Moral Way Research Articles

A Modest Conception of Moral Right & Wrong

ABSTRACTTaking inspiration from Hume, I advance a conception of the part of morality concerned with right and wrong, rooted in the actual moral rules established and followed within our society. Elsewhere, I have argued this approach provides a way of thinking about how we are genuinely “bound in a moral way” to keep our moral obligations that it is both ethically attractive and psychologically realistic. Here, I focus on some implications for our evaluation and criticism of actions, which some may initially find peculiar. Sometimes we should judge of an action that it was (unqualifiedly) right, and the result of flawless reasoning by the agent; and yet, we may also have cause to regard that same action as, in other respects, deeply morally deficient. Using Nomy Arpaly's conception of “responsiveness to right‐making moral reasons” as a foil, I argue that this unorthodox implication leads to more subtle and helpful evaluations of actions—especially actions undertaken in the context of wicked social institutions. The conception also encourages us to take a more conflicted, less confident, attitude toward many of our own righteous and rational actions—and perhaps even toward our capacity for living together by moral rules itself.

From Likelihood of Success to Likely Consequences

The trouble with Likelihood of Success is that it appears to be little more than a rehash of what seems obvious: do not go to war if you do not have much of a chance to win. Is this a distinctive or helpful contribution to contemporary just war thinking? I argue in this essay that while it might be better to simply jettison the term, some considerations of success are not just prudential in that narrow sense of the term. How we think of “success” and the likelihood of achieving it matters significantly to how we think about other elements of jus ad bellum. Success is not just about winning. It is about winning in the right way for the right end. Still, I suggest that it is not clear what “Likelihood of Success” does for those in political authority already inclined to think about war in any sort of rational and even moral way. I suggest we consider discarding Likelihood of Success and instead consider what I am calling “Likely Consequences.”

Moral foundations of russian criminal proceedings

The article explores the problem of the relationship between morality and law in general and in criminal proceedings in particular. It is proposed to consider morality as one of principles of law, and moral consciousness – legal awareness, and on this basis it is concluded that law and legal consciousness are connected not only purely legally, but also in a moral way. That is, they have a common moral foundation, moral nature. The approach is justified, according to which the domestic model of criminal proceedings should be formed primarily taking into account the moral needs of society and the individual. The moral aspect is defined as a system-forming category for both criminal procedure law and the law enforcement authority, which in turn should serve to improve the guarantees of a fair investigation and resolution of criminal cases, and to achieve the necessary balance of public and private interests in the criminal process.

U.S. Constitutional Originalism from Transcendence: The Founders’ Methodology

The characteristic that made the U.S. Constitution effective is the transcendence of the concepts it embodies. This essay seeks to define transcendence, its relationship to originalism in Constitutional interpretations, its historic origins, the consequences of rejecting them, and provide a truly originalist standard for Supreme Court decision-making. This transcendence has resulted in the U.S. being the only democracy since the Roman Republics to have been sustained over the long-term. Four specific areas are suggested by the Federalist Papers and many federal decisions over the last 50 years in the areas of civil rights, balance of power, public virtue, and judicial restraint. In civil rights, restoring the Constitutional diversity of this extended Republic would reverse the present “diversity, equity and inclusion” and its destructive policy. The recovery of the free exercise of religion from its “sincere personal belief” status would encourage a moral way of thinking and living by restoring Article I in the Bill of Rights to its proper status.

Interpretation of digitalization indicators of the Russian system of general education

The article analyzes digitalization indicators of the Russian general education system provided by the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) and the Unified Interdepartmental Information and Statistical System (EMISS), as well as data from a secondary analysis of the results of the sociological survey “Teenagers 360°” (within the framework of the strategic program “Teenagers Russia” of the Commissioner for Children’s Rights under the President of the Russian Federation) and other sources. The following indicators are considered as indicators: the indicator of the use of special software tools available to students in educational organizations; the number of students using e-learning and distance learning technologies; the number of students in organizations engaged in educational activities under additional general educational programs for children; the proportion of children attending additional educational classes; the purposes of using the Internet by children. Their dynamics over the past few years is traced. The interpretation of the digitalization impact on education is presented at the quantitative and qualitative levels. There are analyzed the opinions of specialists in the field of social and pedagogical sciences, teachers and physicians directly related to education and childhood on the digitalization impact on health, mental abilities, assimilation of knowledge and acquisition of craft and work skills. It is concluded that the excessive introduction of digital technologies in all sectors of domestic general education, including additional school education, can interfere with acquisition and systematization of basic knowledge and not contribute to upbringing of the younger generation in a traditional and moral way. Digital educational innovations are perhaps useful as additional educational tools, but only with a quality and serious content.

