Responsibility and the Metaphysics of Omissions

Non-Being ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 294-309
Author(s):  
Carolina Sartorio
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
The World

What is the bearing of the metaphysics of omissions on debates about moral responsibility? If it turned out that omissions and absences in general don’t have any causal powers, what would follow about the moral responsibility of agents in certain cases where omissions and absences seem to be involved? This paper examines these and related questions. It will look at the significance of the distinction between views on which omissions and absences can have causal powers. It will examine cases where the moral responsibility of agents seems to involve absences as either causes, effects, or causal intermediaries. It will also examine the bearing of the metaphysics of omissions on views according to which the moral responsibility of agents for their choices depends on the agent’s sensitivity to negative features of the world around them.

Boyle, Robert (1627–91)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rose-Mary Sargent
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
Experimental Investigations ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Philosophers ◽  
Advance Knowledge

Boyle is often remembered for the contributions that he made to the sciences of chemistry and pneumatics. Like other natural philosophers in seventeenth-century England, however, he was a synthetic thinker who sought to advance knowledge in all areas of human concern. An early advocate of experimental methods, he argued that experimentation would not only reveal the hidden processes operative in the world but would also advance the cause of religion. Through the study of nature, experimentalists would come to understand that the intricacy of design manifest in the world must be the result of an omniscient and omnipotent creator. Boyle’s experimental investigations and theological beliefs led him to a conception of the world as a ’cosmic mechanism’ comprised of a harmonious set of interrelated processes. He agreed with the leading mechanical philosophers of his day that the corpuscular hypothesis, which explains the causal powers of bodies by reference to the motions of the least parts (corpuscles) of matter, provided the best means for understanding nature. He insisted, however, that these motions and powers could not be known by reasoning alone, but would have to be discovered experimentally.

Socializing Responsibility

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Levy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Urgent Task ◽  
The World ◽  
Institutional Actors ◽  
The Way

There is a near universal consensus that the bearers of moral responsibility are the individuals people identify with proper names. In this chapter, it is suggested that if people take the exercise of agency as a guide to the identification of agents, they may find that agents sometimes extend into the world: they may be constituted by several individuals and/or by institutions. These extended agents may be responsible for morally significant outcomes. The chapter argues that institutions or extended agents may also be responsible for the failure of individuals to satisfy the epistemic conditions on moral responsibility. Individuals may believe virtuously but falsely, due to the way in which cues to reliability are socially distributed. The chapter concludes by suggesting that a focus on individual responsibility may have distracted people from the urgent task of reforming the institutional actors responsible for widespread ignorance about morally significant facts.

Indonesian Youth, Global Environmentalism and Transnational Mining

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pam Nilan
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Global South ◽  
Environmental Risks ◽  
Environmental Engineering ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The World ◽  
Good Lives

Indonesian activist students are highly conscious of the environmental risks facing Indonesia and the world. Yet they also want to make good lives for themselves in a nation experiencing strong economic growth. Using the work of Ulrich Beck, this paper examines the accounts of environmental engineering students at a prestigious university who are pro-environmental activists on campus. In interviews, they admitted that it will be difficult to negotiate a lucrative career after graduation while maintaining their environmental idealism. Even though they feel a moral responsibility of care, not only towards nature, but towards the poor of the nation, they are epistemologically anchored to the technocratic tenets of their degree. Moreover, they want to make a successful life. The paper contributes to our understanding of how youth in the Global South engage with the discourse of environmentalism while negotiating the postmillennium risk society.

Enduring Freedom: Globalizing Children's Rights

Hypatia ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 197-203
Author(s):  
Constance L. Mui ◽  
Julien S. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
The United States ◽  
September 11 ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Global Community ◽  
The World ◽  
September 11 Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Effects Of War ◽  
Moral Questions

Events surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States raise compelling moral questions about the effects of war and globalization on children in many parts of the world. This paper adopts Sartre's notion of freedom, particularly its connection with materiality and intersubjectivity, to assess the moral responsibility that we have as a global community toward our most vulnerable members. We conclude by examining important first steps that should be taken to address the plight of children.

scholarly journals The sience and art of moral responsibility for the future

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
Maryna Braterska-Dron ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Moral Truth ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Actual Problem ◽  
Great Severity ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Main Thing

