Sanction as a Moral Fact

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucian Samir Oulhabib
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Dancy

Moral realism is the view that there are facts of the matter about which actions are right and which wrong, and about which things are good and which bad. But behind this bald statement lies a wealth of complexity. If one is a full-blown moral realist, one probably accepts the following three claims. First, moral facts are somehow special and different from other sorts of fact. Realists differ, however, about whether the sort of specialness required is compatible with taking some natural facts to be moral facts. Take, for instance, the natural fact that if we do this action, we will have given someone the help they need. Could this be a moral fact – the same fact as the fact that we ought to do the action? Or must we think of such a natural fact as the natural ‘ground’ for the (quite different) moral fact that we should do it, that is, as the fact in the world that makes it true that we should act this way? Second, realists hold that moral facts are independent of any beliefs or thoughts we might have about them. What is right is not determined by what I or anybody else thinks is right. It is not even determined by what we all think is right, even if we could be got to agree. We cannot make actions right by agreeing that they are, any more than we can make bombs safe by agreeing that they are. Third, it is possible for us to make mistakes about what is right and what is wrong. No matter how carefully and honestly we think about what to do, there is still no guarantee that we will come up with the right answer. So what people conscientiously decide they should do may not be the same as what they should do.


1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard J. Arneson

In contemporary market societies, the laws (generally speaking) do not place individuals under enforceable obligations to aid others. Perhaps the most striking exception to this broad generalization is the practice of conscription of able-bodied males into military service, particularly in time of war. Another notable exception is the legal enforcement in some contemporary societies of “Good Samaritan” obligations — obligations to provide temporary aid to victims of emergencies, such as car accident victims. The obligation applies to those who are in the immediate vicinity of the emergency and who can supply aid of great value to the victim at small risk and tolerable cost to themselves. The fact that not all contemporary societies have enacted such Good Samaritan laws underscores the point that the general rule is that individuals are under no legal obligation to help others. According to some moral views, this legal situation approximately accords with the moral fact that persons who have not voluntarily incurred obligations to aid others should not be coerced into tendering such aid. Moreover, it is worth noting that these two prominent exceptions to the tendency of legal systems to eschew enforcement of positive obligations to aid others are plausibly in everyone's ex ante interest and not notably redistributive in intent.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Dancy

Moral realism is the view that there are facts of the matter about which actions are right and which wrong, and about which things are good and which bad. But behind this bald statement lies a wealth of complexity. If one is a full-blown moral realist, one probably accepts the following three claims. First, moral facts are somehow special and different from other sorts of fact. Realists differ, however, about whether the sort of specialness required is compatible with taking some natural facts to be moral facts. Take, for instance, the natural fact that if we do this action, we will have given someone the help they need. Could this be a moral fact – the same fact as the fact that we ought to do the action? Or must we think of such a natural fact as the natural ‘ground’ for the (quite different) moral fact that we should do it, that is, as the fact in the world that makes it true that we should act this way? Second, realists hold that moral facts are independent of any beliefs or thoughts we might have about them. What is right is not determined by what I or anybody else thinks is right. It is not even determined by what we all think is right, even if we could be got to agree. We cannot make actions right by agreeing that they are, any more than we can make bombs safe by agreeing that they are. Third, it is possible for us to make mistakes about what is right and what is wrong. No matter how carefully and honestly we think about what to do, there is still no guarantee that we will come up with the right answer. So what people conscientiously decide they should do may not be the same as what they should do.


1894 ◽  
Vol 40 (169) ◽  
pp. 252-253
Author(s):  
P. T. Syrée

The first and altogether indispensable qualification for the work of the minister of Religion is, and must ever be, that his heart and soul are absorbed in his work. All the learning of the schools would be of no avail, and yet all possible knowledge of both men and things could find ample scope in that interesting and all-embracing field of service, the very “labour of love!” But if the heart-service of any religious minister of the Gospel is so all-important a requisite for the due performance of the daily duties of the ordinary parish priest, yet more is it so in the case of him whose daily duty, nay, whose great privilege it is to “minister to the mind diseased,” and unless the heart be really and truly in his work he can be of little, if any, good service to the mentally afflicted. Such a sad condition would prove a most prolific source of unhappiness and unprofitableness all round. “Can the blind lead the blind?” It is an old-established truth that no two persons are totally and unmistakably alike! Even so is it a moral fact that no two characters agree in every particular; and yet more, this thought brings me to the most interesting consideration of the whole matter, viz., the psychical condition of the insane, which is as varied as the physical and moral states of ordinary mortals. Quot homines tot sententió. The asylum chaplain, whose heart and soul are really and truly in the work, will make it his daily study to fathom the psychical conditions of his afflicted flock, so as to find ways and means and opportunities for the soothing balm of comfort and consolation! Very deep and sincere has been the gratitude of many a poor man or woman thus lovingly dealt with, and great the chaplain's encouragement and reward! Nisi dominus frustra.


Author(s):  
V.N. Karpovich

The relation of the contingent and the necessary truths and between facts and duties is an important philosophical problem. Hume formulated it in a paradoxical form, arguing that people can, for the sake of momentary benefit, commit an act leading to bad consequences for themselves and for other people. This argument has been widely discussed in the literature, with different approaches and different interpretations. Here we propose to include in the reasoning not only moral, but also natural laws, so that the combination of two types of modalities in the premises would allow to get deductively a moral fact as a conclusion from another moral fact plus a connected combination of deontic and aletic modalities in the premises.