Patriotism in Modern Russia: a value criterion of the level of legal consciousness

Patriotism can be valuable only when a person makes certain conscious decisions and takes concrete active actions. Thus, patriotism, like other values, can be realized through awareness of its prescriptive power and its acceptance by a person as a principle of activity. The disclosure of the essence of patriotism by Ivan Ilyin makes it possible to formulate such moral principles as respect, love and pride in one’s motherland. In addition, the essence of patriotism forms the primacy of the national legal culture (but not its exclusivity), uniformity of ways and methods of the spiritual life of the people, preservation of the established spiritual and moral way of Russian life (national character), and peculiar acts of national structure and self-determination. Patriotism also presupposes the unity of the national cultural system and the spiritual and cultural achievements of the people, the creative unity of people in the national culture, the brotherhood of peoples and the inviolability of national autonomous life. The authors proceed from the understanding that the operation of these principles is the basis of state legal consciousness and the unity of the internal life of the state union. Therefore, it requires their recognition, legal protection and regulation at the federal level.

The fourth ethical comment towards COVID-19 (three years later). Trust and faith: social and moral profile of vaccination

The summarizing up the semantic and systemic results should comprise the next phase to provide insights into COVID-19 pandemic and consider it as a modern epidemic and humanitarian crisis on global level. The journal Infection and Immunity regularly and consistently present the results of ethically viewed legal framework of the pandemic and the administrative regulation of the public health system. Analysis and ethical assessment of the situation covers a wide range of issues, including the provision and operational adaptation of the regulatory framework, the problems of medical care, the processes and conditions for developing diagnostics, treatment and prevention, as well as all aspects related to the organization and implementing vaccination. Three previous ethical comments presented in 20202022 during the pandemic were devoted to these issues. Current study within the framework of the fourth ethical commentary follows directly from the data obtained while evaluating and analysing real-world experience on vaccination in the context of a regional cluster the CIS member states, presented in the previous article. The perceived need and obvious significance of the study is to highlight objective factors of vulnerability in the vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic and identify the response spectrum to form trust/or distrust to vaccination in various sectors of society, depending on a set of social and moral factors, including those coupled to a religious denomination. The data obtained are of paramount importance to find the moral ways to support and stabilize a responsible attitude with the aim to protect moral, social and physical health in emergency situations.

Гуманистические тенденции художественно-эстетической системы З. Н. Гиппиус в Петербургских дневниках 1914–1919 годов

The Petersburg diaries (“Blue Book,”, “Black Notebooks,” “Black Book,” and “Gray Notepad”) document the attitude of Z. N. Gippius to the events related to the historical upheavals in Russia in the early 20th century. Searching for new ideas about personal freedom and choice in the epoch of historical cataclysms, the writer asserts the principles of new spirituality allowing one withstand the great upheavals of the era and achieve true freedom, found in God as a guarantor of the harmonious personality development. This study has established that the writer solves the problems suggested in the diaries by comprehending the fate of Russia during the First World War and the February and October revolutions of 1917 and searching for new humanistic ideals. She condemns the destructive nature of the revolution that causes the loss of moral ideals. Of particular relevance to the writer is the assertion of a specific, effective and practical humanism that takes into account the moral component of human life, approves the moral way of life, and combines practical actions with a focus on the individual as the ultimate goal. For Gippius, the ideal is embodied in the Russian intelligentsia with humanistic ability to sympathy, compassion, sacrifice, and sanctity and potential to withstand the political cataclysms of Russia. The aesthetic findings of Gippius in her Petersburg diaries embrace the inclusion of various associative chains into the forms of auto-documentary literature, enrichment of particular historical images with universal symbols, and synthesis of lyrical self-expression and an epic worldview.

