Explaining moral weakness

1973 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 174-182
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Rapaport
Keyword(s):  
Moral Weakness

Moral psychology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Slote
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Psychological Issues ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Weakness ◽  
Moral Requirements ◽  
Wrong Action

Moral psychology as a discipline is centrally concerned with psychological issues that arise in connection with the moral evaluation of actions. It deals with the psychological presuppositions of valid morality, that is, with assumptions it seems necessary for us to make in order for there to be such a thing as objective or binding moral requirements: for example, if we lack free will or are all incapable of unselfishness, then it is not clear how morality can really apply to human beings. Moral psychology also deals with what one might call the psychological accompaniments of actual right, or wrong, action, for example, with questions about the nature and possibility of moral weakness or self-deception, and with questions about the kinds of motives that ought to motivate moral agents. Moreover, in the approach to ethics known as ‘virtue ethics’ questions about right and wrong action merge with questions about the motives, dispositions, and abilities of moral agents, and moral psychology plays a more central role than it does in other forms of ethical theory.

Hare on Moral Weakness and the Definition of Morality

Ethics ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 779-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Frankena
Keyword(s):  
Definition Of ◽  
Moral Weakness

Moral Weakness

Philosophy ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 50 (193) ◽  
pp. 295-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Evans
Keyword(s):  
General Framework ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Philosophical Position ◽  
Moral Weakness

Discussions of moral weakness in recent and even not so recent ethics have generally neglected large areas of the moral life. In some cases, it may be argued, such neglect has been accidental in that the philosopher or philosophers concerned have set out to examine problems thrown up by a class or classes of actions without purporting to present an exhaustive account of moral weakness. In other cases such neglect is pernicious in that if not designed to protect a certain philosophical position it has by the doctrinaire delimitation of the range of examples considered had precisely that effect. This delimitation has often arisen out of unexamined presuppositions as to the nature of moral weakness. They are embodied in the following general framework suggested as an account not of some cases of weakness but of all cases:In a case of weakness a man does something that he knows or believes he should (ought) not do, or fails to do something that he knows or believes he should do, when the occasion and the opportunity for acting or refraining is present, and when it is in his power, in some significant sense, to act in accordance with his knowledge or belief.

Alcoholism Treatment: A Model of Abstinence-Oriented Care

1991 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 351-356
Author(s):  
Jeffrey N. Baldwin ◽  
Kathleen A. Kriegler
Keyword(s):  
Support Groups ◽  
Alcoholics Anonymous ◽  
Inpatient Treatment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Disease Treatment ◽  
Initial Intervention ◽  
Recovery Support ◽  
Moral Weakness ◽  
Abstinence From Alcohol

Alcohol is the United States' foremost drug of abuse. Although a significant portion of the population continues to identify alcoholism with moral weakness, society embraces treatment as the primary mode of dealing with this disease. Treatment stressing ongoing abstinence from alcohol is the most universally accepted method of therapy. Following initial intervention and referral, treatment of the alcoholic includes detoxification; intensive early treatment, using either outpatient or inpatient treatment settings; and long-term support for recovery. Aftercare programs often require continuing attendance at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, recovery support groups, and psychotherapy. In addition, recovering individuals may receive continued health care supervision from a physician knowledgeable about alcoholism. Family therapy is stressed as a component of recovery.

Moral Weakness

1977 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-177
Author(s):  
Richard Reilly ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Weakness

Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles

2019 ◽  
pp. 386-404
Author(s):  
Jennifer Eyl
Keyword(s):  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
Apocryphal Acts ◽  
Moral Weakness ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Ethical Character

The chapter examines the feminization of elite pagan men in Apocryphal Acts of Andrew. It argues that the ancient author constructs ascetic Christianity as the ideal realization of masculinity, whereby male and female converts control their passions and appetites. Simultaneously, elite pagan men are portrayed as appetitive, passionately emotional, and lacking self-control. Such ethical weakness was commonly thought to be characteristic of women. While attributing such ethical “femininity” to pagan men trades on ancient notions that women are prone to moral weakness, the author’s portrayal also dislodges ethical character from biological sex. Thus, men and women who take up Christianity in its ascetic forms are superior in ethics and gender, compared to those who reject ascetic Christianity.

ABRAHAM JACOBI ON MASTURBATION IN CHILDREN

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-68
Author(s):  
S. Combs
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Behavior ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Moral Development ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Moral Weakness ◽  
Self Stimulation ◽  
Positive Knowledge

Recently while conducting research on the father of American pediatrics, Dr Abraham Jacobi, I came upon an entire chapter in his Collectanea Jacobi, entitled "Masturbation and Hysteria in Young Children." His concern with the subject and its profound affect on the youth of his day was revealing. Masturbation at the turn of the century was believed not only to promote physical and moral weakness, but also was believed to be a major cause of multiple neuroses. Today, we attribute masturbation to a normal precursor of object-related sexual behavior that occurs in nearly all men and three quarters of women.1 Self-stimulation is a common event in infancy and just as the infant explores the remainder of its body, so does it explore its genitalia. However today, even as in Jacobi's time, such experiences are often strewn with guilt and ridicule. Jacobi wrote the following: "It is this habit of masturbation in the infant and child, to which I here desire to draw attention. To what extent it is practised (sic) in more advanced years, and how it interferes with a robust physical, mental and moral development of adolescence is but too well known to both physician and pedagogue. But it has often appeared to me that its frequent occurrence in the quite young is by no means fully appreciated ... The causes of masturbation, no matter whether considered as an acquired habit or disease, are very serious indeed. I have positive knowledge of cases in which the habit was contracted by the treatment of infants, both male and female, at the hands of nurses on servants" (sic).

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