scholarly journals Virtue and Care in Modern Ethics

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2(2)) ◽  
pp. 11-24
Author(s):  
Dariusz Juruś
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Ethics Of Care ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Individual Character ◽  
Moral Theories

In this paper I compare two contemporary moral theories; virtue ethics and the ethics of care. They both reject traditional ethical positions – Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. Virtue ethics focuses on the question what person should I be, instead, as in the case of Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, what should I do. It holds that value concepts (good, value) in contrary to deontological concepts (duty, obligation) are fundamental in ethical theory. Ethics of care, in rejecting a position based on justice, emphasises the role of care in human relations. It concentrates on personal relationships like love, friendship and charity. Virtue ethics emphasises the crucial role of individual character in moral life, whereas ethics of care holds that relations between people based on attentiveness, responsiveness and respect are the most important in moral life.

Moral Philosophy and Moral Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Moral Subject ◽  
Moral Position ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Alternative Understanding

This is a work in moral philosophy and its ambition is to contribute to a renewed understanding of moral philosophy, the role of moral theory, and the relation between moral philosophy and moral life. It is motivated by the belief that the lack of a coherent answer to the question of the role and status of moral philosophy and the theories it develops, is one of the most important obstacles for doing work in moral philosophy today. The first part of the book untangles various criticisms of the dominant view of moral theories that challenges the explanatory, foundational, authoritative, and action-guiding role of these theories. It also offers an alternative understanding of moral theory as descriptions of moral grammar. The second part investigates the nature of the particularities relevant for an understanding of moral life, both particularities tied to the moral subject, her character, commitments, and moral position, and particularities tied to the context of the subject, her moral community and language. The final part marks a return to moral philosophy and addresses the wider question of what the revised conception of moral theories and the affirmation of the value of the particular mean for moral philosophy by developing a descriptive, pluralistic, and elucidatory conception of moral philosophy. The scope of the book is wide, but its pretensions are more moderate, to present an understanding of descriptive moral philosophy which may spur a debate about the status and role of moral philosophy in relation to our moral lives.

Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy E. Snow
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
Ethical Naturalism ◽  
Natural Goodness ◽  
External Goods ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
Virtuous Life

Neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics takes inspiration from Aristotle’s ethical theory. Central to this approach is that virtues, enduring dispositions of character and intellect, are essential, along with external goods, for us to live flourishing lives in accordance with our nature as rational beings. Aristotle’s theory is teleological, for the virtues direct us toward the end or telos of flourishing and enable us to attain it. The theory is naturalistic in the sense that to live a virtuous life is to live a life of natural goodness. This chapter explains these and other ideas by reviewing Rosalind Hursthouse’s view that virtue ethics is a viable alternative to deontology and consequentialism, followed by a discussion of two major themes of Daniel C. Russell’s account of the role of practical reason in virtue ethics. Finally, it turns to ethical naturalism as articulated by Hursthouse, Philippa Foot, and Michael Thompson, with mention of McDowell’s approach.

scholarly journals The Archangel Delusion. Descriptive Ethics and Its Role in the Education of Ethicists

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-49
Author(s):  
Jarosław Kucharski
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
Descriptive Ethics ◽  
Moral Theories

The role of ethicists is to provide a genuine ethical theory to help non-ethicists interpret and solve moral dilemmas, to define what is right or wrong, and, finally, to clarify moral values. Therefore, ethicists are taught to address morality with rational procedures, to set aside their moral intuitions and emotions. Sometimes, professional ethicists are prone to falling into the archangel delusion – the belief that they are beyond the influence of their own emotions. This can lead to ousting moral intuitions from the space of ethical reflection, thus making ethicists unaware of them. They may treat intuitive beliefs about morality as an expression of primal moral feelings. The main question pursued in this article, is how those feelings may influence moral theories, which should be developed by professional ethicists. Ethicists may provide an ethical theory which is merely a rationalisation and justification for their own suppressed moral emotions, rather than the effect of genuine, rational moral reasoning. To help ethicists cope with this delusion, a model of cooperation between descriptive and normative ethics is proposed. Ethicists should therefore use the research tools of descriptive ethics to determine their own intuitions, and the moral emotions in which these intuitions are grounded. --------------- Received: 09/06/2021. Reviewed: 23/07/2021. Accepted: 13/08/2021.

