Moral Insight Research Articles

Paul on Humility

Paul on Humility

What if some patients are more \u201cimportant\u201d than others? A possible framework for Covid-19 and other emergency care situations

BackgroundThe Covid-19 pandemic caused situations where, in some hospitals, there were more patients in need of urgent treatment in intensive care units (ICU) than were available. In particular, there were not sufficient ventilators or critical care resources for all patients in danger of dying from respiratory failure or other organ failures.DiscussionAs the “first come, first served” criterion was not considered adequate, more nuanced and fairer clinical criteria were proposed to assess whom to treat first. One type of patients that has not been considered in the literature so far is that of “important patients”, individuals that many people might consider worthy of priority treatment for the contribution they made or might make to society as a whole.SummaryIn this article, we discuss the moral insights behind the possible treatment of “important patients” and suggest a supererogatory solution of voluntary renunciation/withdrawal. Details of the proposal are explained, and potential objections are addressed.

Just Pain: Aquinas on the Necessity of Retribution and the Nature of Obligation

Although it is common in the Catholic moral tradition to hear punishment spoken of as “just” and demanded by reason, it is remarkably difficult to say why reason demands that malefactors suffer or to articulate what is rendered to whom in punishment. The present essay seeks to fill this lacuna by examining Aquinas’s treatment of punishment. After examining several themes found in his work, the paper will conclude that the conceptual key to the reasonableness of punishment is to be found in the norm that demands contrapassum and that this norm is immediately derived from the same moral insight as the Golden Rule. Thus, the paper concludes, the notion of retribution is intimately and inextricably bound up in insights that are foundational to any coherent Christian ethics.

Moral or Ethical Experts? The Role of Bioethicists in a Democratic Society

"It is often believed that if bioethicists are to play the role of experts, the nature of their expertise must be explained and the authority of their advice justified. This presentation will be a moderate challenge to this view. It will be contended that the nature of bioethical expertise and the source of bioethicists’ authority depends on the kind of advice that is expected from them. If one expects a moral advice, i.e. a self-standing instruction about what to do in a given situation, it is indeed hardly possible to identify a moral expert in a rational way, and so to take their advice as authoritative. If, however, the counsel sought is to be an ethical advice, that is, a recommendation guided by a particular normative context, bioethicists can be sufficiently good experts and their instructions can enjoy a significant authority. Since bioethics is a field of research and social practice which developed in a democratic society, the bioethicist’s advice presupposes the normative framework of the values and ideals of democracy such as mutual recognition and respect, liberty and equality. Accordingly, although a bioethicist is not to be expected to be a moral expert (this role belongs, for example, to spiritual or religious leaders), she can be an ethical expert, who – on the ground of her knowledge of the values and ideals of a democratic society, ethical theory and, among other things, social theory and law – can offer a reliable advice which addresses a particular problem. The expert status of a bioethicist and the authority of her advice derives crucially from the values and ideals of a democratic society and her ethical knowledge, rather than from a moral insight into a realm of context-independent values. "

‘The godly person has perished from the land’ (Mi 7:1–6): Micah’s lamentation of Judah’s corruption and its ethical imperatives for a healthy community living

Micah 7:1–6 represents the prophet’s lamentation of the deficiency of moral value in a beloved nation. The oracle is a watershed in the Book of Micah that is aptly characterised by certain degrees of socio-economic and religious unfaithfulness, especially in privileged circumstances. The oracle unit (Mi 7:1–6) forms the darkest descriptions of degrees about the apparent moral wasteland of ancient Judah. The prophet’s metaphors are used to describe the miserable moral morass of society form a kind of compendium with a progression of thoughts and coherence of moral depravity. This article underscores that when people and society live in dishonesty and corruption, the essentially integrated spiritual-ethical-community of health and prosperity that is expected to unfold in time of covenant fidelity will eventually be reduced to poverty and despair, where people hunt each other for survival. This article explores aspects of dishonesty and corruption in the Book of Micah that are pointers to the tragic situation, analyses the various descriptions of corruption in the oracle unit and consequently examines its ethical imperatives for community living.Contribution: As a biblical, literary and theological interpretation of Micah’s oracle concerning ancient Judah’s moral morass, this article brings together moral insights that are potentially viable for making major contributions to the life of people and just social order in an economics of affluence, politics of oppression and corruption in societies.

