be at odds with his moral reform, the presence of sexual violence and repeated negation of counter advice work subtly to exclude eroticism, libertinism, and conformity from his didactic scheme.

Spiritual Abuse and Neglect of Youth: Reconceptualizing What Is Known Through an Investigation of Practitioners' Experiences

Spiritual abuse and neglect of youth are experiences or environments that detrimentally affect the development of meaning, purpose, connection/belonging, faith, or moral and ethical guidelines. This national study expands our knowledge about the abuse and neglect of children and adolescents in the spiritual domain by examining the frequency in which social workers' encountered ten forms of this type of maltreatment. Findings reveal that maltreatment of this nature may be occurring often enough to be an issue that needs to be explored and addressed. Implications for practitioners, program developers, child advocates, and the need for further research are discussed.

Aristotle’s Golden Mean: Its Implications for the Doping Debate

The ethics of drug-enhanced performance has been debated in the literature for a number of years. While bans and related enforcement efforts remain in place, scholars continue to disagree over the merits of the prohibitions themselves. Because this debate has been waged for over 40 years, it might seem that little more could be helpfully offered on this issue. We believe, however, that moral guidelines provided by Aristotle allow us to move this discussion forward. We attempt to use golden mean logic to examine two questions. First, how would Aristotle likely regard current attempts by some athletes to use drugs and avoid detection? Second, what implications do Aristotle's notions of virtues and vices have for the merits of the ban itself? We argue that the second question is the one on which Aristotelian thinking can provide the most help. Based on that assistance, we draw conclusions about the merits of current prohibitions.

Majalat al-Tajdid fi Fiqh al-‘Ibadat: Bahts Fiqhiy Muqarin

The renewal in worship has specific characteristics, guidelines and areas. The worship does not accept a development, does not change with time and are not the subject of ijtihad , analogy ( qiyas) and consensus of the ummah ( ijma’ ). Islam has specified and made the unchangeable pillars and foundation to form it. Also, Islam has established a certain time, quantity and condition which do not accept changing or interpretation as it contain a commitment of fully worship. In the areas of tajdid in Islamic jurisprudence, there are rules derived from the text ( nas ) zanny al-tsubut (semi definitive in its affirmation and linkages) or zany al-dilalah (ambiguous/equivocal in the way they relay their meanings) or zanny in one of both ( tsubut al-dilalah) , here (in these rules) ijtihad can be done. Moreover, as the circumstance and the needs are developed and various, ijtihad is also done in the area in which the text ( nas ) and consensus are absent. Finally, this ijtihad leads to different opinions among muslim scholars, thus, the comparison area in worship requires three different guidelines i.e. Islamic guidelines, rational knowledgeable guidelines and moral guidelines.