It is commonly held that Kant ventured to derive morality from freedom in Groundwork III. It is also believed that he reversed this strategy in the second Critique, attempting to derive freedom from morality instead. In this paper, I set out to challenge these familiar assumptions: Kant’s argument in Groundwork III rests on a moral conception of the intelligible world, one that plays a similar role as the ‘fact of reason’ in the second Critique. Accordingly, I argue, there (...) is no reversal in the proof-structure of Kant’s two works. (shrink)

사람들의 행동은 대부분 어떠한 심리과정을 거친 후에 이루어진다고 할 수 있다. 도덕적 행동은 이러한 심리적 과정이 더욱 필요하다고 생각 되며, 가치 판단이 가장 대표적인 심리작용이라고 할 수 있다. 심리작용의 요소로 감정과 사고, 그리고 동기를 들 수 있다. 이러한 세 가지 요소에 초점을 맞춰, 정약용의 맹자에 대한 윤리관을 살펴보고자 한다. 맹자가 말하고 있는 도덕적 행동은 인간의 본성에서 비롯된다. 인간은 어떠한 상황에서도 도덕적 감정, 즉 사단을 느낄 수 있으며, 이러한 감정을 토대로 도덕적 행위를 결정할 수 있다는 것이다. 그리고 마음에서 어떠한 방향으로 행위를 (...) 결정하면, 이러한 행위를 끌고 갈 수 있는 기운, 즉 실천 에너지가 생기게 된다는 것이다. 정약용은 주희와는 달리 性을 嗜好로 보았다. 性이란 善을 좋아하고 惡을 싫어한다는 것이다. 이러한 性은 좋아하는 것을 추구하려고 하고 싫어하는 것을 회피하려고 하는 욕구라고 할 수 있다. 이러한 욕구가 실제로 드러나는 것이 사단이라는 감정이 된다. 사단은 善을 추구하려는 욕구를 지닌 개별적인 감정이라고 하겠다. 또 思란 ‘大體章’에서와 같이 미미할지라도 道心에서 나온 사단을 자각하고, 이를 기준으로 지각한 외부 대상이 大體에 이로운가를 판단하는 것이다. 정약용은 또 의지란 道心과 人心 모두에서 비롯될 수 있는 욕구로 보았다. 정약용의 견해대로『맹자』를 보게 되면, 도덕행동의 도출과정에서 개인의 도덕적 욕구가 주도적으로 관여한다고 할 수 있다. 이러한 점을 볼 때, 정약용은 형이상학에서 비롯된 권위에 도덕적 근거를 두는 윤리체계보다는, 개인이 자연스러운 도덕적 근거를 내재하고 있으며 이를 통하여 능동적으로 도덕적 주체가 될 수 있다고 하는『맹자』의 윤리관을 보다 더 잘 살린다고 할 수 있다. 또 이를 통하여『맹자』에서 윤리적 자아가 더욱 부각된다고 생각한다. (shrink)

It is often assumed that Fichte's aim in Part I of the System of Ethics is to provide a deduction of the moral law, the very thing that Kant – after years of unsuccessful attempts – deemed impossible. On this familiar reading, what Kant eventually viewed as an underivable 'fact' (Factum), the authority of the moral law, is what Fichte traces to its highest ground in what he calls the principle of the 'I'. However, scholars have largely overlooked a (...) passage in the System of Ethics where Fichte explicitly invokes Kant's doctrine of the fact of reason with approval, claiming that consciousness of the moral law grounds our belief in freedom (GA I/5:65). On the reading I defend, Fichte's invocation of the Factum is consistent with the structure of Part I when we distinguish (a) the feeling of moral compulsion from (b) the moral law itself. (shrink)

a recent paper, Fábio Perin Shecaira proposes a defence of Waller’s deductivist schema for moral analogical argumentation. This defence has several flaws, the most important of them being that many good analogical arguments would be deemed bad or deficient. Additionally, Shecaira misrepresents my alternative account as something in between deductivism and non-deductivism. This paper is both an attempt at solving this misunderstanding and an analysis and criticism of Waller and Shecaira’s forms of deductivism.

