Virtue Ethics, Thick Concepts, and Paradoxes of Beneficence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Swanton
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
The Core ◽  
Theoretical Position ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
Practical Reality ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
Mode Of Being

Reasons of beneficence are at the core of ethics and also of many of its paradoxes. What is needed for their resolution is an appreciation of the distinctive nature of what has been called the logos of ethics; an openness to a practical reality of notably reasons. That openness constitutes the mode of being of that reality and thereby its ontology. I propose a virtue ethical understanding of the logos of ethics. Here the thick virtue and vice concepts are central. This conception of the ethical provides a stark contrast to the narrowness and thinness of the “moral” as traditionally conceived. After outlining the basic theoretical position—the chapter deploys the view to resolve paradoxes of beneficence. These are the paradox of supererogation, the “It Makes No Difference” Paradox (e.g., that of pooled beneficence), and that of the underdetermination by reasons for action (e.g., of what charity to support).

The Wrong Logos

2021 ◽  
pp. 282-296
Author(s):  
Christine Swanton
Keyword(s):  
Reasons For Action ◽  
The Core ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
Practical Reality

Reasons of beneficence are at the core of ethics, and also of many of its most intractable theoretical problems, indeed paradoxes. What is needed for the resolution of these problems is an appreciation of the distinctive nature of the logos of ethics. In brief that logos is seen as an openness to a practical reality of notably reasons, for the understanding of which a familiarity with the thick ethical concepts is required. Such reasons provide direct intentional access to ethical reality. But if we attempt to gain intentional access to ethical facts through the wrong logos where the thick concepts are invisible or not central paradoxes ensue. This chapter discusses three: the paradox of supererogation, the ‘It Makes no Difference’ Paradox (e.g., that of ‘pooled beneficence’), and that of the underdetermination by reasons for action (e.g., of what charity to support).

A Particularist but Codifiable Virtue Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 262-281
Author(s):  
Christine Swanton
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Moral Particularism ◽  
Right Action ◽  
Jonathan Dancy ◽  
The Core ◽  
Ethical View

Moral particularism of the kind developed by Jonathan Dancy is treated as a topic in meta-ethics. Until it is applied to a suitable type of normative theory criticisms which have assailed it are difficult to rebut. This chapter aims to apply Dancy’s particularism to target centred virtue ethics, showing how many of these criticisms are off the mark. At the core of these criticisms is that of uncodifiability. Virtue ethics is held to be codifiable through the virtue rules which encode virtue-reasons for action, reasons which are argued to be particularist in Dancy’s sense. That is it is possible even for reasons expressed through the thick virtue concepts to switch valence. In the course of the argument a virtue ethical view of right action (the target-centred view) is further developed.

scholarly journals El artículo 53 de la Constitución Española de 1978: esquema de la evolución y del estado de situación de sus instrumentos de reconocimiento y garantía de las libertades y derechos fundamentales (1978-2017) // Article 53 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978: outline of the evolution and the situation of their instruments for the guarantee of the Fundamental Rights (1978-2017)

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (100) ◽  
pp. 1099
Author(s):  
Alberto Oehling de los Reyes
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Rights ◽  
Practical Realization ◽  
Public Authorities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
The Core ◽  
Spanish Constitution ◽  
Core Content ◽  
The Social ◽  
Practical Reality

Resumen:El artículo 53 de la Constitución española recoge tres cuestiones básicas: en primer lugar, determina que los derechos y libertades vinculan a todo el poder público; en segundo lugar, determina la protección constitucional y judicial de los derechos y libertades y de los derechos fundamentales; en tercer lugar, reconoce los principios rectores de la política social y económica. En este artículo se analizan estos preceptos y conceptos constitucionales, pero también se estudia su desarrollo legislativo desde 1978 y la realidad práctica hasta el día de hoy. En el artículo también se hace análisis de algunas incoherencias de la jurisprudencia del Tribunal Constitucional en materias fundamentales del artículo 53 de la Constitución española de 1978. La intención es dar una visión de conjunto del artículo 53 de la Constitución desde 1978 hasta hoy.Summary:1. Introduction. 2. The structure of the practical realization of the article 53. 3. Preconditions of the legislation of the rights and freedoms and fundamental rights: 3.1 The principle of subjection and legally binding of all public authorities. 3.2 The principle of legal reserve. 3.3 The core content of the rights and freedoms. 4. The preferred procedure and ordinary summary of the article 53: 4.1 Outline of evolution and situation of the preferred procedure and summary inthe jurisdictional divisions. 4.2 About the protection of fundamental rights with procedural nature. 5. The remedy of amparo in the context of the article 53.2. 6. Approximation to the practical sense of the principles recognized in Chapter III Title I.Abstract:The article 53 of the Spanish Constitution specifies three basic issues: First, determines that the rights and liberties link all the public authorities; Secondly, determines the judicial and constitutional protection of the rights and freedoms and fundamental rights in Spain; Thirdly, recognizes the guiding principles of the social and economic policy. In this article are analysed these constitutional provisions and concepts, but also is studied their legislative development since 1978 and the practical reality until the present day. In the article are also analysed some inconsistencies in the jurisprudence of the SpanishConstitutional Court on fundamental issues about the article 53 of the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The intention is to give an overview of the article 53 of the Constitution from 1978 until today.

