In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christian Ethics in a Technological Age by Brian BrockDavid W. GillChristian Ethics in a Technological Age Brian Brock Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010. 408 pp. $34.00Brian Brock is a lecturer in moral and practical theology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and the author of Singing the Ethos of God: On the Place of Christian Ethics in Scripture (Eerdmans, 2007). Christian Ethics in a Technological [End Page 188] (...) Age was originally Brock’s doctoral thesis at King’s College, London. Brock begins by highlighting and finding wanting the modern practice of “technology assessment” as epitomized in the establishment of the US Office of Technology Assessment in 1972. We live in a world, a milieu, of ever-multiplying new technologies and technological artifacts. “Technology assessment” attempts to evaluate their impacts as thoroughly as possible through scientific, managerial methods. Costs and benefits, benefits and harms, short-term and long-term, near and distant effects: how can we measure what we know and extrapolate to what we need to know?In part 1 Brock engages in some detail the thinking of Martin Heidegger, George Grant, and Michel Foucault on technology. Although Heidegger and Foucault in particular are not ultimate authorities for Brock, his chapters on their work provide a helpful philosophical critique of the inadequacies of today’s narrow managerial approaches to technological assessment. The real problems lie much deeper: in the ways technology reflects and restructures our whole way of thinking about life, materiality, subjects and objects, and means and ends.Having used Heidegger, Grant, and Foucault to unmask the complex reality of technology in the modern era, Brock turns in part 2 to Augustine, Karl Barth, and Bernd Wannenwetsch to try to build a Christian theological ethics of technology and work that will, in the end, provide a richer texture for our interactions with the questions raised by new technologies. In briefest terms, he argues that our questions and judgments about technology should arise within the church gathered for worship rather than within the management team gathered for measurement of effects. It could be said that in the former it is God who questions technology whereas in the latter technology and its servants constitute an implicit challenge to God and the world external to themselves.Brock’s study will be of particular interest to students of his primary six sources: Heidegger, Grant, Foucault, Augustine, Barth, and Wannenwetsch, whose ideas and quotations dominate the pages of this book. Without any doubt Christian Ethics in a Technological Age is a significant work that deserves careful consideration in graduate seminars and among specialists in the field; nonetheless, I have three criticisms. First, the work would have been much stronger if it demonstrated awareness and understanding of the work of Jacques Ellul, Carl Mitcham, Albert Borgmann, and other leading thinkers in this arena. Second, Brock’s writing style (long, complex Germanic sentence structures, eccentric vocabulary choices such as the recurrent use of “purchase”) gets in the way of successful communication—especially with the very managers and technologists he presumably would like to influence. Third, while sympathizing with his rejection of managerial formulas for analysis, some much more concrete and practical counsel on the implications of his position would have been [End Page 189] helpful. How do trust and trustworthiness get reestablished? How does a worshipping congregation hear God’s guidance about its particular engagements with technologies? We have some eloquent statements of the concepts but little by way of illustration or example.David W. GillGordon-Conwell Theological SeminaryCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Descartes is not well known for his contributions to ethics. Some have charged that it is a weakness of his philosophy that it focuses exclusively on metaphysics and epistemology to the exclusion of moral and political philosophy. Such criticisms rest on a misunderstanding of the broader framework of Descartes’ philosophy. Evidence of Descartes’ concern for the practical import of philosophy can be traced to his earliest writings. In agreement of wisdom that is sufficient for happiness. The Third part of his (...) Discourse on the Method presents what he calls a provisional morality, a morality to govern our behaviour while we are in the process of revising our beliefs and coming to certainty. In the tree of philosophy, in the Preface to the French translation of the Principles of Philosophy, morals are listed as one of the fruits of the tree, along with medicine and mechanics. It is also a theme in the letters he exchanged with the Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia in the mid-1640s, together with another concern the passions, what they are, and more importantly, how to control them. These themes are intertwined again in Descartes last major work, The Passions of the Soul (1649). Descartes did not write extensively on ethics, and this has led some to assume that the topic lacks a place within his philosophy. It is an attempt to outline Descartes’ ethical ideas mainly in Discourse on the Method. (shrink)

Nonviolence today is usually advocated either on the basis of a moral condemnation of violence or a strategic confidence in nonviolent tactics. This paper offers an ethical conception that rejects an instrumentalist notion of nonviolence, on the one hand, and yet seeks to connect its normative appeal to effective politics, on the other. The argument proceeds by developing a relational and performative account of violence and by applying this to contexts of direct and structural violence to bring out the (...) respects in which violence is a matter of harmed social existence. Proceeding then to nonviolence, the paper argues for an understanding of its transformational function by drawing on themes from recognition theory. It identifies relevant features of nonviolence by pointing to the experience of social movements as well as by referring to the nature of conflicts with violent opponents. (shrink)