The article is devoted to the actual problem of the probable future of our civilization and the moral responsibility of mankind for it. In the twentieth century, humanity was actually faced with the threat of man-made destruction of life on the planet. The tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with great severity raised the question not only about the morality of science, but also the personal responsibility of the scientist for his discoveries. In particular, in 1955, the Einstein-Russell Manifesto was signed, which initiated the widely known Pahous Movement for Peace and Disarmament. Art has responded to the nuclear threat. In 1950, R. Bradbury's story "There Will Be a Graceful Rain" was published. One of the first to address the subject of doomsday was American filmmakers: R. Weiss («The Day the Earth Stalle», 1951), S. Kramer («On the Shore», 1959), S. Kubrick («Doctor Stranzhla», 1964), S. Lumet («Security System», 1964). The idea of moral responsibility of each person for his future was raised on the Soviet screen in the films: «The Escape of Mr. McKinley» (1975, M. Schweitzer), «Sacrifice» (1986, A. Tarkovsky), «Letters of the Dead Man» (1986, K. Lopushansky), «Visitor to the Museum» (1989, K. Lopushansky). It was in the 1970s and 1980s that they became a painful awareness of the insecurity and fragility of human life. It has become clear that nuclear energy can be not only a policy or an economy, but above all a tool of self-destruction. It has been scientifically justified that the greatest threat to humanity lies not where it was not expected. Nuclear war is not only the mass destruction of people, total destruction, radiation, infectious diseases, etc. The main danger is the climate change of the planet, changes in the biosphere (the effect of nuclear winter), which humanity will not be able to survive. marked by a painful awareness of the insecurity and fragility of human life. But today, the biosphere is threatened not only by human waste, environmental pollution, but also by the gradual destruction of the natural environment, the frantic depletion of natural resources, etc. The main thing that threatens our civilization is moral irresponsibility to posterity. What has to happen for humanity to realize the danger of indifference? Personal responsibility for the future of everyone and everyone for the future of everyone is the main principle of survival. The eminent philosopher M. Berdyaev wrote: «The end of the world depends on man, and he will be one way or another, depending on the actions of man... The greatest religious and moral truth to which a man must grow is that he cannot be saved alone. My salvation also involves the salvation of others, my loved ones, the salvation of the whole world, the transformation of the world».

scholarly journals Look again: Pedagogical demonstration facilitates children's use of counterevidence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas P Butler
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Causal Beliefs ◽  
Causal Powers ◽  
Correct Rule ◽  
Conflicting Evidence ◽  
The World ◽  
Initial Hypothesis ◽  
Minimal Evidence

In learning about the world, we must not only make inferences based on minimal evidence, but must deal with conflicting evidence and question those initial inferences when they appear to be wrong. In three experiments (N=96), we found that in some cases young children only revise their causal beliefs when conflicting evidence is explicitly demonstrated for them. Four- and 5-year-old children inferred a rule about what objects had causal powers, and then saw evidence conflicting with that initial inference. Critically, the conflicting evidence was produced either instrumentally and intentionally, or demonstrated communicatively and pedagogically. Only when evidence was explicitly demonstrated for them did children revise their initial hypothesis and use a subtle clue to infer the correct rule.

Neuroexistentialism

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Second Wave

Existentialism is a concern about the foundation of meaning, morals, and purpose. Existentialisms arise when some foundation for these elements of being is under assault. In the past, first-wave existentialism concerned the increasingly apparent inability of religion and religious tradition to provide such a foundation, as typified in the writings of Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche. Second-wave existentialism, personified philosophically by Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir, developed in response to the inability of an overly optimistic Enlightenment vision of reason and the common good to provide such a foundation. There is a third-wave existentialism, a new existentialism, developing in response to advances in the neurosciences that threaten the last vestiges of an immaterial soul or self. With the increasing explanatory and therapeutic power of neuroscience, the mind no longer stands apart from the world to serve as a foundation of meaning. This produces foundational anxiety. This collection of new essays explores the anxiety caused by this third-wave existentialism and some responses to it. It brings together some of the world’s leading philosophers, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and legal scholars to tackle our neuroexistentialist predicament and explore what the mind sciences can tell us about morality, love, emotion, autonomy, consciousness, selfhood, free will, moral responsibility, law, the nature of criminal punishment, meaning in life, and purpose.

Self-Creation and Responsibility

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnes Callard
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The World

Aspiration, unlike Talbot Brewer’s “dialectical activities,” is a learning process in which someone moves from an inadequate to an adequate grasp of some value. Because we cannot learn what is not there, we can only take ourselves (or others) to aspire when we think there is something there to aspire to. Aspiration is distinct from ambition, in which agents make large-scale changes in the world without coming to learn why they are doing so. If some pursuit—e.g., becoming a gangster—is bereft of value at the endpoint, it cannot be engaged in aspirationally. This gives rise to an asymmetrical theory of moral responsibility for self: we are responsible for our valuational successes to the extent that we arrived at them aspirationally, and we are responsible for our valuational defects to the extent that they are the products of culpable failure to aspire.

Responsibility

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Keith Dowding
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Government Regulation ◽  
Healthy Food ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Responsibility Of Government ◽  
The Usa

Gun crime in the USA is wildly out of line with other nations. Obesity has taken off as a growing problem around the world in the past forty years. Homelessness is increasing, whilst the average age of home owners is rising. Governments tell their citizens that they ought to eat healthy food, tell the young to get good jobs to buy houses, and blame the bad guys for gun crime. In all cases, the problem lies with government regulation and government policy. This chapter looks at how governments blame citizens for failures which are caused by government. They have been encouraged by political philosophers who concentrate upon individual moral responsibility, freedom and autonomy, whilst ignoring the fact that governments no longer seem to want to legislate for the welfare of their citizens. This chapter sets up the argument of the book. Individuals are responsible for the choices they can reasonably make given the menu of opportunities available to them. That menu is the responsibility of government – and the menu is poor fare.

The Freedom of God and Human Freedom

1983 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-180
Author(s):  
Axel D. Steuer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Images Of God ◽  
The World ◽  
Free Actions ◽  
Freedom Of Action

Our peculiar dignity as persons seems to rest on our freedom of action, since freedom of action is required to make sense both out of moral responsibility and out of the God—man relationship. Indeed, the possession of freedom seems to be a (if not the) major justification for claims that humans are in an important way images of God. Furthermore, the most promising theodicies all ascribe a good portion of the evil experienced in the world to the free actions of human beings.

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