Moral Inquiry Research Articles

Ancient Sources in Adam Smith’s Theories of Sympathetic Morality and Imagination: Aristotle’s Thought and The Theory of Moral Sentiments

This essay considers the profound influence of Aristotle’s philosophy on Adam Smith’s theories of sympathetic morality and imagination. In particular, it examines how Smith’s theories, often seen as Stoic, align with Aristotelian concepts; also, it analyses Smith’s interpretation of wonder as more than a philosophical catalyst, but also as a force that enhances sensitivity to virtue and informs moral judgement: which is similar to Aristotle’s view of wonder as the genesis of philosophical and scientific inquiry. Consequently, Smith’s understanding of imagination is seen as a transformative cognitive faculty similar to Aristotle’s idea of it as an innate capacity for mental imagery and sensory perception. This juxtaposition underscores the role of the imagination as a creative dynamics that transcends individual perspective and captures the essence of human experience. Smith’s integration of Aristotelian thought represents thus a distinctive and nuanced contribution to the classical legacy within the Scottish Enlightenment, shaping a deeper understanding of moral and philosophical inquiry.

Artistic imagination and its role in moral progress. Embracing William James’ cries of the wounded

In recent pragmatist-leaning philosophy and ethics, the Jamesian notion of the cries of the wounded has reemerged as a method of evoking moral progress. Philosophers like Philip Kitcher have argued that a surefooted approach to the complaints of those harmed by given social moral arrangements may lead to an improvement of moral thought, practices and institutions. Yet, at the same time, it has been acknowledged that this comprises a most evident problem: many wounded stakeholders do not cry out about their sorrow, not at last because they may not be capable of doing so. In this paper, we aim at providing a more detailed account on the communicative range of social unrest, capable of overcoming the reductive vision of some possibly harmed as being silent. Some moral philosophers have highlighted the role of the arts and the humanities in the fostering of a more empathetic imagination. With the aid of continental aesthetics (T. W. Adorno and M. Beistegui), we acknowledge the value of artistic imagination as a communicative faculty extending beyond the limits of discursive reason through non-conceptual tools. Taking it into account in moral inquiry effectively expands and provides a more detailed account on the wounded that are apparently silent, as it includes a variety of forms of communication as moral standpoints and conversational apostrophes. This finally leads us to reread James’ take on the notion of the cries of the wounded, to emphasize the necessity to understand it as a fruitful stance about inclusive moral inquiry exceeding the limits of a conceptual-discursive focus.

EXPLORATION OF IRONY OF DESIRES THROUGH THE LENS OF PSYCHOLOGY AND MORALITY IN THEODORE DREISER’S NOVEL “SISTER CARRIE

This article delves into the intricate dynamics of human emotions, desires, and ambitions within Theodore Dreiser’s novel “Sister Carrie”. It explores the profound psychological transformations and moral dilemmas experienced by the characters. Through meticulous analysis of dialogue excerpts, it unveils the complexities of their inner worlds and the consequences of their choices. By dissecting the characters' aspirations and ethical struggles, it provides fresh perspectives on their development and the moral inquiries embedded in the narrative. Ultimately, the article offers profound insights into the interplay of personal ambition, societal expectations, and moral integrity within the novel's rich tapestry of human experience.

Role Models

Determining which people we should look to for personal guidance and what role they should play in shaping our lives is a perennial issue of moral and philosophical inquiry. Although our particular answers to these questions change in different historical, sociopolitical and educational contexts, each generation, and indeed each individual, faces them in some form or other. There is certainly no shortage of potential role models in contemporary societies, but how do we decide which role models, if any, are worth emulating? The authors of this issue of on_education engage with these and related issues and questions concerning role models and their often ambivalent educational role and functions in educational contexts. They come from various areas of educational theory and research, and thus the issue as a whole provides an overview on some of the most important current controversies on role modelling and exemplarism in education.

Pragmatist reflective equilibrium

Rawls’ notion of reflective equilibrium has a hybrid character. It is embedded in the pragmatist tradition, but also includes various Kantian and other non-pragmatist elements. I argue that we should discard all non-pragmatist elements and develop reflective equilibrium in a consistently pragmatist manner. I argue that this pragmatist approach is the best way to defend reflective equilibrium against various criticisms, partly by embracing the critiques as advantages. I begin with discussing how each of the three versions of reflective equilibrium in Rawls’ work combines pragmatist and non-pragmatist elements. For Rawls, the primary purpose of reflective equilibrium is epistemic: namely, to construct moral theories or judgments. In a pragmatist approach, there are three connected purposes for moral inquiry: right action, reliable understanding and self-improvement. Depending on the specific context of a reflective equilibrium process, these general purposes can give rise to a variety of specific purposes. In the next sections, I develop a pragmatist approach to reflective equilibrium and discuss the implications of this approach for core elements of reflective equilibrium. These elements are: the initial convictions, facts, personal commitments and comprehensive views of life, coherence and additional methods for critical scrutiny.