Cultivating Moral Epiphanies

AbstractThis essay focuses on epiphanies — moments when an insight or revelation captures our attention and summons us to become a better version of ourselves. The role of epiphanies in moral transformation, however, raises a potentially troublesome question. Namely, is the cultivation of epiphanies yet another vexed attempt at moral education? Kevin Gary and Drew Chambers do not think so. Here, they make a case for the cultivation of epiphany as a method for promoting moral insight that avoids the twin sins of provincialism and indoctrination. In making this case, they come to an understanding of what a moral epiphany precisely is by drawing on the work of James Joyce and on recent scholarship that addresses epiphanies and education. After setting the stage, Gary and Chambers turn to an unlikely partnership of Søren Kierkegaard and Paulo Freire. Both thinkers have an interest in transformative education, and both share concerns about pedagogies that compromise human agency. In Kierkegaard, Gary and Chambers find the concept of ethical communication, which enables a learner to self‐actualize vis‐à‐vis the help of another. In Freire, they find a pedagogy that is manifestly nonoppressive and yet takes root in moral awakening. As such, they argue that while no teacher can guarantee a moral epiphany, the attempt to cultivate this experience is both worthwhile and ethically permissible.

The Knowledge of Justice in America

In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote that the knowledge of justice in the United States belonged to those who “formed the sovereignty” in 1787. That thought captured a problem later perceived by James Baldwin and made stark by unrelenting attacks on the memory of Emmett Till from 2008 to 2018. Focusing attention precisely there is the purpose of this essay. Adopting a theory of popular sovereignty hewn to fix moral insight and political power together, the U.S. Constitution memorialized the people’s choice to deprive enslaved Black humanity not only of power but of moral authority in civic life. The essay reflects on the consequences of that founding choice while reimagining it, observing that the knowledge of justice lay with the enslaved.

Humane Capital: A Reexamination of Catholic Social Teachings in Light of the Shift to Human Capital

AbstractHuman capital is the set of productive knowledge, skills, and traits that individuals possess. Productive knowledge and skills are typically learned through education and work experience. Character traits matter both for the application of knowledge and skills and for their acquisition in the first place. In the past 100 years—and with enormous social consequences—the economy has transitioned to human capital being the most important resource for individual and social outcomes. Societies responded by emphasizing schooling as the means to develop this resource. In recent decades, however, researchers have discovered that human capital acquisition depends on certain character skills best developed early in life before schooling starts, typically within families. Current research and policy are investigating which combination of early life schooling and improvement in family circumstances can best help people acquire the character skills, and then human capital, needed to flourish. These changes have important implications for the social teachings of the Catholic Church, including moral insights into the distribution of resources, emphasis on the active subject in human work, and the role of civil society in promoting ideas and institutions conducive to an ideal human ecology.

A Moral Insight into the Culture of Baby Farming and Harvesting for Ritual Sacrifices in Nigeria

Abstract Human ritual sacrifices are one of the cultural practices that are undertaken in Nigeria and in many West African countries. While such ritual sacrifices are utilized for different purposes, this paper, however, focuses on baby farming for the purpose of human child ritual sacrifice for community and individual utilizations. Recruiting women for the sole purpose of using them for procreation is exploitative as such young women are usually in dire economic situations. Baby farmers identify the economic vulnerabilities of such women and make them offers they cannot refuse. In like manner, helpless children who are harvested from the farms and who suffer gruesome deaths must be considered as the greatest victims in baby farming and harvesting arrangements. The paper stresses the need for stricter government vigilance and community sensitization to the horror of killing babies for sacrifice.

