Abortion, Feminism, and ‘Traditional’ Moral Philosophy

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-120
Author(s):  
Kate Greasley
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Feminist Ethics ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Ethical Approaches

Feminist ethics approaches to abortion have a tendency to be critical of the methodology employed by mainstream philosophical treatments of the abortion problem. In particular, they impugn the latter’s reliance on abstract theorizing and general principles, advising that only a focus on the particular and concrete details of real-life ethical problems such as abortion can direct us towards the truth of the matter. This chapter attempts to defend so-called ‘traditional’ abortion ethics from such criticisms. More fully, it sets out to explain and vindicate the aim of mainstream abortion ethics to discern and apply more general moral principles to the particular case of abortion, as well as the centrality of foetal moral status to many of those accounts. It also works towards showing that mainstream and feminist ethical approaches are more aligned in both their methods and their claims than might first appear.

How Kantian a Theory of Kantian Capitalism?: A Response to Bowie’s Ruffin Lecture

1998 ◽  
Vol 8 (S1) ◽  
pp. 61-73
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Wicks
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Important Thing ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Ethical Approaches ◽  
Kantian Theory

In his Ruffin Lecture, Bowie attempts to offer a Kantian theory of capitalism, and this strikes me as a constructive and important thing to do. Bowie’s proposal contributes to a new direction in research that I believe is critical: offering alternative interpretations of capitalism, specifically, theories based in moral concepts which are designed to make room for normative inquiry. In contrast, much of the work in business ethics has focused on the application of moral principles or ideas to specific problems in business. These efforts work largely within the accepted meanings of “business” offered by economists, strategists and others, and then try to import moral concepts to identify and analyze various ethical problems. Several recent works in ethics suggest that this approach hasn’t addressed underlying assumptions about ethics and business which tend to make “ethical” approaches either directly conflicting with the logic of “business” (i.e., business ethics as “oxymoron”) or largely irrelevant to it (i.e., business ethics as vacuous). As such, the “problems” approach to doing ethics doesn’t address the substantial difficulties created by the conceptual terrain to which it was applied. Without more comprehensive and systematic attention to how researchers understand the conceptual underpinnings of capitalism, the contributions of such efforts will be limited and tenuous—that is, they will make projects which attempt to “apply” ethics onto business seem naive or implausible to people outside the community of business ethicists.

scholarly journals Ethics of ideals and "prose of life" in Panteleimon Kulish's epistolary

2020 ◽  
pp. 8-26
Author(s):  
Larysa Shevchenko
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Language History ◽  
Real People ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Epistolary Texts

The article from a series of publications about the prominent Ukrainian writer, publisher, translator and author of Ukrainian spelling, the so-called "kulishivka", is dedicated to the analysis of the author's worldview constants reflected in his epistolary. The ethical maxims and moral principles of Panteleimon Kulish are considered as the unity of the ideal, inspired by creative, romantic views of the author and real life. P. Kulish's appeals are analyzed from the point of view of his motivation for dominant evaluations of events, circumstances and characteristics of the addressees, such as attitude towards work, people, culture, language, history, etc. Particular attention is paid to the influence of M. Gogol on P. Kulish due to the fact that P. Kulish was the author’s commentator, archiver of texts and memoirs as well as publisher. The letters give an opportunity to chronologize and explain P. Kulish's meetings with M. Gogol's family, an assessment of M. Gogol's creativity by his contemporaries, to find out the peculiarities of work on M. Gogol's texts and the memories of his confederates and P. Kulish’s friends. The analysis of the epistolary introduces P. Kulish’s seek for spiritual truths, comparisons and parallels with M. Gogol's reflections and creative sources, in particular during his visit to Danilov Monastery and to the writer's tomb. P. Kulish's intellectual reflection in epistolary texts reveals a complex of ethical problems around which the author always focuses, substantiating the complexity of views on the issues of "ideal" – "profane", "people" – "service to people", "gospel truths" – "the world of real people", "the commensurability of the gospel word" – "living spiritualized nature " etc. A wide range of P. Kulish addressees is analyzed, which allows us to observe the panorama of the cultural life of the Ukrainian intelligentsia in the mid-19th century, testing in the environment of cultural and public figures of traditional ethical views and formation of new ideas about language, culture and national revival. P. Kulish's general characterization of moral principles is correlated with his appeals to authoritative figures, iconic events and partial manifestation in epistolary texts, in particular the features of requests to addressees. The author concludes that P. Kulish’s personality was complex and ambiguous. At the same time, the writer was a tireless worker who combined high ethical ideals with the moral principles of creative life – the service of the word.

