Moralities and Characters as Moral Agents

Author(s):  
Carl Plantinga

Estrangement theories, in relation to ethical criticism, favor attention to the political over the personal, to ideology rather than morality, to the systemic and institutional rather than the individual. Engagement theory would consider both the personal and the political, morality and ideology. This chapter rehabilitates a critical interest in morality and in individual characters in the context of screen stories. It discusses how to think about morality in the context of moral systems and discusses the relationships among morality, politics, and ideology. It shows how an attention to characters as moral agents does not rule out attention to broader sociocultural processes, but may in fact enable a better understanding of them. The chapter also notes that much of the interest in screen stories, and in stories generally, stems from a human interest in, and tendency to judge, the behavior of others. Finally, the chapter defends character-centered criticism against its critics.

2018 ◽  
pp. 249-258
Author(s):  
Michail Mantzanas

The political morality that Plato and Aristotle supported was governed by various anthropological and social determinants, which means that they focused on man understood as a citizen and interpreted through the dialectic as well as through the prospects of the city’s happiness, since for both of them man was a social animal. The political ethics of Plato and Aristotle does not endanger the political community with political bankruptcy. This political morality does not start from intransigent principles to reach a compromise that has already been surpassed by the previous negative dynamics. The Byzantine political morality oscillates between the individual and the totality. It is not governed by individualism but rather by communitarianism, which entails that it confirms the dynamics of unity within the city. The Byzantine political morals is imbued with an anticipation of the political crisis, it seeks to identify any negative developments and strives to avoid the political marginalization of the citizens who are likely to rebel against any autocratic government. The Byzantine political morality is, thus, not an idle and selfish political introversion, concerned merely with political crises, conflict scenarios and conspiracy theories, as it strives to come up with various solutions that should guarantee political balance.


Author(s):  
Emma Simone

Virginia Woolf and Being-in-the-world: A Heideggerian Study explores Woolf’s treatment of the relationship between self and world from a phenomenological-existential perspective. This study presents a timely and compelling interpretation of Virginia Woolf’s textual treatment of the relationship between self and world from the perspective of the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Drawing on Woolf’s novels, essays, reviews, letters, diary entries, short stories, and memoirs, the book explores the political and the ontological, as the individual’s connection to the world comes to be defined by an involvement and engagement that is always already situated within a particular physical, societal, and historical context. Emma Simone argues that at the heart of what it means to be an individual making his or her way in the world, the perspectives of Woolf and Heidegger are founded upon certain shared concerns, including the sustained critique of Cartesian dualism, particularly the resultant binary oppositions of subject and object, and self and Other; the understanding that the individual is a temporal being; an emphasis upon intersubjective relations insofar as Being-in-the-world is defined by Being-with-Others; and a consistent emphasis upon average everydayness as both determinative and representative of the individual’s relationship to and with the world.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147892992110195
Author(s):  
Paulo Cox ◽  
Mauricio Morales Quiroga

Gender gaps in voter turnout are usually studied using opinion surveys rather than official census data. This is because administrative censuses usually do not disaggregate turnout according to voters’ sex. Without this official information, much of the research on gender gaps in electoral turnout relies on survey respondents’ self-reported behavior, either before or after an election. The decision to use survey data implies facing several potential drawbacks. Among them are the turnout overstatement bias and the attrition or nonresponse bias, both affecting the estimation of factors explaining turnout and any related statistical analysis. Furthermore, these biases may be correlated with covariates such as gender: men, more than women, may systematically overstate their electoral participation. We analyze turnout gender gaps in Chile, comparing national surveys with official administrative data, which in Chile are publicly available. Crucially, the latter includes the official record of sex, age, and the electoral behavior—whether the individual voted or not—for about 14 million registered individuals. Based on a series of statistical models, we find that analysis based on survey data is likely to rule out gender gaps in electoral participation. Carrying out the same exercises, but with official data, leads to the opposite conclusion, namely, that there is a sizable gender gap favoring women.


