Moral Mission Research Articles

Крещение Руси и нравственно-просветительная миссия Церкви в контексте отечественной истории

Статья посвящена исполнившемуся в 2018 году 1030-летию Крещения Руси. Рассматривая события 988 года как эпохальное событие отечественной истории, автор связывает с ним все коренные перемены, происшедшие в исторической жизни русского и других народов России. Событие Крещения Руси означало вступление народов Руси в Завет с Богом и ознаменовало собой начало нового исторического бытия, конечной целью которого является грядущее Царство Божие и вечная жизнь. Видимым проявлением и конкретным обнаружением в исторической жизни мира Завета народа с Богом выступает основанная Господом Иисусом Христом Святая Церковь, актуальным предназначением которой в истории России, как и в истории других народов мира, является освящение сверхприродной Божественной благодатью всех сфер личной, семейной, общественной и государственной жизни, нравственное преображение исторического лика народного бытия и введение всего естественного строя бытия в порядок нетления и вечности. Ведущая роль в этом всемирно-историческом процессе принадлежит нравственно-просветительной миссии Церкви. Evaluating the event of 988 as a momentous point of Russia’s history, the author links to it all major changes in lives of the Russians and other Russia’s ethnic groups. Theologically, the Christianization of Rus marked entering of the Rus’ people into a covenant with God and a new age of their history, the final goal of which is the upcoming Kingdom of God and the life eternal. The visible manifestation and historical incarnation of the covenant between the people and God is the holy church, which was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. Her actual purpose in the history of Russia as well as of other nations’ histories is to consecration, by the means of the supernatural God’s grace, of all spheres of personal, family, public, and political life, moral transfiguration of historic face of the people’s existence, and leading of all natural setting of existence into an order of incorruption and eternity. The leading role in this global historical process belongs to the moral and educational mission of the Church.

Eugenio Corti: Testimony of Charity during WWII

Eugenio Corti (Besana 1921-2014) was born in Brianza in a Catholic family, he enrolled in the Faculty of Jurisprudence of the Catholic University in Milan in 1940 and was called to arms in February of the following year. He is one of the first Italian writers who have faithfully recounted the tragic experience of Italian retreat from Russia in World War II in his diary Few returned. This diary describes the Evil in all its many shapes and forms, but at the same time it represent a journey of asceticism; in fact, this young soldier, Eugenio Corti, who left for the front as a volunteer in order to learn something more about communism, was able to experience what Good and True are even in the white hell of the Eastern front. His philosophy was shaped by his family background, military responsibility and the face of his friends: longing for and finding Good and True will be for him the only way to generate and build something positive. His testimony can be likened to the testimony about war events by great authors, like Rigoni Stern, Carlo Gnocchi, Giulio Bedeschi. But Corti’s war experience is also a path of ascension towards the discovery of his own vocation as a writer, in which all his talents as a historian, scholar and Christian wisely matched. Looking at his entire literary production, we realize that Corti, as a true historian, records the facts, evaluate the historical events and revise them using different literary genres, such as the essay, the short story, the diary and the novel; he transforms history into literature, the solid material into a piece of art. Eugenio Corti, soldier, writer, friend, husband, traveling companion, educator, witness of the charity, gave us fundamental works that alongside those of eminent writers, such as Mann, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Manzoni (just to name few names), exhort the readers to civil commitment and moral mission, which are necessary to nurture and improve the culture of a people.

Moral economy from above and below: contesting contraction of migrant rights in austerity Britain

ABSTRACT In 2010, Britain’s newly elected Coalition government ushered in a ‘moral mission’ of welfare reform. This paper considers its extension to the management of non-EEA migration and asylum, viewed here in the context of Fassin’s conception of moral economy and related debate. The paper argues that the ensuing policy regime can be analysed as a moral economy ‘from above’, in terms of its underlying objectives and rationale, which is then challenged and contested ‘from below’ through the intervention of civic activists. Such contestation is framed in terms of a three-pronged critique of the welfare/migration complex, based on rationality, legality and morality, and examined in three key areas of welfare-related policy change – family life, maintenance provision for asylum seekers, and support for those without status. Policy in each area is considered alongside the corresponding critique and with summary comment on key points for moral economy analysis. A fourth section sets these developments in the context of an emergent system of total control, and the conclusion reflects on broader implications for our understanding and usage of the notion of moral economy.