Virtue, Mixed Emotions and Moral Ambivalence

Philosophy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Carr
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Psychological Status ◽  
Recent Attempt ◽  
Reasons For Action ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Mixed Emotions ◽  
Emotional Conflict ◽  
Moral Ambivalence

AbstractAristotelian virtue ethics invests emotions and feelings with much moral significance. However, the moral and other conflicts that inevitably beset human life often give rise to states of emotional division and ambivalence with problematic implications for any understanding of virtue as complete psychic unity of character and conduct. For one thing, any admission that the virtuous are prey to conflicting passions and desires may seem to threaten the crucial virtue ethical distinction between the virtuous and the continent. One recent attempt to sustain this distinction – considered in this paper – maintains that the contrary-to-virtue emotions and desires of the virtuous (by contrast with those of the continent) must relinquish their motive power as reasons for action. Following some attention to the psychological status of feelings and emotions – in particular their complex relations with cognition and reason – this paper rejects this solution in favour of a more constructive view of emotional conflict.

To daydream is to imagine events: Conceptual, empirical, and theoretical considerations

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian R. Newby-Clark ◽  
Kajalaxy Thavendran
Keyword(s):  
Mind Wandering ◽  
The Core ◽  
Theoretical Position ◽  
Theoretical Considerations

We propose defining daydreaming as “imagining events.” In support, we give a brief account of past daydreaming research and the various definitions of daydreaming, whether stated or implied, in those works. We argue that this variation in definition, and in particular the equating of daydreaming with mind-wandering, is problematic. Our definition represents the core of the concept, resists conflation with mind-wandering and, of scientific benefit, does not entail a strong theoretical position.

Negotiating Virtue

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Amyn B. Sajoo
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
End Of Life Decisions ◽  
Genital Mutilation ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Core ◽  
Biomedical Technologies ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Female Genital

Principlist modes of reasoning in bioethics – with autonomy at the core – resonate strongly with a legalism that dominates Muslim ethics, including the understanding of the shari’a. From abortion and organ donation/transplant to end-of-life decisions, both secular and Muslim bioethics generally apply “cardinal” principles in ways felt to be relatively objective and certain, though they may produce different outcomes. This article builds on recent critiques, notably that of virtue ethics, in drawing attention to the cost in sensitivity to context and the individual. The Aristotelian basis of virtue ethics has a venerable place in Islamic traditions – as does maslaha, the public good, which has long played a critical role in tempering formalism in the shari’a. In conjunction with the agent- and context-centred reasoning of virtue ethics, maslaha can contribute vitally to negotiating competing bioethical claims. It is also more inclusive than principlist legalism, given the latter’s traditionalist and patriarchal moorings. The shift is urgent amid the growing interface of religious and secular approaches to problems raised by biomedical technologies, and to biosocial issues such as female genital mutilation (FGM) and honour killings.

scholarly journals CORE OF THE ESSENCE AND CORE OF THE PERSON: JEAN HERING AND A HIDDEN SOURCE OF EDITH STEIN’S EARLY ONTOLOGY

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 441-462
Author(s):  
DANIELE DE SANTIS ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Original Version ◽  
Edith Stein ◽  
The Core ◽  
Individual Essence ◽  
Direct Knowledge ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Mode Of Being ◽  
The Way

