Moral Space Research Articles

Researching moral foundations using the Bayesian approach

Moral foundations theory describes a complex space of human morality along five moral foundations: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, and sanctity/degradation. The first aim of this study is to explore the role of socio-demographic variables in endorsing the five moral foundations and to provide insight into the role of moral foundations in attitudes towards homeless people. The second objective of the study is to provide an example of employing the Bayesian statistical approach. There were 162 participants in our study (27% male, mean age 36 years). Convenience sampling method was used. Age and education found to be the most important predictors of moral foundations, with Bayesian factors showing the strongest evidence for age as a positive predictor of moral foundations. Gender, political affiliation, care and authority were found to be important predictors of attitudes towards homeless people, with Bayesian factors showing much stronger evidence for moral foundations than sociodemographic variables. This study lays the groundwork for research on moral foundations in Slovenian samples and provides a practical example of Bayesian approach application in social science.

Bildung and the Moral Topography of the Self

Abstract The ideal of authenticity that developed in the Romantic era emphasized that both individuals and places find their own authentic process for cultivating their identity and humanity, a notion that has become controversial in modern philosophy. This paper will explore the concepts of authenticity and place and discuss their relevance for Bildung theory today. Based on the works of Charles Taylor, we will argue that Bildung can be seen as constituted by and constitutive of language and moral spaces that go beyond the self and its individuality. In this view, Bildung can be understood as a ‘moral topography of the self’ with both substantial and procedural aspects. However, language and moral spaces (i.e. communities) can both enable and constrict our Bildung processes. Drawing on Rahel Jaeggi, we thus argue that alienation is an equally important concept to understand the complex and dialectical relationship between individuals and communities in our current moment.

"Moral spaces": A feasibility study to build nurses' ethical confidence and competence.

Background: Pre-licensure ethics nursing education does not adequately prepare and instill confidence in nurses to address ethical issues, and yet ethics education provides nurses with greater confidence to take moral action, which can mitigate the negative effects of moral distress. Objectives: To assess the feasibility and acceptability of a nursing ethics education program that included simulated case-based ethics competencies as a form of evaluation. The program aimed at building nurses' ethical knowledge and confidence to respond to ethical challenges in practice. Research design: A prospective, longitudinal, correlational, single-cohort feasibility study using an investigator-developed survey and intervention field data. Participants and research context: Registered nurses were recruited from an academic quaternary-care medical center and 9 small- to mid-sized regional hospitals within one health system in the Midwest United States. Ethical considerations: IRB approval was obtained. Participants could complete the educational program regardless of research process participation. Findings: Of 20 participants, 19 (95%) provided post-program surveys and 18 completed competencies. Median (IQR) scores with quartiles for scheduling, timing, and length of sessions were all 10.0 [9.0, 10.0], and participants perceived that the content was interesting, increased knowledge and confidence in ethics, increased skills in providing ethical care, and would recommend the program to colleagues. Of factors, an increase in ethics knowledge had the highest "always agree" (17, 89.5%) response. Most participants reported that ethics competencies were appropriate 9.0 [9.0, 10.0] and sufficiently challenging 10.0 [9.0, 10.0]. Discussion: The education program developed nurses' ethics knowledge and confidence. The single-cohort feasibility design provided early-stage intervention outcomes; however, a larger randomized controlled trial would substantiate program value. Conclusion: This novel ethics education program was highly feasible and acceptable to hospital-based nurses who reported increased knowledge and confidence in providing ethical care. Simulated case-based ethics competencies were an appropriate evaluation method.

The waste of nations: Household trash and the affective politics of recycling in Israel

Solid waste treatment is an acute concern for countries facing waning landfilling capacity, increasingly strict controls on waste transport and treatment, and the persistent threat of climate change. These challenges are typically met by neoliberal and technocratic solutions that privatize public services while encouraging curbside recycling. I examine such an effort to promote curbside recycling in Israel. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in the Israeli recycling world, and on anthropology, geography, science and technology studies and critical waste studies literatures, I interrogate the affective politics of household waste recycling in Israel over the past decade and attempts to configure a Europeanized and moral national space through recycling. I describe the cultural and ethnonational repertoires through which curbside recycling was naturalized in the Israeli landscape, how recycling was mutually animated with a range of sociopolitical concerns that far exceeded its financial or environmental significance, and how these mutually shaped waste as a social–environmental problem. I argue that social and material conditions gave rise to a dual process, in which both the problem of waste, and its necessary solutions, were actively and mutually constructed. This paper contributes to comparative literatures on national cultures of waste recycling, shedding light on how a project of Western ecological modernization was translated and became locally meaningful in Israel's settler-colonial context, how household waste was ontologically coproduced in this process, and how its stakes were experienced, voiced, and materialized.