Sociology’s Sacred Victims and the Politics of Knowledge: Moral Foundations Theory and Disciplinary Controversies

The field of sociology has long been subject to critique for alleged ideological bias and left-wing groupthink linked to its social justice mission. Critics contend that the construction of “sacred victims” by progressive intellectuals hinders their ability to objectively appraise the circumstances of such vulnerable groups. To address this criticism, we survey 479 sociologists in national universities and colleges in the U.S. regarding three sensitive controversies: urban poverty in the black community; gendered differences in occupational choices; and immigration. We find significant patterns in the data. Commitment to the field’s “moral mission,” preferred research paradigm, gender, and especially political orientation are all significant predictors of sociologists’ views. The results, we suggest, can be understood by conceptualizing the field of sociology as an “emotive community.” In doing so, we draw upon current social psychological research on moral foundations theory developed by Jonathan Haidt and colleagues.

Pushed into Pragmatism: British Approaches to Science in Post-War Occupied Germany

ABSTRACTOne of the most important dilemmas facing the British authorities when they occupied their zone of Germany at the end of the Second World War was what to do with German science. The contributions made by scientists and engineers to the Nazi war machine, in fields such as rocketry and submarines, meant that German science was both revered and feared, and was therefore closely linked to concerns about a post-war military resurgence in Germany. This article aims to chart the changing approaches which the British occupation officials adopted towards German science in this period. While the initial intention was to prevent Germany from ever waging war again, through demilitarisation, denazification and dismantling, the focus changed as British enmity shifted from a former adversary, Germany, to a former ally, the Soviet Union. Policy reflected this shift as technology transfer and the reconstruction of domestic German science won greater favour. This article aims to show that, in the face of growing hostility from the USSR and in the deeply suspicious climate of the early Cold War, Britain was forced to abandon its moral mission towards German science and adopt a far more pragmatic strategy instead.

Dickens's Presidents

Dickens's Presidents Jerome Meckier (bio) No one expected John Tyler, a former senator from Virginia, to become America's tenth president. His presidency has been called an accident.1 In March 1841, William Henry Harrison was sworn in as the first Whig to hold the office.2 His campaign slogan, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," commemorated a victory in the inconsequential Battle of Tippecanoe during the War of 1812; it also identified Tyler as an afterthought, only put on the ticket to please southern Democrats. When Harrison died after one month in office, Tyler proceeded to alienate both Whigs and Democrats, insuring that his would be a one-term presidency. The morning after Dickens arrived in Washington, D. C. in March 1842, he was taken to the White House for an audience with President Tyler. The interview ranks as one of the all-time non-events. "Is this Mr. Dickens?" Tyler asked. "Sir, it is," Dickens replied. "I am astonished to see so young a man," said the fifty-one-year-old president to the thirty-year-old novelist (Johnson, 1: 400). He added: "I am happy to join with my fellow citizens, warmly, in welcoming you to this country." No further words were spoken. The two men shook hands, seated themselves near a hot stove, although it was a warm day, and stared at each other. Finally, Dickens rose, saying he would use up no more of the president's valuable time which he assumed must be fully occupied. This polite sarcasm went unnoticed. Dickens also attended one of the president's receptions where to his annoyance "he became the main object of attention" (Ackroyd 360). An "immense crowd" ignored Tyler and surrounded Dickens (Clintwood 395). In chapter 8 of American Notes, Dickens generously describes Tyler as a "remarkably unaffected, gentlemanly, and an agreeable" man who "became his station singularly well" (AN 172). But Tyler's alleged "good manners and regal bearing," his "ability to put his guests at ease" (Crapol 5, 105), were [End Page 143] not much in evidence during his interview with Dickens. Edgar Johnson states that Dickens failed to return Tyler's compliment about the novelist's youthful appearance because the president looked "worn and jaded" by comparison (1: 399). Dickens's actual words are "somewhat worn and anxious;" he attributes Tyler's beaten-down look to the fact that he was "at war with everybody" and "far from popular" (AN 172, 171). Dickens seems to have paid more attention to the disgusting condition of the carpeting than to Tyler. During his visit to the White House, the fastidious Englishman's abhorrence of expectorations and expectorators peaked.3 He dismisses the president in one short paragraph of American Notes but devotes three long passages to the disastrous "state" to which the "handsomely carpeted" rooms were "reduced" by the "universal disregard of the spittoon" and the poor marksmanship of even "steady old chewers" (AN 169). A constant stream of yellow saliva from large quids of tobacco stowed within the hollows of numerous cheeks, writes Dickens, was responsible for "extraordinary improvements on the pattern" and coloring of every carpet (169). The visiting novelist fared only slightly better with John Quincy Adams, son of the nation's second president and himself the sixth. At a dinner party, Dickens was "astonished" by the septuagenarian former president's "freshness, vigor, and intellect" (Kaplan 549). In a letter to John Forster, Dickens praises Adams as "a fine old fellow seventy-six years old" but still with lots of "pluck" (Johnson 1: 398). Adams was called from his desk in the House of Representatives to meet the famous visitor. But the ex-president's biographer thinks it unlikely that Adams had found time to read a single line of what Dickens had so far published; he was unacquainted with Sketches, Pickwick, Twist, Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge (Kaplan 548). Having lived in the eighteenth century for his first 33 years, Adams preferred Sterne and Fielding, whom he believed knew that literature had a moral mission to promote the reader's sense of duty to God and man. Sir Walter Scott's novels Adams found "romantic" by comparison, that is...