The Ethics of Human–Robot Interaction and Traditional Moral Theories

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Nyholm
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Robot Interaction ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Domains Of Life

The rapid introduction of different kinds of robots and other machines with artificial intelligence into different domains of life raises the question of whether robots can be moral agents and moral patients. In other words, can robots perform moral actions? Can robots be on the receiving end of moral actions? To explore these questions, this chapter relates the new area of the ethics of human–robot interaction to traditional ethical theories such as utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, and virtue ethics. These theories were developed with the assumption that the paradigmatic examples of moral agents and moral patients are human beings. As this chapter argues, this creates challenges for anybody who wishes to extend the traditional ethical theories to new questions of whether robots can be moral agents and/or moral patients.

Generality and Particularity in Moral Thought

2020 ◽  
pp. 75-102
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Moral Theories

This chapter explores the role of particularities in moral thought and moral life and the forms of understanding of these particularities necessary in moral philosophy in order to substantiate the idea, developed in Chapter 3, that moral philosophy is a descriptive activity facing a dual task, both general and particular. The chapter falls into two parts. The first part is an investigation of the role of general principles in moral thought that aids an understanding of how far general descriptions (for example in the form of moral theories) may be of help to us in philosophy. The second part provides an understanding of the role of the particular in moral thought that serves to substantiate the claim that moral philosophy has to provide a substantial understanding of moral development, imagination, and discernment. This part also investigates whether the qualification of the role of general principles in moral thought can be reconciled with the idea that moral considerations are objective, universal, and absolute. The chapter concludes that moral philosophy should rediscover itself as one practice among others that aim to assist and improve moral life, while taking into account the most comprehensive understanding of human life.

scholarly journals Etika Kepedulian : Welas Asih Dalam Tindakan Moral

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Yeremias Jena
Keyword(s):  
David Hume ◽  
Moral Agent ◽  
Care Ethics ◽  
Ethics Of Care ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Ethical Discourse

<div><p><strong>Abstract :</strong> Compassion in ethical discourse is used to describe the attitudes and actions of moral agent in helping the vulnerables and the suffering. Discourse around compassion generally focused on whether compassion is an attitude of sympathy or empathy, or it is the attitude of compassion derived from an altruistic attitude which is inherent in intelligent being. This paper argues that compassion is realized only in the context of ethics of care. For that reason, the paper will first distinguish simpaty from empathy and contextualize them within the realm of altruism. At the same time this approach plays the role of criticizing emotive ethics of David Hume and Kantian ethics which is attacked by Kantian ethics as heteronomous.</p><p><em>Keywords : sympathy, empathy, altruism, epiphanic experience, caring encounters, care ethics</em></p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><strong>Abstrak<em> </em>:</strong> Sikap welas asih (compassion) dalam diskursus etika digunakan untuk mendeskripsikan sikap dan tindakan moral menolong sesama yang rentan dan menderita. Diskursus seputar sikap welas asih umumnya difokuskan pada apakah sikap tersebut adalah bagian dari sikap simpati atau empati? Atau, apakah sikap welas asih adalah wujud dari sikap altruistik yang umumnya dimiliki makhluk hidup berperasaan dan berinteligensi? Tulisan ini pertama-tama akan menunjukkan bahwa sikap welas asih lebih dekat dengan konsep dan sikap simpati. Untuk memahami hal ini, pembedaannya dengan empati akan dikemukakan. Di atas semuanya itu, sikap welas asih (simpati) dan empati dibedakan juga dari sikap altruistik manusia. Melalui tulisan ini akan ditunjukkan pula bahwa hanya melalui etika kepedulian (ethics of care) kita dapat memahami welas asih sebagai sikap dan tindakan moral. Ini sekaligus menjadi kritik tajam terhadap etika Humean yang terlalu memuja perasaan moral dan etika Kantian yang menghojat emosi atau perasaan moral sebagai etika manusia heteronom.</p><em>Kata kunci : Simpati, Empati, Altruisme, Pengalaman epifani, Perjumpaan penuh belas kasih, Etika kepedulian</em></div>