My aim is to demonstrate the specificities and differences between transcendental deduction of concepts and deduction of the fundamental principles of pure practical reason in Kant’s metaphysics. First of all it is necessary to examine Kant’s attitude to the metaphysics of his time and the problem of its new justification. Kant in his philosophy explicated not only the theoretical world of cognition, but also the practical world of freedom. Accordingly, the fundamental means of proving metaphysics’ claims are the (...) deduction of pure concepts of understanding and the deduction of the principles of pure practical reason. The underlying premises of the Kantian project of reviving metaphysics, “the Copernican Turn”, the critical methods and basic principles of transcendental idealism also provide the methodological basis of transcendental deduction, a new method of proving the claims of metaphysics in various spheres of human being. Proceeding from the above, I analyse the essence, structure and the peculiarities as well as the differences between the deduction of experience and the deduction of freedom. I single out the following features of the two types of deduction. First, theoretical use of reason is aimed at objects while practical reason is aimed at noumena, the foundations of will and freedom. Second, the transcendental deduction of space and time, as well as the deduction of categories, is preceded by transcendental reduction, which is absent in the deduction of freedom. Third, Kant orients the methodological movement of deductions in opposite directions. Theoretical deduction proceeds from pure forms of sensible intuition to concepts of understanding and thence to fundamental principles. Practical deduction proceeds from a priori principles to the concepts of the metaphysics of morals and thence to moral feelings. Fourth, deduction in the theoretical sphere forbids speculative reason to go beyond experience. Practical deduction has pointed to the intelligible world and has proved its “legitimacy”. (shrink)

This work offers a new understanding of Kant on the freedom of the will. Voeller looks in detail at the _Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals_ and the _Critique_ _of Practical Reason_ against the background of Kant's critical philosophy as a whole.

ABSTRACTThis essay is a translation of one of Salomon Maimon’s ethical writings, accompanied by a brief introduction. In it, Maimon proposes a correction of the Kantian moral principle of duty, as it is articulated both by Kant’s Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals and his Critique of Practical Reason. In particular, Maimon’s essay reveals the influence of Reinhold’s critique of Kant’s moral philosophy, especially regarding the role of incentives behind moral action. It reveals as well Maimon’s commitment to the primacy (...) of the theoretical over the practical, drawn from his reading of Maimonides and Spinoza. The essay, therefore, marks an important moment in the development of Maimon’s assimilation of Kantian philosophy, one often neglected in scholarship on his work. (shrink)

How is moral knowledge possible? This paper defends the anti-Humean thesis that we can acquire moral knowledge by deduction from wholly non-moral premises. According to Hume’s Law, as it has become known, we cannot deduce an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, since it is “altogether inconceivable how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it” (Hume, 1739, 3.1.1). This paper explores the prospects for a deductive theory of moral knowledge that rejects Hume’s (...) Law. (shrink)

Our paper addresses the problem of a two-fold approach to skeptical inferences in the context non-monotonic logics. We tackle the problem through the analysis of ambiguous theories, such as the Nixon Diamond, as instantiated in non-monotonic inheritance networks, and the notion of an extension. Our paper presents a detailed description of the inner mechanisms underlying both approaches to skeptical inference, i.e. direct and indirect skepticism, and how each information processing policy is applied to ambiguous networks like the Nixon Diamond. Finally, (...) we discuss the extent and limitation of each approach, and we propose an alternative stance towards the existence of diverging implementations to skeptical inferences in non-monotonic reasoning. (shrink)

Critics of marcus singer's deduction of the generalization argument from the principle of consequences and the generalization principle ("generalization in ethics," page 66) insist that his use of "everyone" in that deduction is ambiguous, I.E., "everyone" is used both collectively and distributively, And that the deduction is invalid. In this paper, I provide a valid deduction of the generalization argument from those premises which avoids this difficulty entirely. I argue that the conclusion so deduced is logically (...) and morally equivalent to singer's. (shrink)

In the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant presents the moral law as the sole ‘fact of pure reason’ that neither needs nor admits of a deduction to establish its authority. This claim may come as a surprise to many readers of his earlier Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. In the last section of the Groundwork, Kant seemed to offer a sketch of just such a ‘deduction of the supreme principle of morality’ . Although notoriously obscure, this (...) sketch shows that Kant hoped to base the moral law in the freedom that rational agents can claim as members of the ‘intelligible world’ that transcendental idealism makes available to us. In contrast, the second Critique abandons all aspirations of deriving morality from more basic notions of freedom and practical rationality. (shrink)

From Groundwork for the metaphysics of morals and Critique of practical reason, we can deduce Kant's interpretation of the concept of freedom, which has undergone a change from practical freedom to transcendental freedom, and the deduction of freedom has been perfected, the rational facts have been put forward to provide the basis of free deduction. The reason for the change is that freedom as the basis of theoretical practice is assumed and predetermined, how the cause and effect of (...) freedom as will may not be explained, and the nature of freedom is not defined clearly, the legitimacy and authority of the moral law is not established. After the transformation, the problem was solved. Although rigour raises questions about the universality of Kant’s moral law, Onora Sylvia O’Neill and others argue that Kant’s moral law is a product of virtue ethics, not a normative ethic, Kant's moral law still can instruct us in ethical life. (shrink)

This book examines the foundations of morality and criticizes various philosophical justifications that have been offered for basic moral principles or values throughout the years. This book introduces and defends what is designed to be a sure justification for a natural morality and its basic moral principles.