Stupid Goodness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garrett Cullity
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Real Life ◽  
The Way

In Paradise Lost, Satan’s first sight of Eve in Eden renders him “Stupidly good”: his state is one of admirable yet inarticulate responsiveness to reasons. Turning from fiction to real life, this chapter argues that stupid goodness is an important moral phenomenon, but one that has limits. The chapter examines three questions about the relation between having a reason and saying what it is—between normativity and articulacy. Is it possible to have and respond to morally relevant reasons without being able to articulate them? Can moral inarticulacy be good, and if so, what is the value of moral articulacy? And, thirdly, can moral philosophy help us to be good? The chapter argues that morality has an inarticulacy-accepting part, an articulacy-encouraging part, an articulacy-surpassing part, and an articulacy-discouraging part. Along the way, an account is proposed of what it is to respond to the reasons that make up the substance of morality.

Moral Decision Making in Business: A Phase-Model

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-803 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aviva Geva
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Problem ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Phase Model ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
Moral Decision ◽  
Ethical Problems

Abstract:The traditional model of ethical decision making in business suggests applying an initial set of principles to a concrete problem and if they conflict the decision maker may attempt to balance them intuitively. The centrality of the ethical conflict in the accepted notion of “ethical problem” has diverted the attention of moral decision modelers from other ethical problems that real-world managers must face—e.g., compliance problems, moral laxity, and systemic problems resulting from the structures and practices of the business organization. The present article proposes a new model for ethical decision making in business—the Phase-model—designed to meet the full spectrum of business-related ethical problems. Drawing on the dominant moral theories in business literature, the model offers additional strategies for tackling ethical issues beyond the traditional cognitive operations of deductive application of principles to specific cases and the balancing of ethical considerations. Its response to the problems of moral pluralism in the context of decision making lies in its structural features. The model distinguishes between three phases of the decision-making process, each having a different task and a different theoretical basis. After an introductory stage in which the ethical problem is defined, the first phase focuses on a principle-based evaluation of a course of action; the second phase provides a virtue-based perspective of the situation and strategies for handling unsettled conflicts and compliance problems; and the third phase adapts the decision to empirical accepted norms. An illustrative case demonstrates the applicability of the model to business real life.

Tragical Pathos

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-218
Author(s):  
Paul M. Blowers
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Moral Vision ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Moral Intelligence ◽  
Fear Of God ◽  
Hellenistic Philosophy

This chapter argues that the Christian “tragical conscience,” as described in the preceding chapter, was a conscience that demanded its own “cleansing” (catharsis) and clarified moral vision, which further relied on the cultivation, psychologically and existentially, of a whole panoply of tragical emotions that enriched Christian response to real-life tragedies. The assessment here of the development of a Christian “tragical pathos” draws from Martha Nussbaum’s work on the “moral intelligence” of emotions in Hellenistic philosophy and from Robert Kaster’s identification of “emotional scripts” in Greco-Roman moral philosophy and ethics. The bulk of this chapter is devoted to early Christian reworking or “re-scripting” of the classic (Aristotelian) tragical emotions of fear and pity, fear being relativized and recontextualized in relation to the superior fear of God, and pity reframed as empathetic mercy. Christian moralists, moreover, expanded the repertoire of “tragical” emotions beyond fear and pity, especially by encouraging a whole gamut of emotions of grief (lamentation, compunction, etc.) that were pivotal in Christian response to the tragic realities of sin, suffering, loss, and death.

The Trolley Method of Moral Philosophy

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 243-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
James O’Connor ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Reasoning ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Trolley Problems ◽  
Trolley Cases

The hypothetical scenarios generally known as trolley problems have become widespread in recent moral philosophy. They invariably require an agent to choose one of a strictly limited number of options, all of them bad. Although they don’t always involve trolleys / trams, and are used to make a wide variety of points, what makes it justified to speak of a distinctive “trolley method” is the characteristic assumption that the intuitive reactions that all these artificial situations elicit constitute an appropriate guide to real-life moral reasoning. I dispute this assumption by arguing that trolley cases inevitably constrain the supposed rescuers into behaving in ways that clearly deviate from psychologically healthy, and morally defensible, human behavior. Through this focus on a generally overlooked aspect of trolley theorizing – namely, the highly impoverished role invariably allotted to the would-be rescuer in these scenarios – I aim to challenge the complacent twin assumptions of advocates of the trolley method that this approach to moral reasoning has practical value, and is in any case innocuous. Neither assumption is true.