I became interested in normative ethics in my last term as a philosophy undergraduate at the University of Toronto. Influenced by a traditional conception of the discipline, I’d till then studied mostly history of philosophy, with a special interest in, of all things, Hegel. But seeing the value of a balanced philosophy program, I enrolled in an ethics seminar in the winter of 1975. I’d studied the ethics of Plato, Leibniz, Hegel, and others in my history courses, but this (...) was my first exposure to contemporary thought on the subject. The seminar had only one other student, and since he was fairly quiet I had something close to a one-on-one tutorial with the instructor, Wayne Sumner – another contributor to this volume. I was immensely taken both by Wayne’s teaching and by the seminar’s topic, which was utilitarianism. Our study of it included both theoretical questions such as act- vs. ruleutilitarianism and applied ones such as our obligations to future generations. I found all these questions intellectually engaging and also humanly important, given their connection to live ethical issues – in short, I was hooked. I was especially impressed by two non-utilitarian texts we read. One was the last chapter of G. E. Moore’s Principia Ethica, meant to illustrate a non- 1 utilitarian or ideal consequentialist theory. I was attracted by Moore’s general account of the good, which values states such as love and aesthetic appreciation alongside pleasure, and saw in his principle of organic unities a far clearer statement of ideas I had encountered in more pretentious form in Hegel. The second was Chapter 2 of W. D. Ross’s The Right and the Good, which defends a pluralist deontology against consequentialism. I thought Ross’s criticisms of consequentialism were right on the mark, and again clearly and precisely expressed. I had no idea these texts were largely passé in current discussions of the subject. At this time I was applying to graduate programs in philosophy, and given my new interest decided to specialize in ethics.. (shrink)

Part intellectual autobiography and part exposition of complex yet contemporary economic ideas, this lively conversation with renowned scholar and public intellectual Kenneth J. Arrow focuses on economics and politics in light of history, current events, and philosophy as well. Reminding readers that economics is about redistribution and thus about how we treat each other, Arrow shows that the intersection of economics and ethics is of concern not just to economists but for the public more broadly. With a foreword by (...) Amartya Sen, this book highlights the belief that government can be a powerful force for good, and is particularly relevant in the current political climate and to the lay reader as well as the economist. (shrink)

Collects four years' worth of editorials Richard Kyte has written for the La Crosse Tribune on the topic of the ethical life.

We present a novel procedure to engage the public in ethical deliberations on the potential impacts of brain machine interface technology. We call this procedure a convergence seminar, a form of scenario-based group discussion that is founded on the idea of hypothetical retrospection. The theoretical background of this procedure and the results of five seminars are presented.

This paper presents a theoretical and practical approach to teaching business ethics, stakeholder management and CSR within the framework of the thematic seminar on business ethics and corporate social responsibility at Roskilde University. Within our programs in English of business studies and Economics and Business Administration the author of this article is responsible for this seminar that integrates issues of CSR and the ethics of innovation into the teaching ofcorporate social responsibility, stakeholder management and business ethics. This research (...) oriented seminar provides a unique possibility for teaching CSR with an integration of methodological, theoretical and practical dimensions of business ethics. The idea is that the thematic seminar represents a tutor supported frame for extended studies of business ethics, stakeholder management and the social aspects of business and entrepreneurship. Each student shall present a paper on the basis of a collection of articles on the topic of ethics and social dimension of business. Moreover, it is required that the student is discussant of two other papers during the course. In addition, students shall prepare interactive participation in discussion of each paper. The sessions begin with a short introduction to the topic by the professor, then student presentations, after this discussant remarks, and finally general discussion followed by an evaluative assessment by the professor. During the seminar the student shall present both theory and case discussion so that we find a close interaction between theory and practice in the presentation. In the following, the paper elaborates on this development, in particular in the relation between theory presentation and case studies. (shrink)

An outstanding feature of the study of nursing ethics is that it raises questions concerning moral virtue, conscience, consistency and character. A considerable section of the literature is devoted to ideas of how best to teach ethics to health professionals. It has been shown that when faced with ethical dilemmas nurses tended to rely on intuition and instinct to resolve them, with little systematic analysis to help the process. Nurses who have been in practice for a number of (...) years may experience particular difficulties in resolving ethical dilemmas, for although they may be able easily to identify ethical problems they may feel powerless to behave appropriately through lack of theoretical background and/or confidence in participating in informed debate. An educational programme was designed to meet the needs of mature registered nurses who were undertaking a post-qualification part-time honours degree in nursing studies. A variety of teaching methods were employed in teaching the nurses. These included discussion, student-led seminars, structured debate and role play. A session which dealt with sudden death and organ donation is described in some detail. Because the topic involved communication between professionals and patients and/or relatives and was linked with ethics, role play was used to explore the dynamics in these areas. The participants were invited to act out the situation as they felt it might occur. Role play highlighted the stress and shock attached to such an experience. Before working through the dynamics of a situation the nurses were conscious of being part of decision-making 'in the cold' and 'in isolation'. As a result of the experiential learning they felt more able to reflect analytically and to participate in discussions in an informed and articulate way. (shrink)

