The Six Perfections in the Mahāyāna

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-130
Author(s):  
Jay L. Garfield
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Moral Ideal ◽  
Moral Quality ◽  
Moral Qualities

This chapter addresses ethical theory of the Mahāyāna tradition specifically, giving a brief background on its origin and framework. The chapter then focuses on the six perfections, or moral qualities, that are adumbrated in the account of the bodhisattva path. The six perfections are generosity, proper conduct (śīla), patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom. The chapter also addresses the elevation of karuṇā (care), one of the brahmavihāras, to its status as the central moral quality, and discusses the installation of the bodhisattva, a being who forgoes personal liberation order to facilitate the liberation of all others, as the moral ideal

Professionalism and Ethics in Chemistry

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Kovac
Keyword(s):  
Professional Ethics ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Common Morality ◽  
Moral Ideal ◽  
Legal Ethics ◽  
Standards Of Conduct ◽  
Special Rules ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Ideal

Common morality and ethical theory are universal. Not only do they provide the standards of conduct that we expect all rational persons to follow, but also they provide the basis for professional ethics, the special rules of conduct adhered to by those engaged in pursuits ordinarily called professions, such as law, medicine, engineering, and science. Although common morality and ethical theory are general, professional ethics is specific. Legal ethics applies only to lawyers (and no one else); scientific ethics applies only to scientists. Professional ethics is consistent with common morality, but goes beyond it. Professional ethics governs the interactions among professionals, and between professionals and society (Callahan 1988). In many cases, it requires a higher standard of conduct than is expected of those outside the profession, but the norms of professional ethics must be consistent with common morality. To understand professional ethics, it is necessary to understand the concept of a profession (Davis 1998). A profession is more than a group of people engaged in a common occupation for which they are paid. While there are a variety of ways to define a profession, I use a social contract approach, which I have found to be most useful in my thinking about professional ethics. In this view, a profession derives from two bargains or contracts: one internal and one external. The internal bargain governs the interactions among members of the profession while the external bargain defines the relationship of the profession to society. Both, however, are based on a moral ideal of service around which the profession is organized (Davis 1987). For lawyers, the ideal is justice under law. For physicians, the ideal is curing the sick, protecting patients from disease, and easing the pain of the dying. As Michael Davis has argued, these moral ideals go beyond the demands of ordinary morality, the requirements of law, and the pressures of the market. Using a moral ideal as the fundamental basis of the profession comes from the old- fashioned idea of a profession as a calling.

Sturgeon's Defence of Moral Realism

Dialogue ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evan K. Jobe
Keyword(s):  
Moral Realism ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Scientific Explanation ◽  
Negative Answer ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Human Conduct ◽  
Moral Explanations ◽  
Moral Quality ◽  
Moral Qualities ◽  
Gilbert Harman

Can a moral principle be tested and confirmed empirically? Can the fact that an event exhibits a moral quality play a role in explaining why a person observes the event as having that quality? Gilbert Harman, in attempting to point to a radical difference between scientific and moral facts, has endorsed a negative answer to these questions. With Harman's discussion in mind, Nicholas Sturgeon takes the affirmative side in his “Moral Explanations,” a potentially influential essay that is now beginning to appear in the textbook anthologies. Sturgeon rounds out his defence of moral realism by further arguing that moral qualities of persons can play an essential role in the scientific explanation of human conduct. Finally, he attempts to enhance the appeal of moral realism by arguing for the plausibility of its compatibility with physicalism. While granting that Sturgeon's discussion is challenging and instructive I shall try to show that on all points mentioned here Sturgeon has failed to make a good case.

The Ethical Chemist

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Kovac
Keyword(s):  
Professional Ethics ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Professional Ethic ◽  
Codes Of Conduct ◽  
Science And Society ◽  
Moral Ideal ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Practice Of Science

This book is an introduction to professional ethics in chemistry. After a brief overview of ethical theory, it provides a detailed discussion of professional ethic for chemists based on the view that the specific codes of conduct derive from a moral ideal. The moral ideal presented here has three parts. The first refers to the practice of science, the second to relationships within the scientific community and the third to the relationship between science and society, particularly the uses of science. The question of why a scientist should obey the professional code is discussed in terms of the virtue of reverence, after which the ethical issues unique to chemistry are identified. A method for approaching ethical problems is presented. Finally, there is a large collection of specific ethical problems, or cases, each followed by a commentary where the issues raised by that case are discussed.