An Interview with Leonard Harris

Mass incarceration in the United States of America, Palestine/Israel in a renewed war since October 7, 2023, and displacement of the underclass in nation-states throughout the planet—these are moral situations of group conflicts and catastrophes at national and international levels. These three situations are our main practical points of reflection for moral inquiry and criticism. We discuss these three moral situations of group conflict and catastrophes in the context of critical pragmatism, largely following and analyzing the moral philosophy of critical pragmatist Alain LeRoy Locke (1885—1954). There is also an emphasis on the moral imperative against necro-being—experiencing living death and being prevented, especially by social conditions, from leading good lives. Necro-being should be eradicated in all its forms. Racism explains the experience of destruction in our lives when race is invoked in its most pernicious forms. Racism is a type of necro-being. Universal human liberation from necro-being is a laudable goal every nation on the planet should pursue.

Valuation and emotion according to John Dewey

Abstract The role of morals, ethics and values in economics is a much-discussed topic. The purpose of this article is to review the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey’s contribution to this debate. He particularly points out the importance of emotion. Indeed, emotion has remained a blind spot in the author’s thinking on values, given the extent to which the debate on rationality and value has taken precedence. We begin by showing the contiguity of the notions of valuation and emotion in the author’s thinking. We then discuss the role of emotion in the conduct of moral inquiry by situating his thinking in relation to emotivism, before more specifically addressing the role of emotion in Dewey’s thinking. Finally, we discuss how Dewey’s thinking can contribute to the debate on values and valuation in economics.

Making sense of things: Moral inquiry as hermeneutical inquiry

AbstractWe are frequently confronted with moral situations that are unsettling, confusing, disorienting. We try to come to grips with them. When we do so, we engage in a distinctive type of moral inquiry: hermeneutical inquiry. Its aim is to make sense of our situation. What is it to make sense of one's situation? Hermeneutical inquiry is part of our everyday moral experience. Understanding its nature and its place in moral epistemology is important. Yet, I argue, that existing accounts of moral inquiry do not give us the resources to do so. This paper develops a positive account of hermeneutical inquiry. I argue that when we engage in hermeneutical inquiry, we search for an apt perspective on our situation.

What Is Wrong with Eating Pets? Wittgensteinian Animal Ethics and Its Need for Empirical Data.

Wittgensteinian approaches to animal ethics highlight the significance of practical concepts like 'pet', 'patient', or 'companion' in shaping our understanding of how we should treat non-human animals. For Wittgensteinian animal ethicists, moral principles alone cannot ground moral judgments about our treatment of animals. Instead, moral reflection must begin with acknowledging the practical relations that tie us to animals. Morality emerges within practical contexts. Context-dependent conceptualisations form our moral outlook. In this paper, we argue that Wittgensteinians should, for methodological reasons, pay more attention to empirical data from the social sciences such as sociology, psychology or anthropology. Such data can ground Wittgensteinians' moral inquiry and thereby render their topical views more dialectically robust.

Fostering moral resilience through moral case deliberation

Moral distress forms a major threat to the well-being of healthcare professionals, and is argued to negatively impact patient care. It is associated with emotions such as anger, frustration, guilt, and anxiety. In order to effectively deal with moral distress, the concept of moral resilience is introduced as the positive capacity of an individual to sustain or restore their integrity in response to moral adversity. Interventions are needed that foster moral resilience among healthcare professionals. Ethics consultation has been proposed as such an intervention. In this paper, we add to this proposition by discussing Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) as a specific form of clinical ethics support that promotes moral resilience. We argue that MCD in general may contribute to the moral resilience of healthcare professionals as it promotes moral agency. In addition, we focus on three specific MCD reflection methods: the Dilemma Method, the Aristotelian moral inquiry into emotions, and CURA, a method consisting of four main steps: Concentrate, Unrush, Reflect, and Act. In practice, all three methods are used by nurse ethicists or by nurses who received training to facilitate reflection sessions with these methods. We maintain that these methods also have specific elements that promote moral resilience. However, the Dilemma Method fosters dealing well with tragedy, the latter two promote moral resilience by including attention to emotions as part of the reflection process. We will end with discussing the importance of future empirical research on the impact of MCD on moral resilience, and of comparing MCD with other interventions that seek to mitigate moral distress and promote moral resilience.

