The theory of evolution: The rise and impact of evolutionary ideas, by R. Scoon. Evolution in its relation to the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of culture, by F.S.C. Northrop. The genetic nature of differences among men, by T. Dobzhansky. Evolutionary thought in America: Evolution and American sociology by R.E.L. Faris. The impact of the idea of evolution on the American political and constitutional tradition, by E.S. Corwin. Evolutionism in American economics, 1800-1946, by J.J. Spengler. The influence of evolutionary (...) theory upon American psychological thought, by E.G. Boring. Naturalism in American literature, by M. Cowley. The idea of organic expression and American architecture, by D.D. Egbert. Evolution and moral theory in America, W.F. Quillian, Jr. Evolution and theology in America, by S. Persons. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Philosophy in Medicine: Conceptual and Ethical Problems in Medicine and Psychiatry. By Charles M. Culver and Bernard Gert. Psychiatric Ethics. Edited by Sidney Block and Paul Chodoff. Man, Mind, and Morality: The Ethics of Behavior Control. By Ruth Macklin.

We propose a three-way interaction model based on substitutes for leadership theory to explore the relationship among ethical leadership, moral personality, and moral ideology on two types of employee voluntary behaviors. Results from a sample of 218 supervisor–subordinate dyads indicate that moral personality attenuates the relationship between ethical leadership and employee voluntary behaviors. Idealism serves as the boundary condition for the moderating effect of moral personality. However, relativism only serves as the boundary condition (...) for the moderating effect of moral personality when predicting workplace deviant behavior. (shrink)

This is the first detailed study in any language of the single most influential theory of the modern state: Samuel von Pufendorf's account of the state as a 'moral person'. Ben Holland reconstructs the theological and political contexts in and for which Pufendorf conceived of the state as being a person. Pufendorf took up an early Christian conception of personality and a medieval conception of freedom in order to fashion a theory of the state appropriate to continental Europe, (...) and which could head off some of the absolutist implications of a rival theory of state personality, that of Hobbes. The book traces the fate of the concept in the hands of others - international lawyers, moral philosophers and revolutionaries - until the early twentieth century. It will be essential reading for historians of political thought and for those interested in the development of key ideas in theology, international law and international relations. (shrink)

Emer de Vattel was the first writer systematically to combine three arguments in a single work, namely: that states have a fundamental duty of self-interestedness; that they nonetheless have reason to see themselves as inhabiting a kind of society; and that this society is held together by positive agreements between its members on rules that shall regulate their interactions. This article explores how Vattel arrived at his vision of international order. It points to the significance of his understanding of the (...) state as being a ?moral person?. This was a description of the state introduced by Samuel von Pufendorf, who argued that the state was a moral person because it possessed the moral faculties of intellect and will. This helped to ground a constitutionalist theory of the state, for intellect and will, being represented by separate institutions of the state, in effect balanced each other. But the notion of the state as a moral person was later taken up in a rival intellectual tradition that allotted no independence to the will. This was the philosophical tradition to which Vattel belonged. In this altered context, the notion of moral personality was transformed. I argue that this was critical to the formulation of Vattel's theory. (shrink)

This article confronts two different evaluations of the narrative identity paradigm in order to examine the possibility of a minimal narrative, practical identity without excessive stress on psychic unity and moral wholeness. It consists of three sections. The first part explains the criticisms of Lippitt and Quinn. Both authors warn of the MacIntyrean narrative model's emphasis on psychic unity and moral wholeness and argue for an ethical thinking that is built around concepts of psychic disunity and moral (...) openness. The second section introduces thoughts of Korsgaard and Frankfurt as having one important intuition in common: both their insights express the idea that our identity conceptions are intimately connected with processes of practical and moral reasoning; the ways in which we see ourselves are significant for the ways in which we act. Their sort-like conclusions are linked to the insights of Kennett and Matthews, who argue with help of empirical research on Dissociative Identity Disorder and psychopathy that we should understand our practical identity conceptions narratively. The third and last section shows how the insights of the first and second sections can be brought together in a truthful vision of moral reasoning and the moral person. It argues for a more realistic perspective on morality without altogether banishing narrative thinking, centred on the concept of moral responsiveness. This results in the affirmation of a basal practical, narrative identity and the acceptance of qualities as improvisation and imagination in moral reasoning. (shrink)