One universal anonymous sage : the Rta/Tao/Logos -- Four sages from the East. The Hindu tradition : the four wants of man -- Buddha : Nirvana -- Confucius : social harmony -- Lao Tzu : nature's way -- Three sages from the West. Moses : divine law -- Jesus : agape love -- Muhammad : "Islam" -- Three classic Greek founders of philosophy. Socrates : the primacy of wisdom ("Virtue is knowledge") -- Plato: No double standard : ethics and politics (...) ; Platonic Ideas : the objective reality of goodness ; Justice as health of soul and therefore always profitable -- Aristotle: Happiness as the end, the greatest good ; Virtue as the road to happiness ; The good as teleological ; The golden mean as the key to virtue ; Ethics as dependent on metaphysics ; The (later) idea of "natural law" -- Three lesser but more popular ancient philosophers. Protagoras -- Epicurus: Hedonism -- Epicurus: Stoicism -- Three medieval Christian saints. St. Augustine: Love as gravity ; Only two kinds of people ; The restless heart -- St. Anselm : the good greater than which nothing can be thought -- Thomas Aquinas: The role of faith and reason ; Four kinds of law ; The four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues ; Eight candidates for happiness -- Three modern political philosophers. Machiavelli : the good as the practical -- Hobbes : the good as power -- Rousseau : the good as feeling -- Three classic modern ethical alternatives. Hume : the good as subjective -- Kant: The good as goodwill ; Goodwill as duty ; Duty as the "categorical imperative" -- Mill : utilitarianism : the good as maximally happy consequences -- Three Existentialists. Kierkegaard : aesthetics, ethics, and religion -- Nietzsche: The genealogy of morals as resentment ; The Superman : "beyond good and evil" ; "The will to power" -- Sartre: God vs. freedom ; Love vs. freedom -- Two Personalists. Marcel: Being as value ; Mysteries vs. problems ; "Creative fidelity" -- Von Hildebrand: Three kinds of value ; The ethics of the heart -- Three analytic philosophers. Ayer : the good as meaningless -- Moore : the good as indefinable -- Wittgenstein : the good as "mystical" -- Is ethics dead? MacIntyre "After Virtue" vs. Aquinas. (shrink)

There has been a recent spate of publications on how we should evaluate change to ecological systems, some of which have introduced the concept of ‘relational values’. Environmental ethicists have, with a few exceptions, not engaged with this debate. We survey the literature on relational values, noting that most advocates of the concept introduce relational values as an additional type of value, in addition to ‘instrumental’ and ‘intrinsic’ values. In this paper, we explore the idea that all environmental values are (...) ultimately relational. We explore how such an approach can be articulated, and discuss the implications of this concept for the future of environmental ethics and value studies. One key implication is to suggest a stronger role for empirical ethnography. (shrink)

Dr Stockmann, the principal character in Henrik Ibsen's A Public Enemy, is a classic example of a whistle-blower who, upon detecting and disclosing a serious case of environmental pollution, quickly finds himself transformed from a public benefactor into a political outcast by those in power. If we submit the play to a ‘second reading’, however, it becomes clear that the ethical intricacies of whistle-blowing are interwoven with epistemological issues. Basically, the play is about the complex task of communicating scientific (...) (notably microbiological) data to lay audiences. This becomes even more apparent when we realise that Stockmann was a contemporary of real ‘microbe hunters’ such as Pasteur and Koch. The play's basic message is that epoch-making scientists (such as Pasteur and Koch) not only produced convincing and reliable data from a scientific point of view, but also acquired the skills and insights needed to enter into a dialogue with their cultural and societal environment. (shrink)

Kramer and Kramarae have identified four sets of masculine gendered ideas that are used in conceptualising the Internet: anarchy, frontier, democracy and community. These are constitutive ideas as opposed to regulative ones; in other words they constitute the Internet. I suggest two alternative constitutive ideas, but not necessarily ‘feminine’ ones, that might be used as constituent parts of the Internet. These are reflexivity, or examining what we are about, and pluralism. The more widespread adoption of these two (...) principles as constitutive ethics would have a profound effect on teaching and practice of using not just the Internet, but developing and using ICT more generally. (shrink)

The author begins with an outline of Bernard William's moral philosophy, within which he locates William's notorious doctrine that reflection can destroy ethical knowledge. He then gives a partial defence of this doctrine, exploiting an analogy between ethical judgements and tensed judgements. The basic idea is that what the passage of time does for the latter, reflection can do for the former: namely, prevent the re-adoption of an abandoned point of view (an ethical point of view in (...) the one case, a temporal point of view in the other). In the final section the author says a little about how reflection might do this. Footnotes1 This essay is derived from a lecture entitled ‘Bernard Williams’, delivered at Oxford University in 2000, in the series ‘Oxford Philosophers on Oxford Philosophers’, organized by Peter Hacker and David Wiggins. I am grateful to those who attended the lecture, and to Bernard Williams, for helpful comments. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the ethical-political dilemma in Kant’s work, sometimes expressed through the metaphor of the “crooked wood of humanity.” Kant separates external and internal freedom and the types of legislation each form of freedom requires (coercive and noncoercive). Yet, he also argues that corrupt political institutions adversely affect individual ethical development, and, reciprocally, corrupt inner dispositions of a populace adversely affect the establishment of just political institutions. I argue that a major way in which Kant addresses this (...) vicious circle is through ethical institutions, that is, noncoercive public resources for articulating and disseminating the principles of the moral law. I discuss the idea of an ethico-civil society or ethical community formulated in the Religion as an ideal model for ethical institutions mediating the ethical and the legal-political in a noncoercive, progressive manner. (shrink)

This volume brings together fourteen mostly previously published articles by the prominent Nietzsche scholar Maudemarie Clark. Thus, it will allow readers to see more easily how Clark's views fit together as a whole, exhibit important developments of her ideas, and highlight her distinctive voice in Nietzsche studies.