In this paper, I examine the place of the principles “ought implies can” (OIC) and “you can because you ought” (CBO) in Kant’s moral philosophy. Contrary to an often tacit assumption in the relevant literature, according to which CBO is simply a version of OIC, I argue that it is a separate principle, which has a central role in Kant’s attempt to justify morality and freedom on the basis of the consciousness of the moral law as a “fact of (...) reason”. Crucial to my main argument is the somewhat neglected distinction between actuality and reality of freedom, which leads me to a differentiation within CBO itself. This differentiation is of particular importance for understanding in what the deduction of freedom in the second _Critique_ consists. (shrink)

Fichte’s ambitious project in the Foundations of Natural Right is to provide an a priori deduction of the concept of right independently from morality. So far, interpretations of Fichte’s deduction of the concept of right have persistently fallen into one of two rough categories: either they (re)interpret the normative necessity of right in terms of moral or quasi-moral normativity or they interpret right’s normative necessity in terms of hypothetical imperatives. However, each of these interpretations faces significant exegetical (...) difficulties. By contrast, I argue that we can understand the normative necessity of right in terms of conceptual necessity. On this view, right does not tell us what ought to be done, but instead tells us what we are doing and have done. Not only does this provide for a promising philosophical account of the non-moral normativity of right, but also provides a compelling reading of Fichte’s text in both the deduction of the concept of right in the Foundations of Natural Right as well as his discussion of the application of the concept of right and coercion. (shrink)

This paper uses a distinction drawn from the Kantian legal theorist Paul Johann Anselm Feuerbach to categorize two approaches to analysing the concept of right, each of which is represented by vari...

The organizational climate is the work environment conceived by emotions and motivation of an organization and, an optimal way of increasing participation is with working groups in the dependencies to improve: objectives, processes, conflicts, leadership. Thus the objective was to determine the characterization of variables. The method incorporates the quantitative approach, non -experimental design, descriptive level, applied and transversal type, analysis and deductive methods. The results show, there is a high organizational climate level, due to the contribution of three dimensions (...) or aspects that are: economic conditions, management values and organizational policies. (shrink)

Neither strict deduction nor high expectability is a necessary condition for historical explanation. Explanations that separate history from mere narrative are necessary, but deduction from causes is not a priori the only source. Explanations in terms of reasons, emotions, and motives of actors are essential and are satisfactory when an agent's reason for an action is made convincing and believable. The principle of action must make evident the appeal of some human good in the action with which we (...) can empathize or which is rationally understandable; there is an intimate connection between historical explanation and moral evaluation. The alternative account of historical explanation sacrifices the simplicity of the deductive model but gains several advantages in exchange, including greater descriptive fidelity to actual historical explanations. (shrink)

While Kant’s claim that the moral law discloses our freedom to us has been extensively discussed in recent decades, the reactions to this claim among Kant’s immediate successors have gone largely overlooked by scholars. Reinhold, Creuzer, and Maimon were among three prominent thinkers of the era unwilling to follow Kant in making the moral law the condition for knowing our freedom. Maimon went so far as to reject Kant’s method of appealing to our everyday awareness of duty on the grounds (...) that common human understanding is susceptible to error and illusion. In this paper I shall examine how these skeptical reactions to Kant’s position shaped the background for Fichte’s method of moral justification, leading up to his own deduction of the moral law in the System of Ethics. By way of conclusion, I shall propose a new interpretation of how consciousness of the moral law serves as an entry-point to Fichte’s form of idealism. (shrink)

In his time, D. Hume made an observation that essentially predetermined the nature of subsequent ethics research. "In every system of morality that I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked," he wrote in A Treatise of Human Nature, "that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when of a sudden I am surprised to find that instead of the usual (...) copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. … A reason should be given for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason."1 The obvious meaning of this statement is that the imperative nature of moral language cannot be considered an adequate expression of the essence of morality; rather, it conceals the erroneousness of its epistemologized schemes of explanation. The accuracy of such an interpretation of the excerpt, even if it were questionable on the basis of its literal meaning, raises no doubt in the general context of Hume's own ethics where morality is identified with a special moral sense-a sense of sympathy that can be revealed effectively without the compelling force of duty. By some strange logic, ethics after Hume turned his warning into a positive program and saw its task as laying bare the concept of the moral "ought" and trying to find a transition from "is" to "ought." These persistent and multifaceted efforts, which enriched the theory of ethics in many ways, nevertheless did not achieve their immediate goal. The question arises, then, whether the negative result was not predetermined by an improper formulation of the problem itself that arose from the assumption that the specific nature of morality is connected with its imperativeness. (shrink)

