Why the moral equality account of the hypocrite’s lack of standing to blame fails

Analysis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen

Abstract It is commonly believed that blamees can dismiss hypocritical blame on the ground that the hypocrite has no standing to blame their target. Many believe that the feature of hypocritical blame that undermines standing to blame is that it involves an implicit denial of the moral equality of persons. After all, the hypocrite treats herself better than her blamee for no good reason. In the light of the complement to hypocrites and a comparison of hypocritical and non-hypocritical blamers subscribing to hierarchical moral norms, I show why we must reject the moral equality account of the hypocrite’s lack of standing to blame.

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Immanuel Kant

Better than anyone, Kant recognized the power and authority of the moral law. On that foundation he constructed two variants of the moral argument. His argument from grace pertains to whether or not the moral life is possible. Morality requires us to achieve a stand too demanding to meet on our own. Divine assistance is needed to close the resulting gap. So rationality dictates that we postulate God’s existence. Kant’s argument from providence pertains to the aforementioned rational need for happiness and virtue to cohere. Full rational commitment to morality requires that morality is a rationally stable enterprise, which entails the ultimate correspondence between virtue and (both individual and corporate) fulfillment. Without God’s existence there’s no particularly good reason to think such correspondence obtains. So rationality dictates the postulation of God’s existence.


Author(s):  
Scott Aikin

If you believe something rationally, you believe it for a reason. And that reason can’t just be any old reason. You’ve got to rationally hold it as a good reason. In order to do so, you must have another reason. And that reason needs another. And so a regress of reasons ensues. This is a rough-and-ready picture of the epistemic regress problem. Epistemic infinitism is the view that justifying reasons are infinite, and so it is a particular solution to the regress problem. Consider, also, that justification comes in degrees – some beliefs are better justified than others. Moreover, it seems that people can know things better than others. Call this the gradability phenomenon. Epistemic infinitism is the view that for someone to be justified maximally is for that person to have an infinite series of supporting reasons. Epistemic infinitisms admit of a wide variety. Differences between versions of infinitism arise according to two factors for the view: one dialectical, the other ecumenical. The dialectical factor for epistemic infinitisms is the matter of what philosophical problems or questions they answer. Infinitisms are designed to either provide models for how to solve the epistemic regress problem or address the phenomenon of the gradability of justification and knowledge. Infinitisms will differ depending on which issue they are designed to address, and an infinitism designed to address one issue may not be the same as one designed to address another. The ecumenical factor for epistemic infinitisms is the matter of how consistent the view is with other competing theories about how to address the regress problem and the gradability phenomenon. With the regress problem, infinitism’s main competitor theories are foundationalism, the view that there are basic beliefs for which there is no need for further reason, and coherentism, the view that justifying reasons come in large mutually supporting packages. For the most part, infinitism is taken to be a form of noncoherentist antifoundationalism about justification, because the infinitist holds that reasons must be infinitely long chains of nonrepeating reasons. However, there are versions of infinitism consistent with both foundationalism and coherentism. Infinitism faces a variety of challenges, and two of particular importance are whether infinitism is actually a form of scepticism and whether infinitism is a complete theory of justification.


1988 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 236-298
Author(s):  
Beverly W. Nichols

For years we have debated whether geometry should come before or after second-year algebra in the traditional high school program. Teachers and students at my high school, with the support of the Mathematics Education Trust, have completed a threeyear study of this issue. I have good reason to claim that the traditional first-year algebra, geometry, second-year algebra sequence is better than the first-year algebra, secondyear algebra, geometry sequence.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Mu’ammar Zayn Qadafy

The Perspective of al-Syafi’I on Partnership in Marriage In husband and wife relationships, contemporary couples prefer a partnership pattern rather than one of  leadership. Although the latter is not necessary better than the former, it is obviously more accommodative of modern ideas of justice, egalitarianism and gender equality.  This article aims to explore the connections between household partnership patterns, as fundamental to contemporary Muslim’s, and the traditional Islamic jurisprudence (fikih) most dominant among the diverse adherents of Islam.   More specifically, this research describes al-Syafi`í thought. To explore the partnership patterns of married couples, it elaborates on three points: (1) the meaning of qawwamuna, (2) the concept of bride price and household expenses, and (3) interactions between husband and wife. The primary resource use in this research is al-Umm. This article concludes that Syafi’i jurisprudence implicitly accommodates the idea of partnership between marriage partners, as evident in (1) the acknowledgement of a woman’s right to choose her husband; (2) the bride price, which has both legal, formal and moral implications; (3) the co-understanding of the marriage partners in matters of household expenses and the emphasizing of discussion in solving financial problems; and (4) the use of good reason in dealing with household and personal conflicts.


Legal Theory ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. P. Simester

The criminal law presently distinguishes between actions and omissions, and only rarely proscribes failures to avert consequences that it would be an offense to bring about. Why? In recent years it has been persuasively argued by both Glover and Bennett that,celeris paribus, omissions to prevent a harm are just as culpable as are actions which bring that harm about. On the other hand, and acknowledging that hitherto “lawyers have not been very successful in finding a rationale for it,” Tony Honoré has sought to defend the law's differential treatment. He proposes a “distinct-duties theory” that in addition to the general duties we owe to everyone (e.g., not to inflict harm), we also owe distinct duties to a more limited collection of people and associations, specified by features of our relationship with them (we owe, for instance, duties as parents to our own children). Where a distinct duty holds, breach by omission may well be no better than breach by positive action. But absent a distinct duty, omissions, per Honoré, are less culpable. They are mere failures to intervene and improve or rectify things, whereas actions are positive interventions which make things worse. And, thus, the law has good reason to differentiate between them.


