scholarly journals From relational equality to personal responsibility

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas T. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Paradoxical Result ◽  
Egalitarian Relationships ◽  
Important Argument ◽  
Relational Theories

AbstractAccording to relational egalitarians, equality is not primarily about the distribution of some good but about people relating to one another as equals. However, compared with other theorists in political philosophy – including other egalitarians – relational egalitarians have said relatively little on what role personal responsibility should play in their theories. For example, is equality compatible with responsibility? Should economic distributions be responsibility-sensitive? This article fills this gap. I develop a relational egalitarian framework for personal responsibility and show that relational equality commits us to responsibility. I develop two sets of arguments. First, I draw on relational theories of moral responsibility – particularly Strawsonian views – to show that valuable egalitarian relationships require responsibility. Second, I show why relational equality sometimes requires that economic distributions be sensitive to responsibility and choice. I also defend a seemingly paradoxical result: being committed to responsibility, relational egalitarianism not only justifies some distributive inequalities but some relational inequalities too. Overall, relational egalitarianism gives a nuanced and coherent answer as to why and how responsibility matters from within egalitarianism. That it does should be an important argument in its favour.

Talking to others' selves: Why a valuational paradigm of agency fails to provide an adequate theoretical framework for moral responsibility, social accountability, and legal liability

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias A. Mattei
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Liability ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Social Accountability

AbstractIn this commentary, I highlight the importance of a proper discussion of the pragmatic implications of John Doris's paradigm for allocation of personal responsibility proposed in his new book Talking to Our Selves. By employing some classic concepts of the American common law tradition, I discuss why Doris's valuational understanding of agency fails to provide an adequate framework for moral responsibility, social accountability, and legal liability.

scholarly journals The sience and art of moral responsibility for the future

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Maryna Braterska-Dron ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Moral Truth ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Actual Problem ◽  
Great Severity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Main Thing

The article is devoted to the actual problem of the probable future of our civilization and the moral responsibility of mankind for it. In the twentieth century, humanity was actually faced with the threat of man-made destruction of life on the planet. The tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with great severity raised the question not only about the morality of science, but also the personal responsibility of the scientist for his discoveries. In particular, in 1955, the Einstein-Russell Manifesto was signed, which initiated the widely known Pahous Movement for Peace and Disarmament. Art has responded to the nuclear threat. In 1950, R. Bradbury's story "There Will Be a Graceful Rain" was published. One of the first to address the subject of doomsday was American filmmakers: R. Weiss («The Day the Earth Stalle», 1951), S. Kramer («On the Shore», 1959), S. Kubrick («Doctor Stranzhla», 1964), S. Lumet («Security System», 1964). The idea of moral responsibility of each person for his future was raised on the Soviet screen in the films: «The Escape of Mr. McKinley» (1975, M. Schweitzer), «Sacrifice» (1986, A. Tarkovsky), «Letters of the Dead Man» (1986, K. Lopushansky), «Visitor to the Museum» (1989, K. Lopushansky). It was in the 1970s and 1980s that they became a painful awareness of the insecurity and fragility of human life. It has become clear that nuclear energy can be not only a policy or an economy, but above all a tool of self-destruction. It has been scientifically justified that the greatest threat to humanity lies not where it was not expected. Nuclear war is not only the mass destruction of people, total destruction, radiation, infectious diseases, etc. The main danger is the climate change of the planet, changes in the biosphere (the effect of nuclear winter), which humanity will not be able to survive. marked by a painful awareness of the insecurity and fragility of human life. But today, the biosphere is threatened not only by human waste, environmental pollution, but also by the gradual destruction of the natural environment, the frantic depletion of natural resources, etc. The main thing that threatens our civilization is moral irresponsibility to posterity. What has to happen for humanity to realize the danger of indifference? Personal responsibility for the future of everyone and everyone for the future of everyone is the main principle of survival. The eminent philosopher M. Berdyaev wrote: «The end of the world depends on man, and he will be one way or another, depending on the actions of man... The greatest religious and moral truth to which a man must grow is that he cannot be saved alone. My salvation also involves the salvation of others, my loved ones, the salvation of the whole world, the transformation of the world».