In the first ever commentary on the Groundwork, one of Kant’s earliest critics, Gottlob August Tittel, argues that the categorical imperative is not a new principle of morality, but merely a new formula. This objection has been unjustly neglected in the secondary literature, despite the fact that Kant explicitly responds to it in a footnote in the second Critique. In this paper I seek to offer a thorough explanation of both Tittel’s ‘new formula’ objection and Kant’s response to it, (...) as well as illustrate its significance. I argue that the objection is in fact the third step in a line of argument that Tittel presents in his commentary, and that the objection is best understood within this context. I analyze Kant’s response in the second Critique footnote line-by-line so as to show that Kant both clarifies that it was never his aim to offer a new principle, but only ‘establish’ the principle that common human reason already implicitly employs. Furthermore, I show that Kant uses the opportunity to clarify the sense in which the categorical imperative is a ‘formula [Formel]’, namely as a representation of a complicated and abstract principle, like the moral law, in a way that is easier to understand and apply. I conclude by illustrating the fourth step in Tittel’s line of argument, which makes the overall significance of the ‘new formula’ objection clear: for Tittel, the problem is not that Kant seems to be offering merely a new formula, but that the categorical imperative lacks a foundation. (shrink)

Let me begin with a stylized contrast between two ways of thinking about morality. On the one hand, morality can be understood as the dictate of, or uncovered by, impartial reason. That which is (truly) moral must be capable of being verified by everyone’s reasoning from a suitably impartial perspective. If we are to respect the free and equal nature of each person, each must (in some sense) rationally validate the requirements of morality. If we take this (...) view, the genuine requirements of morality are a matter of rational reflection and self-imposed law. For Kant it seemed to be a matter of reflection by a rational individual, testing the impartiality of his maxims. For Rousseau, who was an important influence on Kant, under the proper conditions collective deliberation could yield impartial rules of justice that are willed by all. From another point of view moralities are social facts with histories. The heroes of this tradition are Hume, Ferguson and, perhaps surprisingly given his “deductive” method, Hobbes. The moral codes — or if “code” implies too much systematization, moral “practices” — we have ended up with are, to some extent, a matter of chance. This is by no means to say that morality is entirely arbitrary, but it does contain a significant arbitrary element. The morality we have ended up with is path-dependent: only because our moral codes have started somewhere, and have changed in response to unanticipated events, can we explain why we ended up where we have, and different societies end up in different places. The proponents of each view typically seek to discredit the other. Those who conceive of morality as the demand of impartial reason often insist the evolutionists confuse “positive morality” (the moral code that people actually follow) with justified (or true) morality, which is revealed by impartial reason. The positive morality that has evolved is simply what people think is morality, not what really is morality.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 564-565 [Access article in PDF] Samuel J. Kerstein. Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. xiv + 226. Cloth, $60.00. Summed up in a sentence, this book is both a critical examination of Kant's claim to have derived a supreme moral principle and a limited defense of Kant's project that appears to (...) depart significantly from Kant's own approach. Methodologically, a large portion of this book is devoted to analyzing various key concepts and claims about the nature of the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason and testing them against "everyday" moral intuitions via numerous examples and counterexamples.Kerstein begins by distinguishing between the tasks of deduction and derivation of a supreme moral principle, whereby a deduction is understood as an argument for the existence of a supreme moral principle, and a derivation simply assumes this conditionally and goes on to argue that a particular principle and no other can claim the title. Kerstein waives the discussion of whether Kant succeeds in giving a deduction and hence satisfactorily refutes moral skepticism. His focus in the book is on the derivation proposed primarily in Groundwork I and II that if there is a supreme moral principle, then it must be that law expressed in his formulations of the Categorical Imperative (hereafter "CI"). Kerstein addresses Bruce Aune's "traditional" reading of Kant's derivation, wherein the argument utterly fails because Kant allegedly infers a relatively substantive command ("Act only on that maxim which you can at the same time will to be universal law") from a purely formal, higher order, and hence relatively empty one ("Conform your actions to universal law"). He then devotes a chapter each to two recent, influential defenses of Kant's derivation that seek his argument outside the Groundwork. Kerstein addresses Henry Allison's attempt to rescue the derivation via an account of agency rooted in Kant's notion of transcendental freedom, elaborated in the second Critique. Kerstein rejects Allison's reconstruction on the grounds that it remains too abstract to generate the degree of specificity arrived at in Kant's Groundwork universalization formulation. Chapter Three examines Christine Korsgaard's alternative reconstruction of Kant's argument that focuses on the formulation of humanity ("Act so as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of any other, always as an end and never as a means only"). He rejects her interpretation because, again, the move from the abstract command to conform to universal law to the substantive formulation about humanity as a universally recognizable unconditional good fails. From the former, more abstract claim, he argues, it does not follow that there is a universally recognizable unconditional good, let alone that this good is humanity in itself (and not, say, utility [happiness], or even some intrinsic value unrelated to humanity, both of which Kant rejects as candidates for the unconditionally good).In his own reconstruction, Kerstein dissolves the criticism of the traditional reading of Kant's Groundwork derivation of the formula of universal law by simply denying that Kant [End Page 564] argues directly from the more generic principle to the specific versions of the CI (91ff). Instead he suggests that Kant's argument is less direct, made by way of laying out a set of criteria that any supreme principle must meet, and showing how the CI meets them while no other candidates can. In the second half of the book he takes a painstaking and critical look at a total of eight criteria, each of which Kant holds to be necessary and together are jointly sufficient for establishing the CI as "the supreme norm for the evaluation of the moral permissability and requiredness of an action, but not of its moral value" (165). This statement includes Kerstein's most controversial and interesting reconstructive claim, namely his denial that moral worth attaches only to actions done in accordance with duty as determined by the test... (shrink)

