The Divine Relationship Ethics of Kierkegaard’s Love-Sleuth in Works of Love

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 341-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. P. Marcar
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Existential Anxiety ◽  
Works Of Love

Despite traditionally being characterised as a melancholy thinker with a propensity to dwell on existential anxiety, sin and despair, scholarly interest in the place of love in Søren Kierkegaard’s ethical thought is currently gaining significant traction. In particular, Kierkegaard’s Works of Love (1847) has increasingly come under the academic spotlight as a text with potentially rich and previously underappreciated insights for Christian ethics. This article aims to contribute to this ongoing illumination, by highlighting the moral psychology and theological anthropology of Kierkegaard’s Christian lover in discourses II–V of Works of Love’s second series. In doing this, I aim to put forward an overarching ethical framework which can be seen to structure these moral deliberations.

Nietzsche and Contemporary Ethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Principal Parts

Nietzsche is one of the most subversive ethical thinkers of the Western canon. This book offers a critical assessment of his ethical thought and its significance for contemporary moral philosophy. It develops a charitable but critical reading of his thought, pushing some claims and arguments as far as seems fruitful while rejecting others. But it also uses Nietzsche in dialogue with, so to contribute to, a range of long-standing issues within normative ethics, metaethics, value theory, practical reason, and moral psychology. The book is divided into three principal parts. Part I examines Nietzsche’s critique of morality, arguing that it raises well-motivated challenges to morality’s normative authority and value: his error theory about morality’s categoricity is in a better position than many contemporary versions; and his critique of moral values has bite even against undemanding moral theories, with significant implications not just for rarefied excellent types but also us. Part II turns to moral psychology, attributing to Nietzsche and defending a sentimentalist explanation of action and motivation. Part III considers his non-moral perfectionism, developing models of value and practical normativity that avoid difficulties facing many contemporary accounts and that may therefore be of wider interest. The discussion concludes by considering Nietzsche’s broader significance: as well as calling into question many of moral philosophy’s deepest assumptions, he challenges our usual views of what ethics itself is—and what it, and we, should be doing.

JEAN BARBEYRAC, SUPEREROGATION, AND THE SEARCH FOR A SAFE RELIGION

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
GREG CONTI
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Psychological Effects ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Natural Law Theory ◽  
Theological Controversy ◽  
The Many ◽  
Psychological Concern ◽  
Modern Thinking

Jean Barbeyrac was dismayed by the intrusion of theological controversy into the study of modern natural law theory. Yet the longest of the many annotations that he included in his own edition of Grotius was concerned with a theological matter. In this footnote, Barbeyrac attacked Grotius's understanding of Christian ethics as supererogatory; that is, as containing a distinction between the dictates of duty and the counsels of a higher holiness or perfection. The heart of his objection to this view was that it had pernicious psychological effects, that it fostered bigotry and immorality. He reiterated this psychological concern in his later work on the Christian Fathers. This objection to the real-world damages caused by the theory of supererogation was closely linked to his fear of skepticism and his quarrel with Bayle. Barbeyrac's rejection of supererogation also places him within an important strand of early modern thinking about the moral psychology of religion and about the ways in which religious belief could become an obstacle to moral behavior.

Understanding the Voices of Disability Advocates in Physician-Assisted Suicide Debates

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devan Stahl
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Assisted Suicide ◽  
Terminally Ill ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Physician Assisted Suicide ◽  
Persons With Disabilities ◽  
Phenomenological Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
Bear Witness

Abstract Christians have an obligation to attend to the voices of persons who are crying out that their dignity and very lives are in jeopardy when physician-assisted suicide (PAS) becomes legalized. The following essay begins with an account of the concept of “disability moral psychology,” which elucidates the unique ways persons with disabilities perceive the world, based on their phenomenological experience. The author then explores the disability critique of PAS and the shared social conditions of persons who are chronically disabled and terminally ill. Finally, the author positions the disability critique within Christian moral deliberations on PAS to unearth its significance for Christian ethics. To bear witness to a compassionate God, theological and ethical judgments concerning PAS must seek perspectives from persons who claim that their dignity and even their lives are in jeopardy by the practice.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Simon Robertson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Ethical Project

This opening chapter explains the book’s overarching aims, themes, structure, and approach. The book’s aim is to critically assess Nietzsche’s ethical thought and its significance for contemporary (broadly analytic) moral philosophy. It does this in two main ways: by developing a charitable but critical reconstruction of his ethics; and by using Nietzsche to contribute to a range of longstanding issues within normative ethics, metaethics, value theory, practical reason, and moral psychology. The chapter locates Nietzsche’s ethical project in his ‘revaluation of all values’, outlining a variety of interpretive and philosophical puzzles this raises. It then gives a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book’s topics and direction, and addresses some methodological matters bearing on its interpretive and philosophical ambitions.