A Rapprochement between Feminist Ethics of Care and Contemporary Theology

Ethics of care is a relatively new approach to morality, first developed as a feminist ethical theory in the 1980s by Carol Gilligan, Sara Ruddick, and Nel Noddings. It is based on the experience and responsibility of providing care and is distinct from other popular moral philosophies including Kantian moral theory, utilitarianism, or virtue ethics, although it has some similarities to virtue ethics. Founded on a relational ontology, it offers a deeply incisive critique of liberal individualism through ethical reflection. It is also committed to a particularism which recognises the importance of addressing moral problems in the context of lived experience. In this article, after an analysis of the foundational perspectives of care ethics, it will be contended that its central tenets tie in with contemporary approaches in theology, particularly those expressed in the writings of St John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Furthermore, it will be suggested that the anthropological and moral insights of these theologians can offer the ethics of care a deeper ontological and epistemological grounding, hence strengthening its viability and existential appeal.

ADAB BERBICARA DALAM AL-QUR'AN DAN IMPLEMENTASINYA DI SDIT AL BIRUNI MANDIRI JIPANG MAKASSAR

Tulisan ini membahas implementasi wawasan adab berbicara dalam al-Qur’an di salah satu sekolah swasta yang ada di Makassar, yaitu SDIT Al Biruni Mandiri Jipang Makassar. Mengingat saat ini adab-adab pada anak usia dini sudah mulai terkikis yang terbukti dengan banyaknya kejadian-kejadian yang semestinya tidak terjadi, seperti siswa memukul dan menghina guru. Hal tersebut terjadi dikarenakan pengajaran dan penerapan adab-adab mulai berkurang sehingga siswa menyamakan cara berperilaku kepada teman dengan guru. Oleh karena itu, mengingat al-Qur’an adalah pedoman umat manusia sepanjang masa yang membahas segala persoalan kehidupan duniawi dan ukhrawi, maka tentunya menjadi patokan utama dalam menetapkan konsep sebagai suatu aturan yang harus dipatuhi. Penulis mengumpulkan data dengan cara menulusuri ayat al- Qur’an yang menggunakan term Qala dengan makna aturan dalam berbicara. Dalam proses ini peneliti menemukan 9 term yaitu, Qaulan Ma’rufa, Qaulan Sadidan, Qaulan Baligan, Qaulan Kariman, Qaulan Maisuran, Qaulan Layyinan, Qaulan ‘Adziman, al-Jahr Bissu’ dan Ahsan Qaulan. Dari penelitian ini dihasilkan, bahwa SDIT Al Biruni Mandiri Jipang Makassar, pada dasarnya telah mengajarkan dan menerapkan nilai 9 term tersebut dalam lingkungan sekolah, akan tetapi dalam bentuk bahasa Makassar, seperti kata Iye, dan ki.

Male 'Somaliness' in diasporic contexts: Somali authors' evaluative evocations

Addressing five texts by four Somali authors—Nuruddin Farah’s Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora (2000) and North of Dawn (2018) in juxtaposition with three novels by female Somali authors, i.e. Safi Abdi’s Offspring of Paradise (2003), Cristina Ali Farah’s Little Mother (201; Italian original 2007) and Igiaba Scego’s Adua (English translation 2017, Italian original 2015)—this article assesses the work these texts do to enhance contemporary understanding of the complex, evolving phenomenon that is the diasporic Somali presence in Western Europe, focusing on Somali men. How do the authors portray and (implicitly or overtly) evaluate how diasporic male Somalis cope in foreign, non-Muslim and culturally Western environments—against the backdrop of Somalia’s state collapse and social disintegration? Somali men’s experiences have generally been given less attention than those of their female counterparts, hence the focus here on male-gendered characters. This focus serves to link the two Nuruddin Farah texts and the three novels by Somali women—a textual grouping and focus not previously attempted in critical studies of Farah’s work. This brief essay assesses the five texts’ respective combinations of evaluative evocation, affective intensity and epistemological detail, approaching these works as complementing social science researchers’ efforts in depicting diasporic Somali men’s lives. By deepening understanding of the impact of the diaspora on individual Somali men, the five texts convey significant psychological, social and moral insights into lives of Somali men in foreign contexts.