Do Physicians Have an Ethical Duty to Repair Relationships with So-Called "Difficult" Patients?

This essay argues that physicians hold primary ethical responsibility for repairing damaged patient-physician relationships. The first section establishes that the patient-physician relationship has an important influence on patient health and argues that physicians' duty to treat should be understood as including a responsibility to repair broken relationships, regardless of which party was "responsible" for the initial tension. The second section argues that the person with more power to repair the relationship also has more responsibility to do so and considers the moral psychology of pain as foundational to conceiving the patient in this case as especially vulnerable and disempowered. The essay concludes with suggestions for clinicians to act on the idea that a healthy patient-physician relationship ought to lie at the center of medicine's moral mission.

Emotion Management and the Professional Culture of Administrative Social Workers in Russia: Common Standards Versus the Moral Mission of Social Care

In this article, I examine emotion work among administrative social workers in Russia, an activity vital to the on-going emergence of their professional culture. This examination focuses on administrative social workers; a particular group of largely office-bound social workers within the profession whose central job is to help people process the required documents needed to receive social assistance and benefits. Firstly, the article offers an overview of existing research on the sociology of emotions and professions, with a special focus on those studies exploring emotion management. The conclusion emerging from this review is that analysing emotion work in the field of social care can lead to a deeper and more complete understanding of its specific character and the ethical rules operating within it. Secondly, an analysis of administrative social worker interview transcripts was conducted as part of a larger research project on the professional culture of this occupation. This analysis was completed with help of NVivo software and reveals that although interviewees are not only clearly aware of emotion work, they do all the same try to reduce emotional expenditure in their communication with clients and strive to standardise how they work with their emotions. Carrying out emotion work has a key function in supporting professional identity among administrative social workers and furthering the development of a professional culture. On the other hand, the emotional expenditures involved and the challenge of 'making the profession worth it' are alleviated by the sense that one’s work fulfils an important 'moral mission' in providing social care and assistance.

L’immaginario tecnologico. Un’analisi sociologica della cosmologia contemporanea

From the point of view of the phenomenological sociology of knowledge, is really interesting to analyse relationship between collective imagery and the increasing growth of the technical universe: social existence in the Western world–in our time–is in fact embedded in the “myth of information” (Pecchinenda, 2009). This concept derives its cognitive and normative power from its peculiar genesis: the symbolic roots of this process lie in the moral mission of the early modern science, inspired– consciously or unconsciously–by the ethos of Judeo-Christian paradigm. The “myth of information” incorporates these ancient heritage in the flow of contemporary cosmology using the rhetoric of “transparency” (Breton, 1996): this peculiar rhetoric seems to announce daily the final unmasking of the mechanisms that rule the world.

Establishing American Literature Through James Fenimore Cooper's The Deerslayer

Women have very unique characteristics. They are far different from men. Therefore, women needs are also different from men needs including the need to read. Men tend to read adventure works. The adventure works fulfill man's need to taste the adventure as the hero-individual or group in adventures works is able to overcome obstacles and dangers to accomplish some important and moral mission. In another hand, women prefer to read romance ones. It is because romance formula provides what women desired. Moreover romance works are the feminine equivalent of the adventure stories. Furthermore, chick-lits, the women best friend, is one of the romance works. As it is used romance formula, chick-lits has ability to provide women's desire. It transforms the need, and interprets it through the narrative of chick-lits. That is why, because to find out how the interpretation of the works is an fascinating challenge, this paper tries to see the connection between chick-lits romance formula and how it affects the readers, the women.