1988 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Gunton

Two dogmas continue to die hard, despite attempts to destroy them, and it may be that they have good reason for refusing to go away. The first is that what has come to be known as ‘christology from above’ tends to produce a docetic conception of the person of Christ, or at least one in which the humanity of Jesus receives so little emphasis that it becomes little better than a cipher. If an eternal being or hypostasis – to put the matter in the almost tritheistic language that is sometimes used – takes to himself a body, can the resulting being be truly human? Does not the eternal origin inevitably call the tune, undermining the genuineness of the human actions?


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spencer Case

Normative pluralism is the view that practical reason consists in an irreducible plurality of normative domains, that these domains sometimes issue conflicting recommendations and that, when this happens, there is never any one thing that one ought simpliciter to do. Here I argue against this view, noting that normative pluralism must be either unrestricted or restricted. Unrestricted pluralism maintains that all coherent standards are reason-generating normative domains, whereas restricted pluralism maintains that only some are. Unrestricted pluralism, depending on how it is cashed out, is either nihilism about practical reason or else it is subjectivism. Neither view is consistent with normative pluralism; hence, pluralism must be restricted. Restricted pluralism, however, faces two problems. The first stems from the question: “Why is it that some standards are normative domains while others are not?” The question seems to demand an answer, but it is hard to give any answer without appealing to considerations that imply facts about what we ought simpliciter to do. Second, restricted pluralism has difficulty accounting for our intuitions about cases in which one option is optimal in all domains, but not better than each alternative in any one domain. The unique option that is optimal in every domain seems better than its competitors, though it isn’t better within any domain. This is different than the widely discussed argument from notable-nominal comparisons. So I conclude that we have good reason to reject restricted pluralism, the only form of normative pluralism really worthy of that name.


1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Rose Rabinov ◽  
Jody Kreiman ◽  
Bruce R. Gerratt ◽  
Steven Bielamowicz

Acoustic analysis is often favored over perceptual evaluation of voice because it is considered objective, and thus reliable. However, recent studies suggest this traditional bias is unwarranted. This study examined the relative reliability of human listeners and automatic systems for measuring perturbation in the evaluation of pathologic voices. Ten experienced listeners rated the roughness of 50 voice samples (ranging from normal to severely disordered) on a 75 mm visual analog scale. Rating reliability within and across listeners was compared to the reliability of jitter measures produced by several voice analysis systems (CSpeech, SoundScope, CSL, and an interactive hand-marking system). Results showed that overall listeners agreed as well or better than “objective” algorithms. Further, listeners disagreed in predictable ways, whereas automatic algorithms differed in seemingly random fashions. Finally, listener reliability increased with severity of pathology; objective methods quickly broke down as severity increased. These findings suggest that listeners and analysis packages differ greatly in their measurement characteristics. Acoustic measures may have advantages over perceptual measures for discriminating among essentially normal voices; however, reliability is not a good reason for preferring acoustic measures of perturbation to perceptual measures.


Author(s):  
Sari Roman-Lagerspetz

This paper adds a new line to Feminist critiques of Hegel. The paper starts with the observation that Feminist critics often emphasize women’s exclusion from the public sphere in Hegel’s account, but that less attention is paid to the way Hegel sees the role of family ethics, the guardians of which are women, as constitutive for the dialectics of the nation. The paper argues that gender hierarchy is necessary for Hegel’s rational state. For this reason, recognition can never become fully universal for Hegel. The paper argues that Hegel’s view of women as not-fully-rational beings, and his uncritical acceptance of the system of nation-states, are interconnected. These aspects of Hegel’s system are for good reason often found less appealing; it is an important observation that they are interrelated. Implicitly, the paper challenges contemporary defenders of universal recognition to do better than Hegel in these respects in trying to combine universal recognition with recognition of such particularities as gender and nationality.


Etyka ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 132-134
Author(s):  
Adam Podgórecki

Investigations on what is called „hidden life” were carried out in 1969-1970 by the Research Group for Social Norms and Pathology of Social Life in the Sociological Institute of Warsaw University. In the articles published in this volume in Polish the authors try to sum up the sociological aspects of the investigations. The investigations do not claim to describe in a full and adequate way all phenomena that are generally called „hidden life”. The following was to be achieved: the completion of the present pedagogical and psychological knowledge with respect to the sociological aspects of the „hidden life”, comparative studies of various institutions (educational, penitentiary, criminal) with a view to formulate a diagnosis about the intensity of „hidden life” in different systems of isolation, the explanation of the fundamental manifestations of the described phenomena, and, at last, the preparation of sufficient and rational grounds for a considerable limitation of the „hidden life” or for its elimination. Apart from aspects of social pedagogy, the discussed investigations have also had purely theoretical aspects. The phenomena of the „hidden life” are in principle an unknown territory in such domains of knowledge as sociology, pedagogy, and psychology. Perhaps the results obtained will permit to describe more fully the pathological and non-pathological events connected with the „hidden life” and to understand it better than hitherto. This may also be of some importance for ethics. It should be added that there are many analyses of the functioning of moral norms in different environments, the character of which is not far from normal. But there are few analyses of moral life in exceptional situations, as regards social groups; among them also in situations contained in the term „hidden life”.


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