Moral resilience is an emerging concept that has not been fully acknowledged. The aim of this study is to explain lived experiences of moral resilience in intensive care units nurses. This is a qualitative study with a content analysis approach guided by the method of Elo and Kyngäs and based on the theoretical framework of Defilippis et al. Data were collected through 17 in‐depth, individual, and semi‐structured interviews with 17 nurses, who were selected by purposeful sampling. The results of the (...) present study support the theory of Defilippis et al. while adding another category to it. Three categories of self‐awareness, harmonized connection, and moral well‐being, which are consistent with the result of Defilippis et al. were extracted deductively, while the category of moral agency was also extracted inductively from the data. The explanatory theory resulting from Defilippis et al.'s study can be used as a guide to cultivate and improve the moral resilience of nurses working in intensive care units. Moral resilience is fostered in nurses by nurturing and improving their capacities, such as self‐awareness, self‐efficacy, self‐confidence, and self‐reflection. These traits can help maintain and promote moral agency while establishing harmonized connections. Acquiring moral resilience skills can lead to positive outcomes and reduced moral distress. (shrink)

The paper in general investigates Kant’s transcendental theory of moral psychology in its relation to Sellarsian characterization of origin of normativity with respect to the preconditions of a complete conception of humans and their actions. The complete conception of humans and their actions is a conception in which we are able to account for free human in general and for his free will in particular in accordance with the natural law. I argue that Sellars’ manifest and scientific images of a (...) person on the one hand and Kant’s empirical and intelligible character on the other hand has similar accounts for acquiring the knowledge of the source of our normative assessments. In both it is considered that manifest or empirical conception of a person within nature in general fails to provide a deductive procedure from which one can derive the complete conception of a person as a free being in itself. I further argue that any set of procedure for identifying the source of normativity and of our normative assessments cannot be provided from an ontologically oriented perspective in which we aim at establishing a naturalistic model of normativity- a model where accurate descriptions and true explanations of causal relations in the world of appearances can allow us to make sense the blameworthiness of the moral agent as the normative force applied on his actions. (shrink)

Background: Nurses are expected to provide comprehensive, holistic and ethically accepted care according to their code of ethics and practice. However, in Malawi, this is not always the case. This article analyses moral competence concept using the Walker and Avant's strategy of concept analysis. Objective: The aim of this article is to analyse moral competence concept in relation to nursing practice and determine defining attributes, antecedents and consequences of moral competence in nursing practice. Method: Analysis of moral competence concept was (...) done using Walker and Avant's strategy of concept analysis. Results: Deductive analysis was used to find the defining attributes of moral competence, which were kindness, compassion, caring, critical thinking, ethical decision making ability, problem solving, responsibility, discipline, accountability, communication, solidarity, honesty, and respect for human values, dignity and rights. The identified antecedents were personal, cultural and religious values; nursing ethics training, environment and guidance. The consequences of moral competence are team work spirit, effective communication, improved performance and positive attitudes in providing nursing care. Conclusion: Moral competence can therefore be used as a tool to improve care in nursing practice to meet patients' problems and needs and consequently increase public's satisfaction in Malawi. (shrink)