Based on ethnographic research done in Moscow, Russia, this article describes how some Muscovites articulate their moral consciousness, that is, the ways in which persons articulate to themselves and others how they conceptualize morality. While it may be possible, and indeed is often the case, that these concepts influence how people act and help guide individuals toward moral behavior, what is more important for our purposes is that these concepts provide a way for persons to give meaning, both (...) for themselves and for others, to their moral worlds and experience. Thus, what I hope to do in this article is describe just one of the conceptual frameworks within which moral experience is rendered meaningful for my Muscovite interlocutors. In doing so, I will consider how certain concepts of the moral person that have their origins in turn of the century Russian religious philosophy, Russian Orthodox Christianity, and Soviet ideology have all come together to make up various aspects of this moral consciousness. (shrink)

Ben Holland’s 2017 book The Moral Person of the State: Pufendorf, Sovereignty and Composite Polities provides an alternative interpretation of Samuel Pufendorf’s (1632–1694) theory of the state as...

The relationship between animal rights and contractarian theories of justice such as that of Rawls has long been vexed. In this article, I contribute to the debate over the possibility of inclusion of animals in Rawls’s theory of justice by critiquing the rationale he gives for their omission: that they do not possess moral personality. Contrary to Rawls’s assumptions, it appears that some animals may possess the moral powers that comprise moral personality, albeit to a (...) lesser extent than most humans. Some animals can act in pursuit of preferences and desires (and communicate them non-verbally), which might be taken as implicitly selecting a conception of the good; further, scientific research demonstrating inequity aversion and social play behaviors suggests that some animals can have a sense of justice relating to their own social groups. I conclude that Rawls’s theory needs to acknowledge any animals that can be considered to meet the threshold of moral personality, while the concept of moral personality as a range property may also require reconsideration. (shrink)

This essay sets forth a philosophical reformulation and defense of the doctrine of original sin. The sticking point of the traditional doctrine is its apparent commitment to the proposition that moral guilt is heritable. While I make no claim to defend the justice of vicarious punishment (the idea of having one person suffer for the sins of another), I credit nevertheless the idea of vicarious guilt. As responsible beings, we have to answer for evil that we cannot conceivably have (...) willed ourselves. The reformulation of original sin and guilt takes its inspiration from Kant's conception of radical evil, which is refined in light of some contemporary reflection on the nature of responsible freedom. (shrink)

The importance of ethical leadership in organizations has been increasingly recognized, especially as a shield against unethical employee behaviors and corporate misconducts. Ethical leadership has been theorized to include two aspects: “moral person” and “moral manager.” This conceptualization resonates well with Chinese teachings of Confucius on leadership and management—namely xiuji and anren. Based on the theoretical framework of ethical leadership, we develop and validate a new ethical leadership measure. Through qualitative studies and five quantitative studies, we establish the (...) reliability and convergent, discriminant, and predictive validities of the ELM in a Chinese context. In addition, using a US sample, we find that the ELM has partial measurement invariance across Chinese and American contexts. (shrink)

In this paper, the moral person is understood through the lens of identity theory in sociological social psychology. Identity theory helps identify the internal dynamics of individuals as moral persons by apprehending their self-views’, behavior, and emotions within and across situations. When the identity process is activated, the cognitive, behavioral, and affective dimensions of individuals inter-relate through a self-regulated control system. When this control system is laced with moral meanings, we see how moral persons emerge and (...) are maintained or challenged in situations. I review studies that I carried out over 2 years that sampled over 3,000 individuals using survey and laboratory research. A series of hypothesis consistent with identity theory were tested to examine individuals’ moral identity, moral behavior, and moral emotions. The findings confirm the predictive power of identity theory in explaining the moral person. Future avenues for research are briefly discussed. (shrink)

The chapter starts from a specific interpretation of what it means to know the difference between right and wrong, which stems from Gilbert Ryle. To know the difference between right and wrong implies caring about morality. The author links Ryle’s ideas to the notion of being a moral person. Two different ideas found in moral philosophy are delineated, namely, the amoral person, that is, someone who rejects the demands of morality, and the morally incapacitated person, that is, someone (...) who cannot take those demands into account. Psychopaths are not amoral in the philosophers’ sense of the word, but are incapable of, or seriously deficient in, taking the moral point of view. (shrink)

Owen Flanagan argues in this book for a more psychologically realistic ethical reflection and spells out the ways in which psychology can enrich moral philosophy. Beginning with a discussion of such "moral saints" as Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Oskar Schindler, Flanagan charts a middle course between an ethics that is too realistic and socially parochial and one that is too idealistic, giving no weight to our natures.

