Contextualism

2020 ◽  
pp. 128-152
Author(s):  
Alastair Norcross
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Identity Problem ◽  
Conversational Context ◽  
Contextualist Approach ◽  
Holding Responsible ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Apparent Problem

The threat of determinism suggests that every action, including the action of holding morally responsible, is both the best and worst of all possible alternatives. This seems to pose a problem for consequentialist approaches to determinism, and moral responsibility. The solution is to appeal to the conversational context of praising, blaming, judging right and wrong, holding responsible, and the like. Even if, strictly speaking, an agent couldn’t have done otherwise, conversational context may select certain counterpossible alternatives as the relevant ones with which to compare the action. The non-identity “problem,” popularized by Parfit, suggests that the existential dependence of people on our actions creates puzzles, problems even, for some common approaches to ethics. A scalar version of consequentialism, combined with a contextualist semantics for some moral terms, dissolves the apparent problem. The scalar contextualist approach has practical implications for our moral discourse.

Omissions, Moral Luck, and Minding the (Epistemic) Gap

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (4) ◽  
pp. 301-314
Author(s):  
Joseph Metz
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Holding Responsible ◽  
Epistemic Gap

AbstractThis paper warns of two threats to moral responsibility that arise when accounting for omissions, given some plausible assumptions about how abilities are related to responsibility. The first problem threatens the legitimacy of our being responsible by expanding the preexisting tension that luck famously raises for moral responsibility. The second threat to moral responsibility challenges the legitimacy of our practices of holding responsible. Holding others responsible for their omissions requires us to bridge an epistemic gap that does not arise when holding others responsible for their actions—one that we might often fail to cross.

A Very Tentative Metaskeptical Endorsement of Eliminativism about Moral Responsibility

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamler Sommers
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
First Order ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Independent Property

This chapter argues that moral responsibility is not a mind-independent property like “transparent” that can be assigned objectively or universally when certain conditions are met. The answer to the question of whether we can be morally responsible boils down to a subjective all-things-considered judgment that takes many factors into account, including the ethical and practical consequences of each alternative. It examines the case for first-order skepticism or eliminativism about moral responsibility, and offers a very tentative endorsement of this position in the context of our environment, historical period, and circumstances. It begins by examining the moral and practical implications of denying moral responsibility and adopting the objective attitude on an exclusive basis. Next, it considers arguments that attempt to explain away or debunk the intuition that people can be morally responsible for their behavior. Finally, it discusses an important concession to compatibilism, one that prevents the author from arriving at a more confident endorsement of the eliminativist conclusion.

scholarly journals Understanding responsibility in Responsible AI. Dianoetic virtues and the hard problem of context

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihaela Constantinescu ◽  
Cristina Voinea ◽  
Radu Uszkai ◽  
Constantin Vică
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Design Ethics ◽  
Ethical Approaches ◽  
Aristotle's Ethics ◽  
The Hard Problem ◽  
Practical Implications ◽  
Shed Light

AbstractDuring the last decade there has been burgeoning research concerning the ways in which we should think of and apply the concept of responsibility for Artificial Intelligence. Despite this conceptual richness, there is still a lack of consensus regarding what Responsible AI entails on both conceptual and practical levels. The aim of this paper is to connect the ethical dimension of responsibility in Responsible AI with Aristotelian virtue ethics, where notions of context and dianoetic virtues play a grounding role for the concept of moral responsibility. The paper starts by highlighting the important difficulties in assigning responsibility to either technologies themselves or to their developers. Top-down and bottom-up approaches to moral responsibility are then contrasted, as we explore how they could inform debates about Responsible AI. We highlight the limits of the former ethical approaches and build the case for classical Aristotelian virtue ethics. We show that two building blocks of Aristotle’s ethics, dianoetic virtues and the context of actions, although largely ignored in the literature, can shed light on how we could think of moral responsibility for both AI and humans. We end by exploring the practical implications of this particular understanding of moral responsibility along the triadic dimensions of ethics by design, ethics in design and ethics for designers.

Contextualism

2020 ◽  
pp. 108-127
Author(s):  
Alastair Norcross
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Discourse ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Contextualist Approach ◽  
Better Than ◽  
Context Of Utterance

Although consequentialism is not fundamentally concerned with such staples of moral theory as rightness, duty, obligation, goodness of actions, and harm, such notions may nonetheless be of practical significance. A contextualist approach to all these notions makes room for them in ordinary moral discourse, but also illustrates why there is no room for them at the level of fundamental moral theory. Roughly, to say that an act is right is to say that it is at least as good as the appropriate alternative, to say an act is good is to say that it is better than the appropriate alternative, to say an act harms someone is to say that it makes them worse off than they would have been on the appropriate alternative. In each case, “appropriate” is an indexical, whose referent is fixed by the context of utterance. This approach also makes room for an account of supererogation.