Kant and the Moral Need to Limit Theoretical Reason: An Expansion of Hare's Concept of Rational Instability

Why does Kant reject atheism in such strong terms despite his denial of the traditional proofs for the existence of God? I take the position that the question of atheism and the problem it entails are not a side issue but the recurring portrait of a figure that haunts Kant not just in the Religion, but throughout his critical philosophy. I seek to expand what Kant criticizes in atheism or, more accurately, to identify atheism as part of a collection of positions that Kant rejects on grounds of what John Hare calls “rational instability,” which is ultimately a moral-rational instability. This includes also certain forms of theism and theological beliefs. I claim that Kant's agenda is to construct a world view in which genuine moral behaviour is possible by preserving the world as a moral space in which individuals are free to be moral, and that the target of his metaphysical criticism is those who over-explain the world so as to deny the possibility of a meaningful self-consciousness of agency.

Ethical Diversity, The Common Good, and The Courage of Dialogue

AbstractIn this article, Seamus Mulryan contends that dialogue about questions that matter to a body politic require the ethical virtue of courage, which is distinct from the virtue of intellectual humility, and this is of central importance in the education of members of a pluralist society. Mulryan begins with Robert Kunzman's theory of Ethical Dialogue and departs from it through Hans‐Georg Gadamer's theory of hermeneutic experience and Charles Taylor's claims about the inextricable relationship between self‐intelligibility and moral spaces. Finally, Mulryan illustrates the promises and perils of courageous dialogue as an educative activity by way of Plato's Meno, Protagoras, and Gorgias.

Creative Battle Space: The Sea in Indonesian Newspaper Short Stories

The sea has always been a source of inspiration in literature. The sea becomes a creative battleground in literature because it depicts human life full of challenges, difficulties, hopes, and adventures. In literature, the sea becomes a metaphor that helps reveal human life's complexity by showing life's beauty and ferocity. This study aims to advance existing studies to identify unique concepts, ideologies, or discourses relating to the ocean that are hidden in 25 short stories from 2010 to 2021 in Indonesian newspapers. Using an interactive interpretation method, all short stories are analyzed through content analysis techniques to reveal the various creative battle spaces. Through a mixed methods study with a critical approach, this research found four creative battle spaces with their respective subspaces, namely: (1) economic battle space with capitalist and impact of capitalism subspace; (2) moral battle space with action crime and power struggle subspace; (3) inner battle space with serenity, sorrow relief, the battle between reality and desire, and the battle of life subspace; and (4) surrealism idea battle space with the meeting space of two worlds, the endless search, surrealism-economics, and spirituality and imagery subspace.

Beyond the consult question: Nurse ethicists as architects of moral spaces

Nurse Ethicists bring a unique perspective to clinical ethics consultation. This perspective provides an appreciation of ethical tensions that will exist beyond the consult question into the moral space of patient care. These tensions exist even when an ethically preferable plan of action is identified. Ethically appropriate courses of action can still lead to moral dilemmas for others. The nurse ethicist provides a lens well suited to identify and respond to these dilemmas. The nurse–patient relationship is the ethical foundation of nursing practice and this relational ontology is well suited to addressing ethical dilemmas that exist prior to and beyond the initial consult question. This paper will describe one nurse ethicist’s phronetic and pragmatic approach to a clinical ethics consult elucidated through feminist ethics and systems thinking. This paper will describe the theoretical basis for this method, present a case, and describe how this consultation approach provides a rich analysis based around relationships and responsibilities that also highlights the important ethical tensions within the social structure that exists around the patient and continue after the consult question is answered.

Brave spaces in nursing ethics education: Courage through pedagogy.

