Moral Universe Research Articles

The Stories They Tell: What INGO Mission Statements Reveal about their Authority

ABSTRACT International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) play an increasingly important role in global governance. Without coercive capacities, INGOs must build their authority to be heard, and ideally, influential in global governance. However, we know little about how INGOs build and defend their authority in practice. We argue that mission statements characterise how INGOs make authority claims to their audiences. Drawing on existing research on INGOs and global governance, we identify five dimensions of authority: accountability, representativeness, effectiveness, legality, and universal morality. We analyse the mission statements of 11 leading INGOs (high status) and 46 other INGOs (low status) from 2003 and 2013. We find that leading INGOs are more likely to emphasise accountability and legality while other INGOs are more likely to highlight representativeness. Our findings open up an exciting research agenda to study how authority relationships are constructed in global civil society.

Moral Universalism: Measurement and Economic Relevance

Many applied economic settings involve trade-offs between in-group members and strangers. To better understand decision making in these contexts, this paper measures and investigates the economic relevance of heterogeneity in moral universalism: the extent to which people exhibit the same level of altruism and trust toward strangers as toward in-group members. We first introduce a new experimentally validated, survey-based measure of moral universalism that is simple and easily scalable. We then deploy this tool in a large, representative sample of the U.S. population to study heterogeneity and economic relevance. We find that universalism is a relatively stable trait at the individual level. In exploratory analyses, heterogeneity in universalism is significantly related to observables: Older people, men, the rich, the rural, and the religious exhibit less universalist preferences and beliefs. Linking variation in universalism to self-reports of economic and social behaviors, we document the following correlations. Universalists donate less money locally, but more globally, and are less likely to exhibit home bias in equity and educational investments. In terms of social networks, universalists have fewer friends, spend less time with them, and feel more lonely. These results provide a blueprint for measuring moral universalism in applied settings and suggest that variation in universalism is relevant for understanding a myriad of economic behaviors. This paper was accepted by Yan Chen, behavioral economics and decision analysis.

Reading and Print Cultures in Waterford, 1865–1939

This article sets out to explore the emergence of reading and print cultures in Waterford over the period from the opening of the city’s Free Public Library to the outbreak of the Second World War in the twentieth century. It is intended to add to the growing body of writing emerging on reading and books in Ireland by honing in on the development of a local reading culture in an era of more democratic access to books, periodicals and other printed matter. By surveying the development of various lending and circulation libraries up to the establishment of the Waterford Free Public Library in 1896 and beyond into the Free State era, the argument will be made that many of the concerns around self-improvement and literacy remained constant despite the shift from member-run libraries to municipal libraries and from Victorian concerns about moral self-improvement to early Irish state concerns about nation-building and Catholic morality in the 1920s and 1930s. The article will also explore the publishing and book trade in the city throughout the same period. This small but significant industry provided employment for some of the very people who were the target of self-improvement and concerns about their ability to consume ‘morally dubious’ literature.

Tanggapan Siswa Terhadap Pembelajaran Jarak Jauh Mata Pelajaran Pendidikan Agama Katolik dan Budi Pekerti di SMP Katolik Pato Nonongan

This study aims to determine students' responses to distance learning in the subjects of Catholic Religious Education and Moral Education at Pato Nonongan Catholic Middle School. The author uses qualitative research methods with interview and documentation techniques. The six informants in this study came from students of class VII and VIII at Pato Nonongan Catholic Middle School. This study reveals that distance learning seems new to students because they are not used to following it. As a result, they feel confused, strange, and unhappy, especially when they have to find new learning tools. For their commitment, they can feel the positive impact of distance learning. Students also learn valuable lessons, including discipline and respect for time. The results of this study can be used as input for teachers and policymakers to take steps to develop better distance learning.

