Nature, Custom, and Reason as the Explanatory and Practical Principles of Aristotelian Political Science

2002 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Bernard Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Ethical Analysis ◽  
Ethical Reflection ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Moral Excellence ◽  
Social Explanation

According to Aristotle, nature (physis), habit or custom (ethos), and reason (logos) are the first principles of social explanation as well as the first principles of moral excellence. Just as we explain the order found in a polity as the product of natural, customary, and rationally stipulated kinds of order, so we become excellent persons through our good natural potential, the development of that potential in right habits, and sound ethical reflection upon those habits. For Aristotle, nature and convention are not mutually exclusive; rather, nature, custom, and reason form a hierarchy such that custom presupposes nature, but cannot be reduced to it, while reason presupposes custom, but cannot be reduced to custom. It is argued that Aristotle's account of social order is superior both to the prior Sophistic accounts and to the account in Aquinas. Because Aristotle roots the order of deliberate human action in the order of nature and the order of custom, he focuses his ethical analysis not on the abstract freedom of choice but on the concrete freedom of the person who must act.

Human Action in the Loop

2015 ◽  
pp. 352-368
Author(s):  
Hartwig Steusloff ◽  
Michael Decker
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
System Component ◽  
Ethical Reflection ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
Human In The Loop ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
System Life ◽  
The One

Extremely complex systems like the smart grid or autonomous cars need to meet society's high expectations regarding their safe operation. The human designer and operator becomes a “system component” as soon as responsible decision making is needed. Tacit knowledge and other human properties are of crucial relevance for situation-dependent decisions. The uniform modeling of technical systems and humans will benefit from ethical reflection. In this chapter, we describe human action with technical means and ask, on the one hand, for a comprehensive multidisciplinary technology assessment in order to produce supporting knowledge and methods for technical and societal decision making. On the other hand—and here is the focus—we propose a system life cycle approach which integrates the human in the loop and argue that it can be worthwhile to describe humans in a technical way in order to implement human decision making by means of the use case method. Ethical reflection and even ethically based technical decision making can support the effective control of convergent technology systems.

Why Thomas Reid Matters to the Epistemology of the Social Sciences

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (279) ◽  
pp. 282-301
Author(s):  
Laurent Jaffro ◽  
Vinícius França Freitas
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Action ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Reasoning ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Mind

Abstract Little attention has been paid to the fact that Thomas Reid's epistemology applies to ‘political reasoning’ as well as to various operations of the mind. Reid was interested in identifying the ‘first principles’ of political science as he did with other domains of human knowledge. This raises the question of the extent to which the study of human action falls within the competence of ‘common sense’. Our aim is to reconstruct and assess Reid's epistemology of the sciences of social action and to determine how it connects with the fundamental tenets of his general epistemology. In the first part, we portray Reid as a methodological individualist and focus on the status of the first principles of political reasoning. The second part examines Reid's views on the explanatory power of the principles of human action. Finally, we draw a parallel between Reid's epistemology and the methodology of Weberian sociology.

For ethical reflection, establish a clear technical foundation

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-294
Author(s):  
Chuck Huff
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Technical Analysis ◽  
Knowledge Bases ◽  
Ethical Analysis ◽  
Ethical Reflection ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Ethical Education ◽  
Qualitative Approaches ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This viewpoint aims to highlight the necessarily technical nature of ethics in software development, propose a label (ethical bypassing) for ethical analysis that does not lead to ethical action and introduce a philosophical foundation for technical analysis that leads to ethical software development. Design/methodology/approach The methodological approach is one of technical analysis that is aware of social science and philosophical knowledge bases. Findings The findings establish a clear technical foundation that is crucial to ethical analysis that will actually inform software development. Research limitations/implications The idea that beginning with technical expertise is the best way to begin ethical reflection on a technical implementation has been often suggested, but not really empircally tested. Research using cases or other qualitative approaches would need to be done to add credibility to the claim. Practical implications This approach suggests that collaboration between technically informed ethicists and ethically informed technical experts should begin with the exploration of the technical questions rather than with ethical speculation. Social implications A common approach to ethical education is to concentrate on ethical theory and its application in technical contexts. This approach suggests that this may lead to ethical bypassing by the student, the avoidance of the making technical decisions by extensive ethical reflection. Originality/value This paper introduces a new term, ethical bypassing, to the literature on the ethics of software development.

Homo Politicus – Towards a Theory of Political Action and Motivation

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-96
Author(s):  
Zsolt Boda
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Collective Rationality ◽  
Behavioral Models ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
The Common

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to sketch an anthropology for political studies. Political science relies extensively on behavioral models borrowed from economics (taking human action to be rational and self-interested), sociology (explaining behavior in terms of norm-abidance and conformity), or even psychology (seeing actors as being motivated by their emotions, neurosis etc.). Strikingly, political science has not endeavored to develop an anthropology for its own purposes. Does it mean that there are no motivational structures that are distinctively relevant to political action? The paper argues that this is not the case. In fact, there is a distinctive conception of a human actor present in political science, even if implicitly, i.e., the conception of an actor who aims at what she perceives to be the common good, and guides her behavior along the lines of collective rationality. The paper aims at providing the first steps towards laying the theoretical and empirical foundations of such a model.

scholarly journals The ontology of good and evil and the problem of freedom of choice christian philosophical reasoning of S. Kierkegaard