Inoue Tetsujirō (井上哲次郎, 1855–1944): The Confucian Way and the Wayward Confucian

There is no arguing the impact of Inoue Tetsujirō on the development of philosophy in Japan from the Meiji Restoration through the end of the Pacific War. He was the first Japanese to receive a doctorate in philosophy from Germany and the first native-born chair of the philosophy department at Tokyo Imperial University, the training center for almost all the major Japanese philosophers who graduated before 1915. Inoue was instrumental in making German idealism the Western philosophy of choice for Japan, but he also appreciated Asian traditions as well, having no qualms about claiming there was true philosophy in India, China, and premodern Japan. He set the foundation for academic philosophy in Japan not so much through his own rather simplistic personal philosophy, but especially through his contributions to the organization of the field. This article focuses mainly on Inoue's troubled relation with Confucianism. On one hand, in seeking a premodern philosophy to serve as the bedrock for modern Japan, Inoue looked to the Edo-period (1601–1868) Confucian traditions originating in China. He divided them into Shushigaku (朱子学, the Zhu Xi school), Yōmeigaku (陽明学, the Wang Yangming school), and what he named Kogaku (古学), the school focusing on classical texts preceding neo-Confucian developments and interpretations. In many respects, like so many others of his generation, Inoue was by training and personal preference a Confucian. That is not the whole story, however. Inoue understood Confucianism's primary purpose as cultivating the social values and order that would ensure an efficient society of human flourishing, stability, and harmony. Yet, he also likely suspected that the people of the new Japan, with its modernization and plethora of Western ideas, would not unquestioningly accept the authority of the Confucian classics, nor be willing to undertake the rigors of textual study that are the hallmark of the Confucian scholar. In Edo-period Japan, that study had been the responsibility of the samurai class, but in their democratization program, the Meiji reformers had abolished the old class system. Education of the young would now shift from the Confucian academies to the new public school system. Always cooperative with the government to the point of being obsequious, Inoue took a leading role in the National Morality program and its installment in the nationwide school curriculum. That curriculum combined a Shinto-based reverence for the sacred nature of the emperor in the kokutai (国体) ideology along with practical moralistic values that could be loosely called Confucian. Yet, if schooling for most was limited to the elementary level and if there was no longer a samurai class to oversee the moral behavior of the society, who could nurture and enforce the moral order? Through a set of fortuitous events, Inoue "discovered" bushidō (武士道), the Way of the warrior. If there were no longer a samurai warrior class, perhaps all Japanese could become de facto samurai—at least in their mindset. Most may no longer have the scholarly skills and time to glean their spiritual and moral insights from Confucian texts. Yet, they could find the virtues of loyalty, sincerity, filiality, and compliance with seniority within the distinctively mindful heart and spirit of ancient Japan carried within the Japanese bloodline. What happened to the Confucianism of Inoue Tetsujirō? Some of its values were absorbed into bushidō and National Morality, but the praxis of the Confucian scholar and the ideal of the kunshi (君子) seem to have been lost, much to Japan's detriment.

Reckless innocence, non-anger and forgiveness : moral knowledge in Penelope Fitzgerald's fiction

This essay contributes to the currently limited academic scholarship on Penelope Fitzgerald’s fiction by exploring affective interpersonal relationships as central themes in her novels Innocence (1986) and The Beginning of Spring (1988). I draw on Martha C. Nussbaum’s philosophical work, in particular her recent publication Anger and Forgiveness (2016), to shed light on the arresting and unconventional ways in which Fitzgerald’s fiction dramatizes and often subverts commonly held notions of innocence, anger, guilt and forgiveness. This essay argues that Fitzgerald’s art as a novelist is particularly evident in the subtle and ironic manner in which she presents arresting moral insights. Nussbaum’s philosophical explorations of moral knowledge provide the theoretical framework that clarifies these innovative and thought-provoking aspects of Fitzgerald’s work.