‘Humane Governance’ as the Moral Responsibility of Rulers in East Asian Confucian Political Philosophy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chun-chieh Huang
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Confucian Ethic ◽  
Personal Level ◽  
External Accountability ◽  
Core Value ◽  
Theoretical Issues

This chapter explores the East Asian Confucian political thought centred on Humane Governance, and their internally imbedded theoretical issues. Humane Governance is a critical core value in East Asian Confucian political thought. It examines the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Confucians’ discourses on Humane Governance, employing analyses of their political thoughts and the theoretical dilemmas embedded therein. It reaches a critical conclusion that Confucian ethic remains largely internal and does not develop clear lines of external accountability. At the same time this ethic is at a personal level very demanding in terms of the concern rulers should display towards the governed.

Clarifying relational egalitarianism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Eric Rowse
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Social Status ◽  
University Of Missouri ◽  
The Third ◽  
Samuel Scheffler ◽  
Egalitarian Relationships ◽  
The University ◽  
Elizabeth Anderson

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] I clarify the nature of relational egalitarianism, a theory in political philosophy that concerns equality. Relational egalitarians understand equality as a relationship between equals. Roughly, when people relate as equals, they are free from objectionable forms of authority (e.g., plutocracy) and stigmatizing social status (e.g., racist and sexist stereotypes). Relational egalitarians hold that we have duties of justice to promote this understanding of equality. Much work remains, however, in developing the best version of relational egalitarianism. To this end, I examine three prominent versions of relational egalitarianism, one by Elizabeth Anderson, another by Samuel Scheffler, and the third by Martin O'Neill. Each version, I argue, makes a mistake that sheds light on the best version of relational egalitarianism. In particular, I argue that relational egalitarians should endorse the following claims: (1) relational egalitarianism specifies many, but not all, duties of justice to promote equality, (2) relational egalitarianism is actually a version of distributive egalitarianism (its main rival), and (3) egalitarian relationships are morally bad when they make everyone's life go worse.

Moral Responsibility of Public Officials: The Problem of Many Hands

1980 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 905-916 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis F. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Problem Of Many Hands

That many different officials contribute in many different ways to decisions and policies in the modern state makes it difficult to ascribe moral responsibility to any official. The usual responses to this problem—based on concepts of hierarchical and collective responsibility—distort the notion of responsibility. The idea of personal responsibility—based on causal and volitional criteria—constitutes a better approach to the problem of ascribing responsibility to public officials. Corresponding to each of these criteria are types of excuses that officials use in defending the decisions they make. An analysis of the conditions under which the excuses eliminate or mitigate responsibility provides a foundation for accountability in a democracy.

Rethinking the Very Idea of Egalitarian Markets and Corporations: Why Relationships Might Matter More than Distribution

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre-Yves Néron
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Cooperation ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Relational Theories ◽  
The One

ABSTRACT:What kinds of markets, market regulations, and business organizations are compatible with contemporary egalitarian theories of justice? This article argues that any thoughtful answer to this question will have to draw on recent developments in political philosophy that are concerned not only with the equality of the distribution of core goods (or as John Rawls famously put it, with the “distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation”) but also with the requirements for equality of status, voice, and so on, in the relations between individuals and within organizations. The dominance of theories of distributive justice in egalitarian political philosophy since Rawls may have contributed, on the one hand, to the oft-recognized gulf between these theories and their theorists and, on the other, to discussions of corporate governance and business ethics. The main purpose of this article is to introduce business ethicists to some of the less-familiar features of recent relational theories of justice and equality, and to suggest that some of these notions may help bridge the gap between business ethics and political philosophy more generally.

scholarly journals La comprensión de la violencia de género como injusticia estructural = Understanding gender violence as structural injustice

2019 ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Rubén Merino Obregón
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Gender Violence ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Philosophical Theory ◽  
Structural Injustice ◽  
Iris Marion Young ◽  
The One