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 110-116
Author(s):  
G. I. Savonova
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Problem ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Religious Person ◽  
Comparative Review ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Good And Evil

The article reveals the peculiarity of S. Kierkegaard’s philosophical arguments about the essence of good and evil, the problems of ethical and psychological compression of human existence in transcendence «or-or». The ontology of good and evil is revealed by the philosopher in the problem of freedom as a given and unfreedom as a limitation, when good as God resides in freedom. God does not know unfreedom precisely for his freedom is unrecognized, and this is the greatest punishment for evil. It is noted that a Christian who is an ethical person finds himself in a situation of choice between good and evil, and the hovering of the process of choice in time leads to a choice in unfreedom, which is already sin and evil. The emphasis is placed on the concept of “sin” in the Christian definition of it by S. Kierkegaard, as well as on the problem of «blocking» the choice by fears. The article establishes the connection between sin and fear in the problem of faith and human action. The analysis of differentiation of fear as fear to be oneself and fear not to be oneself is carried out. Fear in philosophy S. Kierkegaard is defined as the psychological problem of choice and the metaphysical essence of evil that experiences fear of good. Evil is afraid of good because it defines it as something that encroaches on the essence of evil – unfreedom. People are afraid of their knowledge of lack of freedom and loss of faith. The question of Christian faith in the metaphysics of freedom of choice is a means of salvation from the demonicness of non-freedom, according to the philosophy of S. Kierkegaard. The loss of faith at any stage of life leads a person to despair. There are two types of despair in the philosophy of S. Kierkegaard: despair to be I and despair not to be I. The article focuses on the problem of sin. The problem of defining sin reveals the meaning of despondency as the beginning of any sin. Discouragement is bound to the darkness of evil, the place of permanent stay restless demoni and eternal falling into the abyss. A disappointed person does not have a point of support for the “leap of faith”, so she seeks comfort in the realization of her desires and the injection of fear. That is why the “leap of faith” from the ethical to the religious person is considered in the article as a way out of the choice between good and evil. The article also provides a brief comparative review of the philosophical arguments Of S. Kierkegaard and existentialist philosophers.

Reformed Ethics

2020 ◽  
pp. 576-591
Author(s):  
Philip G. Ziegler
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theology ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Ethical Reflection ◽  
Moral Reality ◽  
History Of

Within the wider field of ethical reflection and moral theology, Reformed ethics is tasked with understanding and orienting human action theologically by formative reference to the fundamental description of moral reality provided by Reformed doctrine. The essential features of this moral reality can helpfully be displayed and coordinated around the themes of belonging, gratitude, law, and holiness. Consideration of these themes helps to bring out what is distinctive in a Reformed theological ethic in the midst of much that is evidently also held in common with the wider Christian tradition. As this chapter looks to demonstrate, the history of Reformed theological ethics testifies to the fundamental and abiding conviction on the part of Reformed believers and theologians that reformatio doctrinae is intrinsically bound with and finds it term in serious and joyful reformatio vitae.

Voegelin and Aristotle on Nous: What is Noetic Political Science?

2002 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
David D. Corey
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
The World ◽  
Divine Activity ◽  
Eric Voegelin ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way ◽  
First Philosophy

The article examines Voegelin's understanding of nous as the ground for theorizing, and relates this back to Aristotle. Aristotle is shown to have understood the activities of nous in two distinct ways. On the one hand, nous is the divine activity of the soul exploring its own ground. But nous is also induction (epagôgê) of the first principles of science through sense perception, memory and experience. The two basic activities of nous are related, but they have different values when it comes to the world of particulars. The argument is that a substantive ethical and political science—one that sheds light on particulars—must include the inductive employment of nous and that the exclusion of this from Voegelin's political science results in some discernible limitations.The limitations of Eric Voegelin—s work are sometimes difficult to keep in view, particularly while he is expounding upon the totality of Being, the myriad dimensions of human consciousness, and the nature of order in personal, social, and historical existence. But in fact Voegelin's work is more limited than his magisterial tone might suggest. The argument of this article is that while Voegelin offers his readers profoundly important insights into the structure of human consciousness and into what Aristotle called first philosophy, the study of being qua being, he does not offer his readers much in the way of a substantive ethical or political science.

scholarly journals Decentralization: An Incomplete Ambition

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Social Order ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Decentralized Systems ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Blockchain Technology ◽  
Social Arrangements ◽  
High Standards ◽  
As If

Decentralization is a term widely used in a variety of contexts, particularly in political science and discourses surrounding the Internet. It is popular today among advocates of blockchain technology. While frequently employed as if it were a technical term, decentralization more reliably appears to operate as a rhetorical strategy that directs attention toward some aspects of a proposed social order and away from others. It is called for far more than it is theorized or consistently defined. This non-specificity has served to draw diverse participants into common political and technological projects. Yet even the most apparently decentralized systems have shown the capacity to produce economically and structurally centralized outcomes. The rhetoric of decentralization thus obscures other aspects of the re-ordering it claims to describe. It steers attention from where concentrations of power are operating, deferring worthwhile debate about how such power should operate. For decentralization to be a reliable concept in formulating future social arrangements and related technologies, it should come with high standards of specificity. It also cannot substitute for anticipating centralization with appropriate mechanisms of accountability.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document