儒家和諧文化與新冠疫情應對

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract in English only.This paper addresses the relationship between politics and ethics from the perspective of the Confucian culture of harmony and argues that it is untenable to ignore the supporting role of Chinese ethical values by attributing China’s achievements in fighting the epidemic to merely the capacities of governance. What the world might learn from China in combating COVID-19 is not only the so-called “national capacity,” nor the theme of trust, but also some deeper moral insights, such as how to cultivate a sense of mutual responsibility in people and regions around the world. These insights have proven to be important ethical resources that human society urgently needs in the post-epidemic era.DOWNLOAD HISTORY | This article has been downloaded 5 times in Digital Commons before migrating into this platform.

Physis, thaumazein and policy thinking: on another “time” to think educational policy

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to suggest that the mechanics of the neoliberal mindset is governed paradigmatically by a peculiar notion of “time,” which leads, in turn, to a kind of amoral consequentialism that projects meaninglessly and amorally into the future. The author proposes, in comparison, the pre-modern and ancient sense of the temporal which has the potential to yield moral insights for guiding policy thinking.Design/methodology/approachThe author employs a philosophical approach and historical approach. The authors analyze philosophically the notion of the temporal in the consequentialist neoliberal agency, and draws on continental, ancient and medieval philosophical sources of temporality to develop an alternative.FindingsThe author argues that a rich notion of the temporal can be retrieved from medieval sources. This notion of the temporal is located in our experience of changing embodied beings, or physis, and gives rise to thuamazein or awe, which shows moral insights. The latter is a valuable source of guidance in policy thinking.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper also suggests that epistemological commitment to an authority as numbers, feeding a policy as numbers, needs to be challenged. This paper does not draw on empirical data but nevertheless aspires to develop a thoughtful conceptual case on behalf of its conclusions.Practical implicationsA moral, neoliberal consequentialism is harmful to professional agencies. This paper offers a different way to think policy that puts what truly matters in front of us.Social implicationsNeoliberalism breeds the terrors of performativity that forgets what as a society we need to aim for on behalf of happiness, and instead drives us to compete without restraint after particular quantitative achievements. By challenging this paradigm, it is possible to offer policy thinking a different set of conceptual tools with which to think ourselves out of this performative irrationality.Originality/valueThis paper retrieves a medieval notion of time that is related with the showing of moral insights, opposed to amoral neoliberal consequentialism. In this way, there is a proposal of an alternative to neoliberalism, and not merely the worry of its damaging effects. It is also an original developmental study of Heidegger’s retrieval of ancient philosophy’s sense of temporality and its connection with ethics in the light of the resources in medieval philosophy.

Moral Disengagement and the Motivational Gap in Climate Change

Although climate change jeopardizes the fundamental human rights of current as well as future people, current actions and ambitions to tackle it are inadequate. There are two prominent explanations for this motivational gap in the climate ethics literature. The first maintains that our conventional moral judgement system is not well equipped to identify a complex problem such as climate change as an important moral problem. The second explanation refers to people’s reluctance to change their behaviour and the temptation to shirk responsibility. We argue that both factors are at play in the motivational gap and that they are complemented by crucial moral psychological insights regarding moral disengagement, which enables emitters to dissociate self-condemnation from harmful conduct. In this way, emitters are able to maintain their profligate, consumptive lifestyle, even though this conflicts with their moral standards with respect to climate change. We provide some illustrations of how strategies of moral disengagement are deployed in climate change and discuss the relationship between the explanations for the motivational gap and moral disengagement. On the basis of this explanatory framework, we submit that there are three pathways to tackle the motivational gap and moral disengagement in climate change: making climate change more salient to emitters and affirming their self-efficacy; reconsidering the self-interested motives that necessitate moral disengagement; and tackling moral disengagement directly.