Views of the self may be plotted on a set of coordinates. On the axis that runs from fragmentation to unity, Rorty and Rorty's Freud champion the decentered self while Wallwork, Taylor, and Ricoeur argue for a sovereign, unified self. On the other axis, which runs from the disengaged, inward-turning self to the engaged and "sedimented" self, Wallwork, would be positioned near Rorty, defending self-creation against the narrative identity affirmed by Taylor and Ricoeur. Despite his skepticism concerning the communitarian agenda (...) of the narrativists, Flanagan grants that the self is social and relational--a position further explored by Oliver, Stendahl, Deutsch, and Mack in "Selves, People, and Persons". (shrink)

In this essay, I challenge Charles Mills’s use of the category of moral personhood for advancing a robust anti-racist political critique in nonideal circumstances. I argue that the idea of the moral equality of persons is necessary but insufficient for reparative justice. I enrich the normative basis of political critique to include: (1) a clarification of what the public recognition of moral personhood can legitimately entail as a requirement of justice enforceable by the state, especially with respect (...) to economic reforms that advance equal opportunity and (2) a conception of non-alienated labor that assails identity-based occupational segregation in the labor market. These additional components do not exhaust the plausible bases for political critique, but enrich it in a way that the idea of moral equality alone cannot. (shrink)

In this book, the authors provide a detailed discussion of some problematic of some critical issues of the philosophical research field known as “moral psychology”. The common thread that ideally combines the eight essays concerns the definition and demarcation of the “moral mind”, as a set of cognitive and affective capabilities, attitudes, psychological mechanisms that have practical relevance when we wonder how to act or we evaluate the of action of others. The subtitle (persons, reasons, virtues) means to (...) focus on the vertexes that draw an ideal triangulation within which lies the practical space characterizing and nourishing the moral life of human beings. (shrink)

This article examines the notion of the `scientist as a moral person' in the light of the early stages of the commodification of science and the transformation of research into a big enterprise, operating on the principle of the division of labour. These processes were set in train at the end of the 19th century. The article focuses on the concomitant changes in the public persona and the habitus of scientific entrepreneurs. I begin by showing the significance of the (...) professional networks that were built up and maintained to further a group's research ideas and the careers of its members, thus demonstrating one condition on which depended their practice of science and their ability to earn a living. This leads to a characterization of the changing styles of work, thought and life, and to a consideration of public perceptions and of the ways in which a new self-image of scholarship and science was fashioned. A critical discussion of the public role of these mandarin scientists follows in order to highlight the strains created by the commodification of science at a time of international tensions and conflicts, when shared beliefs in scholarly cosmopolitanism were subverted by appeals to science and scholarship to work in the service of one's own nation as its `courtiers'. Various considerations of peculiar analogies between national styles of research and the style of social organization are then noted. In the final section, the article queries the long-term impact of these developments on the ideal of the scientist as a `moral person'. Taking a cue from Max Weber and pursuing reflections by Zygmunt Bauman on `science moralized', I argue that the emergence of a type of `specialists without spirit' was an unintended but fatal consequence of the changes in research practices promoted by scientific entrepreneurs such as Du Bois-Reymond. I conclude that the temptation to sever the ties to a general ethos of civil virtues lay in the rationalization, specialization and potential de-humanization of the objectifying scientific outlook once advocated for its efficiency. (shrink)

Knowledge about moral development and elderly persons is very limited. A hermeneutical interpretative study was conducted with healthy elderly persons (n = 20) in order to explore and describe their moral orientation based on the paradigms of justice (Kohlberg) and care (Gilligan). The types of moral reasoning, dominance, alignment and orientation were determined. All but one participant included both types of reasoning when discussing an ethical conflict. None of the men’s moral reasoning was dominated by caring, (...) but justice dominated the reasoning of four women. The implications for ethical decision-making and future research are discussed. (shrink)

