Virtues as Perfections of Human Powers: On the Metaphysics of Goodness in Aristotelian Naturalism

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 127-149
Author(s):  
John Hacker-Wright
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
Human Actions ◽  
Natural Goodness ◽  
Human Good

AbstractThe central idea of Philippa Foot’s Natural Goodness is that moral judgments belong to the same logical kind of judgments as those that attribute natural goodness and defect to plants and animals. But moral judgments focus on a subset of human powers that play a special role in our lives as rational animals, namely, reason, will, and desire. These powers play a central role in properly human actions: those actions in which we go for something that we see and understand as good. Many readers of Foot resolutely ignore what she says about the human good being sui generis and obstinately continue to read her as advocating a version of naturalism grounded in empirical study of human nature. One might wonder how else it could count as a naturalistic view unless we could square the view with nature as studied by the empirical sciences. In this paper, I propose a metaphysical response to this question: help can come from turning to recent defenses of Aristotelian essentialism. Foot’s naturalism can square with nature as interpreted through the lens of Aristotelian essentialism. On such a view, the virtues are perfections of human powers including reason, will, and desire.

Legalism and Humankind

1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-208
Author(s):  
Frank I. Michelman
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Human Good ◽  
Good For ◽  
Normative Argument

Prescriptive political and moral theories contain ideas about what human beings are like and about what, correspondingly, is good for them. Conceptions of human “nature” and corresponding human good enter into normative argument by way of support and justification. Of course, it is logically open for the ratiocinative traffic to run the other way. Strongly held convictions about the rightness or wrongness, goodness or badness, of certain social institutions or practices may help condition and shape one's responses to one or another set of propositions about what people are like and what, in consequence, they have reason to value.

Pragmatism in ethics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.E. Tiles
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Moral Thinking ◽  
Moral Conflicts ◽  
Ethical Philosophy ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
Classical Mode

Two components of the pragmatist outlook shape its ethical philosophy. It rejects certainty as a legitimate intellectual goal; this generates a nondogmatic attitude to moral precepts and principles. It holds, secondly, that thought (even that exercised in scientific inquiry) is essentially goal-directed in a way that makes the refinement of the control we exercise over how we act (for example, in drawing conclusions) integral to achieving any cognitive goal such as that of truth. This makes it possible to treat scientific inquiry as a model of how we might respond to moral problems and the reasonableness and impartiality required of a scientific inquirer as a paradigm of what may be expected in reaching moral judgments. This view of the nature of thought also inclines pragmatists to assess proposed solutions to moral conflicts in terms of consequences. But although human desires are taken as the raw material with which moral thinking must deal, it is not assumed that people’s desires (what they take pleasure in) are fixed and can be used as a standard by which to assess consequences. Pragmatism is thus free to revert to a classical mode of thought (such as Aristotelianism) in which claims about human nature function as norms – a use which is made, for example, of the claim that humans are essentially social creatures.

The Leviathan’s Conscience: Hobbesian Human Nature and Moral Judgment

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 778-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Branstetter
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
The State ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Practical Judgment ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Moral Improvement ◽  
Individual Judgment

Hannah Arendt claims that Thomas Hobbes was responsible for constituting modern people as apolitical subjects who can no longer make independent moral judgments. The refusal to think that Hobbes allegedly engendered was a major factor in twentieth-century totalitarianism’s worst crimes. In her view, Hobbes’s Leviathan established the architecture of the totalitarian state and initiated the cultivation of people so incapable of exercising moral judgment that they stood idly by and let such a state commit horrors in their name. I argue that Hobbes rejected the proto-totalitarian form of domination Arendt attributes to him and expressed hope about the human capacities for practical judgment and moral improvement. Instead of creating thoughtless subjects which authorize any crime the state might commit, he suggests that the Leviathan should cultivate the public’s capacity for reason and judgment to make violence unnecessary. Considering Hobbes’s accounts of reason and science in light of his materialism shows that the Leviathan requires the exercise of individual moral thought and judgment to function properly. I suggest that the primary duty of the Hobbesian sovereign might be understood primarily in terms of the cultivation of individual judgment and reason rather than its suppression.

scholarly journals Adolescent Concepts of Responsibility in Different Types of Moral Dilemmas

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 81-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.V. Molchanov ◽  
O.V. Almazova
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Relationship

The paper presents results of an empirical study of adolescents' concepts of responsibility in different types of moral dilemmas characterized by violations of moral norms. The study proved that the type of moral dilemma and the context of interaction of its participants determine the adolescents' readiness to recognize the responsibility of the main character of the dilemma for violating the norm. In dilemmas of asocial type adolescents are more willing to recognize the responsibility of the offender whose behavior leads to obvious damage for one of the participants in the interaction. As for prosocial dilemmas and dilemmas of confronting norms, adolescents tend to deny the responsibility of the offender. The paper provides a comparative analysis of empirically identified types of adolescent concepts of responsibility, including the differentiated responsibility with egoistic orientation, high responsibility, low responsibility and ‘polar’ responsibility. The authors highlight the ambiguity of the relationship between adolescents’ evaluation of behavior, their readiness to recognize responsibility in moral transgression, and their judgment about the necessity of punishment. The paper concludes with the discussion concerning the relationship between the level of development of moral judgments/moral reasoning and the concepts of responsibility in adolescents.