Can we trust our intuitive judgments of right and wrong? Are moral judgements objective? What reason do we have to do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong? In Conversations on Ethics, Alex Voorhoeve elicits answers to these questions from eleven outstanding philosophers and social scientists: -/- Ken Binmore; Philippa Foot; Harry Frankfurt; Allan Gibbard; Daniel Kahneman; Frances Kamm; Alasdair MacIntyre; T. M. Scanlon; Peter Singer; David Velleman; Bernard Williams. -/- The exchanges are direct, open, and sharp, and (...) give a clear account of these thinkers' core ideas about ethics. They also provide unique insights into their intellectual development - how they became interested in ethics, and how they conceived the ideas for which they became famous. Conversations on Ethics will engage anyone interested in moral philosophy. (shrink)

In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Wittgenstein conveyed the idea that ethics cannot be located in an object or self-standing subject matter of propositional discourse, true or false. At the same time, he took his work to have an eminently ethical purpose, and his attitude was not that of the emotivist. The trajectory of this conception of the normativity of philosophy as it developed in his subsequent thought is traced. It is explained that and how the notion of a ‘form of (...) life’ (Lebensform) emerged only in his later thought, in 1937, earmarking a significant step forward in his philosophical method. We argue that the concept of Lebensform represents a way of domesticating logic itself, the very idea of a claim or reason, supplementing the idea of a ‘language game’, which it deepens. Lebensform is contrasted with the phenomenologists’ Lebenswelt through a reading of the notions of ‘I’, ‘world’ and ‘self’ as they were treated in the Tractatus, The Blue and Brown Books and Philosophical Investigations. Finally, the notion of Lebensform is shown to have replaced the notion of culture (Kultur) in Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein’s spring 1937 ‘domestication’ of the nature of logic is shown to have been fully consonant with the idea that he was influenced by his reading Alan Turing’s 1936/1937 paper, ‘On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem’. (shrink)

Buddhism in all its expressions is often characterised as a ‘World Religion’. Thus, in principle, it harbours a universal message transcending any ethnicity and national boundaries, and it may be argued that it is historically the most important common ideology for all of South, East and Central Asia. In its canonical literature and religious thinking, Buddhism presents a number of elements easily characterised as global ethics, with an egalitarian and altruistic tone. As such, with its philosophically grounded virtues and morality, (...) Buddhism can represent a reference point and a multifaceted background for an informed discussion of global ethics. The present paper describes in brief a few topics relevant to such a discussion. *. (shrink)

These essays discuss various ontological and epistemological questions in moral philosophy, drawing on ideas from Platonic-Aristotelian ethics, the later Wittgenstein, and Iris Murdoch, though without seeking to weave these into any unified system. The general approach is realist or objectivist, paying some attention to the role of imaginative literature (especially the novel) in ethical formation. The method used can be broadly described as phenomenological; the phenomena in question extend to value-perception on the one hand and to practical reason, (...) including political deliberation, on the other. A common theme is the lived experience of the socially situated subject, including our capacity for engagement with the values present in an inherited tradition or ‘form of life’. Such engagement, once raised to consciousness, may contain elements both of affirmation and of cultural critique. In the book as a whole, the critical theme predominates, with a certain emphasis on discourses of social disruption. But it is always assumed that the right place to stand as an observer of the domain of value is within that domain, and that moral critique will be immanent with respect to the culture addressed—that is, it will make do with just the conceptual and linguistic resources available to ordinary participants in moral, political, or aesthetic conversation. (shrink)

This book is the second collection of essays on reproductive ethics from Drs. Campo-Engelstein and Burcher. This volume is unique in that it is both timely and includes several essays on new technologies, while also being a comprehensive review of most of the major questions in the field, from racial disparities in reproductive healthcare to gene editing and the possibility of the creation of a transhuman species. The scholars writing these essays are pre-eminent in their fields, and their backgrounds are (...) quite varied, including philosophers, anthropologists, physicians, and professors of law. Reproductive ethics remains an underdeveloped area of bioethics despite the recent technological breakthroughs that carry both great promise and potential threats. Building on the first volume of work from a conference held just over one year ago, this new collection of essays from a conference held April 2017 continues this discussion as well as provides ethical insights and reviews of these emerging technologies. The ethical questions swirling around human reproduction are both old and new, but the conference presentations, and the essays derived from them, focus on new ways of appreciating old arguments such as the ethics of abortion, as well as new ways of seeing new technologies such as CRISPR and mitochondrial transfer. (shrink)

Discussion of real cases encountered by medical students has been advocated as a component of medical ethics education. Suggested benefits include: a focus on the actual problems that medical students confront; active learner involvement; and facilitation of an exploration of the meaning of their own values in relation to professional behaviour. However, the approach may also carry risks: students may focus too narrowly on particular clinical topics or show a preference for discussing legal problems that may appear to have clearer (...) solutions. Teaching may therefore omit areas generally considered to be important components of the curriculum. In this paper, the authors present an analysis of the moral problems raised by medical students in response to a request to describe ethically problematic cases they had encountered during two clinical attachments, for the purpose of educational discussion at case-based seminars. We discuss the problems raised and compare the content of the cases to the UK Consensus Statement on core content of learning. The authors also describe the approaches that the students used to undertake an initial analysis of the problems raised, and consider possible implications for the development of medical ethics education. (shrink)

Essays on Ethics and Feminism is a selection of the shorter writings of Sabina Lovibond, one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary philosophy since the 1980s. This work lays claim to a broad thematic unity based on its affiliation to the realist or rationalist traditions in moral philosophy. Some of the essays seek to clarify the relation of feminism to these traditions and to current anti-rationalist tendencies. All of them are concerned with fundamental ethical questions, including questions of (...) feminist ethics--such as the nature of value and the good life; moral requirements and their associated epistemology; character-formation and the ideological critique of the processes by which this is effected. The essays deploy ideas drawn both from Platonic-Aristotelian and from Kantian ethics, as well as from the later philosophy of Wittgenstein. However, they also attempt to respond to the destabilizing impact of Nietzschean and postmodernist thought. (shrink)