Feminist and Medical Ethics: Two Different Approaches to Contextual Ethics

Hypatia ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Sherwin
Keyword(s):  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Ethical Analysis ◽  
Feminist Ethics ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Narrative Approaches ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Contextual Ethics ◽  
Political Understanding

Feminist ethics and medical ethics are critical of contemporary moral theory in several similar respects. There is a shared sense of frustration with, the level of abstraction and generality that characterizes traditional philosophic work in ethics and a common commitment to including contextual details and allowing room for the personal aspects of relationships in ethical analysis. This paper explores the ways in which context is appealed to in feminist and medical ethics, the sort of details that should be included in the recommended narrative approaches to ethical problems, and the difference it makes to our ethical deliberations if we add an explicitly feminist political analysis to our discussion of context. It is claimed that an analysis of gender is needed for feminist medical ethics and that this requires a certain degree of generality, i. e. a political understanding of context.

Two-Tier Moral Codes

1989 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly M. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Moral Status ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Principle ◽  
Moral Code ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Individual Actions ◽  
The One ◽  
In Virtue Of

A moral code consists of principles that assign moral status to individual actions – principles that evaluate acts as right or wrong, prohibited or obligatory, permissible or supererogatory. Many theorists have held that such principles must serve two distinct functions. On the one hand, they serve a theoretical function, insofar as they specify the characteristics in virtue of which acts possess their moral status. On the other hand, they serve a practical function, insofar as they provide an action-guide: a standard by reference to which a person can choose which acts to perform and which not. Although the theoretical and practical functions of moral principles are closely linked, it is not at all obvious that what enables a principle to fill one of these roles automatically equips it to fill the other. In this paper I shall briefly examine some of the reasons why a moral principle might fail to fill its practical role, i.e., be incapable of guiding decisions. I shall then sketch three common responses to this kind of failure, and examine in some detail the adequacy of one of the most popular of these responses.

Psychotherapy in Old Age: Ethical Issues

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian C. Hughes ◽  
Richard Cheston
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Older People ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Cohort Effects ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Real Situation ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
Ethical Approaches ◽  
Embodied Agent

Old age brings challenges which affect the process and content of psychotherapy; not that older people should be thought of as being the same, for they are individual. There are particular cohort effects and contexts that might affect the ways in which older people react to stressors in old age. Cognitive impairment and dementia will sometimes be a consideration. Good psychotherapeutic approaches to older people tend to reflect good ethical approaches. These can be described by the main ethical theories: utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics. But a better and more nuanced way is perhaps to use ethical approaches that stress narrative, communication, interpretation, and meaning, as well as care and relationships. These approaches seem more realistic: they accommodate the real situation for the person concerned, recognizing him or her as a situated and embodied agent. This chapter uses vignettes to highlight the usefulness of these nuanced approaches to ethical problems.

scholarly journals Epistemic and ethical responsibility during the pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 117-125
Author(s):  
Andrea Klimková
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Actual Content ◽  
Political Decisions

Abstract Intellectual (specialised) knowledge is omnipresent in human lives and decisions. We are constantly trying to make good and correct decisions. However, responsible decision-making is characterised by rather difficult epistemic conditions. It applies all the more during the pandemic when decisions require not only specialised knowledge in a number of disciplines, scientific consensus, and participants from different fields, but also responsibility and respect for moral principles in order to ensure that the human rights of all groups are observed. Pandemic measures are created by politicians, healthcare policy-makers, and epidemiologists. However, what is the role of ethics as a moral philosophy and experts in ethics? Experts in ethics and philosophy are carefully scrutinising political decisions. Levy and Savulescu (2020) have claimed that Ethicists and philosophers are not epistemically arrogant if they question policy responses. They played an important role in the creation of a reliable consensus. This study analyses epistemic and moral responsibility, their similarities, analogies, and differences. Are they interconnected? What is their relationship and how can they be filled with actual content during the pandemic?

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