Nursing students must graduate prepared to bravely enact the art and science of nursing in environments infiltrated with ethical challenges. Given the necessity and moral obligation of nurses to engage in discourse within nursing ethics, nursing students must be provided a moral supportive learning space for these opportunities. Situating conversations and pedagogy within a brave space may offer a framework to engage in civil discourse while fostering moral courage for learners. The aim of this research is to explore the influence of a structured self-assessment tool called the ESA "Engagement Self-Assessment" on the alignment and creation of a brave space in a nursing ethics course. This study used an exploratory, cross-sectional survey design. Data from 39 undergraduate nursing students enrolled in a nursing healthcare ethics & law course using the ESA were recruited. Participation was voluntary and informed without coercion. Written consent was obtained prior to participation. Research ethics approval was obtained by the Institutional Research Ethics Board of the recruited participants (Ethics # 2022-23-03). The ESA provided structured self-reflection on the impact of shared vulnerability within a brave space. However, commitment to a brave space was not strongly influenced by the ESA, but rather by a mutual "commitment to others." A teaching tool such as an ESA can be used to facilitate instructor expectations of civil discourse and discussion of difficult topics. Rules of engagement such as those found in brave spaces can help transform fear of vulnerability into authentic growth for learners. A morally supportive learning space can support critical opportunities for ethical development. This study provides insight into how self-assessment and the use of a brave space in nursing ethics education can facilitate a morally supportive learning space.

New Virtuality

Our multimedia website project, “The New Virtuality”, explores the implications of highly realistic images that interact and socialise with human users, often seemingly “live” in real‑time. Created with imaging technologies such as holographic projection or virtual reality (VR) and usually boosted by AI and machine learning, we argue that these images present unprecedented directions in understanding how reality, liveness and presence are discerned and believed. Radically breaking down differences between real and unreal, they point to an era of blurred boundaries, dematerialization and limbic spaces which converges visual media with twenty-first century politics of dis/misinformation, post-truth and deep fakery. In this project, we discuss this era as “the new virtuality.” These developments underpin the project’s research questions: how to understand this media that so freely and near-seamlessly mix virtual and actual realities? How to place this phenomenon in media’s long history of blurred environments, while still appreciating their distinctive newness and challenges? What are the impacts of the new virtuality on our apprehensions and constructions of realities? How might this mediated reality relate – as code, as language, as consciousness – to the wider contexts of information that colour contemporary times? In our methodology, we interwove theory, multimedia expression and fiction as multiple voices to articulate the project’s arguments across three frameworks of distinct approaches, media elements and genre features. The first framework is a historical context with which to understand the continuities and divergences of virtuality. The second is the connection of theory – particularly from film, screen and media studies – with textual readings drawn across multiple media, including paintings, cinema, performance, VR, apps and architecture. The third is the employment of fiction and multimedia. Inspired by the “scientific fiction” work of Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan (Lee and Chen, 2021), we intertwined a fictional story through the project for greater animation and accessibility – a creative warp to the academic weft. Multimedia via the essays’ image margins and a 33‑minute video essay function as audiovisual “mood boards” to provide elaboration, illustration, colour and setting for conveying the new virtuality’s poetics of fudged and adrift unsettling across this new reality. The result is a work of multiple voices and hybridity which identifies a new framework of reality through contemporary mixed media. This new virtuality is no longer about the questions of realism or illusion (e.g. Friedberg 2009; Grau 2003) from computer‑generated imagery (CGI) or even deepfakes. They are about new technical codes and information which give rise to revised conceptions of ontology, anthropology, epistemology, literacy, time and space. They are new systems of complex linkages between media, codes, expressions, consciousness, change and history. These ideas not only impact understanding of our world. They also revise orientations of truth values and identifications of moral spaces.

Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language ed. by Eufemia Fantetti, Leonarda Carranza, and Ayelet Tsabari

Reviewed by: Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language ed. by Eufemia Fantetti, Leonarda Carranza, and Ayelet Tsabari Marc Lynch (bio) Fantetti, Eufemia, Leonarda Carranza, and Ayelet Tsabari, editors. Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language. Book*hug, 2021. Essais Series no. 25. CAD $25. Tongues: On Longing and Belonging through Language is a compilation of twenty-six short essays on the confluences between heritage, language, and [End Page 163] identity. These dynamic essays explore an array of different experiences ranging from the grief that emerges from losing one's mother tongue to the navigation of gendered language in medicine. Connecting all of these diverse experiences is the concept of alienation—the disconnection between father and daughter, loss of one's homeland and culture, the ways that English as a colonial language constricts identities. Each of these essays concerns different ways the body metamorphosizes with language, wrestling with concepts of family, acceptance, disillusionment, and diaspora. All the while, each essay remains fresh due to editors Eufemia Fantetti, Leonarda Carranza, and Ayelet Tsabari's intuitive organization, which enables a more visceral connection between language, diaspora, displacement, and connectivity. There are quite a few overlaps between essays that, rather than producing repetition, create a thematic resonance. Many of the essays were written or collected during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which becomes a quirky link between disparate experiences and marks a unique historical period. In fact, these subtle connections provide a cohesiveness that isn't typical in essay collections of this kind. Additionally, the majority of the authors occupy marginalized spheres—from BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, persons of colour) to LGBTQ2S (Lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer, two spirit) to people with disability. The effect is quite extraordinary in terms of how these authors articulate their struggles with language and place as a means of dismantling prevailing notions of normalcy. One of the central thematic threads in the collection is the way the authors submit a challenge directly to readers, asking them to question conventional patterns of reading and publishing that restrict marginalized writers. The authors see these conventions as perpetuating a restrictive system of monolingualism under the argument that having multiple languages in a text would make said text restrictive and inaccessible; contrary to this assumption, Tongues shows just how rich and engaging a multi-lingual text can be. The authors' connection with language (whether native or ancestral) becomes an entry point for readers, and the linguistic variations a site of intrigue that is both metaphorically expansive and generative. These types of conventions, therefore, eliminate some of the readers' responsibility, particularly as it comes to bilingual authors and the reduced poetic, linguistic, and imaginative potentialities that they can bring to the table. Rebecca Fisseha, for example, discusses how using italics to signal foreignness as a standard of practice does nothing more than refuse difference and serve privilege. Similarly, writer Ashley Hynd grapples with the difficult moral space the reader occupies, asking to whom is the translator responsible: general readers or specific communities? This concept provocatively overlaps with the struggles [End Page 164] BIPOC authors face, given that they are often intrinsically at odds with the white, cis, male reader: as Carrianne Leung, a writer who was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Scarborough, tells us, "We know the enormity of what we are writing against. The readers are sometimes locked in their own world of mythology. This narrative that arrives from my body may already be at odds with the reader's mythology" (175). Although these essayists are not responding to each other, they all speak to larger modes of diminishment and suggest that the repression of bodies themselves is not just the product of the forced adoption of a colonial language (English, French, Spanish, etc.) but is part and parcel of the publishing industry's standards of practice. In terms of its geographic scope, Tongues captures a large number of diasporic perspectives, particularly those connected to global movement and migration. Many of the essays articulate the complications of a conflicted sense of identity that is in flux because of a diverse set of histories and contexts. Often, the writers enunciate a deep sense of conflict; they suggest that...

Moral Responsibility, Moral Sanctions, and the Value and Normative Content of Morality

The paper deals with the problem of the role of moral of sanctions — an expression of retrospective moral responsibility — in the moral experience. Moral sanctions are negative consequences of a moral transgression or deviation that spring from their condemnation. This kind of sanctions includes public censure and self-censure. The author tries to establish whether the all content of morality is supported by moral sanctions. The first object of the analysis are moral norms (rules, requirements) creating obligations. There is an interesting precedent of splitting apart obligations and sanctions in H. Hart’s philosophy. Though Hart overlooks “the conceptual intuition that something can be genuinely obligatory only if those who are obligated can justifiably be held responsible or accountable for compliance” (S. Darwall). This intuition is deeply rooted in the moral consciousness and ethical thought (the most vivid examples — S. Pufendorf and J.S. Mill). But moral norms (rules, requirements) creating obligations are not the only element of the content of morality. Moral values have a capacity to influence the behavior of an agent not through norms (rules, requirements) but directly. R. Nozick supposed that there is a special type of sanction in this sphere (the so called “value sanction”). The author shows that it is not a sanction proper. The main conclusion of the paper is as follows: the moral space without sanctions and retrospective responsibility is the space there moral values influence the behavior of an agent not only directly but without overlapping with moral norms (rules, requirements). Supererogation fits the bill perfectly.