Retrieving Aquinas: Traditions in Dialogue

In the broadest sense of the term, “Thomism” refers to a set of ideas and principles, both in philosophy and theology that can be considered as derivations or representations of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. However, Thomism should not be considered as a mere conceptual body. It also represents a certain view and way of doing philosophy and theology. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his book Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, argues that the Thomistic approach provides a coherent and skillful point of view for dealing creatively and critically with opposing views, contrasting this approach with the encyclopedic and the genealogical approaches. The former imposes a single worldview, enclosing knowledge and “truth” in a monolithic structure of “progress,” while the latter, following Nietzsche, devalues and relativizes knowledge, reducing it to a multiplicity of perspectives, each with its own claims to truth, leading to incommensurability and the consequent subjugation of “truth” to the law of the strongest. On the other hand, Thomists have adopted, from the end of the thirteenth century to the present day, different styles and ways of thinking while maintaining dialogue with their “predecessors” and at the same time with their contemporaries, that is, Thomists are capable of what MacIntyre called the “rationality of tradition”.

Moral affordances and the demands of fittingness

ABSTRACT Some situations appear to make moral demands on us – they call for a certain response. How can we account for such paradigmatic moral experiences? And what normative properties or relations are involved? This paper argues that we can account for such moral experiences in terms of moral affordances, where moral affordances are opportunities for fitting action. The paper demonstrates that the concept of affordances helps to generate new insight in moral inquiry, especially in relation to the moral significance of fittingness.

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.

Christian Ethics and Distance Education

Ever since the declaration of the Covid-19 pandemic as a worldwide crisis, the educational approach across the world has undergone a transformation. Both teachers and students are using an online method of teaching and learning. In applying this method, they experience a new challenge related to the moral and ethical aspects of online learning or distance education. This study aims to determine the application of Christian ethics in distance education. It uses a qualitative approach. The study suggests that incorporating Christian ethics, which are founded on the principles of God’s teachings, should be integrated into distance education, as secular ethical principles are insufficient in establishing the value of absolute truth. Utilizing Christian ethical principles as a compass can serve as a reliable method for addressing moral and ethical inquiries. It has the potential to positively impact individuals who follow it. By embracing it as a solution, one can reduce or even conquer any challenges associated with ethical dilemmas.

“I Should’ve Been Able to Decide for Myself, but I Didn’t Want to Be Left Alone.” A Qualitative Interview Study of Clients’ Ethical Challenges and Norms Regarding Decision-Making in Gender-Affirming Medical Care

ABSTRACT This qualitative study aimed to map and provide insight into the ethical challenges and norms of adult transgender and gender diverse (TGD) clients in gender-affirming medical care (GAMC). By doing so, we seek to make an empirical and constructive contribution to the dialogue on and moral inquiry into what good decision-making in GAMC should entail. We conducted 10 semi-structured interviews with adult Dutch TGD people who received GAMC. In our thematic analysis, we (1) included both ethical challenges and norms, (2) differentiated between explicit and implicit ethical challenges and norms, and (3) ascertained the specific context in which the latter emerged. We identified the following themes: (1) clients should be in the lead, (2) harm should be prevented, and (3) the decision-making process should be attuned to the individual client. These themes arose in the context of (1) a precarious client-clinician relationship and (2) distinct characteristics of GAMC. Our findings highlight divergent and dynamic decisional challenges and normative views—both within individual clients and among them. We conclude that there is no single ideal model of good decision-making in GAMC and argue that elucidating and jointly deliberating on decisional norms and challenges should be an inherent part of co-constructing good decision-making.

Stories, contingent materialities, and moral inquiry: Response to Simone, MacLeavy, Kim, and Lake

In response to the thoughtful and generous commentaries of Simone, MacLeavy, Kim, and Lake in my paper “Bubble Clash,” I lay out three considerations for social inquiry and knowledge production. First, learning from MacIntyre’s discussion of Jane Austen, whose stories exemplify an imaginative moral inquiry in which different rationalities and virtues collide, I highlight the role of stories in moral progress in which our sensitivity and responsiveness to people and things are increased. Second, I expand on Simone’s and MacLeavy’s notion of contingent materialities that mandate storytellers’ work to be always in progress and “in the middle.” I connect this line of thought with Kim’s “dreamscapes” of the municipalities in Georgia where the past, present, and future are being spatially materialized, the examples of which include the continuing legacies of institutional anti-Blackness concurrently existing with immigrants’ growing physical predominance in “White-fled” areas. Finally, I return to Lake’s pragmatism and its emphasis on moral inquiry. No matter how complex, ungraspable, and perturbing the world may seem, the wisdom of pragmatism invites us to start from questioning the purpose of our writing act: why do we write and for whom do we write?

