Wrongdoing and the Moral Emotions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derk Pereboom
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Criminal Behavior ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Moral Reform ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
The Core ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Core Condition ◽  
The Right

This book provides an account of how we might address wrongdoing given challenges to anger and retribution that arise from ethical considerations and from concerns about free will. It contends that we should dispense with basically deserved pain and harm, and with associated retributive sentiments. Without such desert, how might we understand blame? Blame can be conceived as taking on a non-retributive stance of moral protest, whose function is to secure forward-looking goals such as moral reform and reconciliation. Is it possible to justify effectively dealing with those who pose dangerous threats if they do not deserve to be harmed? Wrongfully posing such a threat, by contrast with deserving harm for posing the threat, is proposed as the core condition for the legitimacy of defensive harming. An account is then provided for addressing criminal behavior without a retributive justification for punishment, one in which the right of self-defense provides justification for measures such as preventative detention. How might we forgive if wrongdoers don’t basically deserve the pain of being resented, which forgiveness would then renounce? Forgiveness might instead be conceived as the renunciation of the stance of moral protest. But how might personal relationships function without retributive anger having a role in responding to wrongdoing? The stance of moral protest, together with non-retributive emotions, is argued to be sufficient. The book closes with a consideration of attitudes regarding the fate of humanity in a deterministic universe replete with wrongdoing, and defends the rationality of a transcendent hope for humanity.

Between Heimat and Hatred

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
German History ◽  
German Jews ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
The Core ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Class Environment ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right ◽  
Agricultural Settlement

This book studies German Jews involved in ventures that were from the beginning, or became increasingly, of the Right. Jewish agricultural settlement, Jews’ participation in the so-called Defense of Germandom in the East, their place in military and veteran circles, and finally right-of-center politics form the core of this book. These topics created a web of social activities and political persuasions neither entirely conservative nor entirely liberal. For those German Jews engaging with these issues, their motivation came from sincere love of their German Heimat—a term for home imbued with a deep sense of belonging—and from their middle-class environment, as well as a desire to repudiate antisemitic stereotypes of rootlessness, intellectualism, or cosmopolitanism. This tension stands at the heart of the book. The book also asks when did the need for self-defense start to outweigh motivations of patriotism and class? Until when could German Jews espouse views to the right of the political spectrum without appearing extreme to either Jews or non-Jews? The book builds on recent studies of Jews’ relation to German nationalism, the experience of German Jews away from the large cities, and the increasing interest in Germans’ obsession with regional roots and the East. The study follows these lines of inquiry to investigate the participation of some German Jews in projects dedicated to originally, or increasingly, illiberal projects. As such it shines light on an area in which Jewish participation has thus far only been treated as an afterthought and illuminates both Jewish and German history afresh.

Defensive Harm and Measured Aggression

2021 ◽  
pp. 54-77
Author(s):  
Derk Pereboom
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Third Parties ◽  
The Core ◽  
Defensive Harm ◽  
Core Condition ◽  
Defensive Action

Chapter 3 concerns how we might justify effectively dealing with those who pose dangerous threats supposing they do not deserve to be harmed. Wrongly posing a threat, by contrast with deserving harm for posing the threat, is proposed as the core condition for what I call robust liability to defensive killing, a liability that agent A has just in case A poses a threat to agent B as a result of which B and third parties are prima facie morally permitted to intentionally kill A to defend B from that threat. A non-retributive measured aggressive stance appropriately facilitates taking defensive action. Such an emotional stance, if it presupposes only that its target wrongly poses a threat, accords with skepticism about free will, and is also better for those called upon to confront injustice than the alternatives.

Love and Freedom

2021 ◽  
pp. 123-148
Author(s):  
Derk Pereboom
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
The Other ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Ought Implies Can ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Ability To Do Otherwise

Chapter 6 contends that love and relationships need not be compromised if we, motivated by ethical considerations and skepticism about free will, relinquished the retributive emotions. When we are wronged in relationships, there are non-retributive emotions available to us, whose expressions can play the relevant roles. These emotions include feeling hurt or shocked or disappointed about what the offending agent has done, and sadness or sorrow and concern for him, and taking on the stance of moral protest against him. Personal relationships might presuppose free will due to being structured by moral obligations, and, by way of the ‘ought implies can principle,’ moral obligations presupposing the ability to refrain from wrongdoing. Two responses are offered, one compatibilist about the relevant ability to do otherwise, and the other invoking a sense of ‘ought’ that does not imply ‘can’ in the threatening sense.