Business Ethics: Moral or Amoral? An analysis from the perspective of Kantian ethics

The aim of this paper is to analyze the phenomenon related to business ethical purposes from a different perspective, using the philosophical lens developed by Immanuel Kant. This work is also oriented to identify the most important research topics related to business ethics through the combination of a different framework. The present paper intends to offer a conceptual contribution to the ongoing debate on the theme of ethics in corporate social responsibility, highlighting the main problematic aspects that emerge from the analysis of the literature and the observation of reality in the light of the philosophical framework of Kant. This paper, therefore, examines and applies the deontological view of Kant and his distinction between the ‘categorical’ and ‘hypothetic’ imperative. This ethical view is useful to prevent instrumental acceptance of ethical codes and sustainability reports; in fact, during the making of the work, several well-known practices are presented, which are far from behaving in a moral way (i.e., General Electrics, Lehman Brothers, and so on).

The Tragedy of the Quaker Hero as a Reflection of the Crisis of Spiritual Life in Theodore Dreiser's novel "The Bulwark"

The subject of the research in this article is the peculiarities of the coverage of the problem of the religious crisis with the United States at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries in the work of one of the most famous realist writers, Theodore Dreiser. He depicted in detail in his works various aspects of the life of Americans of this period, including the religious aspect. The religious crisis in American society is closely connected with the destruction of the ideological ideals of the past. In the artistic heritage of Theodore Dreiser, one can single out a whole system of images, with the help of which he showed the crisis of the religious and moral component of the spiritual life of American society of this period. The scientific novelty of the research is determined by the need to consider the religious aspect in the writer's creative heritage, which for various reasons often fell out of the field of view of earlier critical works. The purpose of the presented work is to study the artistic images in Theodore Dreiser's novel "The Bulwark" in a religious and moral way as a manifestation of the spiritual crisis common to Americans of that time. The following conclusions were presented during the study: 1) Theodore Dreiser is a witness to the crisis in the spiritual and moral life of the USA at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, which is one of the main themes of the writer's creative heritage; 2) This crisis is connected with the destruction of the fundamental ideological categories of American society (the "great American dream"); 3) In the novel "The Bulwark" T. Dreiser examines the moral and religious picture of American society on the example of the Quaker-Barnes family. He depicts the collapse of religious beliefs in the perception of both the older generation and the younger; 4) The beginning of the XX century was a transitional period. When the forcible imposition of religious norms became a tragedy for many young people; 5) The new age requires new forms of interaction between man and religion.

The Education Philosophy of Confucius and Its Implications for the Philosophical Innovation of Education in Vietnam Nowadays

In the history of human thought, Confucius’ thought is prominent in Chinese philosophy. The value of Confucius’ philosophical thought has transcended space and time and influenced the social life of China, Vietnam, and the world. In general, Confucius thought in particular and Confucian ideas became the ideology of the feudal class during its development through feudal dynasties in China and many other Asian countries, including Vietnam. The report describes the educational philosophy of Confucius. The article clarifies the limitations and existing values in the educational innovation of Vietnam today. The paper uses dialectical materialism methodology and synthesis, analysis, and comparison methods to explain the system of views on education, educational objects, educational program content, and educational plans to educate people in socio-political and moral ways to stabilize society. The article also clarifies Confucius’s thoughts as the man who laid the foundation for the development of Confucianism in Chinese history.

THE ANTI-OLIGARCHY POPULAR CONSTITUTION

THE ANTI-OLIGARCHY POPULAR CONSTITUTION

Sexually transmitted wealth: Proverbs 2:16–22

A woman who engages in sex for money is referred to in Proverbs 2:16–22 as a forbidden woman or a prostitute. Anyone who engages in sex for wealth or advancement is shown as a loose and confused lady in the pericope. This describes the commercial sex workers in Nigeria’s Edo State. In Edo State, some women and girls no doubt consider their bodies as the surest and easiest way of acquiring instant wealth, esteem and progress. This is seen in the number of brothels, motels, hotels and other prostitute homes and sanctuaries situated in different parts of the state. Some of these women who engage in sex for wealth do it for money, position, prestige and also jobs. As a sapiential-based intervention, this article argues that Proverbs 2:16–22 can offer stakeholders a unique approach to address the problems of an increasing spate of those who engage in sex for wealth, fame, and positions. A rhetoric-based pedagogy therapy is presented as an intervention in this looming crisis based on Proverbs 2:16–22. The rhetor in Proverbs 2:16–22 emphasised that sex under any guise apart from marriage only leads to unhappiness, curses and poverty. It classifies sex for wealth as an immoral way and distinguished it from the moral way, which is a tradition among writers of sapiential literature.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The research focuses on the current sexual promiscuity prevalent in Edo State. It was discovered that some women and girls pursue sex work for money, position and power. There are increasing HIV cases, rapes and the use of these women for rituals by their customers. Disciplines implicated are Old Testament studies and practical theology.

