Review of The Moral Life of Schools.

This article advances a conception of global ethics in terms of the centrality of responsibility to the moral life and also the moral good of the enhancement of life. In contrast to some forms of global ethics, the article also seeks to warrant the use of religious sources in developing such an ethics. Specifically, the article seeks to demonstrate the greater adequacy of a global ethics of responsibility for the enhancement of life against rival conceptions developed in terms of Human Rights discourse or the so-called Capabilities Approach. The article ends with a conception of ‘conscience’ as the mode of human moral being and the experience of religious transcendence within the domains of human social and historical life. From this idea, conscience is specified a human right and capacity to determine the humane use of religious resources and also the norm for the rejection of inhumane expressions of religion within global ethics.

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The Tyranny of the Ideal

10.23943/princeton/9780691183428.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Gerald Gaus

Keyword(s):

Political Philosophy ◽

Moral Life ◽

Moral Inquiry ◽

Open Society ◽

The Past ◽

Theories Of Justice ◽

The World ◽

Diverse Society ◽

Just Society ◽

The Ideal

This book lays out a vision for how we should theorize about justice in a diverse society. It shows how free and equal people, faced with intractable struggles and irreconcilable conflicts, might share a common moral life shaped by a just framework. The book argues that if we are to take diversity seriously and if moral inquiry is sincere about shaping the world, then the pursuit of idealized and perfect theories of justice—essentially, the entire production of theories of justice that has dominated political philosophy for the past forty years—needs to change. Drawing on recent work in social science and philosophy, the book points to an important paradox: only those in a heterogeneous society—with its various religious, moral, and political perspectives—have a reasonable hope of understanding what an ideally just society would be like. However, due to its very nature, this world could never be collectively devoted to any single ideal. The book defends the moral constitution of this pluralistic, open society, where the very clash and disagreement of ideals spurs all to better understand what their personal ideals of justice happen to be. Presenting an original framework for how we should think about morality, this book rigorously analyzes a theory of ideal justice more suitable for contemporary times.

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Le Cinéma Hollywoodien dans une Perspective Philosophique: Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life Stanley Cavell

Canadian Journal of Film Studies ◽

10.3138/cjfs.14.2.99 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 99-105

Author(s):

Eric Prince

Keyword(s):

Moral Life ◽

Stanley Cavell

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Introduction

10.1093/oso/9780198755821.003.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Amanda Anderson

Keyword(s):

Literary Criticism ◽

Recent Work ◽

Moral Life ◽

Moral Experience ◽

Object Relations Theory ◽

Literary Field ◽

Moral Significance ◽

Ideological Criticism ◽

Cultural Life ◽

Psychological Dimensions

Although it is widely observed that a consequential “turn to ethics” took place in the field of literary criticism beginning in the late 1980s, this book argues that a broader cultural privileging of psychological and therapeutic frameworks has led to a displacement of the importance of moral reflection and moral judgment in the literary field. Between the pervasive influence of psychology on intellectual paradigms and cultural life, and the critique of morality within ideological criticism, key elements of the moral life, and of moral experience within the time of a life, have been lost to view. This introduction maps out the recent work on ethics in literary studies, introduces the moral significance of British object relations theory (an outlier among the psychological frameworks under analysis), and concludes by discussing Kant and Nietzsche’s divergent understandings of the psychological dimensions of moral life.

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Hybrid and Austere Responses to the Problem of Error

10.1093/oso/9780199560080.003.0008 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Holly M. Smith

Keyword(s):

Social Welfare ◽

Long Range ◽

Moral Life ◽

Social Cooperation ◽

False Beliefs ◽

The Core ◽

Extended Sense ◽

Moral Theories ◽

Long Range Planning ◽

The Ideal

Chapter 8 explores the Austere and Hybrid Responses to the problem of error. The two types of response are described in both ideal and non-ideal versions. Both are found wanting, but the Austere Response emerges as best. Codes endorsed by the Austere approach cannot be shown to meet the “goal-oriented” desiderata of maximizing social welfare, facilitating social cooperation and long-range planning, or guaranteeing the occurrence of the ideal pattern of actions. But Austere-endorsed codes do satisfy the conceptual desiderata for “usable” moral theories in the core (but not the extended) sense of “usability.” They are usable despite the agent’s false beliefs, and they provide agents with the opportunity to live a successful moral life according to the modest conception of this life. This chapter concludes that the only remedy for the problem of error is an Austere code containing a derivative duty for agents to gather information before acting.

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Assessing Non-Ideal Pragmatic Responses to the Problem of Error

10.1093/oso/9780199560080.003.0007 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Holly M. Smith

Keyword(s):

Social Welfare ◽

Moral Life ◽

Moral Code ◽

Basic Form

The non-ideal Pragmatic theorist seeks the moral code whose usability value, if not perfect, nonetheless exceeds that of any rival code. Chapter 7 assesses the success of this approach, and concludes that it fails. Comparing codes in terms of their usability value requires more information than any agent or theorist can command. Moreover, the code with the highest usability value is shown to be the moral laundry list, which earlier chapters rejected. Finally, Chapter 7 shows that there is no guarantee that the code with the highest usability value fulfills the rationales supporting the Usability Demand. Such a code will not necessarily offer agents the basic form of justice, providing everyone with the opportunity to lead a successful moral life; nor will it necessarily better enhance social welfare than rival codes; nor will it necessarily lead to a better pattern of actions among well-motivated agents.

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