Feminist ethics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemarie Tong
Keyword(s):  
Ethics Of Care ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
The Political ◽  
Feminist Ethics ◽  
Lesbian Women ◽  
Male Domination ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mothers And Children ◽  
Women's Experience

Critics greet feminist ethics with suspicion, alleging that it is biased towards the interests of women. Feminist ethicists reply that it is traditional ethics which is biased. As they see it, for centuries traditional ethicists claimed to speak for all of humanity, when they were speaking only or primarily for men, and the most privileged of men at that. In contrast, although feminist ethicists openly admit that they proceed from the perspective of women’s experience, their paramount goal is simply to reconstruct traditional ethics so that it becomes more universal and objective by including women’s as well as men’s moral voices. Far from being monolithic, feminist ethics encompasses a wide variety of woman-centred approaches to the moral life. Feminine approaches to ethics, with their stress on personal relationships and an ethics of care, put a premium on the value of human connection. Maternal approaches focus on one relationship in particular, that between mothers and children, as the paradigm for moral interaction. Lesbian approaches stress choice rather than duty, aiming to define the conditions in which lesbian women can flourish. Finally, specifically feminist approaches to ethics emphasize the political task of eliminating systems and structures of male domination and female subordination in both the public and the private domains.

Virtue Ethics

Philosophy ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Driver
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Right Action ◽  
Recent Interest ◽  
Aristotle's Ethics ◽  
Normative Ethical Theory ◽  
Primary Form

Virtue ethics is a type of normative ethical theory that regards virtue evaluation as the primary form of evaluation, in contrast to theories that focus on “right” action. Some writers fold theories about virtue into virtue ethics, though the two are distinct. A Utilitarian, for example, can provide an account of virtue that is based on or compatible with her theory, without being committed to virtue ethics. Again, virtue ethics treats virtue evaluation as primary. There has been much recent interest generated in virtue ethics. Often writers have been inspired by Aristotle’s ethics, though some have developed broadly Humean accounts of virtue ethics, and others, pluralistic accounts that borrow from a variety of traditions. At the beginning of this new wave of interest in virtue, the project was primarily negative, focusing on problems with other theories, particularly Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. The following resources are resources that include articles on virtue itself, as well as articles that explicitly develop, defend, or criticize virtue ethics.

Virtue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allen W. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
The Real ◽  
Turn On ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Human Condition

Kant and Aristotle have often been seen as proponents of contrasting approaches to ethical theory: deontology and virtue ethics (respectively). This essay argues, with the help of Terence Irwin’s discussions in The Development of Ethics, that their conceptions of virtue are very similar and easily reconciled. This can be done if we adopt what Irwin calls a ‘rationalist’ interpretation of Aristotle, and if we also appreciate the ways in which virtue for Kant involves desire, pleasure, and pain (both rational and empirical desires and feelings). We also explore the real differences between Aristotelian and Kantian ethics, which, it is argued, turn on differences between the ancient and modern conceptions of happiness, which hinge, in turn, on the difference between the ancient and modern views of the human condition.

Literature and Moral Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 165-184
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie Søndergaard Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Moral Change ◽  
Moral Cultivation ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Knowledge By Acquaintance

The chapter contributes to the development of a pluralistic conception of moral philosophy consisting of a diversity of descriptive activities by exploring one example of how to combine an understanding of the particulars of moral life with the more general and abstract insights traditionally developed in moral philosophy, namely via moral philosophy’s engagement with literature. The chapter is motivated by the argument that the irreducible role of the particular in moral life raises a demand for moral philosophy to interact with other disciplines which may serve as sources of knowledge about the particularities of moral life. It is argued that engagement with literature offers us knowledge by acquaintance and possibilities of moral cultivation, and that literature can be a suitable partner for moral philosophy in three activities that differ from the development of moral theories: namely in the exploration, the critique, and the development of moral life. The last type of activity, where literature is a partner for moral philosophy in initiating forms of moral change, is given special attention, and it is shown that this is an integrated part of moral philosophy, even if it is currently underexplored.

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