Either (Nietzsche) / Or (Aristotle)? Macintyre's modernity and the enduring relevance of Kierkegaard

AbstractThis essay situates Alasdair MacIntyre's typology of moral enquiry in Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry relative to his critique of Søren Kierkegaard in After Virtue to offer an alternative reading of Kierkegaard's Either/Or to the one MacIntyre proposes. The essay shows that MacIntyre's reading of Kierkegaard's Either/Or fails to register that in important respects Kierkegaard's counterpoint of rival perspectives in Either/Or bears striking resemblance to the scenario of mutual antagonisms that MacIntyre identifies among the genres of genealogy, encyclopaedia, and tradition‐informed moral enquiry. The essay then proposes a reading of Either/Or that implicitly questions not just the approach of the encyclopaedists, but also the approach of all genealogists of modernity (including the genealogy of Friedrich Nietzsche). Finally, contrary to MacIntyre's unfortunate judgement that “Kierkegaard's doctrine” is “at once the outcome and the epitaph of the Enlightenment's systematic attempt to discover a rational justification for morality,” the essay argues instead that what we can learn from Kierkegaard has been and ought to remain of enduring relevance for “tradition‐informed” philosophical and theological thinking in modernity.

A Plea for an Integrated Historiography of Natural and Moral Philosophy in Enlightenment Scotland: A Programmatic Essay

I begin with a diagnosis. Present-day scholarly work on the Scottish Enlightenment is bifurcated: it is either focused on the areas of moral philosophy or of natural philosophy, broadly construed in both cases. The aspiration to combine these inquiries is rare and unsystematic. This paper makes a case for the need and possibility of a perspective that conceives moral and natural inquiry as integrated enterprises in the period. It also suggests that potentially useful interpretive devices can be adopted from the historiography of science and philosophy, as well as science studies.

Constructing Moral Equality

AbstractMoral equality—the idea that ‘we’ all have equal moral worth, our interests ought to count for the same, and we possess the same bundle of basic rights—is one of the most central principles of liberal thought, being regularly drawn on as a presupposition of moral and political inquiry. Perhaps because it is so often relied on as a presupposition, however, moral equality is more often assumed than argued for. When moral equality is argued for, the most common tactic is to appeal to some inherent property. As is well established, however, such property-based defenses of moral equality face two significant challenges: the problem of exclusion and the problem of inequality. In light of these challenges, in this article I put forward a new, revisionist account of moral equality. Taking inspiration from recent work in the social metaphysics of human kinds, I argue that moral equality ought to be seen as a component of a status that we confer on one another, rather than (grounded in) a property inherent in certain individuals. Conceiving of moral equality this way, I argue, side-steps both the problem of exclusion and the problem of natural equality.

Pengaruh Model Pembelajaran Moral Reasoning dan Inquiry Terhadap Hasil Belajar Santri Pada Bidang Studi Aqidah Akhlak

The purpose of this study was to see the effect of the moral reasoning and inquiry learning model. The subjects of this study were students of grade 3 MTs Daar el-Qolam 1. This type of research is a causal correlational study with an ex-post facto approach. In grade 3 students at MTs Daar el-Qolam 1 as respondents, totaling 371 students with a sample of 55 students taken randomly, with variable X1 (moral reasoning learning model) and variable X2 (inquiry learning model) with variable Y (learning outcomes aqidah morals). The research instrument for data collection was using a questionnaire (test) for variables X1, X2 and Y. Before the instrument was used, a trial was conducted on 30 students of class 3 MTs Daar el-Qolam 1 to determine the validity and reability of the research instrument, data analysis techniques used used is simple regression analysis and multiple regression analysis with a significant level α= 0.05. The results show that this is indicated by the regression equation, multiple linear regression analysis Y= 11.62 + 0. 454X1 + 0.211X2, the correlation coefficient (R) is 0.766 and the determination coefficient (R2) is 0.587% from the F result of 36,975. The Learning Model of Moral reasoning and Inquiry has a positive effect on learning outcomes of moral aqidah. It can be stated (Ha) has been accepted, there is an effect of the learning model of moral reasoning and inquiry on the learning outcomes of students in the field of aqidah akhlak study.