This work raises the philosophical implications of the contemporary Taiwanese as a Chinese cultural people that socio-philosophically defined herself as a moral or ethical person. The political history of Taiwan has been marked by her struggle for self-determination. Self-determination based and reflected on a self-affirmation and self-identification that is internationally recognized and legitimized. This, no doubt, beyond the generalized bent by all nations towards globalization and multi-culturalism, there has been a more and more openness to the western nations. As (...) she looks towards the West, she ipso facto looks away from the Main Land China. This work is neither an investigation in political science nor a historical critique and reconstruction. It is rather a philosophical critique on the philosophical anthropology of a people that is fundamentally ethical, that is now facing and open to climes of which their philosophical anthropology is not in essence ethical. Put differently, it is an evaluation on the notion of “the Taiwanese person”. An evaluation on how “the Taiwanese person” from the standpoint of philosophical anthropology could still be claimed to be a Confucian. The question is: could the Taiwanese person today be said to be「仁者」, if Confucian philosophical anthropology asserts, 「仁者人也」? Hence, this work will attempt to respond to this question by a philosophical analysis of the notion of 「仁者」as an ethical person based on Karol Wojtyłian notion of the ethical person. To understand the notion of the “ethical” or “moral” person, the concept of “ethics” or “moral” and “person” ought to be exposed. Therefore, in this work Wojtyłian philosophy shall be employed as the epistemological foundation for the definition and explication of the concepts: ethics, moral and person. The writer considers the philosophy of Karol Wojtyłian as a plausible paradigm amongst the western philosophies in the exposition of Confucian ethics and philosophical anthropology. The conception of person as “Person-revealed-in-action” or as it is popularly known, the “Acting Person”, underpins properties of the human person that are very fundamental in the Confucian conception of the person. This “person- revealed-in-action”, is an ethical person, as 「仁者」is 「人」in the Confucian Philosophy. This is as a result of the similarity in the fundamental claims maintained both in the Confucian ethics and philosophical anthropology and in that of Karol Wojtyła. Thus, this work is executed as follows: 1. Exposition of the Problematic. 2. Exposition of Confucian Philosophical Anthropology. 3. Exposition of Karol Wojtyła Ethical Person. 4. A Wojtyłain Reconstruction of 「仁者」and the Notion of Ethical Person. 5. Critique of the Taiwanese Person as「仁者」and Conclusion. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to develop a critique of ethical theory grounded in what Flanagan calls "psychological realism." This realism requires the rejection of any ethical theory or ideal which prescribes a character, decision-making process, or behavior, that is impossible for "creatures like us". It is Flanagan's view that "the two main models of moral excellence in philosophy"--"the fully virtuous person" imagined in most virtue theories and "the principled reasoner," assumed by both of the main branches of (...) rule theory--are incoherent, the products of misinformed "common sense" and outdated philosophical psychologies. It is his goal to put moral theory on the more solid ground of scientific psychology and contemporary philosophical psychology. (shrink)

According to second‐personal approaches to moral obligation, the distinctive normative features of moral obligation can only be explained in terms of second‐personal relations, i.e. the distinctive way persons relate to each other as persons. But there are important disagreements between different groups of second‐personal approaches. Most notably, they disagree about the nature of second‐personal relations, which has consequences for the nature of the obligations that they purport to explain. This article aims to distinguish these groups from each other, (...) highlight their respective advantages and disadvantages, and thereby indicate avenues for future research. (shrink)

The Problem of Obligation is the problem of how to explain the features of moral obligations that distinguish them from other normative phenomena. Two recent accounts, the Second-Personal Account and the Relational Account, propose superficially similar solutions to this problem. Both regard obligations as based on the claims or legitimate demands that persons as such have on one another. However, unlike the Second-Personal Account, the Relational Account does not regard these claims as based in persons’ authority to address them. (...) Advocates of the Relational Account accuse the Second-Personal Account of falling prey to the Problem of Antecedence. According to this objection, the Second-Personal Account is committed to the implausible claim that we have an obligation to φ only if, and because, others demand that we φ. Since the Relational Account’s proposed solution to the Problem of Obligation does not face the Problem of Antecedence, its advocates argue that it is dialectically superior to the Second-Personal Account. In this paper, I defend the Second-Personal Account by arguing that, first, the Relational Account does not actually solve the Problem of Obligation and, second, the Second-Personal Account does not fall prey to the Problem of Antecedence. (shrink)