Towards a Daoist Ethic: a Laozi’an “Model of Modeling”

This article suggests that the writings of the Huang Lao tradition embody an ethic in the sense of a guiding philosophy of life. This ethic is based on the Laozi - the initial text in the tradition that is textually presented in paradoxes. While the paradoxical expression could make readers forgo an ethic, we claim that it is the other way around. The paradoxes, as we explain in this article, are inherent to the tradition, and reflect a unique reasoning described here as riddles lived by or living riddles. We suggest that Laozi 1 suggests riddle reasoning that is based on an understanding Dao as at once kedao可道 (“can be daoed”) and changdao常道 (constant Dao). While changdao is the ineffable unity, kedao is plurality, hence it may be expressed as familiar moral ways when alone. Only when unified with changdao, Dao opens a gate to the mysteries of life. The mystery suggested here is a “model of modeling” as suggested in Laozi 25 that represents the unified Dao riddle reasoning rather than dichotomizing (kedao) reasoning. According to the model we refer to, the Laozi’an De as self-so (ziran自然) that serves as foundation for an ethic that is not dichotomizing and has no dependence whatsoever on morality. We suggest that this ethic can serve as a basis for the analysis of the Huang Lao tradition as a whole.

Representing the Other and the Democratization of History. Polish Reenactors in Nazi Uniforms

Abstract Through a case study of the World War II reenactment movement in Poland, this article analyzes the relationship between the processes of the democratization of history and the normalization of the Nazi past. There are numerous groups whose members dedicate their time to represent Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS units and do so in the public while reenacting battles or restaging historical events. Despite the dominant moral attitude which condemns representing troops that committed war crimes and atrocities, reenactors defend their hobby, offering an alternative, in their opinion, moral and critical way of engaging with the Nazi past. The author argues that presenting views on WWII in the public sphere is possible due to the process of the democratization of history. However, she also demonstrates that the very same process means that reenactors’ efforts are misunderstood by their audiences. Also, these reenactment practices have contributed to normalizing the Nazi past.

‘It Isn't Charity because We've Paid into it’: Social Citizenship and the Moral Economy of Welfare Recipients in the Wake of 2012 UK Welfare Reform Act

Drawing on interviews with welfare claimants living in Essex, UK, this article examines the material and symbolic effects of the UK government’s 2012 Welfare Reform Act, and it highlights the participants’ interpretations of and responses to that. In reaction to their sense of material and symbolic exclusion, participants made moral claims for their inclusion through a notion of social citizenship based on collective reciprocity and care. They claimed to have paid-in to the national purse in various material and moral ways until circumstances outside of their control meant they could no longer do so. They thus asserted a moral-economic right to social inclusion and an ensuing right to receive adequate, non-stigmatised, and non-punitive welfare. These moral-economic claims differ from other, more public, counter-narratives to welfare reform and government austerity, and they assert a clear but subtle opposition to the market-bound logic of the reform.

Conflict of interest: law enforcement and conflictology

The subject. The article is devoted to conflictology as one of the most relevant, almost significant, debatable problems in law theory, legal sciences, political science, philosophy, psychology and economics. The author analyzes specific examples of conflicts of interest in various corruption spheres and manifestations, for example, in the sphere of participation of economic actors in the procurement announced by state and municipal authorities.The purpose of the article is to identify the nature of conflicts of interest as the basis of corruption.The methodology. The author uses comparisons of common and private, cause and effect, patterns and randomness, content and form, essence and phenomenon, the transition of quantity into quality, as well as the methods of sociology and psychology.The main results, scope of application. The article analyzes the relationship between corruption and nepotism. The article discusses legal and moral ways to prevent conflict, the role of ethical standards in conflict prevention, regulatory framework for preventing and settling them, the ratio of conflict of interest and employee qualifications, balance of material and personal interest, Commissions to prevent conflicts of interest, guaranteeing the role of writing notice of a conflict of interest, Features of the notification procedure, moral means of preventing and resolve conflicts of interest. Exclusively legal methods are insufficient to prevent and eliminate conflicts of interest and corruption-related risks. A combination of legal and moral measures is necessary, and most importantly, the exclusion of kinship and other forms of nepotism in the formation of government bodies and the appointment of officials, the hiring of state and municipal employees. It is necessary to exclude formalism from the institution of competitive selection of civil servants.Conclusions. The elimination of the contradictions between some federal anti-corruption laws has much less effect on the state of corruption in the state than the flourishing nepotism. The exercise of official functions takes place in the form of law enforcement: if there is no application of the law – there is no corruption. The main emphasis should be directed to the process of forming the apparatus of state and municipal authorities, employees of state and municipal institutions, primarily in the educational sphere, on which the upbringing of new generations of employees depends, the steady observance of high professional and moral requirements imposed on state and municipal employees and teachers in schools and universities.