Category of the Common Good from the COVID-19 Pandemic Perspective

Abstract In this study, edited on the basis of a critical review of domestic and foreign literature, as well as authors’ own analyzes, previously presented in several articles (Słodowa-Hełpa 2015; Gorynia 2021 and 2022), mainly in two shorter texts published in popular magazines with a range of Poland (Gory-nia and Słodowa-Hełpa 2022a, 2022b), selected aspects of the concept of the common good from the perspective of the Covid-19 pandemic were presented. The authors’ conviction that in the process of searching for cures to overcome civilization turbulences, the common good cannot be eliminated from the social, political, economic and moral space, was the inspiration to take up this issue. Therefore, the search for answers to the following four questions was considered leading: Will pandemic experiences catalyze a better understanding of the common good? How can they reduce its deficit? To what extent can a return to the concept of the common good, offering real forms of participation and shared responsibility, help in overcoming the painful effects of the present and future threats to civilization? Can respecting the principles of the common good be considered an imperative in the process of overcoming problems of an increasingly global scope? In view of the ambiguity of the category of the common good and the related interpretation difficulties, it was deemed necessary to place the main part of the study in the background of the most general approach to the essence of the analyzed category and its status in philosophical and economic terms. The summary outlines conclusions and postulates concerning the conditions for the functioning of global common goods and the possibility of using them in international cooperation.

PHILOSOPHICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL HEALTH IN THE INFORMATION AND EDUCATIONAL SPACE IN THE CONTEXT OF MASS MEDIA INFLUENCE

The article provides a philosophical understanding of the problem of personal health in the information and educational space in the context of mass media influence. The importance of disclosing the methodological foundations for applying the principles of health philosophy in modern conditions is determined. The interrelation of the problem of personal health in the information and educational space and issues of ethics and morality is revealed. It is proved that with the emergence of new technologies and means of communication, people face challenges and threats associated with the negative impact of the digital environment on their physical and mental health. The problems of education and personal health intersect at the level of the general process of human development in the process of unlocking one’s inner potential. It is proved that achieving health is impossible without the use of self-knowledge, self-observation, and self-control skills in educational practice. The importance of valeology and valeosophy in the formation of a new branch of philosophical knowledge - the philosophy of health - is revealed. The philosophy of health, realized within the modern information and educational space, offers a way of knowing a person through the category of "health", which reveals a person as a conscious, responsible being capable of managing psycho-emotional and physical state. The close connection between personal health, the process of informatization of education and the formation of information culture of educational subjects is revealed. It is proved that the educational aspects of the study of personal health are associated with the formation of its meaningful life priorities, the introduction of an axiological approach to the formation of health at the level of educational practices. The importance of media literacy in the development of information and media culture, health-saving technologies of using electronic media in the educational space as thebasis for the formation of value priorities of the individual in the information and educational space is revealed. The systemic, holistic, personality-oriented, axiological and cultural approaches to understanding the essence of health are revealed. The necessity of personality formation in the unity of spiritual, mental and physical aspects of health is determined.

Дискурсивное пространство морали: содержание, структура, специфика (на материале немецкого языка)

The study aims to construct a model of the discursive space of morality using the material of German-language texts. Scientific novelty of the work lies in substantiating the spatial way of organising the discourse of morality and involving the theory of mental spaces as a tool for modelling the discursive space of morality. The analysis has shown that morality acts as a superspace that unites all spheres of human life through moral evaluation. The temporal discreteness and constancy of the moral discourse, its rich thematic repertoire, as well as the variety of lexical units representing its participants are indicative of the spatial form of its organisation. The analysis of the examples of the most common collocations in modern German with the basic component “Moral” revealed the close connection of morality with Christianity and the presence of negative transformations in the sphere of moral consciousness. By considering morality in the diachronic aspect the researcher was able to discover the presence of constants of the moral discourse, which are the MORAL, RELIGION and VERBRECHEN concepts. As a result of the study, a model of the discursive space of morality has been constructed, its features conditioned by the specificity of morality itself have been identified, its basic and secondary components have been determined. It has been found that the discursive space of morality has a complex multilevel structure, it is constant and covers all periods of time.

