A Relational Moral Theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 105-144
Author(s):  
Thaddeus Metz
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory

Chapter 7, which completes Part II, appeals to the conception of harmony/communality from the previous chapter to articulate a new deontological moral theory, which prescribes respect for beings insofar as they are by nature capable of communing as a subject or being communed with as an object. What typically makes actions wrong is, roughly, that they are not friendly towards or harmonious with innocent parties, where particularly wrongful behaviour is unfriendly or discordant in respect of them. The chapter draws out several corollaries from an ethic of rightness as friendliness, such as that one normally should not promote harmony using a very discordant means, and that having befriended someone provides extra reason to help him compared to a stranger. The chapter demonstrates that this moral theory, in the light of its corollaries, accounts better for the African and global intuitions than the welfarist and vitalist approaches considered earlier in Part II.

Somethin’ about Scandinavia: Danish Shorts on the Post-war International Scene

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Claire Thomson
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
International Collaboration ◽  
Marshall Plan ◽  
The Third ◽  
Animated Film ◽  
International Audience ◽  
Post War ◽  
Nordic Cooperation

Building on the picture of post-war Anglo-Danish documentary collaboration established in the previous chapter, this chapter examines three cases of international collaboration in which Dansk Kulturfilm and Ministeriernes Filmudvalg were involved in the late 1940s and 1950s. They Guide You Across (Ingolf Boisen, 1949) was commissioned to showcase Scandinavian cooperation in the realm of aviation (SAS) and was adopted by the newly-established United Nations Film Board. The complexities of this film’s production, funding and distribution are illustrative of the activities of the UN Film Board in its first years of operation. The second case study considers Alle mine Skibe (All My Ships, Theodor Christensen, 1951) as an example of a film commissioned and funded under the auspices of the Marshall Plan. This US initiative sponsored informational films across Europe, emphasising national solutions to post-war reconstruction. The third case study, Bent Barfod’s animated film Noget om Norden (Somethin’ about Scandinavia, 1956) explains Nordic cooperation for an international audience, but ironically exposed some gaps in inter-Nordic collaboration in the realm of film.

Capitalising upon Globalisation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Webber
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Development ◽  
Macroeconomic Policy ◽  
Domestic Policy ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Gordon Brown ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
At Home

Having mapped out in the previous chapter, New Labour’s often contradictory and even ‘politically-convenient’ understanding of globalisation, chapter 3 offers analysis of three key areas of domestic policy that Gordon Brown would later transpose to the realm of international development: (i) macroeconomic policy, (ii) business, and (iii) welfare. Since, according to Brown at least, globalisation had resulted in a blurring of the previously distinct spheres of domestic and foreign policy, it made sense for those strategies and policy decisions designed for consumption at home to be transposed abroad. The focus of this chapter is the design of these three areas of domestic policy; the unmistakeable imprint of Brown in these areas and their place in building of New Labour’s political economy. Strikingly, Brown’s hand in these policies and the themes that underpinned them would again reappear in the international development policies explored in much greater detail later in the book.

Critique of Callicott's Biosocial Moral Theory

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hadley
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory

Relational Ethics and Partiality

Theoria ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (152) ◽  
pp. 53-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Motsamai Molefe
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Relational Ethics ◽  
The Individual

AbstractIn this article, I question the plausibility of Metz’s African moral theory from an oft neglected moral topic of partiality. Metz defends an Afro-communitarian moral theory that posits that the rightness of actions is entirely definable by relationships of identity and solidarity (or, friendship). I offer two objections to this relational moral theory. First, I argue that justifying partiality strictly by invoking relationships (of friendship) ultimately fails to properly value the individual for her own sake – this is called the ‘focus problem’ in the literature. Second, I argue that a relationship-based theory cannot accommodate the agent-related partiality since it posits some relationship to be morally fundamental. My critique ultimately reveals the inadequacy of a relationship-based moral theory insofar as it overlooks some crucial moral considerations grounded on the individual herself in her own right.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document