scholarly journals For the Common Good

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex John London
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
The Common ◽  
Study Participants

The foundations of research ethics are riven with fault lines emanating from a fear that if research is too closely connected to weighty social purposes an imperative to advance the common good through research will justify abrogating the rights and welfare of study participants. The result is an impoverished conception of the nature of research, an incomplete focus on actors who bear important moral responsibilities, and a system of ethics and oversight highly attuned to the dangers of research but largely silent about threats of ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable medical practices and health systems. In For the Common Good: Philosophical Foundations of Research Ethics, Alex John London defends a conception of the common good that grounds a moral imperative with two requirements. The first is to promote research that generates the information necessary to enable key social institutions to effectively, efficiently, and equitably safeguard the basic interests of individuals. The second is to ensure that research is organized as a voluntary scheme of social cooperation that respects its various contributors’ moral claims to be treated as free and equal. Connecting research to the goals of a just social order grounds a framework for assessing and managing research risk that reconciles these requirements and justifies key oversight practices in non-paternalistic terms. Reconceiving research ethics as resolving coordination problems and providing credible assurance that these requirements are being met expands the issues and actors that fall within the purview of the field and provides the foundation for a more unified and coherent approach to domestic and international research.

scholarly journals Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Alex John London
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Social Order ◽  
International Research ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Moral Claim ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Community Members ◽  
The Common ◽  
Managing Risk

This chapter provides an overview of the main arguments in the book. It outlines eight problematic commitments that cause fault lines in the foundations of research ethics and that are rejected in subsequent chapters. It then shows how a conception of the common good connects research to the ability of key social institutions to safeguard the basic interests of community members. The resulting view grounds an imperative to promote research of a certain kind, while requiring that those efforts be organized as a voluntary scheme of social cooperation that respects its various contributors’ moral claim to be treated as free and equal. A framework for assessing and managing risk is proposed that can reconcile these goals and it is argued that connecting research to larger requirements of a just social order expands the issues and actors that fall under the purview of the field while providing a more coherent and unified foundation for domestic and international research.

scholarly journals The Common Good and the Egalitarian Research Imperative

2021 ◽  
pp. 117-174
Author(s):  
Alex John London
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Moral Claim ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Community Members ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Common ◽  
Central Claim

This chapter distinguishes two conceptions of the common good and argues that reluctance to embrace a research imperative grounded in the corporate conception of the common good is sound. In contrast, it is argued that the basic or generic interest conception of the common good grounds an imperative with two requirements: to carry out research that produces the information necessary to enable a community’s basic social systems to efficiently and equitably advance the basic interests of its members and to ensure that this activity is organized as a voluntary scheme of social cooperation that respects the moral claim of its constituent members to be treated as free and equal. A central claim of this chapter is that an imperative to improve the capacity of social institutions to secure the interests of community members can be reconciled with fundamental moral respect for the status of the individuals who make such progress possible.

Confucian Criticisms of Catholicism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Baker ◽  
Franklin Rausch
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Beliefs And Values ◽  
The Common ◽  
Confucian Moral

This chapter focuses on the Neo-Confucian moral and philosophical foundations for rejecting Catholic beliefs and values as idan, meaning unacceptable. It argues that, in mainstream Neo-Confucian eyes, Catholicism was unacceptable because it was not Chinese and it promoted beliefs that appear to Confucians to be unreasonable. But, more important, Catholicism appeared to focus on such selfish concerns as individual salvation rather than the common good and therefore it was, by Confucian criterion, immoral.

A Failure of Modernization: Police Reform, The “Common Good,” and Serfdom In Eighteenth-Century Russia

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-271
Author(s):  
Hugh D. Hudson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Creation

For Russian subjects not locked away in their villages and thereby subject almost exclusively to landlord control, administration in the eighteenth century increasingly took the form of the police. And as part of the bureaucracy of governance, the police existed within the constructions of the social order—as part of social relations and their manifestations through political control. This article investigates the social and mental structures—the habitus—in which the actions of policing took place to provide a better appreciation of the difficulties of reform and modernization. Eighteenth-century Russia shared in the European discourse on the common good, the police, and social order. But whereas Michel Foucault and Michael Ignatieff see police development in Europe with its concern to surveil and discipline emerging from incipient capitalism and thus a product of new, post-Enlightenment social forces, the Russian example demonstrates the power of the past, of a habitus rooted in Muscovy. Despite Peter’s and especially Catherine’s well-intended efforts, Russia could not succeed in modernization, for police reforms left the enserfed part of the population subject to the whims of landlord violence, a reflection, in part, of Russia having yet to make the transition from the feudal manorial economy based on extra-economic compulsion to the capitalist hired-labor estate economy. The creation of true centralized political organization—the creation of the modern state as defined by Max Weber—would require the state’s domination over patrimonial jurisdiction and landlord control over the police. That necessitated the reforms of Alexander II.

scholarly journals Fear of the Common Good and the Neglect of Justice

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-86
Author(s):  
Alex John London
Keyword(s):  
Research Ethics ◽  
Social Order ◽  
International Research ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Standard Of Care ◽  
Host Community ◽  
The Common ◽  
Post Trial

This chapter traces the practical and conceptual origins of eight problematic commitments including the perception that there is an inherent moral dilemma at the heart of research with humans and the tendency to conceptualize research as a private transaction between researchers and participants without clear connections to the requirements of a just social order. It introduces readers who are new to research ethics to key cases and documents relating to domestic and international research and illustrates how they gave rise to the problematic views that produce conceptual and practical tensions in the field. The chapter frames the questions that will be addressed in subsequent chapters, including issues about research risk; the role of paternalism in research ethics; and requirements relating to responsiveness to host community health needs, the standard of care, and post-trial access in international research.

11. Why obey the law?

2020 ◽  
pp. 325-331
Author(s):  
Raymond Wacks
Keyword(s):  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Moral Duty ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

Do we have a moral duty to obey the law? Do we, in other words, have a moral obligation to comply with legal rules simply because they are legal rules? What about obviously unfair or unjust laws? Or laws that impose unreasonable demands on us? The question of whether we have a duty to follow the demands of the law raises some fundamental issues regarding the nature of law and its moral claims. This chapter examines a number of possible reasons for obeying the law. It will examine the principal justifications for obedience: fair play, consent, the common good, and gratitude.

Social Problems, Public Policy, the Church and the Common Good

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-63
Author(s):  
D. Eric Schansberg ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Social Problems ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
Political Agents ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Church

From professional pundits to casual observers, there are deep concerns about the state of American society and profound doubts about its future. Political cynicism is ascendant--and yet, the desire for politicians to “do something” remains. What role can public policy have in addressing the largest social problems and their causes? And beyond public policy, what are the potentially effective means in terms of social institutions, including the Church? Although public policy offers some promise, its usefulness is generally exaggerated. Its costs are typically subtle and often ignored. Knowledge of consequences and tradeoffs is insufficient, and the motives of political agents are less than pure. And many dilemmas, by their nature, cannot be ably addressed by politics and policy. In contrast, a resurgence in civil society--particularly the Church--holds more promise. Even in a time of potential “exile,” the Church is called to pursue the holistic welfare of society and enhance the common good.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document