How Chick-Lit Affects Women Through Romance Formula: A Study Case On Lauren Weisberger's Devil Wears Prada And Jane Green's

Women have very unique characteristics. They are far different from men. Therefore, women needs are also different from men needs including the need to read. Men tend to read adventure works. The adventure works fulfill man's need to taste the adventure as the hero-individual or group in adventures works is able to overcome obstacles and dangers to accomplish some important and moral mission. In another hand, women prefer to read romance ones. It is because romance formula provides what women desired. Moreover romance works are the feminine equivalent of the adventure stories. Furthermore, chick-lits, the women best friend, is one of the romance works. As it is used romance formula, chick-lits has ability to provide women's desire. It transforms the need, and interprets it through the narrative of chick-lits. That is why, because to find out how the interpretation of the works is an fascinating challenge, this paper tries to see the connection between chick-lits romance formula and how it affects the readers, the women.

Why Pluralism, Relativism, and Panthareism: An Ethical Landscape with Sport in the Background*

Abstract In reference to the monograph entitled “Sports and Ethics: Philosophical Studies”, published in the “Physical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research” quarterly (2014, vol. 62), and in particular in reference to the paper entitled “The Normative Ethics and Sport” (Kosiewicz, 2014, pp. 5-22), the article presents new and at the same time supplementary views on the relationships between sports and normative ethics. The main objective of the paper is to provide a rationale as to why these relationships may be viewed in the context of the assumptions of ethical pluralism, ethical relativism, ethical panthareism, and axionormative negationism. The text is of a strictly cognitive and extra-ideological nature and it attempts to avoid moral valuation, moralism, and moralizing. The view it postulates is also labeled as ethical negationism, which rejects the necessity for external support and enhancement of sports rivalry rules with moral principles. It assumes that regulations, book rules, and game rules as well as the principles of sports rivalry ought to be of an entirely amoral character, independent of ethics. The article suggests minimizing the impact of moral postulates on sport. It postulates a need for widespread propagation of this point of view in competitive, professional, spectator, and Olympic sport disciplines, as well as in top-level sports or elite sports. The views presented in the paper point to the need to separate normative ethics from sports as far as it is at all possible in contemporary sports indoctrinated with obligations or attitudes of a moral tenor. This is because normative ethics – according to the author - is relative ethics, depending on an unlimited number of variables, e.g., various social contexts or individual points of view. The text engages in a polemic with colloquial and evaluative opinions of those sports fans who by all means strive to bolster its formal, functional, and axiological status. A significant part of them erroneously attributes sports to an extraordinary moral mission related to promoting an intuitively understood good with a religious and extra-confessional tenor.

Defending the four principles approach as a good basis for good medical practice and therefore for good medical ethics

This paper argues that the four prima facie principles—beneficence, non-maleficence, respect for autonomy and justice—afford a good and widely acceptable basis for ‘doing good medical ethics’. It confronts objections that...

LITTLE HENRY'S BURDENS: COLONIZATION, CIVILIZATION, CHRISTIANITY, AND THE CHILD

The History of Little Henry and His Bearer(1814), an Evangelical tract, was published on the heels of the Charter Act of 1813, an act of Parliament of the United Kingdom that introduced more regulation of the East India Company and legalized missionary work in India. The act implicitly rationalized expanding British dominance, invoking the moral mission to save the heathen.Little Henrycaptures this zeitgeist and was received enthusiastically by a readership newly interested in additional imperial expansion as a means of bringing civilization to the colonial world (Regaignon 89).

Progressive Reform and the Moral Mission in Australian Public Libraries at the Beginning of the “Information Age”

Progressive ideas about library economy, emanating from American and British libraries, contributed directly to the development of local procedures in public libraries in Australia in the late nineteenth century. The new consciousness of library professionalism, and scientific approaches to classification and library organization, led to new ideas on library design and functioning in the major Australian public libraries, building upon a consideration of local conditions and requirements. These developments coincided fruitfully with the Federation period, when the separate Australian colonies joined to form the Australian nation. Librarians sought to modernize their institutions in a positively charged climate of national progress, self-awareness, and pride. However, the transition to progressive practices was not uniform across the major Australian libraries. Conflicts between moral and technological values meant that some librarians rejected progressive practice and maintained older approaches, particularly in the area of classification. The Tasmanian Public Library, led by Chief Librarian Alfred J. Taylor, was an example of this. This paper examines Taylor’s approach in the wider context of changing attitudes to professionalism and library economy, his own paternalistic and humanistic approach to library organization, and the specific needs of the Tasmanian community.