The most complete edition yet published of Wittgenstein’s1929 lecture includes a never-before published first draft andmakes fresh claims for its significance in Wittgenstein’soeuvre. The first available print publication of all known drafts ofWittgenstein’s Lecture on Ethics Includes a previously unrecognized first draft of the lectureand new transcriptions of all drafts Transcriptions preserve the philosopher’s emendationsthus showing the development of the ideas in the lecture Proposes a different draft as the version read by Wittgensteinin his 1929 lecture Includes introductory essays (...) on the origins of the material andon its meaning, content, and importance. (shrink)

This dissertation consists in three essays, one in ethics, one in action theory and one at the intersection of these fields. The first essay concerns romantic love, and makes explicit both the psychological needs people commonly expect it to service and the robust yet conditional commitment it demands. The basic ideas are the following: people regularly want to form an intimate union with another, to be loved for properties of certain sorts, and to have this love generate and sustain (...) a distinctive sort of commitment to them. In particular I argue that the third idea has been underarticulated and underappreciated, and its underappreciation has given rise to seeming inconsistencies amongst peoples' wishes for lasting loving relationships. I close with a detailed account of what I term a "loving commitment." ;The second essay is devoted to a detailed examination and assessment of the Doctrine of Double Effect . I argue that in order to employ the DDE to obtain intuitively satisfying moral evaluations it needs to be supplemented by an additional principle or set of principles that specify how various aspects of the relevant action are to be classified as intended or merely foreseen. After discrediting various plausible candidates I offer a puzzle case that seems peculiarly prone to mischaracterization by the DDE. I close with some tentative suggestions as to how the DDE should be considered against the backdrop of our moral practices. ;The third essay is a detailed examination of intention, belief, intentional action, and planning, and the relations obtaining between them. I contend that plans are nothing more than clusters of intentions of greater and lesser range and immediacy and that practical rationality essentially consists in forming and acting on intentions. I then argue that while intentionally acting does not require an intention to perform that very act, Michael Bratman's powerful argument to that effect is ultimately unsatisfying. I propose that the two phenomena diverge because there is a justified belief requirement on intention that does not apply to acting intentionally, and that this justified belief requirement is tied to the intimate relation between intention and rationality. I go on to consider other features of intention, most notably its relations to skillful and habitual activity. (shrink)

In the Kaizo articles, written between 1922 and 1924, Husserl drew on the intercultural relationship between Europe and non-Europe. The viewpoints he held in these articles do not deviate much from that in the Vienna lecture 1935, which is later included in Crisis. It is in the latter that Husserl delineates systematically what he thinks of the idea of Europe and what makes Europe different from the other parts of the world. Notably, these viewpoints were already disclosed in the Kaizo (...) articles, though in very different contexts. As is well known, the background of Crisis is the concern about the modern science which deviates more and more from the concrete lifeworld, whereas the Kaizo articles focus mainly on the ethical problems. Nevertheless both of them touch on the cultural as well as intercultural problematic, that Husserl deals with more and more intensively in his late philosophy. My essay will discuss the following questions: On what grounds does Husserl think that the philosophical rationality of Europe deserves being recommended to other cultures? How does he come to this conclusion in his discourse on ethics? In order to come to terms with these questions I will unfold my essay in three steps: first, I will sketch how Husserl understands ethics; secondly, explain the connection between ethics and philosophical rationality, and thirdly how these ethical thoughts have intercultural relevance. (shrink)

Savulescu maintains that our paper, which encourages clinicians to honour requests for "inappropriate treatment" is prejudicial to his atheistic beliefs, and therefore wrong. In this paper we clarify and expand on our ideas, and respond to his assertion that medicine, ethics and atheism are objective, rational and true, while religion is irrational and false.

A comprehensive examination of Lacan’s seminar on ethics.

This is an account of the evolution of ideas and the confluence of support and vision that has eventuated in the founding of the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics (JERHRE). Many factors have contributed to the creation of this rather atypical academic journal, including a scientific and administrative culture that finally saw the need for it, modern electronic technology, individuals across the world who were committed to somehow finding common ground between researchers and those charged with (...) ethical oversight of research, a network of helpful colleagues, and a university whose administration gave moral support to the endeavor in a time of fiscal austerity. Perhaps equally important were the decisions to make JERHRE a nonprofit undertaking, to emphasize the implications of empirical research for specific best practices, to serve the educational needs of those concerned with human research, and to seek to stimulate the interest of students in gaining an evidence-based understanding of the research contexts in which they decide to work. This article explores the ‘chemistry’ that has made it possible to develop a somewhat unorthodox journal and set of related activities. (shrink)