<p><strong> </strong></p><p align="left"><strong>Resumen</strong></p><p>La violencia de género es un fenómeno que requiere ser examinado desde un modelo de injusticia que no se reduzca a la identificación y condena del agresor. La teoría filosófica de las “injusticias estructurales” desarrollada por Iris Marion Young sirve para considerar formas de daño que no se reducen a la interacción agresor-víctima, sino que dependen de estructuras sociales en las que algunas personas se encuentran en situación de desigualdad o vulnerabilidad. Así mismo, tal modelo nos permite comprender que hace falta distinguir la responsabilidad directa y personal de quien comete la agresión, de la responsabilidad moral de los muchos que colaboramos activamente con la subsistencia de las condiciones normalizadas y toleradas de desigualdad.</p><p><strong>Abstract</strong></p><p>Gender violence is a phenomenon that should be examined as a form of injustice which cannot be reduced to the identification and condemnation of the aggressor. The philosophical theory of "structural injustices" developed by Iris Marion Young considers forms of harm that are not reduced to the aggressor-victim interaction, but depend on social structures in which some people find themselves in situations of inequality or vulnerability. Likewise, such a model allows us to understand that it is necessary to distinguish the direct and personal responsibility of the one who commits the aggression, from the moral responsibility of many of us who collaborate actively with the subsistence of the normalized and tolerated conditions of inequality.</p>

scholarly journals Nobody’s Perfect: Moral Responsibility in Negligence

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-125
Author(s):  
Ori J. Herstein
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Human Agency

Given the unwittingness of negligence, personal responsibility for negligent conduct is puzzling. After all, how is it that one is responsible for what one did not intend to do or was unaware that one was doing? How, therefore, is one’s agency involved with one’s negligence so as to ground one’s responsibility for it? Negligence is an unwitting failure in agency to meet a standard requiring conduct that falls within one’s competency. Accordingly, negligent conduct involves agency in that negligence is a manifestation of agency failure. Now, nobody’s perfect. Human agency is innately fallible, and a measure of agency failure is, therefore, unavoidable. The more one’s negligence manifests failure in one’s agency as an individual, the more one is responsible for it. In contrast, the more one’s negligence involves the shortcomings innate to all human agency the less responsible one becomes, because one’s agency as an individual is less and less involved in one’s failure. Determinative of the measure of individual and of human failings mixed into an instance of negligentphi-ing is the background quality of one’s agency at meeting one’s competency atphi-ing. That is, how able one is at delivering on what one is able to competently do. The more able, the less one’s occasional instances of negligence involve manifestations of failures of one’s agency as an individual—nobody’s perfect—and are more manifestations of one’s agency’s innate human fallibility, making one less and less responsible for one’s negligence.

Corporate Moral Responsibility: When it Might Matter

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Corporate Control ◽  
Corporate Moral Responsibility ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Ethics Research ◽  
Socialization Processes ◽  
Practical Implications

Abstract:The debate over corporate moral responsibility has become a fixture in business ethics research and teaching. Only rarely, however, does the sizable literature on that question consider whether the debate has important practical implications. This article examines that question from a corporate control perspective. After assuming corporate moral responsibility’s existence for purposes of argument, the article concludes that such responsibility makes a difference in cases where it is present but personal responsibility is absent. Then the article tries to identify the forces that diminish personal responsibility when corporate responsibility exists. The most important such forces, it concludes, spring from the socialization processes people undergo when they enter groups. One example is the well-known phenomenon of groupthink, which can exculpate individuals by rendering them justifiably ignorant of foreseeable risks of harm.

scholarly journals The Luck Egalitarianism of G.A. Cohen - A Reply to David Miller

SATS ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Albertsen
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Luck Egalitarianism ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Luck Egalitarian

AbstractThe late G.A. Cohen is routinely considered a founding father of luck egalitarianism, a prominent responsibility-sensitive theory of distributive justice. David Miller argues that Cohen’s considered beliefs on distributive justice are not best understood as luck egalitarian. While the relationship between distributive justice and personal responsibility plays an important part in Cohen’s work, Miller maintains that it should be considered an isolated theme confined to Cohen’s exchange with Dworkin. We should not understand the view Cohen defends in this exchange as Cohen’s considered view. Accepting this thesis would change both our understanding of Cohen’s political philosophy and many recent luck egalitarian contributions. Miller’s argument offers an opportunity to reassess Cohen’s writings as a whole. Ultimately, however, the textual evidence against Miller’s argument is overwhelming. Cohen clearly considers the exchange with Dworkin to be about egalitarianism as such rather than about the best responsibility-sensitive version of egalitarianism. Furthermore, Cohen often offers luck egalitarian formulations of his own view outside of the exchange with Dworkin and uses luck egalitarianism as an independent yardstick for evaluating principles and distributions.

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