The Ethics of Consent

1982 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 91-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kleinig
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Social Ideology ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
Moral Quality ◽  
The One

We would not be far wide of the mark if we suggested that the prevailing social ideology is structured round the presumption that interpersonal and political relationships ought to be, and for the most part are, based on the mutual consent of the parties involved. Liberal democratic theory has secured for consent a crucial role in the justification of political obligation and authority. In law, the maximvolenti non fit injuria,to the one who consents no wrong is done, constitutes a defence in cases where one person invades the interests of another. In the bioethical field, there is a preoccupation with the formulation of a standard of ‘informed consent’ in patient-doctor and subject-researcher relationships. And in the broader domain of ethical theory there is an influential view that consensual acts do not differ in moral quality from selfregarding behaviour.

scholarly journals The value of human dignity as a form of moral regulation of teacher’s actions and deeds

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 272-277
Author(s):  
Vladimir Petrovich Bezdukhov ◽  
Artyom Vladimirovich Bezdukhov
Keyword(s):  
Golden Rule ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Relevance ◽  
Moral Regulation ◽  
Positive Side ◽  
Constructive Dialogue ◽  
Moral Quality ◽  
Moral Qualities ◽  
Education Of Students ◽  
Favorable Conditions

The relevance of the research is motivated by the importance of understanding the value of dignity as one of the forms of moral regulation of the teachers actions and deeds. The authors motivate the social relevance of teaching a moral quality (or virtue) of dignity by the fact that, considering him/herself and others equally worthy, a person becomes capable of a constructive dialogue. The paper argues that one of the leading goals of modern education as an introduction to values is the education of students self-esteem, the upbringing of worthy people. The authors reveal that value is one of the elements of the system of moral regulation of actions and deeds; that the imperativeness of values lies in the fact that, being a guideline for pedagogical activity, they instruct the teacher to correspond to their content, which determines the content of moral requirements for him/herself and for students. It is shown that the golden rule of morality as a value determines the most important form of moral regulation in modern conditions. It is revealed that positive or negative aspects of the golden rule of morality correspond to what the teacher wants or does not want to experience, endure; what action he/she wants (does not want) to do so that students do (dont do) the same. It is substantiated that the above-mentioned aspects of the golden rule of morality from the pedagogical point of view are requirements to act (requirements-samples) or not to act (requirements-prohibitions) accordingly. It is revealed that dignity as a virtue combines the elements of obligation and value. Obligation is manifested in behavior focused on a certain moral quality dignity; the value of dignity, which manifests itself in behavior through the manifestation of moral qualities of honesty, truthfulness, etc., sets the form of moral regulation in which (form) the content of moral qualities and value of dignity is transmitted. The authors of the paper insist that the teacher, in the course of interaction with students, creates conditions for them to understand the essence of requirements-prohibitions, contained in the negative side of the golden rule of morality, and the essence of requirements-samples, enclosed in the positive side of the golden rule of morality; that at the level of self-education, these requirements are formulated by the teacher and students in the form of self-persuasion, self-order to commit a moral deed and not to commit an immoral act. Self-persuasion and self-order are methods of self-education, and the more a person masters them, the more he/she strengthens self-respect. Such a person becomes a moral guide for others; such a teacher creates the most favorable conditions for developing students self-respect.

Keynes and the Ethics of Socialism

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-180
Author(s):  
Edward Fuller
Keyword(s):  
Social System ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Logical Theory ◽  
Rule Based ◽  
Ethical Justification ◽  
General Rules

This paper examines John Maynard Keynes’s ethical theory and how it relates to his politico-economic thought. Keynes’s ethical theory represents an attack on all general rules. Since capitalism is a rule-based social system, Keynes’s ethical theory is incompatible with capitalism. And since socialism rejects the general rules of private property, the Keynesian ethical theory is consistent with socialism. The unexplored evidence presented here confirms Keynes advocated a consistent form of non-Marxist socialism from no later than 1907 until his death in 1946. However, Keynes’s ethical theory is flawed because it is based on his defective logical theory of probability. Consequently, Keynes’s ethical theory is not a viable ethical justification for socialism.

Integrity and the Case for Restraint

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Public Justification ◽  
Moral Ideal ◽  
Democratic Societies

This chapter discusses the concern that exclusive accounts of public reason threaten or undermine the integrity of some religiously oriented citizens in democratic societies. It discusses various notions of integrity that might be claimed to ground such a concern. It is argued that purely formal accounts of integrity that do not distinguish between the integrity of reasonable and unreasonable persons, as specified within political liberalism, cannot underwrite integrity challenges that should concern political liberals. It is further argued that if the inquiry is limited to conceptions of integrity that distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable persons, the supposed burdens persons of faith face are not burdens different from those that all citizens face equally. It is claimed the concern is best understood as a challenge to the account of public justification and the account of public reason as a moral ideal.

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