This new addition to the series New Studies in Practical Philosophy edited by W. D. Hudson is a study of deontic moral judgment, in particular of moral concepts which embody standards for the assessment of claims to right or wrong actions. Three main theses are quite clearly stated. The first thesis concerns the distinctive character of the moral point of view which is irreducible to either logical or factual considerations. The second thesis is that moral judgments claim interpersonal validity in (...) the sense that the speaker makes the implicit claim that every reflective agent who considers the judgment "ought to agree" with the judgment as a correct one. The third thesis pertains to the moral disagreement. It is maintained that moral disagreements are "in principle" decidable, not by way of deductive subsumption under the criteria governing the uses of moral concepts, but by a method of inquiry analogous to that of scientific inquiry involving the use of hypothesis. The author acknowledges his debt to Arthur Prior, J. Kovesi, and M. Polanyi. The book is good in raising questions on the relation between moral inquiry and scientific inquiry, the significance of the open texture of moral terms and its relation to ethical argumentation, and the problem of reconciling differences of moral beliefs in the setting of their connection with nonmoral beliefs.—A. S. C. (shrink)

Background Encounters of moral distress have long-term consequences on healthcare workers’ physical and mental health, leading to job dissatisfaction, reduced patient care, and high levels of burnout, exhaustion, and intentions to quit. Yet, research on approaches to ameliorate moral distress across the health workforce is limited. Research Objective The aim of our study was to qualitatively explore multi-professional perspectives of healthcare social workers, chaplains, and patient liaisons on ways to reduce moral distress and heighten well-being at a southern U.S. academic (...) medical center. Participants & Research Context Purposive sampling and chain-referral methods assisted with recruitment through hospital listservs, staff meetings, and newsletters. Interested participants contacted the principal investigator and all interviews were conducted in-person. Consent was attained prior to interviews. All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Research Design Directed content analysis was used to deductively organize codes and to develop themes in conjunction with the National Academy of Medicine’s National Plan for Health Workforce Well-Being. Rigor was attained through peer-debriefing, data triangulation methods, and frequent research team meetings. Ethical Considerations Ethics approval was obtained from the university and medical center institutional review boards. Findings Themes demonstrate that rather than offering interventions in the aftermath of moral distress, multilevel daily practices ought to be considered that pre-emptively identify and reduce morally distressing encounters through (1) the care team, (2) management and leadership, and (3) the health care industry. Strategies include interdisciplinary decision-making, trusting managerial relationships, and organizational policies and practices that explicitly invest in mental health promotion and diverse leadership opportunities. Conclusion Moral distress interventions ought to target short-term stress reactions while also addressing the long-term impacts of moral residue. Health systems must financially commit to an ethical workplace culture that explicitly values mental health and well-being. (shrink)

How do we determine whether an action is right or wrong? Until recently, philosophers assumed that this question could be answered by means of a theory of morality, which set forth clearly established rules for moral behaviour. More recently, however, a number of philosophers have challenged a theory of morality in this sense. Porter is sympathetic to their criticisms but questions whether they go far enough in offering a positive alternative to a modern view of the moral act. (...) She argues that the work of Aquinas offers an alternative account of moral rationality, in terms of which moral reasoning is understood as dialectical rather than deductive, and questions are resolved in a wider context of ethical thought. Aquinas's account of the moral virtues and prudence is seen to offer unexpected insights into the relationship between moral rules and the practice of the virtues, thus contributing to our own moral reflection. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to describe the synthesis of the concept of moral stress and to attempt to identify its preconditions. Qualitative data from two independent studies on professional issues in nursing were analysed from a hypothetical-deductive approach. The findings indicate that moral stress is independent of context-given specific preconditions: (1) nurses are morally sensitive to the patient’s vulnerability; (2) nurses experience external factors preventing them from doing what is best for the patient; and (3) nurses feel that (...) they have no control over the specific situation. The findings from this analysis are supported by recent research on stress in the workplace but differ in that the imperatives directing work are moral in nature. Stress researchers have found that persons who experience that they have no control over their work situation and at the same time experience high demands may be prone to cardiovascular diseases. An important question raised by this study is whether moral stress should be recognized as a health risk in nursing. Further research is required in order to generate intervention models to prevent or deal with moral stress. (shrink)

Examines the nature of moral argument and how arguments might be brought to a conclusion. It is argued that moral reasoning is a kind of exploration akin to Karl Popper's concept of deduction; the only inferences that take place are deductive. This approach allows for the defence of the neutrality of ethics, which appears to be ruled out by its practical relevance. It lays the ground for the possibility of moral reasoning in terms of moral rules, corresponding to prescriptivity (...) and universalizability. These are taken to task in the context of a concrete example of a moral conflict. (shrink)

Kant's preface: The metaphysics of morals and the strategy of the groundwork -- Of the groundwork: the good will, duty, and the derivation of the categorical imperative -- Of the groundwork: practical reason, imperatives, and their formulas -- Of the groundwork: the deduction of the categorical imperative.