In the past 25 years or so, the issue of ethical universalizability has figured prominently in theoretical as well as practical ethics. The term, 'universaliz ability' used in connection with ethical considerations, was apparently first introduced in the mid-1950s by R. M. Hare to refer to what he characterized as a logical thesis about certain sorts of evaluative sentences (Hare, 1955). The term has since been used to cover a broad variety of ethical considerations including those associated (...) with the ideas of impartiality, consistency, justice, equality, and reversibility as well as those raised in the familar questions: 'What if everyone did that?' and 'How would you like it if someone did that to you? But this recent effloresence of the use of the term 'universalizability' is something that has deep historical roots, and has been central in various forms to the thinking about morality of some of the greatest and most influential philosophers in the western tradition. While the term is relatively new, the ideas it is now used to express have a long history. Most of these ideas and questions have been or can be formulated into a principle to be discussed, criticized, or defended. As we discuss these ideas below this prin ciple will be stated on a separate numbered line. The concepts of justice and equality were closely linked in Greek thought. These connections between these two concepts are apparent even in two authors who were hostile to the connection, Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)

This book develops an intellectual framework for analyzing ethical dilemmas that is both grounded in theory and versatile enough to deal rigorously with real-world issues. It sees ethics as a necessary foundation for the social infrastructure that makes modern life possible, much as engineering is a foundation for physical infrastructure. It is not wedded to any particular ethical philosophy but draws from several traditions to construct a unified and principled approach to ethical reasoning. Rather than follow the (...) common academic practice of seeking a reflective equilibrium of moral intuitions and principles, it builds on a few bedrock principles of rational thought that serve as criteria for valid argumentation. It develops the ideas from the ground up, without presupposing any background in ethics or philosophy. Epistemologically, the book views ethics as parallel to mathematics, in that it relies on generally accepted proof techniques to establish results. Whereas mathematics rests on such proof paradigms as mathematical induction and proof by contradiction, ethics can be seen as relying on proof by applying consistency tests, such as generalizability and respect for autonomy. Utilitarianism also plays a key role, but it is reconceived as a deontological criterion. This approach obviously requires that these criteria be formulated more rigorously than is normally the case. To accomplish this, the book begins with the classical idea that an action is distinguishable from mere behavior by virtue of its having a coherent rationale, where coherence requires passing certain consistency tests such as generalizability. An action is therefore inseparable from its rationale, and generalizability is defined in terms of consistency with the rationale. A utilitarian criterion receives a similar treatment with respect to a means-end rationale. Respect for autonomy is grounded in a carefully developed action theory that takes into account such concepts as joint autonomy, implied consent, and the permissibility of interference with unethical behavior. It provides an account of responsibility that is both practical and theoretically satisfying, and it yields a novel solution of the much-discussed trolley car dilemmas. The book is written for a general audience and strives to be as readable and engaging as possible, while maintaining rigor. It begins by dispelling a raft of misconceptions that trivialize ethics and block its development as an essential tool of modern life, such as the notion that ethics is just a matter of opinion without rational foundation. After presenting the ethical principles just described, along with many examples, it provides several chapters that analyze real-life dilemmas, many obtained from the author's students and professional workshop participants. One cannot understand physics or chemistry without seeing how their principles are applied to real problems, and the same is true of ethics. These chapters demonstrate that a unified normative theory can deal with a wide range of real cases while achieving a reasonable level of objectivity and rigor. (shrink)

This is the first book devoted to an examination of Kant's lectures on ethics, which provide a unique and revealing perspective on the development of his views. In fifteen newly commissioned essays, leading Kant scholars discuss four sets of student notes reflecting different periods of Kant's career: those taken by Herder, Collins, Mrongovius and Vigilantius. The essays cover a diverse range of topics, from the relation between Kant's lectures and the Baumgarten textbooks, to obligation, virtue, love, the highest good, freedom, (...) the categorical imperative, moral motivation and religion. Together they provide the reader with a deeper and fuller understanding of the evolution of Kant's moral thought. The volume will be of interest to a range of readers in Kant studies, ethics, political philosophy, religious studies and the history of ideas. (shrink)

This book offers a new interpretation of William James's ethical and religious thought. Michael Slater shows that James's conception of morality, or what it means to lead a moral and flourishing life, is intimately tied to his conception of religious faith, and argues that James's views on these matters are worthy of our consideration. He offers a reassessment of James's 'will to believe' or 'right to believe' doctrine, his moral theory, and his neglected moral arguments for religious faith. And (...) he argues that James's pragmatic account of religion is based on an ethical view of the function of religion and a realist view of the objects of religious belief and experience, and is compatible with his larger conception of pragmatism. The book will appeal to readers interested in the history of modern philosophy, especially pragmatism, as well as those interested in moral philosophy, religion, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

This book stems from more than 30 years of experience in the development of practical law enforcement ethics training. It is written based on the real-world application of a wide variety of approaches to enhancing ethics awareness and decision-making skills. There has been an explosion of efforts to increase the emphasis on ethics in law enforcement. The most effective of these efforts involve our law enforcement officers themselves in (1) sharing ideas, experiences, and wisdom with each other and (2) (...) analyzing long-term consequences in a risk-free learning environment, before the need arises for making actual decisions or engaging in conduct. Accomplishing those objectives can be attempted with a variety of formats, presentations, and approaches. Instead of being shown how to “teach” ethics, readers will be given material and ideas on how to enhance existing ethics awareness and ethics skills with their personnel. Readers are provided with pointers on talking with staff, not “at” them, in order to foster awareness about how ethical values and standards to which they already subscribe apply in real-world law enforcement decision-making and conduct. A unique aspect of this text is that it is written primarily for line sergeants and lieutenants to use with their own in-service personnel. It contains material that is designed to be easy-to-present and non-intimidating. It is adaptable to briefings of limited duration as well as longer training sessions. There is substantial content to enable an agency to maintain an on-going program of recurrent, short-but-meaningful discussions with and among personnel. Most importantly, it is practical and down-to-earth–not theoretical or abstract. Also, the book is based on the belief that with a combination of interest and practice, any sergeant or lieutenant, or any officer or deputy, can overcome any self-perceived weakness and become an accomplished “ethics awareness discussion leader.” In addition to its primary audience, the book will also be a helpful resource for field-training officers, senior officers, non-sworn personnel, and law enforcement executives. (shrink)