The present paper makes the case for considering Jean Hering the source from which Edith Stein first borrowed the concept of “core,” notably, “core of the person.” In particular, we maintain that the background of Stein’s decision is represented by the original version of Hering’s famous booklet Bemerkungen über das Wesen, die Wesenheit und die Idee, namely, the Appendix (Fragmente zur Vorbereitung einer künftigen Lehre vom Apriori) to his still unpublished dissertation on Lotze. Nevertheless, whereas Hering introduces the concept of “core” to merely discriminate between different types of essences within the framework of a general attempt at determining the structure of individual essences, Stein takes it to characterize always and exclusively the structure of the person, notably, its mode of being, thereby paving the way for her future personalistic ontology. The paper will be divided into three parts. In § 2 evidence will be produced to support the thesis that Stein had direct knowledge of Hering’s dissertation. § 3 will analyze Hering’s notions of essence and “core of the essence” (in both versions of the text and in relation to the example of the “essence” of Caesar). Finally, § 4 will tackle the “core” in Stein’s early works, in particular in the book on empathy, and in comparison with Hering’s understanding of it. The paper intends to pursue a double goal: it aims at emphasizing the novelty of Stein’s conception of the essence, notably, core of the (individual) essence while at the same time reconstructing the wider framework to which it belongs.

Integrity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Davis
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Moral Thinking ◽  
The Core ◽  
Leading Role

The possession (or lack) of integrity is something that all morally serious people care about and think important. In both personal relationships and public life, to describe someone as exhibiting a lack of integrity is to offer a damning diagnosis. It carries the implication that this individual is not to be relied upon, that in some fundamental way they are not someone who we can, or should, view as being wholly or unequivocally there. The foundations of self and character are not sound; the ordering of values is not coherent. Important as the notion of integrity is, it is nevertheless difficult to characterize with precision. Attempts to analyse it seldom do justice to its complexity, or adequately reflect the diverse concerns that generate and sustain either philosophers’ or non-philosophers’ interest in it. Contemporary interest in the notion of integrity has a number of different, often overlapping, sources. It has been accorded a leading role in the debate between consequentialists and non-consequentialists; revived interest in virtue-ethics has naturally focused attention on it; and its connection with unity or coherence of personality make it central for moral psychology. As well as occupying a central position in three major topics within academic moral philosophy, integrity has also come to wider prominence in at least two ways: as a virtue increasingly missed in public life; and as a transcultural virtue that reflects a world that has become increasingly morally pluralistic. The notion of integrity, though complex, elusive, and analytically intractable, is one that goes to the core of our moral thinking, both in theoretical and practical terms.

Has Virtue Ethics Sold Out?

2021 ◽  
pp. 241-261
Author(s):  
Christine Swanton
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Right Action ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
Core Concepts

This chapter discusses a contemporary criticism of virtue ethics as focusing too much on providing a criterion of right action. I claim that the criticism is off the mark on a variety of fronts, including a misinterpretation of Anscombe, a misguided view that what is offered is a criterion of right action as opposed to a framework, and that what is offered is a criterion of morally right action in a suspect sense of “moral.” I show how the important deontic notions can have a place in virtue ethics. The chapter explores also further problems with the notion of rightness in ethics: the essential contestedness of even core concepts of rightness and both combinatorial and degree vagueness in the relation between the thick concepts and rightness.

scholarly journals Derivational Syntax: a Minimalist Approach to Affixation in Bahasa Indonesia Predicates

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Wahyono Sukarno
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Event Structure ◽  
The Core ◽  
Verb Phrases ◽  
Minimalist Approach ◽  
Temporal Aspect ◽  
Stark Contrast ◽  
Bahasa Indonesia

<p>This thesis focuses on verbal phrase aspect (vP-aspect) in Bahasa Indonesia (BI). In BI, vP-aspect is morphologically marked on the predicate. I claim that the sufiix -kan marks an aspect, which I refer to as kan-aspect, indicating that the object undergoes change. This is in a stark contrast with i-aspect, where the object is stationary and unchanged. The analysis is based on the notion that the semantics and syntax of a predicate should be analysed within the vP (for instance, Tenny 1987, 1994, Chomsky 1995, Arad 1998, Croft 1998, among others), with the core argument determining the aspectual property of an event structure (Tenny 1987, Arad 1998, Ritter and Rosen 1998). Since this thesis proposes to take into account the -kan and -i distinction as an important aspect in the analysis, the structural location of the two suffixes will take centre stage. This has not been done in the literature on BI that looks at these derivational suffixes. This thesis further develops the analysis beyond verb phrases: it takes into account the syntax of Voice Phrase of sentence structures that include (temporal) Aspect Phrase, Wh-extractions, and Relative Clauses.</p>

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