“God is real”: Narratives of religiously motivated desistance*

AbstractThis study examines the role of Islam in shaping processes of criminal desistance among four men, each with extensive histories of crime and violence. The men's life histories are unique, first, in that they came of age in contexts of extreme violence and religious persecution—all men are Muslim and were children during the ethnic cleansing campaigns in Bosnia in the early 1990s—and second, in that they all identify their newfound or newly cemented dedication to Islam as the primary catalyst for their desistance. Thematic analyses rooted in the principles of grounded theory reveal some consistencies with extant research on religiously motivated desistance, including the role of faith as a means for self‐transformation and behavioral guidance. They also shed light on traditionally understudied mechanisms in the faith‐desistance relationship, including the power of religion to reconfigure masculine identities, to reconcile with traumatic pasts, and to cultivate a new moral universe. In examining these men's life histories, we make the case for considering the transformative benefits of Islam in studies of crime and desistance, and for disentangling the role of distinctive faith factors (e.g., faith and religious participation) in processes of change.

Етичний компас медичних рішень під час пандемії COVID-19

The article actualizes and structures significant problems of the medical sphere that arise in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in terms of the relations vectors: global world – state – person, state – clinic – society, clinic – doctor (medical staff), clinic – patient, doctor (medical staff) – the patient. The authors presented the evolutionary context of the norming process of medical resources and emphasized the hierarchical scheme of the regulation process of scarce resources norming in the health care system under the pandemic crisis conditions. The paper substantiates approaches to making medical decisions on “sorting” and applying a number of its forms depending on various regional, national, religious, and local models of the ethical values system formation. Emphasis is placed on American and European models of bioethics. The authors consider the utilitarian approach to preparing medical solutions of “clinical sorting” to level ethical catastrophes in a pandemic based on Catholic ethics. The issues of regulated norming of scarce medical resources and the “clinical triage” of patients during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine have been investigated. The main bioethical dilemma of the COVID-19 pandemic is outlined. The authors actualize criteria and models of ethical medical solutions for equitable allocation of scarce medical resources in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. These criteria and models are defined in the Ethical Guidelines for Responding to COVID-19 of the Bioethics Committee at the Council of Europe, the US Department of Health and Human Services; in normative documents in the field of ethics of medical decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic of the National Medical Associations, chambers, centres of bioethics of Italy, Hungary, USA, Great Britain; in the guidelines of national, religious and local institutions for the preparation of medical decisions for the levelling ethical catastrophes during the pandemic and the studies of international bioethics experts. The paper identified the need to formalize the fair distribution of scarce resources during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine. The authors suggested recommendations for the implementation of ethical values and priorities for their application in critical conditions of shortage of medical resources and personnel in the COVID-19 pandemic in the health care system of Ukraine.

O universalismo moral kantiano: uma abordagem ética da dignidade humana no direito internacional público

PROBLEM: The problematic of this article discusses how the proposal of Kant's universalist ethics can support the universal foundation of human dignity, focusing on Kantian philosophical theory, through the analysis of the work The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. This article relates the Kantian philosophical conception with the issues of Public International Law of Human Rights. OBJECTIVES: The study aims to understand the necessity of a priori moral laws to constitute, through practical reason, the good will to act according to duty. The categorical imperative and the autonomy of the will of the universal legislator are conceptualized to identify the dignity of the human person, having man as an end in himself. It is shown that man is a possessor of duties (responsibilities)/rights (freedom-autonomy of will). Aspects of the ethical foundation of human dignity are identified in order to compare them with the current principles of public international law. METHODOLOGY: The research is qualitative bibliographical, focusing on Immanuel Kant's Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals, followed by the analysis of books and scientific articles on the subject. Following the doctrinal analysis, the subject is related to the exposition of the articles of international treaties of the human rights protection system. CONCLUSIONS: The research is justified on the basis of the universal ethical need to link national law with international law, independently of positivized international norms, according to contemporary requirements vis-a-vis all established powers, official or not. It is concluded that an international organization founded on principles based on universal morality is necessary for the protection of human dignity in order to achieve peace.