What face familiarity feelings say about the lateralization of specific entities within the core system

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guido Gainotti
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Lobe ◽  
Memory System ◽  
Core System ◽  
The Core ◽  
Memory Traces ◽  
Specific Memory ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Temporal Structures ◽  
The Right

Abstract The target article carefully describes the memory system, centered on the temporal lobe that builds specific memory traces. It does not, however, mention the laterality effects that exist within this system. This commentary briefly surveys evidence showing that clear asymmetries exist within the temporal lobe structures subserving the core system and that the right temporal structures mainly underpin face familiarity feelings.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Evan Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Agent Causation ◽  
The Right

This chapter lays out the book’s central question: Assuming agency reductionism—that is, the thesis that the causal role of the agent in all agential activities is reducible to the causal role of states and events involving the agent—is it possible to construct a defensible model of libertarianism? It is explained that most think the answer is negative and this is because they think libertarians must embrace some form of agent-causation in order to address the problems of luck and enhanced control. The thesis of the book is that these philosophers are mistaken: it is possible to construct a libertarian model of free will and moral responsibility within an agency reductionist framework that silences that central objections to libertarianism by simply taking the best compatibilist model of freedom and adding indeterminism in the right junctures of human agency. A brief summary of the chapters to follow is given.

Military Professionalism and Humanitarian Law

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yishai Beer
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
The Core ◽  
Humanitarian Mission ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
Professional Perspective ◽  
The Law ◽  
Preemptive Strike ◽  
Military Professionalism

This book seeks to revitalize the humanitarian mission of the international law governing armed conflict, which is being frustrated due to states’ actual practice. In order to achieve its two aims—creating an environment in which full abidance by the law becomes an attainable norm, thus facilitating the second and more important aim of reducing human suffering—it calls for the acknowledgment of realpolitik considerations that dictate states’ and militaries’ behavior. This requires recognition of the core interests of law-abiding states, fighting in their own self-defense—those that, from their militaries’ professional perspective, are essential in order to exercise their defense. Internalizing the importance of existential security interests, when drawing the contours of the law, should not automatically come at the expense of the core values of the humanitarian agenda—for example, the distinction rule. Rather, it allows more room for the humanitarian arena. The suggested tool to allow for such an improved dialogue is the standards and principles of military professionalism. Militaries function in a professional manner; they respect their respective doctrines, operational principles, fighting techniques, and values. Their performances are not random or incidental. The suggested paradigm surfaces and leverages the constraining elements hidden in military professionalism. It suggests a new paradigm in balancing the principles of military necessity and humanity, it deals with the legality of a preemptive strike and the leveraging of military strategy as a constraining tool, and it offers a normative framework for introducing deterrence within the current contours of the law.

The Fox Diet

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts
Keyword(s):  
First Year ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Justice Department ◽  
Fox News ◽  
The Core ◽  
Deep State ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
Conservative Media ◽  
The Right

This chapter focuses on the role of the dominant player in conservative media, Fox News, during the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency. It looks at three case studies to illustrate how Fox News used its position at the core of the right-wing media ecosystem repeatedly to mount propaganda attacks in support of Trump: the Michael Flynn firing in March 2017, when Fox adopted the “deep state” framing of the entire controversy; the James Comey firing and Robert Mueller appointment in May 2017; when Fox propagated the Seth Rich murder conspiracy; and in October and November, when the arrests of Paul Manafort and guilty plea of Flynn seemed to mark a new level of threat to the president, Fox reframed the Uranium One story as an attack on the integrity of the FBI and Justice Department officials in charge of the investigation.

scholarly journals Toleration as the Balance Between Liberty and Security

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Elisabetta Galeotti ◽  
Federica Liveriero
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Harm Principle ◽  
Social Tolerance ◽  
Individual Liberty ◽  
Self Defense ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Harm Principle

AbstractTraditionally, an adequate strategy to deal with the tension between liberty and security has been toleration, for the latter allows the maximization of individual liberty without endangering security, since it embraces the limits set by the harm principle and the principle of self-defense of the liberal order. The area outside the boundary clearly requires repressive measures to protect the security and the rights of all. In this paper, we focus on the balance of liberty and security afforded by toleration, analyzing how this strategy works in highly conflictual contexts and sorting out the different sets of reason that might motivate individual to assume a tolerant attitude. We contend that toleration represents a reliable political solution to conflicts potentially threatening social security when it is coupled with social tolerance. Hence, we examine the reasons the agents may have for endorsing toleration despite disagreement and disapproval. In the range of these reasons, we argue that the right reasons are those preserving the moral and epistemic integrity of the agent. The right reasons are however not accessible to everyone, as for example is the case with (non-violent) religious fundamentalists. Only prudential reasons for toleration seem to be available to them. And yet, we argue that an open and inclusive democracy should in principle be hospitable towards prudential and pragmatic reasons as well, which may potentially lay the grounds for future cooperation. We conclude therefore that the tolerant society has room for the fundamentalists, granted that they do not resort to violence.

scholarly journals The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality – Core Themes

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Katharina Pistor
Keyword(s):  
Coercive Power ◽  
Private Law ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right

Abstract In this brief introduction, I summarize the core themes of my book “The Code of Capital: How the Law Creates Wealth and Inequality”. Capital, I argue, is coded in law – predominantly in a handful of private law institutions. By relying on legal coding techniques, asset holders invoke the right to enforce claims against others, if necessary with the help of the state’s coercive power.

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