scholarly journals Kant and Moral Responsibility for Animals

2020 ◽  
pp. 157-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helga Varden
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Moral Failure ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Moral Attitudes

This chapter claims that Kant has a consistent and not counterintuitive account of why we have the moral attitudes we do about animals and of how it is that these attitudes have the appearance of being about the animals themselves. It argues that Kant can explain why it doesn’t follow from this that these moral attitudes arise from attributing moral rights to the animals themselves. Central to this interpretation is Kant’s Religion, as it contains an account of human nature that adequately explains both why we have the positive attitudes we do towards animals and why we consider other occasions of attitudes towards animals as genuine examples of moral failure.

scholarly journals The Enduring Greatness: The Mahāpuruşha Paradigm—An Indian Perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 002216782110008
Author(s):  
Maharaj K. Raina
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Spirit ◽  
Positive Direction ◽  
Indian Tradition ◽  
Indian Perspective ◽  
Relative Concept ◽  
The Way

Greatness, a relative concept, has been historically approached in different ways. Considering greatness of character as different from greatness of talents, some cultures have conceptualized greatness as an expression of human spirit leading to transcending existing patterns and awakening inner selves to new levels of consciousness, rising above times and circumstances, and to change the direction of human tide. Individuals characterized by such greatness working with higher selves, guided by moral and ethical imperatives, and possessing noble impulses of human nature are considered to be manifesting spiritual greatness. Examining such greatness is the goal of this article. Keeping Indian tradition in focus, this article has studied how greatness has been conceptualized in that particular tradition and the way in which life and times have shaped great individuals called Mahāpuruşha who exhibited extraordinary moral responsibility relentlessly in pursuit of their visions of addressing contemporary major issues and changing the direction of human life. Four Mahāpuruşha, who possessed such enduring greatness and excelled in their thoughts and actions to give a new positive direction to human life, have been profiled in this article. Suggestions have also been made for studies on moral and spiritual excellence to help realize our true human path and purpose.

Future Generations and Business Ethics

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Jeurissen ◽  
Gerard Keijzers
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Finite Energy ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
The Government ◽  
To Come

Abstract:Companies have a share in our common responsibility to future generations. Hitherto, this responsibility has been all but neglected in the business ethics literature. This paper intends to make up for that omission. A strong case for our moral responsibility to future generations can be established on the grounds of moral rights theory, utilitarianism and justice theory. The paper analyses two practical cases in environmental policy, in order to come to grips with the complicated ethical issues involved in the responsibility to future generations. The cases deal with the management of finite energy sources and of vulnerable resources of biodiversity. The ethical issues involved in these cases have an important bearing on business ethics: future generations should be included among the stakeholders of the firm. The paper concludes with a plea to institutionalize a “third arena” for debate and deliberation on the protection of the interests of future generations, next to the arenas of the government and the market. Companies should participate in this third arena, led by a participatory ethics.

Artificial Agents in Natural Moral Communities: A Brief Clarification

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-458
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Tigard
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Artificial Agents ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
Moral Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Moral Attitudes

AbstractWhat exactly is it that makes one morally responsible? Is it a set of facts which can be objectively discerned, or is it something more subjective, a reaction to the agent or context-sensitive interaction? This debate gets raised anew when we encounter newfound examples of potentially marginal agency. Accordingly, the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and the idea of “novel beings” represent exciting opportunities to revisit inquiries into the nature of moral responsibility. This paper expands upon my article “Artificial Moral Responsibility: How We Can and Cannot Hold Machines Responsible” and clarifies my reliance upon two competing views of responsibility. Although AI and novel beings are not close enough to us in kind to be considered candidates for the same sorts of responsibility we ascribe to our fellow human beings, contemporary theories show us the priority and adaptability of our moral attitudes and practices. This allows us to take seriously the social ontology of relationships that tie us together. In other words, moral responsibility is to be found primarily in the natural moral community, even if we admit that those communities now contain artificial agents.

Ideas, Practices, and Climate Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 177-198
Author(s):  
Anna L. Peterson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Environmental Problem ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Human Effects ◽  
Individual Actions ◽  
Moral Attitudes

This chapter examines climate change, the most pressing environmental problem of our time. It focuses on the ways practice can help us think about key issues, such as the gap between values and practices, the ways economics and technologies shape moral attitudes and actions, and the problem of moral responsibility and consequences. It also considers the question of what individuals can and should do in response to a problem that is far too big for individual actions to fix. The vastness of climate change demands that both environmental and social ethicists rethink some common assumptions and develop innovative models for understanding and mitigating human effects on the natural world.

Liability

2020 ◽  
pp. 18-57
Author(s):  
Jonathan Quong
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Jeff Mcmahan ◽  
Defensive Harm

Chapter 2 develops and defends an original account of liability to defensive harm: the moral status account. On this view, a person renders himself liable to defensive harm when the evidence-relative permissibility of his act depends on the assumption that others lack certain moral rights that they in fact possess, and his act threatens, or reasonably appears to threaten, those rights. The chapter also provides criticisms of competing accounts of liability, in particular, the moral responsibility account influentially developed by Jeff McMahan, among others. The chapter concludes by addressing a number of objections that might be pressed against the moral status account.

Anglican Anti-Augustinianism and the Theology of Holy Living

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Episcopal Church ◽  
Liberal Attitude ◽  
The Individual

This chapter examines the theological project of an influential group of mid-century apologists for the disestablished episcopal Church of England. These theologians were in reaction against the Calvinist tradition in English theology, whose determinist shape they regarded as removing all incentive to moral endeavour. Their work cohered around an emphasis on the moral responsibility of the individual; in contrast to a doctrine which asserted the utter depravity of fallen nature, they assumed that Christians are obliged to make use of their valuable moral faculties by striving sincerely after ‘holy living’. The chapter outlines the soteriological basis of this holy living theology, and challenges critical accounts which see in its more liberal attitude to human nature the germ of a heretical neo-Pelagianism.

scholarly journals THE SOCIAL AND MORAL ATTITUDES OF CONVICTS AND THEIR PROACTIVITY USED AGAINST THE LIMITATIONS OF THE PRISON ENVIRONMENT

Probacja ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 81-106
Author(s):  
Bartosz Kwiatkowski
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Personal Attitude ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Proactive Behaviour ◽  
The Social ◽  
Helping Others ◽  
Prison Environment ◽  
Moral Attitudes ◽  
Made In

Th e concept of moral norms is an interdisciplinary issue, defi ned by diff erent fi elds of science. Attitudes towards the preferred moral norms are noticeably less frequent in both theoretical and empirical studies, although in the present study an attempt has been made to establish the relationships between the personal attitude of convicted persons towards fi ve independent moral norms and their proactive personality traits. Th e study involved 100 fi rst-time convicts and 100 recidivists, who were asked to respond to the statements made in Th e questionnaire on attitudes towards moral norms and Th e scale of proactivity in penitentiary isolation. Th e convicts were serving prison sentences in two diff erent penitentiary units in Poland. Th e results of the research showed that those convicted for the fi rst time who approved of attitudes towards vindictiveness, helping others and incitement to evil had a greater propensity for proactive behaviour. In addition, the group of recidivists showed no correlation between the declared attitudes to moral norms and their level of proactivity, but showed that they displayed more positive attitudes towards helping other people and vindictiveness, in comparison to the population of fi rst-time convicts. Th e results form an additional source of knowledge about the proactivity of convicts, which can be skilfully used, and therefore the research carried out is particularly important for penitentiary practitioners who carry out various rehabilitation activities, as well as specialists in executive criminal law.

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