More and more scholars are expressing their apprehensions regarding the current state of management education. The increased number of corporate scandals has fueled their concerns that training students to have sound business ethics upon graduation has failed. Consequently, research is emerging that focuses on the lack of impact that business ethics teaching has had on students in recent years. Remarkably, the voice of managers has barely been heard in this area, even though they are the ones who are among those (...) best suited to evaluate graduates’ capabilities to solve ethical dilemmas. This research presents the managers’ view on the role of business schools in training students in business ethics, and the managers’ evaluation of business schools’ success in that area. The findings reveal that managers are quite disappointed with the lack of improvement in the ethics of graduating students. Managers nonetheless provide a range of ideas for business schools to work on, and particularly, call for closer collaboration between industry and business schools. (shrink)

: A highly detailed application of Dewey's "dramatic rehearsal" to a particular ethical dilemma situation is developed here. This illustrates the role of moral imagination and creativity, and of self-discovery and self-transformation, within dramatic rehearsal. A primary concern is to show how decisions emerge through unification; what sorts of decisions emerge; how they can be evaluated; and whether the choices and evaluations accord with what is generally taken to be ethical/moral. Sartre's dilemma of a French student during World (...) War II—who is torn between staying with his mother who needed him and making his way to England to join the Free French Forces—provides the illustrative case. Using this case leads to a comparison of Dewey's and Sartre's approaches, and to a Deweyan reinterpretation and reconstruction of the process of decision in Sartre's early ethical theory. Criteria that Sartre, rightly, rejects as determinants of decision are shown to function in dramatic rehearsal as instruments for exploring the meanings of the dilemma. Sartre's analogy between making an ethical decision and creating a painting is explored in terms of Dewey's esthetic theory. This illuminates how dramatic rehearsal develops, and how it culminates in ethical decision. The idea that one makes oneself as one makes one's decision is shown to flow from the painting analogy, in both Sartre and Dewey. How this Deweyan account relates to Sartre's theory of radical choice is considered. Openings for the Deweyan perspective are sought in a brief exploration of Sartre's later ethical theories. (shrink)

Radical Thoughts on Ethical Leadership, provides contributions from established scholars with fresh perspectives on ethical leadership, with challenging viewpoints that have been given little coverage in the literature to date. Radical Thoughts on Ethical Leadership includes theoretical perspectives that are founded on unconventional approaches--radical, "outside the box" ideas that would be difficult to get through the conventional journal review process. The volume brings together noted researchers from a variety of disciplines and explore non-mainstream approaches to ethics (...) and social responsibility theory, research, and practice in both business and public administration. Grounded in the established literature and providing insight for researchers, managers/administrators, or organizations at large, the volume establishes new paradigms for the field of ethical leadership. (shrink)

This volume unites Peter Winch's previously unpublished work on Baruch de Spinoza. The primary source for the text is a series of seminars on Spinoza that Winch gave, first at the University of Swansea in 1982 and then at King's College London in 1989. What emerges is an original interpretation of Spinoza's work that demonstrates his continued relevance to contemporary issues in metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, and establishes connections to other philosophers - not only Spinoza's predecessors such as René Descartes, (...) but also important 20th Century philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Simone Weil. Alongside Winch's lectures, the volume contains an interpretive essay by David Cockburn, and an introduction by the editors. (shrink)

Environmental ethics tends to be dominated by the idea that the right environmental actions require a change in the value systems of many people. I argue that the “rebirth” approach is perverse in that moral attitudes are not easily changed by moral suasion. A properly ethical approach must begin where we are, as moderately moral people desiring the best for all. The real ethical problem is to develop procedures for collectively defining environmental ends that will be fair to (...) the parties participating in the decision process. This idea is essentially utilitarian, and depends on the maximization of expected social utility. This type of environmental ethics is contrasted with current theories of social choice in welfare economics and with Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness. (shrink)

_A comprehensive examination of Lacan’s seminar on ethics._.

In the paper, the topic of teaching ethics in schools in Poland according to the Core Curriculum is analyzed. The authors refer to the historical background of introducing Ethics into schools and controversies accompanying it. They also refer to some fundamental problems affecting the teaching of Ethics in Polish schools. The main focus of the article is the idea that most of the problems result from setting Ethics in opposition to Religion, which appears invalid as far as the curriculum is (...) concerned. Ethics should be an obligatory subject for all levels of education. The aim of the authors is not to exhaustively present all the problems that are making the teaching of Ethics in Poland difficult, but to present to the foreign reader the curriculum and a broad outline of the difficulties that teaching Ethics faces in Polish schools. (shrink)