Kantian Ethics and Utopian Thinking

2021 ◽  
pp. 106-126
Author(s):  
Thomas E. Hill, Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Slippery Slope ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
Kingdom Of Ends ◽  
Utopian Thinking ◽  
Political Ideal ◽  
Moral Rules

Is Kantian ethics guilty of utopian thinking? Good and bad uses of utopian ideals are distinguished, an apparent path is traced from Rousseau’s unworkable political ideal to Kant’s ethical ideal, and three versions of Kant’s Categorical Imperative (and counterparts in common moral discourse) are examined briefly with special attention on the kingdom of ends formulation. Following summary of previous development of this central idea, several objections suggesting that this idea encourages bad utopian thinking are briefly addressed: that we cannot count on everyone to follow ideal rules, that even conscientious people disagree in their moral judgments, and that theories that allow exceptions to familiar moral rules create a “slippery slope” to consequentialism.

scholarly journals FROM NATURAL LAW TO THE GOLDEN RULE

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Damiano Simoncelli
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Golden Rule ◽  
Human Biology ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
Human Good

These days, the Thomistic account of natural law is the object of renewed interest and criticisms. A number of objections are usually lodged against the idea of a human nature and a shared human good, in that it might seem that these ideas are unquestionably culturally related and that cultural boundaries cannot be crossed. At the same time, the concepts of ‘human nature’ and ‘natural law’ are often misunderstood to be related to human biology only. To overcome these issues, this paper aims to reinterpret the Thomistic doctrine of natural law as a form of the golden rule (‘Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you’; ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’).

scholarly journals Dynamics of moral judgments of the cadets

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 127-137
Author(s):  
O.V. Korchagina ◽  
D.S. Oshevsky
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Choice ◽  
Educational Work ◽  
Older Adolescents

The article presents the results of an empirical study of the features of the development of the level of moral judgments among the cadets. The study was conducted on the basis of the OGBU "Smolensk Field Marshal Kutuzov Cadet Corps." The material was the results of a survey of two groups of adolescents studying in the cadet corps, representing the younger and older adolescents. The following subjects were included in the sample: cadets only enrolled in the cadet corps (n = 30); Cadets completing their studies (n = 30). As methodologies, a specially developed semi-structured interview was used that simulates situations of moral choice. The Cadets showed positive dynamics in the development of moral judgments and greater differentiation in assessments, and revealed age differences in the semantic sphere. The older cadets are distinguished by a tendency to form a higher - prosocial level of development of moral judgments. It is noted that in carrying out educational work with pupils, efforts should be directed to help in adapting to new social conditions, integration into the cadet collective.

scholarly journals The Mechanism of Formation of Extremist Attitudes in Minors

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 76-81
Author(s):  
E. V. Vaske ◽  
O. I. Goryunova
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Gender Composition ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Youth Organizations ◽  
Mechanism Of Formation ◽  
Youth Subcultures ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Psychological Expertise

In this paper key trends in the development of extremist and near-extremist youth subcultures are outlined, and characteristic features of criminal and near-criminal youth organizations are described. The results of an empirical study of the activity of existing harmful groups and organizations that are known to involve minors in their ranks are presented, including a description of their dissemination platforms, size and gender composition, declared and actual goals, and external manifestations. Mechanisms for the formation of extremist attitudes in minors are identified, and the special role of psycho-linguistic and forensic  psychological expertise in the investigation of extremist crimes is demonstrated. Recommendations are offered towards the implementation of effective counteraction to extremism among minors.

Practical wisdom in managerial decision making

2010 ◽  
Vol 29 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 637-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Domènec Melé
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Managerial Decision ◽  
Managerial Decision Making ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Means And Ends ◽  
Human Good

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to present the necessity for practical wisdom in the managerial decision making process and its role in such a process. The paper seeks to contrast the position with two conventional approaches based on maximizing and satisficing behaviors respectively.Design/methodology/approachFollowing Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas it is argued that a correct decision should consider an “integral rationality” which includes not only “instrumental rationality” but also “practical rationality”. The latter permits the evaluation of both means and ends from the perspective of human good. Practical wisdom helps the decision maker to determine how a decision will contribute to the human good in each particular situation.FindingsMaximizing and satisficing behaviors are based on the facts‐values dichotomy, which separates business and ethics and presents a rationalistic and incomplete view of the reality. The alternative presented here sees the decision as a whole, and this is a more comprehensive understanding of the reality. Ethics is better integrated into the decision making process, since it is an intrinsic part of such a process, not an extrinsic addition.Practical implicationsEvery decision has an ethical dimension, which should be considered by managers for making good decisions. Practical wisdom is essential in perceiving such a dimension and in making sound moral judgments in the making of decisions. Managers do not need only skills for making correct decisions, but practical wisdom and moral virtues, too.Originality/valueThe approach presented in the paper defeats the conventional but narrow views of managerial decision making based on maximizing behavior or on satisficing behavior and introduces the categories of good and evil as the main driver for managerial decision making.

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