In a central variant, moral fictionalism is the view that we should replace moral belief with make-believe, that is, be disposed to accept some moral propositions in everyday contexts and to reject all such propositions in more critical circumstances. It is said by its opponents to face three significant problems: in contrast with a real morality, a fictional morality would not allow for deductive inferences; moral make-believe would lack the motivational force that is typical of moral belief; and (...) moral make-believers could not genuinely disagree with one another about ethical matters nor, consequently, articulate their practical conflicts in moral terms. This chapter argues that all three objections rest on a misconception of the kind of attitudes recommended by fictionalism. Once misleading analogies are dismissed and the nature of moral make-believe is clarified, it becomes clear that a fictional morality would preserve deductive inference, moral motivation, and ethical disagreement. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 108 Heft: 1 Seiten: 55-88.

Kant's well-known statement from the “Critique of Practical Reason” (§ 7) that the consciousness of the basic law of pure practical reason (or the customary/moral law) can be called a fact of reason (V, 31.24) has not yet become the subject of adequate attention of domestic researchers. In the “Critique of Practical Reason”, Kant justify his famous categorical imperative by appealing to the “fact of reason” (§ 7). A closer reading of this passage reveals that it refers to a “fundamental (...) law of pure practical reason” and its “consciousness” is called “a fact of reason”. It is likely to think that Kant makes a “naturalistic fallacy” when he tries to justify “ought” (law) from “is” (fact). An analysis of the broader context of the use of the term “fact”, which occurs in the Critique in general 11 times, proves that its denotation is a moral law, which is explained in the corresponding train of thought. A special problem of interpretation is the explanation of the genitive in the expression “a fact of reason” [ein Factum der Vernunft]. It is common to read it as genitivus subjectivus (the fact is a product (act) of the reason, the fact arises thanks to the reason) and as genitivus objectivus (the reason itself is a fact, something factual). But from the standpoint of modern studies of Kant its reading as genitivus auctoris (Willaschek, Wolff, Noller) is promising. Kant’s specific use of the Latin form “ein Factum” in other works, which has the meaning not of “fact”, but of “imputable act” also, testifies in favor of this. Starting with Dieter Heinrich’s article “The Concept of Moral Insight and Kant’s Doctrine of the Fact of Reason” (1960), many researchers interpret the thesis of the “fact of reason” as Kant’s rejection of the attempt at the deduction of moral insight in the “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Moral” (1785). However, as modern studies (Riedel, Wolff) show, this interpretation is not convincing enough. There are sufficient reasons to believe that it is Kant’s moral and legal doctrine of imputatio facti can explicate an enigmatic passage of the II Critique. (shrink)

The primary aim of this work on Hobbes is to present a new construction of his moral and political views. I argue for a reading of the text which dramatically recasts his theory as a deontological contractarianism rather than a consequentialist contractarianism. This reading of the text pays serious attention to Hobbes's usually neglected rejection of prudential calculation and his commitment to the method of Reason which he explains as what we would now call analytical deduction from the meaning (...) of words. ;I argue for the centrality of three theses: that obligation arises from assent, that there is always an obligation to obey the Laws of Nature, and that one is obliged to obey one's sovereign. In explicating Hobbes's theory I present a more complex picture of the authorization of the sovereign than is standardly given in the accounts that characterize the sovereign as the third party beneficiary of a contract between individuals in the State of Nature. Instead, my complex account depicts the sovereign as a duty bound contractor with obligations to the commonwealth. Furthermore, I contend that Hobbes's distinction between the natural and the artificial can be seen to organize and explain important elements in his view. ;Parts 3 and 4 of Leviathan, where Hobbes discusses the obligation of Christian citizens to their civil sovereign and the supposed powers of the Kingdom of Darkness, are then used as a test for verifying the coherence and validity of my novel interpretation. Because my reading of the first two parts of Leviathan conforms with the ideas and method presented in parts 3 and 4, I conclude that the deontic reading, and not the egoist reading, best captures Hobbes's intended meaning. I then go on to defend my interpretation against today's most prominant advocates of the egoist readings, Gauthier, Hampton and Kavka. ;In the final chapter of this work I present three arguments on currently important moral questions: benevolence, infidelity, and abortion. These arguments, which all employ what I have shown to be the Hobbesian approach, show the usefulness of Hobbes's theory in addressing contemporary questions of ethics. (shrink)