Tensions in Anglican – Roman Catholic Dialogue Doctrinal and Moral Absolutes 1980–2020

Abstract The article surveys Anglican – Roman Catholic ecumenical relationships from 1980–2020. It examines the belief in doctrinal and moral absolutes in official statements of the cdf, and the impact this had on documents from arcic. This was different from statements from the pcpcu, especially in relationship to wcc texts. The article concludes by looking at the changes since the election of Pope Francis, and whether ecumenical relationships will be different in the future.

HAPPINESS AS A DOUBLE GESTURE OF A TRIGGER: BREAKING AND CONCEPTING

The background of the study is an existential psychological analysis of the phenomenon of happiness as a state of radical break with the dominant signifiers of symbolic hegemony and, at the same time, voluntary value filling of the formed vacuum in the symbolic structure of a split subject with new meanings corresponding to his self. Research methods: structural psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, semiotics of culture, hermeneutics, philosophical comparative studies, deconstruction and universal ethics, theological methods of correlation between secular and religious models of thinking. Research results: comparison of the positive ontology of happiness in the Eastern Slavic Christian classical thought and the negative ontology of happiness in the Western post-Lacanian postmodernity; the implementation of the synthesis of images of happiness in the ways of thought of the postmodern West and the modern East on the basis of the dialogue of universalism and particularism, traditionalism and neo-modernism, personalism and collectivism. Conclusions: confirmation of the hypothesis of the double nature of happiness as a unity of metaphysical rupture and dialectical synthesis, manifested through the chronotopes of secular and religious cultures, traditions and innovations.

A Rationalist Critique of Sally Gadow’s Relational Nursing Ethics

The ethic of care proposed by Carol Gilligan in late twentieth century instantly elicited a wide range of adaptations and elaborations in numerous disciplines, under the banner of ‘relational ethics’. Sally Gadow’s ‘relational narrative’ is one of these adaptations. Like Gilligan, Gadow aims to dismantle ethical rationalism or universalism, wherein the foregoing mainstream nursing practice had purportedly focused on applying existing philosophical theories of ethics to all conceivable clinical situations. For Gadow, every moral engagement, such as that between a nursing professional and a patient, comes with inherent unique features that render impotent any attempt at universalisation. Each clinical encounter is rather defined by the ability of the professional to engage the client in an intimate, caring relationship that enables healing to take place. Against this backdrop, this paper argues that the theory of Relational Narrative, particularly as conceptualised and articulated by Sally Gadow, cannot be carried through without making some rationalist assumptions, because professionalism in nursing practice is by definition, a deeply embedded ingredient of rational reflection. Furthermore, nursing professionals can make progress or impact only by having recourse to the code of ethics; also, direct application of Gadow’s theory puts the nurse in a dilemma when it comes to dealing with patients suffering from chronic contagious diseases, such as the Ebola or the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Finally, juxtaposing Gadow’s work with the ideas of the earlier scholars she criticises unsparingly, the paper found that traces of universalist, rationalist assumptions abound in her thought precisely because of the wealth of influence she has garnered from philosophers and psychologists; influences going as far back as Descartes and Kant, down to Rawls and Kohlberg. The data used for this study came from library and archival materials, as well as from internet resources.

Den kristna etikens dubbla utmaning

Christian social ethics has long endured a polarizing debate between a universal ethics based in creation, often framed in terms of reason or natural law, and an ecclesial ethics based in revelation. With no satisfactory conclusion to the debate in sight, and adding to it an exceedingly complex cultural situation in which to navigate, many seek to find new ways of framing the alternatives. The "twin challenge" of Christian social ethics in a pluralistic and post-secular setting is here identified as articulating a social ethics that acknowledges the tensions between the specificities of the Gospel and culture while simultaneously providing a framework and resources for building a common life across confessional borders. One way of addressing this challenge is to ground ethics in the Trinity. While creational ethics generally emphasize the first article of the creed, an ecclesial ethics tend to focus on the latter two. Grounding Christian ethics in the Trinity is an attempt at a holistic approach, tending to both particular and universal concerns. One such effort is found in Carl-Henric Grenholm's attempt at articulating a contemporary Lutheran social ethics grounded in a trinitarian framework. By way of identifying a number of tensions within Grenholm's proposal, this article offers some pointers on the requirements of a trinitarian ethics in a pluralistic and post-secular context. It argues for a more complex construal of secularity and the need for a robust Christology and eschatology to provide a critical lens on culture. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of on-going, complex negotiations beyond secular matrices and communities of virtuous actors capable of performing them.