Pharmaceutical Memory Modification and Christianity’s “Dangerous” Memory

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-108
Author(s):  
Stephanie C. Edwards ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Traumatic Experience ◽  
Traumatic Memories ◽  
Memory Modification ◽  
Specific Challenge

Pharmaceutical memory modification is the use of a drug to dampen, or eliminate completely, memories of traumatic experience. While standard therapeutic treatments, even those including intense pharmaceuticals, can potentially offer individual biomedical healing, they are missing an essential perspective offered by Christian bioethics: re/incorporation of individuals and traumatic memories into communities that confront and reinterpret suffering. This paper is specifically grounded in Christian ethics, engaging womanist understandings of Incarnational, embodied personhood, and Johann Baptist Metz’s “dangerous memory.” It develops an ethical framework of Christian “enfleshed counter-memory” that responds to the specific challenge of pharmaceutical memory modification, and traumatic experience generally.

scholarly journals Crossroads of forgiveness: a transcendent understanding of forgiveness in Kierkegaard’s religious writings and immanent account of forgiveness in contemporary secular and Christian ethics

2019 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-80
Author(s):  
Andrzej Słowikowski
Keyword(s):  
Christian Ethics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Religious Writings ◽  
The World ◽  
Transcendent Reality ◽  
Christian Thought

Abstract This paper is an attempt to clash the problem of forgiveness as formulated in contemporary secular and Christian ethics with Kierkegaard’s considerations concerning this issue. Kierkegaard’s thought is increasingly used in the modern debate on forgiveness. It is therefore worth investigating whether Kierkegaard’s considerations are really able to overcome in any way contemporary disputes concerning this problem or enrich our thinking in this area. The main thesis of this paper states that there is a fundamental, ontological difference between Kierkegaard’s understanding of forgiveness and that of modern thinkers. While the Danish philosopher refers to the transcendent reality of spirit, where the act of forgiveness is always performed by God, in contemporary ethical and Christian thought, forgiveness is first and foremost formulated from an immanent point of view that appeals to the world of human values. This difference is demonstrated by analyzing the four main themes corresponding to the most important issues taken up in the contemporary debate on forgiveness. These are: the victim-offender relation, the conditionality and unconditionality of forgiveness, the issue of condonation, and the problem of the unforgivable. As a result of the analyses presented herein, the impossibility of directly applying Kierkegaard’s transcendent theses to ethical thought of the immanent variety will be shown.

scholarly journals Ethical Framework for Designing Autonomous Intelligent Systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaana Leikas ◽  
Raija Koivisto ◽  
Nadezhda Gotcheva
Keyword(s):  
Intelligent Systems ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Autonomous Systems ◽  
Ethical Principles ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Concept Design ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Multidisciplinary Perspective ◽  
Fundamental Values

To gain the potential benefit of autonomous intelligent systems, their design and development need to be aligned with fundamental values and ethical principles. We need new design approaches, methodologies and processes to deploy ethical thought and action in the contexts of autonomous intelligent systems. To open this discussion, this article presents a review of ethical principles in the context of artificial intelligence design, and introduces an ethical framework for designing autonomous intelligent systems. The framework is based on an iterative, multidisciplinary perspective yet a systematic discussion during an Autonomous Intelligent Systems (AIS) design process, and on relevant ethical principles for the concept design of autonomous systems. We propose using scenarios as a tool to capture the essential user’s or stakeholder’s specific qualitative information, which is needed for a systematic analysis of ethical issues in the specific design case.

Persons, Situations, and Virtue Ethics

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
John M. Doris
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Ethical Thought ◽  
Normative Implications

This chapter is one of the initial contributions to philosophy’s virtue ethics-situationism debate, referencing psychology’s person-situation debate to argue that traditional conceptions of character and virtue in philosophical moral psychology are empirically inadequate. The chapter also examines the normative implications of this argument, defending a revisionary position: ethical thought would be best served by reduced reliance on traditional notions of character. This conjunction of empirical and normative theses later became known as character skepticism.

Freedom, Responsibility, and Moral Agency

2019 ◽  
pp. 305-320
Author(s):  
Gerald McKenny
Keyword(s):  
Basic Principle ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Theological Anthropology ◽  
Social Ethics ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
The Other

The concepts of freedom, responsibility, and moral agency are tightly interwoven in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thought and have to do with the relation of subject to the other that is at the centre of Bonhoeffer’s ethics and theological anthropology. This chapter presents and critically examines these three concepts. It argues that Bonhoeffer’s key notion of responsibility for the other (that is, liability) is an important and permanent contribution to Christian ethics. It also argues that Bonhoeffer’s notions of the responsibility of the agent (that is, imputability) and the agent’s responsibility to the other (that is, accountability) are attenuated, to the detriment of his ethics. Finally, the chapter argues that Bonhoeffer’s treatment of vicarious representative action as an expression of responsibility for the other is more ambiguous and less suited to be a basic principle of social ethics than Bonhoeffer supposes.

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