As the interesting title of this work indicates, its author is concerned less with Kant’s theory of morality, with its account of freedom, the possibility of pure reason being practical, and the deduction of the moral law, than he is with Kant’s Sittenlehre, or the account of the moral law as applied, moral judgment, and the substantive, derived duties of justice and virtue. Accordingly, he concentrates almost exclusively on two texts. The first four chapters are a commentary on (...) and assessment of the three chapters of the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, and his last two chapters deal with the two main sections of the Metaphysics of Morals. Other important texts of Kant’s moral theory are dealt with, as he says, en passant, and some are not dealt with at all. This approach has the virtue of focusing attention on perhaps the central Kantian moral problem: the nature of the transition from pure moral principles to "morals." It has the defect of being bound in too restrictive a way to the Groundwork as an expression of Kant’s general moral theory. There is no discussion of the synthetic or "regressive" methodology of that work, an approach which Kant realized aided its popular appeal, but greatly limited its theoretical adequacy, nor of the well known revisions Kant made in his moral theory, especially his account of freedom, by 1788. However, the author admits that he did not intend to write a book "directed specifically to Kant scholars." Instead, he tries to keep his discussion of textual interpretation minimal, always tries to present Kant’s arguments in a "contemporary idiom," refers only to English translations, infrequently to the Kant literature, and then only to English language literature. (shrink)

In his book Moralna spoznaja Baccarini argues that, with respect to the individual reasoning about morality, the method of reflective equilibrium is the appropriate method of moral reasoning. The starting point of my argument is Baccarini’s refutation of Hare’s view. As I see it, one of Baccarini’s central arguments against Hare consists in claiming that Hare’s approach to the amoralist objection weakens the deductive model of moral reasoning. I argue that the amoralist objection also posses a threat to the (...) method of reflective equilibrium. At the end of the paper, I consider another view of moral reasoning which, in my view, is better suited to deal with the amoralist objection. (shrink)

In this article I discuss some aspects of prima facie statements and compare them with some deductive properties of moral rules. The conclusion I draw is in the sense of a re-evaluation of some aspects of moral intuitionism, which seems essential to the concepts of moral imagination and moral education.

In this paper I examine the question of whether ethicists are moral experts. I call people moral experts if their moral judgments are correct with high probability and for the right reasons. I defend three theses, while developing a version of the coherence theory of moral justification based on the differences between moral and nonmoral experience: The answer to the question of whether there are moral experts depends on the answer to the question of how to justify moral judgments. Deductivism (...) and the coherence theory both provide some support for the opinion that moral experts exist in some way. I maintain – within the framework of a certain kind of coherence theory – that moral philosophers are 'semi-experts'. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the particularist attack on deductive uses of moral principles, reviewing the critiques of the uniformity of moral reasons and impartiality in ethics, looking principally at arguments from Larry Blum, Jonathan Dancy, and Margaret Walker. I defend the action-guiding-ness of moral principles themselves, but consider various ways to accommodate the objections coming fromparticularism. I conclude that one objection to the impartialist theory of value must be conceded without qualification: generalism is unable to account for the unique (...) and irreplaceable value of individual persons. I present an example which supports my view andshows that, in the context of lived experience, replaceability is contradicted. Indeed there may be few constants of value in the narrative of one’s life, as experiences overlay supposed constants with continual new shading, and create even deeper sorts of transformation in valuing. In the end, both particularized moral judgment and the articulation of fact with principle contribute to moral discernment. (shrink)

In the central chapters of Leviathan, Hobbes offers a demonstration of the "true doctrine of the laws of nature," which is identified with the "science of virtue andvice" and the "true moral philosophy." In his deduction of the laws of nature, Hobbes attempts to mimic the science of geometry, which he says is the "only science God had hitherto bestowed on mankind. "In this paper, I discuss some of the problems associated with Hobbes's application of the method of geometry (...) to civil philosophy. After locating the root of these problems in Hobbes's in ability to recognize the distinction between formal and applied sciences, I discuss a possible solution. According to this solution, Hobbes's "science of morality" is considered to be a formal science that is applied to the world by an act of human creation. (shrink)