On the Universal Power of Socioeconomic Rights: A Comparison Between Thomas Pogge and Rainer Forst

Introduction. This article investigates the universal power of socioeconomic rights assessing their theoretical conceptualization and practical implication. Methods. Taking theoretical and empirical research into account – at the level of public ethics and political theory – the article carries out a comparative analysis of the elements of global economic justice theory, moral universalism and institutional understanding of human rights of Thomas Pogge and the critical theory of political and social justice and the moral constructivist conception of human rights of Rainer Forst. Analysis. On the one hand, Pogge’s cosmopolitan approach underlines serious noncompliance of socioeconomic rights at the global level because of the unjust distribution of rights and duties enforced by the current global institutional order. In this vein, the protection of socioeconomic rights is conceived as a (moral) negative duty not to deprive people of secure access to a basic human rights object, and socioeconomic rights, by imposing upon them unjust coercive social institutions. On the other hand, Forst’s perspective maintains that each right needs to be constructed on the very basic moral right to reciprocal and general justification which is conceived as the most universal and basic claim of every human being. Results. Drawing on the above-mentioned outlooks on socioeconomic rights, the universal power of socioeconomic rights is assessed in light of the satisfaction of universal basic needs, whose object is also the object of socioeconomic rights – a ‘conditio sine qua non’ for a worthwhile life – and the justification of the assigned duties at the global level.

OPTIMIZATION OF THE PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT MECHANISM IN REGARD TO THE THEORY OF GENERATIONS

Abstract. The materials of the article focus on offering an aggregate approach to personnel management since it is the most important factor in ensuring the success of business structures. The aim of the study is to form a structural model of personnel management based on the application of the three-dimensional approach «employee — enterprise — external conditions», the theory of generations and the vector system of aspects of ethical issues in business. The study revealed a causal relationship between the behavioral characteristics of the generation and the tools of personnel management, in terms of a particular market situation, the stage of the business cycle and the level of perception of the postulates of the enterprise corporate structure. A network model of the ratio of employee and means of production based on the implementation of foreign methods of personnel management was patterned and a vector system of aspects of ethical issues in business was suggested thus ensuring the implementation of the principles of ethical behavior and universal morality. The method of economic experiment (to form a three-dimensional model of personnel management system), the method of scientific abstraction (to determine the main factors of model formation), and the method of dialectics (to determine the vectors of ethical problems in business), the method of comparison (to study the foreign experience in personnel management), the method of analysis and synthesis (to form the foundations of a new paradigm of personnel management based on the theory of generations), graphic method (to create network and vector systems) and statistical method (to identify countries determined by advanced results of progressive human-oriented management techniques) were used in the article. The outcome of the research is the creation of a structural generalized model of personnel management, which will ensure high efficiency of management methods in changing environmental conditions based on a personal approach to the employee as the representative of a certain generation. Further research will be related to the specification of each point of the three-dimensional model in a definite coordinate system, in order to use a certain theory of leadership and the principles of teamwork so to effectively manage the personnel of the enterprise. Keywords: enterprise personnel, generation theory, personnel management tools, corporate culture. JEL Classification M12 Formulas: 0; fig.: 4; tabl.: 3; bibl.: 22.