Consequentialism, Blame, and Moral Responsibility

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-178
Author(s):  
Elinor Mason
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Holding Responsible ◽  
Blameless Wrongdoing

In this chapter I examine various accounts of the relationship between consequentialism and moral responsibility. The first idea is that the only reason we have for praising and blaming, for holding responsible, is that it will produce good consequences. This view is widely derided, but a descendant, the view that our responsibility practices as a whole can be defended on consequentialist grounds, has been gaining popularity in recent years. I go on to look at the idea of blameless wrongdoing and give an account of how that might fit into to a consequentialist picture. Finally, I discuss the possibility that the direction of influence is the other way: that consequentialist ethical theories are constrained by theories of moral responsibility, and I discuss possible upshots of a responsibility constrained account of consequentialism.

Corporate Moral Responsibility: When it Might Matter

1995 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 555-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Corporate Responsibility ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Corporate Control ◽  
Corporate Moral Responsibility ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Ethics Research ◽  
Socialization Processes ◽  
Practical Implications

Abstract:The debate over corporate moral responsibility has become a fixture in business ethics research and teaching. Only rarely, however, does the sizable literature on that question consider whether the debate has important practical implications. This article examines that question from a corporate control perspective. After assuming corporate moral responsibility’s existence for purposes of argument, the article concludes that such responsibility makes a difference in cases where it is present but personal responsibility is absent. Then the article tries to identify the forces that diminish personal responsibility when corporate responsibility exists. The most important such forces, it concludes, spring from the socialization processes people undergo when they enter groups. One example is the well-known phenomenon of groupthink, which can exculpate individuals by rendering them justifiably ignorant of foreseeable risks of harm.

Moral Responsibility

Philosophy ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garrath Williams
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Causal Order ◽  
The Social ◽  
Peter Strawson ◽  
The World ◽  
Holding Responsible

This article focuses on compatibilist approaches to moral responsibility—that is, approaches that see moral responsibility as compatible with the causal order of the world. A separate Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy article considers “Free Will” and incompatibilist perspectives. Those approaches tend to give less attention to the forms of interaction involved in holding responsible and to the position of those who suffer wrongdoing. However, as Peter Strawson pointed out in a seminal essay (see Responsibility and the Reactive Sentiments), moral responsibility is intimately related to our reactions to one another. Similarly, consequentialist thinkers stress the social effects of holding people responsible for their actions, and these approaches have seen a marked revival in recent years (see Utilitarian and Consequentialist Approaches). This reflects a wider trend to consider the practices by which we hold people responsible and how these bear on relationships and wider social and political structures. Moral responsibility also bears on other topics of great practical importance, only briefly mentioned here. These include responsibility under the law (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies in Philosophy article on “Punishment”), the responsibilities of groups and organizations, accountability within organizations, and how distributive justice and individual responsibility are related.

scholarly journals Foliated networks to analyze moral responsibility: a conceptual model

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Eriksson ◽  
Per Hilletofth
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Supply Chains ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Moral Disengagement ◽  
Information Flows ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Chain Links ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose This study aims to explore how the flow of moral responsibility in supply chains can be understood through an analysis of material, monetary and information flows. Design/methodology/approach Social responsibility, foliated networks and morality are used to present a conceptual framework that suggests responsibility links in supply chains. Findings By understanding the flows of material, money and information, it is possible to see how different types (liable and political) of responsibility can be identified. Conventional supply chain flows are thus connected with moral responsibility. Research limitations/implications Responsibility issues in supply chain management need to include supply chain links created by monetary and information flows, as well as material flows. Practical implications Supply chain actors need to consider responsibility across their entire supply chain, which includes material, monetary and information flows. Originality/value Foliated transportation networks, moral disengagement and different types of responsibility are combined in a novel way to facilitate a better understanding of responsibility in supply chains.

The Differential Effectiveness of the Cognitive Interview Instructions for Enhancing Witnesses’ Memory of a Familiar Event

2014 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magali Ginet ◽  
Jacques Py ◽  
Cindy Colomb
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Interview ◽  
Critical Event ◽  
Surgical Operation ◽  
Differential Effectiveness ◽  
Correct Information ◽  
Control Instruction ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Practical Implications

This study examines the influence of familiarity on witnesses’ memory and the individual effectiveness of each of the four cognitive interview instructions in improving witnesses’ recall of scripted events. Participants (N = 195), either familiar or unfamiliar with the hospital script, were presented with a video of a surgical operation. One week later, an interviewer used one of the four cognitive interview instructions or a control instruction to ask them about the video. Participants familiar with the surgery context recalled significantly more correct information and, in particular, more consistent and irrelevant details than those unfamiliar with the surgery context. Furthermore, the results confirmed the effectiveness of all four cognitive interview mnemonics in enhancing the amount of correct information reported, irrespective of the participants’ familiarity with the critical event. However, their efficacy differed depending on the category of details considered. The practical implications of these results are discussed.

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