A Change of Heart: Moral Emotions, Transformation, and Moral Virtue

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Stark
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Optional Extra

AbstractInspired in part by a renewed attention to Aristotle's moral philosophy, philosophers have acknowledged the important role of the emotions in morality. Nonetheless, precisely how emotions matter to morality has remained contentious. Aristotelians claim that moral virtue is constituted by correct action and correct emotion. But Kantians seem to require solely that agents do morally correct actions out of respect for the moral law. There is a crucial philosophical disagreement between the Aristotelian and Kantian moral outlooks: namely, is feeling the correct emotions necessary to virtue or is it an optional extra, which is permitted but not required. I argue that there are good reasons for siding with the Aristotelians: virtuous agents must experience the emotions appropriate to their situations. Moral virtue requires a change of heart.

Geography and ethics II

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 830-838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Olson
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Political Emotions ◽  
Emotional Geographies ◽  
Geographical Perspective ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Relationship

In this second report, I consider the relationship between emotion and morality from a geographical perspective. Though traditional and contemporary engagements in moral philosophy and psychology offer a diverse range of theories and approaches to emotions and morality, few of these explicitly consider or incorporate the role of space. I consider theories of embodiment and relationality as one means through which emotions become collective and institutionalized, with a focus on emotional geographies and care. I conclude by reflecting on political emotions as conflictive but insightful signals of societal shifts in our moral emotions, and suggest that incorporating emotions may also provide a different way of thinking about the problem of distant care.

Unstable Autonomy: Conscience and Judgment in Kant's Moral Philosophy

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dean Moyar
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Motivation ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Limited Role ◽  
Metaphysics Of Morals ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractIn this paper I argue that Kant's claims about conscience in his moral writings of the 1790s reveal a fundamental instability in his moral philosophy. The central issue is the relationship between the moral law as the form of universality and the judgment of individuals about specific cases. Against Thomas Hill's claim that Kant has only a limited role for conscience, I argue that conscience has a comprehensive role in Kantian deliberation. I unpack the claims about conscience in the Metaphysics of Morals to show that they describe conscience as both a basic act of self-consciousness and as an all-things-considered judgment. I outline the role of conscience in moral motivation, and argue that taken together Kant's writings about conscience reveal a way to rethink Kant's conception of the Fact of Reason.

A Hero of Conscience: Samson Agonistes and Casuistry

PMLA ◽  
1975 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camille W. Slights
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Samson Agonistes ◽  
Human Power ◽  
Moral Problems ◽  
The Individual

AbstractRenaissance English casuistry, the branch of moral philosophy that applies general principles to particular cases, supplies a significant context for Milton’s Samson Agonistes. In subject matter, structure, and language, Milton’s tragedy resembles the prose cases of conscience in which casuists showed how to overcome doubt and despair and gain peaceful consciences by resolving difficult moral problems. Such casuistical concepts as the supremacy of the individual conscience, the relevance of circumstances to moral law, and the role of reason in resolving doubt illuminate the conflicting moral judgments that form the dramatic texture of Samson Agonistes. Samson learns how to judge his own actions in particular circumstances, and by doing so, learns to repent of his past sin, overcome his sense of powerlessness, and act with a clear conscience. The drama goes beyond conventional casuistry in its uncompromising assertion of the supremacy of the individual conscience and its unflinching recognition of the tragic limits of human power.

scholarly journals SPIRITUAL-ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN SEARCH OF VALUE BASES

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (18) ◽  
pp. 127-131
Author(s):  
E.E. Moiseenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Moral Metaphysics ◽  
Moral Teachings ◽  
Teleological Interpretation

The article attempts to determine the value principles of the moral metaphysics of Orthodox academic theism of the late XIX – early XX centuries. The specificity of the Orthodox “ontological” and “teleological” interpretation of the category of moral law is revealed. The role of European moral teachings of the XVIII – early XIX centuries in the formation of Orthodox moral philosophy is shown. The role of the idea of “good” as the highest value in the system of spiritual-academic moral metaphysics is noted

scholarly journals Francis Hutcheson on Shame

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-105
Author(s):  
Andrey V. Prokofyev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
Francis Hutcheson ◽  
Human Capacity ◽  
Bernard Mandeville