TOLERANCE AS A MANIFESTATION OF INDIFFERENCE

The article is devoted to the theoretical analysis of the understanding of the phenomenon of tolerance in psychology and the determination of the characteristics and probable reasons for the manifestation of such a form as tolerance of indifference, which is currently the most widespread in the world, according to the authors of this article. It is stated that there are a lot of different interpretations of the concept of tolerance in the scientific literature and they continue with an awareness of the complexity, multidimensionality and dynamic nature of this phenomenon, however, instead of identifying what unites them, which is common for the definition of tolerance, scientists are focused on attempts to offer their own, more a good understanding of it, different from the existing ones. And this actually means the absence in science of the exact meaning of this word, as well as an understanding of what exactly, what psychological phenomenon it means. And the attempts of scientists to distinguish this concept from the concept of tolerance in no way facilitate the solution of the situation. It is suggested that tolerance and intolerance should not be opposed in the context of a "positive-negative" attitude, since these concepts are not mutually exclusive, and the manifestation of intolerance under certain circumstances can be a moral phenomenon, in contrast to tolerance. It is noted that the biggest problem and still unresolved issue of the psychology of tolerance is the definition of the boundaries of manifestation of tolerance, tolerant attitude towards another person and his actions. It is concluded that the limit of the manifestation of a tolerant attitude is violation / neglect of other norms of universal human morality; that in the modern world, tolerance is not always actively manifested, more often the tolerance of indifference dominates. And it is precisely this manifestation of tolerance that has a long history (philosophical and religious), which serves as a serious basis for modern manifestations of tolerance as indifference. Tolerance of indifference is a manifestation of a stable, not always conscious, indifferent attitude to various issues of human existence, which excludes both a person's assessment of the current situation and taking responsibility for its development. The tolerance of indifference was inherited by the post-Soviet countries from totalitarianism, but the modern information society, in part, involuntarily cultivates just this kind of tolerance, gradually leveling the axiological significance of a person's moral and existential values.

Why the Wrongness of Killing Innocent, Non‐threatening People is a Universal Moral Certainty

AbstractIn a recent article in this journal, José María Ariso makes the argument that the killing of innocent, non‐threatening people is not a universal moral certainty. To make this case, he gives two examples where the certainty is seemingly not present: the pisa‐suave child soldiers in the Colombian civil war and the often‐discussed case of Nazi Germany. This paper is an attempt to respond to these criticisms. I will respond to each charge in turn and argue that they do not pose a problem to the idea that the wrongness of killing innocent, non‐threatening people is a universal moral certainty.

Kantian Categories of Ethics and Morality: A Reading of Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being is one of the most romantic stories set against a volatile political backdrop wherein the author deals with multiple issues on ideology, ethics and morality. Kant is a foundational thinker in terms of theorizing the notion of morality leading to almost universal categories of moral and ethical imperatives. Kundera’s novel quite significantly appears incommensurable to, what we can call as, universal “categories of imperatives.” Not only the question of morality but even the categories of ideological imperatives have also been emphatically interrogated by Kundera in the novel. The paper is an attempt to understand the Kantian categories as propounded in his The Critique of Practical Reason and revisit Kundera’s novel for a critical engagement to relook at the questions of universal categories of morality as well as ideology. Quite significantly, Kundera uses the term “kitsch” in the novel almost as a discursive tool to counter and denounce the proclamations of the superiority of essentialist political ideology. The novel essentially problematises the Kantian notion of universal morality showing how the universal categories of both morality and reason are inadequate propositions to address the limitless terrains of heterogeneous imperatives.

What Do We Owe to Novel Synthetic Beings and How Can We Be Sure?

Embodiment is typically given insufficient weight in debates concerning the moral status of Novel Synthetic Beings (NSBs) such as sentient or sapient Artificial Intelligences (AIs). Discussion usually turns on whether AIs are conscious or self-aware, but this does not exhaust what is morally relevant. Since moral agency encompasses what a being wants to do, the means by which it enacts choices in the world is a feature of such agency. In determining the moral status of NSBs and our obligations to them, therefore, we must consider how their corporeality shapes their options, preferences, values, and is constitutive of their moral universe. Analysing AI embodiment and the coupling between cognition and world, the paper shows why determination of moral status is only sensible in terms of the whole being, rather than mental sophistication alone, and why failure to do this leads to an impoverished account of our obligations to such NSBs.