Police-public interactions: a grid-group cultural theory perspective

Purpose– The police culture literature suggests that police officers’ attitude towards the public is characterised by suspicion and an “us-vs-them” mentality. It also refers to the moral mission of protecting the public by being tough on crime. The traditional police culture model seems to imply that these aspects are typical for the police. There is, however, a lack of empirical studies to test this proposition. The purpose of this paper is to propose a different conceptual framework, based on grid-group cultural theory (GGCT), which not only broadens the lens of the police culture model, but also allows for comparative research between different professional groups.Design/methodology/approach– The newly developed conceptual framework is tested in an ethnographic study in the Belgian police and labour inspection. The main data collection methods are observation, interview and informal conversation.Findings– The results of this study show that there are similarities in the way in which Belgian police officers and labour inspectors interact with the public, which raises interesting questions concerning the (often implicit) claim of the police culture literature concerning the specificity of police culture.Research limitations/implications– More research is needed to gain deeper insight into similarities and differences of the occupational culture in the police and comparable professional groups. GGCT offers a useful conceptual framework for such a research agenda.Originality/value– This paper addresses a number of criticisms against the classic police culture model and provides an innovative perspective to not only study aspects of police culture, but also compare the police with other professions.

Bioethics and corruption: a personal struggle

The author attempts to give a general picture of corruption, especially in the area of healthcare. Corruption ranges from fraud, through deceit, bribery and dehumanisation, to immeasurable moral decay. As a bioethicist who has challenged corruption in various ways, the author approaches this worldwide plague mainly on the basis of his personal experience. He does not offer a recipe for successfully combating corruption, but tries to provide some ways and means to fight immorality without self-defeat. Bioethics is not a discipline whose task is to investigate, expose, or punish corrupt people. A number of agencies exist for this "noble" job. Nevertheless, an ethics teacher should not be completely indifferent to obvious and harmful immoral behaviour, regardless of his/her personal compulsions. It is not the "patient rights" that threaten the prestige of the medical profession; it is rather the bad apples that infiltrate the moral mission of this esteemed work. It seems that the hardest challenges in the struggle against corruption are bad laws-laws that provide loopholes and immunity to immoral dealings. In a stable, strong democracy, morally unfounded laws can, and will be changed. Where real democracy exists, they would not even have come into effect.

Establishing American Literature Through James Fenimore Cooper's The Deerslayer

Women have very unique characteristics. They are far different from men. Therefore, women needs are also different from men needs including the need to read. Men tend to read adventure works. The adventure works fulfill man's need to taste the adventure as the hero-individual or group in adventures works is able to overcome obstacles and dangers to accomplish some important and moral mission. In another hand, women prefer to read romance ones. It is because romance formula provides what women desired. Moreover romance works are the feminine equivalent of the adventure stories. Furthermore, chick-lits, the women best friend, is one of the romance works. As it is used romance formula, chick-lits has ability to provide women's desire. It transforms the need, and interprets it through the narrative of chick-lits. That is why, because to find out how the interpretation of the works is an fascinating challenge, this paper tries to see the connection between chick-lits romance formula and how it affects the readers, the women.Key words: chick-lits, women, romance formula, and the needs

Business Forums Pave the Way to Ethical Decision Making

In the midst of recent ethical decision-making failures in American business in the past ten or more years, businesses are beginning to prioritize the moral fiber of their new-hire business graduates. Perhaps in addition to academic performance, intellectual drive, and personality match, moral courage and religious mission should be other key characteristics that candidates portray and employers seek. The question remains how can academic institutions help instill such values into their students so that ethical decision making transcends their lives? We contend that moral courage and religious mission can be fostered through business forum events, where current students spend time developing mentorship relationships promoting ethical decision- making. As a result of structured interactions with members of business advisory council members, students are better able to demonstrate moral courage and be more aware of the religious identity of their school. Business forum events add to the learning of students...

Reinventing the Extracurriculum: The Educational and Moral Purposes of College Student Activities and Experiences

The college extracurriculum, which is comprised of nonacademic student activities and experiences that occur outside the parameters of formal course work, provides one of the most important influences on the moral beliefs and behaviors of students during the college years. This article will examine some of the positive and negative moral influences of the extracurriculum and discuss how colleges and universities can better connect extracurricular activities to the moral mission and academic purposes of the institution.