Our research reveals that organizations are known as great work places due to their successful performance on certain areas. And, financing for such industries is profitable, where employees are happy and shareholders get highest rate of return for their investments. In our study, a few such organizations have been identified and selected for this article. For successful functioning of organizations, certain areas have been recognized as key performance areas. A corporate image can be measured and assessed, based on its creative (...) and innovative approach. We highlighted about ethics, what makes corporate ethics, involvement of corporation in social responsibilities, and how ethical governance needs to be framed. We also covered ideas, contributions, and suggestions made by various experts from different organizations. In the end, we included questions relating to ethics through which we can measure ethical performances. Finally, we concluded that if ethics are followed by every individual India will flourish in global market. (shrink)

The relationship between ethics and economics in the modern age is typically viewed as external. This view is usually articulated in the notion that for economic relations to be ethical, an ethic must be imposed. Otherwise, economic relations are amoral. I try to show how the relationship is actually best explained by adopting an explanatory framework of inter-dependent arising, according to which the emergence and development of both ethical and economic relations is a matter of mutual determination. (...) class='Hi'>Ethical values emerge in the course of developing economic relations and, in turn, direct or at least implicate economic relations. The consequences of such a view, however, are that exchange values inform moral concepts and moral concepts help frame economic ones. I offer an argument that starts with a description of an historical relationship between two disparate cultures. The interactions between these cultures were determined initially by trade and then military interests. These interests eventually underwent pressure to evolve into legal and even religiously informed arrangements that necessarily involved certain moral values. Using a presupposition analysis, I show how this evolution was no accident and did not depend on some agent imposing the moral values onto the relationship. Rather, those values arose as a matter of course. In conclusion, the paper advances the idea that, since the relationship between ethics and economics is internal, the ethics of economic relations needs to be formulated more in terms of understanding what economic relations are fundamentally designed to achieve. (shrink)

The concept of evil is one of the most powerful in our moral vocabulary, and is commonly used today in both religious and secular spheres to condemn ideas, people, their actions, and much else besides. Yet appeals to evil in public debate have often deepened existing conflicts, through corruption of rational discourse and demonization of the other. With its religious overtones and implied absolutism, the concept of evil seems ill-suited to advancing public discourse and pro-social relations in a liberal (...) democracy, as evidenced by its use in the abortion debate. International relations have also suffered from references to an ¿axis of evil.¿ Recently, however, philosophers have begun reconceptualising evil within a secular, moral framework, using the idea of evil as the worst kind of immorality to inform and shape our responses to issues like torture, genocide and rape as a weapon of war. This book continues this trend, exploring a constructive role for the concept of evil in practical ethics. Part I of the book begins with two examinations of the concept itself, one focusing primarily on its secular manifestations and the other on evil in its religious context. Individuals are perhaps the primary focus of attributions of evil, and Part II looks at two particular manifestations of evil, in bullying and in mass killing, before considering the nature of evil as an immoral character trait. Part III moves beyond the individual to issues of collective evildoing, evil environments, and political evil. The final part considers responses to evil: can some evil be unforgiveable, and to what extent should we ¿enhance¿ ourselves morally so as to prevent future evildoing? These essays, written by leading philosophers from around the world, including the late Claudia Card, will take the philosophical debate on moral evil in practical ethics to a new level. (shrink)

The study reported in this paper explored the ethical requirements of social research participants, an area where there is still little empirical research, by interviewing people who had participated in one of five recent social research studies. The findings endorse the conceptualization of informed consent as a process rather than a one-off event. Four different dynamics of decision-making were followed by participants in terms of the timing of decisions to participate and the information on which they were based. Multiple (...) information events were important, as was verbal as well as written information. Study participants reacted unfavourably to the idea of written consent. Although prior information was relevant to participant experience of the interview, what emerged more strongly as relevant was the behaviour of interviewers and the interviewing strategy used. The authors suggest that naturalistic, authentic approaches to information-giving are necessary, and that in scrutinizing them research ethics committees need to look not only at written information but also at verbal information giving, and how interviewer information-giving is supported by training and supervision. They suggest that committees also need to concern themselves more broadly with who will carry out interviews and the training, mentoring and monitoring in place to shape their conduct of interviews. In considering research instruments, research ethics committees need to consider not only whether interviewers will capture accurate and appropriate data but also whether they are likely to lead to a satisfactory interaction for participants. Given the impossibility of anticipating each individual participants information needs and their reaction to the interviewing strategy, the authors suggest that interviewers and participants need to be encouraged to negotiate the conduct of interviews jointly, and discuss how such negotiating roles might be supported. (shrink)

Ethics teachers are regularly confronted with disturbing cases brought in by medical students in class. These classes are considered confidential, so that everyone can speak freely about their experiences. But what should ethics teachers do when they hear about a situation they consider to be outright alarming, for example where patients/students’ safety is at stake or where systematic power abuse seems to be at hand? Should they remain neutral or should they step in and intervene? In the Netherlands, as in (...) many other countries, there are no clear guidelines for ethics teachers on how to respond. To get more insight into what teachers themselves think a proper response would be, we interviewed 18 Dutch medical ethics teachers. We found that Dutch ethics teachers will address the issue in class, but that they are overall reluctant to intervene; take action outside the scope of class. This reluctance is partly rooted in the conviction that ethicists should stay neutral and facilitate reflection, instead of telling students or physicians what to do. At the same time, this neutral position seems a difficult place to leave for those teachers who would want to or feel they need to. This has to do with various organizational and institutional constraints tied up with their position. The study invites medical ethics teachers to reflect on these constraints together and think about how to proceed from there. This study seeks to contribute to research on cultural change in medicine and medical students’ experiences of moral distress. (shrink)