Positive Freedom and the General Will

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piper L. Bringhurst ◽  
Gerald Gaus
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
General Will ◽  
Positive Freedom ◽  
Positive Liberty ◽  
Diverse Society ◽  
Moral Rules ◽  
Moral Demands

This chapter shows how one understanding of positive liberty—freedom as reasoned control—is presupposed by relations of moral responsibility. Rousseau’s “quixotic quest”—insuring that all subjects of the moral law remain morally free—is necessary to maintain responsibility relations within a moral community. Unless all are free to exercise reasoned control in accepting moral demands, they cannot be held responsible for failure to comply. We then inquire whether the concept of the general will can reconcile positive freedom and moral responsibility with regulation by a common moral law. Rousseau’s account seems inappropriate for a deeply diverse society because it holds that the general will arises from an essential identity of citizens’ interests. Instead, Bosanquet’s work suggests two contemporary proposals for ways in which a diverse society might share a general will, explaining in turn how its members are all fit to be held responsible for violating its moral rules.

On the Relation Between Collective Responsibility and Collective Duties

Philosophy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-131
Author(s):  
Niels de Haan
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
The Other ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Type Symmetry ◽  
Moral Demands

AbstractThere is good reason to think that moral responsibility as accountability is tied to the violation of moral demands. This lends intuitive support to Type-Symmetry in the collective realm: A type of responsibility entails the violation or unfulfillment of the same type of all-things-considered duty. For example, collective responsibility necessarily entails the violation of a collective duty. But Type-Symmetry is false. In this paper I argue that a non-agential group can be collectively responsible without thereby violating a collective duty. To show this I distinguish between four types of responsibility and duty in collective contexts: corporate, distributed, collective, shared. I set out two cases: one involves a non-reductive collective action that constitutes irreducible wrongdoing, the other involves a non-divisible consequence. I show that the violation of individual or shared duties both can lead to irreducible wrongdoing for which only the group is responsible. Finally, I explain why this conclusion does not upset any work on individual responsibility.

scholarly journals IDEA OF FREEDOM IN PHILOSOPHY IN THE CONTEXT OF NEGATIVE AND POSITIVE FREEDOMS / NEGATİF VE POZİTİF ÖZGÜRLÜKLER BAĞLAMINDA FELSEFEDE ÖZGÜRLÜK DÜŞÜNCESİ

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Göksel Yıkmış
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Positive Freedom ◽  
Positive Liberty

In this article, I will explore the issue of whether it is coherent to say that one person has more freedom than another by considering negative and positive freedom traditions. First, I will briefly describe the notion of negative and positive freedom. Second, I will begin to make a connection between notions of liberty and one agent having more freedom than another. Third, I will outline the inadequacy of the negative tradition, and then I will discuss the necessity of positive tradition. It is concluded that some notion of positive liberty is needed to make coherent sense of the claim that persons can vary in degree of liberty. However, owing to social contract issues, I conclude that both conceptions are needed. Bu çalışmada, bir kişinin diğerinden daha fazla özgürlüğe sahip olduğunu söylemenin tutarlı olup olmadığı, felsefedeki negatif ve pozitif özgürlük kavramları ele alınarak incelenmiştir. Bu bağlamda ilk olarak negatif ve pozitif özgürlük kavramları kısaca açıklanmıştır. Ardından, özgürlük kavramları ile bir kişinin diğerinden daha fazla özgürlüğe sahip olması arasında bir bağlantı kurulmuştur. Son olarak, felsefedeki negatif özgürlük kavramının neden yetersiz olduğunun ana hatları çizilmiş ve ardından pozitif geleneğin gerekliliği ele alınıp tartışılmıştır. Bu çalışmada, kişilerin özgürlük ve bağımsızlık derecesine göre çeşitlilik gösterebileceği iddiasını tutarlı bir şekilde anlamlandırmak için pozitif özgürlük kavramına ihtiyaç olduğu sonucuna varılmıştır. Bununla birlikte bu çalışmada, toplum sözleşmesi kavramında yer alan birtakım sorunlar nedeniyle, her iki özgürlük kavramın da özgürlük düşüncesi için gerekli olduğu sonucuna varılmıştır. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0630/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Positive Freedom

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Theory ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Social Recognition ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Physical Control ◽  
Positive Freedom ◽  
Negative Liberty ◽  
Positive Liberty ◽  
Political Value

Freedom is widely regarded as a basic social and political value that is deeply connected to the ideals of democracy, equality, liberation, and social recognition. Many insist that freedom must include conditions that go beyond simple “negative” liberty understood as the absence of constraints; only if freedom includes other conditions such as the capability to act, mental and physical control of oneself, and social recognition by others will it deserve its place in the pantheon of basic social values. Positive Freedom is the first volume to examine the idea of positive liberty in detail and from multiple perspectives. With contributions from leading scholars in ethics and political theory, this collection includes both historical studies of the idea of positive freedom and discussions of its connection to important contemporary issues in social and political philosophy.