2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Alexander Rubtsov

In the article, the relationship between the highest professional specialization of philosophy and its involvement in the realities of everyday life consciousness, collective and individual, are considered. Karl Jaspers defines philosophy precisely through the natural need and ability of human being as such, from the piercing questions of children to the revelations of anomalous geniuses. Great philosophers only concentrate this sleeping ability in a person to see the world directly and every time anew. Rightly considered the most closed type of intellectual activity, philosophy at the same time provides examples of live communication and direct appeal to people and society.  The fact that each of us is the bearer of philosophical ideas (whether we are aware of it or not) leads to the problem of ideology. By analogy with the constitution of the political by Carl Schmitt through the opposition "friend — enemy", ideology is constituted by the opposition of "faith — knowledge" in a single continuum between the poles of "almost religion" and "almost philosophy". If ideology asserts the non-obvious as obvious, then the mission of philosophy is a systematic criticism of the obvious.  This conflict manifests itself both in society and in the consciousness of an individual.  The classic understanding of ideology as a purely external manipulation (“consciousness for the Other”) is challenged by the presence in the consciousness of the individual subject of “internal dialogue” and “internal speech” with the effects of ideological work and ideological struggle with oneself (the individual as a micromodel of society and the state).  Postmodern all the more accentuates the non-professional dimension of philosophy by rejecting the schemes of progress and hierarchy, the logic of binary oppositions, including high and low, center and marginal, specialized and amateur.  The ability to reflect is the most important feature of a sovereign personality in its resistance to the "penetrating" ideology and new mythology, degrading to intellectual barbarism and political savagery.


2021 ◽  
pp. arabic cover-english cover
Author(s):  
أحمد حساني

يندرج هذا البحث ضمن مشروع تأسيسي، وتأصيلي هادف، يسعى إلى تعزيز المقاربة اللسانية البينية للنسق اللغوي بكل مكوناته، والبحث عن قوة الحضور التي يمتلكها، والسلطة التي يمارسها على الفرد منتجِ الخطاب، وعلى الجماعة التي تشكل المجتمع اللغوي؛ حيث إنَّ اللغة قوة فاعلة لها سلطة داخلية وخارجية، تتجلى سلطتها الداخلية في نظامها القواعدي المعقد الذي يوجد بصفة مضمرة في أذهان المتكلمين- المستمعين الذين ينتمون إلى مجتمع له خصوصيات ثقافية وحضارية متجانسة. وتتجلى سلطتها الخارجية في المؤسسة السياسية، والاجتماعية والعرفية التي تكرّس شرعية النسق اللغوي في المجتمع اللغوي. وفي ظل هذا التصور، انصرفت هذه المقاربة إلى التعامل مع النسق اللغوي، من حيث هو سلطة قهرية، والبحث في علاقته باللغة العالمة من جهة، واللغة المؤسسية من جهة أخرى. تسعى هذه الدراسة، حينئذٍ، إلى إيجاد إجابات علميةكافية، عن كثير من الأسئلة التي ما فتئت تشغل بال الباحثين، على اختلاف اهتماماتهم العلمية أثناء اتخاذهم اللغة موضوعًا للتفكير، والبحث المؤسس. نذكر في هذا المقام بعضَها لأهميته: 1- ما القوة الخفية الكامنة في (ما وراء) ممارسة اللغة لسلطتها القهرية لدى الأفراد والمجتمعات؟ 2- كيف شكلت الرواسب الأدائية للكلام هذه السلطة عبر التاريخ ؟ 3- إلى أي حد يمكن للغتين؛ العالمة، والمؤسسية التأثير في مسار النسق اللغوي في مجتمع المعرفة، والنظام المؤسسي في المجتمع؟ This research falls within a constituent, and Authentic project that seeks to enhance Interdisciplinary approach with all components parts of linguistic system to search for the presence power, that possesses the power, that it exercises on the individual who produces the discourse, and on the group; which make up the linguistic community as an effective force language, that has internal and external authority, which reflects its internal authority in its complex grammatical system, that exists implicitly in the minds of speakers - listeners belonging to a society with homogeneous cultural and civilizational privacies. The external authority is manifested in the political, social, and traditional institution; that devotes the legitimacy of the linguistic system in the linguistic community. Under this scenario; the approach went out to deal with the linguistic system in terms of it is a compulsive authority research, and its relationship to the scholarly language on the hand, and the institutional language on the other hand. This intervention seeks to find scientific answers for many questions, that still preoccupy the researchers from different scientific interests during taking the language as a topic of thought and institutional research. We mention certain questions for its importance: 1- What is the hidden power behind language practicing its oppressive authority in individuals and societies? 2- How did the performance remnants of speech shape this authority throughout history? 3- To what extent can the scholarly language and institutional languages influence the path of a linguistic system in the knowledge society, and the institutional system in the community?