Author(s):  
Camil Golub

Abstract It has been argued that there is something morally objectionable about moral realism: for instance, according to realism, we are justified in believing that genocide is wrong only if a certain moral fact obtains, but it is objectionable to hold our moral commitments hostage to metaphysics in this way. In this paper, I argue that no version of this moral argument against realism is likely to succeed. More precisely, minimal realism―the kind of realism on which realist theses are understood as internal to moral discourse―is immune to this challenge, contrary to what some proponents of the moral argument have suggested, while robust non-naturalist realists might have good answers to all versions of the argument as well, at least if they adopt a certain stance on how to form metaphysical beliefs in the moral domain.


Author(s):  
Christopher Hom ◽  
Robert May

Fictional terms have null extensions, and in this regard pejorative terms are a species of fictional term: although there are Jews, there are no kikes. The central consequence of the Moral and Semantic Innocence (MSI) view of Hom and May (2013) is that for pejoratives, null extensionality is the semantic realization of the moral fact that no one ought to be the target of negative moral evaluation solely in virtue of their group membership. In having null extensions, pejorative terms are much like mythological terms like “unicorn horn” that express concepts with empty extensions: people who believed the mythology were misled into thinking that ordinary objects (i.e., whale tusks) were magical objects, and pejorative terms work likewise. In this chapter, the consequences of this parallelism are explored, with an eye to criticisms of MSI. The chapter concludes with meta-semantic reflections on the nature of word meanings.


2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-342
Author(s):  
Laura Varnauskaitė

Santrauka. Socialinis veiksmas ir moralinis veiksmas yra skirtingos analitinės kategorijos. Problema iškyla tuomet, kai reikia nustatyti šių sąvokų ryšius. Straipsnyje remiamasi pozicija, kad moralinis veiks­mas ir socialinis veiksmas santykiauja kaip dalis ir visuma, turi skirtingus tyrimo objektus, tačiau paklūs­ta tam pačiam tyrimo metodui. Remiantis Durkheimo socialinio fakto ir moralinio fakto apibrėžimais, teigtina, kad socialinis faktas yra platesnė kategorija, apimanti ir moralinius faktus. Socialinis veiksmas aiškinamas pritaikant socialinio fakto apibrėžimą, atitinkamai, moralinis veiksmas – moralinio fakto api­brėžimą. Socialiniam veiksmui būdingas individų atliekamų veiksmų tikslingumas. Moralinis veiksmas neįgyja tikslo siekimo savybės. Siekiant nustatyti moralinio veiksmo savybes, sąlygas, veiksnius, pasitelkia­mos moralinį veiksmą analizuojančios Émile’io Durkheimo ir Vytauto Kavolio teorijos. Prancūzų sociolo­gas išskiria socialinę galią, skatinančią individą elgtis vienu ar kitu būdu. Durkheimas asociacijos metodu parodo, kad socialinė galia veikia visuomenėje kaip ir individe. Kavolis pabrėžia moraliniam veiksmui pagrindą suteikiantį vidinį imperatyvą, kylantį iš sąmoningo individo, atliekamą internalizavus moralės principą savyje. Durkheimas akcentuoja holistinės metodologijos aspektą (visuomenė įgalina individą), Kavolis – individualistinės metodologijos aspektą (iš individo kylantį imperatyvą). Mokslininkų teorijose atskleidžiama, kad individas ir visuomenė siekia skirtingų tikslų. Individas siekia realizuoti laisvę kaip kūrybinį potencialą. Visuomenė įpareigoja individą paklusti istoriškai susiformavusioms elgesio taisyklėms bei normoms. Kita vertus, individas, atlikdamas moralinį veiksmą, visuomet yra veikiamas socialinės aplinkos ir jo veiksmai visuomet turi socialinį poveikį. Taigi straipsnyje moralinis veiksmas analizuo­jamas siekiant atskleisti įtampos ir sąveikos elementus tarp individo ir visuomenės lyginant Kavolio ir Durkheimo teorijas. Pagrindiniai žodžiai: Vytautas Kavolis, Émile’is Durkheimas, socialinis veiksmas, moralinis veiks­mas, elgesio taisyklės bei normos, moralės principo internalizavimas. Key Words: Vytautas Kavolis, Émile Durkheim, social action, moral action, rules of conduct, norms, internalisation of moral principle. ABSTRACT COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MORAL ACTION IN SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES OF VYTAUTAS KAVOLIS AND ÉMILE DURKHEIM The article analyses the moral action to reveal the elements of tension and interaction between the in­dividual and the society by comparing theories of Vytautas Kavolis and of Emile Durkheim. Social action and moral action are different analytical categories. The problem arises when it is necessary to establish links between these concepts. The article is based on the position that moral action and social action has a relation as part and a whole, has a different study objects, but obeys the same study method. According to Dur­kheim‘s definitions of social fact and of moral fact, social fact is a broader category that includes the moral facts. It is shown that the facts includes social phenomena feathuring the expediency of performed actions of individuals. Therefore, social action is interpreted by adapting the definition of a social fact, as appropriate, moral action is interpreted by definition of moral fact. The aim is to identify the characteristics, conditions, and factors of moral action. Theories of moral action of Durkheim and of Kavolis are analyzed. French so­ciologist distinguishes social power to encourage an individual to behave in one way or another. Durkheim indicates that the social power works in society as in individuals by using an association method. Kavolis emphasizes the inner imperative which is a basis for moral action, arising from the conscious individual, performed after internalisation of moral principle itself. However, the individual and society have different goals. An individual seeks to realize the freedom as creative potential. The society requires the individual to obey historically formed norms and rules of conduct. On the other hand, the individual performing a moral action is always influenced by the social environment and his actions always have social impact.


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