The paper analyzes the conception of shame of the British sentimentalist Francis Hutcheson. It rests on the understanding of moral virtue as a representation of benevolence and the iden­tification of shame with the misery from the unfavorable opinions of others. For Hutcheson, shame complements honour as a second part of the particular human capacity that linked to the moral sense. In ‘An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue’, Hutch­eson is arguing with Bernard Mandeville about the role of shame and honour in the genesis of morality. He tries to show that the general approval of benevolence and the love of public good cannot be born out of self-love and a sensitivity to public opinion. He uses three argu­ments: a) shame is an immediate evil, b) shame is inseparable from the moral sense, b) their link is independent from public opinion. In addition, Hutcheson demonstrates that the sense of honour and shame can deviate from the moral sense in par­ticular instances via some asso­ciations. Hutcheson’ attitude to these deviations is uncertain and ambivalent. In ‘A System of Moral Philosophy’, honour and shame accompany not only the moral sense but also the sense of decency and dignity. This treatise also contains a brief polemics with Aristotle on the role of emotions generated by opinions of others in the pro­cess of moral self-improve­ment. Hutcheson’s conception of shame is a step in the develop­ment of socialized interpreta­tion of this emotion. Theoretically, it is interesting as an attempt to analyze origins of the particular lists of subjects of shame.

scholarly journals The Moral Philosophy of Maria Montessori

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
PATRICK FRIERSON
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Moral Concepts ◽  
Maria Montessori ◽  
Individual Character ◽  
Individual Self ◽  
Shared Agency

Abstract This paper lays out the moral theory of philosopher and educator Maria Montessori (1870–1952). Based on a moral epistemology wherein moral concepts are grounded in a well-cultivated moral sense, Montessori develops a threefold account of moral life. She starts with an account of character as an ideal of individual self-perfection through concentrated attention on effortful work. She shows how respect for others grows from and supplements individual character, and she further develops a notion of social solidarity that goes beyond cooperation toward shared agency. Partly because she attends to children's ethical lives, Montessori highlights how character, respect, and solidarity all appear first as prereflective, embodied orientations of agency. Full moral virtue takes up prereflective orientations reflectively and extends them through moral concepts. Overall, Montessori's ethic improves on features similar to some in Nietzschean, Kantian, Hegelian, or Aristotelian ethical theories while situating these within a developmental and perfectionist ethics.

Partially Moral Legal Relations. Who is to Blame? (Review of the Monograph: Serkov P. P. Legal Relation. The Morality of Modern Legal Regulation. M.: Norma, 2020. – 686 p.)

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 67-74
Author(s):  
E. I. Kolyushin
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Legal Relation ◽  
Legal Science

The solution to the problem of the relations between morality and law proposed in the monograph is a serious attempt to create a new concept of moral law and legal relations using the achievements of other liberal arts in contrast to the ideas in legal science prevailing now. Conclusions and suggestions are justified only in those parameters in which the researcher does not absolutize the role of morality in each of the named manifestations.

scholarly journals The 'spirit' and the 'letter' of the moral law: Text and commentary in the hermeneutics of German idealism, I

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-157
Author(s):  
Vladimir Milisavljevic
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
Moral Law ◽  
Literal Interpretation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Historical Origins

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on different aspects of the hermeneutical problem in post-Kantian philosophical 'constellation'. In this domain, the problem of the relationship between the text and its commentary is theorized in terms of the antithesis between 'Spirit' and 'Letter', which clearly has religious roots. Therefore, the first part of the paper examines the historical origins of this antithesis, as well as its application in philosophical discussions which developed by the end of the 18th century about the problem of finding the 'true' interpretation to Kant's philosophy. The second part of the text, which is to be published in the next issue of this review, brings the duality of spiritual and literal interpretation into closer connection with the topics of Kant's moral philosophy.

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