The dynamics of moral progress

AbstractAssuming that there is moral progress, and assuming that the abolition of slavery is an example of it, how does moral progress occur? Is it mainly driven by specific individuals who have gained new moral insights, or by changes in the socio‐economic and epistemic conditions in which agents morally judge the norms and practices of their society, and act upon these judgements? In this paper, I argue that moral progress is a complex process in which changes at the level of belief and changes at the level of institutions and social practices are deeply intertwined, and that changes in the socio‐economic and epistemic conditions of moral agency constitute the main motor of moral progress. I develop my view of moral progress by way of grappling with Michelle Moody‐Adams’ prominent philosophical account of it. My view is less intellectualistic and individualistic than hers, does not presuppose meta‐ethical moral realism, and blurs her distinction between moral progress in beliefs and moral progress in social practices. I point out the limits of humans to progress morally, which are partly grounded in our evolutionary history, and argue that moral progress is always of a ‘local’ nature.

Репрессии и рефлексия: к 100-летию А. И. Солженицына

The paper is devoted to the issue of 1930s–40s repression. The assessment of Stalin’s role in Russian history is an integral element of this topic, and public opinion in modern Russia still remains divided on this matter. The exposure of Stalin’s personality cult, originally endorsed by N. Khrushchev in the 1950s–60s, was later brought to a halt. Yet, without denouncing Stalin’s personality cult, it is impossible to establish true democracy in Russia. The spheres where the theme of power and violence of the previous century has been addressed in its utmost entirety are literature and cinematography. The author of the paper does not endeavour to analyse the numerous literary works in full, yet he refers to the camp prose by Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov (“The GULAG Archipelago” and “Kolyma Tales”), the military prose by Grossman and Astafiev (“Life and Fate” and “Everything Flows”, “Cursed and Killed” and “Merry Soldier”), modern prose by V. Sorokin and G. Yakhina (“Blue Fat” and “My Children”), the courageous and vibrant journalism of the 1990s and the early 2000s (publications in the magazines Novy Mir, Octyabr, Znamya, Ogoniok); newspaper journalism of The Moscow News, Arguments and Facts, The New Times; television journalism of The Spotlight of Perestroika, Vzglyad, Puppets, series of telebridges, etc.). The special role of cinema as, perhaps, the most popular visual art form of the 20th century is well known. The films made by Eisenstein, Tarkovsky, Shukshin, and German represent milestones in the history of our culture as much as the works of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Bulgakov. The line of creative artists who addressed the issue of Stalin’s terror is continued by Tengiz Abuladze. In his masterpiece “Repentance” shot four years prior to the period of Gorbachev’s liberal reforms, the film director managed to express the expectations of the Soviet intelligentsia. For the first time, the need for de-Stalinization of the Soviet society (similar to denazification that took place in Germany) — the need for liberation, for curing our collective consciousness from the infection of totalitarian ideology was advocated so directly and uncompromisingly. The experience of watching and analysing the film allows us to formulate possibly the main existential question for all of us: are we ready, following the example of the film characters — father and son — to follow the path of moral insight and repentance?

On cosmopolitan humility and the arrogance of states

ABSTRACTOne of the potentially most significant objections to a cosmopolitan moral approach charges an essential arrogance: cosmopolitanism disdains particularist moral insights even while – in what is said to be its most coherent form – it seeks to bind all persons within global political institutions. It is argued here that adopting a form of institutional cosmopolitanism actually helps to meet this sort of objection. An appropriately configured such approach will have a conception of equal global citizenship at its core. It will seek to place individuals in relations of political humility, understood not as plain deference to competing moral claims, but as concrete recognition of the equal moral status of others. It will seek to progressively empower as actual citizen equals those whose interests are often ‘arrogantly’ neglected in the current system, and to multiply mechanisms of input and challenge for them over time.