IV—Moral Knowledge and Empirical Investigation in Late Ming China

AbstractThis essay begins to explore the philosophical grounds on which Chinese literati thinkers came to legitimate, and in some cases value, alternative ways of life in the early modern era (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). In this essay I examine arguments from two such scholars, the flamboyant iconoclast Li Zhi 李贄 (1527–1602) and his lifelong friend, the historian and classicist Jiao Hong 焦竑 (1540–1620), to show how this interest in the empirical world led them away from their commitments to moral universalism and toward an appreciation of the diversity and plurality of human moral values.

Translingual Encounters: Freedom, Civic Virtue, and the Social Organism in Liang Qichao's Reading of Kant

From 1903 to 1904 while exiled in Japan, Liang Qichao (1873-1929), an intellectual and political theorist of late-Qing and early-Republican China,  introduced Chinese readers for the first time to Immanuel Kant in a series of articles entitled “The Theory of Kant, the Greatest Modern Philosopher” (近世第一大哲康德之學說). Liang’s article serves as an example of what Lydia Liu terms translingual practices, its existence predicated upon complex international networks of institutional affiliations, the circulation of publications, the international movement of students, and the effects of political upheavals such as the failed 1898 Hundred Days reform that forced Liang to flee to Japan. These networks created the conditions of possibility for Liang’s article, the result of a chain of translations and interpretations traversing four languages: German, French, Japanese and Chinese. Possibly because Kant was neither a major figure in Liang’s subsequent writings nor a figure often cited as major source of inspiration by Chinese revolutionaries in the first half of the 20th century, the relationship between Kant and modern Chinese thought has been understudied. Rather than focusing on questions of accuracy in Kant’s transnational reception, this paper is instead interested in a different set of questions focusing on the productivity of Liang’s interpretation: how and towards what ends does Liang mobilize Kant rhetorically? How did Liang’s reading of Kant contribute to the articulation of ethical ideals or the creation of a new political imaginary?  Drawing from Liang’s commentaries in his translations and his other articles published during this period, the paper argues that Liang’s interpretation of Kant places a particular emphasis on a conception of freedom founded upon the moral cultivation of the people that marks a fundamental break from the traditional Confucian concept of Tianxia 天下, or “all under heaven.”  Liang argued that Kant’s concept of freedom, because it linked the individual to the group in an organismic whole, reconciled the needs of the individual vis-à-vis the collective state, which supported an account of ethics and politics that was committed to both universal humanist morality and nationalist politics.  Liang’s interpretation of Kant therefore illuminates the historical and theoretical coarticulation of nationalism and liberalism that critiques the forms of ideological mystification which would hold these two terms in binary opposition.

The problem of subjectivity of values in the search for a universal environmental ethics

Considering the relationship between the environment and morality, discussion of the matter of values is inevitable. Although there is no consensus on the intrinsic and instrumental characteristics of the value, the condition of talking about environmental ethics is that the environment carries not instrumental but intrinsic value. The problem of subjectivity of this value creates an ontological problem. Given that the value of what is valued depends on the preferences, interests, and attitudes of the valuers, it can lead to anthropocentric environmental ethics, which is an abusive approach style by environmental policymakers. On the other hand, the understanding that value is independent of the preferences, interests, and attitudes of the subject brings an objective approach but this makes it difficult to base environmental ethics on values ??and adds scientific aspects to environmental approaches. Scientific aspects are already discussed under some concepts such as sustainability, biodiversity, ecology, and environmental management. However, grounding these concepts on moral values ??and the formation of environmental ethics depends on emphasizing not only the scientific and objective but also its subjective side. This study explained the possibility of meeting the universality criterion in objective conditions despite the subjectivity of values because the way environmental ethics is adopted by everyone is only a universal environmental ethic.