Blameless Moral Criticism – the Case of Moral Disappointment
AbstractIn discussing the ways in which we hold each other accountable for immoral conduct, philosophers have often focused on blame, aiming to specify adequate responses to wrongdoing. In contrast, theorizing about the ways we can appropriately respond tominor moral mistakes– i.e., criticizable conduct that is bad but not wrong – has largely been neglected. My first goal in this paper is, thus, to draw attention to this blind spot and argue that a separate account of blameless moral criticism is desirable. My second goal is to propose one way to explicate the contr ast between blaming and blameless moral criticism in ...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - December 23, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Gregg D. Caruso: Rejecting Retributivism: Free Will, Punishment, and Criminal Justice
(Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice)
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - December 20, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Right and Wrong: Assessing Scalar Consequentialism
AbstractDemoralising ethical theory involves eschewing the deontic categories of moral obligation, moral permissibility, and moral impermissibility from our ethical thought. In this paper, I evaluate the case made in Alastair Norcross ’s recent book,Morality By Degrees (2020), for a consequentialist version of such demoralisation. Norcross defends scalar consequentialism, a radical variant of consequentialism which restricts fundamental normative verdicts to a scalar ranking of available actions, ordered according to the goodness of the consequences they produce. Following an introductory Sect. 1, I assess the positive...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - December 17, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Another Brick in the Wall? Moral Education, Social Learning, and Moral Progress
AbstractMany believe that moral education can cause moral progress. At first glance, this makes sense. A major goal of moral education is the improvement of the moral beliefs, values and behaviors of young people. Most would also consider all of these improvements to be important instances of moral progress. Moreover, moral education is a form of social learning, and there are good reasons to think that social learning processes shape episodes of progressive moral change. Despite this, we argue that instead of being a cause of moral change, the main effect of moral education is often to provide stability or continuity. In ...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - December 15, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Introduction: Symposium Limitarianism: Extreme Wealth as a Moral Problem
AbstractThe growing concentration of wealth has acquired a new urgency in recent years. One particular view in this context is developed by Ingrid Robeyns in her ground-breaking work onlimitarianism. According to this view, no one should have more than a certain amount of valuable goods, such as income and wealth. The contributors to this symposium, Brian Berkey, David Axelsen and Lasse Nielsen, Jessica Flanigan and Christopher Freiman, and Lena Halldenius, critically examine various aspects of limitarianism. In particular, they examine how limitarianism should be interpreted and developed as a principle of justice, on wha...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - December 9, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Harmony and Solitude: A Comparative Study of Confucianism and Metz ’s Relational Ethics
AbstractBy introducing Confucian relational ethics, this essay engages critically with Metz ’s deontological relational moral theory from a comparative perspective. It first points out the similarities that Confucianism and Metz’s African ethics share in emphasizing relationality and harmony. Then, this essay reveals the theoretical deficiency in Metz’s relational moral theory compar ed to Confucianism; that is, the former lacks the concern for solitary cultivation which is essential for one’s cultivation and development. This essay is also less optimistic about a universal ethical system as suggested by Metzian Af...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - December 2, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Editorial
(Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice)
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - December 1, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Utilitarianism and the Moral Status of Animals: A Psychological Perspective
AbstractRecent years have seen a growing interest among psychologists for debates in moral philosophy. Moral psychologists have investigated the causal origins of the opposition between utilitarian and deontological judgments and the psychological underpinnings of people ’s beliefs about the moral status of animals. One issue that remains underexplored in this research area is the relationship between people’s disposition to engage in utilitarian thinking and their attitudes towards animals. This gap is unfortunate considering the tight philosophical connection between utilitarianism and the claim that animals have the...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - November 29, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
How Situationism Impacts the Goals of Character Education
AbstractThe focus of this special issue is on moral psychology and the goals of moral education. My focus will be considerably narrower in addressing the following question: In light of the situationist movement in psychology and philosophy, what should be the goal(s) of character education? The main conclusion will be that the central goal of character education should be modified in a certain way to make it more empirically informed. But not to worry, as this modification should be amenable to most contemporary supporters of character education. (Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice)
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - November 28, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Correction to: Envy, Levelling Down, and Harrison Bergeron: Defending Limitarianism Against Three Common Objections
(Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice)
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - November 28, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Should Democracies Ban Hate Speech? Hate Speech Laws and Counterspeech
AbstractThe paper ’s main goal is to compare laws banning hate speech with counterspeech as an effective method of curtailing hate speech. In the first part, the paper discussed three normative justifications for hate speech bans. Firstly, the line of argument developed by critical race theorists that assumes that hate speech leads to the direct harm and violation of individuals’ rights. Secondly, paper examines the Weimar model that rests on the assumption that hate speech can lead to indirect harm to members of vulnerable minorities by creating a toxic environment, which opens the door to discrimination a nd even vio...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - November 24, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Wealth Without Limits: in Defense of Billionaires
AbstractIn this essay we argue against preventing people from amassing extreme wealth via increased taxation. The first argument in favor of such a proposal, recently advanced by Ingrid Robeyns (2018), states that billionaires ’ resources would be better spent addressing morally important goals such as meeting disadvantaged people’s needs and solving collective action problems. In response to this claim, we argue that billionaires are typically in a better position to benefit the poor and to solve collective action pr oblems than public officials. The second argument in favor of preventing extreme wealth accumulation, ...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - November 23, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Power of Belief: Cognitive Resonance, Objectivism, and Well-being
AbstractThe phenomenon of resonance is central in the contemporary literature on well-being. Many philosophers accept the Resonance Constraint: if something is good for a person, it must resonate with her. Failing to meet this constraint is often thought to be a forceful blow to a theory of well-being. It is widely assumed that resonance must be motivational. I call attention to and argue for an underexplored aspect of resonance, namely cognitive resonance. I provide arguments for Belief-Resonance, the claim that if a person believes that something is good for her, it resonates with her. The Resonance Constraint allegedly ...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - November 19, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
A Challenge for the Scaffolding View of Responsibility
AbstractAccording to Victoria McGeer ’s “scaffolding view” (SV) (McGeer 2019), responsibility is a matter of moral reasons-sensitivity (MRS) which, in turn, requiresonly a “susceptibility to the scaffolding power of the reactive attitudes, experienced as a form of moral address” (2019: 315). This claim prompts aprima facie challenge: doesn ’t this susceptibility lead to doing the right things for the wrong reasons? Although the SV offers a nuanced and sophisticated answer to this challenge, one that moreover respects the social nature of moral knowledge and the fragility of moral motivation, it does not succee...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - November 14, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Wrongful Discrimination Without Equal, Basic Moral Status
AbstractMany theorists think that discrimination is wrongful because it involves treating discriminatees as if they have a lower moral status than others when in fact all people are moral equals. However, there are strong reasons, expounded by Peter Singer and others, to doubt that all people are indeed moral equals. While it may turn out that, ultimately, these reasons can be shown to be unsound, we cannot rule out the possibility that we are not all moral equals. If we are not, discrimination cannot be wrong because it involves failure to treat people as moral equals. With this in mind, I propose two anti-inegalitarian a...
Source: Ethical Theory and Moral Practice - November 12, 2022 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