Judicial ethics, its subject and essence

The article analyzes the problems of judicial ethics as a science of the application of moral norms, morality in the specific conditions of judges, prosecutors, investigators and lawyers, the imple-mentation of moral principles and requirements in the investigation and resolution of criminal cases, critically assesses opinions on the allocation of “professional morality” and specific moral norms for lawyers. The author proposes to divide judicial ethics into General and Special parts; the first covers gen-eral theoretical questions about the nature of this science, methods of investigating judicial and ethical problems, etc.; the second - ethical issues of the activities of the main subjects of criminal proceedings: judges, prosecutors, investigators, lawyers. At the same time, two sets of issues are integrated into the subject of judicial ethics: the moral foundations of procedural norms and the moral ways of their application in the investigation and resolution of criminal cases.

Usage of whatsapp in education by pre-service teachers: A logical study

WhatsApp is a social network used by most individuals in the world. Very few are not interested or not using Whatsapp. It has a vital place in the society to transmit information from any place-to-place. The information may be a text, a picture, a video, or a voice. Therefore, WhatsApp can be used for multi-message transfers. This study examines the use of WhatsApp in education by pre-service teachers. The researcher selects a sample of 60 pre-service teachers from a College of Education in Kanyakumari District. The investigators have used the "WhatsApp Education Inventory" to collect the data. From this study, the investigator concluded that the pre-service teachers utilize WhatsApp for their education according to their own interests. Moreover, no background variables are affected by the use of WhatsApp in their education. Most pre-service teachers are using WhatsApp for their education and progress. In this study, there exist no difference between the groups of type of families and religion, similarly among the groups of occupation of the father, occupation of the mother and income of the parents. Finally, it suggests that the pre-service teachers use WhatsApp in a creative and positive way to equip themselves and the future generation. Spending a lot of time on WhatsApp leads to addiction. Therefore, unnecessary usage of WhatsApp should be avoided to the future students to use their gadgets for a good purpose in a moral way.

A CHANGE IN LIVES OF PROTAGONISTS AS THE AGENT OF PLOT-DEVELOPMENT IN BULGARIAN FILMS

A film plot is built like any other artistic narrative and includes the following parts: exposition; rising action; climax; falling action; conclusion. We find a rich and multifaceted range of plots in Bulgarian films. However, there is always a break or a change in routine of every plot. The change usually emanates from outside the routine described in the film. The external entity, which comes close to the protagonists’ routine and intervened in it, creates problems and crisis. This happens when the external changes bring new characters or events into the characters’ previous lives, or, alternately, takes them out of their previous routine into a different reality. For example, in the romantic comedy "It Happened in the Street" by the prominent film director (Yanko Yankov), the protagonist Misho (the legendary actor Apostol Karamitev) is a driver of a truck. He meets a girl called Katerina, falls in love with her, and wants to marry her. She is finally convinced that Misho is the right man for her, and accepts his offer. The establishment of a new young family is enabled by the changes that Misho is assigned to take in his life as part of his work. A change in heroes’ lives is the main motive-force in Bulgarian cinema. A variety of drastic events may happen to the protagonists, and they have to face the consequences. They often have intense, dramatic experiences which serve as a mental, psychological, social, personal, ideological, and physical test. These govern their fate, forcing them to mobilize their forces and fight for a lofty cause. The change in the heroes’ lives allows them to discover their true character and see their lives anew, in a more moral way.