scholarly journals Moral Animals and Moral Responsibility

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-59
Author(s):  
Albert W. Musschenga
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Central Question ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Subject ◽  
Moral Behaviour ◽  
Moral Rules ◽  
Moral Competences

The central question of this article is, Are animals morally responsible for what they do? Answering this question requires a careful, step-by-step argument. In sections 1 and 2, I explain what morality is, and that having a morality means following moral rules or norms. In sections 3 and 4, I argue that some animals show not just regularities in their social behaviour, but can be rightly said to follow social norms. But are the norms they follow also moral norms? In section 5, I contend, referring to the work of Shaun Nichols, that the basic moral competences or capacities are already present in nonhuman primates. Following moral rules or norms is more than just acting in accordance to these norms; it requires being motivated by moral rules. I explain, in section 6, referring to Mark Rowlands, that being capable of moral motivation does not require agency; being a moral subject is sufficient. Contrary to moral agents, moral subjects are not responsible for their behaviour. Stating that there are important similarities between animal moral behaviour and human, unconscious, automatic, habitual behaviour, I examine in section 7 whether humans are responsible for their habitual moral behaviour, and if they are, what then the grounds are for denying that moral animals are responsible for their behaviour. The answer is that humans are responsible for their habitual behaviour if they have the capacity for deliberate intervention. Although animals are capable of intervention in their habitual behaviour, they are not capable of deliberate intervention.

Bringing psychopaths into the moral community: Reassessing agency cultivation and social participation

Thomas Szasz ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 211-223
Author(s):  
Marisola Xhelili Ciaccio
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Social Participation ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Strong Case ◽  
Philosophical Account ◽  
Illness And Disease

Manuel Vargas’s philosophical account of moral responsibility does not tell us how we ought to hold responsible those who lack capacities for detecting moral considerations, for self-governance, or both. This account problematically makes psychopaths seem to exist outside the moral community. The argument pursued in this chapter is, instead, that psychopaths are inside our moral community insofar as they participate in our interdependent social practices and their actions elicit reactions from us. We can make a strong case for holding them accountable for their specific harmful deeds. However, instead of asking whether we should hold psychopaths morally responsible, we could ask in what way they could be held morally responsible. Thus, the emphasis shifts from their inner psychology to their agency and social participation. This shift aligns with Szasz’s concerns with our approach to mental disorders, and furthers his proposal to transform psychiatry from speaking of illness and disease to speaking of agency and responsibility.

scholarly journals Robots as Ideal Moral Agents per the Moral Responsibility System

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dane Leigh Gogoshin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
Perfect Score ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Responsibility System ◽  
Prevailing View ◽  
The Way

Contrary to the prevailing view that robots cannot be full-blown members of the larger human moral community, I argue not only that they can but that they would be ideal moral agents in the way that currently counts. While it is true that robots fail to meet a number of criteria which some human agents meet or which all human agents could in theory meet, they earn a perfect score as far as the behavioristic conception of moral agency at work in our moral responsibility practices goes.

scholarly journals Robot Responsibility and Moral Community

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dane Leigh Gogoshin
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Moral Community ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Moral Rule ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Foregone Conclusion

It is almost a foregone conclusion that robots cannot be morally responsible agents, both because they lack traditional features of moral agency like consciousness, intentionality, or empathy and because of the apparent senselessness of holding them accountable. Moreover, although some theorists include them in the moral community as moral patients, on the Strawsonian picture of moral community as requiring moral responsibility, robots are typically excluded from membership. By looking closely at our actual moral responsibility practices, however, I determine that the agency reflected and cultivated by them is limited to the kind of moral agency of which some robots are capable, not the philosophically demanding sort behind the traditional view. Hence, moral rule-abiding robots (if feasible) can be sufficiently morally responsible and thus moral community members, despite certain deficits. Alternative accountability structures could address these deficits, which I argue ought to be in place for those existing moral community members who share these deficits.

Isaiah Berlin on Positive Freedom

2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 407-422
Author(s):  
Andrés Tutor ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Critical Examination ◽  
Isaiah Berlin ◽  
Critical View ◽  
Positive Freedom ◽  
Positive Liberty

The aim of this article is to provide a critical examination of Berlin’s treatment of positive freedom by offering a review of his standard arguments against this concept. Throughout his essays and particularly in “Two Concepts of Liberty” Berlin connects the idea of positive freedom with such notions as monism, rationalism, and determinism. Each of these connections will be discussed separately. I will argue that most of Berlin’s arguments against positive liberty are somehow flawed. Although Berlin valued positive freedom as one of the ultimate ends of life, his critical view of the concept should be tempered and contextualized since it was mostly based not on logical or conceptual grounds but on historical and interpretative considerations.

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