Legacies of British Imperialism in the Contemporary UK Asylum–Welfare Nexus

This article traces the imperial roots of the contemporary asylum–welfare nexus. It explores how English colonial governance exported Poor Law legislation firstly to colonial America (USA) and secondly to British North America (Canada). It argues that these three countries are an Anglophone shared moral space of law and governance, revealing the common unresolved contradictions underpinning contemporary debates about who ‘deserves’ entry, under what conditions, and why. Historical perspectives unsettle assumptions about the primacy of national geopolitical borders and the exceptionalism of contemporary migration. This article uses historical sociology to trace why and how national sovereignty took primacy over municipalities in controlling the mobility of people and the concomitant moral underpinnings. It then draws on new empirical research in three pioneering ‘sanctuary cities’ to explore how cities contest the entwining of welfare and migration governance. However, the article explores how these initiatives often reproduce justifications based on ‘deservingness’ and ‘contribution’. Through tracing the common threads that led to these forms of governance, we can understand they are not self-evident. A historical perspective allows us to ask different questions and open realms of alternative possibilities.

Implementation of Medical Assistance in Dying as Organizational Ethics Challenge: A Method of Engagement for Building Trust, Keeping Peace and Transforming Practice.

This paper focuses on the ethics of how to approach the introduction of MAiD as an organizational ethics challenge, a focus that diverges from the traditional focus in healthcare ethics on the ethics of why MAiD is right or wrong. It describes a method co-designed and implemented by ethics and medical leadership at a tertiary hospital to develop a values-based, grassroots response to the decriminalization of assisted dying in Canada. This organizational ethics engagement method embodied core tenants that drew inspiration from a variety of sources, including poetic ones. These tenants are: make the problem bigger; focus on values; cultivate open moral spaces; and trust emergence. The paper describes how these tenants were put into practice in order to create a rigorous and sustainable MAiD program that delivers high-quality care to patients and families while honoring the moral diversity of the hospital workforce. One of the goals in sharing this method is to provide a roadmap for healthcare organizations in Canada and other jurisdictions around the world that are facing the challenge of responding to patient requests for MAiD following the decriminalization of this care option.

“Missouree Was Always Out of Step with Missourah”

Language users can create moral geographies, in which values are mapped in space, by indexically linking values and spatial referents. One understudied aspect of linguistic practice in this domain is the role of toponyms in constructing a moral geography. This investigation illustrates how sociolinguistic variants of a toponym can be used to construct a moral geography. I take as a case study sociolinguistic variation in the US state name Missouri, which can be produced as Missouree or Missourah. Qualitative analysis of a set of local newspaper columns shows these variants can be used as place names. However, they do not distinguish regions of physical space. Rather, the variants label moral spaces by setting each variant on opposing ends of cultural, geographic, and political axes of contrast. Because their primary role is to label moral space, I suggest that toponymic studies should consider the kind of geography that a toponym labels space within. I consider the usage here to be examples of “moral toponyms”, in contrast to traditional toponyms which label physical space.

Pediatric Ethics Consults for Caregivers: Anybody Home?

Pediatric Ethics Consults for Caregivers: Anybody Home?

Relational ethics, informed consent, and informed assent in participatory research with children with complex communication needs.

There is a need for qualitative participatory research involving children with intellectual disability and complex communication needs (CCNs), but procedural ethics cannot always adequately respond to the associated realities. To tackle this challenge, procedural ethics can be expanded with relational ethics to engage with consent and assent practices in participatory research projects. By drawing on several key incidents of participatory research with children with CCNs, we explore the complex moral spaces and times of ambivalent and iterative (dis)engagements within research processes. We reconceptualize the consent/assent terrain as a relationally constituted process, more aligned with the overall epistemological frameworks of participatory research and ensuring (disabled) children's ongoing and meaningful involvement in research. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: Reconfiguring informed consent and assent is an ongoing and unfinished process. Both relational and procedural ethics are needed. Informed consent and assent represent an ongoing process, not a one-time event. Respect for research participants demands that they be included in the analysis of the data and writing of the results.