Author(s):  
Richard Whiting

In assessing the relationship between trade unions and British politics, this chapter has two focuses. First, it examines the role of trade unions as significant intermediate associations within the political system. They have been significant as the means for the development of citizenship and involvement in society, as well as a restraint upon the power of the state. Their power has also raised questions about the relationship between the role of associations and the freedom of the individual. Second, the chapter considers critical moments when the trade unions challenged the authority of governments, especially in the periods 1918–26 and 1979–85. Both of these lines of inquiry underline the importance of conservatism in the achievement of stability in modern Britain.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jovanka Mariana de Genova Ferreira ◽  
Gisele Pereira de Souza

Ao analisar as teorias de Pierre Bourdieu e Paulo Freire sobre educação, bem como a posição acadêmica e política dos autores sobre o tema, o artigo pretende refletir sobre projeto ‘Escola sem Partido’ e sua implicação em relação à prática dentro da sala de aula. Tal movimento que, nos últimos tempos, ganhou destaque no cenário brasileiro é contra o que chama de doutrinação política e ideológica dos alunos por parte dos professores e a usurpação dos direitos dos pais na educação moral e religiosa de seus filhos. Constatou-se que no cenário brasileiro atual existe uma iniciativa de diminuir a força da análise crítica dentro das escolas. A própria natureza do ‘Escola sem Partido’ traz essa premissa, pois a intenção de desmerecer a posição política do professor junto aos seus alunos demonstra que o propósito seja desqualificar a iniciativa de incentivar uma consciência crítica, o que, de múltiplas formas discutidas no presente estudo, colabora para que a relação oprimido e opressor prospere.Palavras-chave: Educação. Autonomia do Indivíduo. Escola sem Partido Reflections about ‘Escola sem Partido’ inspired by the theories of Paulo Freire and Pierre BourdieuAnalyzing the theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Paulo Freire on education, as well as the academic and political position of the authors on the theme, the article intends to reflect on the project “Escola Sem Partido” and its implication in relation to the practice within the classroom. This movement, which recently gained prominence in the Brazilian scenario, is against what it calls the political and ideological indoctrination of students by teachers and the usurpation of the rights of parents in the moral and religious education of their children. It was found that in the current Brazilian scenario there is an initiative to reduce the force of critical analysis within schools. The very nature of the “Escola Sem Partido” has this premise, since the intention to discredit the teacher’s political position with his students demonstrates that the purpose is to disqualify the initiative to encourage a critical conscience. What, in many ways is discussed in the present study, contributes to the oppressed and oppressive relationship to thrive.Keywords: Education. Autonomy of the Individual. Escola sem Partido. Reflexiones sobre la ‘Escola sem Partido’ inspirada por las teorías de Paulo Freire y Pierre BourdieuRESUMENAl analizar las teorías de Pierre Bourdieu y Paulo Freire sobre educación, así como la posición académica y política de los autores sobre el tema, el artículo pretende reflexionar sobre proyecto “Escola sem Partido” y su implicación con relación a la práctica dentro del aula. Tal movimiento, que en los últimos tiempos ganó destaque en el escenario brasileño está en contra lo que llama de adoctrinamiento político e ideológico de los alumnos por parte de los profesores y la usurpación de los derechos de los padres en la educación moral y religiosa de sus hijos. Se constató que en el escenario brasileño actual existe una iniciativa de disminuir la fuerza del análisis crítico dentro de las escuelas. La propia naturaleza de la “Escola sem Partido” aporta esa premisa, pues la intención de desmerecer la posición política del profesor junto a sus alumnos demuestra que el propósito sea descalificar la iniciativa de incentivar una conciencia crítica. Lo que, de múltiples formas discutidas en el presente estudio, colabora para que la relación oprimido y opresor prospere.Palabras clave: La educación. Autonomía del individuo. Escola sem Partido.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document